BRAIN DEAD (US - 1990) Directed by Adam Simon. Written by Charles Beaumont and Adam Simon. Cast: Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton, George Kennedy, Bud Cort, Patricia Charbonneau, Nicholas Pryor, Brian Brophy, David Sinaiko, Andy Wood, Kyle Gass. (R, 84 mins) One of the most ambitious and bizarre films to roll off of Roger Corman's Concorde Pictures assembly line, BRAIN DEAD began life as a Charles Beaumont script titled PARANOIA. Best known for his contributions to THE TWILIGHT ZONE (including classic episodes like "Perchance to Dream," and "Long Live Walter Jameson"), and his work scripting earlier Corman classics like THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963) and THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964), Beaumont's life was cut tragically short when he died in 1967 at just 38 after being diagnosed with both early-onset Alzheimer's as well as Pick's Disease, the latter now known as frontotemporal dementia. Symptoms began appearing as early as 1963, but by 1965, his condition worsened to the point where he was no longer able to work. His decline was rapid, and friends and colleagues recalled him having the appearance of a frail, elderly man by the time he died. A cult following formed around Beaumont's work, both on the big screen (he also scripted the 1964 George Pal production 7 FACES OF DR. LAO) and on THE TWILIGHT ZONE and numerous other TV shows of the era. Beaumont's PARANOIA script dated back to around 1961 and was dusted off and assigned to writer/director Adam Simon, a Chicago native who arrived in Hollywood and started hanging around the famed Corman lumber yard headquarters.
Charles Beaumont (1929-1967)
Beaumont's core premise remained, but Simon largely rewrote the screenplay, updating it to the then-present 1990 and retitling it BRAIN DEAD. In a way, because it was shot very much in the late '80s/early '90s Concorde style and is clearly working with a low budget, BRAIN DEAD is, aesthetically speaking, very much a typical circa 1990 Corman product. But it's also immediately obvious that something's different about BRAIN DEAD. It's headlined by Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton, both of whom already past the point in their careers where they'd still be doing Roger Corman productions, and its plot is a jawdropping exercise in surreal, alternate-reality mindfuckery that's almost completely lacking the exploitation elements that Corman typically required from his directors. BRAIN DEAD isn't an undiscovered classic, but watching it almost 30 years on, it seems remarkably ahead of its time, and with some upgraded production design and a more stylish director at the helm, it could almost pass for an 84-minute BLACK MIRROR episode.
Dr. Rex Martin (Pullman) is an eccentric neurosurgeon conducting experimental brain tissue research. He's visited by Jim Reston (Paxton), an old college buddy who now works for a top-secret and vaguely sinister corporation called Eunice. Reston needs a favor: Dr. Jack Halsey (Bud Cort, who's really terrific here), a former mathematician and numbers cruncher for Eunice, has had a complete breakdown and is currently in a mental institution, accused of killing his wife, his children, and three research assistants, murders he blames on a mysterious "Man in White." He knows vital financial and research intel and Reston believes Martin has the ability to surgically extract it from the specific section of the brain that stores such memory. Martin agrees to help, much to the satisfaction of Eunice CEO Vance (George Kennedy), but after the procedure, he begins suffering from the same paranoid delusions as Halsey, including several run-ins with the blood-splattered Man in White (Nicholas Pryor).
At a certain point, the reality of Dr. Martin collapses altogether. He's convinced Reston is making a play for his wife Dana (Patricia Charbonneau), based on the fact that they competed for her attention back in college. He watches the Man in White gouge out the eyes of Reston and Dana after Martin walks in on them having sex, only to be thrown in a mental institution when he's accused of their murders and subsequently mistaken for Halsey by the entire staff. BRAIN DEAD continues on this path, as people thought dead are suddenly alive or start changing identities, and Martin can no longer recognize what's real or imagined. The film even finds time to reference the Daoist "Butterfly Dream" story by Zhuangzi dating back to 300 B.C., not the kind of subtext you'd typically see being explored in other Roger Corman productions from 1990, such as BLOODFIST II, WATCHERS II, and SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III.
Just out on Blu-ray from Scream Factory (because physical media is dead), BRAIN DEAD was a video store staple in the 1990s but has become relatively obscure over time. It's probably been referenced for its movie trivia value more than it's actually been seen, thanks to it being the only time that Bills Pullman and Paxton--each confused for the other by many a '90s moviegoer--appeared in a movie together (additional trivia: production designer Catherine Hardwicke would go on to direct the first TWILIGHT; and future Tenacious D member Kyle Gass can be briefly spotted as an anesthesiologist). At the end of the day, it doesn't quite hang together and its ambitions and ideas are too far beyond what a 1990 Roger Corman budget could possibly accommodate, but along with Paul Mayersberg's NIGHTFALL, this remains one of the most unusual projects to be shepherded under the Corman/Concorde banner (Simon mentions on the commentary track that Corman disliked the finished film and wanted to drastically recut it, but ultimately didn't). BRAIN DEAD is a true oddity that manages to show proper respect and homage to Charles Beaumont and old-school TWILIGHT ZONE while simultaneously being ahead of its time in ways that would anticipate BLACK MIRROR as well as certain key elements of films like JACOB'S LADDER (which hit theaters ten months later), 12 MONKEYS and INCEPTION.
THE TERROR WITHIN (US - 1989) Directed by Thierry Notz. Written by Thomas M. Cleaver. Cast: George Kennedy, Andrew Stevens, Starr Andreeff, Terri Treas, John Lafayette, Tommy Hinckley, Yvonne Saa, Joseph Hardin, Al Guarino, Butch Stevens. (R, 88 mins) It doesn't scale the glorious cult movie heights of New World classics like 1980's HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP or 1981's GALAXY OF TERROR, but by the lesser standards of late '80s, Concorde-era Roger Corman, THE TERROR WITHIN isn't bad. Owing a lot to both ALIEN and HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP, the film is set in a post-apocalyptic America of an unspecified future--not too far in the future, if the presence of mullets are any indication--after a plague has wiped out a good chunk of mankind. A small group of military scientists have taken refuge in an underground lab in the Mojave Desert, occasionally scouting the land above for food and dodging "Gargoyles," hideous mutant creatures that run rampant. During one excursion to find the remains of two of their team killed by a Gargoyle, David (Andrew Stevens) and Sue (Starr Andreeff), along with David's dog Butch (played by Stevens' own dog, who gets onscreen credit), find a shell-shocked young woman named Karen (Yvonne Saa) and bring her back to the lab, much to the concern of the group's leader Hal (George Kennedy), after a Gargoyle discovers their secret entrance through a dilapidated shed and knocks out their main security camera to the outside. Head doc Linda (Terri Treas) runs some tests and finds that Karen is expecting, but the pregnancy is accelerating. During an attempted C-section, the baby claws its way out of Karen, the mutant result of a rape by a Gargoyle. The mutant spawn escapes into an air vent and grows at a rapid rate, occasionally emerging from a hiding place to pick off the survivors one by one in sequences that will in no way remind you of ALIEN.
The HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP-derived idea of the Gargoyles hunting women in order to propagate their species brings some exploitative tackiness to the proceedings, which elsewhere mimic ALIEN right down to the top-billed actor and biggest name in the cast being killed off halfway through, just like Tom Skerritt in Ridley Scott's 1979 classic. Both happen offscreen and are implied, but Skerritt's is handled in a much better fashion compared to the way TERROR WITHIN director Thierry Notz has a bellowing Kennedy foolishly charge the gargoyle and yell "Die, you miserable ugly fuck!" Elsewhere, John Lafayette as Andre and Tommy Hinckley as Neil are carbon copies of Yaphet Kotto's Parker and Harry Dean Stanton's Brett, respectively, with Brett's repeating of "Right!" echoed here with Neil's "Maybe," and David asking "Do you just repeat everything he says?" just like Sigourney Weaver's Ripley (elsewhere, STAR TREK gets invoked as a frustrated Linda barks "I'm a doctor, not an engineer!"). THE TERROR WITHIN suffers from chintzy makeup work, with the body of the Gargoyle an obvious rubber suit that looks like Corman borrowed it from a HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP cosplayer, and some serious lapses in logic, as a limited-power laser is tested on a fire extinguisher, not only draining the laser by 25% but also emptying out the fire extinguisher, almost certainly foreshadowing a raging inferno to come later (SPOILER: it does). But THE TERROR WITHIN is a fairly solid little B-movie, with Notz enthusiastically letting the blood splatter everywhere as well as establishing a convincing claustrophobic atmosphere in the underground lab. He even pulls off a couple of stylish, De Palma-esque split diopter shots. A native of France, Notz didn't spend much time working for Corman--his other directing assignment around this time was 1990's WATCHERS II and he served as second unit director on the same year's FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND, Corman's one-off return to directing after a 20-year hiatus--before moving on. He directed a pair of obscure war dramas with 1994's FORTUNES OF WAR and 1997's GOODBYE AMERICA, and the latter remains his last credit on IMDb.
THE TERROR WITHIN opening in Toledo, OH on Feb 24, 1989
THE TERROR WITHIN II (US - 1991) Written and directed by Andrew Stevens. Cast: Andrew Stevens, Stella Stevens, Chick Vennera, R. Lee Ermey, Burton Gilliam, Clare Hoak, Larry Gilman, Barbara A. Woods, Rene Jones, Lou Beatty Jr, Gordon Currie, Brad Blaisdell, Cindi Gossett, Brewster Gould, Pete Koch, Butch Stevens. (R, 85 mins) Two years after THE TERROR WITHIN, Andrew Stevens and a noticeably older Butch returned to reprise their roles, wandering the post-apocalyptic wasteland for THE TERROR WITHIN II. The sequel provides some backstory that the first film didn't really address, namely that a nuclear disarmament treaty led to covert experiments in biological warfare, resulting in a plague that wiped out most of mankind, creating the creatures that were called "Gargoyles" in the first film, but are now referred to as "Lusus." David is eventually joined in his nomadic existence by a young woman named Ariel (Clare Hoak, from Concorde's MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH remake). The sole survivor of the first film (apparently, Terri Treas' Dr. Linda died in the desert after they got away), David is en route from the Mojave stronghold to a similar underground lab in the Rocky Mountains run by Von Demming (R. Lee Ermey, on the heels of a similar role in Juan Piquer Simon's ENDLESS DESCENT), with the intent of bringing along a Lusus vaccine derived from a cactus extract. David and Ariel fall in love and after one night of passionate desert lovemaking, she's convinced she's pregnant. They eventually run afoul of Aunty Entity-type despot Elaba (Cindi Gossett), which leads to Ariel being kidnapped and strapped to a rape stand as a Lusus has its way with her. David and Ariel eventually make their way to Von Demming's compound, where it's discovered that Ariel is indeed pregnant with David's child, though a mutant sperm from the Lusus has infiltrated the egg and caused yet another human/creature hybrid. Meanwhile, a finger severed from an earlier Lusus attack on the Rocky Mountain lab is regenerating an all-new Lusus as David, Von Demming and the rest--including Kyle (Chick Vennera), treacherous scientist Sharon (Barbara A. Woods), who's created just enough vaccine to hoard it for herself, and head doc Kara (Stella Stevens, Andrew's mom)--are hunted down one by one by Ariel's rapidly growing offspring, a half-human/half-Lusus monstrosity that looks a lot like Dr. Pretorious in Stuart Gordon's FROM BEYOND (1986).
Stevens was being groomed for stardom back in the late '70s with co-starring roles in a pair of 1978 films, THE BOYS IN COMPANY C and as Kirk Douglas' brainwashed psychic son unable to control his powers in Brian De Palma's THE FURY. He then headlined a pair of high-profile NBC miniseries with 1978's THE BASTARD and its 1979 sequel THE REBELS, as well as a 1979 made-for-TV remake of the 1938 classic TOPPER that paired him with then-wife Kate Jackson. He co-starred in two Charles Bronson movies (1981's DEATH HUNT and 1983's 10 TO MIDNIGHT) and played a psycho stalker obsessed with TV news anchor Morgan Fairchild in 1982's THE SEDUCTION, but big-screen stardom never panned out and Stevens spent most of the '80s on short-lived TV shows like CODE RED and EMERALD POINT N.A.S. He also had numerous guest spots on shows like THE LOVE BOAT and MURDER, SHE WROTE, as well as a recurring role as J.R. Ewing underling Casey Denault on DALLAS. It was during his time on DALLAS from 1987 to 1989 that Stevens first began dabbling in the world of low-budget B-movies, with 1987's SCARED STIFF and a pair of Spanish actioners with director Jose Antonio de la Loma, 1988's COUNTERFORCE and 1989's FINE GOLD. Stevens would ultimately find his niche as a leading man with the advent of the straight-to-video erotic thriller thanks to 1990's video store mainstay NIGHT EYES. Thus began a series of what could best be described as "Stevensploitation," leading to three sequels, with 1992's NIGHT EYES 2 and 1993's NIGHT EYES 3 pairing him frequent co-star Shannon Tweed, as the duo would also star in 1994's SCORNED, 1994's ILLICIT DREAMS, and 1995's BODY CHEMISTRY 4: FULL EXPOSURE, the Concorde franchise that Stevens inherited with 1993's BODY CHEMISTRY 3: POINT OF SEDUCTION. Stevens also starred in the Tweed-less 1997 sequel SCORNED 2, making him the DTV erotic thriller equivalent of compulsive franchise-joiner Jeremy Renner (THE AVENGERS, THE BOURNE LEGACY, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE).
Clare Hoak between takes of the human/Lusus-hybrid birth scene
While he paid the bills enduring endless unrated sex scenes with the likes of Tweed, Shari Shattuck, Tanya Roberts, and others, Stevens was also pursuing his interest in directing. THE TERROR WITHIN II marked his debut as a filmmaker, and it's only fitting that the opportunity came courtesy of Roger Corman. Corman was known for shepherding many young, aspiring filmmakers of the '60s and '70s, like Francis Ford Coppola (DEMENTIA 13), Peter Bogdanovich (VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF PREHISTORIC WOMEN), Martin Scorsese (BOXCAR BERTHA), Jonathan Demme (CAGED HEAT), Joe Dante (PIRANHA), John Sayles (writer of PIRANHA and BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS), James Cameron (an art director and production designer on BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS and GALAXY OF TERROR), and Ron Howard (GRAND THEFT AUTO) just to name a few. Corman didn't establish much in the way of bench strength during his '80s Concorde years, with only two directors having any notable degree of mainstream Hollywood success (Luis Llosa with SNIPER and THE SPECIALIST and Carl Franklin with ONE FALSE MOVE and the Denzel Washington thrillers DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, and OUT OF TIME). Corman letting Stevens earn his stripes with THE TERROR WITHIN II was an old-school move out of the 1970s New World playbook, and that extended to the involvement of Polish-born cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who shot THE TERROR WITHIN II and THE RAIN KILLER for Concorde before quickly graduating to the big leagues as Steven Spielberg's go-to cinematographer, winning Oscars for his work on 1993's SCHINDLER'S LIST and 1998's SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (it's doubtful Kaminski mentioned THE TERROR WITHIN II in either acceptance speech), while also earning nominations for 1997's AMISTAD, 2011's WAR HORSE, and 2012's LINCOLN. The end result is somewhat less than its predecessor, though Stevens does what he can with the pocket change given to him by Corman (in an interview on Code Red's new TERROR WITHIN II Blu-ray, Ermey claims the budget was only $500,000, and judging from the finished film, that's probably accurate). Incredibly cheap-looking and raggedly-assembled, THE TERROR WITHIN II makes THE TERROR WITHIN look like a lavish sci-fi epic, with no money spent on even the most basic props, as evidenced by a great shot of Vennera--a Stevens BFF who appeared in several of his films, and this one just three years after starring in Robert Redford's acclaimed THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR--angrily firing an assault rifle but he's really just holding it and shaking it as sounds of firing ammo are put over it in post. The first hour of THE TERROR WITHIN II plays more like a Cirio Santiago post-nuke than a sequel to an ALIEN knockoff, and once David and Ariel arrive at the Rocky Mountain compound with 25 minutes to go, it morphs into a rushed, condensed version of the first film, with David apparently remembering absolutely nothing of what he endured since he faces the same situations and makes the same mistakes once again.
Complaining about plot holes and contrivances in something called THE TERROR WITHIN II is a waste of time. It's an enjoyable enough time killer, though Stevens' direction lacks even the most basic sense of style that Notz brought to the table two years earlier, and considering that he was just a couple of years away from becoming one of the most respected and sought-after D.P.'s in the movie industry, Kaminski's work here is functional at best. Stevens would continue directing throughout the '90s (NIGHT EYES 3, SCORNED, ILLICIT DREAMS) before launching a second career as a producer, forming Franchise Pictures with business partner Elie Samaha. Franchise had a hand in everything from low-budget action movies (STORM CATCHER, AGENT RED) to future cult classics (THE BOONDOCK SAINTS), and major studio fare with big name actors (THE WHOLE NINE YARDS, BATTLEFIELD EARTH, 3000 MILES TO GRACELAND, DRIVEN). Franchise would eventually crash and burn in a controversial court case involving allegations of scamming investors with inflated and fraudulent budget reports, leading to the company declaring bankruptcy in 2007. It was during this period that Stevens was accused of hiring private investigator and "wiretapper to the stars" Anthony Pellicano to tap the phones of one of the plaintiffs in the case. Pellicano became the subject of an extensive, years-long FBI investigation involving everything from racketeering to illegal possession of explosives and firearms, and Stevens was granted immunity for testifying against him in the same investigation that eventually led to the imprisonment of DIE HARD and HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER director John McTiernan after he allegedly lied to an FBI agent about hiring Pellicano. Now 61, Stevens has laid relatively low in recent years. He hasn't directed or appeared in a film since 2010, and his last credit as a producer was on Fred Olen Ray's 2013 DTV kids movie ABNER THE INVISIBLE DOG. In 2014, he published the book Foolproof Filmmaking: Make a Movie that Makes a Profit, and embarked on another career giving seminars and online tutorials covering the ins and outs of movie production.
BOLERO (US - 1984) Written and directed by John Derek. Cast: Bo Derek, George Kennedy, Andrea Occhipinti, Ana Obregon, Olivia d'Abo, Greg Bensen, Ian Cochrane, Mirta Miller, Mickey Knox. (Unrated, 105 mins) One of Cannon's most controversial releases, BOLERO opened on Labor Day weekend 1984 riding a wave of publicity due to its troubled production and explicit sexual content involving iconic star Bo Derek. The actress had been offscreen since 1981's TARZAN THE APE MAN, a film that began a decade-long stretch where she was starring exclusively in films directed by her husband John Derek. John, born in 1926 and 30 years his wife's senior, was a former actor who once held his own with Humphrey Bogart in KNOCK ON ANY DOOR (1949) and an Oscar-winning Broderick Crawford in ALL THE KING'S MEN (also 1949) and had prominent roles in epic blockbusters like THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956) and EXODUS (1960). John was married to original Bond girl Ursula Andress when he quit acting in 1966 to focus on filmmaking and photography. After he and Andress divorced, John was married to Linda Evans until their divorce in 1974. The divorce came after John met 16-year-old Kathleen Collins a year earlier and whisked her away to Europe. Upon returning to the US after Kathleen turned 18, the pair married and he rechristened her "Bo Derek," managing every aspect of her career and even handling the photography for her numerous Playboy pictorials. She landed a supporting role in the 1977 JAWS ripoff ORCA and in 1979, skyrocketed to international stardom as the object of a midlife crisis-stricken Dudley Moore's obsession in Blake Edwards' zeitgeist-capturing megahit 10.
Bo followed 10 with a very similar role in 1980's A CHANGE OF SEASONS, which had Anthony Hopkins in the Dudley Moore midlife crisis part. By this point, the Dereks, with their age difference and John's Svengali-like management of her career--he resented the "Svengali" implications but trolled his detractors by naming his company "Svengali Productions"-- became a lightning rod for tabloid controversy. They had such a ubiquitous media presence and Bo-mania was such a pop culture phenomenon that Fleer even released a set of "Here's Bo" trading cards. 1981 saw the release of the incestuous love story FANTASIES, a film the Dereks shot in Greece in 1973 during their sojourn to Europe where John wouldn't be inconvenienced by California's 18-as-the-age-of-consent statutory rape laws (when they returned to the States and while Bo was shooting 10, John also found time to direct the 1979 hardcore porno LOVE YOU! with Annette Haven). But the Dereks made their biggest splash of 1981 with their sexed-up remake of TARZAN THE APE MAN, a film that veered so far from the source story that the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs tried to sue. Highly publicized thanks to Bo's barely-there Jane outfit and her numerous nude scenes, TARZAN saw Bo not using her 10 fame to further her own acting career but rather, the couple using her fame to get big-studio budgets for John's crummy movies. A director with an eye for beauty but no idea how to tell a story, John Derek's films during his marriage to Bo accomplish little aside from John Derek showing the world how hot his young wife is. TARZAN THE APE MAN generated enough interest--and enough people still wanted to see Bo naked--that it became a hit, but nobody liked it and it was immediately and rightly ridiculed by critics and audiences, earning multiple Razzie nominations and making John a major-studio pariah.
A set photo from early in BOLERO's shoot, as
evidenced by the presence of the soon-to-be-fired
Fabio Testi on the far left (thanks to
William Wilson for supplying this pic)
Undaunted--and still winning since, as he was quick to point out, his wife was incredibly hot--John set up a deal with Menaham Golan and Yoram Globus at Cannon for the couple's next film, BOLERO, its title a reference to the Ravel piece that was prominently featured in 10. Golan and Globus were in the middle of a lucrative distribution deal with MGM/UA, and that allowed them to supply John with an even bigger budget than he had with TARZAN, and to further stroke his ego as if that was even necessary, they also gave him final cut. Shooting began in the summer of 1983 and almost immediately ran into problems when Bo became alarmed over a cold sore on the lip of the male lead, Italian actor Fabio Testi. The two stars already weren't getting along, and there was a lot of chatter in the press that Testi had herpes and was forced to exit the movie. The official diagnosis was "atypical facial dermatitis," and an already-under-contract Testi was yanked off of BOLERO and sent by Golan to another Cannon production, J. Lee Thompson's THE AMBASSADOR. Testi was replaced by another Italian actor, the much-younger Andrea Occhipinti (Lamberto Bava's A BLADE IN THE DARK, Lucio Fulci's THE NEW YORK RIPPER), but John wasn't satisfied with his physical appearance and, according to a February 1984 article in People, tried to talk him into bulking up with steroids. Following the advice of his doctor, Occhipinti refused, but agreed to physically train with Scottish co-star Ian Cochrane, who had some bodybuilding experience. Shooting mostly in Spain, John's directing style alienated much of the local crew, but the real clashes came later when Golan screened the finished film for MGM/UA personnel, including studio head Frank Yablans, who was put in charge of the company in early 1983.
Yablans was already pissed off about the quality of product Cannon was bringing him with low-budget films like TREASURE OF THE FOUR CROWNS and HERCULES and big-budget money-losers like the expensive Brooke Shields adventure SAHARA and the raunchy Faye Dunaway period piece THE WICKED LADY, both of which bombed. REVENGE OF THE NINJA and BREAKIN' were two of the very few hits under the MGM/UA-Cannon deal, and when Yablans attended the disastrous private screening of BOLERO, during which numerous MGM/UA brass started laughing out loud in all the wrong places, he'd reached his breaking point. Golan was just as upset about John Derek's finished cut as Yablans, but he got an even bigger surprise when an irate Yablans drew the line and flat-out refused to distribute BOLERO. The topic was brought up in Mark Hartley's 2015 Cannon documentary ELECTRIC BOOGALOO and Yablans, who was out at MGM/UA by 1985 and who died in 2014, appears on camera still stewing about Cannon, and over BOLERO in particular. After the teen comedy MAKING THE GRADE flopped later in the summer of 1984, Yablans had seen enough and pulled the plug on MGM/UA's relationship with Cannon. As a result of the falling out with Yablans, Golan and Globus were on their own and began self-distributing most of their films, starting with BOLERO (1985's LIFEFORCE, produced by Cannon and released by Tri-Star, was an exception, and several 1986-87 Cannon productions would be released by Warner Bros). While BOLERO barely made back its budget thanks to, once again, people wanting to see Bo Derek nude (it opened in third place that Labor Day holiday weekend, behind TIGHTROPE in its third week and GHOSTBUSTERS in its 13th, then plummeted to 8th place in its second weekend), the resulting film was so terrible that it did irreparable damage to what remained of the Dereks' credibility in Hollywood.
Make no mistake--BOLERO is an awful film. The only positive thing one can say about it is that the budget is up there on the screen. With lavish sets and location shooting in Spain, Morocco, and the UK, the only thing John gets right--other than Bo's gratuitous nude scenes--is a certain sense of spectacle. Set in the 1920s, the threadbare plot has 28-year-old Bo as Ayre "Mac" MacGillvary, a wealthy orphan just out of boarding school, armed with her inheritance and ready to search the world for the perfect man to whom she can gift her virginity. Accompanied by her best friend Catalina (Ana Obregon) and her chauffeur/guardian Cotton (a bewildered-looking George Kennedy), Mac travels to Morocco where she meets a London-educated, narcoleptic sheik (Greg Bensen, in his simultaneous acting debut and swan song) who seduces her and covers her in milk and honey but falls asleep before he can deflower her. Then it's on to Spain where she meets bullfighter Angel (Occhipinti). The two fall in love and Mac loses her virginity in an over-the-top sex scene that has John employing a wind machine as Mac reaches orgasm, in addition to zooming in as close to the actors' grinding and thrusting as he can to vividly show the friction of their pubic hair (in a later climactic sex scene, Derek gives us a clear shot of Occhipinti's nutbag). The couple's passion is threatened when Angel is gored by a bull (in a scene where John shows shocked onlookers, including a reaction shot from a barking dog) and is unable to perform sexually. Never fear, though--Mac gives him a thumbs up and promises "That thing is going to work! I guarantee you this!"
"Yep...the picture was called COOL HAND LUKE," sighs
George Kennedy, adding "They gave me an Oscar for it!"
From then on, Mac focuses on helping Angel heal in order for them to continue breaking barriers in sexual ecstasy (or "extasy," as she spells it). All the while, Mac is given strong support and encouragement by Cotton, Catalina, and 13-year-old local gypsy girl Paloma (debuting future WONDER YEARS co-star Olivia d'Abo who, in a move that would only happen in a John Derek film, was 14 at the time of filming and somehow does full frontal nudity), as well as Angel's housemaid, who has a brief fling with Cotton (yes, even George Kennedy gets laid in this movie). Never have so many people had to devote so much time and energy to an impossibly gorgeous woman getting some dick. While the numerous sex scenes are vigorous and explicit (give John Derek some credit--he knew how to shoot a fuck scene), and, in the case of Angel's triumphant return to potency, hilarious thanks to John breaking out some lightning effects and an '80s metal fog machine, they're spaced out enough that the rest of the film is a dead-on-arrival bore. John manages to create the illusion of class with the majestic locations (he also served as his own cinematographer), brief and quickly abandoned attempts at paying homage to silent cinema (the film opens with a photo of Rudolph Valentino and the sheik's seduction of Mac plays out with silent movie intertitles in place of dialogue) and the sex scenes scored in overwrought fashion by the legendary Elmer Bernstein, but BOLERO is just bad. Bo's performance is terrible (she won a Razzie for it), and you can barely understand anything Obregon and Occhipinti are saying (around 48 minutes in, Occhipinti audibly flubs a line and John just left it in). The sex scenes were graphic enough that the Dereks knew BOLERO would get an X rating, and since the couple was promised complete artistic control and final cut, the film went out unrated, though stories differ over whether Golan wanted it to be even more explicit. The Dereks said at the time that Golan was pushing for more graphic content, while Golan claimed he asked John to make some cuts. Over 30 years later, it's hard to ascertain the truth, and at this point, no one cares.
A willing participant in the implosion of her once-promising career, Bo Derek was offscreen for six years after BOLERO. When she made another film, it was of course directed by her husband. 1990's GHOSTS CAN'T DO IT, produced by former Trans-World Entertainment partners Eduard Sarlui and Moshe Diamant, is John Derek's worst film by a wide margin, a self-indulgent travelogue/home movie that found Bo as a widowed wife trying to find a younger body to host the spirit of her robust, much-older, and recently deceased husband (Anthony Quinn). Also featuring veteran actors Don Murray and Julie Newmar, the alleged comedy GHOSTS CAN'T DO IT is obviously about an aging John Derek facing his own mortality but is so vapid and empty that it's somehow worse than either TARZAN THE APE MAN or BOLERO, with its only notoriety these days stemming from the presence of none other than Donald Trump in a small role as an asshole corporate raider (in other words, "Donald Trump") trying to take control of Quinn's business. BOLERO and GHOSTS CAN'T DO IT were recently released as a double feature Blu-ray by the fine folks at Shout! Factory, and the very fact that this product exists in the year 2016 should completely debunk once and for all the myth that physical media is dead.
John and Bo Derek at the height
of the early 1980s Bo-mania.
Not long after GHOSTS CAN'T DO IT predictably bombed in theaters, John's health began to decline and Bo had to branch out and act in other movies. She found herself in several straight-to-video titles like 1992's HOT CHOCOLATE and a pair of 1994 post-BASIC INSTINCT erotic thrillers, SHATTERED IMAGE and WOMAN OF DESIRE. GHOSTS CAN'T DO IT proved to be John's final feature but he directed a pair of music videos for Shania Twain in 1995, the same year Bo had her most significant role in years as Chris Farley's scheming stepmother in TOMMY BOY. This led to some steady work on TV for Bo, which continued after John's death following emergency heart surgery in 1998 at the age of 71. In a relationship with SEX AND THE CITY and MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING co-star John Corbett since 2002, Bo hasn't appeared in a major theatrical feature since 2003's MALIBU'S MOST WANTED, though she's remained busy with a couple of Lifetime movies and guest spots on TV shows like CHUCK and CSI: MIAMI, as well as playing Tara Reid's mother in 2015's SHARKNADO 3: OH HELL NO! Bo Derek will turn 60 this year, and though she hasn't headlined a box office hit in over 30 years, she remains one of the world's most recognizable sex symbols, due mostly to one film: 10. No matter how peculiar or creepy the public perceived their relationship to be, there's no doubt she and John loved one another dearly, but after 10, she probably could've accomplished more than becoming a four-time Razzie winner in every movie she made with her husband--one for each film and then a special award for Worst Actress of the 1980s.
THE GAMBLER (US - 2014) Directed by Rupert Wyatt. Written by William Monahan. Cast: Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Brie Larson, Michael Kenneth Williams, George Kennedy, Andre Braugher, Anthony Kelley, Emory Cohen, Alvin Ing, Domenick Lombardozzi, Richard Schiff, Simon Rhee. (R, 111 mins)
In remaking the Dostoevsky-inspired, James Toback-scripted, Karel Reisz-directed 1974 cult film THE GAMBLER, screenwriter William Monahan (THE DEPARTED) and director Rupert Wyatt (RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES) initially make a sincere effort to stick to the gritty, character-driven ideals of the source. Many scenes in the early-going are almost defiant in the way they let dialogue-heavy interactions and conversations go on with little concern for audience restlessness and in no hurry at all to move at the quick-cut, short-attention-span pace of most of today's multiplex offerings. In many ways, it's part of a current throwback movement to the 1970s as seen in recent films like THE DROP and A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES. THE GAMBLER '74 had the rock-solid foundation of James Caan entering the post-GODFATHER pinnacle of his career, all cocksure swagger and Sonny Corleone rage as Ivy League-educated, NYU literature prof Axel Freed, who's in debt to loan sharks to the tune of $44,000. Toback's script was largely autobiographical and THE GAMBLER '14 lacks that personal touch and its '70s aesthetic has a certain artificiality to it as the film goes on (gifted prodigies acting out against suffocating family expectations would be a theme Toback explored further in his brilliant 1978 directorial debut FINGERS). While films like THE DROP and A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES have a '70s mindset in the present day, THE GAMBLER '14 strays from its source as it progresses, becoming more beholden to commercial expectations and predictable character arcs, and despite drastically higher stakes thanks to inflation, it never really feels like L.A.-based literature prof and one-and-done novelist Jim Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) is in any serious danger.
Hailed as a bold new voice in fiction in 2007, Bennett never got around to writing that second novel and instead berates his students for their lack of inspiration and effort and not possessing the talent to do so anyway. Amy (Brie Larson), his one student with potential, knows his secret life: she's a waitress at a seedy gambling den owned by Korean mobster Mr. Lee (Alvin Ing), who staked over $100,000 to Jim, who promptly lost it all in one doomed spin of a roulette wheel. These early scenes establish the purely suicidal self-destruction of the character in the same way as the 1974 film, and both Axel Freed and Jim Bennett seem to be rebelling against their family wealth and privileged upbringing. Wyatt wrings considerable suspense out of intensely stomach-turning scenes of an addicted Jim at a blackjack table, $80,000 on the line, angrily demanding another card when he's already at 18. Of course he loses it all--Jim's only really satisfied when he loses it all, and he seeks out the most dangerously shady people imaginable for extra cash, whether it's powerful crime lord Neville Baraka (Michael Kenneth Williams) or God-like loan shark Frank (John Goodman, who's terrific). The film opens with Jim visiting his dying grandfather (George Kennedy sighting!), the 17th-richest man in California, who refuses to leave him any money because he needs to build his character. Once Jim is $260,000 in debt to both Mr. Lee and Neville, and turns down a stake from Frank because he refuses to meet Frank's demand of admitting "I am a piece of shit gambler," and "I am not a man," he hits up his wealthy mother (Jessica Lange), who gives him the money, after which he drives to Vegas with Amy and almost immediately blows it all at a blackjack table.
The relationship that develops between Jim and Amy is one of the more problematic elements of Monahan's script. Monahan tries to draw a parallel between Jim and Amy's alcoholic mother by showing that she's inherently drawn to the addicted and the damaged, but at the same time, her actions and decisions never really feel plausible. She knows what kind of guy Jim is and the sorts of people with whom he's entangled--she even works at an illegal casino--but the character as shown is too level-headed and smart to so easily fall for a shit magnet like Jim. It doesn't help that the film loses track of her as it goes on, and Larson (robbed of an Oscar nomination for last year's SHORT TERM 12) is too good for such a muddled and sketchily-written role. Her attraction to Jim would make a lot more sense if Wahlberg was playing the part like Caan played Axel Freed. Where Axel publicly possessed a magnetic sense of indestructible, self-confident bravado no matter how much money he lost, Wahlberg's Jim is disheveled, glum and glowering, with a constant Joe Btfsplk dark cloud hovering over him from the moment he's introduced. Axel Freed tried to make it rain, it blew up in his face, and he defiantly asked for more, while Jim Bennett just shrugs and places another five-figure bet on one hand. Both are committing slow suicide, but Wahlberg's characterization doesn't have the same sense of consequences-be-damned kamikaze fervor, regardless of how good he is in the role. Caan's Axel Freed came off like a dumbass, but he was a dumbass with balls. Wahlberg's Jim Bennett just comes off like a dumbass.
The change in the main character's mindset probably has more to do with Wyatt and Monahan needing to do something different in order to avoid a straight scene-for-scene remake, but all the changes do is put a spotlight on what worked so well in 1974. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the climax, after which Jim has talked one of his students, a star basketball player and guaranteed NBA prospect (Anthony Kelley) to shave points in a game in order to settle his debt with Neville. Reisz and Toback had Axel Freed celebrate by going to the wrong side of town looking for a fight, getting one, and ending the film in an ambiguous, nihilistic fashion that shows there's no limit to his mad quest to take increasingly dangerous risks, essentially gambling himself to death. Wyatt and Monahan, in accordance with THE GAMBLER '14 being a major-studio movie released at Christmas, have to give Jim a crowd-pleasing happy ending. It doesn't gel with the tone of what came before, and Jim's done nothing to really make the audience care about his shot at redemption. On top of that, too much of the film feels like Scorsese-lite, from the DEPARTED-style soliloquizing of the characters to the classic rock soundtrack, with incongruous reggae covers of Pink Floyd's "Time," and "Money," a Billy Bragg version of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," and Scala & Kolacny Brothers' take on Radiohead's "Creep."
Whatever the extent of THE GAMBLER '14's problems, the performances aren't among them. A scrawny-looking and obviously committed Wahlberg reportedly dropped 60 lbs and does a solid job with an often unplayable role, and while Amy is a woefully underwritten character, the promising Larson still shines--Wyatt gives her a great and very odd little scene where she's doing this strange walk/dance in slo-mo while heading to class and the actress' goofy facial expressions are guaranteed to turn you into a Brie Larson fan; it's a throwaway moment that almost looks like it's edited together from a set of outtakes, but turns into her best moment in the film. THE GAMBLER '14's biggest strengths come from its supporting cast, with Lange getting a couple of devastating scenes as Jim's mother, torn between her disgust with her son and the hole into which he's dug himself, but also remorseful that maybe his upbringing, her shrewdness, and her obsession with wealth are what drove him to be the fuck-up that he is. Goodman sinks his teeth into his role, frequently seen holding court in a steamroom, telling Jim how to play it smart and get himself to a "Fuck you" position in life, and unable to comprehend Jim's story about how he was once up $2.5 million and lost it all on one hand. It's great seeing 89-year-old Kennedy, an Oscar-winner for 1967's COOL HAND LUKE, back on the big screen again, though his prominent billing and his one minute or so of screen time probably indicate he had a larger role at some point. It's also worth noting that veteran character actor Leland Orser's name turns up in the credits but he's never seen--he was cast as a rival lit professor in a subplot that appears to have been completely excised, along with most of Andre Braugher's scenes as the college dean (he has one brief bit talking to Jim in a hallway), all of which point to some eleventh-hour editing still going on shortly before the film's release (Orser is briefly seen in the trailer). As far as remakes go, you can do a lot worse. THE GAMBLER '14 has its strong points, but ultimately, it pales in comparison to THE GAMBLER '74, which still held up beautifully as of a revisit a month or so ago. The original GAMBLER came out 40 years ago and is still held in high regard today. Will people even remember the remake of THE GAMBLER 40 days from now?
Directed by Alvin Rakoff. Written by John Robins. Cast: George Kennedy, Richard Crenna, Nick Mancuso, Sally Ann Howes, Kate Reid, Saul Rubinek, Victoria Burgoyne, Jennifer McKinney, Danny Higham. (R, 91 mins)
DEATH SHIP is probably better known for its chillingly effective poster art than for the film itself, though it does have a devoted following. A ubiquitous presence on cable, late-night TV, and video store shelves throughout the 1980s, DEATH SHIP has some occasionally striking bits of atmosphere and two memorable death scenes that became minor classics with horror fans, but for the most part, it's really nothing spectacular, and it's hobbled by some clumsy direction, sloppy editing, and an unwillingness to cut loose and exploit its more outrageous elements. DEATH SHIP has certainly achieved cult classic status, but it might be a case where it's more about sentimentality for a bygone era than anything inherently "great" about the film itself. DEATH SHIP seemed to constantly be on TV when we were kids, so it's a film that a lot of horror fans--myself included--saw during an influential and formative period in their lives. This was one of those movies that a lot of us cut our teeth on and, as is often the case, the way it exists in your memory is perhaps a lot more satisfying than the reality.
Cold, unlikable cruise ship captain Ashland (George Kennedy) is on his last voyage and breaking in Capt. Marshall (Richard Crenna), his more affable, people-person replacement when the ship collides with a mysterious vessel that seemed to intentionally target them. The cruise ship sinks and Marshall leads the handful of survivors--his wife Margaret (Sally Ann Howes), their kids (Jennifer McKinney, Danny Higham), shipmate Nick (Nick Mancuso), his girlfriend Lori (Victoria Burgoyne), religious widow Sylvia (Kate Reid), and comedian Jackie (Saul Rubinek)--onto a raft where they encounter the presumed-dead, barely-conscious Ashland in the water. They come upon the very ship that caused the tragedy and upon boarding it, find it completely uninhabited. It's a German ship, and soon Ashland starts hearing German voices in his head and acting strangely. Mysterious things start happening and the ship seems to be killing the survivors one by one. Ashland starts reading from a German-printed Bible and declaring that "No one leaves the ship!" Marshall finds a room with rotting corpses and extracted gold teeth and jewelry and concludes that this was a Nazi torture ship that now roams the vast, open waters, powered by its dead victims. Or, as the possessed Ashland declares, "It needs blood."
DEATH SHIP, released in US theaters in March of 1980, has some strange similarities to two other ghost movies released the same year: John Carpenter's THE FOG and Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING. Like THE FOG, released a month earlier, it's a seafaring ghost story (though Carpenter's film has its ghosts of a shipwreck invading a small town), and unlike the slasher films gaining a foothold in the horror genre at the time, it's filled mostly with adult characters and older, reliable actors. But THE SHINING wouldn't be out for another three months, and DEATH SHIP prefigures it in several ways, starting with the idea of Ashland, like Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) being possessed by a haunted structure (like the Overlook Hotel) filled with ghosts of an ugly past. Marshall finds a roomful of rotting corpses that looks a lot like the vision Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall) has in the lobby of the Overlook. When the crazed Ashland tries to convince a weakened Marshall to kill his wife and children because the ship needs him to, he briefly goes from functioning as the Jack Torrance of the film to become the Delbert Grady stand-in, much the way the ghost of the former Overlook caretaker convinced Jack of the need to "correct" his wife and son. When Marshall and Nick finds themselves trapped in a room where a Nazi propaganda film seems to be playing on its own, and are then suddenly out of the room, it's similar to the way Jack Torrance is locked in the food storage room and apparently (though, as in DEATH SHIP, we never see when or how) released by the ghost of Grady. This scene also suggests that DEATH SHIP might be playing with space and time and on its way to a "they've been dead all along" or "they've always been here" finale, but John Robins' script (from a story by Roger Corman veteran Jack Hill) isn't even adventerous enough for something that predictable. No, most of the cast is killed and the people you expect to survive do and are rescued. And the Death Ship...gets away?
Rubinek!
DEATH SHIP may have these similarities to specific films by Kubrick and Carpenter, but veteran TV director Alvin Rakoff isn't capable of the style and finesse of those exponentially more gifted filmmakers. The bland resolution goes right along with Rakoff's TV-movie efficiency and while there are some occasionally interesting visuals scattered throughout, he never explores the eerieness of the setting to its full potential. And there's some really inexcusable gaffes: as early as two minutes in, during a prowling shot of the bowels of the Death Ship, we see the shadow of a camera operator (with the camera on his shoulder) on a door; the sinking of the ship is amateurishly accomplished via mismatched stock footage from other movies; a window of the Death Ship opens on its own...but you can see the arm of the crew member pushing it open; when the wisecracking Jackie gets his foot caught in a rope and is lowered into the ocean, you can clearly see the mechanism that's shackled to the left leg of Rubinek's stunt double; and most hilariously, the establishing long shot of the survivors on the life raft post-sinking features a plainly visible Kennedy already lying unconscious on the raft before he's even been rescued from the water. But beyond that, even for a drive-in/grindhouse exploitation pic, DEATH SHIP is pretty tame. Sure, there's the two memorable death scenes (one involving poisoned candy and the other with Lori being trapped in a bloody shower, the one scene in the film that everyone remembers) and some Burgoyne nudity, but take that out and this is essentially another TV-movie for Rakoff. It has a good, creepy score by Ivor Slaney, and some interesting ideas with a lot of potential, but it doesn't really take advantage of any of them. Even the Nazi element is handled in as perfunctory a fashion as possible. I'm not saying they should've gone in some ILSA THE WICKED WARDEN or SALON KITTY direction, but come on. If 1978's THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL can take a tacky, batshit Hitler-cloning idea with two legendary actors like Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier hamming it up and getting the latter an Oscar nomination in one of the most gleefully absurd guilty pleasures of the 1970s, then DEATH SHIP can certainly give itself some wiggle room to get crazy. It's supposed to be a trashy, R-rated horror movie about a Nazi ghost ship. Live a little!
The great Richard Crenna (1926-2003)
A Canadian-British co-production, DEATH SHIP was made in the waning days of the Canadian tax shelter-era, when huge tax breaks allowed the struggling Canadian film industry to draw in some major talent (similar to the later tax loopholes that led to countless German co-productions with Hollywood throughout the '00s). DEATH SHIP gets a lot of mileage from two established pros like COOL HAND LUKE Oscar winner and AIRPORT series fixture Kennedy and the always-reliable Crenna, who could class up anything in which he appeared. Kennedy hams it up a little near the end, but not enough. His character is in a catatonic stupor for a good chunk of the running time. I got the impression that Crenna was probably on the set a lot more than Kennedy. Crenna was mostly appearing in TV movies at the time, and became a bit of a go-to actor for the Canadian tax-shelter producers, starring in the 1979 family film WILD HORSE HANK with Linda Blair, as well as the 1980 crime thriller STONE COLD DEAD, which opened in the US on the same day as DEATH SHIP and featured Crenna as a plays-by-his-own-rules cop going after a powerful pimp played by the unlikely Paul Williams. STONE COLD DEAD was on TV in the 1980s as often as DEATH SHIP, and is a solid little film that seems to be completely forgotten today. Crenna would soon leave the tax-shelter world behind and enjoy a major career resurgence as the rich husband offed by his adulterous wife's lover in 1981's BODY HEAT and as John Rambo's fatherly mentor Col. Trautman in 1982's FIRST BLOOD, which he joined during production as an emergency replacement for Kirk Douglas, who quit the film after a couple days of shooting over script disagreements with Sylvester Stallone. Crenna reprised his signature Trautman role in RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II (1985) and RAMBO III (1988) and remained constantly busy in tons of other theatrical and TV movies, continuing to work until he couldn't, appearing on the CBS series JUDGING AMY at the time of his death in 2003 from pancreatic cancer. Crenna remains one of Hollywood's great "working actors," doing plenty of big-screen projects throughout his long career but also a familiar and reliable figure on the small screen. He was one of those guys who moved from job to job, never considering himself better than the material, and always giving 100%. A lot of mediocre movies were made better by the presence of Richard Crenna. DEATH SHIP is one of them.
DEATH SHIP is just out on DVD from Scorpion (the Blu-ray is coming later in December or possibly January) and it's a very nice-looking transfer at 1.78:1. Slaney's score is given its own separate audio track, and other extras include a trailer and deleted scenes that were included in the TV version to get it to the standard 100 minutes to fill a two-hour prime-time slot (I could be wrong, but I seem to recall this airing on NBC at least once). All in all, DEATH SHIP is not a very good film, but watching it again definitely takes the graying horror nerd back to those influential days of childhood when everything was awesome, before seeing so many movies turned a lot of us into jaded cynics. So in that respect, I'm happy that this finally got a quality DVD (and very near-future Blu-ray) release.
