Guzoo, the Thing Forsaken by God – Part I (1986) – ***
Before I dig in, let me just say that no, there is no Part II. I looked. And no, I don’t know why. There’s a lot of “I don’t know why”s about this movie. But what do you expect from a low-budget direct-to-video not-quite-hentai featurette?
Four Japanese schoolgirls on vacation travel to a hot springs, lodging at an inn managed by an archaeologist, Tomoko Kujô (Hidemi Maruyama). Kujô is conducting experiments in the basement of the inn and is extremely secretive about their nature, even after one of the girls is attacked in the middle of the night by a tentacled creature which emanates from a mirror. Left alone the following day, she seeks out the creature and is pulled into the mirror and into its realm, where it uses its tentacles to devour her innards.
Her friends, unaware of what has actually happened, want to call the police, but Kujô tries to dissuade them. Realizing she knows more than she’s letting on, they overpower her and one of them enters her lab, where she falls prey to the never-actually-named Guzoo, as does Kujô when she arrives on the scene. Guzoo then escapes the lab, forcing the other two girls to flee for their very lives…
The film ends, not quite on a cliffhanger, but on an open enough note that you could easily continue the story. Instead, for all we know, Guzoo is still out there, and as the opening text scrawl tells us, it can assume the form of other species…including humans.
As noted, there’s a lot that’s unexplained here. Why does Guzoo use mirrors to enter our dimension. Why does Kujô smash the girls’ pocket mirrors but leave a huge mirror up in the kitchen? Why is Guzoo tamed by what seems to be a small electronic flute (or kazoo, maybe)? What does Kujô hope to gain from studying Guzoo, and how does she control it enough not to be devoured by it (at least initially)?
And those are just the questions the story itself raises. The film as a whole raises more: why, despite the leering shots of the girls’ legs and the obvious implications of Guzoo’s tentacles, is Guzoo’s use of those tentacles totally non-sexual? (I’m not complaining, I’m just saying.) Why is it only 40 minutes long? Was there a market for 40-minute Part Is that wouldn’t be just as happy with feature-length complete stories? And why wasn’t there a Part II?
All that said, Guzoo isn’t bad for what it is. The effects used to create Guzoo—who appears to be a kind of crustacean, covered in slime, with bubbling-oozing fatty sludge emanating from its flank—are enjoyably gross. The set-up is efficiently handled, and the chase scene in the third act is genuinely stimulating—you get a feel for Guzoo’s relentless pursuit of the girls. The writer-director, Kazuo “Gaira” Komizu, was a veteran of subterranean pornographic horror (his previous two films were Entrails of a Virgin and Entrails of a Beautiful Wonan), and if Guzoo is fairly light on the sexual side of things, it does pretty well with the horror.
It’s competently made as a whole, given the obvious low budget: the acting is adequate, the cinematography is heavy on the male gaze but keeps the action in the frame when it needs to, the sound effects are suitably nasty, and the electronic score is properly light and cheerful at the start and downbeat as the horror overwhelms the characters.
Guzoo isn’t a film you need to see, but given its brevity and relative quality, it’s easy to add to your list of “weird movies nobody’s heard of that I’ve seen and can tell people about how weird it is.” You have one of those lists, right?
Score: 70
Army of Darkness (1992) – ***½
If you think about it, the entire Evil Dead trilogy, regardless of the retconning in the second film, takes place over the course of just a few days; the first film covers less than 24 hours, the second about as long, and the third three or four days at most. Which means Ash (Bruce Campbell) goes through a hell of a lot, from the death of his girlfriend to cutting off his own hand to being flung 700 years into the past, and that’s before everything he deals with in this film, even if most of that is played for laughs. It helps you appreciate the more upbeat ending of the theatrical cut (which is what I watched), and it even might help you forgive Ash for causing so much havoc by his inability to remember seven whole syllables.
Stuck in 13th or 14th century England, Ash finds himself caught up in the conflict between warring noblemen Arthur (Marcus Gilbert) and Henry (Richard Grove), both of whom are trying to protect their people from the Deadites, the nasty undead beings you can summon if you’re foolish enough to recite the right parts of the Necronomicon aloud. Ash, after escaping a pit filled with murderous creatures, is embraced by Arthur’s people as their prophesied savior, but really just wants to go back to his own time.
Arthur’s wise man (Ian Abercrombie) tells Ash he must find the Necronomicon, speak those aforementioned syllables, and bring it to them so he can be returned to his time, but after a trying quest in which he is forced to, essentially, give birth to his own evil doppelgänger, he botches the recitation and brings the wrath of Deadites—lead by the Bad Ash—upon Arthur’s castle. Ash must help them defend the book and themselves, using his wits and knowledge of modern-day weaponry—including his own souped-up car and sawed-off shotgun.
As with the first two films, the story is really extremely simple, a means of conveying campy violence, dark comedy, and gruesome special effects. It succeeds on all fronts, especially in the final battle sequence, where the Deadite army commit and endure mayhem whilst in various states of decomposition, from moldering corpses in armor to plain skeletons. One-liners, from both Ash and the Deadites, fly as freely as the arrows do, and it’s a delight to behold. There’s ample fun to be had before then, however, particularly Ash’s escape from the pit and the whole scene with the tiny Ashes, which emerge from the shards of a broken mirror (shades of Guzoo).
Campbell’s charismatic presence is vital to the film’s success. Ash isn’t the most complex character (he’s more an attitude on legs than anything), but Campbell nails his quips, his bluster, and his basically good nature, while playing the action scenes with vigor. And he has a blast as Bad Ash, particularly when he first emerges and childishly mocks the “good” Ash before getting a shotgun blast to the face. It doesn’t slow him down much. Campbell’s performance doesn’t totally make up for how thin the other characters are—even Ash’s medieval love interest Sheila (Embeth Davidtz) is fairly generic—but it helps.
It’s that lack of really memorable characters and performances which probably precludes me from embracing this trilogy as much as its fans do. I absolutely appreciate their humor and their craft (the special effects and makeup here really are wonderful), but I can’t help wanting just a bit more than guts and gags. This film in particular feels like it’s missing a little meat on its bones, with the conflict between Arthur and Henry feeling here like the vestige of Raimi’s original design.
It’s possible some of these issues are resolved in the director’s cut, which also has the famous alternate ending with Ash oversleeping (which I’m watching as I’m writing this). A little more depth would be nice, and I won’t say the ending of the theatrical cut doesn’t feel like a bit of a patch, but I think the original ending, amusing as it is, might be too much of a cruel joke to end on after all Ash has been through. Instead, we get more kicking of Deadite ass, capped by a line which suits Ash perfectly:
“Hail to the king, baby.”
Score: 78
Gaslight (1944) – ****
The verb “gaslight” is so widely used these days that we forget its origins—and that’s a fault, because this is quite a fine film. It’s based on a play by Patrick Hamilton, which starred Vincent Price and Judith Evelyn when it premiered on Broadway, and Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynyard when it was first filmed in the UK in 1940, a version which MGM tried to have destroyed when they bought the remake rights and was feared lost for a time (a rather ironic attempt to rewrite film history, given the subject matter), but which now sits on the other side of the disc from this more famous version.
In any event, the story deals with Paula Alquist (Ingrid Bergman), the niece and ward of a famous singer who was murdered for unknown reasons by an unknown assailant in the drawing room of her London home. Paula has been living abroad and taking singing lessons ever since, but when she falls in love with her accompanist, Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer), nothing else can hold her attention, and they soon marry. Gregory expresses a desire to live in London in a house very much like the one Paula happened to inherit from her aunt, and sure enough, they move into the long-neglected house, their future full of promise.
Or not, as a shadow comes over their happiness. Paula seems to begin having issues with her memory and suffers—or is told she’s suffering—from fatigue and irrationality. Gregory prevails on her to stay home more and more, until she cannot bring herself to take a walk alone for fear of what he might say. He also begins to accuse her of stealing things, culminating in his apparently discovering her theft of his pocket watch whilst they attend a concert, the revelation of which causes her to have a breakdown.
Meanwhile, she has drawn the attention of Scotland Yard detective Brian Cameron (Joseph Cotten), who had admired her aunt and who starts digging into her unsolved murder, using a beat policeman to get the attention of the Antons’ flirtatious maid Nancy (Angela Lansbury) and gradually find out just what’s happening in their home, and just where Gregory goes during his evening excursions…
Is it spoiler to say that Gregory is conducting an insidious campaign against Paula’s confidence in her own sanity, so that he can have her declared insane and scour the house for the priceless jewels her aunt received from a royal admirer…the very jewels he was looking for the night her murdered her? Or is the real engine of the story just how Gregory will be brought to justice, and how Paula will break free from his grasp?
If the motive for the murder, the marriage, and the proverbial gaslighting seems a bit insufficient (though at one point it’s suggested it’s an irrational fixation), then dismiss the jewels as a MacGuffin and regard the characters and the systematic manipulation as the real meat of the story. The acting and writing are superb in this regard, and they accounted for four of the film’s seven Oscar nominations, and one of its wins.
That win, of course, was Best Actress for Bergman, who goes from being rapturously in love, to haunted anew by the past, to slowly having her spirits smothered by her husband’s condescending treatment, to losing her composure as she fears losing her grasp on reality for good. She’s believable and sympathetic each step of the way, especially as her nerves begin to fray and we see the very real toll Gregory’s manipulation has taken. It’s an effective performance, no question, capped by a scene which is both cathartic and which shows the scars her sufferings have left.
Boyer was nominated for Best Actor (losing to Bing Crosby for Going My Way, which seems a bit much), and he’s no less impressive than Bergman, as he must be charming and romantic at first, then gently controlling, then colder and more rigid until he’s telling her how her mother went insane in the exact same way she seems to be, and finally telling new and desperate lies to try and save his skin. It’s chilling and infuriating to see how remorselessly he breaks her spirit, and Boyer doesn’t sugarcoat his venomous charm a whit more than necessary.
The third nomination was for Lansbury for Supporting Actress; she was 18 and making her film debut, 74 years before her last role to date (Mary Poppins Returns). Her saucy, sly Nancy is a stark contrast to the more dignified matrons we tend to associate with her, and while the role is comparatively small, she certainly makes an impression, especially in the scenes which hint that she and Gregory will be getting acquainted once Paula is out of the picture (whether or not she fully knows what he’s up to).
The fourth nomination was for the script by John L. Balderston, Walter Reisch, and John Van Druten, which seems to adapt the play effectively for the screen whilst keeping the focus on the slowly unfolding mystery and the interactions between the characters. There are, of course, little bits of business here and there to flesh the material out, but there’s little fat here.
The other three nominations were for Best Picture, Best B&W Art Direction, which it rightfully won for its lush recreations of Victorian London and Italy, especially the interiors of the Alquist house, full as they are of ornate furnishings, paintings, and various knickknacks, and Best B&W Cinematography, which was well deserved for how it uses the London fog, the dimming and brightening gas lights, the characters’ shadows (especially in one great, subtle scene), and the dramatic close-ups of Boyer and Bergman as the psycho-drama plays out.
But there weren’t nominations for George Cukor’s neatly restrained direction, Bronislau Kaper’s tense score, the carefully modulated editing, or any of the other solid performances, namely Cotten as, essentially, the flip side of his great Uncle Charlie in the previous year’s Shadow of a Doubt, or Dame May Whitty as the nosy Miss Thwaites, who’s fascinated by murders (she’d devour true-crime podcasts were she alive today) and makes a hilarious entrance at the climax, easing the tension without undermining it.
Gaslight is well worth seeing for those who know the word but might not realize just what the action entails. But it’s well worth seeing for any film buff, between the suspense and the great acting. The last time Bergman was in an MGM film set in Victorian London (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), the results were only a partial success. Here, again as the victim of an oppressive man—one who combines decency and cruelty in a distinctly different way—she and the film are alike triumphant.
Score: 89
Gaslight (1940) – ***½
I don’t think anyone will argue that MGM was very much in the wrong to try and erase this film from history when they bought the rights to remake it. But there’s far less consensus as to which version is superior, with quite a few critics, including Leslie Halliwell and Leonard Maltin, arguing in favor of the earlier film. I personally think the 1944 version is the stronger film, but that the earlier version is pretty damn solid in its own right, and can hold its own in comparison.
The earlier film begins by actually depicting the murder of Alice Barlow, and the subsequent ransacking of her room by an assailant whose face we never see. We then move ahead a number of years (seeing a tree planted as a sapling grow in the space of a dissolve) to see the Mallens, Paul (Anton Walbrook) and Bella (Diana Wynyard) moving into Alice’s long-abandoned house. There’s clear trouble in the Mallen home, as Paul maintains that Bella is suffering from mental illness and is making time behind her back with their maid, Nancy (Cathleen Cordell).
A chance encounter with the Mallens sparks the memory of Rough (Frank Pettingell), a former policeman who now runs a livery stable. He remains fascinated by the unsolved murder of Alice Barlow and recognizes Paul as her nephew, Louis Bauer—a name which, written on an envelope, sparked the tension between the Mallens. As Rough pries into the case, Paul amplifies his efforts to convince Bella of her insanity, whilst nightly returning to the scene of the long-ago crime to seek the jewels he could not find that night.
By making Bella/Paula the actual heir to the house, it strengthens Paul/Gregory’s motive for marrying her; here, he just needs her money to buy the house. And by showing their relationship from its earliest days, we get a fuller picture of the marriage and a more detailed depiction of his manipulations. The 1940 version is not only much shorter—84 minutes to the 1944 film’s 114 minutes—but it has a brisker pace, more akin to a thriller than a story of romantic suspense. That’s not to say one approach is inherently better, but I prefer the greater subtlety and depth of the remake.
Another major change which I mostly support comes from changing the character of Rough into Brian Cameron; by making him an active inspector rather than a retired cop, his involvement in the case is much more plausible and more legally sound. I feel less strongly about changing the middle-aged, cheerfully self-confident (“I’m a remarkable man!”) Rough into the younger, lower-key Cameron, but that allows for extra layers to his relationship with Paula and gives a very different—and arguably more satisfying—tone to the final scene.
The 1944 film has better performances overall, though the expansions to the script give the actors in the remake more to work with. Walbrook’s Paul is colder and less romantic than Boyer’s Gregory, more openly harsh towards his wife and less conniving. That’s not to say Walbrook isn’t effective, as he’s definitely a slimy son of a bitch, but I think Boyer’s performance is more shaded, more ambiguous, and ultimately more powerful.
Wynyard, likewise, has less of an arc to play, and we don’t get to see the gradual breaking of her spirit that Bergman plays so well. But she brings an energy of her own to the table, a more melancholic, perhaps even more self-aware quality which is poignant in its own right. Notably, even after learning that Paul is a bigamist, she tells Rough that she still regards him as her husband, and as such is reluctant to bring him down—an attitude which actually gains from her and Walbrook having a far less erotic dynamic than Bergman and Boyer.
I found Pettingell’s avuncular Rough more entertaining than Cotten’s romantic Cameron, but they’re such different characters that you can’t meaningfully compare them. On the other hand, Cordell’s Nancy is arguably as good or better than Lansbury’s take on the role, in part because the earlier film actually builds up her relationship with Paul, making it much clearer that he plans to make her mistress once Bella is out of the picture. We even see them go to the music hall together (a lively but extraneous scene which provides some can-can dancers to spice things up) while Rough is trying to prove the truth to Bella.
There are other little differences, like the remake dropping the character of Bella’s concerned cousin (played by Robert Newton, who doesn’t get much to do) while adding the character of Miss Thwaites, another improvement as she adds a measure of humor to the scenario and allows for some exposition, or the remake making the cook, Elizabeth (Minnie Rayner in the original, Barbara Everest in the remake) hard of hearing so she doesn’t pick up on the sounds of Paul/Gregory’s rummaging in the attic. For my money, almost all the changes are for the better.
I will say, however, that Thorold Dickinson’s direction here gives Cukor’s handling a run for its money; arguably, he does a better job conveying the feel of life in Victorian London, and he keeps the pace agreeably taut throughout. Bernard Knowles’ cinematography is solid, Richard Addinsell’s score is quite good, and the sets here certainly hold their own against the remake’s Oscar-winning designs.
I can’t say what I’d have thought of this Gaslight had I seen it before seeing the later version, but I’m just glad I was able to see both. They’re both powerful, painfully resonant stories of deception and psychological abuse, the virtues of each version complementing the shortcomings of the other. Comparing them is a fun exercise, but whichever version you watch, you’ll find it rewarding.
Score: 84
Day of the Dead (1985) – ***½
When I first saw Day of the Dead, back in college, I thought it was a pretty solid film and rated it an 81—a mid-level ***½. But going back to it, with its predecessors fresh in my memory, my opinion of it has grown, to the point where it seriously rivals Dawn of the Dead as the best of the original trilogy; it’s less inventive and purely entertaining than that film, but overall it’s tighter, better written, and better acted. And as with the first two films, it bitterly shows us how human nature will doom us more surely than a zombie bite.
At an underground installation in Florida—which appears to have been a garage for RVs and campers in the Before Times—a trio of scientists are working to find a cure for zombie-ism, their progress hindered by a lack of resources and a bad relationship with the soldiers assigned to protect them and round up zombies as test subjects. Matters worsen when Capt. Rhodes (Joseph Pilato) takes over as commander, his arrogance and violent temper leaving him with little patience for the scientists or their attempts to explain their progress.
He butts heads especially with Dr. Sarah Bowman (Lori Cardille), who’s trying to find a way to reverse the zombification process, and who has no patience for Rhodes’ ignorance, bullying, or misogyny. But she’s in a bad spot, as her relationship with Pvt. Miguel Salazar (Anthony Dileo Jr.) is crumbling and her colleagues are working in different directions from her—especially Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty), who’s focused on finding a way to condition the zombies to co-exist peacefully with humanity, his current subject being a zombie he’s named “Bub” (Sherman Howard).
Sarah soon finds her closest confidantes are the outfits’ radio operator Bill McDermott (Jarlath Conroy), and helicopter pilot John (Terry Alexander), who’ve set up a comfortable little alcove for themselves in a corner of the facility. Bill has been unable to contact anyone for quite some time, and John urges Sarah to quit the mainland and find some safe, secluded place to live in peace and quiet. It’s a prospect which seems more appealing as the situation begins to decay rapidly.
It should come as no surprise that Rhodes’ brutality boils over, that the zombies which haunt the perimeter of the facility will find their way in (though how is a bit unexpected), and that Logan’s paternal bond with Bub will end in tragedy for at least one of them. And when I say that much gore will ensue, with wonderful blood-and-guts effects courtesy of Tom Savini, you’ll likely reply that you paid to see that very thing.
The bonus here is the continued improvement in Romero’s writing abilities and his handling of actors. Liberty (who bears an odd resemblance to Rod Steiger) gives perhaps the best performance in the original trilogy, making Logan amusingly bizarre (“Who ever heard of a surgeon called ‘Bub’?”), fanatically driven like all the best mad scientists, oddly likable (despite making a few really stupid choices which backfire on him), and delightfully bold when he stands up to Rhodes by simply asking one question: “Where will you go?” He’s just wonderful here. He’s ably supported by Howard, whose Bub is the only zombie in the series to date to have any characterization. In a performance seemingly inspired by Karloff in Frankenstein, he brings humor and pathos (and a touch of badassery) to the film.
Pilato is comparably effective as Rhodes, probably the most hateful character in the original trilogy. Brutal, power-hungry, sexist, racist, and ultimately cowardly, Rhodes is a truly unredeemable fellow, and while Pilato nibbles the scenery, it’s entirely fitting for a character whose temper is more frightening than the creatures he longs to kill; he also ad-libbed a wonderful kiss-off line. Alexander is immensely likable (though his Caribbean accent is a bit much at times), and his monologue about how the various records kept in the facility are now worthless is one of the best-written speeches in the series, while Conroy (using a natural Irish brogue) is likewise fun and likable as the flask-toting McDermott.
Cardille can be a bit wooden at times, but she makes Sarah an effectively frustrated voice of rationality in an irrational circumstance, and one can easily sympathize with the shit she catches from every corner—including Miguel, who’s openly contemptuous of her by the time we see them. And Gary Howard Klar (who looks a lot like John Goodman as Howard Sobchak) is enjoyably obnoxious as Rhodes’ toady, Steel.
Romero’s direction is further improved from Dawn, helped by the bigger budget, and displaying better balance between horror and humor than in the earlier film. His writing is much improved in terms of character and dialogue, though his plotting continues to fall a bit short; the film meanders, especially in the first half, and the catastrophe which kicks off the third act feels just a bit contrived. (I’m also not wild about the fake-out ending.) Michael Gornick’s cinematography is better and more polished, the editing is more graceful, and John Harrison’s electronic score is suitably unsettling.
While not quite an unequivocally great film, Day of the Dead stands as one of the best zombie films I’ve ever seen—maybe even the best. It’s scary, funny, relevant, and as gross as you could want. It was Romero’s favorite of the original trilogy (and possibly of the series), and I can certainly see why.
Score: 85
Dracula (1931 Tod Browning) – ****
Do I give Dracula too much credit when I say the smartest choice it made was to forego realism and embrace the theatricality, the stilted stylization of the early talkie period? Reading about its troubled production, from budgetary cutbacks which led the film to stick closer to the 1924 play than the original novel, to director Tod Browning’s reputed indifference and struggles with alcoholism, to the ambivalence many of the cast felt towards it as they struggled in the wake of its success, that the result was not only a coherent film but a truly great one seems miraculous—or absurdly lucky.
But great it is, not in spite of but because of the self-conscious acting, the archaic pacing, and above all the silence, which pervades the film more effectively than music could have, making for an eerier, more thoughtful, more macabrely memorable experience. It’s not a seamless or flawless film by any means, but it’s a deserved classic, a film which has been treasured for almost 90 years now, and with good reason.
The story is quite simple: Renfield (Dwight Frye) goes to Castle Dracula in Transylvania to finalize his purchase of Carfax Abbey in England, and falls under Count Dracula’s (Bela Lugosi) thrall. They travel to England on a ship whose crew all die along the way, and Renfield is committed to a sanitarium, where he raves about his master and eats insects to absorb their life force. Meanwhile, Dracula makes his entry into society, setting his sights first on Lucy Weston (Frances Dade), and then on her friend Mina Seward (Helen Chandler), whom he decides to make his own.
But of course, he has contend with Dr. Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan), whose knowledge of—and willingness to believe in—the supernatural and strong sense of morality make him a formidable foe even for the seductive Count. And in a long-lost epilogue, Van Sloan addressed the audience directly, telling them to remember “there really are such things as vampires!”
Along the way, we get all the classic lines which have been subsumed into popular culture: “Listen…children of the night. What music they make!”; “The blood is the life, Mr. Renfield”; “I never drink…wine”; “There are far worse things awaiting Man than death”; “God will not damn a poor lunatic’s soul”; and “Isn’t this a strange conversation for men who aren’t crazy?” And we get the iconic images: the crumbling interior of Castle Dracula; Dracula’s mesmeric stare with his eyes a-glow; Dracula bending down to drink Mina’s blood and mix it with his own; Dracula rising from his coffin; Renfield crawling across the floor like a big cat to attack the fainted nurse; and Dracula confronting Renfield on the staircase in Carfax Abbey, the possessed Mina in tow.
At 74 minutes, there isn’t much in Dracula that isn’t memorable or fascinating in one way or another. Even the aspects that don’t entirely work have their facets of interest, like how intensely dorky David Manners’ Harker is compared to Lugosi’s suave Count, or how the comic-relief Cockney orderly Martin (Charles K. Gerrard) is so strangely stiff that he seems all the more part of the film’s strange atmosphere. Or how the incredibly fake bats are not only not laughable, but in their way creepier than real animals would’ve been.
That said, most of the film works extremely well. Lugosi may never have escaped Dracula’s shadow, but his impassive glower, venomously euphonious voice, and courtly cold-bloodedness are so effective that he simply is Dracula, just as Frye, with his hissing voice, wild grin, and wonderfully pathetic manner is Renfield, and Van Sloan is Van Helsing, fearlessly standing up to Dracula whatever the risk to his own life, arguing that scientific skepticism is a vampire’s best friend. And Helen Chandler is a poignant Mina, caught between her mortal life and the fascinations of immortality offered by Dracula.
And there’s no question that the sets are amazing, that Karl Freund’s cinematography is superbly lit (who can forget Dracula’s glowing eyes?), or that the matte paintings (you can see several of them here) which help create the Burgo Pass and the interiors of Castle Dracula are simply magnificent to behold. For all the flaws you can cite—and there are many—Dracula is a film which transcends its own shortcomings to become a true classic. My numerical score may put it on the low end of great films, but it’s those four stars, the mark of greatness, which are really more relevant.
Score: 87
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