Gorilla + Martini = Magic

Before I discuss 1995's Congo, I'd like to introduce those who don't know about it to a very, very important website.

DoesTheDogDie.com

See, as an animal lover, I often find myself being one of those morally confused viewers who watches a film where human beings are tortured and slaughtered without a facial twitch, yet sobs like a baby who stubbed its toe when an adorable puppy is kicked or a likable hamster meets the dark limbo of a household vacuum. Call me a hypocrite in any language, but I was among those in the theater for Cold Mountain that gasped when a hungry hermit slit a goat's throat yet munched on my popcorn when hundreds of soldiers were blasted away.

This kind of attitude is what kept me away from Congo for, it would now seem twenty years. I remember the film being released and thought, as any typical thirteen-year-old girl would, "Neat! Gorillas! Jungles! Volcanoes! Ernie Hudson!" Then I realized the film included a lovable TALKING gorilla who was so clearly going to earn my instant love. Then I realized the film included human characters SHOOTING gorillas. I could connect the dots well enough (thanks, Pee-Wee's Playhouse) to know that this added up to the chance that human characters may very well shoot the talking gorilla that had earned my love.

That did not sound joyous.

Thankfully, twenty years later, I'm married to a man who has seen Congo so when I asked, "Does the adorable talking gorilla die?" he responded, 

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Okay. So I now allowed myself to watch Congo. 

Side note: DoesTheDogDie.com does not apparently care about gorillas, as it has no entry for Congo. I still recommend it for those (like me) who nearly turned off The Caller for fear of that wonderful golden retriever suffering a cruel fate, but if you like gorillas, then I advise you to marry someone like my husband.

Just not, you know, MY husband. Because then I'll have to go all Laura Linney on you.

CONGO!

Quick Plot: A multimillion dollar communications conglomerate something something headed by a paranoid Joe Don Baker sends Ash to Africa to find diamonds that can power laser guns.

No, I'm serious. 

And yes, that's just the first five minutes.

Before you can say groovy, Bruce Campbell is mangled by mutant-ish gorillas and his ex-fiancee/colleague Karen Ross (Linney) is heading overseas to track him down. Meanwhile, primatologist Peter (Dylan Walsh) is also booking a flight to Africa in order to reunite his prized talking ape Amy with her motherland. His travel companions include a nervous assistant and a Romanian philanthropist hammed up by Tim Curry.

Yes, THE Tim Curry.

And yes, THE Tim Curry speaks in what might be the most awesomely ridiculous European accent humanely possible. If Congo gave me one thing, it's the new dream project of seeing Tim Curry cast in a live action musical version of Bram Stoker's Dracula but playing the titular role as if he were Sesame Street's The Count.

In my head, it's life changing.

Because one amazing accent isn't enough, we also get Ernie Hudson as Munro, a black great white hunter (it makes sense, trust me) guiding the missions. Munro is British, I guess, and speaks with a randomly pretentious lilt that seems to delight the man playing him. That's enough for me.

Also, his assistant is played by Adebisi himself, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. Here's an actor that always deserves better, but it's still nice to see him show up to fight mutant-ish gorillas.

So. To recap:

Karen Ross goes to the Congo to find Bruce Campbell and maybe laser diamonds that Muppet Count Tim Curry wants while Peter tries to free Amy the Talking Gorilla and political chaos causes a lot of travel problems so we lose a few porters but Laura Linney can fire flare guns at missiles and hungry hungry hippos attempt to eat people which means we lose a few more porters while mutant-ish apes guard King Solomon's mine and we just lost two more porters and there are volcanoes, too.

I think I hit all the major plot points in that beautifully written sentence, but I did not, however, provide you a list of all the amazing things Amy does. 

No, not that Amazing Amy. Better.

Remember, Amy is a gorilla, albeit a puppet one created by Stan Winston, but still an adorable banana-eating gorilla. She adorably does the following:

Hugs a stuffed animal

Plays with a lizard and frog

Wears 3D glasses

Paints a picture

Smokes 

Parachutes with Ernie Hudson

Sips a martini

Yes folks, no matter how sour that 7% Fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating may seem (and the lone fresh bite comes from none other than the late but always great Roger Ebert), Congo is the movie that features a cute gorilla sipping a martini. 

It is a masterpiece.

High Points

There's no other way to say this: Laura Linney as Karen Ross kicks ass. Here's an intelligent, multi-talented female character who never asks or needs help from her male counterparts, who can take down missiles, outrun a volcano, kill killer mutant-ish gorillas, stick it to her boss, tie her hair back in a soft scrunchie, and assemble a futuristic laser gun in the middle of an African cave. Screw Lara Croft: THIS is what a heroine looks like

Low Points

You can always tell when a script was filmed with some undecided decisions. Here you have Oscar and Tony winning playwright John Patrick Shanley penning the kind of screenplay that gives our main character an ex-fiance without ever discussing what made the ex, which was most likely done because the studio hadn't decided if Laura Linney and Dylan Walsh had romantic chemistry (they don't; Linney is great but you can't compete with a martini-sipping gorilla) or if test audiences wanted a romance. So instead, we have a vague attempt at romantic tension (seemingly more from the actors' instincts than script), confusing dead relationship we don't know if we should care about, and the feeling that it would all be better if Ernie Hudson and Laura Linney ended the film making out

Lessons Learned

The shortage of qualify diamonds is the real reason we haven't yet made lightsabers a commercial product

Unlike pounds of sugar, primatologists don't have prices

Stop eating Captain Wanta's sesame cake

STOP EATING CAPTAIN WANTA'S SESAME CAKE

Rent/Bury/Buy

Look, Congo is a mess of a big budget action flick, but it's a RIDICULOUS mess of a big budget action flick and as a result, it's one heck of a good time. Director Frank Marshall (Alive, Arachnophobia) spent decades playing around as a producer on Steven Spielberg's films, and he brings a sort of highly flawed, but super enthusiastic spirit of adventure to this weirdly ambitious summer film. The movie is streaming on Netflix and while there are innocent(ly murderous mutant-ish) gorilla deaths, the spirit is light enough to make this ultimately more about fun than anything remotely political. Sorry, Michael Crichton. I'm sure you hated the final product along with the critics, but when you have Ernie Hudson playing the suave hero, Tim Curry eating scenery with the hunger of Cookie Monster, an unapologetically strong female lead, and an adorable gorilla sipping a martini, you have a winner.

If a Tale From the Crypt Doesn't Have a Cryptkeeper, THEN WHAT IS IT?

PEOPLE! Are you aware that in 2001, Jennifer Grey, Craig Sheffer, and Tim 'Best Actor of All Things Ever' Curry starred in a Tales From the Crypt movie? A TALES FROM THE CRYPT MOVIE?

Now before you go a'swoonin, I have some bad, bad news.

This is not really a Tales From the Crypt movie.

But words don't lie! you shout with fervor, jabbing your pointing finger to the dreadklocked Cryptkeeper looking over the cover art's action. See? The movie is called Ritual and it's clearly Jamaican based and hence, THE CRYPTKEEPER HAS DREADLOCKS! Surely he'll open the film wearing a happy face t-shirt while making some inappropriate jokes about ganja and adding t's to all his words. I mean, THAT'S WHAT TALES FROM THE CRYPT MEANS.

Unless the year is 2001 and Miramax was scared off by Bordello of Blood's poor box office performance, thusly removing all references to the Cryptkeeper from  A TALES FROM THE CRYPT MOVIE.

Not that I'm bitter about that or anything...

Quick Plot: A gooey opening scene in Jamaica gives us an incredible melting character actor investigating the mysterious illness that befell his patient, rich land owner Wesley Claybourne. But then he melts.

And we still haven't had a Cryptkeeper pun.

Back in the U.S., Dr. Alice Dodgson (aka Nobody Puts Baby In the Corner With a New Nose) attempts to save a dying young patient with experimental medication, losing the kid's life and her medical license in the process. Jobless, she accepts the now vacant role of personal physical to the aforementioned Wesley on a sprawling Jamaican plantation as ratlike older brother Julian (Nightbreed's Craig Sheffer) looks on suspiciously.

Helping out is Caro, the Claybourne's sexy childhood friend, and Jennifer Grey's Left and Right Nipple, which should have at the very least earned their SAG card for the amount of work they have to do under a tight white camisole. You know what else works hard? Dream sequences. All 972 of them.

See, there's an art and craft to using the 'shock! scare! dead main character! oh, it's all a dream!' trick. When handled correctly, it's an outstanding little device that almost every basic horror movie requires. On the other hand, when about 40% of your film's running time is composed of said 'shock! scare! dead main character! oh, it's all a dream!' sequences, they lose their power rather quickly. This is especially evident when Nobody Puts Baby's Prominent Nipples In the Corner With a New Nose recaps her most recent nightmare with the line "I just had the most horrifyingly real dream of my life!" Just try to watch that scene and not respond "as opposed to the 12 other horrifyingly real dreams we've witnessed?"

That being said, Ritual isn't a terrible movie. Filmed on location in Jamaica, it looks gorgeous, and the actors are all more than adequate. Does it feel like a Tales From the Crypt episode? Somewhat. Greedy characters get their karmic slap, bodies get melted or zombified, breasts get displayed and jungles get trod upon.

But the puns? Ah, what I wouldn't do for a pun...

High Points
If nothing else, this movie includes copious doses of Tim Curry petting cats and making lecherous smiles at women. That in itself sort of puts this into the 10 range

Low Points
Aside from the obvious--THIS IS A TALES FROM THE CRYPT MOVIE WITH NO CRYPT--Ritual ends on the sourest, meanest, most unnecessarily misogynist note that in no way was warranted by its otherwise fine 100 minutes. I was absolutely disgusted by the final shot of this film. Now one could argue that it's the usual comeuppance doled out by any Crypt morality tale, but it's not really the case. Let's get into SPOILERY specifics:

So the villain is, in a worthy twist, revealed to be Caro. It's fine for her fate to be zombiehood, since she was planning on doing the same to her friends, but then Ritual decides to get playful by showing her as a zombie bride being lain on a bed by the film's OTHER still-living villain, a corrupt and cruel policeman whom she had previously insulted for being fat. So as punishment, she'll get to spend the rest of his life being raped. He, keep in mind, was as much of, if not MORE of a villain (WHO KILLED TIM CURRY DAMNIT) but you know, he's fine. I understand the idea of throwing in a final punch, but this one is so miscalculated that it almost ruined the otherwise unoffensive and slightly entertaining film on the whole.

Lessons Learned
Everyone in Jamaica carries machetes for work and protection

Voodoo is like disco, but with less poom poom

It is customary for hospitals to fire surgeons via snail mail

If naming a character Wesley, consider how the line "As you wish" might sound and whether you're looking for a Princess Bride reference in your voodoo zombie horror movie

Bonus Material

As I watched this on Netflix Instant, I was denied the apparently extra of the Cryptkeeper segment tagged onto the DVD. HOWEVER, IMDB has kindly provided the dialogue spoken by everyone's favorite ghoul on the quotations page for Ritual. Do yourself a favor and take a look. It's oozing with mons and is written phonetically. 

The Internet is a wonderful place.

Look! It's...

Everyone's favorite Pennsylvanian insurance salesman/Glee sex offender Stephen Tobolowsky in a small role as Alice's boss

Rent/Bury/Buy

If you're looking for some throwback Tales From the Crypt action, then Ritual really isn't it. That being said, those in the mood for some voodoo horror along the lines of The Serpent and the Rainbow or, as the credits claim as a basis, I Walked With a Zombie will find plenty to enjoy. The story and characters are better thought-out than a lot of other straight-past-your-cineplex offerings, and there's an added bonus of pretty people and pretty kickass practical effects. Plus, Tim Curry petting a cat while being smarmy. 

That's all this gal needs.

I Said Brrrrr! It's Cold In Here. There Must Be Some Chiller Theatre In the Atmosphere

No, I shouldn't even try a fake cheer. Just know that this past weekend was the biannual Chiller Theatre Convention in New Jersey so naturally, I put on my best pair of sneakers to troll crowded vendor floors and tiptoe around celebrities I wanted to ogle without paying.


This installment was by far one of my favorite experiences, and only part of that involved the toasted coconut pancakes eaten twenty minutes before entering the elegant halls of the Parsippany Hilton. Highlights, plain and simple:

1. Telling Ruggero Deodato that I loved The Barbarians, and hearing his enthusiastic response that the film is finally going to be available on DVD in the near future. Also, I think I referred to Cannibal Holocaust as "beautiful." Thankfully, he did not respond by offering me turtle meat.

2. Telling his table buddy Sergio Martino that I loved Hands of Steel  (I'm sure he gets that ALL the time) and finding out that his next film is supposed to shoot somewhere in Pennsylvania. For some reason, that disturbed me.

3. Buying these:

One of which stars a wrestler from G.L.O.W. (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, for those uninformed), one of which is post-apocalyptic and involves rollerskating, and finally, a film I can't believe I didn't know existed, The Refrigerator, something I'm sure will put Death Bed: The Bed That Eats to the napping hall of shame.


4. Having a strange interaction with Lou Ferrigno (at the urging of Dear Friends Erica and Lisa) where we got a Polaroid photo (taken by a stranger just wandering the room) with the Hulk then spent about 20 minutes trying to decipher what he actually signed. Theories include "Lou the Hulk," "Love the Hulk," "Lou something Hulk," and "Lou Diamond Philips." Either way, I got to tell him that I loved his work in ...And God Spoke, and he smiled.

5. The highlight, by far:

Now obviously, Killer Klowns From Outer Space is in the treasure chest here at the Doll's House so the idea of meeting Grant Cramer (aka Mike Tobacco) evoked all sorts of inner swoons. What really creamed my pie, however, was how gosh darn nice a dude he was. This was apparently Mr. Cramer's first convention outing, and he seemed to be having an enjoyable time, or at least he tolerated my gushing, theorizing, and explanation of why Killer Klowns and The Happening should never share the same sentence. Best of all, my head nearly exploded when I learned that the Chiodo Brothers and Mr. Cramer have been developing a--hold your breath--SEQUEL to what is, quite simply, the definitive cult film of my generation. It seems a ways off but something that actually may indeed hopefully maybe yes indeed I hope I said I hope will get made someday. Sadly, it's not based on my idea for Klowns In Space , but hey, after 22 and counting years, I'll take anything.

So that was my lovely Sunday, capped by the debut recording of a lil cupcake called the gleeKast . Looking forward, I now order you to mark your calendars for the August 20-22, when Monster Mania mashes into Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and I attempt to befriend special guest Tim Curry via my own reenactment of the entire plot of Clue.