Movie Review: Friday the 13th Part II (1981)

With Halloween just around the corner, I've been watching a few classic horror films. While the second entry in the infamous 'Friday' series can hardly be considered a 'classic', it's actually pretty good considering how awful the series eventually became. The franchise is also called the 'Jason' series, but strictly speaking, such a series would have to begin with this entry as it is the first appearance of Jason Voorhees who, despite wearing a pillow case throughout the movie instead of his trademark hockey mask, would go on to become a horror icon as famous as Michael Myers or Freddie Kruger.

Good a sequel though this movie is, I can't help but feel a sense of missed opportunity considering how the creators of the first installment originally envisioned a long running 'Friday' series that would focus on a different story with each entry. After all, Jason Voorhees was supposedly dead at the bottom of Crystal Lake, with his appearance in the original movie only a nightmare vision and the real killer being his mother. But various big shots in control of the money side of things demanded that the killer in part 2 be an adult Jason who had somehow survived his childhood drowning incident and spent the rest of his youth living as a hermit in the nearby woods until witnessing the decapitation of his mad mother. Taking her severed head, he builds a shrine to her and starts his own killing spree supposedly on her whim.

That's the more than slightly preposterous set up for the second Friday movie. After the credits we are re-introduced to Alice Hardy, the surviving heroine of the first installment. It has been two months since all her friends were massacred at Camp Crystal Lake and she is now trying to get on with her life and forget all about it. But somebody is not about to let her get off the hook so easily and she soon departs this world via a screwdriver in the temple. I hate it when this happens in sequels. Killing off the protagonist in a post credits sequence really undermines everything they achieved in the previous movie. I felt the same way about Alien 3 (1992) when Hicks and Newt are revealed to have been killed before the credits even started! What a downer!

But I digress. Not long after this gruesome affair, a group of teens are Crystal Lake bound once more. A new training camp for camp counsellors has been set up and soon we are subjected to watching these hopefuls perform various wholesome activities like forest runs, carpentry and cook-outs (all done whilst wearing obscenely small shorts, I might add). Crazy Ralph turns up to do his doomsaying bit and 'heed my warning' speech just as he did in the first film, and of course he goes ignored by the gleeful youngsters. There is also a spooky campfire story which serves to inform us that there are folks about who believe that little Jason Voorhees didn't drown all those years ago and is in fact living in the woods like a savage.

With all that exposition out of the way, the film is free to get on with its killings. First up is poor old Crazy Ralph who is garroted while spying on a couple of teens making out. Don't know why he was still lurking around, but that'll learn him! The following day another couple, inspired by the local tales, decide to check out the abandoned (and strictly off limits) Camp Crystal Lake. All they find is a dead dog belonging to one of the other camp counsellors. A cop catches them snooping around and hauls them back to the training camp for a stern ticking off before getting a claw hammer in the skull whilst chasing a mysterious stranger into the woods on his way back to the station.

Things really get moving when most of the counsellors head out for a night on the town, leaving just six remaining for an evening of arm wrestling, making out and playing video games on some antiquated handheld device that even I don't recognise. Needless to say, they don't quite get the quiet night in they were hoping for.

One of the best things about the movie is it's protagonist. Amy Steel plays 'Ginny' the girlfriend of the camp leader. She proves to be the epitome of the 'Final Girl' archetype - brave, resourceful and smart. Despite a scene where she is hiding under a bed, literally urinating with terror (what the hell was that all about anyway?), Ginny uses her smarts to outwit the killer in the film's conclusion - donning Mrs Voorhees's old sweater and playing mind games with Jason.

Oh, and then there is that final scare which is a retread of the most popcorn-tossing moment in the first movie - Jason's sudden appearence just when we think it's all over. Turns out to be a dream of course, but we at least get to see what he looks like under that pillow case and it ain't pretty.

Movie Review: Cleopatra Jones (1973)

Another Blaxploitation classic here. Overshadowed by the more memorable Coffy (released a month before), Cleopatra Jones is still a huge amount of fun. Both films center on the war against drugs, and whereas Pam Grier played a night nurse on a quest for vengeance, Tamara Dobson here plays a government agent who works closely with the police. The film opens with the spectacular bombing of a poppy field in Turkey on Jones's orders. This results in immensely cheesing off a drug queen called 'Mommy'.

I'm certain that this 'Mommy' character (played by Shelley Winters) inspired the 'Mom' villain in Futurama with her three idiotic sons whom she verbally and physically abuses throughout the movie. Only this Mommy has a rather lesbian penchant for the young ladies under her employ.

Ordering a police bust on an African-American anti-drug centre, Mommy rouses the ire of Cleopatra Jones who launches an all out crusade against Mommy's empire. Things are further complicated by the resignation of one of Mommy's crew, Doodlebug (Antonio Fargas) who wishes to set up his own little crime empire.


There's a lot going on in the film as the kung-fu kicking mama tries to clear her friends' names whilst attempting to frame the crooked cop who is on Mommy's payroll at the same time as evading the various hitmen the crime boss sets on her trail. Also, there's a girl who needs saving - the girlfriend of Doodlebug whose life is forfeit after her hubby is gunned down by Mommy's goons. But with all this happening, the film never gets convoluted and the action doesn't let up for a second. Cleo's car is a beautiful souped up Corvette with a small armoury stashed in the door panels a la James Bond. And the car chase midway through the film is spectacular.

Movie Review: Black Caesar (1973)

A little while ago I was on a Blaxploitation kick and was watching as many movies in the genre as I could get my hands on. As well as the classics like Shaft (1971) and Coffy (1973), I was pleasantly surprised by Black Caesar, a rise and fall type story which we've seen since in stuff like Scarface (1983) and American Gangster (2007), a film which has much in common with Black Caesar.

The film centers on Tommy Gibbs, a tough shoeshine kid in 1950s Harlem. After a savage beating from a nasty Irish cop (which leaves him with a permanent limp), Gibbs disappears for a few years and returns in the shape of Fred Williamson. Gunning for the mob, Gibbs soon has his own territory and is on the up, surrounding himself with a posse of hoodlums and running Harlem with the old tools of fear and respect.


Such a story could easily be a generic shoot em up style film, but Black Caesar has enough heart and message in it to make it more than worthwhile. The main morale in the film (as in Scarface) is of course that money isn't the answer to all problems. This is highlighted in a particularly poignant scene between Gibbs and his mother who has worked as a maid for rich white folks all her life. When Gibbs is finally wealthy enough to buy her the very apartment she has spent so many years cleaning and gives it to her to live in, she is far from happy, claiming that she 'wouldn't know how'.

The film also has a great sense of irony. As with most gangsters, Gibbs loses all sight of what's important in his quest for money and power and at the film's conclusion he is back exactly where he started (he is robbed and beaten to death in the derelict remains of his childhood home by a gang of young urchins none too different from what he once was).

James Brown's soundtrack is also excellent with classic songs of the genre 'Down and Out in New York City' and 'The Boss'.

SAGA Entry 1 - 'The Door into Fire' by Diane Duane

Sword and sorcery fiction has had a rough time of it since its rise to prominence in the pulp magazines of the 20s and 30s. The works of the likes of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner fell into obscurity as the pulp magazine vanished due to wartime paper shortages. After the war, the 1950s obsession with flying saucers, martian invaders and radioactive annihilation put paid to any hopes for a sword and sorcery revival.

But then, in the early 60s, a small but talented group of writers founded an informal gathering called SAGA (The Swordsmen and Sorcerer's Guild of America). Including such genre giants as Lin Carter, Poul Anderson, L. Sprague De Camp, Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock, the group was largely responsible for redefining sword and sorcery fiction (Leiber in fact coined the term in 1961) and bringing it back to the public eye.

Each member was admitted to the group based solely on their sword and sorcery output. Moorcock was in for his 'Elric' tales for example and Fritz Leiber for his 'Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser' yarns. Several other authors were admitted in the late 60s and 70s, one of them being Diane Duane for 'The Door into Fire'.

Published in 1979, 'The Door into Fire' was the first novel of the New York-born author. It tells the tale of Herwiss, a man with the potential to become a great sorcerer, possessing the power of 'the flame'. Desperate to harness this power and focus it into the blade of a sword, Herwiss decides to seek a castle in the wastelands which contains many doors to other worlds.

Making the main character of a sword and sorcery novel bisexual and spending a good deal of time focusing on his homoerotic relationship with his best friend was a pretty bold choice for a genre that is famous for being about as heterosexual as possible. I mean, look at that cover. The classic dominant male pose instantly recognisable on a glut of sword and sorcery covers.

But the book itself is far from orthodox. Mixing Celtic mythology (the concept of the triple Goddess is used here expertly) with Germanic cultures, and the divided loyalties of the protagonist (would he rather continue in his quest for power or sacrifice it to aid his lover in reclaiming his crown?), the book reaches a much higher place than the more generic entries in the genre.

Movie Review - Dr. Strange (1978)

My goodness, superhero movies were a different breed back in the 70s. Here we have Marvel's Dr. Strange in a made for TV movie which was aired September 6th 1978 on CBS. Unlike most superhero movies these days, there isn't a single building demolished, car tossed through the air or suspension bridge torn up. In fact its all pretty low-key, gradually building up through character development and exposition to quite an abrupt ending.

I'm not familiar with the comic books, but after reading a bit about the character, I get the feeling that this movie doesn't stick too closely to its source material. Here, Morgan Le Fey (she of Arthurian legend, who originally appeared in the Marvel universe as a nemesis for Spider-Woman) is sent forward in time to the present day (well, 1978) to destroy the Sorcerer Supreme who is an old man called Mr. Lindmer (Merlin, presumably). Possessing a young woman called Clea Lake, Morgan has Lindmer tossed off a bridge into oncoming traffic.

Enter Dr. Stephen Strange, a playboy type who works on a psychiatric ward. Witnessing the apparent murder of the old man via a psychic dream, Strange is surprised to see Clea Lake admitted to his ward in a state of confusion. As he tries to uncover the mystery surrounding her, Mr. Lindmer (who survived his fall at a great cost to his powers) contacts Strange and tries to convince him to join forces against Morgan Le Fey.

Stephen Strange has the potential to become the next Sorcerer Supreme (and even has the inherited ring to prove it). As Lindmer attempts to explain the existence of magical forces, Strange realises that the battle between good and evil must be played out on a different plane of existence.

Low budget to be sure, Dr. Strange isn't all that bad. Originally devised as a pilot for a proposed TV series ala The Incredible Hulk, the film was unfortunately shown at the same time as a re-run of Roots. Such stiff competition meant that Dr. Strange received little attention and the movie (and any hopes for a TV series) drifted away into obscurity.

Chris Carlsen's 'Berserker' Trilogy

I love me a bit of sword and sorcery. These books, published in the late 70s, were really designed to cash in on the 'Conan' craze of book covers depicting mightily muscled warriors swinging improbably large axes against a backdrop of slaughter and nubile female forms. Although the Conan movie would not be released until 1982, Robert E. Howard's mighty Cimmerian was at the top of his game in the 70s with the popularity of the Frazetta-illustrated Lancer paperbacks and the Marvel comic book incarnation of the character.

As with any craze, there were a lot of crap imitations. And as always, there were a few gems too. The Berserker trilogy is one of them. Chris Carlsen was a pseudonym for Robert Holdstock whose reputation would later reach more lofty heights as the author of 'serious' fantasy like Mythago Wood and the excellent Merlin Codex. As with nearly all of Holdstock's work, the Berserker books depict a grim, gritty world full of bleak landscapes and earthy, dirty people. They are also brutally violent and contain more than a few scenes of rape.

Dealing with the theme of reincarnation, the books use an interesting timeframe. Rather than living one life after another as we might expect, the protagonist (Harald Swiftaxe, a Viking warrior cursed by Odin) finds each life taking place before the previous one. Put simply, the first book takes place during the Viking Age, the second several hundred years earlier in the world of Arthur and the Saxons, and the third even earlier during Roman Britain where a certain Boudicca is making a nuisance of herself.

I really love these books and intend to read them again soon. Holdstock... sorry, Carlsen, certainly knows his Norse and Celtic mythology and blends them well. The protagonist is an anti-hero to the full definition of the term. He is not a nice guy. But the world surrounding him isn't particularly nice either, which kind of makes his actions alright, I guess.

Movie Review: Torture Garden (1967)

As well as being the name of a fetish nightclub in London (I don't know why or how I know that), Torture Garden is also the title of a 1967 horror film by British studio, Amicus. I already said in my post on Hammer Horror, that Amicus was one of the studios (along with Tigon) that were keen to cash in on Hammer's success with colourful gothic horror films, and Amicus put a new spin on them by crafting 'anthologies' of several stories based on a theme. Torture Garden was the second of these with 1964's Dr. Terror's House of Horrors being the first.

Written by none other than Robert Bloch (he of Psycho fame) and helmed by veteran Hammer director, Freddie Francis, Torture Garden is one of those films which probably had a name before it had a plot. At least that is the only explanation I can think of for the film includes neither a garden, nor much in the way of torture. Instead we have Dr. Diablo (Burgess Meredith), who runs a circus sideshow. Drawing in customers, he promises to show them unspeakable horrors relating to their futures. All the customer has to do is stare into the shears of a doll-like woman whilst Diablo murmurs hypnotic humbug, causing the person to see future events unfolding...

First up is Colin, who has a sick old uncle with a large stash of loot hidden somewhere in his house. Upon the old man's death, Colin frantically begins searching for the treasure and finds it buried in the basement, along with an old cat that seems to have been buried with it. Pretty soon things take a turn for the worse and Colin begins to suspect that his old uncle buried the cat for a reason.

Next is Carla, an attractive Hollywood socialite who starts dating a big shot movie type. When her new squeeze is shot and thrown from a moving car by a couple of hoods, Carla assumes that he is dead. But she didn't count on the brilliant Dr. Heim who can seemingly bring people back from the dead.


Following that is Dorothy's story. She's a reporter who interviews a pianist. Now this young man has a rather special piano which was a present from his dearly departed mother. As Dorothy develops a more intimate relationship with the young musician, she begins to feel that the piano doesn't like her one bit.

The final segment features Jack Palance as Ronald Wyatt, a fanatical collector of Poe memorabilia. Upon meeting fellow collector (Peter Cushing), Ronald is shown perhaps the most complete collection in existence, including several unpublished manuscripts written in Poe's own hand. But where this mysterious collector got such treasures is a dark and frightening secret.

Of course the whole narrative is wrapped up in the dark doings of Dr. Diablo who reveals himself to be more than a mere circus trickster. Torture Garden isn't a bad piece of 60's British horror. But nothing particularly stands out as brilliant from any of the segments and Amicus would go on to make much better anthologies in the years to come.