Tag Archives: Richard Marden

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988, Tony Randel)

Posted on 26 October 2009 | 1 Comment

So, Hellbound is a British production, but it dubs over the British cops (who are dressed like American cops and carry guns and don’t know how to use them–because they’re British?) with American accents. It’s a lame decision and one of the few gaffs in the film not related to the story itself.

Even with Christopher Young’s really overbearing score, the film’s at least somewhat successful, if only because half of it plays a little like Tron in hell. It also features a decently plotted story this time, with plot progression and so on.

Unfortunately, it makes absolutely no sense in the context of the first film (and not just because it starts immediately following the first film, which ended with a house burning down, with the house still intact). It’s also never clear what happens to the Hellraiser box from the first movie.

Anyway….

The really confusing elements come about halfway through, when resurrected (and strangely top-billed) Clare Higgins has superpowers. Then she reveals she’s on a mission from hell to recruit souls but she does a really bad job of it, only getting one and she can’t even bring him to hell, she needs mute Imogen Boorman to do it. Kind of.

Boorman’s character arc is an example of the best thing about Hellbound. It’s implied evil doctor Kenneth Cranham (who apparently is a supervillain out to take over hell) kills Boorman’s mother just so he can perform brain surgery on her, but never made clear.

CREDITS

Directed by Tony Randel; screenplay by Peter Atkins, based on a story by Clive Barker; director of photography, Robin Vidgeon; edited by Richard Marden; music by Christopher Young; production designer, Michael Buchanan; produced by Christopher Figg; released by New World Pictures.

Starring Clare Higgins (Julia Cotton), Ashley Laurence (Kirsty Cotton), Kenneth Cranham (Dr. Philip Channard), Imogen Boorman (Tiffany), Sean Chapman (Frank Cotton), William Hope (Kyle MacRae), Doug Bradley (Lead Cenobite), Barbie Wilde (Female Cenobite), Simon Bamford (Butterball Cenobite), Nicholas Vince (Chatterer Cenobite), Oliver Smith (Browning) and Angus MacInnes (Detective Ronson).

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Posted in 1992, Color, Drama, English, Horror, New World Pictures, Thriller, UK

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Hellraiser (1987, Clive Barker)

Posted on 12 October 2009 | 2 Comments

So, Hellraiser is supposed to be scary, right?

Because it seems like a poorly directed, completely illogical (if a wall split open in front of you, would you walk into it?) mess. It’s only ninety-four minutes, including credits, but it’s this exceptionally boring “scary” movie. The scariest thing in the movie might be the off-screen clean-up of the maggot-infested kitchen. It’s the scariest idea in the movie, anyway.

Someone, somewhere, has got to have come up with a theory about Hellraiser‘s rather negative view of heterosexual sex in relation to Barker’s homosexuality. But I can’t muster the interest to look it up. His romantic scenes between Ashley Laurence and Robert Hines are awful. Hines isn’t the worst actor in the film, but he’s close, so he doesn’t help anything.

Laurence is okay. She’s not particularly good, but not bad either. Clare Higgins and Oliver Smith are terrible. Only Andrew Robinson is good. He’s really good, but it’s Andrew Robinson and he’s always been really good and Hellraiser does give him some opportunity to flex. It’s not worth sitting through it to wait for him to have his best scenes, but he is good.

Barker opens the movie with a really gross skin pulling scene, which kind of makes everything subsequent–which tends to be a lot tamer–not so eerie or scary. Christopher Young’s music, which I think is supposed to lend mood, doesn’t help either. It’s a terrible score.

Hellraiser‘s much worse than I expected.

CREDITS

Directed by Clive Barker; screenplay by Barker, based on his novella; director of photography, Robin Vidgeon; edited by Richard Marden; music by Christopher Young; production designer, Michael Buchanan; produced by Christopher Figg; released by New World Pictures.

Starring Andrew Robinson (Larry), Clare Higgins (Julia), Ashley Laurence (Kirsty), Sean Chapman (Frank), Oliver Smith (Frank the Monster), Robert Hines (Steve), Anthony Allen (1st Victim), Leon Davis (2nd Victim), Michael Cassidy (3rd Victim) and Frank Baker (Derelict).

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Posted in 1987, Color, English, Fantasy, Horror, New World Pictures, UK

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Half Moon Street (1986, Bob Swaim)

Posted on 17 February 2009 | Leave a comment

Half Moon Street is supposed to be funny, right? No one’s supposed to believe it’s serious, they can’t. Certainly not with Sigourney Weaver’s performance–it’s got to be the worst thing she’s ever done, but it’s amazing because she certainly never gave the impression she’s capable of such an atrocious performance. The script’s full of these silly little lines for her character–a Ph.D. moonlighting as an escort–and Weaver can’t deliver a single one of them successfully. It’s kind of incredible Weaver got an Oscar nomination for Aliens the same year. No one must have seen Half Moon Street.

Technically, I suppose Swaim isn’t a bad director. He’s totally competent–maybe relies on close-ups too much–and he can move the camera with some success. But Half Moon Street‘s as tone deaf as Weaver’s reading of her lines. While she isn’t emphasizing, Swaim doesn’t create any sense of mood for the film. It runs together, quite tediously, without any kind of cinematic connection. The film’s use of music is strangely terrible–even if Richard Harvey’s score isn’t bad at all, though it’s more suited for a rousing adventure film–as is the use of sound. It feels incredibly amateurish.

Some of the problems alleviate when Michael Caine shows up. Caine’s got a quiet British guy role and he’s fine in it. But he’s a movie star. Weaver’s clearly not a movie star in Half Moon Street, which might account for why her performance is such an abject failure. She has almost no presence whatsoever, but then, neither does the rest of the cast until Caine shows up.

Weaver’s so bad, it’s hard to tell if the script’s awful. Caine delivers them fine, as does some of the supporting cast, but it’s entirely possible it’s the script. And Swaim’s direction of actors. I lean toward the latter.

But the majority of the problem is the production itself. Though the source novel was written by a man, maybe the subject of a scholar turning to prostitution to pay her rent would have been better essayed by a woman. The film constantly reminds the viewer Weaver is supposed to be a singular, intelligent and charming woman, but she comes off as aloof and stupid (it’s not like she didn’t know what her job paid, right?). Swaim tries hard to do a montage showing her as a intelligent escort, but it comes off like a “Saturday Night Live” skit. The sequence also is meant to introduce Caine, but because of the editing, it doesn’t work. He shows up at the end like a third piece of bread.

Still, it’s one of Caine’s better mature performances, long before he started cashing in on his “icon” status. It’s too bad he used to be able to do well in tripe and can’t anymore.

CREDITS

Directed by Bob Swaim; screenplay by Swaim and Edward Behr, based on a novel by Paul Theroux; director of photography, Peter Hannan; edited by Richard Marden; music by Richard Harvey; production designer, Tony Curtis; produced by Geoffrey Reeve; released by J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors.

Starring Sigourney Weaver (Dr. Lauren Slaughter), Michael Caine (Lord Sam Bulbeck), Patrick Kavanagh (General Sir George Newhouse), Faith Kent (Lady Newhouse), Ram John Holder (Lindsay Walker), Keith Buckley (Hugo Van Arkady), Ann Hanson (Mrs. Van Arkady), Patrick Newman (Julian Shuttle), Niall O’Brien (Captain Twilley), Nadim Sawalha (Karim Hatami) and Vincent Lindon (Sonny).

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Posted in 1986, Color, Drama, English, J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors, Thriller, UK, USA

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Evil Under the Sun (1982, Guy Hamilton)

Posted on 5 April 2007 | Leave a comment

As innocuous as Evil Under the Sun can get–and expecting anything else from it seems unintended–the film does have a slightly discomforting feel about it. Perhaps it’s the extraordinary level of benignity, but at times, it really does seem like Peter Ustinov (as Hercule Poirot) is going to be murdered by each and every person in the film. Murder on the Orient Express, not to ruin it for anyone, along with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, makes Agatha Christie suspect. If there’s no good way out, she’ll just push on through… M. Night Shyamalan owes more to her than anyone else, in terms of wasting people’s engagement with a story and characters, anyway.

The difference between an Agatha Christie novel and an Agatha Christie filmic adaptation, as I just got done telling my fiancée, is simple. It’s about the actors, the location, and the running time. Evil Under the Sun runs around two hours and was filmed on a beautiful island in the Mediterranean. Ustinov’s amusing–though not as funny as when Ustinov’s really being funny, Maggie Smith and Denis Quilley have some good scenes, and James Mason has fun. No one’s particularly bad–Diana Rigg’s supposed to be incredibly annoying–though Nicholas Clay’s accent appears and intensifies after a certain point. It’s harmless, even if it isn’t particularly interesting.

Evil Under the Sun has an interesting structure–there’s no murder for the first hour. Then there’s a half hour of questioning, maybe a little less, then there’s a ten minute reveal and the end. While the scenery is pretty and the cast is okay, there’s nothing particularly dynamic about it. The film keeps the audience with the promise of the murder, as I imagine the book does, and offers them little else to do with their time. Guy Hamilton’s direction does very little with interiors–outside it’s pretty, inside it’s boring, but there are two days inside before anything happens and it could use some oomph. After a certain point, deep in the monotony of the supporting cast’s dramatics, I’d forgotten Ustinov was in the movie.

The end payoff, as delivered by Ustinov, makes the experience moderately worthwhile. Certainly nothing to watch again, but not a complete waste. Screenwriter Anthony Shaffer wrote The Wicker Man, so he’s obviously capable of a good twist and a good end, but the adherence to the novel really handicaps him….

CREDITS

Directed by Guy Hamilton; screenplay by Anthony Shaffer, based on a novel by Agatha Christie; director of photography, Christopher Challis; edited by Richard Marden; music by Cole Porter; production designer, Elliot Scott; produced by John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Peter Ustinov (Hercule Poirot), Colin Blakely (Sir Horace Blatt), Jane Birkin (Christine Redfern), Nicholas Clay (Patrick Redfern), Maggie Smith (Daphne Castle), Roddy McDowall (Rex Brewster), Sylvia Miles (Myra Gardener), James Mason (Odell Gardener), Denis Quilley (Kenneth Marshall), Diana Rigg (Arlena Marshall) and Emily Hone (Linda Marshall).

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Posted in 1982, Color, Crime, Drama, English, French, German, Mystery, Thriller, UK, Universal Pictures

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Frankenstein: The True Story (1973, Jack Smight)

Posted on 19 January 2007 | Leave a comment

While Frankenstein: The True Story singularly credits Mary Shelley as source material, the actuality is a little more complicated. A Universal-produced TV mini-series, True Story actually mixes some of the Shelley (basically, the end in the Arctic and a brother for Frankenstein), with Universal’s 1930s films, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein (with a little of The Ghost of Frankenstein thrown in too). It also goes so far as to play Frankenstein as a bit of the patsy–he’s not particularly smart, just an assistant to a couple mad scientists. There’s also a serious homoerotic subtext to the film–first, Frankenstein rejects his fiancée for his mad scientist buddy, then becomes obsessed with the Creature’s physical beauty, rejecting it once it becomes ugly. The subtext disappears around the first hour mark, which is incidentally when Leonard Whiting, as Frankenstein, starts acting well. Until the point of betraying the Creature, he really doesn’t do anything but plead with his mad scientist friend to let him play too. However, once there’s some conflict, Whiting has something to work with, so much so, by the end, I was wishing True Story was a better story, just so Whiting’s acting wouldn’t be wasted.

There are a lot of good performances in True Story, but most of them follow the same pattern as Whiting’s. Slight in the first part, better and great in the rest. For example, Nicola Pagett was annoying as could be as Elizabeth (Frankenstein’s fiancée) in the beginning, but then she went from good to great in about twenty minutes. David McCallum as the first mad scientist is amusing, but nothing more. As the Creature, Michael Sarrazin is good once he starts getting ugly. When Frankenstein’s primping him around London (yes, True Story moves the setting to England for some ludicrous reason), Sarrazin looks like David Bowie glammed out. Once he gets ugly, he gets to show some emotion. Agnes Moorehead, unfortunately, gets stuck with this terrible housekeeper role with an awful accent. Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud both turn in small cameos (Richardson as the blind woodsman). Richardson’s terrible, but Gielgud’s great. However, whenever he’s onscreen, True Story belongs to James Mason. He’s playing this absurd, handless mad scientist (based on the one from Bride) but this time he’s got Chinese assistants and plans to takeover Europe. Mason realizes how crazy it is and he thoroughly enjoys it.

Unfortunately, True Story is a technical mess. The costumes seem to be intended to emphasis the men’s butts (given Whiting’s famous butt shot in Romeo and Juliet, I doubt it’s unintentional), while the set decoration looks like something out of the 1930s… at the latest. As True Story should be set in the late 1700s, I doubt I should recognize a chair as one I’ve sat in. Some of the sets are mildly interesting–like the lab–but once Mason’s pseudo-Chinese mysticism lab shows up, True Story‘s sets look like a farce. Jack Smight’s direction is, unsurprisingly, uninspired, but rarely bad.

For a mediocre three-hour film, True Story is actually pretty good. It moves fast and when it doesn’t have good performances, it has moments (the sets, the homoeroticism) to amuse the viewer in other ways. At times, in small ways, it comes close to being something special, particularly with Frankenstein and Elizabeth’s relationship, but more often than not, the writing stomps the life out of those moments.

CREDITS

Directed by Jack Smight; screenplay by Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, based on the novel by Mary Shelley; director of photography, Arthur Ibbetson; edited by Richard Marden; music by Gil Melle; production designer, Wilfred Shingleton; produced by Hunt Stromberg Jr.; released by the National Broadcasting Company.

Starring James Mason (Dr. Polidori), Leonard Whiting (Victor Frankenstein), David McCallum (Henry Clerval), Jane Seymour (Agatha), Nicola Pagett (Elizabeth), Michael Sarrazin (The Creature), Agnes Moorehead (Mrs. Blair), John Gielgud (the chief constable), Tom Baker (the sea captain) and Ralph Richardson (Mr. Lacey).

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Posted in 1973, Color, English, Horror, National Broadcasting Company, Sci-Fi, USA

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