Filmstruck Friday: Falling Down (1993)

"I'm the Bad Guy?"
"Yeah."
"How'd that happen? I did everything they told me to. Did you know I build missiles? I helped to protect America. You should be rewarded for that. But instead they give it to the plastic surgeons, you know they lied to me."

Falling Down is a thriller/black comedy about a man who snaps. That's all it is. It shows someone who doesn't have the best temperament to begin with finally snapping on a hot day. That someone seems to be a regular guy (played by Michael Douglas, with a buzz-cut, glasses, and shirt and tie on) but he gets more and more dangerous as the film winds on, and more and more determined to reach his estranged wife (Barbara Hershey) and daughter. Robert Duvall is the desk-centred cop about to have a stressful last day, initially offering advice to his colleague (Rachel Ticotin) until he realises that nobody else will listen to them.

Written by Ebbe Roe Smith and directed by Joel Schumacher, Falling Down allows for yet another fine and unique performance in the eclectic filmography of Douglas (known for his star power, it's often easy to forget just how willing the actor is to take a gamble on roles that weren't in his typical leading man mould). It's a film that also does well to get great people who fit perfectly in their supporting roles - Duvall is the weary pro, Ticotin knows to listen to him, Hershey is worried but unable to get others to believe her, Frederic Forrest is a store owner who thinks he is the same as our main character, when he is just a horribly prejudiced piece of work, and you also get good work from Raymond J. Barry and Tuesday Weld (the former being the Police Captain, the latter being the over-anxious wife of Duvall's character).

I still like Falling Down. A lot. It's full of those great performances, and it's full of some superb set-pieces. The first scene of Douglas flipping out as he is overcharged for a cola when he just wants to get change for a phone call is brilliant, and it all becomes vicariously satisfying as he hits back at gang members, snooty golfers, harassing beggars, and road workers who are ruining the day for everyone.

Things escalate in a way that could be seen as videogame-esque. Douglas gets angry. Then he gets a baseball bat. Then he gets guns. He even gets a small rocket-launcher at one point. It's amusing, helped by the sharp script and pacing, and yet the undercurrent of darkness winds through every scene and grows bigger and bigger as we get to the finale.

My only main problem with the film nowadays is the fast food restaurant scene, a moment I used to love alongside all of the others when I first watched the film. Douglas wants breakfast, that is served up until 1130, and is told that menu is finished because it is a few minutes past that time. When he rages, and when he goes on about the customer always being right, I don't enjoy it as much this time around (although the small role for Dedee Pfeifffer is a plus). But anyone who has worked in the hospitality or service industry will know that he's wrong. The customer isn't always right, especially if they come in late for a window of service and that window has closed.

It's the set-pieces that stand out (especially the scene on the golf course) but Falling Down offers much more in between the big moments. Finding out more about the background of the character adds to the tension, seeing how his viewpoint starts from a place of reason and then turns around enough to become dangerous is fascinating, and you also have a great element of classic cat and mouse as Duvall starts to connect the dots and figure things out ahead of everyone else.

So, as odd a sentence as it may seem, Falling Down holds up well.

8/10

Get the disc here.
Americans can get it here.

The Midnight Hour (1985)

A horror comedy from the mid-1980s, The Midnight Hour has maintained a small, but loyal, fanbase, and with good reason. It's a cracking little movie, and something that would fit perfectly in any Halloween schedule. If you haven't seen it yet then do give it a go. If you have seen it then do your bit to promote it to everyone else.

The plot is quite simple. A bunch of teenagers decide to pretend to raise the dead one Halloween night, and end up actually raising the dead. Of course, they don't know it at the time. The town starts to be overrun by strange ghouls and evil creatures while the teens focus on enjoying a Halloween party. They can't remain oblivious to the situation forever, but will they realise what's going on before too many people are transformed into creatures of the night?

Written by William Bleich, and directed by Jack Bender, this is an atmospheric movie that makes up for a lack of any real frights with a great sense of fun, and that Halloween spirit poured over almost every main scene. It also gets away with a musical moment that's genuinely enjoyable, despite the fact that it should be eye-rollingly cheesy. Bleich may not have written the best dialogue, but he sets everything up quickly enough and allows for a lot of satisfying character moments throughout. Bender takes the material, and boosts it with great visual style, and plenty of dry ice.

The cast is a good mix of great actors and likable folk, with my particular favourites being Dedee Pfeiffer, LeVar Burton, Kurtwood Smith and Kevin McCarthy. Lee Montgomery is the nominal lead, and does okay, while Shari Belafonte and Jonna Lee stand out as two very different young women hoping to make the most of their Halloween night. And the voice of Wolfman Jack bellowing out of the radio is a huge bonus, as is the quite wonderful soundtrack (seriously, this is a soundtrack that I would buy immediately).

If you like the horror movies of Fred Dekker and Joe Dante, and I can't think of too many people who don't, then this is for you. It has a similiar vibe, both in the way it's respectful to the genre conventions while also playing around with them slightly and also in how it shows darkness seeping into an unprepared small town in America.

A perfect film to watch while sitting in the dark, perhaps accompanied by the flickering light of a jack-o-lantern.

8/10

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Vamp (1986)

Written and directed by Richard Wenk (who was helped by Donald P. Borchers in coming up with the story), Vamp is one of those movies that I know isn't for everyone . . . . . . . . . yet I recommend to everyone anyway. It's a favourite of mine and the more people who come around to my way of thinking, at least in this matter, the better.

After almost being bored to death while pledging to a fraternity, Keith (Chris Makepeace) and AJ (Robert Rusler) offer to get the guys anything they want instead of being made to go through the usual humiliations. The frat guys, somewhat predictably, want strippers. So our two young men borrow a car from Duncan (Gedde Watanabe), and also allow him to join them, before setting off to procure some dancing girls. After a few wrong turns, a fair bit of lost time and a run in with an albino punk (Billy Drago), they get inside the After Dark club. At last. The After Dark club is quite a place. There's the guy who looks after the place but dreams of Vegas (a superb turn from the ever-brilliant Sandy Baron), a waitress who keeps trying to get Keith to remember her (played by the lovely Dedee Pfeiffer) and a star turn from the mysterious and animalistic Katrina (Grace Jones). Unfortunately, there is a side to the club that people only see if they're not getting out again. A vampiric side.

Yes, as you may have guessed, years before the enjoyable From Dusk Till Dawn used the strip club setting for some monster mashing, Vamp had already paved the way. Was Vamp the first? No, but it remains one of the best (especially when compared to, for example, The Monster Club, which I think contains a few similiar elements).

The performances from everyone involved really help lift this above numerous other vampire movies of the decade. Robert Rusler and Chris Makepeace play off each other superbly, Gedde Watanabe is great comic relief and Dedee Pfeiffer is adorable - like an '80s Meg Ryan but a Meg Ryan that I'd actually contemplate trying to hit on. The villains are just as good, if not better. Billy Drago is his usual intimidating presence, Grace Jones is her . . . . . . usual intimidating presence and Sandy Baron steals pretty much every scene that he's in.

The special effects don't overwhelm the movie but they're very well done and the same can be said for the score from Jonathan Elias. Wenk may do a great job as director but he's helped no end by a very talented team, including Alan Roderick-Jones in the role of art director and cinematographers Elliot Davis and Douglas F. O'Neons. I don't usually mention art directors and cinematographers in my movie reviews for a number of reasons. First of all, I usually KNOW more about the cast, writer and director. Secondly, a movie is always a collaborative effort and I worry that if I start to single out too many people I end up having to go down the list of credits to include absolutely everyone (which, in an ideal world, is as it should be). But Vamp has such a unique and wonderful visual style that I have to mention the guys who helped to get that onscreen.

At times it's a surreal, off-kilter world. It's very much a cinematic horror landscape - nobody helpful is around when the sun goes down, the sets are full of deep shadows and often lit with pink and green colouring, there's a lot of dry ice around - but it's one that just uses the artificiality of everything to make things more interesting and entertaining throughout. There is always the risk that these elements can pull a viewer out of the experience but it's a worthwhile risk when the viewers that go along with the whole thing can take so much away from it.

I can still recall, even to this day, looking at that garish VHS box and being both impressed and curious. Those feelings stayed with me as I watched the film for the first time and by the time the end credits rolled I wasn't curious any more but I was still impressed, mightily so. It's a horror movie that's easy to dismiss and forget about, it's a horror comedy with some teen elements that I'm sure will annoy quite a few fans who like their horror adult and serious, it's a film that will even have some viewers switching off by the halfway mark. But it's also a film that really delivers some great vampire moments, it somehow made Grace Jones even scarier than she already was at that time (and, by god, she was already terrifying) and it made such a great impression on me that I will always step up to defend it in front of those who don't appreciate its magnificence.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vamp-Blu-ray-Grace-Jones/dp/B0041H9N4W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353981297&sr=8-1

House III: The Horror Show (1989)

Not really tied to the series by anything other than name, but I suppose you could really say the same thing about the second movie, House III: The Horror Show is an inferior rip-off of a number of Wes Craven movies (mainly Shocker but also anything starring a certain Freddy Krueger) that benefits from some watchable actors in the main roles.

Lance Henriksen is a cop with frayed nerves, all because of the time he spent tracking down and bringing to justice a nasty killer (played by the late, great Brion James). When the criminal is executed by electric chair he doesn't go quietly shuffling off the mortal coil. Henriksen begins to fear for his family and his sanity as he sees the killer taunting him from beyond the grave.

You know that all is not well when one of the writers (Allyn Warner) prefers to be listed under the old pseudonym Alan Smithee. Leslie Bohem doesn't hide, which shows either remarkable faith in the material, remarkable bravery or remarkable stupidity.

James Isaac directs and puts together an entertaining mess with no real scares but plenty of random, wild moments that should please fans of the surreal. Brion James pops up to do a comedy routine at one point, his face appears on a turkey and he does plenty of nasty things to Henriksen's family.

Speaking of that family. Rita Taggart plays the wife and is fine, Aron Eisenberg acts as if he was created in a lab in a test-tube tagged as "essence of 1980s teenager" but everything is made better by the presence of the effervescent Dedee Pfeiffer (who really deserved more movie roles aside from the likes of this dross and the fantastic Vamp). Fans of Lawrence Tierney may want to watch this but be warned that he gets a very small amount of screentime. Thankfully, Brion James is in almost every other scene and goes completely over the top with his performance, which is immensely entertaining, while Lance Henriksen is as watchable as usual in the lead role.

I'm sure that some people will love this movie, if only for the interactions between Lance Henriksen and Brion James, but I'm equally sure that some will absolutely hate it. Me, I land squarely in the middle.

5/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Collection-the-DVD/dp/B0002IAQUO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1330213421&sr=8-3