No.239 : The Foreigner (2017)

The Foreigner at the IMDb

Jackie Chan sorting out the troubles in Northern Ireland sounds like a recipe for disaster but this was a really enjoyable and well made thriller.

Jackie, looking all of his 63 years, plays a restaurant worker in London. He is protective of his daughter but lets her head into a dress shop as he parks his car. Huge mistake! The dress shop explodes killing the daughter and several others. An adjacent bank has been bombed taking the frock shop out in the process.

We see the investigation going on, along side the cell of IRA bombers celebrating their success. They are the ‘Authentic IRA’ and are keen to derail the peace process in their bid for a united Ireland. Pierce Brosnan plays a Gerry Adams type government minister who used to be in the IRA but now works to try and maintain the fragile peace. His bosses in London charge him with finding those responsible but we suspect early on that Pierce knows more than he’s letting on.

Meanwhile a grieving Jackie is looking for answers. He is initially fobbed off by the police and Brosnan but they don’t realise who they are dealing with - it’s Jackie Chan for goodness sake! Jackie spots Pierce’s likely involvement early on and gets his attention by setting off a home made bomb in his office toilet - must have had extra chillies in the Madras.

There are a lot of twists and double dealing but eventually the terrorist cell is identified; but what are their targets, who is giving the orders and can a quest for revenge ever end well?

This film rattled along at a great pace and it boasted excellent performances from its two leads. Brosnan was especially good in his most Irish outing since ‘Taffin’. His Nord Iron accent did slip at times but he was good value as the sleekit minister unable to detach himself from his past. He had some good lines calling Chan ‘a fookin’ wanker’ at one point.

Chan kept away from his usual wisecracks and elaborate fight scenes, playing a more introspective character who was like a force of nature flying through endless Irish henchmen. There were fights of course, but they were pretty brutal with Chan himself taking plenty of licks.

The action scenes were well done, as you’d expect from Bond director, Martin Campbell and the plot was twisty without ever being confusing or needlessly complex.

The rights and wrongs of the political situation weren’t really addressed with the murder of women and children being condemned and only the rogue cell being the out and out and out bad guys. Brosnan’s was a conflicted character who had our sympathies at the start but his façade was slowly pulled down by Chan’s interventions until he was revealed as the villain of the piece, albeit with decent initial intentions.

The only thing I didn’t like was the title which makes the film sound like some BNP propaganda effort. The words ‘the foreigner’ are never used and Chan says at one point he’s a British citizen. I guess the original book title ‘The Chinaman’ was rejected as it sounds a bit racist. What not call it ‘Chan v Bond : Irish Style’? I’d have definitely watched it before now if it had been!

THE Tag Line : Well Maybe You Should Be Watching This! 80%

 

No.238 : The Teacher (1974)

The Teacher (1974) at the IMDb

The wonderfully named Angel Tompkins stars as the titular teacher who does no teaching but offers plenty of the rest. The film opens slowly with it reaching nearly 11 minutes before we get our first line of dialogue : “Damn”. We watch teacher Diane get ready and head out in her sweet Tran-Am. Meanwhile creepy Ralph is stalking her in his hearse - subtle! Diane heads to her cabin cruiser ‘Diane’ and takes it out into the middle of the harbour where she whips off her top for some chilly looking sunbathing. Ralph has a vantage point staked out and enjoys a bit of peeping at Diane through his binoculars.

Sadly for Ralph, his perving is interrupted when is brother Lou and friend Sean show up for some peeping of their own - they should have set up a turnstile! Ralph isn’t happy and charges the late coming perverts and Lou falls to his death. Sean runs off but is later warned by Ralph to say nothing to the cops. 

Sean has recently left school and is on friendly terms with Diane who is all alone now that her racing driver husband has left the scene. She has designs on young Sean and invites him over to help her ‘clean out her garage’ - that’s a new euphemism on me. After a quick start Diane and Sean start to see each other, much to the outrage of the locals , although his Mom is pretty cool about it all. Ralph isn’t though, and stalks the couple with his menacing bayonet in hand.

Things inevitably come to a head with Sean kidnapped by Ralph, with Diane in hot pursuit - who will survive and is there enough time for her to get her top off again?

This was a dreadfully poor and cheap looking exploitation flick, but it wasn’t without it’s charms. I liked Anthony James, whom we know from ‘W’ Classics ‘World Gone Wild’ and ‘Wacko’ as the crazed stalker Ralph. He had a weird coffin full of stuff including a Chekov’s gun to go with his hearse and he was ‘weirdo’ personified. There was a funny scene where he went into his coffin of tricks and next minute he’s in a frogman suit eyeing our couple having sex on their boat.

Angel Tomkins was decent in the main role as the sex mad and poor judgement burdened Diane, who had a succession of bikini tops that she just had to keep shedding. ‘Dennis the Menace’ Jay North was less good and his floundering was annoying.

Down the cast, the players looked like they were working for beer with Sean’s Dad especially bad. The film ran a long 100 minutes with a lot of padding generously provided. Frolicking in the swimming pool is fine but five minutes of it didn’t advance the plot an inch! There were scenes where awkward silences were interrupted by non-sequitors and it looked improvised to no real effect, apart from adding to the amateur vibe.

The nihilistic ending seemed unnecessary but I guess that’s the genre - blood and boobs with no learnings to be had!

THE Tag Line : You’ll Learn Nothing!  61%

 

No.237 : The Hitcher (2007)

 

The Hitcher (2007) at the IMDb

Why bother with classic Definite Article films when there’s a crappy remake to look over? I’ve not seen the Rutger Hauer version in ages, but I remember it to be a slow burn, with subtle malevolent terror building before a satisfying climax. This remake had none of that but it did have a man being pulled apart by a truck and an non-exploding helicopter.

Our hero couple are Grace and Jim. They are headed across country for spring break, with their early character traits being he’s a bit of a douche and she likes going to the toilet a lot. The opening credits meander along for ages as they slowly leave the city and head into New Mexico where the roads are quiet and the filming incentives seemingly quite generous.

They narrowly avoid hitting a man hitching for a lift by his broken down car and drive off as he approaches them for assistance. This seems a wise move but they then stop at a local gas station as she needs the toilet - again! Inevitably the hitchhiker catches up with them and don’t you know it, it’s good old affable Sean Bean. Jim agrees to take Sean to a nearby hotel despite Grace giving him the stink eye for offering - well Bean is notorious for hogging the stereo.

Grace’s misgivings prove correct when Sean, after asking after the couple’s sex life, pulls a knife and a struggle ensures. The couple manage to kick Sean out of their fast moving car but unfortunately for them they have already divulged their travel plans and he has Grace‘s old Nokia phone.

As you’d probably guess he stalks their every move, with their car soon getting totalled after a failed attempt to warn a family about Sean’s stabbing ways. The two continue on foot and are soon picked up by the police. Safety at last! Not really, as Sean Terminators his way through the whole station causing our kids to flee into the wilderness. After some more gratuitous blood letting the police, with their leader Neil McDonough , arrest our pair as Sean has cleverly framed them.

Sean doesn’t want to leave the film however, so he explodes all the police cars and a helicopter (off screen) and again our kids are fighting for their lives. How many more must die? Can the scriptwriter be next?!

This was a total waste of time and derivative trash but it will probably raise the odd smile with you as it did with me. It is so ridiculous and over the top it was no surprise to see Michael Bay’s name in the credits. There is a great scene where Sean roars up in his black Trans-am and takes on three fully laden cop cars and a helicopter. Unfortunately for the police their cars weren’t fitted with gravity as they immediately start flying in the air as Sean pops his pistol at them.

Bean is a decent actor but he lacks the presence of Rutger and his character’s lack of backstory just made him dull rather than enigmatic. The two leads were forgettable with the girl especially poor as she tried to kick ass with a shotgun but only managed to pull off ‘slightly daft looking’ instead.

There were plenty of killings and gore if that’s your thing, but for me it was a bit too on the nose with Bean being a force of nature, killing everyone with a single shot whilst being invulnerable himself.

This one pales next to the original, but as a throwaway on Amazon Prime it does have its moments and doesn’t ask too much of you as it delivers them.

The Tag Line : Give It a Ride!  55%

No.236 : The Overnight (2015)

First world problems now, as four yuppies spend a night worrying about their genitals and whether the bottle of wine they’ve brought is an acceptable gift.

Adam Scott and her off ’Orange is the New Black’ star as Alex and Emily, a Seattle couple who have recently moved to L.A. with their young son. They are having trouble with their sex life due to their kid bursting in at the wrong moment and for reasons that are explored later on.

They have had trouble making friends in their first two week as Angelinos, but things look up when they are approached by Jason Schwartzman after his and their kids start playing together. Jason seems a bit of a douche but they agree to go over to his later for a playdate with their kids and so the adults can enjoy some pizza - and a night they’ll never forget!

Things start out OK,  but gradually get stranger as Jason shows off his ‘butthole’ paintings and his wife’s hit breast feeding video. The hipster couple notice some reticence on the part of Alex and Emily when they refuse to go skinny dipping with them, especially when exposed to Jason’s extra large, and clearly fake dong. Alex admits he has a small penis and is ashamed of it. After some illicit substances and a pep talk from Jason he bares all and the couples get closer and closer.

How will the long night end and what will we learn about those involved?

This was an enjoyable if somewhat slight film that was shot over 12 days and takes place almost exclusively in a fancy L.A. house. There are no big set pieces or special effects and it is basically the four characters hitting off each other and gradually giving more and more away. I liked the slow burn with the breast feeding DVD the first inkling that things may not be as mundane as we initially thought.

The skinny dipping scene was funny, but they shouldn’t have used such obviously fake cocks as that took us straight out of any reality the film had earned. I’d imagine the two name actors wanted it to be clear and obvious that the tackle on display was not theirs.

There were a couple of laughs though, and not too much focus on relationships, which was a relief. I liked how the weirdness of the L.A. couple was just taken as a given with each outrageous revelation being met with barely a shrug.

The ending was somewhat unexpected and quite brave given what had gone before. Our uptight heroes did unwind very quickly but I guess a mixture of space cake and built up repression will do that for you.

Overall an enjoyable ensemble piece with good performances and a funny script that zinged along, without too many life lessons being offered.

THE Tag Line : Rubber Chicken? No, It’s a Cock  67%

No.235 : The Irishman (2019)

 

The Irishman at the IMDb

I’d put off watching ‘The Irishman’ due to its infamous length of over three hours, but having watched it in two sessions it just flew by and it’s certainly one you should look up. That said it could have done with some serious editing with a lot of stuff padded out, or not really necessary to tell the story.

The Irishman of the title is Frank Sheeran, a hit man and union leader played by Robert De Niro. We meet him at first in an old folks home where he’s recounting his story to an unseen person. His story dissolves to a flashback where he, Joe Pesci and their wives are heading to a wedding. Their car breaks down and De Niro and Pesci reminisce about how they first met. So the flashback becomes a further flashback to the days when De Niro was a truck driver and Pesci a gang boss.

De Niro soon rises through the ranks of the local mob by ‘painting houses’ a euphemism for whacking people, normally with a couple of shots in the back of the head meaning their walls get a nice bit of decoration. Pesci's mob boss works closely with the Teamsters trucking union which is run by Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) and De Niro is loaned to him to help out with some business. He later becomes a union organiser himself and as the years pass we witness their involvement in the Bay of Pigs and Kennedy assassination amongst other dubious events.

Meanwhile De Niro is estranged from his four daughters, mainly because he’s such a big psycho that beats up the local grocer and for all the murders. The pivotal event of the film is the famous disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa and it is covered in some detail. Seemingly the facts are disputed but the film certainly hitches its wagon to real life confession of Frank.

We meet loads of other gangsters and the film helpfully adds captions giving their names and how they met their demise - not many died of natural causes! Eventually we are back in the care home with De Niro nearing the end of his days with all his contemporaries having gone before him. Can he find redemption from the church and can he reconcile with his family?

This was a great film that was very much in the same style as ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘Casino’. I don’t think it was as good as those films, but they do set a high mark. Essentially you get a trip through 40 years of gangland violence and racketeering set against the soundtrack of the time. It is well documented that the three leads were de-aged by computer and the effect was generally good. I didn’t buy that the 70 year old plus actors were in their 40s but they certainly didn’t look their years.

The sets and costumes were great and the evocation of the eras depicted was well done. The film was too long however, and I think it could have been boiled down to two hours or at least turned into a 4 part mini series. The depiction of Hoffa’s last hours went on for an age and I don’t see what all the talk of a fish did to help the flow of the scenes. You could say it built tension, but I was losing interest as they rambled on about whether it was a cod or halibut.

There were some great supporting performances too with people like Stephen Graham, Jessie Plemons, Bobbie Cannavale and an under used Harvey Keitel all getting a look in.

Overall the film is worth the investment of your time. I think director Martin Scorsese was probably given too much of a free hand as the film was allowed to ramble and go off into irrelevant tangents, so maybe a non-director’s cut is the one to look out for!

Best Bit : Grocer gets checked out    75%

No.234 : The Freebie (2011)

 

The Freebie at the IMDb

Here we are with a strong contender for the worst Definite Article film of all! This was a ghastly effort that was predictable, dull and irritating in equal measures.

Starring Dax Shepard, whom we liked in ‘Employee of the Month’, this is an achingly trendy independent film that follows the emotional angst of a young couple, Annie and Darren. The two haven’t had sex in living memory and are worried that their relationship has lost its spark. At a dinner party, with their equally douche bag friends, they discuss being free and what it would be like to have sex with someone else and see a person, other than your partner, naked.

At this point I thought they were going to let each other have a freebie (the clue is in the title) and then their relationship would flounder over jealousy and recriminations. That is exactly what happened; but it was even worse - we were also treated to a good half hour of our unlikeable pair yelling at each other and name calling, before reconciling. 

After the agreement was reached the two head out on their respective quest for their hole and here were found the only bits of the film that were half decent. Both had been out of the dating game for some time and their clumsy manoeuvring was quite fun. Dax hooks up with a barista he’d flirted with and Annie takes a bar tender into the bogs.

Both get hot and heavy but it is left unclear whether either or both actually sealed the deal. Back at home jealousy takes over with  Dax being a total dick and calling Annie a slut. Hypocrite warning! The relationship starts to shatter and sobbing and name calling continue for far too long. Annie then says she didn’t go through with the dirty deed, but we don’t know if this is true or whether she is just trying to salvage the marriage which is frankly moribund already. As the film ends the pair are back together but can what has been done and said ever be forgotten?

This film played out like some pretentious actors’ workshop. It looked like it wasn’t scripted with them just yelling random stuff at each other. There was basically no plot either with the whole thing a tiresome examination of relationships and moral values. I could see some tosspots at a workshop musing over the characters’ motivations and problem people having a good old inward search as a result of being exposed to this effort.

The film used a non-linear narrative to throw clips of the nights out into the contemporaneous discussions of them. The idea here was to drip feed us ‘evidence’ but it just made the film a jumbled mess.

For me it was dull and predictable with the added ingredient of spending 77 minutes with unlikeable people with their first world, self-manufactured problems. I guess the motivation here was to ask the viewer ’what would you do?’ - easy response - Don’t watch this guff. 

The Tag Line : Don’t Watch This Guff!  12%

No.233 : The Hustler (1961)

 

The Hustler at the IMDb

I’d seen ‘The Hustler’ a couple of times before, most notably during my quest to see all of the films in the IMDb top 250. A change in the voting criteria means that I have now only seen 227/250 of the films on the list and ‘The Hustler’ is nowhere to be found. It’s probably ‘bubbling under’ as it has an 8.0 rating the same as the last 25 or so films on the list. I gave it an 8 myself and it’s well worth these high marks. That said, it wasn’t as good as I remembered it with the period between matches is a bit long and populated by the needy girlfriend.

Anyway, as you no doubt know, Paul Newman stars as ‘Fast’ Eddie Felson a pool shark with ambitions to be the best. The film opens with them hustling some rubes, with the drunk salesman routine - a scene that was only bettered in ‘Kingpin’ - I think I am punctilious in that assessment. The scam works fine and Eddie and his partner make a decent, if transitory living. It’s not enough for Eddie though, who dreams of beating the best - Jackie Gleason’s Minnesota Fats. Bit sizeist that.

With a big enough bankroll Eddie gets the match and quickly shows that he has what it takes to beat the best. He lacks character and stamina however and after he gets drunk, Fats takes him for nearly all his cash in a 25 hour marathon. Eddie and Charlie go their separate ways, with Eddie falling into the arms of alcoholic Piper Laurie. The two have a pretty abusive time but bond when a hustle goes awry and Eddie gets his thumbs broken.

As he recovers he vows to prove he’s the best and, with the questionable help of George C. Scott as his manager, a second match with Fats is on the horizon. Will Eddie win the day or do tragedy and his own demons wait in the wings? Probably going to be the second one isn’t it?

This is a cracker of a film, even if you don’t like the manly world of pool halls and heavy drinking. The pool action is fantastic and they must have shot miles of footage to get the sequences of shots that the actors execute without an edit. There was no explanation of the rules and I wasn’t clear what variant of pool they were playing - no one ever said ‘I’m on stripes’. Being in black and white it would probably have been a waste of time anyway and you just have to accept the characters know what they are doing.

Newman and Gleason were excellent as the stick wielding sluggers with Fats never sweating or looking a stich out of place. Newman in comparison went through the wringer with him looking convincing when he was dead beat or getting beaten up. Laurie was a bit annoying as the doomed love interest and George C. Scott could have yelled less and shown more menace.

At 135 minutes the film was longer that I remembered it, with a large fallow section in the middle where you are just willing Eddie to get back to the pool hall. He and Laurie were both doomed and reckless characters and you just knew a happy ending was never on the cards for them.

The bar room smoke and sleaze was well executed and you got a real feel for the gritty desperation on show.

I’ll probably check back on ‘The Hustler’ again one day and will no doubt get something different from it then too. A great period piece and a sports picture to match any other. Except ‘Kingpin’.

THE Tag Line : Rack ‘Em Up! 80%

No.232 : The Klansman (1974)

 

The Klansman at the IMDb

Well, this should be good - a 70’s thriller starring Lee Marvin and Richard Burton. Actually no, this is probably one to avoid given that possession of a copy would probably be classed as a hate crime. The film has seemingly fallen into the public domain as the copyright wasn’t renewed, probably due to the potential embarrassment ownership of the film would confer.

Still we’re no snowflakes here at the Definitive Blog and censorship is never a good thing so let’s have a look. The film starts well with sheriff Lee Marvin driving along to a funky Stax Records soundtrack. Sadly he soon arrives  at the scene of a boorish mob cheering on a retarded fat black man who is pulling the clothes off a terrified woman. Rather than arrest everyone Marvin sends them home after making sure the simpleton gets his $1 pay day.

The Alabama county does however sit up and take notice when Linda Evans gets raped in her car by an unseen assailant. The Ku Klux Klan decide it was probably a black man who did the crime and they set off for a good old fashioned Southern lynching. They chance upon OJ Simpson and his pal and, although OJ gets away (again!), his friend gets shot up after a frankly pointless castration.

Meanwhile aged landowner with indeterminate accent Richard Burton is in bed with his sexy naked girlfriend. Richard looks the worse for wear but is wearing his natty pjs. His girlfriend wants to get married and isn’t happy that Burton is hosting an civil rights activist fearing that he’ll will be after her ‘chocolate milk’. Think he’s after something stronger, Love.

OJ is hell bent on revenge and dresses up as a Klansman to lure out and kill one of the good old boys. To further make his point the shoots the bloke carrying the flaming cross at his first victim’s funeral. Marvin knows OJ is the killer but is either a bit lazy or happy to let things sort themselves out.

Burton moves in Linda Evans after the townsfolk cast her out for getting raped and also helps the activist Loretta after she gets raped too. Bit of a theme developing here?

Eventually things come to a head and sides have to be picked. As a mass of walking bed sheets approach Burton’s mansion we have to guess who will survive and will racism be solved for good?

If you hadn’t seen this film you wouldn’t believe it existed. First off, the two leads are pissed throughout, with staggering and slurred dialogue the norm. There is one fantastic scene near the end where Burton, and his poorly matched stuntman beat up a tough with a variety of karate chops. It is laugh out loud funny but does distract from the drama somewhat.

Marvin’s motivation is confused throughout, with him looking on impotently as rapes and murders are happening all over town. He has a son going to West Point so he may be trying to break the cycle of local idiocy, but he’s too steaming to convey any emotion or impassioned pleas.

The politics are probably well meaning, with the Klan members depicted as a bunch of red necks. It is quite a broad brush approach however, especially when rape victim Evans gets the ire of the townsfolk when she dares to show her face in church after being raped.

There are plenty of murders and the pace is reasonable, but you really can’t condone a film where rape and murder are abundant but dwarfed by endless racial abuse. The baddies may get their comeuppance, at a price, but you’ll feel like a good scrub having sat through this whole cavalcade of horrors.

The TAG Line : How Not to Manage Race Relations 40%

No.231 : The Woodsman (2004)

 

The Woodsman at the IMDb

It’s a brave choice to have a convicted paedophile as your protagonist especially when it’s a self confessed one like Walter, who still has the urge.

Walter has zero degrees of Kevin Bacon and we meet him as he’s discharged from prison from a 12 year stretch for child molestation. He picks up his old job at a woodworking factory with his former boss’s son letting him know he needs to keep it zipped up.

Walter also checks in with his therapist, blog favourite Michael Shannon, and gets visited by slow talking cop Mos Def, who doesn’t believe that Walter, or indeed any kiddie fiddler, is capable of being reformed.

The woodworking shop seems a great place to work, as the creepy Walter quickly gets two ladies coming onto him. He rebuffs the first’s offer of a chicken sandwich but ends up in bed with the second, Bacon’s real life wife Kyra Sedgwick. He has made the right choice, but the spurned chicken sandwich lady makes trouble for Walter by letting his past be known to all.

Strangely Walter’s new flat looks onto a children’s play park, but it is just the correct number of feet from him to be deemed safe. It also lets him watch the children and a suspect bloke he christens ’Candy’ who is taking an unnatural interest in the little boys - takes one to know one is clearly the message.

Walter’s relationship takes a stumble when he confesses to Kyra about his past but they get back together when he reveals details of his sordid activities - having little girls sit on you lap apparently isn’t so bad. Can Walter escape his urges and will he turn from villain to hero as Candy graduates from sweetie distribution to full on molesting?

This was a difficult film to watch, with some uncomfortable scenes, but overall it was excellent and thought provoking. I liked how Walter wasn’t drawn in black and white and Bacon did well showing his character struggling with his urges. At first we thought he’d reformed but there was a scene near the end where he skirts close to the edge which will have you watching it through your fingers.

Shannon was underused and wore a bad wig and I wasn’t buying Mos Def as the copper, but the rest of the cast were great as was the writing which kept me guessing. The film could have gone a couple of ways, but I liked the outcome and the hope for redemption. ‘The Woodcutter’ of the title is the man who frees the children from the wolf’s stomach - is Walter the axe man or the wolf?

The lines drawn weren’t clear and, although a self confessed nonce, you still retained some sympathy for Walter and his unhealthy struggles which is testament to the quality of the writing and the sizzling performance from Bacon.

Not an easy watch, but a worthwhile and thought provoking one.

The Tag Line - Got Wood? Run Away! 74%

No.230 : The Blob (1958)

 

The Blob at the IMDb

Every one loves Steve McQueen, but what about this early offering for ‘Steven McQueen’? Well I can tell you it’s dreadful and Steve rightly dropped the ‘N’ to avoid association with this turkey. To be fair it would probably never have seen light after its initial release if it wasn’t for the appearance of the star man who was 'a getting on a bit' 28 when the film was made.

Steven plays ‘Steve’ a high school kid out on a no nonsense date with his stuffy girlfriend. They see a meteor land and go to have a look. Meanwhile the object has already been found by a hill billy farmer who pokes it with a broom handle. Huge mistake as a blob of jelly affixes itself to his arm. He goes running about in the road and is picked up by Steve who administers the time honoured cure of putting a jacket over him.

They head into town and dump the old coot with a doctor who summons his nurse to help. Soon the two are absorbed by the blob which is gaining size and a reddish colour. Steve meanwhile wastes ten minutes facing off some dudes who want a drag race but eventually he realises the blob is a threat to the town and starts to annoy the police. He narrowly escapes its blobby clutches when hiding out in a meat freezer (remember that for later!) before the blob heads to a movie theatre for some people popcorn.

After some off screen horror the police and the fire department show up, but Steve, his date, a cute kid and some Italian stereotypes are trapped in a diner which is now enveloped in the massive blob. Can they be saved and can this red menace be defeated?

This was a laughable piece of nonsense, but it was also boring and badly acted. The special effects were very poor with the blob being either shown in forced perspective or in a form of animation that Walt Disney’s dog could have bettered.

McQueen shows none of the charisma he’s later known for and looks too skinny and old for the high school hero role. He isn’t helped much by a uniformly dreadful cast who look like they have been pulled off the street to deliver their stilted dialogue.

I’m not sure if there was a metaphor in place here - the red menace was a bit on the nose and it was hardly a clever ‘body snatchers’ type analogy. Basically what you get is people screaming and being absorbed off screen. At one point the police chief says ‘it must have killed at least 50 or 60 people’  thanks very much for the zero we saw - even the dog escaping wasn’t shown, and only mentioned.

I was surprised the film was in colour, but apart from that it was just as dreadful as I’d imagined and I just wish I’d kept avoiding it. You may get some jollies laughing at the rubbish special effects and some early McQueen embarrassment, but I’d advise that you avoid ‘The Blob’ - not to avoid absorption but to avoid boredom.

THE Tag Line : Bad Job Blob  32%

No.229 : The Aftermath (1982)

 

The Aftermath at the IMDb

This would be an easy film to rip to shreds with its poor production values, terrible acting and shocking script but it was so rubbish that you can’t help but enjoy it.

We open in space with three astronauts returning fro a year long mission. They blame a radio malfunction for a lack of communication and possibly for one actor being on a different set than the other two. Their spaceship model judders along on its string as it makes the hazardous decent back to earth. They manage to crash in the sea, just outside of Los Angeles, the plan being lots of people will notice them and come out to help.

Sadly no one witnesses their spectacular crash landing which must have been a waste of the fifty pence spent on the special effects. One actor manages to escape the film by dying but the other two are separated as they swim towards the beach. Our hero, Newman, is first ashore and thinks he has found some help, but alas his sunbathers forgot the Factor 50 and are all burnt out corpses.

He soon ties up with injured comrade, Mathews, and the two set up a camp only to be attacked by some blokes in Halloween masks. As they fight them off we follow a parallel storyline which sees some brigands attack a group of clean looking survivors and kidnap the woman after killing the men and children. Their leader ‘Cutter’ likes to laugh diabolically and never misses a chance to do so. Meanwhile we learn the fate that has befallen mankind has led to an acute shortage of bras.

Our two astronauts, now shaved and in civilian clothes, split up and Newman stumbles into a museum where the curator gives out loads of exposition before expiring and leaving our hero in charge of a young boy, Chris. The two bond and soon meet up with the lovely Sarah whom we earlier saw escaping from Cutter’s busy hands. They carry out an attack on Cutter’s base and free a mother and her daughter and, for a while, a brave new start seems possible.

Alas, the production finds another vat of fake blood to spill to we are left to guess who will survive the film and will anyone in the whole exercise ever work again?

This was a gawd awful film with some of the poorest acting you’ll ever see. Different film stocks appear throughout - often in the same scene and characters fire shots in daylight that hit targets at night. The budget appears to have been blown on squibs and fake blood, as the sets, models and costumes are as poor as you will ever see.

The timeline doesn’t make any sense with the astronauts only a way a year yet the children have known nothing other than the poorly acted horror they inhabit. Pristine jeeps are abundant, but the city model is a burnt out shell. One big fight moves from the desert to the city rooftops which show no damage whatsoever.

Picking nits would be too easy however, in a film where you could pick out rhinos and still leave bigger stuff behind. 

The hero character ‘Newman’ was played by the same bloke who wrote the script and directed the film so it’s almost a proto ‘The Room’. The only minor talent on show is Sid Haig as the villainous Cutter who just laughs a lot and does some dry humping - a good way to easy fifty bucks I guess!

Not a film to recommend but if you have time to kill, find it on Amazon Prime for a few laughs and some outrageous bad behaviour!

THE Tagline : You’ll Be Lucky to Survive This!  52%