"Cat People" (1982) d/ Paul Schrader

I remember rolling with the pre-release buzz around this one, a loose remake of the 1942 original, in all the genre mags of the day,  yet coming away from my first screening feeling pretty underwhelmed by it all somehow. By 1982, I guess I must have expected full-blown FX-dripping transformation sequences and gory murders abound, a much harder nut to crack in my early teens on monster-based matters than most. I like it a lot more now, and it's easy to see why: A superb cast built on familiar names like Malcolm McDowell, Nastassja Kinski, Lynn Lowry, and Ruby Dee, an engaging screenplay written by Alan Ormsby, who had a hand in some of my favorite movies of the prior decade (Deathdream, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Deranged), some effectively minimalist makeup and gore work from Tom Burman, and competent direction from the guy who brought you Blue Collar(1978) and American Gigolo(1980).


Lynn Lowry can be a scratching post in my pad anytime.
Irena (Kinski) meets up with her long-lost brother Paul (McDowell) in New Orleans, having been separated since the death of their animal trainer parents in early childhood. He leaves his sibling with Female (Dee), his Creole housekeeper, while he slips off to maul a leggy prostitute (Lowry) after having taken the form of a melanistic leopard, as he sometimes enjoys doing. His feral indiscretions lead to an abrupt capture by the local police, aided by the hearty tranquilizers of some nearby zoo-hands, who transport the feline Paul to his new permanent res: a smelly, undersized zoo cage. His sister, also a were-leopard, though unrealized as yet, sniffs him out at the zoo, with her feline sensuality even attracting Oliver (John Heard), who hires her for the gift shop on the spot. For Paul, sex with humans transforms him into a big cat, but only by murdering one can he change back. Enter one poor bastard named Joe (Begley, Jr.), who gets a little too close to Paul's enclosure while carrying out his zoological duties, and eats arm-torn death because of it.


Watch Ed Begley, Jr. become less arm-ly, and thus, considerably more leg-ly.
As it goes, Paul suggest that he and his sister begin an incestuous relationship, as it is the only physical contact that either sibling can experience without metamorphosis occurring. A blech-worthy proposal until you factor in that the entire were-cat race is based on incest and your sister just so happens to be Nastassja Kinski. Well, Irena's more interested in having sex with Oliver, who's holding Alice (Annette O'Toole) at bay just for a chance to have sex with Irena, who would transform into a leopard if she had sex with...yeah, you get the idea. Paul's jealousy lands him on an autopsy table, where he ultimately disintegrates, leaving the oft-nude Irena to ponder the difficult decision between a sex-less romance with Oliver or life as a huge jungle feline. I'll leave the finale for you to discover when you check this one out for yourselves...


That's an odd-shaped fur ball.
There are some notable cameos from Dan "Night Court" Larroquette and Ray "Twin Peaks" Wise to mention. The always adorable Kinski is perfect here, exuding feline sensuality throughout the nearly two hour running time and bare-assed nearly as long, and I suppose McDowell is equally cattish, leaping about and preening himself when he isn't trying to slip 'Tass the brotherly bone. Speaking of sexies, Lynn Lowry also gets semi-nude for the cinematic cause, as per usual, as does O'Toole, who's in possession of the most impressive breasts of the lot, flat-chested McDowell included. Needless to say, the Giorgio Moroder score and familiar title track by Bowie are equally impressive. It's an odd, little movie that carves it's own erotic were-leopard thriller niche in the genre-drenched decade of the eighties, and holds up pretty well over thirty years later. Altered states will heighten your experience. Just sayin'. You'd do well to add a Shout! Factory copy to your collection immediately, if it isn't already there, that is. On the scale, People purrs it's way around my leg to three wops. Recommended.


Animal whisperer that I am, I'd put out a saucer o' milk for a sweet little stray like this one.

"The Crazies"(2010)d/Breck Eisner

I believe I went on record somewhere saying that,if Hollywood feels the need to cram an assload of rehashed retread remakes down our throats,they should at least remake films that would benefit from an update,and I'm pretty sure I cited George A. Romero's minor classic,The Crazies,as an example.Feel free to go back and scour the archives if you wanna.Of course,I enjoy the original just fine,but an actual budget certainly wouldn't have hurt it.So when I heard that Crazies was on the upcoming remake list,I actually wasn't sickened to my stomach for once by the news.With a competent director,a good cast,some impressive effects,a solid screenplay,a reimagining could have boosted the film's stock right into classic ground.As per usual,I wasn't that enthused,but remained cautiously optimistic while avoiding the big horror sites usual advance dicksucking and carefully calculated pimping for the studio,as that sort of stuff alone can turn me off of a film.If I want to see something,all the cookie cutter trailers that give away the whole plot in two minutes for the airheads in the audience and contrived teasers in the world aren't gonna intensify that for me.When positive reviews started returning on tonight's entry,I had my faithful and trusty roommate score us a copy for screening purposes,and the wheels were set in motion.
It's not a terrible movie,which is some sort of hollow victory for remakes,but it certainly isn't good,either.Eisner does a real paint-by-the-numbers job in the director's chair,fumbling every opportunity to rise above the original away like a wet bar of soap,instead embracing mediocrity like a twenty-five dollar head queen on tenth ave and forty sixth back in 1988.Script?Pretty pungent,absolutely zero backstory on any of the characters prior to getting dosed with Trixie whatsoever,and with the time they conserved by cutting to the chase,they manage to inject very little.The titular crazies really never go all that crazy.It's almost like the films makers must be mentally retarded,and upon watching the 1973 version,only managed to pull one idea from it."Pitchfork!That'll be really scary!"Because besides that particular scene,there's not a whole helluva lot really going on.Like the mongoloids responsible for the Black Christmas remake..."Eyeball!Pretty crystal unicorn!"Unless someone can prove me wrong,that's my prognosis and I'm sticking to it.

Ah, bravo Figaro!Bravo, bravissimo!Fortunatissimo per verità!
The sheriff(Olyphant) of Ogden Marsh,Iowa,"the friendliest place on earth"(I always thought that was Honey Pot,Pa.Either way,you gotta admit,it's a great name for a town.),has got his hands full.He's got a pregnant she-doctor(Mitchell) for a wife,it's the first day of spring,and the town's inhabitants have begun to show signs of infection by the Trixie virus,a government-born biological weapon accidentally unleashed on the populace after a plane goes down in a marsh that empties into a tributary that supplies the town's water aptly named for sewer worker Ed Norton's wife.I'm kidding about the last part.A shotgun-brandishing town drunk wanders onto the local baseball diamond,only to eat sheriff-inflicted,bullet-laden death after a very mild-pazzo off.Then a local farmer takes it upon himself to lock his wife and son in a closet as he douses his digs in gasoline and burns 'em to the ground while he cuts the grass,whistling.Some bufords hunting out of season discover the bloated,gaseous remains of a parachuting soldier in the bottoms,leading the lawman and his trusty deputy(Joe Anderson)to discover the wreckage of a massive government plane submerged in their swamp.With the government's chocolate in Ogden Marsh's peanut butter,the military is swift upon the scene to quarantine the infected,relocate the healthy,and generally push decent people around like they were ninety-eight lb beach weaklings.Meanwhile,back at the corpse house,the sheriff discovers the mortician has gone perma-crackers himself,sewing the eyes and mouths shut of living folks,and attacking him with a bone saw,nearly making him a her in the process(a bit Jackie Chan-esque here,I thought).

If Radha leans this way,she's got a clear view of the Beatles leaving the plane.
While in an insolation tent,strapped to a gurney,Judy,who's been split from her husband for a mistaken pregnancy fever,awakes to a military camp overtaken by the infected loons,one of which has a propensity for skewering people strapped down to gurneys with a pitchfork.Just before he can run the incapacitated medical practitioner,or her assistant,Becca(Danielle Panabaker),who happens to be strapped down herself,a few loons down,David and Russell show up on the scene and blow him to high heaven.The four then sneak their way through the decimated,burning city towards David's old cruiser up on blocks in his garage,stopping to watch Becca's boyfriend and his mother eat military lead and get fried like city chickens with a flame thrower.Once they get the sedan roadworthy,they duck into a car wash to avoid a military chopper,and encounter a cadre of kill-crazy cunts there,with Becca eating a violent hose-lynching in the process.And then there were three,and one of those,Russell,is showing subtle early signs of infection,so in true "take one for the team" fashion,gets himself blown away by soldiers so that David and his wife can escape.The two make their way to an abandoned truck stop where they make the grisly discovery that the troops have also been wiping out the healthy townspeople in a clean sweep,and after battling with some more nutjobs,they barely escape in an eighteen wheeler before the entire town of Ogden Marsh is leveled with a nuke.They walk towards Cedar Rapids where a satellite camera picks them up,with "initiate containment protocol" flashing on the screen.The end,or the cue for a direct-to-video sequel with neither of these actors featured?I'll let you be the judge.

No,you didn't leave your barbituates on my passenger seat.Fuck off,Bruce Dern.
Eisner,ironically,has three more higher profile remakes in the works,to the tune of Escape From New York,Cronenberg's The Brood,and Flash Gordon.I can only shake my head and shrug it off as a direct result of a Hollywood board meeting of talentless cretins high on psilocybin mushrooms,saying things like..."Dude,what's a good movie?""Uhhh,that Escape one with Stuntman Mike as the eyepatch dude with the rad gun...""Totally,brah!Let's remake that fucker..."Just wait til our giallo screenplay falls into the right pair of hands.Patience.Radha we've seen earlier in genre fare such as 2007's Rogue and Silent Hill a year before.Joe Anderson some of you will remember from Carter Smith's very weird The Ruins(2008).The lovely Panabaker saw some screen action in the Friday the 13th remake.There's also one brief cameo to note.While exploring the lifeless shell of the town,a woman rides by the sheriff on a bicycle,singing.This is none other than Lynn Lowry,star of the original,I Drink Your Blood,and various other seventies classics.Pretty nice touch,I gotta say,and exactly how a cameo should be handled.Too little,too late.On the ratings scale the new Crazies merits a single wop,and a 'script for mild anti-psychotics.

Looks like Jason Statham with a glue-on porn stache and some sort of veiny braille tree situation on his grillage.

"I Drink your Blood"(1971)d/David Durston

Ahh,those wonderful early seventies.America shuddered at the threat of other Manson-esque cults lurking in the shadows,the psychedelic power of L.S.D.,and hippies' free love which chipped away at the moral fiber of our country from the inside.Director David Durston capitalized on all of these when he served up "I Drink your Blood"(originally titled "Phobia")to eager drive-in crowds in 1971,scoring an underground classic that successfully played on those fears,and remains a zany,over-the-top favorite to this day.

"Satan was an acidhead!"and from the looks of it,clothes bummed him out,too.
Freaky Hindu Bhaskar leads a troop of hallucinogen-drenched hippie burnouts whose groovy van breaks down in a small community,forcing the far out Satan-diggers to hole up in a local barn,where they drop some acid,strip out of their bell-bottoms,and brutalize/gang rape a curious female onlooker,spurring on an investigation by the girl's grandfather,who also gets roughed up and sent packing,after they dose him too,much to the dismay of his pre-teen grandson,a future conservative republican if ever there was one,who decides to take revenge by infecting the town's meatpies with rabies from a dead dog in the woods(!)then feeding the pies to the unsuspecting devil worshippers.Suddenly the outta sight bunch is frothing at the mouth,spreading the contagion amongst the innocent townsfolk,and embarking on a hallucinogenic murder spree!

Mrs. Lovett's got nothing on this little rascal.
Hands get sliced off with electric knives(remember those?for people too lazy to cut their own meat...),heads get chopped off,swords are swallowed,rats get barbequed on a spit,stabbings,hangings,Oriental Dragon Ladies douse themselves in gasoline and set themselves ablaze,and all the while dainty Lynn Lowry doesn't utter one line of dialogue!In the end,the local heros discover that the rabid antagonists,like ALL hippies really,have a loathsome fear of water,and turn the tide with a common garden hose...Or do they?

Take "yo momma" jokes too far,and this is what happens.
Before Box Office Spectaculars re-released a deluxe edition on dvd last year,the out-of-print multi-autographed original(complete with the late Cobra Dancing Paki,Bhaskar) went for upwards of three hundred samoleans on eBay.A throwback to the glory days of diabolical drive-in horror double features,this one will have you waxing nostalgic for pounding beers in a classic muscle car,while your date stocks up on Nardone's pizza at the concession stand,later to be given the extensive "back seat tour" once you're properly plastered enough.No horror collection is complete without it,so run out and grab one while the grabbing's good!

David Spade's disembodied head?You decide!
Four out of four B.W.'s