Three Films Make A Post: A man's got to know his limitations.

Magnum Force (1973): Probably not untouched by the accusations of fascist leanings levelled against Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry, this second movie concerning the ridiculously violent police inspector – and let’s be honest here, incompetent investigator - Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), sees the guy fighting a group of vigilante cops who plan what amounts to a fascist coup in San Francisco of all places. At one point in time, ladies and gentlemen, fascists were indeed not ruling most countries in the world anymore. Just imagine.

Anyway, Ted Post’s film never really manages to explain why Harry is set against his vigilante colleagues, though it does attempt to make something of a strength out of it by having Eastwood look somewhat puzzled about it himself. In other regards, this is simply a very solid 70s action movie, with a couple of excellent set pieces, a lead actor who appears to be enjoying himself, and a finale full of dead Nazi cops.

Black Magic (1975): I remember having had not as much time for Ho Meng-Hua’s first Black Magic movie for the Shaw Brothers when I saw it last. On a rewatch, I have rather warmed to the film, especially the brutal way in which Ho lets overheated melodrama, exploitation and the ickiness of South East Asian black magic horror – here at its inception point for Hongkong cinema, as far as I understand – crash into each other, until things can only be solved through one of those absurd and wonderful magic battles one can’t help but love wholeheartedly.

I still prefer the second Black Magic, mind you.

Hardware (1990): These days, films like Richard Stanley’s trippy unauthorized adaptation of a 2000AD strip, with their nature destroyed by human hands, corrupt authorities and corporate rule do feel rather more poignant than most of us would have hoped for even a couple of decades ago, so this in part very silly movie about a rampaging bit of military technology hits harder than ever before in this regard.

If you can get through that, there’ still great delight to be found here: Stanley shoots his science fiction horror not like James Cameron, but as a giallo, with moments that manage to suggest the mythical or the supernatural without outright speaking of them, and a surprisingly daft hand at drawing dysfunctional relationships.

Three Films Make A Post: THE END IS COMING AND IT WILL BE PAINFUL

Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate (1971): Four elderly ladies (Helen Hayes, Myrna Loy, Mildred Natwick, Sylvia Sidney) create a completely fictional young woman for a “computer dating club” to pass the time between drinks. Alas, their imaginary girl attracts a budding serial killer (Vince Edwards). This Ted Post-directed TV movie’s considerable entertainment value is mostly gained through the merry interplay between its four elderly Hollywood Stars, who clearly enjoy not having to play the standard roles women their age have to put up with, and who do know a thing or three about comic timing. The mystery plot itself isn’t particularly interesting, but Post does get quite a bit of tension out of the contrast between his female stars’ companionable fun and the killer’s well-written, downright creepy, whispered off-screen monologue.

The Haunting of Sorority Row aka Deadly Pledge (2007): Keeping with the TV movies, this Canadian Lifetime film by Bert Kish, is on a quite lower level. A sorority pledge (Leighton Meester) has to cope with an evil spirit that haunts her and her prospective sisters because of a hazing ritual gone very badly wrong. Unfortunately, most of the cast is pretty bad – the best performances here could be politely described as “unremarkable” – the script has about one and a half decent ideas during the whole running time, and director Kish shows no flair at all for staging spooky scenes. However, I probably have to praise this one for being willing to go for a much sillier and in your face finale than TV horror movies of its type usually do. It’s too bad that silly and in your face don’t make this a decent movie either.


Swiss Army Man (2016): We leave the world of TV far, far behind with Dan Kwan’s and Daniel Scheinert’s extremely weird comedy about a man (Paul Dano) stranded on a deserted island teaming up with a supremely useful and increasingly communicative corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) to get back to civilization. The first fifteen minutes or so are pretty insufferable, so consciously tasteless I found it difficult to persevere with the film. I did, however, and made my way through a tale that went from insufferable to moving to philosophical to silly to stupid to creepy at a moment’s notice, leaving one with the feeling that this thing is truly one of a kind. What at first looks like a too self-conscious bizarro comedy turns into a film exploring the vagaries of the male human heart through bizarre comedy and other things, while keeping in mind there just might be something very wrong with said male human heart, yet still never losing its compassion.