Category Archives: The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #299: Terminator Genisys

15 Friday Nov 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #299 by Jeff Shuster

Terminator Genisys

No more Terminator movies ever!

I know I covered this movie once before. I think it was back in 2015.  I rambled about the summer movies that year.  One has to wonder in twenty, thirty, or even fifty years, which movies from the 2010s will be remembered? Scott Pilgrim vs. The World? Interstellar? Sicario? Gone Girl? The Peanuts Movie? Rise of the Planet of the Apes? Blade Runner 2049? Mandy? Alita: Battle Angel? I think so.

Terminator Genisys? Ehhhhhhh.

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2015’s Terminator Genisys from director Alan Taylor serves as a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, so forget about that Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines nonsense! Terminator Genisys begins in the future after The War of the Machines is well underway. We see a young Kyle Reese grow up fighting in the human Resistance and being mentored by John Conner (Jason Clarke). Grown up Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney of TRON Legacy fame) and John Conner go to a Skynet base on the final night of the war. Inside this base is a secret weapon, a time machine that Skynet uses to send a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to kill John Conner’s mother before he is born. John Conner sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect his mother from the evil cyborg.

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We’ve seen this story before…or have we. We see the Arnold Terminator show up in the early 80s just like he did in the first Terminator movie, but an older version of the Arnold Terminator is waiting for him. Middle-Aged Arnold Terminator terminates Young Arnold Terminator. Kyle Reese shows up back in time and gets attacked by a T-1000 played by Byung-Hun Lee.

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Sara Conner (Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame) shows up with Middle-Aged Arnold Terminator to save Kyle Reese from the T-1000. Sara grew up with Arnold Terminator and he served as a pseudo father figure for her. Oh, and she knows that Kyle Reese is supposed to impregnate her with the future leader of the Resistance, but the timeline has been changed since they eliminated the first Terminator. I think they melt the T-1000 with an acid trap they set up in advance and Sara wants her and Kyle to time travel to 1997 to stop Judgment Day, but Kyle tells her the date has been moved to 2017 due to new childhood memories he received while time traveling.

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This is where the movie loses me because it starts throwing around alternative histories and timelines and blah, blah, blah. Sara and Kyle time travel to 2017. Arnold Terminator stays behind so his skin will grow back. Plus that de-aging computer graphics technology is rather expensive. Kyle also remembers a warning about Skynet actually being Genisys. Turns out Genisys is a new tablet app everyone is excited about. The son of Miles Dyson of Cyberdyne Systems created it.

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Oh, and John Conner shows up in 2017 too. And it turns out he’s an evil half human/half Terminator thing. What can I say? He’s working for Skynet now. I guess yesterday’s heroes become today’s villains. I think I’ve lost the plot at this point. I’ll call it quits for now. There’s still Terminator: Dark Fate, but I think I’ll take my time getting to that one.

Maybe I’ll watch it in 2037.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #298: Terminator Salvation

08 Friday Nov 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #298 by Jeff Shuster

Terminator Salvation

Okay. I’m bored!

So maybe I was a bit off on my Terminator: Dark Fate box office success predictions. No, it didn’t do as well as the opening weekend for Joker. No, it didn’t do as well as the opening weekend box office for Terminator Genisys. The media is calling Terminator: Dark Fate the franchise killer. And I’m out ten large to a man they call Tiny and believe me, he is not tiny. He is like the exact opposite of tiny. What’s the going rate for a spleen these days?

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Tonight’s movie is 2009’s Terminator Salvation from director McG, and it’s there.

Did I hate it? No.

Did I like it? No.

Did I want to like it? Yes.

Maybe post-apocalyptic scenarios don’t hold the same allure for me that they once did.

Maybe it’s one too many seasons of The Walking Dead. I came for zombie carnage on that show. What I got was hipster communes and artisanal breads.

The same kind of goes for Terminator Salvation. The movie takes place during The War of the Machines. I should be excited for the Robot Apocalypse, but something’s missing. This movie was originally planned as an R-rated feature, but the brass at the studio must have insisted it be toned down to PG-13. Did they want it to be more kid friendly? It’s a Terminator movie! And don’t even get me started on the disaster that was RoboCop 3. Word to the wise, movie studios: pre-teen boys in the 80s found ways to watch these R-rated action extravaganzas. Stop toning things down!

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Christian Bale plays John Conner and Bryce Dallas Howard plays his wife, Kate. If the switch in casting annoys you, don’t worry. Kate is hardly in the movie, and John Connor takes a backseat to a new character, a man by the name of Marcus Wright. Sam Worthington plays him. I guess Armie Hammer wasn’t available.

Marcus Wright was a death row prisoner who donated his body to Cyberdyne Systems. He is executed, but wakes up to find himself in the midst of The War of the Machines with no memory of how he got there. He meets up a young Resistance fighter named Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin).

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As we know, Kyle Reese, will become the father of John Conner after John sends him to the past to protect his mother from the Terminator. Skynet has marked Kyle Reese for death because it knows he is the father of John Conner. Maybe Skynet should send a Terminator back in time to murder Kyle Reese’s parents preventing him from being born, but this is all getting a bit stupid. John Conner is trying to locate Kyle Reese to protect him so he doesn’t cease to exist, but Skynet’s Terminators capture Kyle Reese and stick him in an internment camp with other human survivors.

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Did I mention that Marcus is a cyborg himself? I think he has a metal skeleton, but has a human heart and a human brain. Whose side is he really on? This was supposed to be part one of a new Terminator trilogy, but plans for future sequels were scrapped. You could argue that the Terminator franchise was doomed starting with this movie, but I will say this for Terminator Salvation: it’s a masterpiece compared to the movie I’ll be covering next week.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #297: Terminator 3

01 Friday Nov 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #297 by Jeff Shuster

Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines

It ain’t that bad. 

Terminator: Dark Fate premiers this weekend. I expect it to smash box office records. I see Terminator sequels, spinoffs, and television series in the future. Arnold Schwarzenegger will dance in the limelight once again. Commando II will soon follow. In fact, I’ve got ten large riding on my personal prediction that Terminator: Dark Fate will outdo the opening weekend gross for Joker. That’s a lot of Mai Tais!

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Terminator: Dark Fate is the latest attempt at a proper sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I thought it might be interesting to revisit the first of the sequels, 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines from director Jonathan Mostow. Many critics at that time felt that this movie missed the mark. Roger Ebert felt the movie was “dumbed down for multiplex hordes.”

Well, consider me a member of the horde.

I don’t know if Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is thought-provoking or blah blah blah! What it is is fun. Anyone remember when going to the movies was fun instead of feeling like going to a funeral?

We’ve got an adult John Conner (Nick Stahl) in this one. Sarah Conner died of cancer. The human race escaped Judgment Day. The machines didn’t rise up, but John has stayed off the grid because he didn’t trust that the future was safe. And he was right. The T-X, a new terminator in the form of an attractive blonde woman (Kristanna Loken), shows up to terminate other important soldiers of the human resistance since no records of John Connor exist at that time. One of these future soldiers is a straight-laced veterinarian named Kate Brewster (Claire Danes). She catches John stealing medicine at the animal hospital she works at.

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Meanwhile, Arnold’s Terminator, the T-800, is back. He walks naked into a Male Strip Club into a crowd of appreciative ladies while a stripper on stage takes his clothes off to the tune of The Village People’s “Macho Man.” The T-800 tells the stripper he wants his clothes and the stripper tells him to “Talk to the hand!” The T-800 steals the stripper’s clothes after breaking that hand. Arnold reaches in the jacket for a pair of sred-tinted, star-shaped sunglasses. He removes them and crushes them under his boot. I’m sorry. I laughed at this.

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T-X shows up at the animal hospital. So does the Arnold Terminator. T-X has a gun hidden in her arm that can shoot electricity, flames, and who knows what else. The Arnold Terminator, Kate, and John escape, and we get some explosive chase scenes. Turns out Kate will be John Conner’s second-in-command in the War Against the Machines. She’s also his future wife. Oh, and her father is General Brewster, the man who activates the evil super computer, Skynet. In an effort to stop Judgment Day, John and Kate race to her father’s military installation hoping to prevent him from activating Skynet.

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Too late. In addition to the T-X, they have to deal with Skynet and early models of the drones and land robots we’ve seen in future War Against the Machines. Is Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines as good The Terminator or Terminator 2: Judgment Day?

No.

Is it a thrill ride from start to finish?

Yes.

Is it better than any movie I saw over this past summer?

Yes.

A movie doesn’t have to be perfect. Sometimes a movie can just be fun.

Talk to the hand.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #296: The Body Snatcher

25 Friday Oct 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #296 by Jeff Shuster

The Body Snatcher

Karloff and Lugosi together again for the last time. 

I didn’t know that being a body snatcher was once an up and coming profession for industrious men living in the early 1800s. It would seem that medical schools at the time were hungry for fresh human cadavers for study and dissection. You could make quite a nice chunk of change by dropping off a recently deceased person to your local biology instructor, no questions asked. I think I missed my calling.

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Tonight’s movie is 1945’s The Body Snatcher from director Robert Wise. It takes place in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1831. A young medical student named Donald Fettes (Russell Wades) is studying at a medical school run by the driven Dr. Wolfe MacFarlane (Henry Daniell). One thing that I find odd about this motion picture is that some of the characters speak with Scottish accents while other speak with proper American accents. Was this a thing back in the old days? I guess if American actors couldn’t fake an accent, they just didn’t bother. Maybe the producers figured if you had enough Scottish accents, you could sneak a couple of American accents in there with no one noticing. Maybe that was the approach taken by Kevin Costner in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

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Anyway, Donald’s heart bleeds for a young widow and her paraplegic daughter. They beg Dr. Wolfe to operate on the young girl for only he has the skills to restore her mobility by fixing her spine. Dr. Wolfe says he can’t operate on every poor soul that comes to his office. He’d never get any work done. Dr. Wolfe is an instructor after all. It’s his priority to train the next generation of Doctors. Little girls who may never walk again will just have to deal.

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Dr. Wolfe insists on giving his students real human cadavers to work with, but supply is scarce so he employs a nefarious individual by the name of John Gray (Boris Karloff) to procure dead bodies for him. John Gray robs fresh graves and Dr. Wolfe pays him handsomely for it. But John Gray resents Dr. Wolfe, hates the man to the core and wants to see him brought down. While Donald and Dr. Wolfe are getting hammered at the local pub, John Gray shames Dr. Wolfe into doing the surgery on the young girl. When Dr. Wolfe wakes up, he insists that he can’t be held to any promise made while inebriated. Plus, he would need a cadaver to practice spinal surgery on and they’re all out.

Donald frantically searches for John Gray, says he needs a body right away, but John Gray doesn’t want to do anymore grave robbing. It’s too risky. But he tells Donald that he’ll get him a body. Said body ends up being a street singer Donald ran into earlier that evening. She was alive and well then, but John Gray insists he was there when the woman suddenly dropped dead. Naturally, this slippery slope has turned into a free-fall. Robbing graves is one thing, but murder? There’s a point in the movie when Dr. Wolfe’s assistant Joseph (as played by Bela Lugosi) tries blackmailing John Gray only to get the life choked out of him. Some point to this movie as the beginning of the end for Lugosi’s career.

This would be the last time he and Karloff would ever perform together.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #295: Cat People

18 Friday Oct 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #295 by Jeff Shuster

Cat People

Cat People got no reason to live. 

My editor seems to think that Mad Love was first romance movie I covered on my blog. Not true. What about The Love Witch, Someone I Touched, Lola, Fist of the North Star, Day of the Dead: Bloodline, My Bloody Valentine, The Vengeance of She, The Boy Next Door, The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, Nude for Satan, Magic, Unsane, and all those Hallmark Christmas movies with the delightful Lacey Chabert? We love romance here at The Museum of Schlock!

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Speaking of romance, tonight’s motion picture is 1942’s Cat People from director Val Lewton. It’s about a man who falls in love with a woman who owns six cats! The horror! The horror! Run away, good sir! I’m just fooling. The movie starts out in a zoo in Central Park in New York City. A young, Serbian-American woman named Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) is sketching a black panther (the animal not the super hero) when she catches the eye of a man named Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). There’s some banter. Irena invites Oliver back to her place where she tells him a story about a great Serbian King who slaughtered a town full of Satan-worshipping witches and how cats are considered evil in the village she was born in.

CAT PEOPLE (1942)

That’s a bit of an intense conversation for a first date, something that might be considered a red flag in the modern day, but Oliver is undeterred. He asks Irena out to dinner for the following evening. He buys Irena a kitten as a gift in lieu of a bouquet of flowers. That’s odd. Was that a courting custom back in the 1940s? The kitten reacts badly to Irena, hissing at her. They take the kitten back to the pet shop, hoping to exchange it for another pet, but the whole pet shop comes alive with howls and chirps. I guess Irena has a problem with animals. Maybe because she is one!

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Despite this weirdness and the fact that Irena refuses to kiss him, Oliver decides to marry her. I think there’s a legend in Irena’s birth village about the women being cursed to turn into cat people should they ever kiss a man. Worried for Irena’s state of mind (and their marriage not being consummated), Oliver has Irena see a psychiatrist, Dr. Judd (Tom Conway), to get to the bottom of her unsound mind. Oh, and Oliver’s co-worker, Alice Moore (Jane Randoph), confesses her love for Oliver.

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So there you have it. We’ve got a love triangle going on. Who says we’re not romantic here at The Museum of Schlock. I think Oliver gets tired of waiting for Irena to sort her shit out and wants a divorce so he can marry Alice.

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Since Oliver doesn’t want Irena anymore, Dr. Judd makes his move and kisses Irena causing Irena to turn into a black panther. What do you know? Irena was right to fear her village’s curse. Balls.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #294: Mad Love

11 Friday Oct 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #294 by Jeff Shuster

Mad Love

Old movies are weird. 

 

The Little Debbie Pumpkin Delights brand of cookies is the greatest packaged soft cookie the American chemical confectionary industry has ever produced. I don’t want to hear about Fig Newtons. Give me a break.

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Pumpkin Delights taste like fall and Halloween and all that is right in the world. They are the only cookies I care about right now, and I can’t seem to find any in either chain of grocery stores in my neighborhood. The trials I have to go through just to enjoy the simple things in life.

This week’s movie is 1935’s Mad Love from director Karl Freund. It is not about a man who enjoys the simple things in life. Peter Lorre stars as Dr. Gogol, a gifted doctor residing in Paris, France. Dr. Gogol is obsessed with an actress named Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake) who performs at the Théâtre des Horreurs, a kind of combination wax museum and theater of the grotesque.

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I think Yvonne stars in some play where she’s being tortured on a rack to the audience’s disgust or delight.

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Dr. Gogol decides to meet Yvonne in her dressing room after the show in the hopes of wooing her, but this doesn’t go so well. For starters, Yvonne is married to Stephen Orlac (Colin Clive), a gifted pianist and composer. But there’s a bigger reason why Dr. Gogol stands no chance with Yvonne. She’s a living goddess and Dr. Gogol looks like Kermit the Frog’s deformed brother. And he’s awkward around the Yvonne, even forcing a kiss on her at the wrap party. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Yvonne and Stephen are about to move to England leaving poor Dr. Gogol to obsess over the wax statue of Yvonne he purchased from the museum after her final performance.

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Yes, he purchased a wax statue of Yvonne for his house. That’s a little creepy. He even has his elderly maid dress the statue for him with fine garments he purchases from the best boutiques. His maid is a bit of a drinker and has an angry cockatoo perched on her shoulder, but I’m getting off track. Dr. Gogol refers to his wax statue of Yvonne as Galatea and hopes to will her to life. This is one weird dude. I’m sorry for anyone that knows him.

Stephen Orlac is traveling by train when said train gets into a horrible accident. Stephen’s hands are damaged beyond repair, so there goes his piano-playing career. In fact, a doctor wants to amputate his hands. Yvonne wants a second opinion and remembers that gifted doctor who was obsessed with her. Surely, he can save her husband’s hands. Dr. Gogol attempts a hand transplant operation on Stephen and it works. He doesn’t bother telling Stephen or Yvonne that those aren’t his hands.

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Did I mention that he transplanted the hands of a recently executed murderer with a penchant for knife throwing? This might explain why Stephen’s piano playing skills have waned, but his knife throwing skills have improved. I’m not going to spoil the end of the film, but don’t be expecting Peter Lorre to get the girl. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m on the hunt for some pumpkin flavored cookies.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

 

The Curator of Schlock #293: The Black Cat

04 Friday Oct 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #293 by Jeff Shuster

The Black Cat

Lugosi + Karloff = Total Terror!

It’s October, and you know what that means! Your humble Curator of Schlock will transform into the vile Curator of Schlock! All month long, I will be watching some of the scariest motion pictures Tinsletown ever produced. Tonight’s picture is 1934’s The Black Cat from director Edgar G. Ulmer. It stars Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. This movie is Universal Studios biggest box office success from 1934. It made $236,000. I guess that was a lot back then. The Black Cat is also one of the earliest examples of psychological horror so those of you out there who hate horror movies might like this one.

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The title credits read The BLACK CAT SUGGESTED BY THE IMMORTAL EDGAR ALLEN POE CLASSIC. I remember reading “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe back in the second grade. A substitute had us read the short story, but she regretted it as the story revolves around a man torturing and killing a black cat over and over again. He evens cuts the cat’s eye out. Now see, this is what you give young boys to read if want to get them interested in reading. Not Johnny Tremain.

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This movie has nothing to do with Poe’s “The Black Cat.” It starts out with newlyweds Peter (David Manners) and Joan (Julie Bishop) on a train traveling to Hungary. They’re a good looking, yet boring couple. A mysterious man named Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Bela Lugosi) joins them in their train compartment. He’s a Hungarian psychiatrist fresh out of a fifteen-year stint in a Siberian prison camp after serving in World War I. When Joan falls to sleep in Peter’s arms, Dr. Werdegast reaches out and almost touches her hair. He begs Peter this indulgence as Joan looks like his late wife.

Weird.

They get in some kind of shuttle bus after the train stops, but it gets into an accident. Peter brings an unconscious Joan to the house of an old friend of Dr. Werdegast, Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff). Dr. Werdegast isn’t all that fond of Poelzig as his command resulted in the death of thousands of Austro-Hungarian soldiers to the Russians. Poelzig also told Dr. Werdegast’s beautiful wife that he died in the war. Poelzig then married Dr. Werdegast’s beautiful wife while he was stuck in a Siberian prison. Ouch! Some friend!

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Did I mention that Poelzig is a great Austrian architect? I guess he’s like the Frank Lloyd Wright of Austria. This is a weird house with sliding doors that adjoin each room. So much for privacy. Dr. Werdegast finally confronts Poelzig about his wife only to learn that she died many years ago. Poelzig kept her perfectly preserved in a glass case in his basement. Poelzig’s not lonely, though. He simply married Dr, Werdegast’s hot, young daughter. Dr. Werdegast  wants to shoot Poelzig, but he freezes in fear at a black cat that crosses his path.

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Did I mention that Poelzig is a Satanist? Yeah, he’s got a devil-worshipping cult coming over for a human sacrifice party.  They’ve got those black robes and everything. Who is the human sacrifice? Joan the newlywed, of course.

I’m not going to spoil the ending, but let’s just say it features a man getting skinned alive and a whole lot of dynamite.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #292: Death Kiss

27 Friday Sep 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #292 by Jeff Shuster

Death Kiss 

Death Wish 6: The Kiss of Death

Sadly, we lost Charles Bronson back in 2004. Hopes of a Death Wish 6 went with him. Sure, we got the Death Wish remake with Bruce Willis and that was fine, but Bruce Willis isn’t Paul Kersey, he’s John McClane. Still, we’ve got a few billion people on this planet. There’s an old saying that there’s at least one other person in the world that looks exactly like you so surely there’s at least one person in the world who looks exactly like Charles Bronson. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Robert Kovacs.

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Now, I know what you’re thinking. You can’t just find some random guy who looks like Charles Bronson and just make an unofficial Death Wish sequel and just call it Death Kiss.

You can if you’re director Rene Perez!

Don’t be a Negative Nancy! Robert Kovacs plays “The Stanger,” but for the purposes of this review, we’re calling him Paul Kersey. So Paul Kersey goes to this house in a shady part of some unnamed city (Washington, D.C.) and asks the man standing out front for a cheese pizza. I’m more of a pepperoni and green peppers man myself. And this request is odd, as this dump does not resemble a pizza parlor.

Oh, cheese pizza is code for…uh…okay…not good.

Kersey hogties the pimp and goes inside to find a young girl tied up on the bed, pleading, “Please not again.” A degenerate who reminds me a little of Jared the Subway guy pops of the bathroom zipping up his pants. Kersey pulls out Wildey and shoots some slugs into the pedophile. Kersey then leaves and shoots the pimp in the back. Death Wish has returned for the 21st century!

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We get more scenes of Kersey taking out the bad guys. He shoots and kills a couple of gangbangers. At an airport, he kicks a guy repeatedly in the stomach. This man is smuggling drugs into the country by ingesting little bags of them. After the repeated kicking, the man ODs right there in the airport. Between these killings are scenes of a right wing radio talk show host, Dan Forthright (Daniel Baldwin), complaining about how the news media prioritizes reporting about racism instead of child sex trafficking or how the police treat spousal abuse more seriously than the drug gangs.

In the midst of all of this chaos, Kersey is sending envelopes of money to a single mom named Ana (Eva Hamilton) whose daughter is paralyzed and bound to a wheelchair. Turns out Ana was a junkie who got her daughter caught in a crossfire when she was going to get her fix from a drug lord named Tyrell (Richard Tyson). Kersey doesn’t know if it was his bullet or Tyrell’s that paralyzed Ana’s little girl. He keeps spying on Ana until she notices him and invites him over to lunch, the least she could do after Kersey sent her so much money.

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Tyrell is a nasty, sadistic drug lord. After Tyrell’s son gets sent to jail because one his new recruits didn’t have the stuff to murder a witness, he makes the recruit kill some guy wearing a burlap sack on his head. The gang hands the recruit a baseball bat and he bashes the guy until the sack goes red. Tyrell then removes the sack revealing the guy to be the recruit’s own father! Kersey eventually catches up with Tyrell and I don’t want to spoil things, but don’t be surprised if Tyrell ends up getting tied to a tree, covered in barbeque sauce, and beset by wolves.

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Death Kiss can best be described as a month in the life of Paul Kersey. Not a bad way to waste away your Friday night.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #291: 10 to Midnight

20 Friday Sep 2019

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The Curator of Schlock #291 by Jeff Shuster

10 to Midnight

After midnight, Warren gonna let it all hang down.

Week 3 of Charles Bronson Month is here. This week will be a return to form with his salt and pepper hair and boss mustache, none of that black mop nonsense we bore witness to last week. Who did he think he was? One of the Beatles? Unbelievable. Charles Bronson is supposed be the dad we never had, if the dad we never had was a man that killed other men indiscriminately.

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1983’s 10 to Midnight from director J. Lee Thompson is a depressing little film about a man named Warren Stacy (Gene Davis). We don’t like Warren in a similar fashion to how we don’t like Bad Ronald from Bad Ronald. Warren is a creepy dude who repairs electric typewriters for a living. He’s not too good with the ladies. They see him as a loser weirdo. No, he’s not almost forty seeking out sixteen-year-old girls. But Warren does decide to murder one of the office women who rejected him.

Yeah, this isn’t going to be a fun movie. Watching young women scream in terror as a naked psychopath stabs them to death is not my idea of a good time. Yes, Warren stabs his victims while naked so as not to get blood on his clothes. That’s rather clever, the sort of thing I can see a serial killer doing in real life. Maybe that’s why I find Warren so disgusting. He’s like a real life serial killer as opposed to a Hollywood serial killer.

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Enter Detective Leo Kessler (Charles Bronson), a tough as nails Los Angeles cop who’s seen it all, seen how the justice system lets the scum of the earth back on the streets to terrorize the rest of the citizenry. He’s joined by Detective Paul McAnn (Andrew Stevens), a wet-behind-the-ears kid who still thinks law is here to protect us. Paul still idolizes Leo for all the commendations he’s earned over the years.

Warren’s first victim, Betty (June Gilbert) was a childhood friend of Leo’s daughter, Laurie Kessler (Lisa Eilbacher). While at the victim’s funeral, Betty’s parents tell Leo that their daughter kept a diary of the men she dated and the creepers who stalked her. Also at the funeral is Warren Stacy, who overhears this tidbit. Warren goes to Betty’s apartment, tries to pry open her locked dresser drawer to get at the diary, stabs Betty’s roommate to death when she comes home, and continues to pry at the drawer until it opens. Warren finds a box with word Diary inscribed on it, but there’s no diary inside.

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When Warren gets back to his apartment, Detective Leo and Paul are waiting for him, Betty’s diary in Leo’s hand. Leo asks Warren about how he knew Betty, and why she wrote about how much of a creeper he is in her diary. Leo uses Warren’s bathroom and discovers a plethora of nudie magazines and sex toys. They’re about to question Warren further, but the detectives get a phone call informing them about Betty’s murdered roommate.

Leo is convinced Warren is the culprit. Meanwhile, Warren is developing an obsession with Laurie Kessler. He keeps calling her, saying obscene things to her over the phone. I don’t know. At some point, Warren gets arrested for something and lawyers up with a dirtbag lawyer. Leo plants some of Betty’s blood on Warren’s clothes hoping to put him away once and for all, but Paul doesn’t want to give false testimony during Warren’s trial. Leo admits he fabricated evidence, gets fired, and Warren goes free. Boo!

Well, you know how it goes. Warren is going to kill more women. Charles Bronson will put a slug in his forehead. That should make me happy, but the whole experience left me feeling empty inside.

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Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #290: Lola

13 Friday Sep 2019

Posted by in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #290 by Jeff Shuster

Lola

I think you’re growing up too soon, girl. 

I don’t like it when box art lies. This goes back to the days of Mom & Pop video rental palaces, when you’d see some movie you’ve never heard of with an intriguing cover only to be disappointed when you popped it in the VCR when you got home. This brings us to tonight’s movie, 1969’s Lola from director Richard Donner (of Superman fame).

Look at this DVD cover.

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We have Charles Bronson in a coat brandishing a pistol. This brings to mind Paul Kersey, the vigilante from the Death Wish movies, but there’s one big problem. Charles Bronson doesn’t have a mustache, nor does he brandish a gun in this movie. The back of the case claims that the movie was directed by John Sturges, but it was, in fact, directed by Richard Donner. The backs reads, “Charles Bronson, Susan George, and Trevor Howard star in this gritty portrayal of a man struggling to keep his demons at bay.” Nope. Again, I’m not seeing it.

This is a goofy 60s comedy about a thirty-eight year-old man dating a sixteen-year-old girl.

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Susan George plays Lola (also known as Twinky in some versions), a sixteen-year-old English girl who just happens to be having intimate relations with Scott Wardman (Charles Bronson), a close to middle-aged writer of pornographic fiction who’s living in a London flat. Lola tells Scott that she spilled the beans to her parents, and her father is furious. Scott asks her what the age of consent is in England. She says it’s sixteen, but England can still deport Scott or send him to jail for other reasons. Lola consulted the family lawyer on this. Scott chases Lola out the apartment, but then chases after her. They decide to get married in Scotland, where a man can marry a sixteen-year-old girl. Problem solved!

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What am I watching here? The movie presents this situation as cute and zany. I wasn’t alive in ’69. I’m not that clear on what the social norms were, but I’m surprised that at no point in this movie do we find an angry mob surrounding Scott and beating him to death. Maybe if John Sturges had directed this movie.

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Lola’s father says their marriage won’t work out. Lola’s mother seems more sympathetic and wishes them the best. I can’t help, but notice how attractive Lola’s mother is. Then I realize she is none other than Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore from Goldfinger). There’s a theme song for Lola that’s sung by Jim Dale, the narrator of the Harry Potter books, that I mistook for a lost Dave Clark Five track.

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Scott and Lola move to New York City where Scott begins a career as a failed novelist. Scott is required to enroll Lola in high school, as it is the law.

I keep imagining there’s an alternative version of this movie where Lola falls in love with the captain of the football team and asks Scott to drive them to prom.

Anyway, Lola leaves Scott a Dear John letter after they get into a fight over her cat.

The end.

What does it all mean? This movie is messing with my head.

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.