Bobo Calling

 

About every 9 episodes or so of any Law & Order installment, something truly beautiful happens. The detectives are investigating some clue, maybe a leftover receipt or diary entry, when they find themselves entering the kind of storefront you can smell from behind your television screen. 

The shop proprietor is almost always a portly, fiftysomething man with a belly bursting out of his stained silky shirt's bottom and chest hair knotted through a gold chain or three. If we're lucky, he's eating a sandwich.

The kind of sandwich that makes a movie mortician drool.

Our ridiculously good-looking detectives are never charmed, not by his affable manner nor offer for a discount on some new gold watches. "Cut the crap," they say, only to prompt the kind of sentence that calls for a cheer and toast.

"I RUN A LEGITIMATE BUSINESS."

Sometimes the show does a remix, putting the same words in the perfectly lipsticked mouth of a well-dressed madam insisting her escort agency provides companionship without anything illicit. It hits just as hard. 

Anyway, can't say WHY I thought of that when watching Out of the Dark. Is it because we have TWO instances of this? And they come in the form of Paul Bartel as a seedy motel manager and Karen Black as a glorious manager at a phone sex hotline?

Quick Plot: It's a regular late night at Suite Nothings, where beautiful women humor their callers while filing their nails and reviewing their taxes. The job is fairly easy, though nobody enjoys it when frequent customer Bobo rings in to discuss mutilation while referring to himself in the third person.

Employee Jo Ann leaves the office for a late night dog walk and stumbles upon a playful man dressed in a clown mask. While most single ladies would quickly exit that kind of situation, this one plays along until he brutally murders her. 

The detectives are on the case, though not before Bobo kills again. Some signs point to Kevin, Suite Nothings' Kristi's photographer boyfriend. There's also Stringer, the weird little accountant who helps the ladies get maximum state and federal returns. Since he's played by Bud Cort, you certainly can't rule him out.

Out of the Dark is an odd little film. There's a sort of New York Ripper-ness about its attitude towards violence against women in that it wants us to find its killer pathetic, but the actual reveal is so clunky and nonsensical that it left me more confused than triumphant. It also suffers from underserving its charismatic cast. Karen Black has one scene of character building establishing her as a fascinating working mother going through a messy divorce, and...well...that never comes up again. There's an interesting dynamic between the female detective who sees things far more clearly than her older, embittered, and very male partner, but guess who gets to save the day?

Ultimately, there's a whole lot that is deeply unsatisfying about how Out of the Dark ends. At the same time, you get Divine!

It's a mixed bag. I enjoyed this movie more than its quality probably should allow. Make of that what you will!

High Points

I wouldn't call Out of the Dark a feminist masterpiece, but director Michael Schroeder does a refreshing job of showcasing his sex workers as smart, fun, and simply cool women. It's not the kind of thing I expect from a 1980s slasher

Low Points

I know cultural sensitivity is an evolving thing, but in any world, was it necessary to play mariachi music during the one scene of dialogue with a Mexican woman?

Lessons Learned

Nobody gives great accounting quite like a weirdo

Animated creatures weren't in demand for phone sex in the late '80s

When in doubt, stick with the utility stocks

Rent/Bury/Buy

Out of the Dark doesn't really come together in the end, but it's a genuinely fun ride along the way. The film treats its female characters well (well, when not killing them) and has enough familiar faces to satisfy fans of camp. Fun fact: I watched the first half of this on Shudder, then turned on that network the next day to find out it was no longer available. Thankfully, if there was ever a movie that screamed, "this is probably on Tubi," it's Out of the Dark. So find it there!

Who's the Winonyaest of Them All?

Amazon Prime may have been slow to the streaming game, but BOY are they currently doing wonders for horror fans with questionable taste!

Quick Plot: Megan is an LA goth kid whose Beetlejuice-Era-Winonya-Ryder-Meets-Madonna-With-Hints-of-Boy-George style isn't exactly embraced in her new suburban high school. Only Nikki, a friendly overachiever with a horny boyfriend and a Tracy Flick-ish ambition to be school president, makes an effort to befriend the city girl. They quickly bond over a shared nemesis-ship with the school's reigning mean girls, although Megan becomes distracted quickly by something far more sinister at home.

With daffy widowed mom Karen Black too busy trying to find a husband, Megan bonds with the antique full-length mirror that had been left behind in her new room. The relationship intensifies when the lonely goth girl discovers the mirror can help her wreak vengeance on her enemies in especially creative ways.

Directed by Marina Sargenti (who like most female filmmakers, went on to primarily work in television), Mirror Mirror seems to be collecting all of the leftover, soon-to-be-expired goofiness of '80s horror before the world was willing to admit that 1990 was a new decade. As slashers and supernatural scares slowly faded from the big screen before being uprooted by post-Scream slickness, movies with the kind of goofy gore like Mirror Mirror would become an endangered species whose only refuge was Blockbuster shelves.

Mirror/Mirror is far from being an original tale. Rainbow Harvest's Megan could not look more like the costume department camped outside of Tim Burton's dumpster in the hopes of finding some scraps of Lydia Deetz that they could spin into their lead's ensemble, and the popular queen bees feel ripped off any high school assembly line. At the same time, this is a movie that includes a scene where ditzy Karen Black tries to charm the pet cemetery dead animal retriever (played by William Sanderson, no less) with a romantic home dinner while fending off an fly infestation caused by an evil mirror. 

And hey, that's not even the best scene IN this film! Among other moments of joy, we get a jock being eaten by said evil mirror, the film's popular villain being burned in an evil mirror-induced shower, and Ned Ryerson being doodled to near death (see note below; it makes perfect sense, trust me). Mirror Mirror is never scary, but it's fun in a way that somehow manages to balance today's camp with an earnestness of its time.

High Points

Something I appreciated about Mirror/Mirror is how Meghan, despite being our main character, is kind of a jerk. Yes, we feel bad for her and hate the Heathers who immediately mark her as a social target, but while she may be lonely and sympathetic, she has a somewhat complicated mean streak of her own, cruelly ignoring her mother's feelings when her dogs turn up dead and savoring her newfound murderous power without much regret. Nikki is the moral heart of the film (and an incredibly pleasant one at that), but I simply found it interesting to center a fairly formulaic horror film on a more-complicated-than-usual character. 

Low Points

I suppose I could have taken a clearer commitment to tone, since the film never fully decides whether it's tongue is in its cheek or not

Lessons Learned

If your friends are dropping dead around you, be sure to make yourself the best sandwich in the world, just in case it ends up being your last meal

Psychiatrists are VERY Beverly Hills

Putting your hand down a garbage disposal is a choice you make only if you have no affection whatsoever for the hand that will inevitably be destroyed by said garbage disposal

In world before online dating, one could always count on pet cemeteries as a great way to meet a potential partner

Look! It's - 

Stephen Tobolowsky, in the very typical Stephen Tobolwsky role of a square teacher who gets his comeuppance via angry voodoo teenage girl doodling

And Look CLOSE! It's- 

Kristin Dattilo, a name that excites that very small but enthusiastic audience segment who knows Days of Our Lives' Lucas Robert-Horton's real-life sister/the chick who played the single teenage mom Brandon Walsh dated briefly in Season 1 of Beverly Hills 90210 when they see her!

Rent/Bury/Buy

Mirror Mirror isn't a particularly good movie, but it's incredibly fun and EXTREMELY of its time in the best possible way. Like most films streaming on Amazon Prime, it looks like someone dropped the print in water and dried it out on a clothesline, but I think most horror fans will still find themselves enjoying its charms. 

One Flew Over the Martian's Nest

I don’t think I’ alone in remembering movies from my childhood more as moments than full narratives. I couldn’t tell you much about my family’s VHS copy of Invaders From Mars, save for those specific images that stuck: a mother eating raw beef, icky open wounds on the back of adults’ heads, and Louise Fletcher practicing Grandma Foxworth’s diction screaming a-e-i-o-u (in my own re-imagining, she adds “and sometimes y”).

Naturally, when it popped up on Instant Watch, it was a natural experiment to see how Tobe Hooper's little loved sci-fi/horror remake played to my adult sensibilities.

Quick Plot: Young Hunter Carson lives happily in the suburbs with his mom and NASA employed dad. One night, he spots what a possible UFO landing just over the hill outside his window. Dad takes a walk to investigate and returns a little ... off.

Just give it one more day and a parents-only walk before Mom is serving up blackened bacon and eating raw chopped meat. At school, Hunter begins to suspect his teacher may also be under some form of extraterrestrial influence, and not JUST because she happens to be played by Nurse Ratched. 

Thankfully, Hunter is able to convince the friendly school nurse Linda (genre stalwart Karen Black) that something is amiss. Together they discover a series of underground tunnels occupied by giant, fleshy ball creatures with long legs and almost adorable t-rex arms, plus their master who resembles what I assume would happen if a baseball had sex with a meatball, the meatball took thalidomide when pregnant then drank steroid-infused clamato while breastfeeding.

Slightly cute, but mostly ugly.

Invaders From Mars is a remake of a classic (though unseen by me) sci-fi film from the golden ‘50s. This version starts with a fair amount of complicated pedigree: Alien creator Dan O’Bannon on script duties and Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper behind the camera. Fresh off of the alien (and boob)-filled Lifeforce and slightly distanced from the controversial Poltergeist, Hooper seems to approach Invaders from a rather in-between style. With its child protagonist and PG rating (although a 1986 PG is generally translated into a 2014 PG-13), Invaders From Mars certainly feels like it’s made for a younger audience. On the other hand, some of the violence and general theme of Martians landing on our planet to possess your parents, eat your teachers, shoot your war heroes, and poke a hole through your neck is rather rough stuff for the kiddie crowds.

More problematic is the pacing. My understanding of the original film is that it follows a similar feel to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with a slow build of suspense with special attention to its Cold War analogy. Hooper’s film has other aims. We get one quick but sweet scene setting the Carsons up as a happy family before immediately pulling them apart. It’s not that every monster movie with a child lead has to include the obligatory ‘only the kid knows the truth!’ trope, but Invaders moves so fast that there’s not even time for the intelligent adults to question him.

It’s strange. There’s so much about Invaders From Mars that’s almost awesome. You’ve got a super duper supporting cast filled with the likes of Timothy Bottoms, Laraine Newman (with a Coneheads reference to boot!), and James Karen, all of whom clearly relish the chance to go big. The effects by Stan Winston and John Dykstra are genuinely great, and plenty of weird touches (Fletcher’s zombie-teacher-intimidating-through-vowel-reciting, for one) that keep the film on a kind of special radar.

It’s not really enough. I enjoyed watching Invaders From Mars, but to call it a good film would be a lie. And reader, would I ever lie to you?

High Points

Enough really can’t be said about the creature design of Invaders’ Martians. Gooey, ugly, and genuinely not of this world. Also, they shoot lasers. That’s never bad

Low Points

I don’t really want to even talk about the ending because it made me that mad, so we’ll just leave that right there

Lessons Learned

Always keep a sack of pennies on you. They might cause you to run with a limp and almost get caught by clumsy martians or schoolteachers, but it's worth it

Marines have no qualms about killing martians (although they never carry spare change into combat)

Astronauts need to stay up late

Rent/Bury/Buy

Just 90 minutes on Instant Watch, Invaders From Mars is certainly worth a look for those interested in sci-fi, heavy practical effects, or true ‘80s genre cinema. I can’t imagine anyone will declare this an unheralded classic, but it’s a weird little oddity that should prove entertaining on one level or another. I mean, lasers. Who doesn’t love ‘em?

Back In Black, In More Ways Than One

As a wise man once said (he being Miles of the incredible why-aren't-you-listensing ShowShow podcast), every horror anthology should have a story involving a killer doll. You probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I heartily agree with such a statement.

Yet somehow, it has taken a Month of the Vertically Challenged Villains! to finally make me queue up 1975’s infamous Karen Black Karen Black Karen Black Karen Black & a Killer Warrior Doll headlined Trilogy of Terror. 

I know. Sometimes I truly am a disgust to the human race.

Quick Plot: Without the guidance of any narration or frame, we jump right into story one, “Julie.” The titular character is a mousy literature professor played by Karen Black. An arrogant student inexplicably develops an intense crush/obsession with her, going so far as to take Julie on a drive-in date, drug her root beer, and shoot a few suggestive photos of her naked (and possibly raped) body. Like any enterprising university kid, he then blackmails her into sexual slavery until--

Oh right. It’s an anthology, so there has to be a twist. And the rules of anthology-loving movie writers dictates we’re not allowed to reveal it, even if--like the next two tales--you can pretty much guess it two minutes in. Still, the story is sufficiently sleazy and neat enough for 20 minutes of your time. 

Onto #2, “Millicent & Therese,” a slightly more gothic tale in which Black comes back to play both main ladies. Millicent is a pale-faced spinster whose lack of lipstick is alarming. Her hated sister, Therese (not surprisingly, Black again) sports an awful blond wig that makes Janice the Muppet look natural. After their father’s death, the ladies compete for the attention of a friendly doctor, notable mostly because he’s played by Punky Brewster’s guardian.

Well, the plot’s a little more complicated than that but...eh. It’s still 20 minutes of buildup to the main attraction, so let’s just move on.

Part 3. “Amelia.” A mama’s girl of a grown woman (Karen Black with reddish hair) buys a Zuni fetish doll for her fellow’s birthday. That always works out well. 

Yup, the little ugly dude wakes up in a royally pissed mood and spends the next 10 minutes adorably hunting her with a kitchen knife and crooked set of teeth. It’s hilarious. And kind of cute.

And fine, had I seen this as a child, I can almost guarantee that Mr. Tiny would’ve found a comfortable place in my nightmares, trading stabbing techniques with Chucky, putting the moves on Dolly Dearest, and spending the rest of his free time trying to kill me.

I was a pretty huge fan of director Dan Curtis’ Burnt Offerings, an offbeat haunted house (of sorts) story that also starred Karen Black. Trilogy of Terror doesn’t come close to creating that unique eeriness, but it does feature one of the most memorable killer doll sequences ever put to grainy ‘70s film. So there’s that.

High Points

Karen Black doesn’t reach Miranda Richardson in Spider levels of diversity, but she does have plenty of fun playing four very different women. In particular, she holds the third tale together quite well, creating a fully fleshed out woman without the aid of a single other actor

Low Points

Though the acting is fine and pacing fairly brisk, the first two stories are so rather meh, especially once you get to the all-out camp/horror that is Amelia

Lesson Learned

Every creep has access to a darkroom

Zuni fetish dolls are not known for waking up on the right side of the bed. Or coffee table

Slutty sisters let their toenails grow insanely long

Stray Observation

I despise the word ‘cougar,’ both for its double gender standard and far too trendy place in pop culture, but allow me to smile at the irony of Chad, Julie’s stalker, driving her home in his--you guessed it--Cougar

Holy ‘70s wallpaper Batman!

Rent/Bury/Buy

At just 72 minutes (and that’s with elongated end credits), Trilogy of Terror is a quick little pleasure that feels worthy of its mini-cult status. The stories, based on the work of (and finally, actually penned by) genre heavyweight Richard Matheson, aren’t that unique or surprising, but they work well enough with the quick treatment here to keep your interest up. Ultimately, the movie is mostly worth seeing for the incredible doll-itude of its third segment, which should succeed in warming even the coldest of hearts.

Seriously, look at this guy! Don’t you want to dress him up, pose him in wacky locations for photo shoots, and make the best pictures your Christmas card? I can't really be alone on this...can I?

Summer Rental

A 1970s haunted house thriller sounds rather familiar and unappealing, but Dan Curtis's Burnt Offerings is a surprisingly well-aged, star-studded creeper that skillfully unites gothic horror with suburban despair.


Quick Plot: The happy enough Rolf family composed of B-movie queen Karen Black, Tommy’s singing stepfather Oliver Reed, and a not terrible child actor rent a secluded country home for the summer from the incredibly so-kind-they-must-be-evil brother sister superteam of Burgess Meredith (Twilight Zone’s most tortured bookworm) and the unsettling Eileen Heckert as the Allarydices. The only catch? Mrs. Rolf must prepare three square meals for the hermit-like Mrs. Allardyce, an unseen elderly matriarch who presumably wiles her day away polishing photographs and enjoying the pool view.

Oh yeah. And tagging along for the Rolf’s dream summer is none other than Baby Jane herself, Bette Davis, playing Reed’s peppy Aunt Elizabeth.

As you may imagine, something ain’t right inside the antique home. Flowers die and parents start to lose some gentility, beginning with a truly terrifying pool sequence of horseplay gone wrong and a few snippy scoldings from a growingly materialistic mom. Much like the soon-to-be-written The Shining, Burnt Offerings is as much about a family’s fragility as it is about haunted houses and creepy imagery. Reed and Black do an excellent job of creating 13 year old marriage with a few frays around the edge, and their growing alienation is far more disturbing than the overdramatic shots of the world's most macabrely cheerful funeral chauffeur.

High Points
The aforementioned pool scene--the first genuine sign that the house is digging into the family--creates such a horrific mood by beginning as a normal, sunny summer moment that quickly degrades into a nightmare

A haunting music box theme is used well throughout the film


I didn't notice this until Karen Black pointed it out on the commentary, but for a product of 1976, Burnt Offerings is very carefully not dated; From Black's velvety bathrobe to the house's collection of dusty antiques, this film has a gently gothic atmosphere with undated modernism mixed in by the standard family characters


SPOILER SHIELD ENABLED

The fact that it’s the near death of her child rather than the fatal diagnosis of her husband’s condition that finally snaps Mrs. Rolf out of her possession is powerful in showing where a parent’s deepest love truly lies


Once the finale gets going, it crescendos and leaves a very wrong feeling behind in the viewer


Low Points
Her mere presence is powerful and intriguing, but I feel like if you’re going to use Lady Bette Davis, she just deserves more meat in her role


The two hour running time takes a tad too long to kick into gear


Lessons Learned
When a tower of bricks begins to tumble, it’s best to run away rather than watch directly underneath


Evil old women with possessing powers may bear a striking physical resemblance to David Cronenberg

Wave pools are all good fun until someone gets hurt


Fun Fact
If IMDB is to be believed, the villainous house later came out of retirement to play the funeral home in Phantasm


Rent/Bury/Buy
A film like Burnt Offerings could have easily become a relic of mid 70s horror, but this one really is worth your attention for at least a viewing. The DVD includes a jovial and informative commentary with director Dan Curtis and the chatty Karen Black, who sheds some thespianly insight on how she approached her character being seduced by the pretty things inside the home. If you enjoy slower paced horror films that creep with care, then Burnt Offerings is probably worthy of a well-priced purchase. It gets richer with multiple viewings because once you stop waiting for something ghostly to happen, it's easier to pay more attention to the subtle changes slowly reshaping Mr. and Mrs. Rolf. This isn't a film for everyone, but you--like me--may find yourself pleasantly (by which I mean uncomfortably and a little frightened) surprised.