Posts Tagged ‘William Lustig’

Dark Age and Tripwire

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

DARK AGE

In my ongoing tribute to the land of MAD MAX and CHOPPER I have come across another good giant crocodile movie that pre-dates ROGUE by a good 20 years. But this one actually has John Jarrat – the widower Russell in ROGUE, the fuckin maniac in WOLF CREEK – as the park ranger hero.

This one reminds me of RAZORBACK a little, because it reminds me of JAWS a little. The director, Arch Nicholson, was second unit director on RAZORBACK, but his movie is in a more realistic vein, less stylized and exaggerated. The crocodile never runs through the side of a house and steals a baby like the razorback did. The photography is pretty naturalistic, it’s by Andrew Lesnie whose name seems familiar because he did the LORD OF THE RINGS movies, the BABE movies, and I AM LEGEND.

There’s a scene that has to be a deliberate homage to JAWS where everybody’s playing on the beach and a woman spots the croc and tries to warn the kids to get out of the water, but one kid gets eaten in front of everybody. But it’s an Australian twist because half of the kids on the beach are aborigines. That’s what makes this story unique is the conflict between the “white fellas” who just want to kill the crocodile, and the aborigines who won’t let them. (more…)

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Hit List

Monday, July 14th, 2008

Here’s a VHS only action piece from director William Lustig, who I got some respect for due to the sleazy horror movie MANIAC and the badass Robert Forster revenge thriller VIGILANTE. (whoah, I never realized how similar those two titles are.) This one is closer to VIGILANTE although it was a work-for-hire deal for Lustig and not his usual New York-based independent filmmaking.

Basically this is the story of a regular guy whose kid is mistakenly kidnapped and he tries to get him back. I thought because of the title that he would have a list of people to get revenge on, but really he’s just going after this one guy who has his kid.

Like VIGILANTE alot of the fun is in the ridiculous way the story unfolds. There’s this mobster (Leo Rossi) who gets busted and the feds are trying to get him to turn over on his mentor (Rip Torn!). Torn has a badass hired killer to take care of any potential prosecution witnesses, so the feds have Rossi and his son cooped up in a suburban house. But the phone is tapped so the killer is dispatched to this address.

Meanwhile, our hero’s son is having trouble being picked on by bullies. His “Uncle Brian” (Harold Sylvester in a Steve James-style thankless role as the badass African-American friend who gets killed immediately) teaches him a few karate moves. Then he shuts the door too hard and the 9 on their address flips over to look like a 6. So the killer comes to the wrong house, shoots Uncle Brian and mom and kidnaps who he thinks is Rossi’s son. (more…)

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Vigilante

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

I don’t know how familiar anybody is with William Lustig. The guy is no genius. He made the MANIAC COP series. He made the picture UNCLE SAM which is a decent holiday slasher picture with subversive Gulf War themes, but it’s kind of a bummer because there is almost no use of stilts after the initial appearance of the Uncle Sam costume in a parade. Anyway after many years of directing bad horror pictures this guy started that company Anchor Bay which put out alot of better ones on video and DVD.

But there are some pretty good ones in his filmography, especially the first one, MANIAC. That was a sleazy, brutal horror picture about a sweaty New York pervert who kills women, staples their scalps to a mannequin, handcuffs himself to the mannequin and cries. Then during the daytime he puts on shades and tries to make it as a hip fashion photographer. It’s a real sick movie with ridiculous gore effects by Mr. Tom Savini. Not recommended for anybody unless they like that kind of crap, which in this case I do.

VIGILANTE is not as good but it’s sort of like what you might expect in a DEATH WISH type revenge movie from the director of MANIAC. It follows the completely stripped down revenge movie formula with the occasional bit of more gore than you expect. Good ol’ Robert Forster plays an everyday type dude with a wife and young son. But he lives in New York City and they got lots of ’70s/early ’80s style crime. One day while he’s out drinking with some car work buddies, his wife has a run-in with some asshole Hispanic gang members in berets (they must’ve seen THE WARRIORS) who spray gas on her, then follow her home, stab her repeatedly, and blow the baby son out the window with a shot gun. At least in the director’s cut that’s available on DVD, this is a real brutal scene. I couldn’t believe they actually blew the kid away. I don’t want to sound like a prude but I don’t care if some lady insulted you at the gas station, you don’t shotgun a cute little kid like that. It’s just not right, in my opinion. Cut it out, babyshooters. (more…)

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American Psychos

Monday, April 17th, 2000

This week I decided to take the day off from my World Badass Studies to give a nod to my boys in the horror community. You see back when many of the movie type newsgroups rejected me on account of my harsh language and telling it like it is, etc. I posted a review of the “Sleepy Hollow” over there in the horror newsgroup and you know what happened? Those motherfuckers welcomed me with the openest arms you ever seen on the internet. Those were some of the nicest motherfuckers ever in my opinion. I don’t know what the deal is, they watch the gals getting their tongues ripped out and zombies eating a guy’s balls or whatever, then when they’re ready to call it a day they go online and there’s ol’ Vern and they treat him like just one of the boys. Bunch of sweethearts if you ask me.

So I got this notion the other day that it’s been a long time since I’ve reviewed the horrors and whattaya know, suddenly this week there is a new horror picture in the theaters, American Psycho. This is a gorey picture based on the hated killer yuppie novel by Bret Easton Ellis, which brought up an assload of controversy at the time even when there were no plans for it to be published. Imagine writing a book and just the fact that it’s been written causes everybody to get all worked up and bust out the pitchforks. Ellis was attacked by everyone from feminists to right wing bible christians, to probably even drug addicts in superman costumes as well as the media who you would think would enjoy the american rights of free speech. Only a handful of critics and authors even noticed that the book was supposed to be a dark satire of yuppie values.

Now ten years later American Psycho is a major motion picture so what I decided to do was rent some horror DVDs and maybe I’ll see American Psycho later.

The first one I saw was Maniac and to my surprise this is some kind of a minor classic or what not. I don’t think this one has much of a reputation as far as, “this movie is good” however, let the reputation start now. This is a gritty picture made in New York around the time of the Son of Sam murders. It is made in the tradition of the chainsaw pictures and what not that try to push the envelope of what is acceptable in a horror piece, and make everybody get uncomfortable and hopefully piss their pants or at least leak a few drops without realizing it. The movie is VERY fucking sleazy and gorey, but what makes it work is that it also has heart. (more…)

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