OUT OF THE DARK

OUT OF THE DARK (1988). Director: Michael Schroeder. 

Kevin (Cameron Dye) is a professional photographer whose girlfriend, Kristi (Lynn Danielson-Rosenthal), works for a phone sex company with several other women. When some of these women are brutally murdered by a man in a clown mask, the police think Kevin is a major suspect. But Kevin and Kristi instead zero in on a weirdo accountant named Stringer (Bud Cort), trying to find incriminating evidence in the man's office. But there are other suspects as well, including Dennis (Geoffrey Lewis), a friendly -- perhaps too friendly --handyman. Will Kevin and Kristi figure out the truth before one of them runs into the clown?

Cameron Dye

Out of the Dark has an interesting cast, with small bits portrayed by the likes of Lainie Kazan (an aging hooker), Tab Hunter (a driver in an accident), Divine (as a nasty cop), and executive producer Paul Bartel (another weirdo). Karen Black plays the head of the phone sex company. Out of the Dark has a more interesting plot than a lot of these semi-slasher flicks -- there's no over-the-top gore -- and at least one murder scene, when Camille (Starr Andreeff) is killed while being videotaped, is somewhat inventive. Cameron Dye and Lynn Danielson-Rosenthal make appealing protagonists. Paul F. Antonelli and David Wheatley did the score; the theme music is notable.

Verdict: Not too terrible murder mystery with a killer clown. **3/4. 

GEORGETOWN

Waltz, Redgrave, Bening

GEORGETOWN (2019). Director: Christoph Waltz. 

Ulrich Mott (Christoph Waltz), a hustler in Washington D.C., marries a much older woman, Elsa ( Vanessa Redgrave), a wealthy widow, socialite and author who lives in a beautiful Georgetown townhouse. One night Elsa is found dead, and Elsa's daughter, Amanda (Annette Bening), who wasn't crazy about Ulrich, waits until the autopsy report -- it was homicide -- before going ballistic. A series of flashbacks show how Ulrich met and wooed Elsa, his life of lies and delusions, his secret gay activities, and his forming a snooty non-governmental agency with Elsa's help so he can mingle with the movers and shakers of political society. But did he kill Elsa, and if he did will he get away with it?

Wedded bliss? Waltz with Redgrave

This engaging, totally absorbing, and very well-acted movie -- Redgrave is especially marvelous but everyone is wonderful -- is based on the true story of Albrecht Gero Muth and his wife Viola Drath. The highlights of the film include the operatic quarrels engaged in by husband and wife, especially when she catches him in bed with a man in their hotel room, and when she confronts him with the truth of what he's been doing for the past two years when he was supposedly being heroic in Iraq. Because Waltz was 65 when he made the film -- although he looks and plays younger -- it isn't clear what a huge age gap there was between the couple who met when Muth was only in his twenties and she was about 70. 

Verdict: Okay, hardly a B movie and not noir, but decidedly a kind of murder mystery with class. ***. 

BEWARE MY BRETHREN

Ann Todd with Tony Beckley

BEWARE MY BRETHREN (1972). Director: Robert Hartford-Davis. 

Birdy Wemys (Ann Todd) lives with her son Kenny (Tony Beckley) in an old house which has a chapel in the basement. This is used by a batty minister (Patrick Magee) for a sect of Jesus Freaks and both mother and son are members. Meanwhile someone is running around in the neighborhood murdering young women. Birdy has a nurse,  Brigitte (Madeleine Hinde), who lives with her sister, Paddy (Suzanna Leigh), who is a reporter. Paddy decides that this church as well as mother and son are worth investigating, but she may get more than she bargained for when she enters this household as a new member of the church ...

Suzanna Leigh and Patrick Magee

This synopsis for Beware My Brethren may make the film sound interesting, but be forewarned that it came very close to making it on to my list of "Films I Never Quite Finished" -- it is that bad and boring. There are decent performances, especially from Ann Todd, the talented British actress reduced to appearing in this dribble, one startling moment (and only one), and a fairly exciting fight scene at the finish. Otherwise this movie is slow, tedious and terrible. This is nothing like the zesty Corruption, which Hartford-Davis helmed four years earlier. One very funny aspect of the picture is that on a couple of occasions it turns downright bizarre, with one of the Brethren -- as they are called -- breaking into song in the middle of the service, only these sequences are presented as if they were pop tunes in a musical! (The songs aren't actually that bad, but they hardly fit in into what is supposed to be a horror movie.) One of the murder scenes, none of which are shot with any elan, seems to have been lit by flashlight! Tony Beckley later made an impression in his last film When a Stranger Calls. 

Verdict: British horror at a very low ebb. *1/2. 
 

A BRIDE FOR HENRY

Anne Nagel

A BRIDE FOR HENRY (1937). Director: William Nigh.

Spoiled socialite Sheila Curtis (Anne Nagel of The Secret Code) is furious at being stood up at her wedding by her fiance, Eric (Henry Mollison), so she importunes her lawyer Henry (Warren Hull) to marry her. The plan is for her to eventually file for divorce in Reno, but first she decides to go on a chaste honeymoon with Henry -- and then Eric shows up. Carrying a torch for his own wife, Henry takes up with blond heiress Helen Van Orden (Claudia Dell), leading to mostly unfunny complications. As Eric tries to woo back his angry former fiancee, Henry does his best to make his wife jealous. But whom will our Sheila ultimately wind up with, and will anybody care?

Claudie Dell and Warren Hull

A Bride for Henry is a minor-league would-be screwball comedy from Monogram Pictures, which tells you something right there. It's one of those movies where everyone can tell in the first minute that Sheila should be with the much more appealing Henry, but it takes her nearly an hour to figure it out. The characters are not developed beyond stereotypes, and while there's the occasional stab at a funny line or situation, the picture doesn't have the right pacing or slickness. The acting is of the overly broad, too-cutesy type that generally sinks this kind of fluffy concoction, although Nagel is still very likable and Hull, better-known as a serial hero in such as The Spider and The Green Hornet, is so handsome one can't imagine why Sheila never noticed his charms long before the picture begins. 

Verdict: Nagel and Hull give it the old college try. **1/4. 

CULT OF CHUCKY

CUL

CULT OF CHUCKY (2017). Writer/Director: Don Mancini. 

In this inferior sequel to Curse of Chucky, the killer doll is on the loose in a mental institution where, naturally, no one believes the "loonies" that the deaths of inmates and staff are caused by a walking, talking doll. Nica (Fiona Dourif), the heroine of the last film, is now housed in the psych ward after being convicted of murdering her family members, the deaths actually caused by nasty little Chucky. While this is a great setting for a Chucky movie, the ultra-goriness only takes away from the effectiveness of the film, a cheap way of exciting some audience members who have no interest in plot or craftmanship (aside from the logistics of, say, a beheading). I must say that the puppetry is very well-done and Brad Dourif is still on top of things as the voice of Chucky. Don Mancini's camp sensibility does nothing for the picture, and neither does the freak queen Jennifer Tilly. Followed by the TV series Chucky. 

Verdict: Hopefully the last Chucky movie. **1/4. 

CHILD'S PLAY 3

 CHILD'S PLAY 3 (1991). Director: Jack Bender. 

In this sequel to Child's Play and Child' Play 2, Andy, now played by Justin Whalen, is 16 and living in a military academy. Somehow the spirit of serial killer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) winds up back in a new "Good Guy" doll, fresh off the assembly line, named Chucky. After killing off the head of the toy company (Peter Haskell), Chucky manages to mail himself to Andy at the academy, and of course havoc ensues. Chucky kills off creepy people as well as the innocent and bonds with the likable black kid Tyler (Jeremy Sylvers) because he wants to transfer his mind into Tyler's body. 

Child's Play 3 is an acceptable if minor-league horror film, but at least it doesn't descend completely into idiotic camp as a couple of the later films did (Beware any Chucky vehicle that has Jennifer Tilly in it!) Travis Fine makes an impression as the despicable Shelton, who orders everyone about as if they were in boot camp, and Perrey Reeves is effective enough as a feisty female cadet. The climax to this, set in a funhouse, is both dragged out and exciting, as Tyler, Andy or Chucky face extinction at the blades of a huge revolving fan. 

Verdict: This should have wrapped up the series, but there was more to come! **1/2. 

STEPFATHER II

STEPFATHER 2 (aka Stepfather 2: Make Room for Daddy/1989). Director: Jeff Burr. 

"Jerry Blake" (Terry O'Quinn) somehow managed to survive being shot and stabbed at the end of The Stepfather, and is trying to become part of a new family after escaping from an institution. Somehow he has managed to acquire a beautiful house in the suburbs and become a psychiatrist who is running an encounter group for women! (Where he gets the money for this is never explained.) He has set his sights on a neighbor, Carol (Meg Foster), a divorcee with a young son named Todd (Jonathan Brandis). Things are proceeding well for Jerry (under a new name, of course) but there is a hitch in the person of Carol's friend and the neighborhood mail carrier, Matty (Caroline Williams), who is suspicious of Jerry and learns something incriminating about him. But will she live long enough to tell Carol? 

Stepfather II is as entertaining and engrossing as the original film, and also features fine performances, with O[Quinn generally handling things with aplomb. Meg Foster, who has weird if beautiful eyes, offers a somewhat strange performance that works very well with this movie. Brandis and Mitchell Laurance as Todd's father are also credible. Stepfather II features perhaps the wildest wedding sequence I've seen in a long time. 

Verdict: Another grim if amusing flick starring O'Quinn. ***. 
 

HOLLYWOOD PRESENTS JULES VERNE

HOLLYWOOD PRESENTS JULES VERNE: The Father of Science Fiction On Screen. Brian Taves. University Press of Kentucky; 2015.

Jules Verne, the Father of Science Fiction, created concepts and imaginative story ideas that would only naturally be adapted for movies. Hollywood Presents Jules Verne looks at the author's output and its adaptations, always with an eye on how closely the films hew to the spirit if not the letter of Verne, although Taves does discuss changes that were made in the journey from published work to motion picture. In this highly detailed work, Taves not only looks at famous adaptations, such as Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Mysterious Island, but also lesser-known films, TV shows, documentaries on Verne, cartoons, and feature-length animated movies. Taves discusses films as diverse as the dreadful Where Time Began ("a very satisfactory although uneven effort") and Journey 2: Mysterious Island ("a variety of fresh interpretations of the Vernian world"), and sometimes cuts a mediocre film some slack simply because it allegedly embodies the spirit of Verne. Whether the likes of Journey 2 will actually get its viewers to read Verne is debatable, but this is a good and rewarding book nevetheless. NOTE: William Schoell is the author of Remarkable Journeys: The Story of Jules Verne.

Verdict: Well-done, illustrated tome on Verne's work and its adaptations to film. ***1/2.

CURSE OF CHUCKY

CURSE OF CHUCKY (2013). Writer/director: Don Mancini. 

Nica (Fiona Dourif), who is in a wheelchair due to a condition she was born with, lives in an old house with her mother. When her mother is brutally murdered, Nica's sister, Barb (Danielle Bisutti of Insidious Chapter Two), suggests she go to a special home and they sell the place, as she and husband Ian (Brennan Elliott) need the money. Ian doesn't know it, but Barb is having an affair with their daughter, Alice's, nanny, Jill (Maitland McConnell). Nica comes to realize that there may be something strange and sinister about little Alice's doll, Chucky. The family priest (A Martinez) is killed in a grisly auto accident, then other people in the old house also start dying as Chucky -- or rather serial killer Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif) -- gets his long-awaited revenge on the family. 

Curse of Chucky is better than the Child's Play sequels, including Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky. For the most part Curse eschews the camp approach of the other Chucky flicks until the very end when -- alas -- Jennifer Tilly shows up again. Until then, Curse is suspenseful and creepy. Some of the gore is overdone, of course -- far too many modern-day horror directors rely too much on blood and guts instead of building suspense -- but Curse delivers some of the scares and creepiness that true horror fans enjoy. The acting in this is also very good -- Fiona Dourif is the daughter of Brad Dourif, and eventually she would sort of play Charles Lee Ray; Father Dourif's voice acting is excellent. The cinematography (Michael Marshall) and music (Joseph LoDuca) are also top-notch.

Verdict: Little Chucky has a pretty good vehicle in this. ***.  

STEPFATHER III

Priscilla Barnes and Robert Wightman

STEPFATHER III (1992 made for cable movie). Director: Guy Magar.

The psychotic stepdaddy from Stepfather and Stepfather II escapes yet again from an asylum (this is not shown) and has a discredited plastic surgeon give him a new face (after which he dispatches him, of course). Now known as Keith Grant (Robert Wightman), the psycho again manages to get a very nice house in a wonderful neighborhood. (One also has to wonder where he got the money to pay the surgeon.) As usual, he sets his sights on a divorcee, Christine (Priscilla Barnes), with a young son (David Tom) in a wheelchair. The boy suspects that there's something "off" about Keith and teams up with a reluctant priest (John Ingle), to find out all he can about him.

David Tom and Robert Wightman

When the son goes off to stay with his father and attend a special computer school, Keith sees his dreams of a perfect family falling apart, and zeroes in on a widow, Jennifer (Season Hubley), who also has a young son. It's fun in a sick sense watching Keith juggle both women who could run into each other at any moment and finally do, leading to an exciting climax wherein both ladies are imperiled and the allegedly crippled boy comes to the rescue. It could be argued that Stepfather III is just another dip in the well, but there are enough variations and enough suspenseful situations to make this work. Wightman is fine as a kind of demented overgrown boy scout and the others in the cast play with veracity, especially young Tom. 

Verdict: Could give stepfathers a bad name! ***.