Midnight Movie of the Week #107 - Kingdom of the Spiders

The epic journey of Rack Hansen is something any man, woman, or child would want to be a part of.  After all, Rack Hansen is a one-of-a-kind cowboy vet, who's not above riding a horse and wearing a pink cowboy shirt and being awesome.  And, when you consider the fact that Rack Hansen is played by none less than William Shatner, you kind of get the idea that there should be a whole series of Rack Hansen films out there. Mostly because his name is Rack Hansen, of course.

Unfortunately, there is only one Rack Hansen film - I pray I'm wrong, but that seems to be the truth - and that film is the 1977 arachna-palooza Kingdom of the Spiders.  The Shat gets his Arizona swagger on alongside one of FMWL's three (imaginary) brides, Tiffany Bolling - who naturally plays a hot arachnologist - in the battle to save a small Arizona community from a seemingly unending wave of tarantulas.  The film is the debut feature by director John "Bud" Cardos, and it's one of those movies that is surprisingly good at what it does if you only consider what it intends to do.

I forgot to mention that the great Woody Strode - who broke the NFL's color barrier and was basically awesome - has a supporting role in the film.

No, Kingdom of the Spiders will never be confused with high art - this is the kind of movie the Criterion collection would pretend to release on April Fool's Day - and it's easy to see the film's flaws.  Y'know, flaws like the fact that tarantula venom actually doesn't do much to humans, yet kills several throughout the film.  Kingdom of the Spiders was also pretty late to the game among animals-gone-wild films of the 1970s, following plenty of films like The Food of the Gods, that covered similar territory.

Except you rarely saw a cow in the back seat of a car in other movies.

I could argue that Kingdom of the Spiders is a far more competent film than something like Food of the Gods, but I'd be missing the point.  The point is that this one has Shatner stomping the crud out of hundreds of real tarantulas.  The animal rights folks would probably have a fit if someone tried to make this movie today, because I'm willing to bet that a lot of "innocent" spiders were harmed and or killed during the making of this film.  Me, I'm OK with the film, because spiders creep me the heck out.  If it has more than 4 legs or less than 2, I kill it - that's my motto.

I don't really need to waste my time discussing what Shatner brings to the film, because the only way to describe a William Shatner performance is by saying he acts like William Shatner.  Bolling is certainly more restrained in this PG feature than she is in her other grindhouse roles (check out all my Tiffany Bolling love here), with her primary purpose in the film being that she reminds us that William Shatner is the man of the film.  She's still a sight to see, and Cardos does what he can to show her in as much undress as the MPAA will allow under a PG rating, but she's not Shatner and she's not the spiders and thus she's not really that important to the film.

As the film builds toward a final act that resembles "trapped in a house" settings like those of The Birds or Night of the Living Dead, we're treated to an increasing amount of Shatner that's sure to satisfy any cheese lover.  Moments like the one when Shatner reaches into a vent and recoils in pain or when he ventures into a cellar only to be blanketed by eight legged critters show off the kind of acting that only the Captain of the Starship Enterprise is capable of.  There are sure to be some laughs had at Shatner's expense - then again, when aren't there laughs had at Shatner's expense? - but this certainly wouldn't be as watchable a film without his thespian talents.

It probably sounds like I'm dissing Kingdom of the Spiders, but I really do love this silly little movie.  Cardos - who would later direct the odd 1979 chiller The Dark (I dig that one too!) and the 1984 Wings Hauser film Mutant  (and I have got to see that!) - keeps the film simple but never seems to be in over his head as a director.  When I compared the film to The Birds or NOTLD earlier I certainly didn't mean to compare this director to Hitchcock or Romero, but Cardos is more than capable of keeping the film moving and making the story seem more pulpy than trashy.  Though some of the scenes where the spiders meet the main cast seem a bit off - a lot of times the tarantulas don't follow direction and run AWAY from their "victims" - there are some fantastic scenes in which the spiders roam through the small town and crawl all over cast members and extras.

The film's willingness to use real spiders is sure to give anyone with even the slightest case of arachnaphobia some chills, and the director and his talented (in their own ways) stars keep Kingdom of the Spiders feeling like more than just another cheesy animal attack film.  It's hard to really explain why - maybe it's just that nerds like me put Shatner on one heckuva pedestal - but Kingdom of the Spiders is greater than the sum of its parts.  And now that Shout Factory has rescued it from the public domain and produced a fantastic DVD transfer of the film - please note that the DVD cover implies that a torch comes out of Mr. Shatner's crotch, which sadly does not really happen - there's nothing that should keep any of us from boldly visiting this Kingdom when we need a dose of late '70s cheese.

 Oh, and I can't finish this review without referencing the INCREDIBLY AWKWARD quasi-romantic relationship between Rack Hansen (I seriously haven't said Rack Hansen enough tonight) and the widow of his brother, who totally wants a dose of Rack.  That's a problem when you consider the fact that Tiffany Bolling is also in the movie, so let's just say that the film wraps up this bit of awkwardness relatively early in the film's plot.  But that doesn't make the love triangle any less awkward.

 Well done, Rack Hansen. Well done.

Midnight Movie of the Week #63 - Of Unknown Origin

I don't know about you, but I had principles installed upon me when I was a child.  Some of them - like "show up and work hard, even if you don't want to" - came from my parents; others - like "don't whiz on the electric fence" - came from cartoons.  One of the most important of these is most certainly "sometimes it's best to ignore a pest" - a message that was most certainly hammered home by one of the power duos in the history of 'toonhood, Tom & Jerry.

Very few situations over the years in reality closely echo the game of cat-and-mouse played by T & J (Can you imagine how painful life would be if they did?), but one such battle plays out in Of Unknown Origin, a 1983 film by George P. Cosmatos - who would go on to direct Rambo Part II, Tombstone, and Cobra.  That's right, he directed COBRA.  So, I will admit that I expected something pretty cheesy from Of Unknown Origin from a film by the man who cured crime.  But I got something entirely different, which turned out to be something I kind of loved a lot.

Peter Robocop Weller stars as a successful business man who's married to a beautiful blonde (Shannon Tweed) and has a sparkplug of a young son; the kind of guy who remodeled his New York City home with his own hands, probably while still wearing a tie and sipping brandy from fine drinkware.  But when things start to go wrong around the home - while said family is conveniently away on a trip while he stays back to work on that big project for work - he realizes that he's got a bit of a rat problem.

Being a well-educated man, Weller's Bart Hughes takes a different approach than most movie males would take.  He enlists the help of an expert, he reads books and magazine articles, he stares out his office windows....because he wants to get inside the mind of this vicious rat.  Anyone who remembers Tom & Jerry might assume that a director would take a comical turn with this kind of film, but Cosmatos & Weller go the opposite direction and take the threat very seriously.  Maybe not as seriously as the cheesy theatrical trailer below takes it, but pretty seriously.

Weller does a fantastic job carrying the film.  We can see his obsession with catching and killing the demon rat, but he doesn't go over the top and become a caricature of his businessman character.  As we watch Bart deal with his pest in varying ways - while also trying to keep in touch with his family and impress his boss (Happy Birthday to Me's Lawrence Dane) - he never comes off as a man who's entirely gone mad, he's just stretched to his limits.  The decision to stay serious, to not have Bart going totally Nic-Cage-over-the-top, is a brave one, but it makes Of Unknown Origin a far more interesting film than it would have been otherwise.

 The rat itself is rarely seen, mostly shown through flashes of its gnawing teeth or fleshy paws, but I completely loved how it was presented to the viewer.  We see its tunnels, we hear the frantic pitter-patter of its feet and plenty of other cool sound effects, but we - like Bart - usually really don't know what we're looking at.  Like Weller's character, there were plenty of chances to take the rat over the top and have it wink at the camera and such, but the film stays its course.  The film finds unique ways to show how dangerous the rat can be - ranging from the stories told by the handyman who assists Bart to its effect on the poor cat Bart brings home to help - and this resulted in me feeling like the rat was certainly a dangerous presence in Bart's home.

Of Unknown Origin reminds me of a couple of other '80s favorites - C.H.U.D. and Prince of Darkness come to mind - because it is the kind of horror film whose filmmakers must know that most viewers won't think to take its premise seriously.  Like the people behind those films, Cosmatos, Weller, and crew don't back down from the challenge.  They do everything they can to convince us that this rat, which is of unknown origin, IS a serious threat, and their willingness to commit to the story won me over completely.  This is a surprising hidden gem in the '80s horror pantheon, and I urge anyone who is looking for a fun thriller that doesn't resort to comedy gags to seek it out immediately.  It's the best Tom & Jerry movie EVER.

Midnight Movie of the Week #53 - Burning Bright

When I first heard about Burning Bright, a 2010 thriller in which a young girl and her autistic brother are terrorized by a man-eating tiger, I lusted for it with nefarious intent.  Surely, this was gonna be the kind of movie I could vigorously mock; the kind of movie I could make Eye of the Tiger jokes about, the type of movie that I could eventually cal Grrrrr-eat!  I sought it out under those assumptions, but when I got it...I got something different.  Something that was surprisingly...competent.  My thrill-seeking mind was pleased, yet the film wasn't laughable.  What the heck was going on here?

Let's break it down.  First of all, the film opens on the side of a highway where a man (Garrett Dillahunt of No Country for Old Men and The Last House on the Left) is attempting to purchase a tiger from a grizzled man...played by MEAT LOAF.  Now, if you want to draw The Mike in to a movie...you might want to throw Meat Loaf at him.  (Not literally, of course, that would be dangerous.)  The scene sets the tone for the film, as Dillahunt's character seems to take the situation lightly, while Mr. Loaf recounts the reason this tiger is for sale - because it went haywire and slaughtered a horse at its last circus - with a grave tone.  It's a simple cameo for the most famous actor/rocker named after a protein-filled dish, but it had me hooked from the start. 

The next introduction involves Dillahunt's character's stepdaughter (played by Sorority Row star Briana Evigan) and her autistic brother.  She's set to head off to college while he's being placed in a special school that can deal with his needs, but the check bounces.  Turns out, stepdad cleaned out the bank account to create his "Safari Ranch"...by buying a tiger.  The stepkids head home to confront the situation, but in the meantime the house has been boarded up...because there's a hurricane coming.

If you've heard something more ridiculous today, I'd like to hear it.  But the stars align for Burning Bright, and suddenly we've got a tiger, a hurricane, an autistic, and a young woman who's not hard on the eyes and has that raspy Demi Moore voice.  You can imagine what happens next: stepdad disappears, Evigan's Kelly starts to freak about her school situation, and the tiger ends up loose - and hungry - in the inescapable house.

I wouldn't necessarily say that Burning Bright takes a "slow burn" approach to creating tension, but when the film only has two characters and one of them doesn't form sentences, it runs the risk of losing steam.  What surprised me most about the film was how briskly it moved.  The plot is entirely wrapped up by the explanation I've given, yet director Carlos Brooks finds interesting ways to keep the tension up as Kelly and her brother struggle to deal with the beast in their home.

It also helps that Brooks avoids CGI almost entirely, using three REAL tigers and a lot of green screen technology to put the cast in front of a deadly killer.  An early scene involving Evigan, the tiger, and a laundry chute is very effective, and there's a lot of intrigue as the game of cat-and-young lady plays out.  The tigers look dangerous, (yet kinda cute, I love kitties), and Evigan is a fine visual lead for a script with little dialogue.

 Like the best b-movies, Burning Bright takes its premise very seriously, yet it doesn't suffer from the groan-worthy developments we'd expect from something we see on SyFy.  There are a couple of slips (the brother seems to have been written as autistic simply to add to Kelly's plight; the final reveal is a little obvious; an iron should not be used as a hammer), but the film feels more serious than I ever expected it would.

Maybe I'm overreacting to Burning Bright - it's happened before - because there's something about this kind of simple, serious creature feature that I just love.  It's no Jaws or Gojira, but it's incredibly practical and efficient.  Compared to my meager expectations for a film of this sort, Burning Bright is one of the most surprising horror films I've come across in recent memory.  I'm sorry that I took it for granted, and I look forward to a future in which tiger-based horror cinema is a very real thing.