Having a difficult movie month here. Seijun Suzuki and The Cannibals were the best movies I’ve watched lately, but this one was the smartest decision. How do you follow up those, plus some major docs, a Jerry Lewis, the Arbuckles, the end of the Szulkin apocalypse series, and my big Cinema Scope roundup? With some brilliant late Cohen nonsense, of course.
Gang:
Janine Turner (Northern Exposure, Cliffhanger) collapses while large-faced Eric Roberts is harassing her. But Eric is no casual harasser, he’s a true stalker, devoted to figuring out why this girl (whose last name he doesn’t know) seems to have disappeared from the medical system after being taken away in a weird ambulance. He goes to a real hospital where he enlists his reporter roommate Red Buttons, and involves police officers James Earl Jones and Megan Gallagher, before uncovering a clonus-horror conspiracy of secret medical experiments and pilfered body parts.
Eric and Red:
Vint:
Coincidence? Cop Richard Bright was in Panic at Needle Park with Alan Vint, and in this movie they go searching for the ambulance drivers with only a uniform that says VINT as a clue. The story is nonsense and Roberts is a nut, but it plays well. Terribly choreographed fight scene between the ambulance drivers and a street gang. Eric was some years after Star 80 and Runaway Train, not long before he started appearing in 10+ movies per year. Eric plays a Marvel Comics artist under Stan Lee, in Stan’s first non-doc appearance – his second being Mallrats. Megan was in a Costas Mandylor movie, oh no. The evil doctor who ends up kidnapping Red Buttons as well as Janine had previously brought on the AI-pocalypse in Colossus: The Forbin Project. Most important is the incredible James Earl Jones performance, hammy but dignified, a must-see.
Dignity, even in death:
Uh-oh, ambulance:
