Bloody Desert Massacres

 THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977) and

 THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART II (1985)

Two horror films that couldn't be further apart by Jerry Saravia

There is a fundamental rawness and ferocity to Wes Craven's "The Hills Have Eyes" that few other 1970's grungy, 16mm horror flicks don't quite match (the exception being "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre"). It is in-your-face and not much fun, but it is not supposed to be a joyful romp through the desert area where weapons testing occurs. Follow the road directions and don't go astray. Boy, nobody ever listens to the gas station attendant. 

"The Hills Have Eyes" has a tight-knit family stranded in the middle of the desert with a broken-down station wagon and a camper. The patriarch of this family is retired policeman, Bob Carter (Russ Grieve), his dutiful wife (Virginia Vincent), and their daughters, one a little wild (Susan Lanier) and the other somewhat quiet (Dee Wallace), with their corresponding husbands. There also two endlessly barking German Shepherds, one named appropriately Beast and the other is named Beauty. The slim plot has Bob wanting to visit a silver mine he inherited but why it is so close to a government-sanctioned site with flyover Air Force jets, I can't say. Before you know it, the hills have a disgusting cannibal family who soon begin to prey on and attack the family. 

"The Hills Have Eyes" is unnerving throughout with the unsuspecting family members getting picked off, one by one. The assault in the camper approaches the brutality of Wes Craven's earlier "Last House on the Left" and you just can't wait for these demonic savages to get their just deserts (one of them includes the iconic Michael Berryman with a face and brow sure to produce chills on any viewer). Beast becomes something of a heroic dog and the ending with its crimson-colored freeze frame suggests that sometimes the evil is inside all of us when it comes to savage violence.

The 1985 sequel is unintentionally funny and rather toned-down from the viciousness of the original. It opens with a title crawl that reminds one of "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and uses flashbacks of the original film through the eyes of Bobby Carter (one of the surviving members of the original film and played again by Robert Houston). Another flashback is, are you ready, shown from the point-of-view of the dog Beast! Now Bobby had apparently married the helpful, frightened feral girl of the cannibal family, Ruby (Janus Blythe), from the original film and here was the opportunity to have her deal with her family from the hills. The problem is that Michael Berryman returns as her knife-wielding brother, Pluto (whom I thought was dead in the original), and there is a gargantuan-sized new member known as the Reaper, and that's all folks. All families eventually break apart I guess and Ruby never gets even with either cannibal. The victims are some racing drivers and their girlfriends in a red bus, this time, and they stop but the bus never actually breaks down! So everyone decides they need gas and stupidly investigate a compound of ramshackle homes with a mine shaft and a refrigerator that looks like the gateway to Hell.

The original film is often unyieldingly sickening yet it pulsates with raw power. Craven's needless and purposeless sequel should be long forgotten. I sense that even Beast will not have a flashback to this forgettable mess.

Horror on the margins of a religious community

 DEADLY BLESSING (1981)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Wes Craven's "Deadly Blessing" appears to be about a religious community in rural Pennsylvania who have strict rules, namely they do not consort or conversate with non-religious members. In this world, the group are the Hittites who, in one hilarious dialogue bit, "make the Amish look like swingers."  The Hittites refer to women outside their group as the incubus. Ouch. Might have been better off calling this devout religious group the Hutterites who, unlike the Hittites, actually live in some U.S. states but I digress.

I had a jolly good time at first seeing Michael Berryman ("The Hills Have Eyes") appear as some man-child of the Hittites who is something of a pervert, looking into a woman's bedroom window and watching her disrobe. In fact, I wondered if this movie would become a psychological portrait of how religion bleeds in a community where some members become curious of those who do not follow any sect - people living by their rules and moral code. I digress again because, before you figure out how to pronounce Hittite, there is a murder by a John Deere tractor! The male character killed is Jim (Douglas Barr), an ex-Hittite, living with his wife Martha, in a house with an outside sign that reads "Our Blessing." When Martha finds her husband dead, she is the sole person to attend the funeral with the Hittites observing on a farm hill. Ernest Borgnine plays the patriarch and sermonizer of the Hittites who hates and demonizes anyone who leaves the group and consorts with non-members. That still leaves Berryman as the man-child who is killed not even halfway through the film, though he's not denounced but there is the matter of his missing shoe. We are saddled with Maren Jensen (in her last film role) as Martha who doesn't seem to grieve much - she invites her old pals for a week to her home. One of them is Sharon Stone, in her stunningly sultry debut, who has a sleepy gaze throughout that is rather enthralling to me because it is, well, Sharon Stone. Jeff East is also on hand as a blonde Hittite who starts to cast doubts about religion infecting his life and his potential new bride and seeking, you know, intimate relations.  

"Deadly Blessing" has a good story that is lost in translation. The film is far too inert and even in scare sequences where there is a hooded killer in a barn or elsewhere, it falls short of thrills or anything menacing. That is surprising coming from horror director Wes Craven who can rattle the nerves at his best and make you quake your boots. "Deadly Blessing's" horror is muted at best making one wish Craven made an entirely different, more dramatic movie. The religious fervor of the Hittites is personal for Craven but even the staging of said sermons and Borgnine's imposing presence are flat and insipid. The movie was shot in relatively one month and there is a studio-imposed supernatural finish that is plain dumb and counterproductive to what we have seen. It will be one more blessing in my moviegoing experiences if I never have to sit through this movie again.  

Blah, blah and blah

 DIGGER (2026)

Endured by Jerry Saravia

The first major trailer for "Digger" was exciting and brash - a neo-political comedy on the order of Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove." It appeared as if it had its satirical claws sharpened for the politics of the Trump era, a finite, blackly comical treatise of the current maddening zeitgeist. We still need a movie like that now, something to cause the earth to tip on its axis and wake us up. Alas, "Digger" is not that movie. Without revealing much here that may dampen one's feelings of what this movie could have been, "Digger" is an incessant bore of a movie, a slow walk to nothingness. It has a remarkable ending but the rest of the movie has crumbles of a broken narrative. 

I will give props to Tom Cruise, an actor who has appeared in a diverse set of films until he decided to return to "Mission: Impossible" and "Top Gun" franchises. Nothing wrong with that but Cruise always seemed to contain an edgy veneer that went beyond good looks and natural charisma - he was always the poster boy for sincerity. Other than his best performance in "Born on the Fourth of July," he has played up insincerity and plumbed deep into those waters with "Magnolia" and "Eyes Wide Shut" (and let's not forget his hilarious turn in "Tropic Thunder.") In "Digger," he's a billionaire oil tycoon who cares more about his dying cat than the catastrophic drilling for oil in Greenland and Alaska with the approval and help of sickly, cancer-ridden President Compson (an emaciated John Goodman who is possibly the best thing about this movie). Apparently, due to methane warnings about drilling that this mega billionaire could barely give a lick about, an explosion in the icy terrain of Greenland has caused an ice shelf the size of Maryland to break away and result in major flooding in Europe. Later on, another floating ice shelf the size of Boston is ready to strike Alaska! What can be done about this flooding? Sadly not much except that Digger's own Dr. Nirav Ganesh (Riz Ahmed, a balanced comical performance), an environmental safety chief, is on hand to speak to Parliament about the nitty-gritty truth of this disaster. Then Digger does his bit to speak to them about the real real truth - everyone wants oil and they want him to drill. Um, sure, that is a point to be made but not a very salient one.

I can't reveal too much about "Digger" and some of its surprises except that they do not add up to much. Its plot developments that enter the meta phase deter from the overall impact that I think director Alejandro Iñárritu was aiming for. The movie could have gone for broke and truly nailed the very zeitgeist we are in, to make the audience angry with serious commentary embellished by black humor. What we get is a sick cat, a one-note and wearying performance by Tom Cruise, and monotonous shaping of scenes that reiterate the same token phrases and ideas. As I mentioned before, "Digger" has a great ending but it belongs to a different, braver and more articulate movie.        

Retiring 007

 NO TIME TO DIE (2021)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The Daniel Craig James Bond-era was rougher and tougher than earlier Bonds with a very high body count. This particular era of 007 also had connecting storylines and recurring characters in more ways than one than the previous entries. Sure, we had Bond grieving for his slain wife in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" to the point that Moore's Bond visits her grave in "For Your Eyes Only." The seemingly unkillable Blofeld always showed up in key moments in different sequels since he was always so damn nefarious. In "No Time to Die," it is not just Blofeld returning but also a deepening storyline with the fabulous Léa Seydoux as Madeleine Swann, his love interest who could change our favorite superspy's future forever (For those who are unaware, at the end of "SPECTRE," Bond almost kills Blofeld point blank and chooses not to while Madeleine is waiting on a London bridge). 

As in previous Bond films, there is always the electrifying teaser of an opening. Here, it begins ominously with some armed menacing figure in the snow approaching a house with a drunk mother and her child listening to music - it has the look and feel of some horror film. Then it segues to a somewhat mild encounter with Bond on holiday with Madeleine in an Italian hotel. Bond is about to visit the grave of Vesper Lynd (from "Casino Royale") when an explosion occurs that practically knocks Bond out. A chase ensues with various minions shooting at him on a connecting bridge and he's able to jump off with some thankfully sustaining cables. It is thoroughly intense and leads to Bond thinking that Madeleine betrayed him and we get a cold finish where he tells her they will never see each other again. Never say Never as five years pass and SPECTRE has infiltrated an MI6 lab where a pathogen has been developed that can track targets by their DNA - all of this under the supervision of M (Ralph Fiennes). Explosions galore as Project Heracles has been breached at the lab headquarters. Meanwhile, Bond is living off the grid in Jamaica and gets a visit from returnee Jeffrey Wright as reliable Felix Leiter, requiring his services for her Majesty's Secret Service. Bond can't use his 007 number since it had been retired and it is now belonging to Nomi (Lashana Lynch) who can drive fast cars, fast planes and shoot with dead accuracy. In other words, why do we need Bond? And when lovely, exquisite and sexy Ana de Armas shows up in an explosive cameo as a nervous CIA agent who does her share of firing on all cylinders, you think for a moment that James Bond's character might be on the outs. 

"No Time to Die" has a new villain with facial scarring issues named Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek, playing the role with an icy stare) who wants to kill Blofeld (once again, played in a quickie cameo by Christoph Waltz) - Safin's desire, like all Bond megalomaniacs, is to infect the world with this pathogen and kill everyone. And then what? But there I go again, questioning the logic of the illogical villains and their deathly wish to neutralize all. 

"No Time to Die" has killer car chases through vast fields of forests and countrysides, not to mention the aforementioned Italy opening which had me on the edge of my seat. My one complaint is that Bond kills so many faceless minions that you lose count, especially in the island fortress towards the end (this reminded me of the Chris Walken psycho villain Zorin from "A View to a Kill" where he gets a machine gun and kills all his workers. This is perhaps not what the new Bond filmmakers intended but it occurred to me). I also love how Safin sees that Bond is a killer and questions why Madeleine want to be with such a man, an assassin. These are questions not normally probed in a James Bond movie. That, and James's passionate love for Madeleine and her...oh, you have to see it to believe it. This movie gives Bond a bit more soul and heart than usual, though it all started with his care for Vesper in "Casino Royale." It all comes to a hellish end but, boy, what a ride. No question in my mind that Daniel Craig is the second best Bond since Sean Connery. 

I am Alive

 JACOB'S LADDER (1990)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The first time I watched "Jacob's Ladder," I almost sensed that everything the nervous, twitching, emotionally drained Jacob Singer was enduring was real and present. You want to believe that he did not die from his wounds in Vietnam and led a life as a post office worker in New York City and lived in a dingy apartment with his girlfriend. You want to believe all that. After seeing it again recently in quite some time, I knew what to expect and yet I didn't. I still wanted to believe Jacob had a somewhat normal life despite seeing fleshy tails in homeless people in the subway or demons looking and staring at him from behind subway doors or in hallways or at parties. That is what makes "Jacob's Ladder" worth revisiting often because you still hold hope for Jacob and that he recovers from his trauma and his fear of being dead and that he is, as he says to some doctors, alive. 

Tim Robbins is essentially the perfect actor to play a tormented, sweet, caring man who was once married, possibly returned from Vietnam though not unscathed from injuries and is possibly living with the equally caring Jezebel (Elizabeth Peña), his girlfriend he presumably knows from work. But there is something unsettling happening to Jacob. He has unrelenting visions of demons with heads that shake violently. Sometimes Jacob needs an adjustment from his saintly chiropractor (Danny Aiello) whom he refers to as an "overgrown cherub." Sometimes it is spurts of uncommon joy from listening to teenage girls in the street corner singing "Mr. Postman" or dancing briefly with Jezebel at a party. Jacob, though, has recurring nightmares and sometimes we are not sure if he is remembering his wife or if he's still with Jezebel or still in Vietnam being rescued by helicopter. Is he truly dead and if he just sees the demons as angels, can he proceed to Heaven with some inner peace? Will he get past the accidental death of one of his sons (Macaulay Culkin)?

"Jacob's Ladder" is a frightening, captivating journey of a man's probable descent into madness or a death-like paralysis before he climbs up to the heavens. Aiello is the saintly Louis who cares so much about Jacob that he cannot bear to see him in the hospital after Jacob hurt his back. Peña is the no-nonsense girlfriend who cannot bear to see Jacob cry and wants to nurture him back to health. Patricia Kalember as Sarah, the wife that Jaccob presumably divorced, shows such a gentle, understanding woman that she may as well have a halo. We also get fleeting glimpses of Jacob's Army pals (Ving Rhames, Eriq La Salle, Pruitt Taylor Vince) who also see some of these demonic visions - they want to sue the Army for possible drug experimentation while in Vietnam. Stylishly directed by Adrian Lyne, "Jacob's Ladder" is heavy-going yet it is often stirring, haunting, poetic (16mm footage is used in flashbacks; the billowing smoke from the New York streets; the dingy apartment that still looks inviting; Macaulay Culkin's cherubic face and smile especially at the end; the blood-stained hallways of an underground hospital) and has truly eerie close-ups of Robbins in various states of distress especially when he's endlessly strapped to beds. It is a New York City fervent nightmare of a movie but there are rich rewards for those who stick with it till the end. 

In Dreams

 MY TWENTIETH CENTURY (1989)

 An Appreciation by Jerry Saravia

The song I expected to hear in "My Twentieth Century" was Roy Orbison's melodious, ethereal pop song "In Dreams." It would have worked even more succinctly in this confection of turn-of-the-century images of a new era, new ideas, than in Lynch's "Blue Velvet." "My Twentieth Century" is a glorious, fantastical and supremely beautiful film of dreams told with such simplicity that it should be considered a fairly definitive evocation of the historical era it portrays with great love and attention. 

"My Twentieth Century" begins fleetingly with the invention of the light bulb by morose inventor Thomas Edison (Péter Andora), showcasing his revolutionary idea by having a tree lit with bulbs. A marching band carrying light bulbs on their hats celebrates the discovery. Afterwards, there is the simultaneous birth of twin Hungarian girls (Dorotha Segda plays the single mother and her daughters in their adult years) - the film already develops a comical side when the mother is unaware she has two baby girls crying in her bed. Getting back to Edison for a second - is he morose because such an invention doesn't compare to giving birth? Who can say though the stars in the night sky are wondering why he's sad as they call out to him (the talking stars are unmistakably a nod to "It's a Wonderful Life"). 

The twin girls, Dora and Lili, become orphans who sell matches on the snow-covered Budapest streets and are eventually separated by two strangers who steal their matches. As they enter adulthood, Dora becomes a grifter, stealing from the wealthy and living a life of luxury aboard trains, ships and expensive hotel rooms. Lili has become an anarchist, bombing buildings where the Minister of Interior frequents. The two never seem to meet again except in a funhouse of mirrors and even then, nothing is shared between them. The man they share, unbeknownst to them, is Z (Oleg Yankovsky), a mysterious figure of some intellectual heft, who lives in a small apartment and attends symposiums on transmitting electricity by human touch (a little Tesla twinkle there I gather).

Surreal, stirring debut films like "My Twentieth Century" are unusual and especially from a female director like Ildikó Enyedi. This is not a normal debut by any means - Hungarian filmmaker Enyedi (making her film during the era of Communist Hungary) shows she has a tremendous vision of a bygone era and it is illustrated by striking, densely layered imagery (a woman dances on stage with light bulbs attached to her) and subtle, expressive performances. There is a lot going on here with freely associative historical vignettes involving Pavlovian dogs, wealth inequality, the novel excitement of silent films, the treatment of women as objects despite their burgeoning presence where equal rights were in their infancy, Edison's other invention namely the telegraph, and a sense of being free with the promise of an exciting new era. Z may not know what is coming, and both Dora and Lili are just pawns in a time of self-expression. None of them comment on the new technology during the Second Industrial Revolution, the politics of the era (though Lili attends a lecture on women's rights) and barely any matters when it comes to the heart. Love itself for lustful Dora and the virginal Lili exists in a vacuum. They don't know what's coming ahead and that is the heartbreaking soul of "My Twentieth Century." They just know they are free.

007 bored me to tears

 THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1974)

Endured by Jerry Saravia

Roger Moore's dapper James Bond is asked by his boss, M, about Scaramanga. Bond mentions that this assassin has a superfluous papilla - a third nipple. That is the most memorable moment of this joyless and tedious Bond effort (one I did not revisit much during the last 40 years) that feels like it has the thinnest story imaginable. 

Preceding this flick was "Live and Let Die" which was Roger Moore's dubious debut as Bond. That film had a little more story, a far more interesting Bond girl delivered by Jane Seymour as a talented tarot reader, a decent villain played by Yaphet Kotto, and they threw in some voodoo magic in the strange locales and surroundings of the Caribbean Islands. "Man With the Golden Gun" deals with an assassin who has a golden gun and gets paid a million dollars a hit - more than enough money to own a private island off the coast of southeastern China. He has some extraordinary solar beam that can presumably destroy anything. Bond must find Scaramanga and has assistance from Miss Goodnight (!) played by Britt Ekland. Throw in yet another boat chase (nowhere near as good as the one in "Live and Let Die"), a martial arts sequence, and a car chase with one unbelievably good stunt where it flips while crossing an unfinished bridge. Also thrown in is Bond's brief hanky panky with Ekland and Maud Adams. The car chase, by the way, brings the return of Clifton James as Sheriff Pepper from the last Bond outing - almost improbable he would run into Bond again. 

Christopher Lee is astonishingly good in an underwritten part - when he's on screen, the film comes alive. Moore hadn't grown in to the part of Bond yet and Ekland is a pure waste - a throwaway blonde Bond girl. "The Man With the Golden Gun" is the worst Moore Bond flick because it does something rather rare - it bored me to tears.