We've Got a Long Way to Go

I'll never pass over a nuclear apocalypse story, even if it carries a whopping 2.8 out of 10 rating on IMDB...or maybe ESPECIALLY if it carries a 2.8 out of 10. This is me we're talking about.

Quick Plot: Nuclear bombs have dropped throughout the world, with an immediate death count over 3 billion. Retired military captain John Ramsay has figured out how to survive the incoming radiation with a safe home and enough supplies for three people: himself, daughter Joanna, and son-in-law-that-wasn't-to-be Larry. Instead, he begrudgingly opens his doors to five strangers: solid Steve and his radiation-covered brother Granger, jerky Las Vegas stud Mickey  and his danger galpal Jada, and older alcoholic Tim.

John is the kind of guy who spent ten years preparing his house for this exact kind of disaster AND making a scaled diorama of it to show off to eventual guests. He and Joanna quickly take a shine to the stable and smart Steve, but Granger turns everyone off. He not only survives but thrives with his radiation sickness, though side effects include a taste for raw meat.

Other rumblings begin: Mickey gets hot for Joanna, which riles Jada, who relaxes with Tim's moonshine, which offends the straight-laced John, and so on. It's not The Divide levels of conflict, but it stirs enough to put the whole group in danger.

At barely 80 minutes, In the Year 2889 is rather abrupt, both in its ending and general flow. Oddly enough, it's far more defined on some of its characterization. John makes for the kind of believably conservative military veteran who would immediately assign the young man he's never met the second in command role over his own intelligent daughter because, you know, the patriarchy. Joanna has a conscience, Mickey is a slimy villain whose motivations are clear and gross, and Jada lends some spark while being terribly judged by those around her.

That's not really to say this is good stuff. In the Year 2889 was a made-for-television movie and unofficial (though near verbatim) remake of Roger Corman's Day the World Ended. Directed by Larry Buchanan, it's incredibly stiff and visually lazy. Our end-of-the-world landscape is simply the green woods outside John's secluded house, while the mutated villains (take that with a wildly thick grain of salt considering the attitudes of our heroes) wear makeup that amounts to a few stray pieces of gunk glued to their faces. There's just not much here.

High Points
This is one of those films that feels so lacking in ambition that it's hard to summon much enthusiasm for any real aspect of it, so I guess I'll pause to think about how much more fun this all would have been if lumpy drunk Tim and sassy dancing Jada were the last two people on the planet

Low Points

I don't need every nuclear disaster story to end like Threads, but by golly, the sunny nice day sudden resolution defies not only how radiation works, but how any kind of storytelling stakes should go

Lessons Learned
Cowards only fight on their own terms and conditions

The first taste of moonshine is never good, but keep going and the chest hair will grow

Radiation poisoning will hinder your balance, though more at fault is likely the rubber mask that comes with radiation poisoning

Rent/Bury/Buy

I don't think anyone will really get much out of In the Year 2889. The story has been told in far more interesting ways and with much more vibrant style in countless iterations. Still, if you're a completist like me, it's a quick watch on Amazon Prime. 

Hisssssssssssssstory

As Netflix overproduces its own content to push out the old and Amazon opens a bigger well for cheap modern films, we as fans have to work a little harder to locate genre films made last millennium. If you want to go back even further, TCM Underground becomes a fertile source every now and then. 

Quick Plot: In 1890, a mad (and particularly snooty) doctor treats his pregnant wife's supposed mental illness with a unique blend of science and snake venom. She dies just after giving birth to a dead daughter, who then comes back to life unprompted by her father or the local midwife witch.

Upon hearing the news, the townspeople riot, quickly assembling their torches to destroy the doctor and his demon spawn. The daughter is saved just in time and put in the care of a steely shepherd, who is happy for her to disappear into the woods once she begins creeping out his dog. 

Some twenty years or so later, a young detective is sent to investigate the village, as several corpses have turned up filled with king cobra venom. Could the young woman be haunting the town that spurned her? There's only one way and a whole lot of angry mobs to find out!

Released in 1961, The Snake Woman feels a tad too early for its own good. Had it been a few years later, you get the sense that it would be sexier and more dangerous than its simple ghost story by way of herpetology suggests. Had the story fallen into the hands of Hammer or Amicus, we'd feel the haunting sexuality that a serpent woman screams for. Heck, had it come out ten years earlier, perhaps there would be a stronger, more haunting Val Lewton-esque quality. 

The early '60s British horror game just doesn't really accommodate a concept like The Snake Woman to its fullest potential. The film is perfectly watchable and thankfully quickly paced, but it just doesn't scratch that itch that you want addressed when dealing with sexy cobra ghost girls. 

High Points

In its 80 minute run time, the village of Bellingham assembles its torch-wielding local mob more times than 29 years of Simpsons episodes, and that's impressive

Low Points

Perhaps part of my apathy for The Snake Woman stems from the fact that the movie never really settles on whose story it's telling. The titular female doesn't get much screen time, while the leading man is dropped into the story a good third of the way through. Perhaps centering the tale on one dynamic character might have added some much needed pop

Lessons Learned

To save on production cost, consider casting your shepherd with a musician who can do double duty by playing the wood flute

Being the living proof of a scientist's theories is far more important than being a simple child

Supernatural snake women shed their skin in one clean body suit

Rent/Bury/Buy

I recorded The Snake Woman off of TCM, and it worked perfectly fine as a watch for my mood for something a little different than what you find streaming in the horror section of most services these days. That being said, the film just doesn't pack any real punches. Human suit and angry mobs aside, I double I'll remember much of this movie down the line.

Little Shop of Triffids

Published in 1951, John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids has had quite the legacy, with three film/television adaptations and plenty of blatant referencing in The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later’s handling of apocalyptic hospital scenarios. The first of these, 1962’s Steve Sekely-directed (with, apparently, some later help by Freddie Francis) I snow streaming on Amazon Prime.

Quick Plot: Navy-man Bill Mason (the incredibly broad-shouldered Howard Keel) is recovering from surgery to restore his vision, meaning his bandaged eyes deny him the chance to witness a once-in-a-lifetime meteor shower that’s keeping the rest of London entranced. Lucky for him. The next morning, a now-seeing Bill discovers anyone who watched the out of this world light show has been blinded.

Bill slowly travels through a quickly decaying Europe, picking up a plucky orphan named Susan along the way. The pair have to fight off not only the increasingly dangerous hoards of the blind, but also the titular killer plants. Triffids are large, green, carnivorous, and seemingly immune from any kind of attack. 

Humanity’s only real chance against the triffids just might be in the hands of an angry, alcoholic researcher and his pushover wife. As chaos mounts across the city and rural landscapes, a softer Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf-ish prelude between bickering spouses slowly morphs into a scientific breakthrough.

The Day of the Triffids is a fairly loose adaptation of John Wyndham’s novel, retaining the concept and character basics but taking some fairly wide detours in plot specifics. It’s not a shocking decision, since polygamy wasn’t quite the cinematic rage in the early ‘60s. 

Despite side-stepping some of the more risqué elements from the novel, The Day of the Triffids still manages to work as something occasionally rather scary. The triffids themselves aren’t at Audrey II levels of engineering, but there’s something supremely wrong about their design (both in the visuals and sound) that works on a creepy level. The mass blindness is treated with heft. If you were wondering how a pilot who suddenly went blind would handling flying a plane, the answer is of course, “not well.”

Effective scares aside, The Day of the Triffids suffers from some messy storytelling.The pacing never quite clicks, and when I read that the entire island research subplot was added after principal filming ended because the producers realized they only had a 57 minute movie, I wasn’t terribly surprised. 

That being said, The Day of the Triffids worked for me, as it probably would for anyone with a hunger for cinematic apocalypses,. You can see its influence on later work, and it has a certain “the plants are trying to eat us” charm that stands the test of time. 

High Points

It’s a movie that combines killer plants with mass blindness and an apocalypse. What’s not to like?

Low Points 

Yes, it was 1962, but it’s still a shame that most of the women play the important role of standing immobilized by fear and screaming while their men fight the human-eating plant monsters

Lessons Learned (the Blindness Edition)

The only danger in mass blindness is that the victims might accidentally start fires

Surgeons do not perform well under the pressure of blindness

As we also learned in Jose Saramago’s Blindness, all apocalyptic eyesight-based plagues will eventually end in systematized rape

Subtitle Strangeness

For whatever reason (laziness, Martian-ness, etc.), Amazon’s subtitles are just…wrong. Observe some translations:

Dialogue: I’ll tuck you in

Subtitles: I Kentucky

Dialogue: Ms. Durham!

Subtitles: Mr. Rat!

And my favorite, which has no translation because I was too distracted trying to figure out what time travel shenanigans would have allowed Mena Suvari to star in a film made 20 years before her birth:

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Day of the Triffids had been on my to-watch list for years, so it’s great to finally have it easily accessible via Amazon Prime. While it’s no Them! Or The Thing From Another World, it’s entertaining enough on its own merits, and even more intriguing as an early example of the kind of apocalyptic horror that has become fairly common these days. Fans of the novel will probably be annoyed at some of the choices, but in the context of its time, The Day of the Triffids is an interesting capsule. 

Lightly Toasted

Amazon Prime’s streaming is an odd duck of a service. There are some fantastic popular and rare titles available to watch, but the one sentence synopsis and lack of listing a director OR year of release makes it rather challenging to have any clue what you may be watching. 

Such was the case with today’s feature, a classy little drama with genre touches that seems, based on the title and poster Amazon went with, to instead be a bloody period tale of witchcraft and fire.

Quick Plot: Norman Taylor is a successful college professor with high ambitions of chairing his department. Back home, his wife Tansy has some trouble interacting with his colleagues in social settings, preferring to spend her time alone at their secluded beach cottage. Could it be because it's a safer place to practice THE BLACK ARTS?

Well, yes, actually, and who can blame her when the alternative is playing bridge with stuffy academics? Tansy, you see, has picked up some witchcraft skills after a trip to Jamaica. Though her skeptic of a husband doesn't believe her, she insists that she's been using her spells to help his career advance. Offended by her silly beliefs (Norman, in case you haven't guessed, is a jerk), he forces Tansy to burn all of her occult items. Included in that stash is a locket that just so happens to have a picture of Norman inside.

Naturally--or SUPERnaturally, if you will--the Taylors have to pay. Norman is accused of raping one of his female students, then barely escapes being shot by her jealous boyfriend. Tansy decides the only way to save her husband is to sacrifice herself in his place, but Norman isn’t quite willing to let that happen, nor is the mysterious REAL villain who has been manipulating forces from the very beginning.

Based on the title and poster, I was expecting Burn, Witch, Burn (aka The Night of the Eagle, which makes a lot of sense in the final act) to be more along the Hammer-y lines of a Mark of the Devil or other often Vincent Price-filled classics. In other words, burnings at stakes, dunkings, stocks, bad wigs, and lots of pointed fingers. 

That is not this film.

That’s a good and bad thing. The bad because, hey, I love me a good inquisition exploitation flick. Good because, well, Burn, Witch, Burn is actually quite a strong film. Director Sidney Hayers worked primarily in television, and the style feels almost Twilight Zone-esque in terms of staging and performances. Co-written by, whaddya know, Twilight Zone scribes (and sci-fi icons) Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont, Burn, Witch, Burn ultimately plays out like a feature adaptation of a Rod Serling classic. The climax is surprisingly unnerving, even with its 60+ year limitations of aging special effects. 

Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a good old-fashioned birding. 

High Points

Though I wish it had been pushed further, it’s clear that the film is acknowledging some interesting gender issues in terms of its Lady MacBeth-like details. The women in this film will fiercely work towards pushing their men into success, while the partners in question seem to barely deserve their bedside company. 

Low Points

It’s a product of its time, but I can’t help to feel like the happy, Hayes Code-friendly ending feels like a disappointment

Lessons Learned

You can hypnotize the bad, but you can't hypnotize the cards

Cottages are a great way to avoid committees and teas 

Lounging wear for women in the early 1960s was the equivalent of church or campaign-wear in the 21st century

Rent/Bury/Buy

Burn, Witch, Burn is streaming via Amazon Prime, and it’s certainly a strong way to pass 90 minutes. If you’re looking for a quality extended episode of The Twilight Zone, this is certainly your answer. 

Not the Deadly Bees!

Because having wings, stingers, and a venom that can apparently kill Britteny Spears, Drew Barrymore, and Macaulay Culkin's character in My Girl, does not mean that a bee ain't short.

Quick Plot: Pop sensation Vicki Robbins has a mental breakdown on live television (today, we'd put an 'exhaustion' diagnosis and move on to the next Mariah), prompting her doctor to order her to rest up in a quiet little rural community known as Seagull Island.

In theory, it should be very easy to catch up on your rest at Seagull Island, since there are exactly five people living on it. Unfortunately, there are also killer bees.

Isn't that the rub? You've found a lovely little cottage where a grumpy couple moodily hosts your stay, a happy dog follows you around before being attacked by killer bees, and a kindly neighbor offers you tea at every moment. Only, you know, the couple is super grumpy, the killer beers kill a happy dog, and the kindly neighbor REALLY wants you to have his tea.

Don't worry though: if at all you get confused and forget what happened during the 85 minute runtime of The Deadly Bees, not one but TWO montages will refresh you on all the key plot points.

The Deadly Bees is an Amicus adaptation of a mystery novel and, well, it's a rather dull affair. I can forgive silly-looking bee attacks filmed in 1966 if they had any real narrative weight. If you're curious what a bee attack filmed in 1966 might look like, follow me along:

Swarm!

Closeup of character getting scared

Swarm!

Closeup of character swatting a bee

Swarm!

Closeup of character scratching at a toy bee glued to his or her face

Swarm! 

Character superimposed in front of SWARM!

I'm a forgiving genre fan: that process didn't bother me in the least. What bothered me was how an 85 minute film could feel like Lawrence of Arabia.

The film starts off promisingly enough, although yes, I most definitely say that because it includes extreme closeups of a Beatles-like band called The Birds (but not The Byrds). Aha! I smiled, feeling smart. I GET IT! The Birds because this movie is about BEES! It's just like that time I realized the Chipmunks and the Chippettes each had a character named for a Roosevelt and thought that making that connection made me the smartest person in the ninth grade.

Except, I dunno, maybe the band was just named The Birds.

The Deadly Bees is a mystery film, but because the suspect pool is so tiny, it never holds much suspense. The resolution is as simple as spilling an open jar of liquid out of stupidity, despite this happening to a character that had just proven itself to be exceedingly smart. Ah well. At least the dog was cute.

High Points

Man, what a wonderfully embittered middle age wife Catherine Finn played as Mrs. Hargrove. The actress inject so much disgust towards her husband and life in general that I genuinely longed for a spinoff one-woman show where she sings Elaine Stritch numbers on a cigarette ash-coated piano

Aside from Finn, you know who worked hardest? That super angry instrumental score, that's who!

Low Points

Zzzzzzzz

Lessons Learned
When smoking out killer bees, remember not to smoke yourself out as well

When smoking out killer bees, remember not to smoke yourself out as well 

(yes, Ijust said that, but since the character in question did this twice in a row over the course of ten minutes, I figured it warranted repeating)

Rent/Bury/Buy

I don't recall the MST3K episode on The Deadly Bees, but I'll just make a blind recommendation to say that if you HAVE to watch bees sort of attack a bunch of dull Brits, do it in the company of Crow T. Robot.