Tag Archives: John Saxon

The Curator of Schlock #329: Tenebrae

07 Friday Aug 2020

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The Curator of Schlock #329 by Jeff Shuster

Tenebrae

Also known as Tenebre. Someone needs to learn how to spell.

I tried mentioning the coffin filled with ashes to Jervis, but he flew the coop before I could say anything. He left a note behind, something about a sick grandmother. Jervis prepped a rack of lamb in the fridge with instructions on reheating. He even included mint jelly. Mmmmm. Mint jelly. Still, I don’t like being in this mansion all by myself. I hear funny noises at night.

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We’re kicking off another Giallo Month and it’s not like I need an excuse to enjoy these macabre Italian thrillers in the heat of August. Tonight’s movie is 1982’s Tenebrae from director Dario Argento. I have to say if you wanted to get into Giallo movies, Tenebrae would be a great place to start. The man who kicked off the genre returned in 1982 to direct what is one his best films. Also at the helm on the soundtrack side are former members of Goblin: Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Pignatelli, and Massimo Morante. If that isn’t enough to sell you on Tenebrae, this movie made it on Great Britain’s list of video nasties. You couldn’t even buy a copy of Tenebrae over there until 1999.

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The movie begins with an American writer, Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa), taking a trip to Rome, Italy to promote his latest thriller, Tenebrae. He’s greeted in Rome by his assistant, Anna (Daria Nicolodi), and his literary agent, Bullmer (John Saxon). Bulmer is excited that Tenebrae has remained on the bestseller list for twelve weeks straight and is even more excited about the new fedora he purchased. Seriously, this Bullmer guy is truly obsessed with his hat. This is 1982! Were men wearing fedoras back then? Not that I can remember. Maybe in Europe?

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Anyway, Peter Neal’s arrival in Rome coincides with murder, murder, murder! Yes, there’s a psycho serial killer on the loose. The first murder is a shoplifter named Elsa. The killer tears pages out of Tenebrae and shoves them down Elsa’s throat before slitting said throat with a razor blade. The next murder is that of a young feminist critic of Peter Neal that labeled Tenebrae “a sexist novel.” She also gets her throat slit.

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One segment of this film is real nightmare fuel for those of you out there with dog phobias. A teenage girl named Maria walks home after a date gone wrong and is alarmed by a barking doberman pinscher behind a gate. She tries scaring him off with a stick to no avail and smartly steps away only to be alarmed when the canine jumps the gate and dashes down the street after her. After running through a park and fending off the beast, she sneaks into the garage of the closest house only to discover it to be the home of the serial killer. Yeah, things aren’t going to work out well for Maria.

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Naturally, Peter Neal gets involved in trying to solve who the murderer is since the Italian police department is dumbfounded as it usually is in these movies. I won’t spoil the rest of the movie, but things are not as they seem. Tenebrae is one of Argento’s better movies. I’d put it in his top five.

JOHN SAXON

1936-2020

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John Saxon is a favorite of this blog for movies such as Battle Beyond the Stars, Cannibal Apocalypse, and Black Christmas. He may be gone from this world, but he will never be gone from The Museum of Schlock. I expect to encounter him in several more unearthed cinematic gems. Rest in peace, John Saxon.

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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 #33: Battle Beyond the Stars

28 Friday Mar 2014

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The Curator of Schlock #33 by Jeffrey Shuster

Battle Beyond the Stars: Better Never than Late

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John Saxon returns to the Museum of Schlock in Battle Beyond the Stars, the story of how the evil Sador of the Malmori (John Saxon) and his army of deformed mutant freaks tried to conquer Akir,  a pathetic farming planet. Things were going okay for him in the beginning. Sador’s giant starship The Hammerhead makes short work of space weather reporters before descending to the planet. The crowd of peasant losers looks on as a giant projection of Sador’s disembodied head declares that he’s going to conquer them with his stellar converter. That would be enough for me to throw my hands up, let me tell you. John Saxon is scary enough, but a giant John Saxon head is downright terrifying.

Anyway, all hope is not lost. There is a young boy hero, unsure of himself, but pure of heart, who goes on a quest to find a bunch of mercenaries to help fight against the invaders. His name is Shad and he’s played by Richard Thomas, the same actor who played John-Boy on The Waltons. I like the name John-Boy better than Shad so we’ll call him John-Boy for the rest of the review. So John-Boy goes off in search of adventure in a spaceship that resembles a part of the female anatomy. The ship’s onboard computer is named Nell and she’s a bit of a nagging mom type. John-Boy tries to recruit the help of Dr. Hephaestus who makes robots that look just like people. Dr. Hephaestus wants John-Boy to mate with his beautiful young daughter Nanelia so he can get some grandkids. John-Boy has no interest in mating and goes his way.

At some point in the movie John-Boy runs into a space cowboy names Cowboy (George Peppard) and gets him to join the fight.

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Sador blows up a planet of Dinosaur men. Good riddance I say. I hate Dinosaur men!

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There’s a Valkyrie woman named Saint Exmin ( Sybil Danning) from a race known as the Valkyrie and she wants to recharge John-Boy’s capacitators if you know what I mean.

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There’s a race of clone alien guys who experience whatever the other is experiencing. Like if one eats a hot dog the others taste it. For their sake, I hope it was Nathan’s.

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Let’s see. Who else joins up? I seem to recall Robert Vaughn showing up at some point. I think he plays an ex-assassin or something. I remember when Robert Vaughn guest starred on Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. I think he played an ex-assassin in that episode too. Let’s see. Who else? There’s a last surviving dinosaur man that joins the fight. Sador kills him, too! Yeah. In fact, Sador and his goons kill everyone except for John-Boy. Will John-Boy manage to trick Sador of the Malmori to hook a tractor beam onto the female anatomy spaceship, which John-boy was smart enough to start the self-destruct sequence of? Maybe. And Sador and his ship will blow up. And everyone will be happy because John Saxon got what he deserved.

Ten Things I Learned from Battle Beyond the Stars

  1. You’re better off having good sets than good models.
  2. I need to start making references to Kung Fu The Legend Continues in every review going forward.
  3. John Saxon really can’t laugh maniacally.
  4. Dinosaur Men suck and they need to die!
  5. When the Operating Systems become sentient like the ones in Her, I want mine to act just like Nell.
  6. You can watch Battle Beyond the Stars and discover something new about it every time.
  7.  I lied about number 6.
  8. I lied about number 5 too.
  9. Assassins make the most dynamic characters. I mean, they kill people for a living. That’s hardcore!
  10. Some planets aren’t worth saving.

___________

 

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Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47) is an MFA candidate and instructor at the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #16: Cannibal Apocalypse

22 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in Film, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #16 by Jeffrey Shuster

Cannibal Apocalypse, AKA Invasion of the Flesh Hunters

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I tried to think of a movie to review for Thanksgiving. I know many of you are looking forward to munching down on succulent turkey in a few days, but have ever been tempted to sink you teeth into something more forbidden? You know, like human flesh? 1980s Cannibal Apocalypse starring John Saxon will satisfy your curiosity. Yes, we finally have a John Saxon movie in The Museum of Schlock.

The movie opens with a Vietnam flashback/nightmare where Norman Hopper (John Saxon) is leading a platoon through to take care of the local Vietcong who kidnapped a couple of his buddies. There’s an exploding dog, the platoon sets a bunch of thatched huts on fire, and Harper finds two of his buddies, Charles and Tommy, held prisoner in an underground pit. Hopper is shocked to discover that the two of them are munching on the charred remains of a Vietnamese woman. Then Tommy bites Hopper.

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Fast forward to modern times (1980). Hopper is domesticated and happily married. He likes to fly modern airplanes and has to fight off advances from the teenage neighbor girl. He gets a phone call from the very same Charles Bukowski, the same Charles who was munching on the corpse of that Vietnamese woman. Bukowski has just been released from a veteran’s mental hospital and wants to grab a beer with Hopper. Hopper declines because he has a problem with cannibals.

Bukowski decides to spend the afternoon catching a movie at the local cinema. He’s munching on popcorn, but we can tell from that crazed look in his eyes that he’d rather be munching on something else.

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He sees a young couple going at it pretty hot n’ heavy a few seats down. When he sees the bare shoulders of the guy’s girlfriend, Bukowski pounces and rips a huge chunk out of her shoulder before punching her boyfriend in the face. Bukowski tears out of there with a mob of angry movie patrons following close behind. Some bikers join in on the chase too and manage to follow him into a closed flea market. Bukowski finds a display of shotguns and locks and loads. He manages to shoot and kill one of the bikers in addition to the store security guard.

The Atlanta Police Department don’t take too kindly to Bukowski’s cannibal and killing rampage and manage to hole him up in the flea market. Hopper hears the news from his wife and gets himself down there. He manages to talk Bukowski into surrendering. They send Bukowski back to the mental hospital, but not before he bites into one of the police officer’s hands. I sure hope this cannibalism thing isn’t contagious.

Later at the mental hospital, a doctor by the name of Helen (we’ll call her Dr. Helen) gets attacked by Charlie and Tommy. Tommy manages to get his chompers around her leg before the orderlies pull the two of them away and sedate them. Meanwhile, at the Hopper residence, Hopper tells his wife that he felt the urge to bite the neighbor girl. Concerned, she has him go down to the mental hospital to get checked out.

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The bitten start turning into cannibals. The police officer that got bit starts eating other police officers. Dr. Helen bites the tongue off of another doctor causing him to bleed out all over the floor. She then lets Buwkowski and Tommy loose. Hopper decides to join up with them realizing he’s cannibal after all. And what’s wrong with that? People should be who they are, that’s what I say. If someone wants to take a bite out of another person, who are we to say that’s wrong. If I want to take a bite out of let’s say a Christmas bulb, who are you to say that’s wrong? Not that I’ve ever done such a thing. I was just speaking hypothetically.

Ten Things I Learned From Cannibal Holocaust

  1. Cannibals are just like you and me except for the whole eating people part.
  2. If a woman bites your tongue off, it’s not a sign of affection.
  3. Cops won’t be amused if you sing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” while firing at them.
  4. Don’t give a cannibal a day pass if you don’t want him to bite the unsuspecting public.
  5. The Vietnam War was unpleasant.
  6. Don’t pet dogs with bombs attached to their necks.
  7. Cannibals don’t eat each other.
  8. You can kill a cannibal by blowing a hole in his stomach.
  9. You can kill a cannibal by setting him on fire.
  10. John Saxon is good in anything.

___________

Jeffrey Shuster 3

photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47) is an MFA candidate and instructor at the University of Central Florida.