VAMPIRE'S KISS (1989) / HIGH SPIRITS (1988) DOUBLE FEATURE

VAMPIRE'S KISS (1989) / HIGH SPIRITS (1988) 

Label: Scream Factory

Release Date: February 10th 2015 
Region Code: A

Rating: R/PG13

Duration: 103 Minutes / 99 Minutes 

Audio: DTS-HD MA Stereo

Video: 1080P Widescreen (1.85:1)

Director: Robert Bierman, Neil Jordan 

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Jennifer Beal, Maria Conchita Alonso, Daryl Hannah, Peter O’Toole, Steve Guttenberg, Beverly D’Angelo, Jennifer Tilly, Peter Gallagher, Liam Neeson

VAMPIRE'S KISS (1989)
Synopsis: Teetering on the edge of sanity, volatile literary agent Peter Loew (Nicolas Cage) tries to find purpose in his life through a cutthroat work ethic and a hedonistic night life. But when an encounter with a mysterious beauty leaves Loew convinced that he is turning into a vampire, his behavior turns positively outrageous. - SCREAM FACTORY 

Peter Loew (Nicolas Cage) is a literary agent in the big city struggling to maintain his sanity after his girlfriend has left him, now depressed he regularly seeks the counsel of a shrink (Elizabeth Ashley), who notes Pete's increasingly erratic behavior. The struggle to keep his sanity about him becomes more difficult when he meets a mysterious woman named Rachel (Jennifer Beals) at a nightclub. Back at his apartment she reveals herself to be a vampire and sinks her fangs into his neck, the next day believing himself to be a vampire he is overcome by delusion and madness.

Even at this early stage in his career Nicolas Cage was no stranger to quirky performances, but this might be the first time we saw him go full-on crazy with a stunner of an oddball performance, one that still stands out as one of his most bizarre taking on an accent that sounds like Ted "Theodore" Logan channeled through a Brit, very weird stuff and a choice that calls attention to itself. Cage seems to be aiming for more of Dwight Fry's Renfield more so than any incarnation of a vampire, hunched over and bug-eyed, heightened by the fact that the rest of the cast are playing this very straight. Are they playing it too straight or is her just too weird, regardless the outcome is a off kilter black comedy with Cage completely unhinged.  

A subplot of the film has Peter tasking his secretary Alva (María Conchita Alonso) with finding a missing document in the office archives, when she is unable to produce the document Peter torments the woman with verbal condemnation. So upsetting is the experience that she calls-in sick the next day, but Peter pays her a visit with an apology and fake sympathy, encouraging her to return to work only to flip the switch once she's back at the office.  When the secretary confides in her brother of the torments she suffers at work he sets off to avenge his sister's mistreatment by the increasingly dangerous would-be vampire. 

As the film comes to conclusion we find a deranged Peter running through the streets of the city raving like a lunatic, covered in blood and wearing plastic vampire fangs while carrying on a conversation with multiple figments of his imagination, possibly having murdered several people. 

VAMPIRE'S KISS struggles to find a consistent tone meandering back and forth from dark comedy to a more serious character study of a man suffering from the effects of insanity. Cage gives a completely unrestrained performance which can be both engaging and sort of off putting from once scene to the next. Honestly this is a bit of train wreck of a film but once I bought into it I actually enjoyed myself but I can only imagine I am in the minority, this is a hard sell of film, so uneven and muddled. 

HIGH SPIRITS (1989) 

Synopsis: Daryl Hannah, Peter O’Toole, Steve Guttenberg, Beverly D’Angelo, Jennifer Tilly, Peter Gallagher and Liam Neeson star in this hilariously haunting comedy! When a castle-turned-hotel owned by Peter Plunkett (O’Toole) falls on hard financial times, he comes up with an idea to turn the place into a tourist attraction by billing it as Europe's most haunted castle. But just when it seems he'll have to give up the ghost, some real phantoms show up — and they're none too thrilled about being exploited. - SCREAM FACTORY 

Peter Plunkett (Peter O'Toole) the owner of a dilapidated Irish castle transforms the shabby stone-walled home into a haunted bed and breakfast in a last-ditch effort to cash in on the tourism trade before his American creditors can foreclose on the property. With the help of his colorful staff they set about creating a series of hokey haunting gimmicks and invite the first round of American tourists to stay at "the most haunted castle in Europe". Right from the start the haunted hotel opens with disastrous consequence to the dismay of the tourist, but when all seems lost it turns out this castle is actually haunted by spooks and spectres. 

Directed by the imaginative Irish director Neil Jordan (IN THE COMPANY OF WOLVES) the film had a wonderful sense of the fantastic with an amazing castle set-piece and a fun eighties cast of characters. Peter O'Toole (ZULU DAWN) is quite fun as the often drunk, somewhat suicidal showman who leads a rag tag crew of Irish housemaids and gardeners into a poorly conceived money-making scheme, the man is a legend for a reason and has charisma to spare.  

The American tourists are represented by eighties funnyman Steve Guttenberg (COCOON) and his frigid wife Beverly D'Angelo (CHRISTMAS VACATION), Martin Ferrero (THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK) as a paranormal skeptic, Peter Gallagher (AMERICAN BEAUTY) as a Priest and Jennifer Tilly (BOUND) as a raspy-voiced vixen who seriously wants to defrock that priest, pretty much the same sultry character she plays in everything. 

Add to this comedic mixture the ethereal beauty of Daryl Hannah (BLADE RUNNER) as the spirit of Mary Plunkett and her murderous husband played by the Liam Neeson (DARKMAN) who both haunt the castle, caught in a spectral loop of honeymoon murder until Guttenberg breaks the cycle, igniting a supernatural love affair. 

Quite a fun and farcical romp from the eighties with loads of sight gags and supernatural hi jinx that should appeal to fans of ensemble comedies CLUE and HAUNTED HONEYMOON, the entire cast play this one pitch perfect, a fun combination of haunted hokum and pratfall humor that is sure to make you laugh out loud. . 

HIGH SPIRITS is the far and away winner on this double feature with it's spirited mix of the supernatural and farce, worth the price of admission alone, but VAMPIRE'S KISS is not without it's own odd appeal. A weird double feature from Scream Factory who have a pretty solid reputation of cult, b-movies and horror releases, but most horror fans have a pretty well-rounded appreciation for cinema in general, and I am sure this will find an audience, HIGH SPIRITS particularly would be a great introduction to horror for your kids. 

DVD Review: MCBAIN (1991)

MCBAIN (1991)

Label: ArrowDrome
Release Date: September 19th 2011
Region Code: 0 PAL
Rating: 15 Certificate
Duration: 99 mins
Video: 16:9 Widescreen (1.85:1)
Audio: English Dolby Digital Stereo
Director: James Glickenhaus
Cast: Christopher Walken, Michael Ironside, Maria Conchita Alonso, Victor Argo
Tagline: War is Addictive!

I've said it a few times on the blog that action films were never really my thing. I've always been more of a horror, comedy, thriller and arthouse kinda guy at heart but occasionally a sweaty testosterone fueled action flick would find it's way to my TV screen. More often that not in the guise of an cop-action-comedy or a sci-fi-actioner along the lines of DIE HARD, STARSHIP TROOPERS or THE MATRIX. This may sound slightly pretentious coming from someone who thoroughly enjoys a silly slasher but the action genre always seemed kind of big and dumb to me which is kind of exactly why I dig this early 90's action flick from James Glickenhaus, the director of the revenge-actioner THE EXTERMINATOR. It's an absurdly action-packed flick that's low on brains but chock full o' testosterone and explosions galore.

Much like THE EXTERMINATOR the film opens with a sweet 'Nam sequence. The war in Vietnam has quite literally just ceased and a helicopter of soldiers are being withdrawn from the jungle when they spot a bamboo dome structure they believe to be holding American POW's. Landing nearby they assault the camp in a flurry of knifings, gunfire and explosions and sure enough the dome is a MAD BEYOND BEYOND THUNDERDOME style death arena pitting American POW's against their Viet Cong captors in a fight to the death. As the soldiers move in POW Robert McBain (Christopher Walken, DEAD ZONE) faces off against a brick wall sized VC soldier when his life is saved by US soldier Robertro Santo (Chick Vennera, NIGHT EYES). Santo tears a $100 dollar bill in half and a vow is made that should the two halves of the torn currency ever be reunited that McBain will repay his debt to Santo.

Eighteen years later McBain is a steelworker living in NYC and while throwing back a beer in the neighborhood bar witnesses the now Colombian rebel Santo executed on live television after a failed attempt to overthrow 'El Presidente', a despot Colombian general played by venerable character actor Victor Argo (BAD LIEUTENANT). A few days later Santo's sister Christina (Maria Conchita Alonso, THE RUNNING MAN) makes the pilrimage from Colombia to NYC tracking McBain to the very top of the Brooklyn Bridge where he's welding. Offering him the torn $100 bill she enlists him to help liberate Central America from it's corrupt drug trade fueled dictatorship.

McBain brings his 'Nam aging buds back together to assist with the coup. We have an embittered Detective Gil (T.G. Waites, THE THING), Eastland (Steve James, THE EXTERMINATOR), Dr. Carl Dalton (Jay Patterson, DEATH OF A PRESIDENT) and a reluctant Frank Bruce (Michael Ironside, VISITING HOURS) who has apparently struck it rich post-'Nam offering "What, you miss the smell of napalm in the morning?" to which McBain counters "When I come to see you.. you're sitting in a chair like an old man, staring at the ocean, you having fun yet?".

Bruce refuses to join the coup (though he later joins the fun, of course) but offers the use of a plane which comes with a hefty pricetag. In an attempt to raise the cash the mercs decimate the crew of a low-level narcotics peddler named Papo (Luis Guzman, BOOGIE NIGHTS) who indignantly tells them after they wipe the floor with his gang in a shit-storm of gunfire that "if you guys want money why don't you go after whats his face, John Gambotti, he's got the money, all I got is table drippings" and so they do. They ambush Gambotti (Dick Boccecelli, THE EXTERMINATOR) outside the the Old Homestead restaurant which will be familiar to those who've seen Glickdenhaus's THE EXTERMINATOR as Dick Boccelli again appears as a mafioso suspended from chains, this time from a skyscraper instead of a meat grinder and squeezed for millions to be wired into the mercs account who pose as Israeli agents.

With the cash wired to their account they charter Bruce's turbo-prop private plane and head to Columbia to free the poor and repressed people of that country. At this point all logic and sanity are abandoned as the twin-prop tries to evades two Colombian jet fighters with the help of Bruce's SAT-link briefcase computer. When one of the jet pilots orders the plane to land McBain fires a single shot from a handgun through the cockpit window killing the pilot and crashing the jet. Mind you there's no decompression, the window doesn't shatter and no one is stricken deaf from the close proximity shot. It's outrageously implausible but highly entertaining and so it goes for the remainder of the film as we see one of the most casual rebel coups ever slapped on the silver screen. The Hawaiian shirted mercenaries land unscathed in Bogata during a raging ground war, pose for vacational photos and walk through a hornets nests of gunfire only to walk away unscathed and victorious, 'natch.

It's a nutty, non-sensical action film featuring Christopher Walken is at his most badass Walken-ish delivering deliciously awful dialogue with nuanced pregnant pauses as only he (and William Shatner) can, it's whacky stuff. As where THE EXTERMINATOR took a few narrative shortcuts leaving your mind to fill in the gaps this Glickenhaus action-fest numbs the brain to such a degree that it would prove detrimental should your brain enter into the fray. That said the final third of the film definitely loses some steam despite it's explosive arsenal of badassery.

Sweat 80's Action lady

Glickenhaus and crew filmed the Colombian scenes in the Philippines which I guess would qualify this as a late-era Filipino exploitation film. It was fun to see Walken strut his stuff. Sadly, the usually badass Michael Ironside is atypically subdued, definitely a missed opportunity. The film's worst performance must be from the consummate 80's action-lady Maria Conchita Alonso who really hams it up in an overly dramatic performance as Santo's rebel sister Christina, pure 80's awfulness. MCBAIN is an early 90's film but the cheese is vintage 80's no doubt about it.

DVD: This is one of the first titles from Arrow Video's fledgling ArrowDrome imprint, a budget line of cult horror and exploitation films for the cinema fromage connoisseur. It's presented in anamoprhic 1.85:1 widescreen and the transfer is very good with few instances of print damage, there's good color saturation and decent black levels. The stereo audio track is clear and balanced with the dialogue, score and effects coming through nice and clean, it's not the most dynamic track but handles the film without distortion.   

The ArrowDrome titles are  budget-minded so don't expect a ton of bonus content, the lone extra feature here is Blast 'Em Up: The Making of McBain (13:56) a video interview with director James Glickenhaus who discusses the film's origins, the futility of the war on drugs, working with Walken and how he considers all his films to be comedies of the absurd despite a few moments during the interview when he seems to take the film a bit more seriously that one might expect. The High Rising Productions produced featurette is short but appreciated with clips of the film intercut with the video interview. The ArrowDrome screener I received was a check disc and did not include final the artwork with reversible sleeve or the booklet with writings from Calum Waddell. Nice presentation and a short but sweet feature, not too shabby.  

Special Features:
- Introduction by Director James Glickenhaus
- Reagan Flexes Some Muscle: McBain and the Golden Age of the American Action Film Collector's Booklet by Calum Waddell
- Blast 'Em Up - The Making of McBain (13:56) 16:9


Verdict: I won't lie to you McBAIN is just not a good film, in fact it's pretty bad cinema, a guilty pleasure of an absurd actioner overflowing with nonsensical machismo mayhem. My advice to you is to turn off your brain and board this testosterone fueled twin-prop plane to a napalm fueled fever dream of non-stop action and unintentional hilarity. **1/2 (2.5 outta 5)  

Say CHEESE!