Everybody's got something to hide except for Sunil Dutt and his monkey

The 1974 Bollywood film Geetaa Mera Naam is one wild little masala. If you're not sure whether you want to invest your time in reading my full review of it over at Teleport City, perhaps you'd like to watch a clip?

Uh huh. I thought so.

From the Lucha Diaries Vaults: Santo vs. Las Lobas (Mexico, 1972)

Allow me to introduce this week's labor-saving installment of "From The Lucha Diaries Vaults" in a manner that might seem a little off-topic at first. You see, in previous posts I've sought to establish the eerie parallels between the careers of Bollywood bad guy Amrish Puri and Canto-cinema bad guy Sek Kin. Then, this week, in a suitably eerie parallel, David Wells at his Soft Film blog and I at mine -- with no previous planning, no wirework and no CGI -- each reviewed films in which Sek Kin and Amrish Puri, respectively, played werewolves. Freaky, right? Like, those aren't fingers crawling up your spine -- they're totally goosebumps, dude. (BTW, the movie that David wrote up sounds like a real hoot, so you should just stop messing yourself over how scary what I just told you was and go read his review.) Anyway, to keep the werewolf-y vibe going -- or perhaps I should say, in solidarity with Beth, in avoidance of all things non-werewolf-y -- I thought I'd post a review of a werewolf-themed Santo movie, Santo vs. Las Lobas, which also happens to be one of my very favorite Santo movies. Enjoy!

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As much as I sincerely love Santo movies, I have to admit that, when I sit down to write about them, I take for granted that I'm usually going to spend part of my review ticking off the various ways in which a particular film fulfills certain formula requirements. So, when a Santo film surprises me as much as Santo vs. las Lobas did, I really have to take my hat off and bow down. Unlike Santo's other monster movies from the seventies, which were mostly throwbacks to Universal's monster movies from the forties, Las Lobas is clearly a product of its time. It's unremittingly bleak and oppressive in the way that only a horror film from the seventies can be, and it likewise makes a virtue of it's grainy and murky photography as many such films of that era did. (There's actually one scene that reminded me in particular of the original version of The Hills Have Eyes, though Las Lobas predates that by a few years.)

It's not these stylistic touches, however, that really made me sit up and take notice of Las Lobas, as much as it was the way in which the film puts Santo in some situations I really hadn't seen him in before. Las Lobas starts with Santo being asked to come to the aid of a rural village besieged by a clan of werewolves. Having once again had his memory of countless previous encounters with wolfmen and other monsters somehow erased, Santo somewhat callously demurs, scoffing at the very notion of lycanthropy. His feelings begin to change, however, when, later that night, his efforts to escape from a pack of vicious demon dogs (I know they should be wolves, but they're even referred to as dogs in the dialog) leave him literally hanging from the rafters of a deserted arena, screaming for help. Santo is really terrorized and rendered helpless - pathetically so - in this scene, and I actually found it kind of shocking to see; I've really got to give Las Lobas props for, for the first time, leaving me unsure of exactly where a Santo movie was going. Later, when Santo goes to the village and tries to question the villagers about what's going on, they're so crazed with fear that they threaten him and tell him to butt out - then pummel him with fruit and vegetables! The final surprise comes when we learn that, having been bitten by one of the demon dogs, Santo himself will turn into a werewolf at the next full moon if he doesn't defeat the king of the werewolves. Putting added pressure on Santo is the fact that the rise of the werewolf king will bring about the end of mankind and herald an age of werewolf dominion on Earth. You know, the whole apocalypse thing.

Now, I'm so immersed in all things Santo at the moment that it's hard for me to determine if the degree to which I love Santo vs. las Lobas can be separated from the context of Santo films as a whole. It's certainly far from a perfect film. The she wolves actually look pretty terrible when seen under direct light (which the filmmakers wisely avoid as much as possible) and the fact that it manages to be so consistent in tone makes those moments when it breaks with that tone (some cheesy action music in one later scene, for instance) especially glaring. For this reason, while I enthusiastically recommend Santo vs. las Lobas, I wouldn't recommend it as anyone's introduction to Santo. I think it would be ideal to first watch something like Santo contra la Invasion de los Marcianos and then this one, thus treating yourself to two very opposite extremes of quality Santo.

Listening to: The Futureheads "This Is Not The World"

It's sad, but, at first, the only way that I could enjoy the Futureheads' latest was by pretending that it was the product of an entirely different band from the one that produced their eponymous debut, which was probably one of my favorite albums of the last ten years. And sure enough, by means of that little bit of self-deception, I came to take great pleasure in the hard-driving, faultlessly melodic guitar pop that This Is Not The World presents. In fact, if terse songwriting with shout-along refrains and ear tickling harmonies played with all the angst-driven haste of a man on fire running toward a well is your cup of tea, you really couldn't do much better than this album.

Funny thing is, though, that after listening to the record for a while under the pretense that it was by some new band called The Sutureheads, or the Futurehoods, or something, I began to think, "Hey, this sounds a lot like The Futureheads." Because, on close listening, it turns out that among all of those four/four rhythms and anthemic, eighth-note-riding choruses lie touches of the same controlled dissonance and quirky turns of phrase -- both lyrical and musical -- that distinguished the band's debut. Even some of their much-touted "angularity" pops up in the stabbing, stop-start cadences of tracks like "Broke Up The Time" and "Everything's Changing Today". And, of course, there are also those distinctive Sunderland accents of theirs, which make it pretty hard to hear them as being anyone else (even though, admittedly, they also make them sound a bit like The Proclaimers on "Hard to Bear", the album's only relatively down-tempo track).

So the fact is that The Futureheads that gave us gems of infectious spaz-pop like "Decent Days and Nights" are not gone, only hiding. Fortunately for us, what they're hiding in is a pretty great little pop album.

Video: The Futureheads "Radio Heart"

Amrish Puri as a werewolf! Amrish Puri as a werewolf!

I clearly don't get what the deal is with Bollywood horror. My understanding was that it was a reviled genre so outside the mainstream that staff at many Indian DVD shops won't even acknowledge its existence. If that's the case, then what exactly is Jaani Dushman? Certainly in many respects it's a typical 1970s masala, with star-crossed lovers, evil thakurs and Sunil Dutt mounting a horse by doing a backflip. But its central plot revolves around a yeti-like werewolf that murders young women on their wedding day -- and if that doesn't make it a horror film, I don't know what would.

Directed in 1979 by Rajkumar Kohli -- who also gave us the eye-popping 1976 version of the also supernaturally-themed Nagin -- Jaani Dushman is anything but outside the Bollywood mainstream, boasting an impressive all-star cast that includes the aforementioned Dutt, Rekha, Jeetendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Reena Roy, Neetu Singh, Satrughan Sinha, and a brief cameo by Aruna Irani as one of the victims. But the real attraction for me -- as the title of this post may already have given away -- is the presence of a young, barely credited Amrish Puri in the role of the werewolf during the first half of the movie. (To explain: the movie's version of lycanthropy is the result of possession by a vengeful spirit, and that spirit takes residence in more than one host throughout the film.)

I'm not going to give Jaani Dushman a full-blown review because (1) to be honest, I found most of the non-werewolf-y parts of it kind of dull, and (2) the currently available DVD from Music India that I have is missing a fairly crucial reel during the last act. I will say, though, that the horror sequences are at least worth fast-forwarding to, at once both surreal and surprisingly violent. Plus, dude, come on: Amrish Puri as a werewolf!

Oceans Against Us: Santo vs. Blue Demon in Atlantis

Oceans. We should have drained those damn things a long time ago. They're a hazard, filled with sharks, giant squid, and billions of gallons of deadly water that can sneak up and drown you when you least expect it. That's why Keith and I over at Teleport City will be sounding a warning all Summer long with a series called Oceans Against Us, in which we'll be reviewing a number of hard-hitting documentaries on this urgent subject. Keith has already fired off the first volley with his review of War Gods of the Deep, and now I'm joining in with my take on Santo vs. Blue Demon in Atlantis. Remember, you can either live in fear, or die in ignorance, so you dismiss these screeds at your own peril.

From the Lucha Diaries vaults: Kaliman en el Siniestro Mundo de Humanon (Mexico, 1976)

Okay kids, Daddy's busy, so go read your lukewarm leftovers in the form of "From the Lucha Diaries vaults". That's where I post an old review of a Mexican wrestling movie from my site The Lucha Diaries while I tend to other pressing matters of state. Don't hate, though, because what I'm busy with is a feature-length review of Santo vs. Blue Demon in Atlantis that's just for you because you're special. Sure, I know your Mom says that I'm just sleeping off my traditional "thank God it's Tuesday" celebration, but she would say that wouldn't she?

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Kaliman is a popular costumed hero of Mexican comics and radio. A somewhat new agey super hero, his super powers -- from what I can glean from Kaliman en el Siniestro Mundo de Humanon -- are telepathy, the ability to quote from the Koran and endlessly spew all sorts of pseudo spiritual hooey gooey, and some vague form of martial arts that involves lots of crouching and hand waving. Kaliman en el Siniestro Mundo de Humanon is not a lucha movie, but it contains enough dopey weirdness for ten Santo movies (providing that one of those ten isn't Profandores de Tumbas), and that for me is enough to qualify it for inclusion in The Lucha Diaries.

I've heard that the first Kaliman movie was one of the most expensive productions in Mexican film history, complete with globe-spanning locations, lavish sets, and a large international cast. Kaliman en el Siniestro Mundo de Humanon, however, is the second Kaliman movie, and it exhibits the kind of downward scaling and hastiness of construction with which viewers of late 70s lucha films will be comfortably familiar. Kaliman himself, though he does not wear a face obscuring mask, does share with Santo and Blue Demon the fact that his super hero identity is in effect twenty-four/seven and, as such, requires him to wear his Kaliman costume at all times, no matter what the circumstances. The producers highlight this to fine effect by placing the film's action in Brazil, because nowhere could Kaliman's outfit of turban, cape, and blindingly white tunic and tights look more conspicuous than as he strolls among the bikini clad sun worshipers on the beaches of Rio.

Kaliman's sidekicks include a small boy wearing a fez (more of a liability than an asset, really, because he keeps getting kidnapped and imperiled - and simply leaving him at home never appears to be an option) and a woman who wears very little else besides a black veil that conceals her hideously disfigured face, which is later revealed to itself be a mask concealing -- for no reason other than shits and giggles, apparently -- her real face, which is unremarkable but at least not at all disfigured. These are strange characters, indeed, though the villains in El Siniestro Mundo de Humanon serve to normalize them a great deal. Humanon, for instance, who wears a bright red Klansman's outfit (but with sunglasses worn over the hood) and a cape with an atomic symbol on it, hides out in a secret jungle compound with a magical dwarf lady, a cackling, hyperactive witch doctor, and a grizzled right hand man with the demeanor of a crazy old prospector and does all kinds of weird shit for no discernable reason. Among Humanon's projects are the placement of animal brains and electronic parts into captured scientists to create what he calls "Zombie-tronics", a collection of living disembodied heads in jars, and a furry cyclops who he claims to have evolved from a rock. Obviously a stop needs to be put to all this, because, even though none of it really make any sense, it's not particularly right either.

Kaliman en el Siniestro Mundo de Humanon hits the ground running, providing a rich, projectile stream of insanity that lasts from it's first moments to its very last. And if that doesn't sound like an endorsement, you don't know me very well.

Super mourner powers activate!

Hey, I'm as sensitive as the next guy -- twice as sensitive, even -- but when it comes to movie violence, there's a particular type of gleeful, self-conscious gratuitousness that never fails to make me -- to put it politely -- laugh my fucking ass off. When a filmmaker lets me know that he has gone out of his way to show me a close-up of a blood-spraying stump, or holds on a shot of some lovingly fussed-over makeshift carnage for far longer than any considerations of narrative or drama would require, or just goes that one extra step to make some gore effect much more disgusting than it really needed to be, its like a warmly conspiratorial elbow in the ribs that lets me know I'm in the presence of a kindred spirit... and that, yes, it's okay to laugh. A lot.

You'd be right in assuming, as you probably are, that such antics appeal to me because, to some extent, they speak to the most juvenile part of me. After all, these filmmakers I'm talking about, who delight in both piling on and magnifying the gross details of bodily disintegration, do so in the same spirit as those ten year old boys who, when telling a dirty joke, gets so caught up in making the particulars as disgusting as possible that they lose sight of the punchline. At the same time, though, the adult in me recognizes something almost celebratory in the way these movies revel in the spectacle of flesh at its most permeable... as if each is a giddy paean to life at its most messy, and in all its absurd improbability. That we can actually maneuver ourselves through the world in these flimsy sacks of viscera that we inhabit is indeed a wonder, and when I see those vessels so cheerfully rent apart on screen like the offal-filled piñatas that they are, it seems like an acknowledgement -- both joyful and brattily defiant -- of the odds we beat every moment just by staying in one piece.

So far the films I've found most dependable in providing this distinctive brand of feel-good grand guignol include that jaw-to-the-floor kung fu splatter-fest to beat them all, The Story of Ricky, Peter Jackson's Dead Alive (duh), and, of course, more early products of the Troma mill than I care to fit in this space. But I think that The Machine Girl, the Japanese production just released to US DVD by Media Blaster's Tokyo Shock imprint, has earned its place in that pantheon right out of the gate. With a dedication to carnage that defies, not only commonly accepted standards of good taste, but also the laws of physics and human anatomy (more than once I found myself saying, "Wait... that can't come out of there"), this scrappy little upstart goes the distance to prove that it has everything its older, Romero-plundering siblings have and, perhaps, even more.

The story of Ami, a teenage schoolgirl who becomes a revenge-crazed killing machine after her younger brother is bullied to death by a gang lead by a powerful yakuza's son, Machine Girl is in such a rush to get to the red stuff that it doesn't even bother to go through the motions of having an even remotely original premise. Once she is captured, tortured, and literally dis-armed by her prey's father and his goons, Ami is fitted with a prosthetic arm that could double for an anti-aircraft gun and -- thank you, Planet Terror -- ready to get busy. And business, she is very, very good -- what with the many exotic sparring partners Ami's foes throw at her, including shiruken-throwing teenage ninjas, a master of the flying guillotine, and the sweet, not-so-old mother of her brother's killer modeling the dreaded -- but fabulous -- "Drill Bra".

Where Machine Girl does tread some new territory is in how it explores the question of if, as we've seen demonstrated in countless action films before, loss can turn the loved one of a murdered innocent into a vengeance-crazed killing machine, what would happen if the aggrieved loved ones of those in turn murdered by said killing machine were also turned into killing machines themselves? The answer to that question is Machine Girl's "Super Mourner Gang", made up of the parents of the aforementioned shiruken-throwing teenaged ninjas -- all since bloodily dispatched by Ami -- who each wear football uniforms with the photograph of their dead child emblazoned across the chest, and who cry those children's names in anguish as they wield chainsaws and other instruments of mayhem with deadly accuracy against Ami. It's admittedly pretty ballsy for a film like Machine Girl -- that could, with some justification, be described as "gore porn" -- to so savagely lampoon what is arguably at least an equally pornographic aspect of above-the-board culture. But, to my mind, it's on the side of the angels. I'll any day take Machine Girl's rowdy transgressions over that turgid, mainstream media-fueled, fetishization of grief that would so eagerly turn the private suffering of others into kitsch. Personally, I imagine that the Super Mourner Gang's headquarters is inside a giant, teddy bear-covered shrine built by strangers who thrilled to the details of its members' tragedies on the Today Show (or the Japanese equivalent of same).

So, needless to say, The Machine Girl is for everyone. Wait, I mean NOT. NOT for everyone. In fact, if you are in the least bit squeamish, I would recommend running from this one like a sprinter with a bladder problem who's just realized the only available restroom is on the opposite side of town. But if, in reading my above effusions, you've experienced any twinge of self-recognition, I would buy the hell out of this shit. You won't be sorry.

Nagin (India, 1976)

My taste in retro cinema generally tends to veer Sixties-ward, but in the case of Bollywood, I've got to admit that the 1970s are where it's at, and 1976's Nagin is a good example of why. I don't know if I'll get around to writing a long form review of this one (right now I'm concentrating on giving the Teleport City treatment to another Feroz Khan starrer from that decade, the sublime Geetaa Mera Naam) but I wanted to at least get some images up, because for this one director Rajkumar Kohli used a palette that was lurid even by Bollywood standards. Feast your eyes!

Nagin is just one of a number of Indian films made over the years based on the concept of a vengeful female snake taking human form -- and, in fact, I see that a new, no doubt CGI-laden version is due out next year. In this version a group of guys (lead by Sunil Dutt and Feroz Khan) get on the wrong side of said snake lady (Reena Roy) when one of their number mistakenly kills her lover. Through assuming a variety of guises, the driven-insane-by-grief serpent then sets out to stalk, seduce and kill each of the men one by one. And that's it. There's no long separated siblings or sickly mother - just a compact and fast-paced little horror film plot, spruced up with a few decent Laxmikant-Pyarelal musical numbers, all the expectedly nightmarish interpretations of period couture you could want, and numerous excuses for Sunil Dutt and Feroz Khan to punch people -- including each other -- in the face.

Nagin abounds with the type of primitive Bollywood special effects that, while technically as bad as they could be, are still affecting by virtue of their very strangeness. (Seriously, you may have seen a lot of bad special effects, but you've never seen bad special effects like these before.) This, combined with the "Bava meets Sirk in a Sno-cone factory" look of much of the movie, makes Nagin a truly memorable visual experience, if perhaps not a pleasant one for those who prefer more muted tones... or epileptics, for that matter. Myself, I love a movie that blasts my eyes while it's blowing my mind, so this one snaked its way right into my cold little heart.

Back on the Bolly-western trail

A few days back I reviewed the Bollywood "curry western" Khotte Sikkay, and now my review of that film's follow-up -- also starring Feroz Khan and Danny Dezongpa -- Kaala Sona has just been posted over at Teleport City. If you think you might like your oats with a bit of Indian spice, this is definitely one to check out.

Listening to: Ladytron "Velocifero"

Ladytron's latest inhabits the same glacial, shoegaze-tinged, electro-pop territory as their 2005 disc Witching Hour, but, unlike its more varied predecessor, keeps the level of aggression (or, at least, Ladytron's typically cool and composed version of same) pretty much at a constant peak throughout. This set stomps through your head like a very methodically rampaging, emotionally distant Japanese robot*, the closest thing to a break coming with the Mira Aroyo fronted, baroque-pop-channeling track "Kletva". Another welcome taste of sixties influence comes with the Nancy & Lee flavored, boy-girl vocal dynamics of album closer "Versus". A thoroughly addictive listen overall. So far my favorite track is "Burning Up", which forcefully re-tables the question so eloquently posed by Witching Hour's "Destroy Everything You Touch". That being: Why the hell hasn't somebody tried to recruit this band to do a Bond theme yet?

*If you think that it's redundant to call a Japanese robot "emotionally distant", you obviously have yet to meet Robocon.

Video: Ladytron "Ghost"

Not a joiner. Oh, wait... A joiner, apparently.

I've just signed on with the Large Association of Movie Blogs, which is sort of the Super Friends for geeky movie bloggers like yours truly -- and in casting in so late in the game I've probably consigned myself to the Samurai or Apache Chief-like status of one of that latter group's lesser members (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course). If you'd like to read my answers to LAMB's standard questionnaire -- and marvel, as I did, that they actually let me join anyway -- please feel free.

Dolphy + Bond + Batman = Huh?!

Among the staples of 1960s Filipino cinema were James Bond inspired spy movies, costumed superhero adventures, and broad parodies of Western pop culture. So guess which one of those 1966's James Batman is. Or just read my full review over at Teleport City.