Horrorfest 2017: Invasion of the Bee Girls

Here's another Jarmusch favorite, INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS, a 1973 film directed by Denis Sanders. I wanted to check this movie out a couple years ago after I read Nicholas Meyer's autobiography. Meyer is most famous for directing the two best STAR TREK movies, parts II and VI, but his first writing credit was INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS. He's a pretty smart guy so I was expecting a pretty smart movie. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.

Basically, dudes start turning up dead and it's fairly clear they're having heart attacks in the middle of sex. Neil Agar plays an agent sent to investigate these deaths, and things seem to revolve around a government research facility in which a bunch of the scientists are all sexed up.

About halfway through the flick we get to witness an entomologist (Susan Harris) actually kill on of the scientists during a tryst, accompanied with buzzing sound effects and revealing strange eyes, reminiscent of an insect. Here comes the bee girls.

A movie called INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS shouldn't be boring, but this one is. I started to zone out but I guess the entomologist played by Harris is using mutation and radiation to create  a race of bee-women.

I think the movie is supposed to be a satire about the sexual revolution vs. sexism – men being sexed to death, etc. But, then throw in a bunch of gratuitous nudity and you get mixed results.

Horrorfest 2017: White of the Eye

I like a lot of Jim Jarmusch's movies, although I've never seen the only one that would be considered anything close to horror, ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE. Still, I was interested to check out some of his horror favorites and started with WHITE OF THE EYE, directed by Donald Cammell.

This 1987 UK flick takes place in Arizona and stars David Keith as a guy who goes around installing high end stereo equipment for rich people and Cathy Moriarty as his wife. Before we get to all this, though, the movie opens with a bang as a well off woman is murdered in her sprawling home. Tire tracks lead the detective on the case (Art Evans) to Keith but the movie has done a pretty good job of establishing Keith as a cool dude, so we're not so sure the detective is on the right track.

In the mean time we get flashbacks to how Moriarty and Keith met. At first we're not sure where all of this is going and to the movie's credit, it doesn't do any handholding. From the opening frames we can tell this movie is going to be more about mood and style than about plot. That's not to say the plot doesn't make sense, it's just not spoon fed to the audience. It all eventually comes together and has a very satisfying ending, but the movie is mostly notable for the beautiful shots and cool soundtrack.

Speaking of the soundtrack, it's co-written by Nick Mason, the drummer from Pink Floyd. There's a lot of good source music on the soundtrack as well, but the 80s-tastic synth and drums score is pretty sweet and ads to the slick visuals.

Cinematography wise this film is perfect. It uses a few different kinds of film stock when switching between time periods in the story, but for the most part the images are sharp, exact and detailed. Even though this is clearly a product of the 80s, the movie looks like it was shot yesterday.

Aside from all this, the movie also has the added benefit of using its locations to its advantage. This doesn't just incidentally take place in Arizona, it uses the landscape to help tell the story of lonely, isolated people, not unlike the Southern California vistas of TWENTYNINE PALMS.

Horrorfest 2017: The Spiral Staircase

Here's the last of William Friedkin's selections for this month, the 1946 noir-horror THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE. I hadn't thought of it before but I guess a lot of noir crosses over with horror, not only  in the subject matter but also in the look. After all, the famous shadowy and moody lighting of noir comes from the same source that inspired the Universal monster movies, the German expressionist filmmakers of the silent era.

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE stars takes place around the turn of the last century in New England and stars Dorothy McGuire as a mute servant to a bed-ridden matron of a wealth family in an old dark house played by Ethel Barrymore. There's a local serial killer knocking off other disabled women, which makes the mute McGuire a logical next victim.

There's a lot of other players in the house, as an old dark house movie demands, but the most memorable to me is Elsa Lanchester as one of the other servants in the house. Lanchester was most famous for playing the title role in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and it is such an iconic and unforgettable role, that whenever she turns up in other movies I always take note.

Horrorfest 2017: Them

Now on to 2006's THEM, a French/Romanian home-invasion thriller from directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud. This is another favorite of William Friedkin's. I went into it dragging my feet a little because I'm kind of sick of home-invasion movies. There's always a weird dynamic where you're invited to enjoy watching nice people attacked for no reason. You might say this is no different from any other horror movie, but I feel like in many of the films in this genre over the last couple decades, the movies tend to lean a little more sadistically on random violence against innocents rather than deriving horror from the plot or anything like that.

All that said, of course, when you write something off without having seen it, sometimes you're surprised, and that was the case with THEM, which I ended up enjoying. It is the usual thing – a young couple (Olivia Bonamy and Michael Cohen) retire for a weeked in the country at a big, isolated house, only to be attacked by rarely glimpsed assailants who seem to at first have the house surrounded, and then begin breaking inside.

The movie scored points with me by focusing on suspense rather than on violence and brutality. Also, it's worth sticking with until the end because the last shot is particularly chilling. It's somewhat reminiscent of the big Hollywood movie THE STRANGERS from 2008, except way, way better.

Horrorfest 2017: Le Boucher

Some say THE EXORCIST is the greatest horror film of all time, so let's look at some of EXORCIST director William Friedkin's favorites, starting with LE BOUCHER, a French and Italian co-production from 1970 directed by Claude Chabrol.

A teacher (Stephane Audran) meets a butcher (Jean Yanne) at a wedding and the two begin a friendship. It's clear early on the butcher hopes for more, but the teacher has been burned by romance in the past and is not looking for a new relationship. This is an interesting dynamic because it explores the whole "nice guy" phenomenon – maybe if the butcher is nice enough in just the right way to this teacher, she'll eventually fall for him. Or, maybe that's not the way life works, dude.

Around this same time, the bodies of young murdered women start showing up in the small town, and the teacher begins to suspect the butcher might be behind it. As viewers we're as unsure as she is. At one point, she thinks she has the evidence that proves it's him. But then, she realizes it might not be. And so on.

The movie comes to an alternatively thrilling and emotionally intense conclusion as the teacher attempts to barricade herself into the school as the killer approaches, and then has to deal with her friend, the butcher, on his death bed.

Horrorfest 2017: Horror Express

What? Two Peter Cushing movies in a row? Joe Dante, you're spoiling me.  Next up: the French/Italian co-production HORROR EXPRESS, from 1972.

 

Where there's a Cushing that means Christopher Lee can't be far, and here he is, as an anthropologist who has discovered the remains of a heretofore unknown prehistoric ancestor of mankind, and is returning with it from China to Europe on the Trans-Siberian Express.

 

Also on the train are Lee's colleague, Cushing, a Rasputin-esque mad monk (Alberto de Mendoza) and a police inspector (Julio Pena). It isn't long before bodies start piling up, and at first it seems somehow Lee's primitive man has returned to life and gone on a killing spree, but it eventually turns out that an other-worldly being was buried with the primitive man, has now thawed out and escaped, and is jumping from one train passenger's mind to another, killing along the way.

 

As if the cast couldn't get any better, the train stops just long enough for a Cossack Captain to board with his army. It's Telly Savalas! He's determined to put a stop to the murders, but things only get worse from there. Just like in LISA AND THE DEVIL, he's entertaining as hell. The movie has a nice long build up until he shows up, and then he has a great entrance and a great exit.

 

The whodunit-on-a-train aspect (as well as the title) obviously pays homage to THE ORIENT EXPRESS, as does the overt Englishness of Lee and Cushing's scientist characters. At one point the inspector points out Cushing or Lee could be the monster, to which Cushing replies, "Monster? We're British, you know."

Horrorfest 2017: The Flesh and the Fiends

Horrorfest has had at least one movie before inspired by the villainous team of graverobbers Burke and Hare, THE BODY SNATCHER. This time we have a movie actually featuring Burke and Hare as characters, THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS, a 1960 flick from the UK, and a favorite of Joe Dante's.

You know you're in for a classic Horrorfest experience when the movie stars Peter Cushing. This time, Cushing is a doctor in 1800s Scotland who lectures to students on anatomy and is in endless need of cadavers. At first he tasks his assistant and a student with coming up with fresh bodies, but it isn't long before opportunistic con men-cum-murderers, Burke (George Rose) and Hare (Donald Pleasance!) miraculously start turning up with the freshest bodies of all.

Aside from the great premise and wonderful performances from Cushing and Pleasance, THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS benefits from its setting – there's a contrast between the stately Edinburgh home and school of Cushing and the bawdy streets, pubs and brothels Pleasance and his accomplice call home. This contrast in settings also highlights the contrasts between our characters – who is more evil, the cold and detached doctor who allows men to murder for him, while maintain plausible deniability, or the street level bums who are willing to carry out the murders?

The final scene of the film has society's chilling answer to this, as Burke and Hare suffer at the hands of the law and a vengeful mob while the doctor is applauded by his students.