Maniac, Deadly Love

Another Hammer one today.  An early Hammer film.  Peter Cushing was supposed to be in it with George Sanders.  By the time the film got around to being made, the two acting greats were otherwise occupied. We have a good one with a shock ending.  Though when people speak with their hormones, happy endings are nowhere in sight.  Today we look at "Maniac," directed by Michael Carreras.  This one is from France.

Four years ago the lovely Annette (Liliane Brousse) gets off the school bus and is raped by pervert Janiello (Arnold Diamond).  Annette's dad gets there and grabs Janiello and hauls him back to his garage.  In the garage the dad takes the acetylene torch to Janiello, killing him. Dad is sentenced to a mental asylum. Four years later Annette works as a barmaid at her stepmom's inn. In walks the handsome Jeff (Kerwin Mathews).  He's immediately taken with the now 19 year-old babe.  So much so he dumps his present GF, the more appropriately aged Grace (Justine Lord).  Now Jeff decides to stay at the inn.  In comes the stepmom, Eve (Nadia Gray). She is not happy this older man is interested in her teen stepdaughter.  She would rather Jeff be interested in her.  She'll seduce him and the two will become lovers.

Now Jeff and Eve are smitten with sweaty passion.  Annette is jealous.  Uh oh...Eve is still married to an insaniac.  Here is where it gets good.  Giles (Jerold wells) will allow Jeff and Eve to go off together if they help bust him out of the asylum.  They do.  Making deals with the criminally insane rarely goes well.  Now Eve and Jeff quickly find out they are not rid of the acetylene torch murderer.  He's back and bodies start piling up. Now Eve once more makes a bargain with Giles.  She will give him his daughter Annette if he will go away and leave her and Jeff alone.  Again, making bargains with the criminally insane rarely goes well.  

Will the insane Giles allow Jeff to have his wife?  Will the nubile Annette be happy going away with her psycho dad?  Can't handsome Jeff find a woman with no psychos in her personal life?  Then the ending!  Shock and surprise will abound!  Experienced Hammer fans might figure it out, but will still enjoy this morality tale.  See "Maniac," and be grateful a psycho with an acetylene torch is not after you. 

The Area 51 Incident, Icky Creatures Invade

As the Tories and Rishi Sunak are on the verge of being stamped on and thrown out one wonders if they accomplished anything. Sure...war and dead Ukrainians will be their legacy. However, today's film posits that they brought Area 51 from Nevada to the U.K. As in many of these films...just go with it. In today's film we have some great creature f/x. A lot of creatures...maybe thousands. They'll explode out of party girls and army men and cause tremendous havoc. Yes, perhaps a metaphor for what the Tories inflicted on a once great nation. Today we look at 2022's "The Area 51 Incident," directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield.

As stated above, Area 51 is in the English countryside. No...nowhere near Stonehenge. Next Trent (Scott Chambers) and babe Jenny (Megan Purvis) arrive for their first day of work after graduation. Doug (Toby Wynn-Davies) is the lead scientist and Trent's dad. Uh oh...there will be no learning curve. A portal to somewhere in the universe is all of a sudden very active. Yep...icky creatures, bug like things...giant ones, too...come over.  Thousands.  Now in this top secret facility, the bug things wipe out most of the army men and scientists. A handful of survivors run away and make it to an outdated bunker on the other side of the facility. Meanwhile, in just a few minutes, the monsters have eaten most of London.  I know...no great loss. Also arriving are two party girls dressed to the nines, Elaine (Sian Altman) and Helen (Heather Jackson). Oh yes, hunk Colt (Peter Jeffries), an army man, follows Elaine there. Oh! Helen is infected and will not remain beautiful.

Lt. Pete (Derek Miller) commands the bunker. They appear safe for the time being, but Helen will vomit creatures and have a giant worm-like one come out her mouth. Now the bunker is infested with these things. One by one hunks and babes get either eaten, infected, or ripped apart. Trent and Jenny are cute and are too nerdy to start a romance. Elaine is a babe in her sequins party dress and is on the run from the monsters which her buddy Helen vomited out. All seems hopeless for the survivors and for the U.K.. Again, a metaphor for what is going on in the U.K. as Labour has emerged as a total clone of the Tories.

Will Elaine the party girl survive the monster onslaught without having aliens explode out of her? Will Trent and Jenny at least kiss amidst the icky parasitic creatures? Is there hope for England beyond the Tories and Labour? Where is George Galloway when we need him? Perhaps being invaded by bug-creatures, infected by them, and vomiting them up is a fate, metaphorically of course, of us western nations being run by thugs bent on war and so-called Green Energy tyrants. See "The Area 51 Incident."