The Phantom Empire (1986)

One of my favorite legends is the tale of the Iron Door (the other one is Spring-Heeled Jack, but that’s a discussion for some other time).  Reputedly located in the Samaria Mountain range, the story begins at its end.  A couple of homesteaders were sitting outside their cabin one day, when they noticed a horse and rider drawing near.  The rider was wounded (shot, in fact), and the homesteaders hurried him into their cabin.  As he lay dying, the rider stated that he was a member of a trio of stagecoach robbers who had menaced the area for a long time, and they had amassed quite a stash of precious metals and assorted booty.  According to the moribund highwayman, the ill-gotten gains had been placed in a cave south of Samaria which was sealed with the eponymous door.  During an argument, the man shot and killed his two partners and sealed them behind the door as well before dragging himself away.  Since the description of the cache’s location is imprecise to say the least, no one has been able to find it (though you’d think the door would give it away) to this day.  When I initially heard this story, I was told that the door’s location would mystically change from day to day, though I believe it was just imprecisely explained to me, as well.  So, anyone who wants to take a trip to the wilds of Idaho with me, let me know.  I’m always up for a treasure hunt (actually, that’s a lie; I hate the outdoors).

One lovely day, an albino-ish monster (actually a guy in an Alien Hitbeast mask from The Last Starfighter and a blonde/white fright wig) scurries out of Bronson Cavern and kills some random guy (Michael Sonye) and his dog before being clubbed with a Coleman cooler by his wife (Victoria Alexander).  Enter hoi polloi/rich bitch Denae Chambers (Susan Stokey), who hires loser salvaging duo/drunkard tag team, Colt Eastman (Ross Hagen) and Eddy (Dawn Wildsmith) to help her trek back into the caves to find the wealth of precious gems with which the obviously non-high-class monster was adorned.  Joined by the inexplicably “hunky” Andrew Paris (Jeffrey Combs) and the dandy-esque Professor Strock (the late, great Robert Quarry), the team wend their way into the well-lit subterrane and peregrinate for about an hour or so.

Fred Olen Ray’s The Phantom Empire is actually the second (quasi) remake of the 1935 serial of the same name.  The first was on the 1979 NBC series “Cliffhangers!” (which is bafflingly unavailable on [legit] DVD; Hell, even “Tales of the Gold Monkey” received an official release).  There, the story title was changed to “The Secret Empire,” but the heart of the story remained the same.  Part of a portmanteau show, it shared its time spot with “Stop Susan Williams,” a conspiracy story which was an update on the old Perils Of Pauline serials and the Michael Nouri-starring “The Curse Of Dracula.” But the Weird Western story was my favorite, and the show did what it was designed to do; It kept me coming back every week.  I haven’t seen the television show since it originally aired, but I did recently view a condensation of the original version of the “Empire” story, and aside from the plot device of making sure Gene Autry made it back to the Radio Ranch every episode to do his live show and the natural structure of the serial format (all peaks, no valleys), it’s not bad.  Thankfully, Ray does acknowledge his influences with a passing line from the only cowgirl in the film, Eddy.

And since Mr. Ray clearly loves women (or certain parts of women at the absolute minimum), let’s talk for a moment about gender in this movie.  The film exists in a man’s world.  Eddy, Colt’s partner is masculinized almost to the point of actually being a man (I’m actually sort of surprised she never flatulates, eructates, expectorates, or micturates standing up).  The same can be said of Sybil Danning’s Alien Queen, but she at least expresses a sexual interest in Andrew, despite her being physically superior to every man and woman in the cast.  Yet as a sexual being, the Queen is dependent on machines, thus she is a direct threat to masculinity but is incapable of fulfilling her own sexual needs without artificial assistance and ergo, is incomplete.  On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Cave Bunny (Michelle Bauer), who is a sexual submissive in every aspect.  She is busty, partially clothed, and cowers, constantly hoping to make the men (or at least Andrew) happy.  Plus, she can’t speak, so there is no doubt left as to her fetishization as a perfect sexual receptacle for men.

Denae’s sexuality is closer to having an actual arc throughout the film, and I actually found it sort of interesting to follow it through.  She begins the story as an ice queen, literally wearing furs.  She is remote, controlling, and is only included in the male-dominated expedition because she has the money to fund it (in essence, a form of solicitation for sex because she cannot attract a man).  Once she meets Andrew and enters the caverns, her sexuality is ignited.  She still is unworthy of a man’s love, but she has been instilled with the desire to be so.  The further into the Earth (read: womb) she travels, the hotter she literally becomes, until she reaches the center, where there is even an active volcano spewing lava into the air, the pinnacle of sexual release imagery in the film.  The center of the Earth is also a prehistoric throwback, a complete delivery from the modern/society-enforced sexual norms and mores which have constrained her up to this point in her life.  When she re-emerges from the vaginal cave opening and seals it with an orgasmic, climactic explosion, she is reborn in a more sexually normative (but not necessarily progressive) form.  You know, if you’re looking for that type of thing in a film like this.

But let’s be honest with each other; I don’t believe anyone has ever watched a Fred Olen Ray film, nor do I believe that Mr. Ray has ever produced a film, with any intention other than to pass the time staring at the exploitable elements.  This is cinema heaven-sent for the beer-and-pizza set, and there’s nothing wrong with that, in and of itself.  However, a film needs to be entertaining, and the one thing this movie isn’t, at its heart, is entertaining.  The characters seem to act however they have been written to in order to get any given scene from Point A to Point B (and the scenes themselves typically linger on for far too long in an obvious attempt at padding the runtime).  Consequently, their behavior vacillates from being likable and heroic to being boorish and irritating at various points.  You can argue that this sort of inconsistency provides the verisimilitude of greater depth, but really it’s just time passing by that you feel, and who wouldn’t prefer to be knocked out for a root canal?

MVT:  the best thing about the film, aside from the pulchritude and tight jeans on display, is the stop-motion dinosaur effects which Ray lifted from the (equally drab) Planet Of The Dinosaurs.  But at the very least, that film had the benefit of the skills of Doug Beswick and Jim Danforth.  Fred Olen Ray apparently had a Starlog catalog and access to this stock footage.

Make Or Break:  The Break is the monotony of the characters walking and running through the caverns ceaselessly.  Not only does it make the whole affair drag on, but I literally started to recognize certain sections of the caves.  It’s like a bad porn set, but made by nature rather than carpenters.  Plus, the rocks have more personality than any of the characters standing next to them.

Score:  4/10           

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Deathmaster (1972)

Two studio logos always gave me a thrill in my younger days when they would appear on my television screen. The first is Toho's, because it was more often than not followed immediately by the strains of an Akira Ifukube score (or even more exciting, the first few bars of "Save The Earth," as sung by Adryan Russ). This, of course, would be the lead-in to a Godzilla movie, and my ass would be planted for the next two hours. The other was for American International Pictures (the Washington Capital building or the stylized yellow "a" and "i" in a circle, it didn't matter). While AIP were always a bit riskier (they didn't only make monster movies [neither did Toho, but you wouldn't know it from what was seen broadly in America at the time]), you were usually entertained for a couple hours, at least. Our offering this week comes from the latter.

A coffin washes up on a quiet California beach (how Biblical). A curious surfer investigates but is strangled by giant mute, Barbado (LaSesne Hilton), who then drags the coffin off down the beach as the credits roll. Hippies, Pico (Bill Ewing) and Rona (Brenda Dickson), are hanging out with local square, Pop (perpetual nebbish, John Fiedler), when biker, Monk (William Jordan), and his chick, Esslin (Betty Ann Rees), roll into town. When Monk bullies Pop, Pico steps in with some Billy-Jack-esque kung fu, but the youths bond when the fuzz show up, and Monk and Esslin are invited back to the local hippie commune. There, amid all the folk-song-playing, Khorda (Robert Quarry) appears and displays seemingly miraculous powers to the kids. The hippies immediately adopt Khorda as their mentor. Very quickly, however, Khorda's true nature is made clear, and it is left to Pico and Pop to stop the Deathmaster and save his girlfriend.

Even more than being a vampire movie, Ray Danton's Deathmaster deals with the idea of cults. In the early 1970s, Charles Manson and the Tate-LaBianca murders as well as Anton Lavey's controversial Church of Satan were prominent in the public consciousness, and the film picks up on this. Khorda is presented as a bearded, long-haired, charismatic guru. He pontificates about how "to know love, one must first be alive" and about the sanctity of the eternal and so on. It's all gobbledygook in order to inveigle young minds, but at the same time, Khorda seems to believe it (whether or not he actually does is an issue for debate, but either way, Quarry sells it). The hippies sit around prior to Khorda's coming and ponder the meaning of life and try to figure out where their place in the world is. They are, for all intents and purposes, innocents (perhaps incredulously so), but their naïveté helps sell the idea of how easy the seduction of their minds by evil is. 

The only person who doesn't trust Khorda is Monk, but he's also slightly older and portrayed as having been around. Seeing as the film came out after the Manson Family effectively murdered the "Summer of Love" and after the biker movie became passé, it can be viewed as a statement on the end of the hippie movement and the tamping down of outlaw bikers (though much less so this latter aspect). The film is nihilistic and violent and antithetical to the utopian idealism hippies ostensibly held dear. As a matter of fact, it can be argued that Pico's cynicism and distrust is his ultimate strength in the face of evil. Conversely, these same qualities which insure his survival will ultimately doom everything he loves. This theme is punctuated by a metatextual final shot that I suspect Lucio Fulci saw at some point.

That the villain of the piece is a vampire seems to me almost an arbitrary decision. Aside from talking about how long he's been alive, occasionally sprouting fangs, and sleeping in a coffin, Khorda doesn't do a hell of a lot of vampire-y things. The closest he (and the film) comes to being traditionally vampiric is when he seduces Esslin. He caresses her body while whispering of the gift he wants to bestow on her. He doesn't appear in her mirror. When he finally bares his fangs and attacks, Esslin succumbs in a manner moving from rape to ecstasy. When the other hippies are turned, it happens (inexplicably) within minutes. Further, after they're in Khorda's thrall, all they want to do is dance around half-naked, while Barbado slaps the bongos. Interestingly, vampirism in the film can be seen as both a drug and as a holy sacrament. Tragically, not much is done with this idea.

The film is not action-packed, and I'm not so sure it was meant to be. Like any piece dealing with mysticism and spiritual issues, the emphasis is not on the physical. Unfortunately, as a vampire movie, that's something of a mistake. If vampires don't attack humans and drink their blood, they're pretty crap vampires. This is the film's biggest misstep. Even when Pico and Pop make their final raid on the commune, none of the characters seems to want to lay hands on one another. The climax is built on a steady, quiet tension rather than on escalating action. Pico's martial arts skills are never brought into play after his brief scuffle with Monk. Khorda circles around Pico, laughing and taunting rather than attacking. It's almost as if any victory for good or evil should be decided spiritually rather than corporeally. Of course, this metaphysical conflict will have consequences in the physical world in ways that cannot be undone.

And yet, despite its lack of action, despite its tinkering with the accepted rules of vampirism (or arguably enhancing them), Deathmaster is overall an enjoyable movie and a small gem of the horror genre. My personal feeling is that this is due to the all-encompassing, nihilistic feel the film is steeped in. There is no escape from the darkness, and self-indulgent indecision and childlike trust will prove destructive to both body and soul. These facets, to me at least, are more intriguing and frightening than getting bitten by a monster or stabbed by a madman. Annihilation of the self is the truth of horror, I feel. The filmmakers here do a great job of making this point, even if the film itself doesn't hold together one hundred percent under the weight of its genre trappings. 

MVT: Robert Quarry does a marvelous turn as the mellifluous wolf-in-sheep's-clothing. You can tell he believes everything he says, and his performance sells the fact that the character has been around almost since time began. 

Make or Break: The "Make" is the opening on the beach. It's quiet, creepy, violent, and surreal, and it adroitly sets the tone for the film.

Score: 7.25/10