"I’d rather have you as you are…then see you parading yourself like some jaded young slut from the whore house!"
Castles, graveyards, fog, cleavage, blood, fancy costumes, silly accents…oh yeah, it’s Hammer time again. During its heyday, England’s Hammer Studios churned out piles of sumptuous gothic horror flicks, always with a heady stench of eroticism. Countess Dracula features Polish-born scream queen Ingrid Pitt, one year after she bared it all for Hammer’s classic lesbian vampire film, The Vampire Lovers.
If you're seeking vampires (lesbian or otherwise), beware. Countess Dracula does feature a Countess, but she’s not the spawn of that infamous bloodsucker. In fact, she’s not a vampire at all. Rather, it’s a Hammer-ized retelling of the legendary Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary, whose virgin-killing exploits were a massive influence on vampire lore. As legend has it, Countess Bathory drained the blood from hundreds of young girls, not for vampiric sustenance, but for cosmetic use, to make her look young again. In today’s world of Botox parties and anal bleaching, this scheme doesn’t seem so far fetched.
Ingrid is Countess Elizabeth Nàdasby. When we first see her, she is a shriveled and spiteful hag, who thinks nothing of crushing peasants her carriage. When her buxom maidservant cuts herself in a peach-slicing accident, Elizabeth gets splattered with blood. Miraculously, the blood has age-reversing powers, turning her weather-beaten hide into rosy young flesh.
Young and beautiful again, the countess masquerades as her own daughter, Ilona, who’s been away at school. Meanwhile, she has the real Ilona kidnapped by a goofy-looking peasant and imprisoned in his shack. Along with her newly restored beauty, the countess regains her libido and sets her sights on dashing soldier Imre Toth (Sandor Elès). This raises the bristly eyebrows of Captain Dobi (Nigel Green), Elizabeth’s conspirator and one-time lover.
How long can this charade last? Can Elizabeth find enough girl blood to feed her cosmetic craze? And when does she get naked already?
I’m about to destroy my horror fan credibility. Ready? I’m not an Ingrid Pitt guy. I like her. She’s charming, charismatic, and a joy to watch. When she emerges from her first bloody sponge-bath, beaming and twirling with glee, she’s damn near radiant. But do I think she’s sexy? Eh. If Ingrid does get you salivating, there’s an awesome scene of her dabbing blood on her naked body.
Even if Ingrid doesn’t really crank your tractor, don’t despair. Countess Dracula features cleavage galore, and some nifty nudity. Nothing to rival the boobtacular Vampire Lovers, of course, but you slobbering horndogs certainly won’t be bored.
It’s a good thing Countess Dracula delivers in the skin department, because it isn’t scary at all. Most of the kills are off-camera, and those that aren’t are practically bloodless. Ingrid’s seethes and cackles admirably, but she’s not a menacing villainess. She’s too sweet. During her scenes with the smitten Imre, the music swells and swoons as if this were a romance, and not a perverted ruse. Excuse me, isn’t this lady slashing virgins for beauty treatments? I am not involved in her emotional wellbeing. The only time she’s really scary is when she’s under that old lady makeup. The really villain is Captain Dobi, whose lust for Elizabeth turns to jealous rage as he sees her cavorting with Imre. Dobi’s bizarre intonation, eerie stare, and face-devouring beard really sell the character.
Countess Dracula, like many Hammer films, teeters stylistically between elegance and outright camp. The setting and costumes are great, especially that iconic castle set, with its hidden passageways and stained glass boudoirs. The film has a hazy soft focus, as if filmed through Vaseline. This sometimes makes the firelight leave trails on the screen, adding a trippy effect. Some moments, like the above sponge-bath scene, are pretty giggle-inducing. Also, there’s this guy:
Vampires or no vampires, this is a groovy slice of ‘70s gothicana, with a spooky atmosphere and eye-catching performances. If you dig Ingrid Pit or Hammer Studios, there’s definitely worse ways to spend a rainy night.
AKA Cyborg Conquest
Directed by Leigh Scott
Starring Stacey Dash, Jackey Hall, Frida Farrell, Eliza Swenson Unrated USA
"We're gonna need more guns. Bigger guns."
Stop me if you've heard this one before: an all-girl biker gang (led by Clueless's Stacey Dash) rob a bank and then decide to hole-up in a rowdy small-town dive-bar in the middle of Louisiana somewhere until the heat's off. Naturally, the locals are curious about these gun-toting denim demonesses, and a fracas breaks out. Long story short, it turns out everybody in the bar is a fuckin' robot. The girls shoot their way out, only to find themselves in another gunfight, this time with cops. Who also happen to be robots.
Such is the goofy world of Chrome Angels, AKA Cyborg Conquest, a sadly overlooked girl-powered schlockfest that plays out like a Syfy-certified mash-up of She Devils on Wheels and Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.
The robots are the handiwork of a mad scientist/evil genius Elliot (Paul LeMat). Blacklisted by the US for having ties with Libyan terrorists in the 1970's, he's spent the past several decades perfecting his redneck doppelgangers, only to be undone right before his world-shaking reveal by Lady (Dash) and her, um, ladies. During the opening shoot out (which, by the way, eats up the entire first-third of the movie), the girls split into two camps. Lady, Tinkerbell (Dorm of the Deadstar Jackey Hall), and a few others head to the next town to find a doctor to get help for one of girls was shot in the melee, while the rest of the gang end up getting caught by the cop-bots and shipped back to Elliot's secret headquarters.
When tough-as-nails Gretchen (Frida Farrell) comes to, still bloodied and disoriented from the mayhem at the bar, she's greeted by the wheelchair-bound Elliot and his cyborg helpers. He explains to her that his research was borne of misanthropy: he simply doesn't like people that much, so he made a small army of obedient robots instead, including sexy blonde ones, who service him in whatever capacity he requires. Fair enough.
Now, however, his plans have become even more grandiose: he wants to start transferring human brains into robot bodies. This way he can get out of the chair, live forever, all that jazz. Mad scientists are all the same, aren't they? Also, and I'm not sure what the point was on this, while she was passed out, Elliot made an exact robot replica of Gretchen. He shows it to her. She's pretty upset. Then he uses Gretchen's cell phone to call Lady. He informs her that he made robots of the whole goddamn gang.
This gives Stacey Dash another opportunity to look hard. That's what she does for most of the movie, grit her teeth and look hard. She's wicked good at it. SeeGang of Rosesfor another legendary nostril-flaring performance from Miss Dash.
Also, there's lots of shots of her ass, too. So that's cool. Anyways, Elliot tells her that she's got to come to his headquarters and give him back his property (they accidentally ended up with half a robot during their escape from the bar), or he'll execute her friends and then send a bunch of death-droids to hunt her and the rest of the gang down.
Meanwhile, Lady decides they need a bunch of bazookas and rocket launchers to get their friends back, so she convinces Tinkerbell to visit her old boyfriend, Bobby Dupree (!) a military weapons enthusiast/dealer, to get some. He's not happy to see her, so they have to rough him up a little first. But they eventually get a bunch of guns. They also take Bobby along for the ride.
Back at the lab, the real Gretchen wakes up and manages to seize some kind of laser weapon from the robots. She uses it to force Elliot's bespectacled assistant Blaine (Brent Lydic) to spill the beans about this kooky operation. He tells her he's helped Elliot make 3500 droids, and all of them are currently living, undetected, in various small towns. And they've got atomic bombs in them! Elliot wants to use them to blackmail the government. If he doesn't get whatever he asks for, he'll just start blowing people up. Well, ok.
The girls have enough firepower to launch their offensive, but how will they manage to break into Elliot's bunker? Layla (Eliza Swenson, Candy Stripers) suggests they visit her ex-boyfriend Gator (Dean Arevelo), a garage mechanic who specializes in bulletproof vehicles. So that's pretty helpful, given the circumstances. The running gag with Gator is that he's supposed to be too short to be a bad-ass, but they hired an actor who's only marginally shorter than everybody else, so it doesn't really work. Where's Billy Barty when you really need him?
Back at the lab, the other girls check out their battery-powered doppelgangers, but have little time to ponder the existential dread such an event would engender because they've gotta bust outta this joint. Fake Gretchen takes off with the chicks (they don't know the difference) while real Gretchen splits with Blaine.
Then there's a gratuitous shoot-out at a grocery store, complete with a gratuitous tragic death scene, which, naturally, features some gratuitous heaving cleavage. Nice!
After that's over, Lady meets up with Gretchen (fake and real), and there's a shoot-out, and then all is revealed.
Of course, by this point, Elliot has unloosed his secret weapon. Every mad scientist has one. What else could it be? It's a giant robot. Looks like that goofy droid from Buck Rogers, or the "Rabbot" from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Not scary.
So while that's going on, Layla fights a robot inside the grocery store, and when it appears that he's about to finish her off, she blows the place up with a grenade. And that, naturally, blows the atomic-bomb robot up, too, effectively destroying a big chunk of the city. If you think about it too hard, you'll realize that everybody else - including the giant robot - is in that area too, so pretty much everybody should be dead and/or exploded. So don't think about it too hard.
Anyway, the girls need something to fight the giant robot with, so they rush back to Elliot's lab to activate their own robot alter-egos. Seems valid.
They're all wearing flesh-colored bikinis, though. That doesn't seem quite as valid.
So while the girls all head over to the mall to shoot kid-droids and whatnots, and while Bobby Dupree and Gator fight the giant robot, Lady and Gretchen drop by Elliot's joint to kill him. But there's at least three Elliots wheelin' around the joint, and probably a bunch more in storage somewhere. So they've got their work cut out for them.
So, how's it all end? With booze. And introspection. And CGI motorcycles. And the threat of a sequel.
As far as I can tell, Chrome Angels was made specifically for the Syfy Network, so it's hobbled, like all of their made-for productions, by a glaring lack of nudity, graphic violence, and cuss-words.
While any or all of those elements would have been wonderful additions to this goofy girl-on-robot battle royale, Chrome Angels is still a frequently delightful bit of low-budget nonsense, filled to capacity with hot chicks shooting off fifty zillion rounds of ammo in between cringe-worthy bouts of melodramatic girl-bonding and nonsensical flashbacks (featuring, of all people, a cowboy-hat sportin' Richard Lynch, who offers a younger Lady unsolicited advice about the high cost of freedom).
I'm sure a good part of my enthusiasm for this film lies with the casting. Stacey Dash is full-on amazing in this. Not only is she drop-dead gorgeous (crazy to think she's nearly 20 years older than most of her costars!), but she's emotes up a storm. I haven't seen this much growling and seething in a performance since Robbie Lee in Switchblade Sisters. It's also a thrill to see southern-fried scream queen Jackey Hall in something that wasn't shot on a camcorder (Chainsaw Cheerleaders, anyone?). Her shout-acting, adorably squishy features, and unapologetic twang are practically worth the price of admission all on their own.
And while there's too many biker-chicks to really keep track of, Angels does deliver on the eye-candy. There's very few moments where a push-up bra or a denim-clad ass doesn't make an appearance.
Director Leigh Scott - who cut his teeth at Roger Corman's Concorde Productions - is clearly a talented guy. The film, minus the dodgy CGI, looks great, moves fast, and keeps its tongue jammed firmly in cheek. With just a couple boob-flashes and possibly a lopped-off noggin or two, he'd have a campy, 80's-big-box-VHS-style cult classic on his hands here. Still, bloodless and boobless as it is, Chrome Angels is well worth checking out.
PS: Dunno why they decided to re-title it. Can the promise of cyborg mayhem really be a bigger draw than an all-girl biker gang? Crazy world.
Tonight, we check out 1977's Hausu, a pop-art masterpiece of high-weirdness! Not only do we tell you about the movie, but the MAG Players recreate key scenes! Wow!
Plus: the top 5 bottom 5 DVDs of the week, weird news, Songs about Girls, and lots more!
AKA Love is the Drug
Directed by Elliot Lester
Starring Lizzy Caplan, Darryl Hannah, and some douchebags Rated R USA
"What are you doing in my backyard?"
This is a horrible movie, make no mistake about it. For nearly a decade now, Hollywood's had this baffling love affair with rich, white, bored, morally bankrupt kids, probably since that's what all the execs have at home. Since only about 3% of the population could possibly relate to these greedy ingrates, I just don't get why these movies keep getting getting made. Who could like something like this? Kids exactly like the kids in this movie would even hate it.
So, why am I even bothering to mention it? Because Lizzy Caplan is in it (as a blonde!), and she looks super-hot. That's why.
The story? Well, Lizzy and her pals are rich, white, bored, and morally bankrupt. There's a working-class doofus at her school who's hopelessly in love with her. Normally, she wouldn't even acknowledge his existence, but it turns out he has an after-school job at a pharmacy, so Lizzy's pals talk her into being nice to him so he'll steal drugs for them. And that's what he does.
Of course, he doesn't realize he's being manipulated, and as he quickly spirals into criminal behavior, his obsession with Lizzy grows deeper and weirder.
Also, Darryl Hannah plays the kid's mom. They decided to go for a haggard look for her. Ouch.
How's it all end? How do these things ever end? Badly.
While the acting is pretty solid, everybody in the movie is either an asshole or a simp, so you don't really care what happens to anybody. The end.
Hopefully, next time Lizzy dyes her hair blonde, she'll do something fun.
Directed By Lucio Fulci Starring Florinda Bolkan, Jean Sorel, Silvia Monte Rated R Italy
"By killing Julia, you killed a part of yourself. The part attracted to degradation and vice."
While better known for his horror escapades, and pitting a zombie against a shark in Zombi 2 (admit it, it sounds cooler than it looks). Lucio Fulci directed a handful of Italian whodunnits (as a genre, these are referred to as Giallo) in the late sixties to early seventies. They often featured attention grabbing names, such as One On Top Of The Other, or Don't Torture A Duckling. Though overshadowed by his more lucrative horror work, his Giallo films are actually classics in their own right. This brings us to A Lizard In A Woman's Skin.
Set in early seventies London, A Lizard In A Woman's Skin starts right off with a woman in distress rushing hurredly through a trains cabins as if fleeing something unknown. Eventually the well dressed and proper commuters devolve into a throng of naked revelers as she continues to push through. Until falling down a black hole until she lands on a huge bed covered with pillows and red satin sheets. Which itself is on a red carpet. To be greeted by a laughing semi-nude woman, who immediately begins to strip and make love to her.
This scene is filmed in an unabashed iconic manner. Right away, although not a word is spoken, you are drawn into the tapestry of Fulci's world. The scene is saturated in bold, blood red. This sets the tone for the rest of the film. From here on out, red is featured in nearly every scene, though not as boldly as it is here. Whereas Fulci's London is portrayed in a muted, almost drab fashion. Red pops on the screen in almost every frame. From little dashes here and there, to what we see here. It not only lends the complicated plot a sense of continuity, but subconsciously keeps forbidden sex, and on another level, blood, humming along in the background.
Ok, back to the show. Of course this is a dream and she wakes up. In her bed of pure white sheets I might add. The woman is Carol Hammond (Florinda Bolkan) and she immediately jots down her dream at her desk, which she curiously keeps at the foot of her bed. Then we see her at her shrinks office, Dr. Kerr (George Rigaud) who informs her that the corridors of the train were the corridors to the flat next door. Julia Durer (Anita Strindberg) lives there and is always in this reoccurring dream. Apparently Julia is not exactly "respectable". This excites her curiosity, but also her fear of her freedom he continues to explain.
At this point it is worth noting a gripe I have with Florinda Bolkan's performance. She maintains a dour, puss faced countenance throughout the film. It's a one note performance. And while I admire her consistency, the lack of life in her eyes weighs the film down more than it should have. At no point does she even smile, or do nothing more than maintain that sullen exterior. It may not be completely her fault, she may have been directed to carry on this way. Even so, it's a drag.
Immediately following this visit, we see her wild and woolly neighbor Julia in her natural habitat. Having a wild party. Interspersed with scenes of Florinda having dinner with her friends and husband Frank (Jean Sorel who you may recognize from Perversion Story). Julia is probably imagining all of the debauched shenanigans going on as the ruckus noisily provides the soundtrack to their dinner.
Later we see husband Frank in the office with his boss/father-in-law Edmond Brighton (Leo Genn discussing business. Edmond receives a mysterious phone call, and asks Frank if he is having an affair. He dodges the question, and goes on his way.
Then we see Carol is having another dream. Running down the familiar corridor, except this time the dream breaks from the usual. It takes on nightmarish tones, with dead people and gore, eventually to be pursued by a swan of Rodan proportions. She ends up on the familiar red bed with her neighbor Julia, naked and seductive. Carol grabs her dagger shaped letter opener and stabs her repeatedly. Back in Dr. Kerr's office, she recounts this dream. He is delighted, and tells her that she has had a breakthrough, conquering her fears.
Except, now it is revealed, as detectives rush to a homicide scene, that Julia has been murdered in reality, stabbed to death. And what follows is a mindbending series of red herrings, and betrayal (it seems dear Frank was getting some on the side after all). Also, there were two hippies who were there at Julia's murder. Eventually, they plot to kill Carol too.
For a Giallo, A Lizard In A Woman's Skin is unusually fast paced. Once the murder happens, it kicks into third gear. And you really have to pay attention as you follow along lest you get left behind. Throughout all of this, you are accompanied along with Ennio Morricone's enjoyable psychedelic score. And the film is interspersed with plenty of hot, naked seventies babes as welcome eye candy.
What is remarkable about A Lizard In A Woman's Skin isn't the plot (which isn't too shabby in it's own right). But how all of the elements of filmmaking gel together into one rich tapestry. It deals heavily with the Carol's subconscious, as we have seen, dreams play a major role. And as the events unfold, we can appreciate it on multiple levels. From the use of color, to the music cues, and even how the events at the very beginning foreshadow the way things play out at the end. It doesn't take long before it is evident, that with A Lizard In A Woman's Skin, that you are in skilled hands, approaching master status.
Availability: A Lizard In A Woman's Skin is out of print. But can currently be had used at relatively reasonable prices.
Castles, graveyards, fog, cleavage, blood, fancy costumes, silly accents…oh yeah, it’s Hammer time again. During its heyday, England’s Hammer Studios churned out piles of sumptuous gothic horror flicks, always with a heady stench of eroticism. Countess Dracula features Polish-born scream queen Ingrid Pitt, one year after she bared it all for Hammer’s classic lesbian vampire film, The Vampire Lovers.
