Silent Scream 1980 Denny Harris

Aren't slasher movies great?  Maybe it's because I grew up in the '80's that I have such fond memories of those movies, the Friday the 13ths and Nightmare on Elm Streets that came out every year like clockwork, and then played continuously on HBO and Cinemax for years afterward.  I even love Happy Birthday to Me and April Fool's Day.  I'll watch them all, no matter what.  A few years ago, I saw a trailer for this movie on one of the 42nd Street Forever compilations (love the commentary) and I knew I had to see this.  Thanks to Netflix Instant, now I have.

This slasher movie doesn't have a holiday theme like so many of them do.  It's just about 4 college kids who are renting rooms from a creepy lady and her creepy son.  There's two boys and two girls, and they pair off fairly quickly ( the first night there, in fact).  After a night of drinking and a walk on the beach to their new house, one of them is killed.  That brings in the cops.  Here are the cops:

That's Avery Schreiber in the first photo.  You may remember him from such terrifying things as The Muppet Show and Love, American Style.  Both of these things make him the perfect choice for a hardbitten, no nonsense cop.  Here - look at him again....

Nope, I don't see it either....

The other guy is Cameron Mitchell.  He was an American actor who was stuck on TV, so he went to Italy and got tons of roles in Spaghetti Westerns and Giallos.  But he came back to America for this movie, and we are all better for it.

Anyway, after I got over having the least cop-like actors ever acting like the least cop-like cops ever, the movie got pretty good.  One of the characters, after the first murder on the beach, even says to another character, "Hey, you wanna go swimming?"

At which point the other character says, "You wanna go swimming?  Even with the murder that just happened?"

Then we get the classic comeback, "Hey, I moved into this house because it was on the beach.  I'm not gonna waste it!"

And then they go swimming....near where their friend was just murdered less than twelve hours earlier.....Awesome.

But then just when you think it's going to become completely predictable and boring, Silent Scream  throws in a few curveballs which totally make it worth your time.  You won't be able to figure it out right away, and it even serves up a little Nazi themed repression out of left field.  Basically, it goes a little batshit crazy towards the end, but in a good way.  You should definitely check it out.

Limitless 2011 Neil Burger

See if you can wrap your head around this premise:  Guy down on his luck starts taking drugs, feels unstoppable and invincible, has a good few months and then starts the downward spiral that always happens in movies about guys (or girls) who take drugs.  Now, instead of a run of the mill drug like cocaine or heroin, imagine for a minute a more science fiction-y drug that allows you to use all of your brain.....and there you have Limitless.

It wasn't marketed as a drug movie - but it definitely is.  That's not a bad thing, though.  Drug movies can be entertaining if done well.  No one's gonna say Requiem for a Dream isn't a great movie.  Now Limitless isn't in the same league as that film, but it's not trying to be.  It really is just a slightly science fiction-y take on your standard American drug drama.

Bradley Cooper is the loser who starts winning thanks to his little pills.  Robert De Niro is the financial tycoon who takes an interest in his theories regarding the stock market.  There's also a Russian loan shark, a disapproving girlfriend, and lots of random good looking people who populate the parts of the movie when Bradley Cooper is successful.

So far, it's pretty average.  Entertaining, but average.  And just when you think it's going to be another moralistic tale, it takes a turn towards an extremely satisfying conclusion the likes of which aren't seen in American drug movies.   It's then that I realized why the trailers for this movie completely downplayed the whole drug angle in favor of the science fiction aspects.  If people knew what this movie advocated, they would be morally outraged.  That outrage would be ridiculous and completely without merit, but this is America, so being uninformed and furious is expected.  Watch it and see for yourself.  Tell me I'm wrong.

Tarkan Versus the Vikings 1971 Mehmet Aslan

I haven't seen too many Turkish movies.  The ones I have seen - Three Monkeys, Distant, and Dry Summer - are all serious dramas.  I knew that wacky Turkish exploitation movies existed, but I never saw one before today.

And what a movie!  It's not a good movie or even well made, but it is something else.  It concerns  Tarkan the Barbarian.  He's a Turk, and he's quite the badass.  He's escorting the Yonca, the daughter of Atilla the Hun, with his two trusty dogs by his side.  His main friend is his older dog, Kurt.  The younger dog is around, but he's learning how to be a good Turkish dog from his father, the aforementioned Kurt.

When Yonca and Tarkan the Barbarian stop at a local Hun (Turk) fortress, they're attacked by Commander Toro of the Vikings.  You can tell their Vikings, because they arrive in a ship that looks exactly like the magic boat tht took Jimmy and Freddy the Magic Flute to Living Island in H.R. Pufnstuf.  That, and they wear cutoffs.  They're Vikings.

The Vikings attack, killing all the men, women, and children.  Well, not all the women....In true Viking style, they snatch up the foxiest ones - Yonca included - and take them back to Viking Land.
They also manage to put Tarkan out of commission with a few well placed arrows and even kill Kurt Sr.  When Tarkan comes to, that's when you find out that the younger dog is named Kurt, also.  Not Kurt, Jr. - just Kurt.  Kurt is dead, long live Kurt.

This is where the movie gets truly weird.  Tarkan is all but forgotten for about twenty minutes while he recuperates from his injuries, and we get to see the inflatable octopus that the Vikings worship, along with secret Chinese torture rituals.  Then Commander Toro becomes king, sacrifices are made to the octopus balloon, and oh yeah, Tarkan feels better.

He's still pretty incompetent, though, so Kurt becomes the Gromit to his Wallace.  Seriously, how many times can the hero of the movie be captured (lots, apparently) and be saved by his wall climbing, throat biting, door opening buddy Kurt (lots, again)?

Just when you start getting into Tarkan and this being a Tarkan movie (there were 7 of them), he gets knocked out and misses the next twenty minutes or so.  So not only has it become a live action Wallace and Gromit cartoon, it's also quite a bit like a barbarian Ronsencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.  It's more fun to wonder if Tarkan really is the star of his own movie or not.  I guess maybe Kurt Versus the Vikings wouldn't have been as popular.  That Kurt is one resourceful dog.....