Evil of Dracula (Japan, 1974)

Evil of Dracula is the third and final film in Toho’s mid 70s trio of western style vampire movies now known as the "Bloodthirsty Trilogy". I think it can be said at this point that the second film in the series, 1971’s Lake of Dracula, is officially “lost” -- meaning that, when I went to watch it, I found that I had either misplaced my copy or had never owned one in the first place. Hopefully future generations -- or perhaps me, with either my wallet or a more diligent eye -- will someday rectify this unhappy situation. Until then, we’ll all just have to make do with only referring back to my review of the trilogy’s initial entry, Vampire Doll.

Like Vampire Doll, Evil of Dracula is a vampire film with a contemporary setting, though it perhaps exploits even more than that first film the collision between the modern and the gothic, the urban and the rustic. Thus when our hero Shiraki (Toshio Kurosawa), with his fashionably generous sideburns, collar length hair and flared trousers, arrives in the eerily quiet northern burg where he is to start his new position as psychology professor at an exclusive girls school, he is accompanied by a swingy jazz theme courtesy of composer Riichiro Manabe. Manabe, whose music for Vampire Doll jangled in not all the right ways, actually scores high marks throughout Evil, thanks to a score that fittingly combines skittery psychedelic guitars with more traditionally “spooky” instrumentation like organs and bells.

Shiraki’s uneasiness in his new surroundings is far from alleviated upon his arrival at the gloomy manse of the school’s principal (Shin Kishida), who wastes no time in informing him that the corpse of his recently dead wife is still lying in state in the cellar. Shiraki is further surprised when the principal tells him that he has chosen him to be his successor, and then insists that he spend the night so that the two men can get to know each other a little better. Not surprisingly, things take little time to get markedly creepier from there. Shiraki “dreams” that he is attacked by a pair of ghostly women, one a girl with a bloody wound on her chest and the other an older woman whom he later identifies as the principal’s deceased wife. Later, upon meeting a trio of girls who are roommates at one of the school’s ancient dormitories, he learns of a friend of theirs who has recently gone missing, and recognizes her from a picture as the other woman in his dream.

Fortuitously, the school’s doctor, Shimimura (Kunie Tanaka), is also an amateur scholar of the occult, as well as an enthusiastic compiler of all of the town’s most macabre folklore (where would horror films -- and horror film exposition -- be without such hyphenates?) Now convinced that his was no dream, Shiraki teams with Shimimura to get to the bottom of things, and it is not long before all signs point to the principal -- as well as to a mysterious white European who happened to wash up on the shores of the town some two hundred years previous. And, while Evil of Dracula is here giving an obvious tip of its hat to its western literary source, it isn’t all as you might expect. This Dracula, you see, was a devout man driven to renounce his faith by 17th century Japan’s criminalization of Christianity, which thus set him on the path to becoming a mad, blood-drinking demon. That’s right, y’all; Japan is claiming responsibility for Dracula, which back in the 80s probably would have made a lot of white people really furious.

Unfortunately, knowledge, while perhaps being power, does not prevent Shiraki’s young female charges from one by one falling victim to the principal’s evil charms. One such victim is Kyoko (Keiko Aramaki), who takes to her bed with a mysterious illness after receiving some even more mysterious puncture wounds on her left breast. Kyoko’s two roommates insist upon staying in the dorm and looking after her while the rest of the students go on vacation break, and Shiraki and Shimimura commit to guarding over them while they do. Thus do we end up with a large, suitably gothic and largely deserted creepy old building for the film’s final confrontation with Dracula’s titular evil to take place, as well as a dubiously sustainable supply of nubile innocents to provide the snacks.

It being a Toho film, it should come as no surprise that Evil of Dracula is technically well executed, and director Michio Yamamoto and cinematographer Kazutami Hara each bring a sure hand to the task of making it rich in both atmosphere and appearance. In fact, in contrast to the contemporary western films that appear to have influenced the trilogy, Evil of Dracula comes off as downright stately. It has neither the grittiness of AIP’s Count Yorga films or the cheesecake-y sexploitation trappings that Hammer was indulging in at the time to put it over (nor, thankfully, does it stoop to the ill-advised attempts at pandering to the “hip” youth market seen in the latter’s Dracula A.D. 1972). Even its few brief moments of nudity and eroticism come off as more artful than prurient, and by comparison a genteel exercise in tasteful restraint.

All of the above gives Evil of Dracula an enjoyably old fashioned quality that overrides somewhat its timely aspirations. It straight-facedly favors melodrama over action, concealing any proclivities toward intentional camp that might or might not have lurked behind the camera. And, despite a couple of gory moments, it studiously avoids cheap shocks, perhaps out of fear of upsetting the mannered atmosphere that it has so fussily strived to create. In place of that, we get more than a few strikingly poetic -- and very Japanese -- visual moments: the blood red rose in the foreground of one scene to suggest the principal’s malevolent omnipresence, the conspicuously aestheticized arrangement of the body of a young woman who has plunged to her death from one of the dormitories’ upper landings, and more.

If this formalism sounds like it might prevent Evil of Dracula from being fun, then I am simply describing it wrong. The film is a joyously seamless piece of genre entertainment, largely free of the tonal hiccups that made Vampire Doll less so. Yamamoto -- along with Manabe and co-writer Ei Ogawa -- clearly learned from his experience as the series went on, and his resulting confidence and familiarity with the territory all ends up on the screen to our benefit. Of course, the same might possibly be said for Lake of Dracula, if I could only track the damn thing down.

Friday's best pop song ever

Drive-In Mob tonight: Django Django Django!

Although I rarely write about them, I’m a big fan of Euro Westerns, which is why I’m especially excited about tonight’s Drive-In Mob. First up, at 8pm EST, is Sergio Corbucci’s classic Django, starring Franco Nero. Then, at around 9:30pm EST, it’s Viva Django, starring Trinity himself, Terrence Hill. Now, I’ve never seen Viva Django, but it is rare among the many unofficial Django sequels for its good reputation, so I’m very much looking forward to it. Both films are available for streaming via YouTube, and you can both follow and tweet along with us by using the Twitter hashtag #DriveInMob. As always, please check out the official Drive-In Mob site for the full skinny.

Loor Da Bala (Pakistan, 1999)

I keep telling myself that I’ll eventually reach some kind of tipping point where these Pashto language horror films won’t seem so strange to me anymore, but Loor Da Bala most definitely isn’t it. In fact, Loor Da Bala brings the strange on a couple of different levels. It’s guaranteed to be just about the most violent, grotesque and sleazy thing that you’ve ever seen, which would make you think that it at least wouldn’t be boring, yet it somehow manages to be that as well. Thankfully, those who are easily offended can occupy themselves during the slow bits by making angry phone calls to the VCD’s distributor, Sangar, whose phone number is helpfully plastered on screen for most of the film’s running time. I’m sure they’d love to hear from you.

To give you some sense of what we’re dealing with here, Loor Da Bala makes something of a theme out of people being sexed while supine. A woman is raped while unconscious, then turns into a monster and tears her attacker’s intestines out. A male protagonist is subjected to similar treatment by a “comic relief” gay character while he lies in a drugged stupor. A trio of globular college girls innocently knead at one another’s breasts while sleeping (as you’ll do). And finally, in a sequence that really puts Loor Da Bala on the world cinema map, a voluptuous female sasquatch-like creature lies chained to a table, moaning and writhing in a combination of fear and ecstasy as a pair of bears (i.e. men in matted looking bear costumes) nuzzle at all of her areas, until she finally breaks free to kung fu kick both of them into the middle of next week. This last was literally the weirdest thing I’ve seen yet this year -- and, yes, I know it’s only February.

The film features a duo of male protagonists played by Shahin Khan and, of course, Badar Munir. I say “of course” because Munir’s career as a star of Pashto cinema goes all the way back to 1970’s Yousuf Khan Sher Bano, the first feature ever produced in the Pashto language. In the ensuing years he came to fulfill the same role in Pashto cinema that Sultan Rahi did within Punjabi films, that of being the beefy, angry, yelling guy who stars in every movie, with a body of work that ultimately came to total over 400 films. Munir also worked in Urdu and Punjabi movies, and reportedly starred alongside Rahi on a number of occasions -- in films that immediately pushed their way to the top of my “must see” list the moment I learned of them.

As far as plot, the movie seems to have a couple of parallel narratives going on which I can’t say for sure, without the aid of subtitles, really interweave or relate to each other in any way. It could just be that, despite its horror trappings, Loor Da Bala couldn’t escape the requirement that it include, like most Pashto films, a storyline involving wounded masculine honor and corresponding bloody vengeance. Thus is provided a gang of scurrilous thugs who, in the course of terrorizing Khan and Munir’s village, kill off some of their woman folk, as a result setting the stage for much gunplay and scenes of men piercing, puncturing and perforating each other with various swords and daggers amid aggrieved throaty screaming.

But, of course, those are all things that you can see in any Pashto film. What you can’t see in any Pashto film is a pair of hirsute, mother and daughter (I think) hellbeasts who transform into dog, bird or human form by way of a variety of deeply bizarre psychedelic optical effects. Said hellbeasts then feast on the entrails of their victims -- that is, until Badar Munir slices off the head and hands of the younger one, who nonetheless fights on for a good few minutes despite being reduced to little more than a collection of blood squirting stumps. This affront puts the snaggletoothed mom-beast on a personal mission of vengeance against our heroes, one that can only be stopped by liberal applications of equal parts portly man martial arts and forceful readings of Islamic scripture.

In those moments when none of the admittedly exciting events described above are taking place, Loor Da Bala puts an earnest effort into becoming tedious through the application of a truly mindboggling number of not at all interestingly staged musical numbers featuring the usual assortment of rump-heavy women. And where that fails, the film courts inertia through sheer repetition. One or two crazed fight scenes might be plenty entertaining, but when all are pitched at the level of an apocalyptic final confrontation, it becomes a bit dismaying when they are followed by a dozen more. The same can even be said of the monster attack scenes, as wonderful as each is in itself. During the last hour, I on numerous occasions thought that the beast had been vanquished, only to have it come around again five minutes later like a bus on rush hour schedule.

Yet, as sleepy as things may get,  Loor Da Bala can always be relied upon to snap us to attention with one of its frequent moments of truly stunning seediness. Such is the scene in which the beast, having taken fetching womanly form, fellates the barrel of Shahid Khan’s pistol, sucking the bullets from the chamber as he sweatily derps out watching her. Also promoting wakefulness are the movie’s many aforementioned reminders of all the unsavory fiddling that might befall us should we nod off. The end result is a type of enforced sleep deprivation that might just make Loor Da Bala the rare film that violates international torture conventions. You have been warned.

 Again, that number is…

Friday's best pop song ever

Drive-In Mob tonight!: Kingdom of the Spiders and Empire of the Ants

Science teaches us that arachnids are staunch monarchists, while ants are proponents of territorial expansion. Neither of these geopolitical bents works out all that well for us humans, as is demonstrated in both of the features in tonight’s Drive-In Mob. First up, at 8pm EST, is Kingdom of the Spiders, followed, at around 9:30pm EST, by Empire of the Ants. Both films are available for streaming from lord internet, in the case of Kingdom of the Spiders, from YouTube, and in the case of Empire of the Ants, from Netflix Instant. All you need to do to either follow or tweet along is use the #DriveInMob hashtag on Twitter… and of course check out the official Drive In Mob site for more explicit details.

Gundala, Son of Lightning (Indonesia, 1981)

When it comes to source material for its pop cinema, Indonesia has a pulp and comic book culture to draw upon that’s almost as rich as its already well mined folklore. We have, for instance, already checked in with the fright-masked comic book crusader Panji Tengkorak, as well as the dime novel warrior hero Wiro Sablang. Gundala, a contemporary costumed hero of the type perhaps more recognizable to Western audiences, was created by comic artist Hasmi (aka Harya Suraminata) in 1969, and by the dawn of the 80s had achieved enough popularity to merit a big screen adaptation of his own -- in this case under the guidance of director Liliek Sudjio, who had traveled similar territory with 1980’s Darna Ajaib.

The origin of Gundala, as portrayed in the film version of his exploits, Gundala Putra Petir, is an equal mix of kiddie sci-fi and old fashioned mysticism. The young scientist Sancaka (Queen of Black Magic’s Teddy Purba) is hard at work on a serum that he hopes will render people immune to the effects of lightning strikes. This appears to be a common threat in Jakarta, for, no sooner has Sancaka injected himself with his latest test batch than he finds himself on the business end of a lightning bolt while out strolling. This somehow transports him to the realm of Kronz, the King of Lightning, who looks like something out of The Mighty Boosh. Kronz bestows upon Sancaka the powers of Gundala, which include, of course, lightning speed, as well as the ability to channel electricity, shoot lightning from his hands, and use his finger as a welding torch. He also bestows upon him the Gundala costume -- and, no, those wings on his head don’t flap, but they certainly look capable of it.

Once back in our mortal realm, Sancaka acquires that habit so common to newly minted superheroes of stumbling upon crimes in progress wherever he goes, which of course gives him ample opportunity to test his new powers on an assortment of disposable thugs and crumbums. He also begins work with his colleagues on something called an “Anti-Morphine Serum”. This last brings him the unwanted attentions of a narcotics ring run by the evil mastermind Ghazul, who is played by reliable Indonesian cinema bad guy W.D. Mochtar (Special Silencers). Ghazul and his gang eventually succeed in capturing and imprisoning Sancaka, which puts our hero, who is perfectly capable of escaping his bonds in his guise as Gundala, in a tricky situation as far as carrying out his superheroic duties while keeping his identity secret.

Gundala Putra Petir is a bit undernourished as far as superhero spectacles go, but perhaps no worse than some of the cheaper Italian costumed hero efforts of its day and prior. The sets, for the most part, look cramped and bare, and the acrobatics in the fight scenes are more often than not accomplished by jumpy trick photography. In addition, Teddy Putra, while filling out his street clothes nicely, tends to look a bit slight and scrawny in his form fitting Gundala costume. On the other hand, the film contains a number of other gaudy elements that are enough to keep its comic book heart beating despite its shortcomings.

For one, W.D. Mochtar’s Ghazul is a classic, Bollywood-style, OTT villain, complete with an intimidating pompadour, gold metallic gauntlets to cover his deformed, claw-like hands, and an array of brightly primary colored military style jackets -- not to mention his zebra patterned, fur lined throne. In establishing Ghazul’s villainy, Gundala Putra Petir follows the time-tested Bollywood matrix by which a character’s evil is measured by the number of liquor bottles he has in his lair. In Ghazul’s case, that lair looks like one big liquor cabinet, with an odd preponderance of J&B -- which leads me to think that they don’t have Vat 69 in Indonesia.

Another asset to the film is its music, in particular the funky Gundala theme song that starts pumping on the soundtrack whenever our hero springs into action. Elsewhere, the musical vibe is of the 70s cop show variety, which is wholly suitable to the scale of the action, while thankfully not as infectious as the song. I had that stuck in my head for hours afterward, which prompted me to reflect that superhero theme songs are an especially cruel type of earworm, as there is so little -- if anything -- in daily life that merits their accompaniment. To launch into a lusty chorus of “GUNDALAAAA” while preparing to brush one’s teeth or microwave a burrito is simply to mock one’s own life.

Gundala also, to its credit, manages to dig deep and deliver the rousing climax that so many cut rate superhero movies before it have lead us to expect. Poverty notwithstanding, you can rest assured that you will see sparking control panels, a damsel in distress suspended above a snake pit on a cross, and coverall clad minions being blithely tossed from elevated walkways as they vainly fire off their machineguns in a kind of automated death rattle. Gundala, you see, cares about being an enjoyable superhero movie, even though it's working against some pretty profound material limitations. That alone is enough for me to meet it halfway.

Ratu Sakti Calon Arang (Indonesia, 1985)

I do not take it lightly when I say that Suzzanna and Barry Prima are among the great screen couples, right up there with Tracy and Hepburn, Bogie and Bacall, Mitr Chaibancha and Petchara Chaowarat, and the two Coreys. Ratu Sakti Calon Arang sees them brought together under the direction of Sisworo Gautama Putra, who had previously helmed iconic films for each star, including, for Suzzanna, Nyi Blorong and Sundel Bolong, and, for Prima, Jaka Sembung, better known stateside as The Warrior.

Ratu Sakti Calon Arang, like so many of Suzzanna's films, takes its inspiration from Indonesian folklore, in this case a Balinese legend dating back to the 12th century. Suzzanna here plays a dual role, in the first instance as the titular Calon Arang, a powerful sorceress who, along with her five female disciples, is conducting a reign of terror over the kingdom of Daha. Over the course of the film, she increases her strength by making human sacrifices to the goddess Durga, to the point where she is eventually able to set off a stock footage volcano simply by stomping her foot.

No chip off the old block is Calon Arang's daughter, Ratna, also played by Suzzanna, who tries to offset  the damage caused by her mother by using her own magic to perform small acts of kindness for the villagers. Unfortunately, her powers are no match for her mother's, and when Calon Arang becomes wise to her actions, she strips her of them entirely. The only hope for the beautiful Ratna is to be married off to one of the men of the kingdom and leave her mother's side, but, alas, the dick shriveling powers of having an all-powerful evil sorceress for a mother are not to be underestimated; Ratna is essentially considered the least desirable single lady in all of Daha, and no potential suitor is anyhere to be seen.

Meanwhile, a messenger for the king approaches the holy man Empu Barada (Amoroso Katamsi), asking for his aid in defeating the sorceress. In response, Barada sends his brave and devout son Empu Bahula (Prima) off with the mission of proposing to Ratna. In this the handsome Prima/Bahula is none too surprisingly successful, and the two are soon married in an elaborate ceremony. Strangely, Calon Arang's disciples wait until after the wedding to inform her that they had previously engaged with Bahula in a furious magical kung fu battle while trying to destroy his father's temple, and that he is furthermore in possession of a powerful magic sword. By this point, however, it is too late, for soon Bahula has run off with Calon Arang's book of evil spells, setting the stage for a final confrontation between good and evil that will involve much crazed back-flipping, spin kicking and extrusion of enchanted auras.

While Ratu Sakti Calon Arang is neither Suzzanna or Prima's best film, it is, of their co-starring ventures that I've seen, the one that most equally combines what is best in each star's individual films. We get a good deal of the horror elements of the typical Suzzanna film along with the wild martial arts action of Prima's, capped off by much of the gore and cut-rate but imaginative special effects common to both. There are also, thanks to the scenes between Bahula and Ratna, some romantic elements that may please fans of neither, but to me these were just another flavor in the already rich stew of genres that the movie presents, and hence welcome.

Suzzanna's dual performance also factors strongly in Ratu Sakti Calon Arang's appeal. To contrast Calon Arang with the virtuous but bland Ratna (who, to complicate matters, is not subjected to much in the way of makeup effects that would physically distinguish her in any way), the actress portrays the mother as a trashy, betel leaf chewing hag who, at one point, shoots a firehose-strength stream of piss at an attacker to fend him off. This character also appears to be a creature of pure evil, which makes the combined portrayals something of a split version of the usual Suzzanna villain, who, despite her horrendous deeds and appearance, is typically imbued with an element of tragedy, as well as a modicum of quiet dignity. As for Prima, his job here is mainly to act stoic and kick ass, minus the grandstanding tableaus of martyrdom that we'd get if this were his starring vehicle. In this he excels as would be expected, committing to film yet another iconic performance that the cranky actor today no doubt dismisses as completely worthless.

As for Sisworo Gautama Putra, the director here once again demonstrates his uncanny consistency in delivering colorful and surreally self-contained films that serve as models of giddy escapism. The only real criteria for determining if you will enjoy the film, then, is if you previously enjoyed any of his others. I did and I do, but honestly, the presence of its two stars are enough to guaranty my eyeballs no matter who's behind the camera.

Friday's best pop song ever

Drive-In Mob tonight: The man, the myth, the Matthau!

Although we are to a one flawless physical specimens, the Drive-In Mob is anything but a beauty contest. How else to explain tonight’s double feature, a jowl-to-jowl showing of two films starring the great Walter Matthau at his 1970s peak of hotness? The Matthau mania starts at 8pm EST with Don Siegel’s Charley Varrick, and continue at around 9:30 EST with Hopscotch, a film that I have quite honestly never heard of. Both features can be streamed via Netflix Instant, and to play along at home all you need do is use the #DriveInMob hashtag on Twitter. As always, be sure to check out the official Drive-In Mob site for full details.