Prime Time: Terror At London Bridge (1985)

AKA Bridge Across Time.

When I heard there was a weird little movie that has David Hasselhoff trying to apprehend a killer who my or many not be a time-travelling Jack the Ripper then I just knew I had to see it. Don't pretend you wouldn't at least have some morbid curiosity about it.

The plot is pretty much what I've just said. It all starts with a missing stone that is recovered and then placed back on the old London Bridge that is now in Arizona. That missing stone may be very powerful, and may well bring back the famous murderer, Jack the Ripper. Who would believe such a theory though? Detective Don Gregory (Hasselhoff) would, especially when he starts to match up murders with dates that correspond to the dates of the original Ripper murders. Struggling to convince Chief Dawson (Clu Gulager) while he argues with Anson Whitfield (Lane Smith, effectively playing his character as if he's Murray Hamilton in Jaws), Gregory eventually comes up with a plan that will require the use of Angie (Stefanie Kramer), a woman he has just started a relationship with.

Director E. W. Swackhamer seems to have a large body of TV work to his name (and this was a TV movie first shown back in the mid-1980s), but there's enough canny casting and good pacing here to show him as someone who knows what they're doing in that medium. Writer William F. Nolan has a couple of better-known properties that he will be remembered for, but he is equally deserving of praise for doing what he can with something that could have been so much worse.

This is silly, especially when playing up the moments that invite comparisons to Jaws, but it's consistently entertaining.  The Hoff is a capable enough lead, delivering his usual level of charisma that somehow keeps him feeling like a bigger star than most TV actors without ever being right for lead work in theatrical features, and it's great to see Gulager and Smith in their supporting roles. Kramer is stuck with the most thankless role, but she does fine, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Adrienne Barbeau given some screentime.

If you want more serious movies that make use of Jack the Ripper then there are many to choose from. If you want some Ripper tension with some time-travel in the mix then I'd point you towards the excellent Time After Time. But if you want something that has "Saucy Jack" travelling to our time due to some mysterious bridge magic, and then causing consternation and trouble for a cop who you just know is going to eventually have to reconsider his stance of not using his gun (tied to a tragic incident in his past), well . . . this is the film for you.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: Witchery (1988)

AKA Witchcraft AKA La Casa 4.

I had to rely on the internet for some information here, and I cannot guarantee that information is all as correct as it should be, so please proceed with caution. Not that I am too worried. A lot of the information was verifiable from multiple sources, and the cast is easy enough to confirm, but, like many Italian-helmed horror movies from this era, it's never too clear who should be credited for the authorship of the film, in both the direction and writing. 

The plot is enjoyable tosh, but I'll try to write a decent summary. Leslie (Leslie Cumming) and her photographer boyfriend, Gary (David Hasselhoff), are spending some time together on a small island, exploring a derelict hotel with a spooky reputation. Rose Brooks (Annie Ross) wants to buy the hotel, to renovate it and turn it into a profitable club, and is also visiting the island, with some of her family in tow (played by Robert Champagne, Michael Manchester, and Linda Blair), as well as an architect (Catherine Hickland) and an estate agent (Rick Farnsworth). With everyone in place, it's soon time for a mysterious lady in black (Hildegard Knef) to start killing off our cast members in a ritualistic manner that will help her to achieve her main aim.

Witchery is bonkers, but it's a good kind of bonkers. As slapdash as it often feels, particularly in the more random scenes that show people interacting oddly with one another, it actually circles back to the central narrative strand more often than you would think. The opening made me think I would be in for something that would make no sense at all, but it does. It's silly, and there is a lot of nonsense in every main sequence, but it comes together in a way that is unexpectedly cohesive and straightforward by the end. Others may disagree, especially if they want things neat and tidy (and if that's the case . . . Italian horrors of the 1980s are not for you).

The cast are a lot of fun, with both Hasselhoff and Cumming arguably the least interesting people onscreen. Hasselhoff does what Hasselhoff does, whereas Cumming has to spend her time being extremely timid and virginal while her pure aura draws demonic forces towards her. Ross is great fun, as is Champagne (playing her slightly icky husband), and Hickland adds the required dollop of extra sexiness to the proceedings. As for Blair, she's given the role with the most unintentional comedy, required to mill around at the edge of the action until she's required to put on a growling voice and glare at the camera with a harsh hairstyle summing up the darkness trying to keep hold of her soul.

Written by Daniele Stroppa, with Harry Spalding also credited in some places (as well as Claudio Lattanzi claiming that he worked on the story before it ended up in the hands of director Luigi Cozzi, who lasted a couple of weeks before leaving, to be replaced by Fabrizio Laurenti), this might not be any kind of forgotten classic, but it's entertaining enough throughout. The script isn't very strong, Laurenti doesn't have an abundance of skill or style, but the cast and the pacing help to make it an easy viewing choice for those who occasionally appreciate some cinematic junk food in their diet.

6/10

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Piranha 3DD (2012)

How do you follow up something as ridiculously over the top and entertaining as Piranha 3D, the loose remake of the cracking Joe Dante movie? Well, if you're director John Gulager then you try to take the basic idea and use it for something even MORE ridiculously over the top and entertaining. Sadly, he only manages to achieve the first part of his aim.

Danielle Panabaker is Maddy, a young woman disgusted by the plans of her stepfather (David Koechner) to make his new waterpark a resounding success by populating it with lots of large-breasted women who aren't averse to showing off their assets. Unfortunately, in an effort to cut costs, the waterpark is also draining water from somewhere it really shouldn't. Somewhere that might contain some large, deadly piranha. While a number of horrible things happen to individuals who go playing around in nearby water, viewers are one step ahead of the characters onscreen as things build up to a piranha-filled, bloody finale.

There's certainly some fun to be had with Piranha 3DD. As well as Panabaker and Koechner in their roles, the cast contains the lovely Katrina Bowden, Matt Bush being sweet, David Hasselhoff portraying himself as an egotistical asshole, and Ving Rhames returning after his encounter with the deadly fish in the first movie. It's good to see Christopher Lloyd back, too. There are also, of course, a number of beautiful women in almost every scene, all fed up of being constrained by those old-fashioned bra things.

The special effects are wildly varied, with some shockingly bad CGI appearing, but they're more than a match for the many outrageous gore gags scattered throughout the movie, the script by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton is pretty weak, and the direction from Gulager fails to balance things well enough for anyone wanting anything coming close to tension or thrills. The mix of gore and off-the-wall humour worked when the same team of writers and director gave audiences Feast, but it's mishandled here.

Don't get me wrong. This is an easy film to have some fun with, if you can watch it without rolling your eyes every few seconds. But it's not an easy film to like.

4/10

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