FX and FX2 - The Deadly Y-Fronts of Illusion

I managed to pick up both of these very 80s thrillers - with a loose element of sci-fi - at Oxfam over the weekend for not much money, and was looking forward to watching both of them. Neither of them seem to crop up on UK television much these days.

I was initially stunned to see Lalo Schiffrin's name turnv up in the credits, but the super heavy 1986 analogue synthesizer tunes won't appeal to "Bullit" fans.

The plot of "FX: Murder by Illusion" is actually pretty clever - special effects genius Bryan Brown (THE Australian actor in the 80s, apart from Mel Gibson who wasn't actually Australian) is hired to fake the assasination of mob boss Jerry Orback (Law and Order ahoy!) so he can join the witness protection programme. But the good guys turn out to be not so good, and Bryan finds himself fighting for his life as innocent passers by, and his girlfriend, are iced in the crossfire.

None of this is as alarming as the two standout scenes in the movie; the first when we are treated to a glimpse of Brown in his white Y fronts of a morning, and a second where he descends upon a bad guy like one of those flying squirrels.

Luckily, he overcomes these nightmarish visions to win the day, with the aid of some classic analogue FX tricks and chubby Brian Dennehy, playing the same sort of lumbering cop he played in the Skorpions favourite film, "Gorky Park". Both end up waltzing off into the sunset with 15 million dollars of mob money amid some jarring tourist film of Switzerland.

Onto FX2 "The Deadly Art of Illusion", and we find Brown still battling corrupt cops AND District Attorneys in league with the Mafia as an FX stunt to trap a sex killer goes wrong and the father of his girlfriend's child - hello Rachel Ticotin from Total Recall! The money, and moustache having all ran out for Dennehy, he teams up with Brown again to see off the bad guys with the aid of a terrifying movement micking robot clown, and an early sighting of virtual reality in the cinema.

Dan Brown must have written the bit of the script dealing with stolen Vatican gold medallions

 

 

The films are horrifically dated now, although there are less rolled up jacket sleeves and big hair on view than you'd expect. I found them an entertaining afternoon, but I shant be reaching to the back of the DVD shelf to watch them again any time soon.

 

I have no wish to see the robot clown again, let alone those Y-fronts...

 



Who Thought "Strippers versus Werewolves" was a Good Idea?

I've been watching this film for about 15 minutes, and the insult level is like Bernard Manning defecating on the graves of every ancester I've ever had.

I've been known for saying how much I enjoy cheap Brit Horror genre flicks, and efforts like, say, "Community" with Jemma Dallender, are characterful, quirky and enjoyable. They even sometimes manage to be disturbing too, witness "Sawney, Killer of Men" as well as the aforementioned "Community" with its human-nourished super cannabis plants.

"Strippers versus Werewolves" however, is like a Hollyoaks producer thinking that he needed slightly stronger stroke material, and getting on the phone to Ali Bastian's agent while sucking on a pair of transparent heels.

Ms Bastian, who unbelievably is the second most credible actor in this movie - behind a tying Sarah Douglas from Supermaan 2 and a Steven Berkoff who shows up for five minutes presumably to pay for printer cartridges for his latest theatrical script - teams up with such luminaries as the "Injury Lawyers 4 U" man and a bunch of what look like Page 3 girls trying their "hands" at acting.

Thrown in some Queen Vic background extras in speaking parts, and prosthetics stolen from a skip behind a hairdressers, and you have a feast of cretinism that a hydrogen bomb couldn't erase. For some reason I find the most hateful thing being the scene wipes consisting of a silhouette of a stripper, or crappy claw marks.

It really marks it out as a production of quality.

The ironic thing is that if it is designed to have a titiallatory air about it, then anyone who gets off on this movie must have a ridiculously low level of eroticism, because the whole movie is more vanilla than ice cream. I've had more hardcore experiences buying Barr's Cherryade for 29p in Poundstretchers.

The fact that it's on SyFy, rather than the Horror Channel, tells its own story.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 16.07.14writing, am writing, horror, sci fi, 

CINEMA - Krell Wonders - The Forbidden Planet

At one point in this classic, vivid piece of science fiction film making, the id-ally challenged Doctor Morbius asks of strong chinned space captain Leslie Neilson "Would you like to see some more Krell Wonders?"

"Hell yes!" he replies, or words to that effect, and off they go to explore more chambers of inconceivable alien other wordliness.

"Hell yes!" I always say too, whenever I see the film.

Promo Poster that doesn't at all reflect the real atmosphere of the film

The child in me never gets to see enough of the Krell; their enormous, mysterious city with its electronically burbling  giant resistors and massive pill shaped "things" moving up and down for no apparent purpose; and the Krell themselves, entities we never know anything about other than the fact they need great broad pentagonal doors and were destroyed utterly by the same psycho-physical terror that Morbius is manifesting.

Yes I know that in terms of the purity of cinema, less is more, and don't reveal your monster blah blah, but my inner child always feels cheated by the lack of actual Krell. And as for their city, well, what else was there apart from the eye searing power source and the great echoing caverns of electricial switching mechanisms? Where did they live? What were their transport systems? Leisure? Agriculture?

The "electronic tonalities" of Louis and Bebe Barron, the first time a film had had such a score, add to the futuristic gloss of the whole production, and leaves you wanting so much more. I love the movie, and I still wonder what the krell world was still concealing from us, when it finally detonated its monsters of the id for good.