HELLHOLE (US - 1985) Directed by Pierre De Moro. Written by Vincent Mongol (Aaron Butler), Lance Dickson and Mark Evan Schwartz. Cast: Ray Sharkey, Judy Landers, Marjoe Gortner, Mary Woronov, Richard Cox, Terry Moore, Edy Williams, Robert Darcy (Robert Z'Dar), Marneen Fields, Martin Beck, Cliff Emmich, Martin West, Dyanne Thorne, Lynn Borden, Lamya Derval, Natalie Main, Ann-Elizabeth Chatterton, Carole Ita White. (R, 95 mins) A women-in-prison take on THE SNAKE PIT and ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, the wonderfully sleazy and boundlessly stupid HELLHOLE was the first and last film distributed by the short-lived Arkoff International Pictures. Formed by Samuel Z. Arkoff (1918-2001) after his American International Pictures was acquired by Filmways in 1979, Arkoff International Pictures allowed the B-movie legend to keep the AIP abbreviation, but lightning didn't strike twice. Arkoff's new AIP produced a handful of genre titles that were acquired by others--UFDC released 1982's Q, Comworld released 1983's THE FINAL TERROR, and Orion released 1984's UP THE CREEK. But HELLHOLE, which played in theaters over the spring and summer of 1985, was also distributed by Arkoff and his son Louis, and it promptly brought the curtain down on Arkoff International Pictures, quickly and quietly closing a largely forgotten chapter of the famed drive-in and exploitation icon's storied career.
HELLHOLE was written by Aaron Butler, using the pseudonym "Vincent Mongol," with separate "additional dialogue" credits going to both Lance Dickson and Mark Evan Schwartz, an almost certain sign of script revisions during a troubled shoot. As "Mongol," Butler also wrote the incredible 1983 trash classic CHAINED HEAT, so that should give you some idea of what to expect with HELLHOLE. Aerobics instructor Susan (Judy Landers) witnesses her mother (Lynn Borden) being strangled by psychotic Silk (Ray Sharkey), who's after the location of some papers Mom had stashed away. Said papers go into all the details of the evil experiments taking place at Ashland, a sanitarium for women. Silk has been hired by Monroe (Martin Beck) and Rollins (Martin West), two corrupt members of the state board of examiners trying to cover up what's going on at Ashland. Suffering from amnesia after surviving a head injury escaping from Silk, Susan is transferred to--wait for it--Ashland, where kinky lesbian Dr. Fletcher (Mary Woronov) is using the scantily-clad patients as guinea pigs in an abandoned building on the grounds--referred to as the "Hellhole" by those in the know--for some brain serum/chemical lobotomy nonsense that apparently has a 0% survival rate. It's not a well-kept secret that Fletcher's up to some shady shit--crusading medical board chief Sydnee Hammond (Terry Moore, a long way from MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, her COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA Oscar nomination, and being Howard Hughes' alleged secret wife) already has an inside man, Ron (CRUISING's Richard Cox) conducting an investigation while working as an orderly. Also improbably brought on as an orderly is Silk, who's there to kill Susan after finding out what she knows about the location of her mother's papers. To pass the time, Silk manages to seamlessly blend in by acting like a complete psycho, sexually abusing some of the women, and using an empty room to create his own workplace S&M fuck pad (what do you expect from the same writer who gave us a warden with a jacuzzi in his office in CHAINED HEAT?) while somehow avoiding any kind of disciplinary action whatsoever from either Fletcher or the more altruistic, level-headed Dr. Dane (Marjoe Gortner). Just to give you an idea of how sordid HELLHOLE is, Marjoe Gortner plays one of the relatively nice characters.
Director Pierre De Moro (SAVANNAH SMILES) does a workmanlike job getting the film in the can, but HELLHOLE is definitely worth seeing for fans of the 1980s women-in-prison revival that gifted us such B-movie favorites as THE CONCRETE JUNGLE, CHAINED HEAT, CAGED WOMEN, WOMEN'S PRISON MASSACRE, THE NAKED CAGE, and REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS. The unusual cast gives it some cult movie cache, from the likes of Gortner, Landers (then a TV favorite with her older sister Audrey), buxom Russ Meyer muse/ex-wife Edy Williams, future MANIAC COP star Robert Z'Dar (billed as "Robert Darcy") as a hulking orderly, ILSA, SHE WOLF OF THE SS' Dyanne Thorne in a small role as a crazed patient, and Moore, a fading '50s actress who, a year earlier at 55, became the oldest Playboy centerfold in their August 1984 issue. However, HELLHOLE is dominated by two competing batshit performances from Woronov and Sharkey. Woronov, who's interviewed on Shout! Factory's new Blu-ray release, clearly knows this is campy silliness and just has fun with it, as evidenced by the long, slow, wet kiss she gives her latest failed experiment (Marneen Fields) after torturing her to death.
But it's Sharkey who wins the overacting honors for HELLHOLE. Whether he's singing nursery rhymes or perpetually smirking or just standing there looking like a brainless dipshit, you can't take your eyes off of him, usually for all the wrong reasons. How many bridges did Sharkey burn to go from winning a Golden Globe for his breakout performance in 1980's THE IDOLMAKER to rolling around in a mudbath threesome with Edy Williams in a sleazy women-in-prison potboiler from the makers of CHAINED HEAT a mere five years later? Sharkey had a career year in 1980, with starring roles in THE IDOLMAKER, HEART BEAT, and Paul Mazursky's JULES & JIM remake WILLIE & PHIL, followed by a 1981 hosting gig on the ill-fated Jean Doumanian-led sixth season of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, but his momentum stalled and things quickly derailed when he opted to become a cautionary tale. Sharkey began using heroin not long after his Golden Globe win, and the downward spiral was depressingly apparent in the rapidly declining quality of work he was getting. By 1984, his career completely crashed and burned, and he was reduced to a supporting role in the Lorenzo Lamas breakdancing bomb BODY ROCK. And did anyone see the same year's patchwork clusterfuck DU-BEAT-E-O, a barely-released look at the L.A. punk scene from WELCOME BACK KOTTER co-creator Alan Sacks that starred Sharkey and Fear bassist Derf Scratch, along with a prominently-billed Joan Jett in six-year-old footage from an unfinished 1978 documentary on The Runaways? Relative to the projects he was being offered at the time, Sharkey probably saw a top-billed starring role in HELLHOLE as a step up.
Ray Sharkey (1952-1993)
He managed occasional guest spots on TV shows like MIAMI VICE, THE EQUALIZER, and CRIME STORY, and was lucky to score small roles in Brian De Palma's little-loved gangster comedy WISE GUYS and the Richard Gere-Kim Basinger thriller NO MERCY (both 1986), but it took several stints in rehab before he finally kicked his heroin addiction. His marriage ending in divorce over his drug use and multiple overdoses, Sharkey enjoyed a brief comeback with an acclaimed recurring role from 1987-1989 as mobster Sonny Steelgrave on the CBS series WISEGUY, and was such a prominent face at the network that he even did a drunk driving PSA for them after being involved in four drug-related car accidents a few years earlier. But offscreen, he replaced his heroin addiction with even more reckless and grossly irresponsible behavior. Though he managed to keep it secret for several years, he was diagnosed as HIV-positive in the late '80s after years of heroin use and shared needles. In complete denial of his medical condition, Sharkey continued having unprotected sex with scores of women--well over 100, according to his manager. By 1992, with his WISEGUY gig long gone and his career in the toilet, Sharkey was back on drugs and was busted by Canadian customs when a routine cargo inspection uncovered a package of cocaine and heroin being shipped to him from Los Angeles to Vancouver, where he was working on the CBS series THE HAT SQUAD. Vancouver police searched his hotel room and uncovered more heroin and he was arrested and fired from the show. The same year, his second marriage ended because of his drug abuse and his condition progressed to full-blown AIDS. When it became known that he was aware of his HIV-positive status and didn't tell his partners, he was sued by three different women who accused him of knowingly exposing them to infection. One of the women was model Elena Monica, daughter of Borscht Belt comedian and third-string Rat Pack member Corbett Monica. Elena Monica won a $52 million settlement against Sharkey's estate after he died in June of 1993. The ruling was essentially worthless, as the actor was broke by the time of his death, not living long enough to face judgment in any of the lawsuits filed against him. The 40-year-old Sharkey was reportedly down to 90 lbs when he died, and he looked gaunt and tired in his final film appearance as the bad guy in the Burt Reynolds kiddie comedy COP AND A HALF, released two months before his death. A gifted actor--even in junk like HELLHOLE--unable to control and conquer the demons that destroyed his life and forever changed the lives of at least three women, Sharkey's legacy is a tragic one: in 2015, his only child, Cecelia Sharkey, born in 1988 to Sharkey and his second wife, was charged with murder, accused of bludgeoning her boyfriend's mother to death with a baseball bat.
HELLHOLE opening in Toledo, OH on 6/14/1985
HELLHOLE playing at two local malls
James Spader sandwiched between DEF-CON 4
and NIGHT PATROL. This kid's goin' nowhere.
MIRACLE MILE (US - 1989) Written and directed by Steve De Jarnatt. Cast: Anthony Edwards, Mare Winningham, John Agar, Lou Hancock, Mykel T. Williamson, Denise Crosby, Kelly Minter, Kurt Fuller, O-Lan Jones, Robert DoQui, Earl Boen, Danny De La Paz, Claude Earl Jones, Alan Rosenberg, Diane Delano, Alan Berger, Brian Thompson, Jenette Goldstein, Edward Bunker, Howard Swain, voice of Raphael Sbarge. (R, 88 mins)
Despite rave reviews from critics, MIRACLE MILE wasted no time vacating theaters as quickly as possible. Opening on May 19, 1989, the last weekend before that year's big summer kickoff (back when Memorial Day weekend signified the beginning of the summer movie season) and the same day as the immortal ROAD HOUSE, the Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder comedy SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, the inferior horror sequel FRIGHT NIGHT PART II, and the teen comedy HOW I GOT INTO COLLEGE, it landed with a thud in 15th place. A box-office bomb, MIRACLE MILE has gone on to become one of the essential cult films of the 1980s and has just been released on an extras-packed Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. An apocalyptic AFTER HOURS or DR. STRANGELOVE remade as a meet-cute date movie that also prefigures Don McKellar's 1998 film LAST NIGHT, MIRACLE MILE has lovestruck trombone player Harry Washello (Anthony Edwards, also the star of HOW I GOT INTO COLLEGE) charming waitress Julie Peters (Mare Winningham) after spotting her at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits. As Julie goes to her night shift at a coffee shop, Harry tells her he'll meet her outside when she's off at midnight, but a power outage causes him to oversleep and he doesn't get there until nearly 4:00 am. Julie's long gone and after leaving a desperate message for her, a romantic comedy enters the TWILIGHT ZONE as he picks up a ringing pay phone. On the other end of the line is Chip (voice of Raphael Sbarge), who's calling from a missile solo, frantically explaining that the nukes have been launched and they've got an hour before they hit. Chip thinks he's talking to his father, but dialed the wrong area code. Chip's ranting goes silent when Harry hears gunshots, followed by a voice warning "Forget everything you've heard and go back to sleep."
Still not sure if it's an elaborate prank, Harry describes the phone call to Julie's co-workers and overnight regulars at the diner. Disbelief escalates when a well-dressed coffee shop regular (Denise Crosby) makes some calls and finds out that many of America's politicians are mysteriously away in South America. Panic immediately ensues, with cook Fred (Robert DoQui) herding everyone into his food truck and heading to the airport, where the well-dressed woman has chartered several flights out of L.A. Fred refuses to go the opposite direction so Harry can pick up Julie, so Harry jumps out of the back of the truck and begins an hour-long odyssey into the night to get Julie--the woman he's waited his entire life to find--and get out of L.A., which is rapidly descending into a state of lawless chaos as the word of the world's end has quickly spread, making Harry wonder if he's needlessly incited a Chicken Little panic.
Steve De Jarnatt at a recent MIRACLE MILE screening
Written and directed by Steve De Jarnatt, MIRACLE MILE took nearly a decade to get made the way its creator intended. A hot property coming out of film school with his acclaimed 1978 short film TARZANA (with cult actors Timothy Carey and Eddie Constantine), De Jarnatt started shopping his MIRACLE MILE script shortly after, generating plenty of buzz but always getting the same reaction: the ending had to be changed. To De Jarnatt, the bleak ending was key to what made the film work, and the near-decade-long ordeal in making the MIRACLE MILE he wanted to make likely had a major hand in him shifting gears and abandoning feature films to focus on TV series work. While MIRACLE MILE languished in perpetual turnaround throughout the 1980s, De Jarnatt sought out journeyman gigs--he scored a co-writing credit on the 1983 SCTV cult comedy STRANGE BREW and directed the "Man from the South" episode of the rebooted ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS on NBC. He was offered films like THE PURSUIT OF D.B. COOPER (1981) and PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (1985) and he was in talks to direct DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (1985) before he left the project and was replaced by Susan Seidelman. De Jarnatt ultimately bought back the MIRACLE MILE script to ensure it would be made his way or not at all (on the MIRACLE MILE Blu-ray commentary with film critic Walter Chaw, De Jarnatt says "I was perceived as being arrogant, but I wasn't being arrogant...I just wanted to make my movie"). Still lacking the pull to get MIRACLE MILE made, De Jarnatt stashed it away and went to work on the post-apocalyptic action/romance hybrid CHERRY 2000 for Orion, who shelved it for three years before sending it straight to video in late 1988. By the time CHERRY 2000's belated and unceremonious release came about, De Jarnatt already had MIRACLE MILE in the can.
Support came from Hemdale Film Corporation, the indie that had just hit the respectable big time by backing Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning PLATOON (1986). Not only did Hemdale chief John Daly love De Jarnatt's script, he insisted that the downbeat ending remain intact. Figuring he'd have to make some concessions, De Jarnatt shot a somewhat less bleak--but still bleak--ending and Daly disapproved. "No," the supportive producer advised. "Let's rip their hearts out." Hemdale's credits included favorites like THE TERMINATOR (1984) and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985), but they were hitting their artistic and commercial pinnacle around the time they gave the green light to MIRACLE MILE. Over 1986-87, the company produced the feel-good sleeper hit HOOSIERS, Oliver Stone's SALVADOR and PLATOON, Tim Hunter's grim RIVER'S EDGE, and Bernardo Bertolucci's epic THE LAST EMPEROR. Their fortunes would quickly wane over 1988-89 with box-office under-performers like CRIMINAL LAW, SHAG, and STAYING TOGETHER, and outright bombs like HOTEL COLONIAL, BUSTER, THE BOOST, COHEN AND TATE, THE TIME GUARDIAN, and the Nicolas Cage-eats-a-cockroach classic VAMPIRE'S KISS. They never had a moneymaker after THE LAST EMPEROR, and by the time MIRACLE MILE came out in 1989, nearly two years after it was shot, Hemdale was starting to run on fumes before sputtering to a quiet end in 1994 with the animated film THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN.
"It seems every year, more people find it," De Jarnatt explains on the commentary. Like most Hemdale releases in 1989, MIRACLE MILE played to empty theaters, but it's managed to find a place in the consciousness of the cult movie collective. Along with the NYC-set AFTER HOURS and John Landis' L.A.-set INTO THE NIGHT (1985), it's one of the great "night" movies of the 1980s, the kind of film that brilliantly captures the look and feel of a city in the wee hours of the morning and that distinct L.A. flavor with its desolate streets ("New York is the city that never sleeps," De Jarnatt says, "but L.A. goes to bed at ten o'clock"), oddball characters, absurdist humor ("Fuck Joyce Brothers!"), and its extremely effective score by Tangerine Dream (De Jarnatt only worked at night while writing the script, and did so while listening to the duo's soundtrack to William Friedkin's SORCERER). It's a distinct product of its era--with pay phones, TV stations that sign off after 2:00 am, and the all-consuming fear of nuclear war--but it's aged very well. Sure, some of the visual effects reveal just how little money with which De Jarnatt had to work, and the fashions unquestionably date the film in the late '80s, but the best things about it stand the test of time, particularly the vivid performances of the cast. Everyone from Edwards and Winningham down to the character player with the smallest bit all get their moments--from the ensemble at the diner (most of the surviving supporting actors all reunite for a group interview on the bonus features) to '50s western and sci-fi hero John Agar, who's just terrific as Julie's grandfather, setting aside his 15-year argument with his estranged wife (Lou Hancock) as the two reconcile on what Harry knows will be the last night of their lives. MIRACLE MILE is a film that has stuck with the few people who saw it in 1989, and it's obviously an important one to everyone involved (Edwards and Winningham also have an intervew on the Blu-ray), all of whom look back on it with nothing but fond memories and are clearly happy that its reputation has grown.
CHERRY 2000 (US - 1988) Directed by Steve De Jarnatt. Written by Michael Almereyda. Cast: Melanie Griffith, David Andrews, Ben Johnson, Tim Thomerson, Pamela Gidley, Harry Carey Jr., Brion James, Michael C. Gwynne, Larry Fishburne, Marshall Bell, Jennifer Mayo, Cameron Milzer, Robert Z'Dar, Jack Thibeau, Howard Swain. (PG-13, 99 mins) Prior to MIRACLE MILE, De Jarnatt made his feature directing debut with CHERRY 2000, a dystopian action sci-fi romance that at times seems to be going for some ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI-style eccentricity. Orion Pictures had no idea what to do with CHERRY 2000, which completed filming in 1985 and saw its release date shuffled multiple times throughout 1986 and 1987 before it was shelved indefinitely. Orion ultimately released it directly to video in November 1988, seven months before the already-completed MIRACLE MILE hit screens and just a month before star Melanie Griffith's breakout, Oscar-nominated performance in Mike Nichols' WORKING GIRL.
In the year 2017 with most of America a desert wasteland and unemployment at 40%, Sam Treadwell (David Andrews), a successful white-collar exec at a recycling business, is heartbroken when his cherished robot lover Cherry (Pamela Gidley) short-circuits and fries during a bout of vigorous lovemaking on a floor flooded by an overflowing dishwasher. Cherry was one of the last of the priceless 2000 line, and when Sam manages to salvage her data chip, he becomes obsessed with doing whatever it takes, whatever the cost, to find a pristine Cherry 2000 to replace his beloved unit. To do this requires the toughest tracker in the area to get him to Zone 7, the location of the last remaining Cherry warehouse, and he finds her in the desolate helltown of Glory Hole: renowned bounty hunter E. Johnson (Griffith). On their way to Zone, located in what was once Las Vegas, they bicker back and forth, with E. Johnson chiding Sam for loving a robot and Sam developing feelings for E. Johnson but unable to let go of his cherished Cherry. They eventually get some help from wily old tracker Six-Fingered Jake (Ben Johnson) and cross paths with treacherous Snappy Tom (Harry Carey Jr), the owner of the Last Chance Brothel & Gas before the introduction of chief villain Lester (Tim Thomerson), who rules what's left of a sand-covered Vegas.
Thomerson!
Written not by De Jarnatt but Michael Almereyda (best known for his modern update of HAMLET with Ethan Hawke) from a story by Lloyd Fonvielle (THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE), CHERRY 2000 is a little silly at times, but it gets a lot of mileage out of a very likable performance by Griffith as the tough and charming E. Johnson, and it really picks up with the arrival of Thomerson, then fresh off TRANCERS, as the ruthless but hapless Lester. It's also enjoyable to see old-school western stalwarts like Johnson and Carey dropped into the middle of such a goofy setting, but CHERRY 2000 has a hard time getting by the black hole in the center that is human charisma vacuum David Andrews. Had the studio's original choice for Sam--a then-little-known Kevin Costner, who backed out after doing FANDANGO, SILVERADO, and AMERICAN FLYERS in quick succession--made himself available, the film likely would've had a more magnetic hero and more box office potential once THE UNTOUCHABLES and NO WAY OUT became big hits in 1987. Andrews has had a busy career in supporting roles and guest spots on TV--with his major series lead coming on NBC's short-lived MANN AND MACHINE in 1992--but there's a reason he never became a star. He plays Sam as whiny, needy, and even a little bit creepy, and while it still would've been silly, Costner would've at least been able to more convincingly sell Sam's devotion to Cherry without coming off in such an unappealing way. Still, CHERRY 2000 plays a bit better now than it did in 1988. It works it fits and starts, but it's a generally enjoyable and appealingly odd fusion of love story, western, and post-apocalypse, and shows what could've been a recurrent De Jarnatt theme of romance blossoming under the unlikeliest of circumstances. When the filmmaker seemingly removed himself from the game after the box-office failure of MIRACLE MILE, making ends meet with TV assignments on shows like THE X-FILES, ER, and LIZZIE MCGUIRE, cult cinema's had a potentially unique voice largely silenced for 25 years. With the Blu-ray releases of De Jarnatt's two forgotten late '80s gems, perhaps it's time for that voice to be heard again.
