by ·Comments Off on The Warriors (1979, Walter Hill)

A 1979 movie set in “the future”, which looks like… 1980. Cyrus is holding a conclave, wants to unite all street gangs to overthrow the cops and run the city, but so many gangs show up to the meeting and a Vincent Gallo-looking guy shoots Cy from the crowd then fingers the only witness as the shooter. After all this commotion the Warriors have to get back to their home borough with every creep gunning for them, but they don’t even figure out until the movie’s last 20 minutes why everyone’s mad at them. The action choreography is not great, nor sometimes are the goofy costumes (the overalls-and-rollerskates “punks” being the worst). But the comic-book Escape from New York adventure is compelling, and it was already giving West Side Story vibes with its gang stylings when I realized that the shooter is Jerry Horne, whose Twin Peaks costar Dr. Amp was in West Side.

Exactly the pose you make when you’re about to get shot:

Jerry Horne, cartoon version:

Warriors:

by ·Comments Off on Messiah of Evil (1973, Willard Huyck)

This is the real stuff, pre-Lynchian eccentricity (even art directed by Jack Fisk) with rich color, good eerie music and some quirky sound editing.

Marianna Hill (Blood Beach, Schizoid) is seeking her missing dad, finds a hotel room throuple (Joy Bang of Night of the Cobra Woman; Anitra Ford of Invasion of the Bee Girls; Tiresome Tom) in the middle of interviewing freaked-out Elisha Cook, who says she’d better kill and burn her dad if she finds him. Anitra ditches the group now that Tom is slobbering over the new girl, she flees a rat-eating albino then comes across a gang of locals eating raw meat at Ralph’s, so they grab and eat her instead.

Marianna finds dad’s house and his diary entries about gradually turning into a zombie. She’s not doing so well herself, vomiting up bugs and lizards. Tom hasn’t adequately explained himself, claims to be just an art dealer, but knows that the bleeding eyes indicate a transformation is starting. Sometimes zombification takes long enough to leave behind an entire diary, sometimes it happens real fast (a cop changes sides mid-shootout). Dad Royal Dano (Gramps in House II, the farmer in Killer Klowns) finally comes home to provide an 1870s backstory flashback about a dark priest hiding in the sea. But it stays compellingly mysterious because none of these things exactly come together – even the DVD commentary guys agree that it’s never clear exactly what’s the deal in this town. The directors getting kicked off the movie before the editing couldn’t have helped.

Royal Le Fou, he blue himself:

All sorts of weirdos show up in this. The first victim is Walter Hill, a rude art gallery guy is Morgan Fisher, a murdered mechanic was the killer Santa from Silent Night Deadly Night. Huyck directed Howard the Duck, which I’m not keen to revisit even though I enjoyed it when I was ten, and with Gloria Katz he wrote Radioland Murders and Temple of Doom. Elisha was prolific – it’s exciting to think I’ve got 100 more Elisha performances to go.