Tag: Dick Miller

The Terror (1963, Roger Corman)

The Terror is not camp, which is bewildering, not just because it’d be better if it were camp, but because, based on its vitals, it seems like it can’t not be camp.

The film stars Jack Nicholson as a Napoleonic officer—he does not attempt an accent, thank goodness—who gets involved with some supernatural goings-on involving a European noble (Boris Karloff), the single servant in his giant castle (Dick Miller), a witch (Dorothy Neumann), her sidekick (Jonathan Haze), and a beautiful ghost girl (Sandra Knight). None of the people who presumably grew up in the same area speak with the same accent; Haze whispers all the time (Neumann thinks he’s unable to speak, but really he just doesn’t want her knowing his business), which is more effort than anyone else puts in. Miller plays the whole thing so delightfully straight-faced it’s like he’s doing Shakespeare. Karloff plays it like he’s doing someone a favor.

Karloff’s pretty game throughout, of course. Despite his top-billing, he’s never the protagonist, never even—it’ll turn out by the end—gets an honest scene. The animated opening titles of Terror give away most of the set pieces, just without any context. Also, with less disintegrating flesh slime. And the bird is white. It’s very detailed—visually—so it doesn’t not look like a dove. So, for most of the credits, there’s the white dove of peace flying around disintegrating zombies and whatnot. It’s strange. And ought to be camp. But still isn’t.

The actual bird is a falcon of some kind (maybe?). Shockingly little details out there, even now. The bird is Neumann’s familiar. Maybe? The only thing the script gets specific about, in terms of supernatural rules, is Neumann’s devil-powered, and the best revenge you can get on someone is having them commit suicide because it’ll damn their immortal soul. Also, there’s some heavenly intervention at points, and the interventionist God is a weird flex, considering the villains are trying to trick their prey into committing suicide, but when things go wrong, they get very active in it.

I guess they figured God wasn’t going to pay close attention.

Speaking of not paying close attention… I just realized the movie left a major subplot door open. The script—Leo Gordon and Jack Hill—does not give a hoot about making sense. Terror infamously took ages to complete; despite filming on set for all of Karloff’s material, there was second unit shooting going on for almost a year to pad it out. The film runs just under eighty minutes. They’ve got enough story for thirty, maybe forty. The rest is misdirection, exposition, and Nicholson roaming the countryside looking for Knight.

Knight’s terrible. Like, other people are not good, but they’re amusing. It’s fun to watch Nicholson muscle his way through the part, and Miller’s incredibly compelling. And Karloff, Neumann, and Haze all have a certain amount of charm. But Knight’s terrible. It’s a bad part—she’s either a falcon woman, a vengeful ghost, a possessed innocent, or a reincarnation. She’s either Karloff or Nicholson’s property, though Neumann points out if Knight is a vengeful ghost, she belongs to Neumann, so back off, boys. Knight and Nicholson were real-life newlyweds during filming, and she’s just a couple years younger than him, but she’s also playing like Karloff is the hottest dude she’s ever seen. Knight’s sexy killer ghost is just hot for old British dude bod.

Again, ought to be camp.

The troubled production leads to wanting photography from John M. Nickolaus Jr. (the day for night is ambitious; unsuccessful, but ambitious), as well as Stuart O'Brien’s cutting adding an uncanny mood. O’Brien doesn’t have coverage, and they just weren’t able to get that Nicholson vs. bird effects sequence down, so Terror often comes off as vaguely existential at times. Existential or camp-ready. Nothing in between.

Well, except the occasional gore. There are a couple very gory sequences.

The Terror is a tedious seventy-nine minutes, with some aggravating logic jumps (Knight acts without purpose for most of the film, like they only remembered to give the killer ghost a mission in the third act). It’s never rewarding (it gets closest, thanks to Miller), but it is a singularly weird experience. And the plot twists are goofy enough they’re usually a surprise.

The Terror (1963, Roger Corman)

It might be too easy just to call The Terror terrible or to go into the various puns one could make with “terrible” and the title. It’s not a surprisingly bad film at all. It’s an expectedly bad film, given it opens with a pointless scare attempt. Boris Karloff shows up in the first scene-walking through his spooky castle-and then disappears for about twenty minutes. Corman apparently just wanted to get the horror “name” in the first scene.

After the opening titles, which are deceptively classy-Ronald Stein’s music starts off strong before going bad as Corman uses it all the time-Jack Nicholson takes over as protagonist. Nicholson’s a French soldier in Germany or someplace, trying to get back to the rest of his regiment. Oh, I forgot, it’s a period piece-mid-1790s, I think. A period piece set in Germany, filmed on the California coast, starring Nicholson who doesn’t even try to hide his disinterest.

The Terror is a great example of when low budget filmmaking doesn’t have any inventiveness. The script is unnecessarily talky. Leo Gordon and Jack Hill’s dialogue goes on and on, probably to pad things out. Then there’s all the excess scenes. The Terror, at seventy minutes, should be lean. Instead, it’s bulky.

Karloff can do this kind of garbage with his eyes closed, but Nicholson isn’t able to fake it. Without a compelling lead, there’s just nothing to this one. It’s a dreadful film.

Very pretty scenery at times though.

A Bucket of Blood (1959, Roger Corman)

Until the unfortunate deus ex machina finish, A Bucket of Blood is a small wonder. Even with the finish, the film manages to succeed; the performances are just too strong.

Dick Miller plays a simple, well-meaning bus boy–who also takes drink orders, apparently for no tips–at an art café. The beatnik patrons condescend to him, his boss is a jerk, the only one nice to him is his female coworker.

Every performance–boss, beatnik, girl–is fantastic. Miller’s great in the lead too, with Corman and writer Charles B. Griffith giving him the time to show how his character becomes a spree killer. It’s okay because he’s turning the bodies into art, after all. While Griffith and Corman have a lot of fun at the beatnik culture’s expense, they don’t shortchange Miller. His transformation is serious… even when the results are funny.

As the girl, Barboura Morris doesn’t get a lot to do until the end but then Griffith and Corman give her one amazing scene. It probably only lasts a couple minutes, but it seems so much longer thanks to Morris. One can just watch the thoughts on her face, in her measured reactions.

Antony Carbone is good as Miller’s boss, who sort of understands his responsibility in the situation. Julian Burton is awesome as the intellectual beatnik who takes Miller under his wing. John Brinkley and John Herman Shaner are hilarious as the stoned beatniks who offer uninvited commentary.

Blood is an excellent little picture.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Roger Corman; written by Charles B. Griffith; director of photography, Jacques R. Marquette; edited by Anthony Carras; music by Fred Katz; released by American International Pictures.

Starring Dick Miller (Walter Paisley), Barboura Morris (Carla), Antony Carbone (Leonard de Santis), Julian Burton (Maxwell H. Brock), Ed Nelson (Art Lacroix), John Brinkley (Will), John Herman Shaner (Oscar), Judy Bamber (Alice), Myrtle Vail (Mrs. Swickert), Bert Convy (Lou Raby), Jhean Burton (Naolia), Bruno VeSota (Art Collector) and Lynn Storey (Sylvia).

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The Little Shop of Horrors (1960, Roger Corman)

The filmmaking economy in The Little Shop of Horrors is astounding. Most of the film takes place in one set–the titular shop–and Charles B. Griffith’s script works hard to imply the world outside that set. My favorite bit in the script is probably when leading man Jonathan Haze is shocked to discover peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. His mother (Myrtle Vail in one of Shop‘s only mediocre performances) only cooks food with healing properties, which they have because she adds medicinal ingredients. Griffith’s a funny guy.

Corman’s direction is best with the exterior scenes. The masterful chase sequence through a tire factory is stunningly out of place in a horror comedy. There’s also a great sequence with Haze meeting a loose woman (Meri Welles), who keeps magically popping into shots. Both of these sequences come in the second half of the picture; the first half just has to rely on the great acting.

Haze is fine, so’s Jackie Joseph as his love interest, but Mel Welles carries the whole Shop as Haze’s boss. He should be a buffoon–no one in Shop is wholly sympathetic–but Welles’s sincere performance makes the character the film’s most human.

In the supporting cast, there are good performances from John Herman Shaner and Jack Nicholson. Dick Miller’s great in a too small role. Griffith’s script makes sure Leola Wendorff gets a couple decent moments too.

Fred Katz’s music is awesome.

Shop is quite impressive; Corman, Griffith and Welles all do excellent work.

Piranha (1978, Joe Dante)

More than anything else, I think Pino Donaggio’s score sets Piranha apart. Initially, anyway. The film’s a very self-aware Roger Corman Jaws “homage,” but Donaggio’s score very quickly establishes it on firm ground. The score’s delicate, without any spoof-related cynicism (there’s no attempt to mimic the famous Jaws theme, Donaggio has some piranha attack music, but uses the score differently), and rather lovely in parts. With the score opening the door, Piranha‘s other singular elements come through.

Director Joe Dante and writer John Sayles maintain some of the Jaws mores, but quickly go their own way. The scale of Piranha is much smaller and it’s hard to believe how much time Dante and Sayles can get out of the story. There’s the pre-titles prologue (the biggest Jaws rip), but then Piranha immediately changes gears. The film’s got a constant sense of dread–something Dante does really well, especially for the scenes at the summer camp–and it’s difficult to notice the low budget aspects after a while, just because the film’s so ruthless in who the piranhas get. The scene at the summer camp is fantastic; the wholesale piranha attacks on the campers is startling. That scene alone puts Piranha on its own, in terms of cinema.

The film does have some playful elements, mostly at the beginning. There’s some good stop motion work from Phil Tippett; it doesn’t go anywhere and just serves to kill some running time, but it’s well done and a fine time passer. The rest of the film mostly gets its humor from Paul Bartel as the summer camp director. He’s a complete jackass and his scenes do provide a little relief.

It’s hard to say what’s more important for the film, Dante’s direction or Sayles’s script. The film looks so much like a Joe Dante picture–with Dick Miller, Kevin McCarthy and the stop motion tangent–he seems the easy answer. But Sayles doesn’t just bring a fine attention to turning the little scenes with throwaway dialogue into real scenes (I’m thinking most of the scenes with Melody Thomas Scott and Shannon Collins, but also the even shorter water skiing scene), his pacing also makes the film work. There’s a break in the action during the second act, when the piranha attacks cease for about ten minutes (in a ninety-some minute picture, ten is a lot). Sayles is able to turn the dread to eleven here, with the summer camp attack then realizing it. But it’s Dante who makes that attack so visceral and affecting.

It’s complicated.

The acting’s decent–Bradford Dillman’s a solid lead, Heather Menzies is fine as the private investigator (though it’s unclear why her boss, a good Richard Deacon, doesn’t trust her). McCarthy, Miller and Keenan Wynn are, no shock, the best. Thomas Scott and fellow camp counselor Belinda Balaski are both good.

I think I’ve seen Piranha before, but it’s been ten or eleven years and I barely remember it if I did. It’s a lot better than I thought it would be; it seems to be overlooked and under-appreciated, regarded as a trifle instead of a credible film. It’s certainly the latter.