star: Bela Lugosi, Maria Alba
OK, in 1932, there was this Saturday Matinee movie serial called “Chandu, The Magician” and it starred old-timey actor Edmund Lowe as Frank Chandler, a preppy looking middle-aged dude who dresses in yachting duds but has also mastered “mind control” from a teacher in Tibet and, in his spare time, as a sort of hobby, becomes “Chandu” and fights black magic practitioners, led by the evil Bela Lugosi.
“Chandu” was a popular serial, so the producers decided to make a second one in 1934 (“The Return of Chandu”), but this time, banking on the fact that children’s memories are pretty short (or that they just plain didn’t care), they decided to star Bela Lugosi and make him “the good guy,” by giving him the role of “Chandu.”
Plus, when the producers re-released the film again, probably for TV showings, they merely took the first 6 serial episodes and made one “Chandu” movie out of it and then took the last 6 episodes and made a second film out of it! I saw the second set and they totally deliver.
Are you confused yet? Talk about discombobulated! It doesn’t get anymore incoherent than Return of Chandu, yet the somewhat disconcerting reality is that, instead of being a gratuitous, misbegotten follow-up, Return of Chandu is actually good, and Lugosi is extremely effective as the reluctant hero, who looks like he’d “rather be sailing!”
Lugosi spiritedly goes through the paces as the wealthy L.A. yachtsman who has also mastered mesmerism and mind control from a Tibetan guru and the movie is an awful lot of fun! The serials are not repetitive and tend to move very quickly, while the sets (especially of a mean looking giant , scowling cat) are frightening even 75 years after the film’s premier. The film’s heavy, with his sagging, over-sized turban, is every bit as nasty and verbose as the script requires and every episode is worth watching.
There is a good reason why Lugosi is far more popular among collectors and movie buffs than Karloff even though his cinematic output was far more low-budget and obscure. He brought a European style of staginess to horror movies which has never existed before or since.
Check out “The Return of Chandu” (either the first chapters or the second set of chapters). As Lugosi says, “you will obey me!”
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Saturday, November 3, 2007
BAD MOON (1994)
star: Mariel Hemingway; Michael Pare
lensed in Canada, pretending to be Seattle
Mariel Hemingway is a somewhat attractive lady attorney who acts rude and condescending to everyone she meets and lives in the deep woods with her young son and a big old dog and berates her younger brother who lives in a trailer even farther into the woods, and even though she’s an attorney she can’t seem to figure out that the guy might be a little wacked out even though people start dying immediately wherever he goes and he lives alone and says his fiancé is on a long vacation and the dog, who used to like him, keeps barking at him all the time. C’mon, Mariel, get a clue! He’s a werewolf! OK?
But Mariel insists on wearing these funky, earth-mother, brown slacks that are about two sizes too big and keeps rationalizing that they just happen to be going through a crime spree every time her brother comes around, and that her dog is weird. Would you really want someone as dumb as this representing you in court?
As for the brother, Michael Pare gives a typically tired-looking, phoned-in performance (the same one he’s been doing since Streets of Fire, over 25 years ago!) as the scientist who got bit by the werewolf but thinks his condition can be controlled, not by medication, but by industrial strength handcuffs and being tied to a really strong tree!
What really saves “Bad Moon” is the outstanding photography of NW Washington (make that Canada!) and the un-self-conscious direction of the picture, which moves very quickly through its under-90-minute running time. Horror buffs will enjoy the mostly pre-CGI special effects which hearken back to the original “Werewolf of London,” starring Henry Hull (which the characters actually watch on TV, as sort of a smug in-joke) and the fact that Mariel, as the dyspeptic attorney, and Pare, as the sleepy-eyed wolf dude, both take the proceedings more seriously than this big-budget B-movie actually deserves.
It’s a lot less pretentious than The Howling and far better than any of the discombobulated Howling sequels (especially the Australian one!). If you only watch one horror film this year, don’t make it “Bad Moon.” But if you’re staying home tonight and you’ve called Chicken Delight, and the lights are low, with nowhere to go, pop the “Moon” into your player and let it take you back to the ‘70s when there were still drive-ins and walk-in snack bars and the worst crimes committed were hiding in a smelly trunk even though the driver only paid by the carload.
When I was in college, we did a lot of “bad moons” on people and, believe me, looking at Mariel Hemingway, even in funky, oversized kahkis, is still better than that! Oh, the horror!
lensed in Canada, pretending to be Seattle
Mariel Hemingway is a somewhat attractive lady attorney who acts rude and condescending to everyone she meets and lives in the deep woods with her young son and a big old dog and berates her younger brother who lives in a trailer even farther into the woods, and even though she’s an attorney she can’t seem to figure out that the guy might be a little wacked out even though people start dying immediately wherever he goes and he lives alone and says his fiancé is on a long vacation and the dog, who used to like him, keeps barking at him all the time. C’mon, Mariel, get a clue! He’s a werewolf! OK?
But Mariel insists on wearing these funky, earth-mother, brown slacks that are about two sizes too big and keeps rationalizing that they just happen to be going through a crime spree every time her brother comes around, and that her dog is weird. Would you really want someone as dumb as this representing you in court?
As for the brother, Michael Pare gives a typically tired-looking, phoned-in performance (the same one he’s been doing since Streets of Fire, over 25 years ago!) as the scientist who got bit by the werewolf but thinks his condition can be controlled, not by medication, but by industrial strength handcuffs and being tied to a really strong tree!
What really saves “Bad Moon” is the outstanding photography of NW Washington (make that Canada!) and the un-self-conscious direction of the picture, which moves very quickly through its under-90-minute running time. Horror buffs will enjoy the mostly pre-CGI special effects which hearken back to the original “Werewolf of London,” starring Henry Hull (which the characters actually watch on TV, as sort of a smug in-joke) and the fact that Mariel, as the dyspeptic attorney, and Pare, as the sleepy-eyed wolf dude, both take the proceedings more seriously than this big-budget B-movie actually deserves.
It’s a lot less pretentious than The Howling and far better than any of the discombobulated Howling sequels (especially the Australian one!). If you only watch one horror film this year, don’t make it “Bad Moon.” But if you’re staying home tonight and you’ve called Chicken Delight, and the lights are low, with nowhere to go, pop the “Moon” into your player and let it take you back to the ‘70s when there were still drive-ins and walk-in snack bars and the worst crimes committed were hiding in a smelly trunk even though the driver only paid by the carload.
When I was in college, we did a lot of “bad moons” on people and, believe me, looking at Mariel Hemingway, even in funky, oversized kahkis, is still better than that! Oh, the horror!
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