Duel

Year:  1971

Director:  Steven Spielberg

Screenplay:  Richard Matheson, based on the short story Duel by Richard Matheson 

Starring:  Dennis Weaver

Running Time:  90 minutes

Genre:  Action, thriller

Middle aged travelling salesman David Mann (Weaver) sets off on a long drive through rural California to meet a client, but the uneventful journey soon turns into a desperate battle for survival when Mann finds himself involved in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with a deranged truck driver (Carey Loftin).

Originally made as a television "Movie of the Week", this film is possibly most notable as the feature film debut from director Steven Spielberg, who at the time only had a few episodes of television shows under his belt, including episodes of Night Gallery and an episode of Columbo.  The original 74 minute TV movie was so successful with critics and audiences that the studio allowed Spielberg to shoot extra footage to increase the running time for a theatrical release.  Aside from several brief encounters with people he meets on his journey, the film almost entirely focusses solely on Mann.  The truck driver is almost entirely unseen, and never seen in full.  A couple of times we see a beefy forearm cocked out of the window, his hands on the steering wheel, and his booted feet, but that's all we see of the driver.  The antagonist becomes the huge, menacing truck itself, with its dirty windows, bellowing air horn and belching black fumes, like a vast mechanical dragon.  Aside from the anonymity of Mann's attacker, the randomness of the pursuit itself is scary, with Mann seemingly targeted for no reason.  Throughout the film, Mann seems almost painfully out of place, during the opening credits we travel from the comfortable suburbs, into the Californian deserts, and even when he is not in danger, Mann, in his suit and tie, seems to be uncomfortable in the blue-collar diners and truck stops where he finds himself.  In an early scene, he telephones his wife (Jacqueline Scott), providing the only glimpse we have of his home life, and she criticises him for not standing up for her against an offensive colleague of his at a party the previous night.  Ultimately, Mann has to shed his veneer of suburban civilisation to find a more primal survival instinct, if he is to defeat his enemy.  While the film doesn't entirely keep up its momentum throughout its entire running time, it is still a gripping suspense film, with plenty of excitement and a thrilling climax.

Keep on truckin':  Dennis Weaver in Duel

Saw X

 Year:  2023

Director:  Kevin Greutert

Screenplay:  Peter Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg

Starring:  Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Synnøve Mackey Lund, Steven Brand, Renata Vaca, Michael Beach

Running Time:  118 minutes

Genre:  Horror

John Kramer (Bell) has been given just months to live due to his terminal brain cancer.  In desperation, he approaches a clinic in Mexico that promises a radical new treatment to cure cancer.  Kramer soon realises, however, that he has been tricked, and the operation is merely a scam to con cancer sufferers out of thousands of dollars.  However, John Kramer has a few tricks of his own.  What the scammers don't know is that he is none other than the notorious Jigsaw Killer, and soon the predators become the prey, when Kramer forces them to play his sadistic games.

This is the tenth instalment in the hugely popular Saw franchise.  The Saw films focus on serial killer John Kramer, known as "Jigsaw", whose victims are those he deems to have done wrong or wasted their lives.  he doesn't kill his victims directly but imprisons them in elaborate, specially designed traps, which usually make some ironic comment on the "sins" Kramer believes them to have committed.  The traps, which Kramer refers to as "tests" or "games", are lethal but there is a way to escape, at the cost of extreme physical or psychological torture, which very few can withstand, and so most of Kramer's victims are killed by their traps.  The cadaverous, softly-spoken Tobin Bell once more reprises his role as John Kramer, this time taking centre stage as anti-hero rather than out and out villain.  Series regular Shawnee Smith also returns as Amanda, one of Kramer's victims who survived her ordeal and became his devoted apprentice.  The surrogate father-daughter relationship between Kramer and Amanda forms the emotional core of the film.  Norwegian actress Synnøve Mackey Lund is impressive as the heartless head of the scam operation.  Despite being the tenth film in the series, the story takes place between the events of Saw (2004) and Saw II (2005).  The film is slow to get going.   There is a brief scene at the beginning of the film where we see Kramer witnessing a hospital orderly stealing from a patient, and imagining the orderly in one of his death traps, he decides to spare the orderly when he puts the patient's possessions back after noticing Kramer staring at him, despite this it is a long time before we get to the traditional Saw action, although when it does get going it is impressive enough with all the gore and carnage that fans have come to expect from the series.  Incidentally, there is an additional scene partway through the end credits.

        The Gamesmaster:  Tobin Bell in Saw X

Friday the 13th

 Year:  1980

Director:  Sean S. Cunningham

Screenplay:  Victor Miller

Starring:  Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan, Kevin Bacon

Running Time:  95 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Camp Crystal Lake is preparing for it's grand reopening after being closed for twenty years.  The camp, however, has a bad reputation town, where it is nicknamed "Camp Blood" due to it's history of mysterious deaths and disappearances.  The local eccentric, Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney), claims that the camp has a "death curse".  However, six teenage camp counsellors have arrived at the camp, along with the new owner (Pete Brouwer), to prepare for the opening in two weeks time.  When the owner leaves the camp to get some supplies, the counsellors enjoy themselves. However, the fun soon turns to terror as they are brutally murdered one by one by an unknown prowler.

Producer and director Sean S. Cunningham was known to horror fans for producing Wes Craven's notorious debut film The Last House on the Left (1972).  Prompted by the success of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), Cunningham decided to do his own take on what would become known as the "slasher" genre.  Sticking to the calendar theme of Halloween, the title "Friday the 13th" seemed like a no-brainer for a horror film title, and Cunningham was in fact concerned that the title might already have been used, and so while the script was still being drafted, he took out a full page ad in the film industry trade magazine Variety announcing Friday the 13th as being in production, partly to raise additional financing for the project, and partly to ensure that no-one objected to them using the title.  The film sticks closely to the Halloween story structure, which would become the standard for slasher films.  Beginning with a short prologue set in 1958, most of the film takes place over a 24 hour period in the "present day", on Friday 13th June.  During the scenes set during the day, the first half hour or so of the film, we are introduced to the characters, thinly sketched as they are, and there is one murder, which the main characters are unaware of.  It's at night, during a torrential rain shower, that the fun really starts.  There is nothing particularly memorable in the script, and the performances are variable at best, if effective enough for this type of film.  Future Hollywood star Kevin Bacon has an early appearance as one of the camp counsellors, and a memorable death scene.  The score by Harry Manfredini is obviously inspired by Bernard Herrmann's score for Psycho (1960), but it does have the memorable "ki ki ki, ma ma ma" motif, that represents the unseen killer.  The gore effects are by legendary special effects artist Tom Savinvi, who had previously worked on Dawn of the Dead (1978), and they are impressive.  After the controversy surrounding The Last House on the Left, Sean S. Cunningham wanted to make. film that was, as he put it, "a rollercoaster ride", the film its directed effectively, aside from some quite jarring transitions, and both script and direction suffer from some real lapses in logic (the killer always seems to know where the counsellors will wander off to on their own, and be ready with a variety of different weapons, and also seems to be able to travel from one place to another very quickly without being seen or heard).  The scenes where the camera takes the killer's point-of-view, lurking behind trees and observing the characters from a distance, are effective.  For a fun horror movie, however, it works almost as the cinematic equivalent of a campfire ghost story.  Simple, gruesome, silly and fun.  The film was a huge success, kickstarting the slasher movie boom of the early 1980s and launching a franchise which has, to date, clocked up eleven film, including a cross-over with the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, a remake, a TV series, comics, novels and video games.    

Jeannine Taylor, Harry Crosby and Adrienne King in Friday the 13th

There's Nothing Out There

 Year:  1991

Director:  Rolfe Kanefsky

Screenplay:  Rolfe Kanefsky

Starring:  Craig Peck, Wendy Bednarz, Mark Collver, John Carhart, Bonnie Bowers

Genre:  Comedy, science-fiction, horror

Running Time:  91 minutes

Seven students head off to a remote house in the woods, and soon come under attack from a vicious alien creature.  However, one of the group, Mike (Peck), is able to use his extensive knowledge of horror movies to help them defeat the creature.

This low-budget blend of comedy and horror is most notable as an early example of post-modern horror, five years before Wes Craven's hugely successful Scream (1996) popularised the genre.  The film parodies the various tropes of teen slasher films, which are discussed at length by sarcastic movie fan Mike.  Bits of the film are clever and funny, such as a character escaping the monster by grabbing the hanging microphone boom and using it to swing to safety, while the soundtrack plays a riff on the "Indiana Jones" theme.  It's the kind of film that would probably work best if played at a horror festival or convention or towards the end of an all-night horror movie marathon, when an audience might be more kindly disposed to laugh at it.  The film suffers from low production values, atrocious performances, and terrible special effects.  The monster is a puppet that looks like a cross between a giant frog and a fish with large teeth and shoots green rays out of it's eyes, which enable it to take control of the minds of its victims.  The female characters really have nothing to do except run around wearing as little as possible, and the film's ostensible hero is extremely unlikeable, with his constant sarcastic comments.  The film is an interesting curio for fans of horror, but has little real value as a movie.  

Sally (Lisa Grant) in There's Nothing Out There

Lost Highway

 Year:  1997

Director:  David Lynch

Screenplay:  David Lynch and Barry Gifford

Starring:  Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Blake, Natasha Gregson Wagner, Gary Busey, Robert Loggia

Running Time:  135 minutes

Genre:  Thriller, drama, horror

Jazz saxophonist Fred Madison (Pullman) and his wife Renee (Arquette) are disturbed to receive a series of mysterious VHS tapes of their large Los Angeles house.  Fred is convicted of Renee's murder, and sentenced to death.  In his jail cell, Fred transforms into Pete Dayton (Getty), a mechanic who has seemingly no connection to Fred.  The authorities release Pete, who comes under the influence of violent gangster Mister Eddy (Loggia), and finds himself drawn to Eddy's moll, Alice (Arquette again).

David Lynch saw in the 1990s on a critical and commercial high, with his cult TV series Twin Peaks (1989-1991, 2017) at the peak (no pun intended) of it's success, and his film Wild at Heart (1990) winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.  However, Twin Peaks came to an end and Wild at Heart received mixed reviews and underperformed at the US Box Office.  Lynch's next film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), seemed like a guaranteed hit, however, the film, which leaned heavily into all the darkness, violence and weirdness that he was unable to put on mainstream TV in the early '90s baffled and dismayed both fans and critics, and was a commercial disappointment (except in Japan where it was a smash hit).   

The five years between Fire Walk With Me and Lost Highway were the longest gap between film projects of Lynch's career to that date.  Lynch's inspiration came from coming across the term "lost highway" in Barry Gifford's book Night People (1992), and also the O. J. Simpson murder case.  Lynch, who knew Gifford after adapting his novel Wild at Heart, teamed up with the author to work on the film's screenplay.  The film is a "2 A. M." movie.  Whatever time of the day or night you put it on, it feels like it is two o'clock in the morning.  That kind of night time delirium, where the world feels like it made of shadows and ghosts.  Lost Highway does not offer up its secrets easily or willingly, working as it does with a kind of dream logic.  Among the cast, Robert Blake, who would be accused of murder in 2001, although he was acquitted, is genuinely terrifying as the "Mystery Man", dressed in black, with slicked back, black hair, white makeup and black lips and eyes.  Patricia Arquette appears as the mysterious woman in both Fred and Pete's lives (although as Renee she has dark hair, and as Alice she is blonde), who may in fact be the same person, or may not be.  Gary Busey appears as Pete's dad, and Richard Pryor has a cameo as Pete's boss.  Robert Loggia plays the seemingly affable but threatening gangster, in one of the film's standout scenes, he violently attacks a tailgating driver, yelling lessons on road safety while savagely pistol-whipping the man, in a scene that could have come from a Quentin Tarantino film.  Lynch regular Jack Nance appears in a small role as Pete's coworker, however Nance died before the film was released, following injuries sustained in a brawl outside a donut shop.

The film's baffling narrative, surrealism and graphic sex and violence, put off many viewers and critics.  However, it has its own beauty.  Lynch is a master at using sound and visuals, and this is a film that benefits hugely from being seen with the best possible screen and sound system.  Lynch started out as a painter, and the film has some beautifully composed shots, and a complex sound design, ranging from sinister low rumbling, and quiet whispering, to loud industrial rock from the likes of Marilyn Manson and the Nine Inch Nails.  If some of Lynch's films are dreams wrapped in nightmares, this is like a nightmare in hell with dreams of heaven.

  Patricia Arquette and Bill Pullman in Lost Highway

  

The Mark of Zorro

 Year:  1940

Director:  Rouben Mamoulian

Screenplay:  John Taintor Foote, story by Garrett Fort and Bess Meredyth, based on the novel The Curse of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley

Starring:  Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone

Running Time:  94 minutes

Genre:  Action, adventure

19th Century California:  Don Diego Vega (Power) is summoned home from Madrid by his father.  In California, Diego is horrified by how the local people are oppressed by the cruel and corrupt governor.  Outwardly coming across as a wealthy, cowardly fop, Diego adopts the secret identity of masked outlaw El Zorro ("The Fox") to fight for justice.

The swashbuckling hero Zorro had previously rode onto cinema screens in the 1920 silent film The Mark of Zorro, which starred Douglas Fairbanks in the lead role.  This is a spirited old fashioned adventure film, with some enjoyable action, and some exciting sword fights.  The film's title comes from Zorro's habit of marking things and sometimes people with three quick sword slashes to form the letter "Z".  Also it doesn't take itself too seriously and there is a welcome vein of humour throughout.  Tyrone Power is good in the lead role, obnoxiously foppish as Diego, but athletically physical and romantic as Zorro.  Basil Rathbone is good as the evil master swordsman who Zorro must defeat.  Linda Darnell doesn't really have anything much to do other than be courted by Diego, as she falls in love with his Zorro persona.  This is the kind of Saturday matinee film that really doesn't get made much anymore, and while it hasn't aged well in places, it is still a very entertaining film.   The Mark of Zorro has gone on to become part of the Batman mythos.  In both comic books and movies, it's depicted as the film that the young Bruce Wayne watched with his parent's the night that they were killed.  Although it differs among various versions whether it was the 1920 or 1940 film that they watched.  

Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro

The Big Heat

 Year:   1953

Director:  Fritz Lang

Screenplay:  William P. McGivern, based on the novel The Big Heat by William P. McGivern

Starring:  Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby, Lee Marvin

Running Time:  90 minutes

Genre:  Thriller

While investigating the apparent suicide of a police officer, detective Sergeant Dave Bannion (Ford) finds himself pitted against a powerful crime syndicate that effectively owns the city including the police department.  When Bannion's wife is killed by a bomb that was intended for him, his pursuit for justice becomes a quest for vengeance.

This is a powerful slice of film noir from legendary director Fritz Lang, who began with such ground-breaking films as Metropolis (1926) and M (1931) before moving to America where he specialised in bleak crime dramas.  Beginning as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post by writer William P. McGivern, who subsequently published the story as a novel and wrote the screenplay for the film, the tale is tense and exciting, with often darkly witty, hard-boiled dialogue.  Beginning as a square jawed heroic tough guy, and devoted family man, Glenn Ford's Dave Bannion devolves into an obsessive antihero increasingly consumed by his desire for vengeance.  Gloria Grahame is impressive as the gangster's moll who becomes consumed with her own quest for vengeance as well as offering salvation of a kind for the tormented Bannion.  Jocelyn Brando, the older sister of Marlon Brando, doesn't really get to make much of an impression as the devoted wife before she gets blown up.  The film is surprisingly violent for the time, in particular the notorious scene where Lee Marvin throws boiling coffee in Gloria Grahame's face.

Gloria Grahame and Glenn Ford in The Big Heat