Tom Latham thinks that life could only get better if he just kills himself. Turns out, he’s right! Tom (Nicky Henson) isn’t suffering from depression, nor is he a deluded youth who is incapable of processing the permanence of death. He’s the leader of an outlaw biker gang called The Living Dead. They get their kicks by driving mildly quickly on the roads of rural England and occasionally tipping over vendor’s carts at the local shopping center. How dreadfully frightful. But Tom has an idea that can make his little band of nihilists even more of a public nuisance. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Psychomania, aka The Death Wheelers”
Tag: 1973 in Film
Empty Balcony: The Offence
In the early 1970s, United Artists wanted Sean Connery back in the role of James Bond. Part of the deal that brought Connery back was UA agreeing to finance a pair of vanity projects for Connery, as long as the films didn’t cost much money. The Offence was the first of the pair, and the only one made.
From 1972, The Offence is an adaptation of the play This Story of Yours by John Hopkins. Hopkins was also brought aboard to pen the screenplay, with legendary director Sidney Lumet behind the camera.
In The Offence, Connery plays Detective Sergeant Johnson, a brutal, monster of a cop in England. Lately, the Sergeant and a team of detectives have been investigating the kidnappings and rapes of schoolchildren. The situation has gotten bad enough that Johnson and the others maintain a visual presence at a local school when it lets out, but that isn’t enough to prevent another young girl from being snatched. Later, as the police search nearby woods, it is Johnson who finds the young girl, terrified and laying in the mud, and who has to comfort her. This latest offense is just another in a litany of atrocities Johnson has witnessed in his 20 years as a police officer. His mind has been on the brink for some time, it appears, and after constables nab a suspect, Kenneth Baxter (Ian Bannen), Johnson snaps. During interrogation, Johnson beats the suspect to death, and has to account for his actions. Continue reading “Empty Balcony: The Offence”
October Horrorshow: The Crazies (1973)
Is George Romero paranoid? It’s a possibility. At the very least, I would say he is mistrusting of authority. Night of the Living Dead, his seminal work, and all its follow-ups, showcase a horde of the undead rendering civilization waste. But it’s worth remembering that Romero’s zombies are not supernatural in origin. Rather, they are the result of government experiments gone wrong. Ergo, it’s not the zombies that are the greatest threat to civilization in Romero’s universe. It is the people who take our taxes. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Crazies (1973)”
October Horrorshow: The Legend of Hell House
The fear that we create in our minds in anticipation of unpleasant events is more often than not more powerful than the event itself. Also, the actions of unseen forces are more unsettling than those by forces we can see, and can thus relate to and understand. Along these lines, in horror cinema, the most frightening ghosts are of the unseen variety. They make their presence felt by being menacing, by toying with those who trespass on their realm. They make noise. They bang, shuffle, and walk loudly across hardwood floors. They spark chills and cold winds. They speak, threaten and cajole. Eventually they move things around, simply and quickly, such as doors opening and closing by themselves, books falling off of shelves, etc. It’s usually around here that the separation is made between good ghost films and bad ghost films.
Good ghost films try their best to maintain the creepiness of an unseen entity’s actions, even while the audience is quickly growing accustomed to being in a haunted house or hotel, or wherever. Bad ghost films just chuck all restraint and set up a titanic battle between good and evil, slave to special effects under the belief that seeing a big bad scary ghost in an explosive finale is what the audience craves after spending the first half of the film scared out of their wits. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Legend of Hell House”
The Empty Balcony: Soylent Green
The future is a rough place in Richard Fleischer’s 1973 film Soylent Green. Especially New York City in the year 2022. The population is 40 million, the city is in the grip of an endless heat wave, and apparently the only things to eat are colored crackers. At least the green kind, Soylent Green, to be particular, seem pretty popular. Man, of course, is to blame for the calamities of this bleak future, as the film demonstrates in an opening photographic montage that is artistically compelling. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: Soylent Green”