Movies

The Lady Vampire (1959) An uneasy mix of east and west directed by Nobuo Nakagawa. This director's greatest strength, from what I have seen, appears to be in staging calm, slow and beautifully chilling scenes of supernatural threat, and in creating elaborate spectacles out of an empty soundstage and minimal props. There is a bit of that here, with many elegantly framed and photographed tableaux, but when it comes to the climactic action sequences in the (male) vampire's underground castle - a painfully cheap looking expressionistic muddle of sets - that it becomes nonsensical and inane. It really seems as if it was handed off to an assistant, or used as a training ground for amateurs, like Corman's The Terror. Very unfortunate, but a job is a job and it had to get made and sent out the door by or before deadline. I did enjoy the nifty little two-tone Datsuns everybody was driving. Though it gets off to a nice start I really can't recommend this as anything but an exercise in schlock and inanity. 4/10

Wahan Ke Log (1967) Literally titled People from Mars - this is a very rare example of SF and technological motifs in Indian film. At almost 2 1/2 hours it has the requisite amount of chasing around and musical numbers in between the crazy sets and spy-type antics. It seems that people from Mars, aided by a power-crazed Mad Scientist, are coming to India to steal diamonds. There is a full-sized prop flying saucer, and quite a few space suits. The night club scenes are the best parts of course. It's a rather primitive production, looking more like an American film of ten years earlier. Notably, all the cars used are American, and they crash an old Dodge over a cliff. If you are as obsessed as I am with seeing every old science fiction film ever, you should see this. Otherwise just watch the clip below. 6/10

Movies

Who Wants to Kill Jessie? (1966) Directed by Vaclav Vorlicek, a bizarre and extremely inventive Czech comedic fantasy. A scientist develps an experimental serum to banish nightmares and give people good dreams. The first experiment is on a cow, and by using a dream-viewer we are actually shown a cow's dreams! Using her home dream-viewer, the scientist finds that her engineer husband is dreaming about the beautiful heroine of a comic strip he read in a technical journal at work so she injects him with her serum, not knowing that a side effect causes the dream images to manifest in reality. The scantily-clad heroine and her nemeses, the Superman and the Cowboy who are trying to wrest from her the secret of the anti-gravity gloves, soon appear and chaos results. Being cartoon characters, they continue to speak in speech balloons which pop up above their heads. Any movie which requires this many sentences just to outline the basic concepts is a work of mad genius. Truly original and very entertaining. 9/10

Snake Woman's Curse (1968) Directed by Nobuo Nakagawa. A tenant farmer and his family are driven one by one to misery and death by a cruel landowner and his rape-happy son, resulting in vengeance from beyond the grave. I am very impressed by what Nakagawa and his crew achieve with simple stories and effects. The cinematography is precise and beautiful, the fantastic elements striking and original, and the total experience is emotionally stirring. I also appreciated the depiction of the activities and industries of a large self-sustaining country household of the late 19th century. 8/10

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974) Nonsensical Anglo-Sino kung fu vampire movie. This Chinese guy goes to Transylvania to get Dracula to come to China and revive the 7 Golden Vampires (6 actually since one got burned up from touching a Buddha statue) and Dracula suddenly remembers he can just take the form of another person and not be burdened by all that vampire stuff of avoiding sunlight and sleeping in his old coffin etc. which he somehow never thought to do before. So these Chinese vampires are mummy sort of guys with gold skull masks that ride horses around and chop people up with swords and rip women's shirts off exposing their bare breasts, and then they take them to the temple where the Chinese Dracula lives and bite them and let the blood flow into a bubbling cauldron. Luckily Peter Cushing is there as Dr. Van Helsing to eventually make Dracula crumble into dust for about the millionth time. Well you knew it was going to end that way. Julie Ege appears in a thin undershirt which does not get torn off by a Chinese Vampire. Lots of that phony kung fu fighting which people seem to like so much - occasionally it is ridiculous enough to be amusing but mostly I find it boring. Lots of bright colors. 3/10

Countess Dracula (1971) Countess Elizabeth Bathory discovers that bathing in the blood of virgins restores her youth but it only lasts a couple of days and every time it wears off she looks even more horrible than before. Any lifestyle that requires one to commit murder a couple of times a week is unsustainable. A pretty lush production for a late Hammer film, and quite a bit of female nudity. The one thing I couldn't bring myself to accept was that a beautiful Gypsy fortune teller from a traveling circus could possibly be a virgin. Fairly entertaining for this sort of costume shocker. 5/10

Movies

Ghost Story of the Snow Woman [Kaidan Yuki Jorou] (1968) Chilling costume folk-tale beautifully presented. A beautiful Snow Woman kills everyone who sees her, until she falls in love with one of her prospective victims whom she spares if he vows never to speak of his experience. She takes human form and he marries her, not knowing her true nature. Very slow and formal without a lot of cheap shock, which makes her icy silent threat all the more wonderful. A lovely, sad and beautiful romantic ghost story. 9/10

The Informant! (2009) A Donna movie. Entertaining story based on fact, of an eccentric whistle-blower in corporate America. I am not a Soderbergh fan at all, and the protagonist's voice-over meanderings occasionally became distracting, even irritating, but I see that it did a lot to establish his scramble-minded character. It's a strong story, and the production values were excellent. 7/10