Zardoz
The movie opens w/ a floating head narrarator in a blue kerchief, bouncing around the screen waxing eloquent on various things. As it rambles and gets closer, I realize that it's facial hair is drawn on w/ a Sharpie!
At that point, I got up and grabbed another 2 beers. I know that I have a very high tolerance for bad films, but I wanted to be prepared for the worst. Better to have a beer and not need it, than to need a beer and not have it. I wanted to have another within reach just in case.
What you have here in a nutshell is a vision of the future in which a score of ultra pacifist eggheads have walled themselves in a huge invisibly-walled commune, the Vortex. Meanwhile the world around them (the "outlands") suffers for lack of their greatness and like, good vibes.
In the Vortex they navel gaze, ageless, for theoretically all eternity, having solved the mysteries of aging and such. Those who even so much as think a negative thought are aged, and these deemed "renegade" instantly elderly are kept in some outside tent (i guess) where they have to dress in formal clothes and mutter to each other for all time. So theyll never die, theyll just be like permanently stuck in some country club happy hour forever. Unfortunately for the rest of the non-imprisoned Eternals, the gift of immortality has sorta put a damper on the need for procreation, thus killing all reasons for sex or love. Fortunately for them, Sean Connery is en route wearing nothing but what appears to be a pair of red hot pants and an ammo belt, their savior and destroyer.
Sean Connery is Zed, an Exterminator, a killing machine that rides the Outlands horseback w/ his posse, basicallly blasting everyone in sight w/ his god mode pistol. This is like, population control or something, commanded by his god Zardoz, a huge floating stone head that revolves around the earth and seems to emanate the song Figlio Perduto. It lands periodically, and exhorts to Zed and his fellow Exterminators:
"THE GUN IS GOOD! THE PENIS IS EVIL! THE PENIS SHOOTS SEEDS TO PRODUCE THE HATED HUMANS! WHILE THE GUN SHOOTS DEATH TO CLEANSE THE EARTH!"
Then, it upchucks a huge assortment of firearms to the assembled throng, their tools to carry out it's grim will.
Oh boy. I knew that I definitely wasnt in Kansas anymore, and that was only at like the 5 minute mark! That actually is quite the appropriate thing to say, as this "god" turns out to be the floating head from the beginning (it all makes sense now!) a wizard of oz sort of charlatain that's been directing the Outlanders to do his bidding the whole time. Anyway, Zed ends up hitching a ride in the stone head and getting over the wall into the Vortex, and arrives just in time to bring it all down, man.
From it's heavy metal band logo title, to it's bad vibes psychic warfare, this is something to see indeed, but it's clearly for advanced consumers of cheese only. Due to it's extremely drawn out nature, I think less conditioned viewers' natural body defenses would kick in, and they'd go into shutdown mode (ie fall asleep) fairly soon in the film, or may even go catatonic in extreme cases. I could barely handle it myself!
Thx for the referral, PJ!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dracula's Fiancee
Somewhere a clock strikes midnight, and there's a full moon in the sky. She appears in the graveyard from seemingly nowhere. An otherworldly vision of beauty in ghostly white, her pale countenance softly shimmers in the moonlight as she gazes at the night sky. She is cold, so very cold, and so very lonely. She glares skyward, now baring bestial fangs, seeming cursing the very heavens above that have forsaksen her. This place of death and sorrow is her home now, condemned to an unlife of darkness forevermore. Then, he appears...
....a midget in a jesters hat? They are to go to retrieve Dracula's Fiancee from a cloister of lesbian nuns, devoted to the protection of their future Dark Queen? Like a bat-signal in the night sky, this is the calling card of one certain director for whom the traditional gothic is merely a launch pad for his wild dreams. That's right, Dr Jean Rollin is in the house!
So we have a baby-eating Ogress (who is definitely the hottest Ogre Ive ever seen) who guards the entrance to the ceremonial grounds of an ancient castle, where an equally ancient ceremony will take place. The recipe for this unholy rite calls for 3 nuns to be sacrificed, then and only then will Dracula appear from a grandfather clock to judge his prospective bride. Then, with a bride to stand by him, Dracula will be free to assert his dominion of the Earth. Suddenly the stern she-wolf, clad in red, rides in on horseback and proclaims "The time has come to free The Master".
The time has come indeed.
This is Rollin's last film, circa 2002, and it's just as wild as anything else he's ever shot. Strangely enough, it is one of his most coherant stories yet, it's just patently ridiculous. Pretty fun movie tho, I liked it! Best line was when the nuns go nuts and turn on the Ogress, she pleads:
"have pity! I am not a monster, I'm only a poor wretch of a woman who's slightly berserk."
Good times. Bad guys win too, the forces of good are totally wiped out in the film! I slept soundly w/ a smile on my face, the pain of Zardoz and the Vortex but a faint memory.
The movie opens w/ a floating head narrarator in a blue kerchief, bouncing around the screen waxing eloquent on various things. As it rambles and gets closer, I realize that it's facial hair is drawn on w/ a Sharpie!
At that point, I got up and grabbed another 2 beers. I know that I have a very high tolerance for bad films, but I wanted to be prepared for the worst. Better to have a beer and not need it, than to need a beer and not have it. I wanted to have another within reach just in case.
What you have here in a nutshell is a vision of the future in which a score of ultra pacifist eggheads have walled themselves in a huge invisibly-walled commune, the Vortex. Meanwhile the world around them (the "outlands") suffers for lack of their greatness and like, good vibes.
In the Vortex they navel gaze, ageless, for theoretically all eternity, having solved the mysteries of aging and such. Those who even so much as think a negative thought are aged, and these deemed "renegade" instantly elderly are kept in some outside tent (i guess) where they have to dress in formal clothes and mutter to each other for all time. So theyll never die, theyll just be like permanently stuck in some country club happy hour forever. Unfortunately for the rest of the non-imprisoned Eternals, the gift of immortality has sorta put a damper on the need for procreation, thus killing all reasons for sex or love. Fortunately for them, Sean Connery is en route wearing nothing but what appears to be a pair of red hot pants and an ammo belt, their savior and destroyer.
Sean Connery is Zed, an Exterminator, a killing machine that rides the Outlands horseback w/ his posse, basicallly blasting everyone in sight w/ his god mode pistol. This is like, population control or something, commanded by his god Zardoz, a huge floating stone head that revolves around the earth and seems to emanate the song Figlio Perduto. It lands periodically, and exhorts to Zed and his fellow Exterminators:
"THE GUN IS GOOD! THE PENIS IS EVIL! THE PENIS SHOOTS SEEDS TO PRODUCE THE HATED HUMANS! WHILE THE GUN SHOOTS DEATH TO CLEANSE THE EARTH!"
Then, it upchucks a huge assortment of firearms to the assembled throng, their tools to carry out it's grim will.
Oh boy. I knew that I definitely wasnt in Kansas anymore, and that was only at like the 5 minute mark! That actually is quite the appropriate thing to say, as this "god" turns out to be the floating head from the beginning (it all makes sense now!) a wizard of oz sort of charlatain that's been directing the Outlanders to do his bidding the whole time. Anyway, Zed ends up hitching a ride in the stone head and getting over the wall into the Vortex, and arrives just in time to bring it all down, man.
From it's heavy metal band logo title, to it's bad vibes psychic warfare, this is something to see indeed, but it's clearly for advanced consumers of cheese only. Due to it's extremely drawn out nature, I think less conditioned viewers' natural body defenses would kick in, and they'd go into shutdown mode (ie fall asleep) fairly soon in the film, or may even go catatonic in extreme cases. I could barely handle it myself!
Thx for the referral, PJ!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dracula's Fiancee
Somewhere a clock strikes midnight, and there's a full moon in the sky. She appears in the graveyard from seemingly nowhere. An otherworldly vision of beauty in ghostly white, her pale countenance softly shimmers in the moonlight as she gazes at the night sky. She is cold, so very cold, and so very lonely. She glares skyward, now baring bestial fangs, seeming cursing the very heavens above that have forsaksen her. This place of death and sorrow is her home now, condemned to an unlife of darkness forevermore. Then, he appears...
....a midget in a jesters hat? They are to go to retrieve Dracula's Fiancee from a cloister of lesbian nuns, devoted to the protection of their future Dark Queen? Like a bat-signal in the night sky, this is the calling card of one certain director for whom the traditional gothic is merely a launch pad for his wild dreams. That's right, Dr Jean Rollin is in the house!
So we have a baby-eating Ogress (who is definitely the hottest Ogre Ive ever seen) who guards the entrance to the ceremonial grounds of an ancient castle, where an equally ancient ceremony will take place. The recipe for this unholy rite calls for 3 nuns to be sacrificed, then and only then will Dracula appear from a grandfather clock to judge his prospective bride. Then, with a bride to stand by him, Dracula will be free to assert his dominion of the Earth. Suddenly the stern she-wolf, clad in red, rides in on horseback and proclaims "The time has come to free The Master".
The time has come indeed.
This is Rollin's last film, circa 2002, and it's just as wild as anything else he's ever shot. Strangely enough, it is one of his most coherant stories yet, it's just patently ridiculous. Pretty fun movie tho, I liked it! Best line was when the nuns go nuts and turn on the Ogress, she pleads:
"have pity! I am not a monster, I'm only a poor wretch of a woman who's slightly berserk."
Good times. Bad guys win too, the forces of good are totally wiped out in the film! I slept soundly w/ a smile on my face, the pain of Zardoz and the Vortex but a faint memory.