Terror In the Midnight Sun, Nude Swedish Figure Skating

Excuse the gratuitous title of this blog entry.  However, it is only slightly misleading.  This movie is Swedish, there is a nude figure skater, but she is American figure skating champion Barbara Wilson (you might remember her scene in "The Flesh Eaters" where we saw her fill out a bikini, just before we saw her skeleton fill out that same bikini).  As I am cheering for both Norway and Sweden in the Sochi Olympics, 1958's "Terror In the Midnight Sun," a movie set in northern Sweden, with figure skating and a big hairy ape monster, seems so appropriate for this blog.

The plot: A UFO crashes into the Laplands of northern Sweden (this film was shot entirely north of the Arctic Circle).  Two renowned scientists, Erik and Dr. Wilson, fly there.  Coincidentally, Dr. Wilson's niece, Diane, is figure skating in that town.  As the brainiacs land there, Diane is performing in front of scores of drooling Swedes.  She and Erik immediately hit it off inspiring Diane to strip out of her skimpy figure skating outfit and take a shower.  Whether this is integral to the plot is probably best left up to the individual viewer to decide.  Erik and Diane flirt, go skiing, dancing, and make goo-goo eyes at each other.  While dancing, a herd of reindeer is murdered in a town north of them.  

Clad in an elegant evening gown, Diane insists that the military and scientists take her along to investigate.  Once at the scene of the mutilated reindeer, our heroine discovers footprints of a beast that has to be 20 feet tall.  The generals and the scientist then plan a visit to the crater with the UFO.  Diane, clad in evening ware and probably smelling like Chanel #5, forces her way into the planning (see picture below) and onto the plane with them.  At the crater they discover the UFO, occupied by strange ETs.  Erik and Diane try to ski to the nearest town, but an accident ends Diane's skiing days and the two find a rescue cabin.  To the fortune of Erik, Diane takes the opportunity to strip out of her wet clothes and don a blanket.  Whether this is integral to the plot is probably best left up to the viewer to decide.  The ETs then unleash a 20 foot ape to collect Diane, which it does after using an avalanche to knock out Erik. 

What do the ape and ETs want with Diane?  Right...stupid question.  Will Erik and Dr. Wilson catch up to the ape and rescue Diane?  Will a bum knee end Diane's goodwill tour of the Laplands?  Swedish monster/sci-fi movies are rare, but this is a hidden gem.  The spirited Diane is energetic and pleasant to watch.  Barbara Wilson's performance here probably will influence Swedish figure skating for years to come.  

Terminal Force, Brigitte Nielsen's Magnum Opus

Overshadowed by "Cobra" and "Red Sonja," 1995's "Terminal Force" (aka "Galaxis") might be Brigitte Nielsen's best movie.  This film mixes the best elements of "Mad Max," "Battlestar Galactica," and "The Terminator," and throws in the darling of Denmark clad in black leather.  Who needs plot and character development?  With modern day critics deceiving all of you to go see "Gravity" and "12 Years a Slave," do yourselves a favor and see a really enjoyable flick.

The plot: Kyla, portrayed by Richard Moll ("Night Court" and "Ghost Shark") seeks to rule a far off solar system, so he has his ships decimate the peaceful planet of Sintaria.  During the invasion, he steals a sacred crystal which gives him powers to spread his rule to all the planets in the vicinity.  Ladera (Nielsen) knows another crystal exists, and if Kyla possesses that one, he will be able to rule the universe.  Ladera takes advantage of a time warp and jettisons to Earth where some poor schmuck named Jed (a very poor man's Indiana Jones) has just come back from Peru where he found the Eye of the Incas (the other crystal).  Ladera gets to the bar where Jed is doing shots just a little too late, as she had to break up a gang rape on the way.  Unfortunately for Jed, some two-bit mobsters are seeking to collect a debt from him, and figure they will settle for the crystal.  Even worse, Kyla is not satisfied with a solar system (who would be?) and arrives on Earth searching for the crystal, too. Ladera rescues Jed from the evil ones and together they must protect the crystal, defeat Kyla, and get her back to Sintaria.

  As they all converge on the bar, a huge battle erupts, and the bar is blown up, thus calling the attention of the police.  Cindy Morgan ("Tron" and "Caddyshack") plays Detective Kelly (see picture below), and she is terrific.  Smart, tough, aggressive, and brave, she is never more than a step behind Ladera and Kyla.  The battlefield extends to the apartment of Jed's friend, an alley, a seedy gambling joint, and the police station, as all the aforementioned converge on each one.  Gotta give Kelly credit, she is able to arrest Ladera and Jed.  However, in one of the saddest moments ever put on film, she is vaporized by Kyla when he then invades the police station in search of this crystal.

As Jed and Ladera escape once again, an epic final conflict is set up, tearfully, absent the deceased Kelly.  Will Ladera defeat Kyla, ensuring safety for her home planet?  Will the geeky Jed end up with this beauty from Denmark?  Will the deceased Kelly be resurrected for her own crime drama on network TV?  This movie is action-packed times ten, and Ladera's strength and sympathetic plight keep us involved the whole way.    

Death Machine, The Beauty vs. The Mechanized Beast

1994's "Death Machine" was made by Stephen Norrington, who did creature f/x for some of the Alien films.  His mechanized beast is reminiscent of the Alien creature, and the protagonist, Hayden Cale, played by Ely Pouget (see picture), is reminiscent of the Ripley character...tough, smart, and unable to look at herself as a victim.  The setting is also very similar to Alien.  Instead of a hulking, Gothic spaceship, "Death Machine" uses a cavernous skyscraper which houses the proverbial evil corporation (Chaank, Inc.).  This movie also gives us guidance in answering that embarrassing question we all face sometimes, "Would you sleep with a total stranger if it was a matter of national security?"

 The plot:  Chaank Inc. is an evil defense contractor who manufactures banned war machines, like psycho-cyborgs...which often malfunction at the expense of innocent townspeople.  Hayden Cale, a new executive at Chaank, is determined to legitimize them. On her first day at work, she goes toe to toe with Chaank's evil executives, and their head scientist Jack Dante (Brad Dourif).  Dante is one third hacker, one third genius inventor, and all pervert.  Dante (see picture below) tries to intimidate Cale by letting her know he can hack into anything of hers, and showing her some magazines she posed in while she was in college. Instead of being ashamed, she is indignant, and attempts to block all of Dante's access.  While this is going on, an anarchist group invades Chaank in order to expose their illegal inventions.

  The anarchist's invasion allows Dante to mobilize his most treasured weapon, which is stored in the mysterious Vault 10.  Now the anarchists must join forces with Cale to defeat the evil genius and his creation.  The creation?  It busts through concrete as if going through paper.  It's fast.  It's moody.  It's got a slew of rapidly rotating blades and guns and is totally loyal to Dante.  Dante's terms of surrender?  He demands Cale hire him back and have sexual relations with him anytime he desires.  She refuses and the war is on.

Brad Dourif's performance as the evil mad-man is classic.  Ely Pouget as the tough corporate executive is the perfect foil for Dante.  Cale and her new anarchist buddies must survive the perfect killing machine and come up with a strategy to destroy the indestructible invention.  This is an exciting and loud movie with very exaggerated characters.  Director Norrington, pays homage to many of the 1980s horror icons, and his creature f/x here are terrific.  This movie will keep you enthralled for its duration, which will feel like a roller-coaster ride.  

Nighbeast, The Perky and Sensual Deputy Lisa Saves Earth

Maryland filmmaker Don Dohler's films are usually set in and near Baltimore.  My two favorites are "Harvesters" and 1982's "Nightbeast."  Having lived in Maryland from 1990 to 2005, his work has always interested me. In this horror-scifi tale, the gore and kills are maximized and we are introduced to a very visually pleasing heroine, the Perky and Sensual Deputy Lisa (Karin Kardian, who appears in her one and only film).  For low budget, the creature effects are superb.

The plot: A spaceship crashes into the woods in residential Baltimore.  A beastly ET walks away from the crash and over a seven minute span vaporizes three redneck hunters, disembowels a grouchy Uncle Dave, disintegrates Dave's niece and nephew, and disembowels two young lovers.  The Sheriff mobilizes his men and a posse, and even wakes the Perky and Sensual Deputy Lisa from her beauty sleep and together they track this fiend.  The hunting party is a dismal failure, as the ticked off alien wastes most of it.  Within 15 minutes into the movie the death count reaches 16.  A subplot concerns the Misogynist Biker Drago.  His antics serve to distract the Sheriff and the Perky and Sensual Deputy Lisa.  The Misogynist Biker Drago is in four scenes (1. He insults the Sheriff, 2. He brutally attacks his hot girlfriend, 3. He returns and strangles that same girlfriend to death, and 4. He disarms and inflicts an elongated and brutal beat down of the Perky and Sensual Deputy Lisa- see picture below).  Eventually the Sheriff blows him away.

 The Sheriff and the Perky and Sensual Deputy Lisa manage to evacuate most of the town and in doing so meet up with the fiend.  The Sheriff is injured in their escape with a wound rather near his groin.  Fortunately for him, the Perky and Sensual Deputy Lisa is up on first-aid and brings him to her bedroom to dress the wound (see picture below).  The Perky and Sensual Deputy Lisa takes this same opportunity to get undressed, take a shower, and participate in a rather long love scene with the Sheriff.  This scene is longer than the scenes in which the first 16 victims were ripped apart in.  With the town residents either evacuated or turned into lasagna, the Sheriff, the Perky and Sensual Deputy Lisa, a few volunteers, and a husband/wife doctor team plot the destruction of the unfriendly visitor.

    Will the Perky and Sensual Deputy Lisa save the world...and earn a promotion from her boss?  Will the Sheriff's wound require more care from the Perky and Sensual Deputy Lisa?  The ending of this movie, heavily influenced by 1951's "The Thing From Another World," is loud and exciting.  This movie goes out with bangs, explosions, and fireworks (literal and figurative).

Count Yorga, Vampire, Culture Shock in L.A.

I first saw 1970's "Count Yorga, Vampire" at a drive-in movie theater in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, along with "She Beast" and "The Abominable Dr. Phibes."  It would be almost a decade before I summoned up enough courage to watch another horror movie.  There were three scenes in this film that had me screaming and hiding on the floor of my parent's car (I was only six).  Directed by the late Bob Kelljan (Charlie's Angels and Starsky and Hutch), and starring Robert Quarry, this movie will give the kids nightmares.

  The plot:  Count Yorga, in his coffin, arrives by ship in Los Angeles, from Bulgaria.  He is first seen conducting a seance with two young couples.  Donna, one of the gals seeks to contact her recently deceased mother.  Little does Donna know, her dead mom is now one of Yorga's undead brides (he has two).  The seance is unsuccessful, but Yorga is able to hypnotize Donna, for later use.  Meanwhile, Erica and Paul get their van stuck driving away from Yorga's place.  During the night, Yorga knocks out Paul and bites Erica. Later that day, Erica displays some mildly anti-social behavior...such as trashing her apartment, displaying a desire to be dead, and eating her pet cat (see picture below).  Worried, Paul calls the promiscuous and boring Dr. Jim Hayes.  A Van Helsing wannabe, the dullard gives the lovely Erica a blood transfusion, and calls the cops (who laugh at him).  Later that night, Yorga pays the seductive Erica another visit and completes his task of changing her into one of his undead brides.

 To be fair, L.A. is not Bulgaria, and Yorga gets a fast lesson on that.  His first two brides are very voluptuous, however, when they wake for the first time in their undead state, they turn out to be lesbians, more interested in each other, than Yorga.  With Erica gone, Donna, the two husbands, and the boring Dr. Jim Hayes head to Yorga's mansion. The plan: bore Count Yorga to death (I'm not kidding).  When this doesn't work, the team returns the next night with wooden stakes, setting up a terrifying conclusion.

Count Yorga comes across as a horrifying and sympathetic figure.  He is polite, classy, elegant, exotic, interesting, and very lonely in L.A.  If he wasn't so evil and ominous, we might have been pulling for him.  Judy Lang portrays Erica, and she is quite captivating on the screen.  If you can, see "Count Yorga, Vampire" on a large screen with a quality sound system...and get ready for some sleepless nights.

Cold Prey 2, The Best Sequel Ever!

If Fridtjof Nansen is the father of Arctic exploration, Norwegians can also boast that the Cold Prey franchise is the sire of superior sequels.  2008's "Cold Prey 2" (Fritt Vilt 2) followed a sensational slasher film....and I believe...topped it!  This film had many reasons to fail;  A different director (Mats Stenberg) , set indoors instead of utilizing the beautiful and haunting Norwegian landscape, and...it's a sequel.  When John Carpenter made "Halloween 2", he utilized Jamie Lee Curtis as a frightened, sedated teenager who was constantly running away in fear.  In "Cold Prey 2" Ingrid Bolso Berdal, recreating her portrayal of Jannicke, refuses to be a victim and is bent on annihilating the maniac.  

  The plot:  This sequel begins, as H2 did, immediately where the first one ended.  Jannicke is found on the road by Ole (Kim Wifladt) covered in blood, dazed, and almost frozen.  She has a look on her face as if she has emerged from battle and is ticked off that all her friends are dead.  Ole brings her to the hospital where his girlfriend, Camilla (Marthe Snorresdotter Rovik), is on staff.  The cops arrive and Jannicke tells them her story.  When the cops go to the crack in the glacier (see above picture), they find the bodies of her friends and the maniac.  One cop then researches old cases and new clippings and realizes exactly what has happened.  When her friends are brought to the hospital's morgue, Jannicke identifies them, but when she sees the supposed corpse of her nemesis, she attacks it.

Johanna Morck (Trollhunter, not to be confused with the very lovely and talented Jon Mack-actress and lead singer of my favorite band, Auradrone) plays a very sweet and clean-cut nurse.  She develops a relationship with a really clean-cut blonde policeman.  The two are so sweet together, we all just sigh and say "Awwwwww."  This is a slasher movie, and each one of them then dies a gruesome death....oh well!  When the maniac shows signs of life, the hospital staff resuscitates him.  When Jannicke tries to stop them, she is sedated by Nurse Audhild (Morck).  Now resuscitated, the maniac makes ground beef of the hospital staff, and the responding cops.  Jannicke then mobilizes with makeshift hospital weapons and sets out, joined by Camilla, to save the helpless patients and kill the Jason-like figure.  Unlike the frail Laurie Strode in H2, Jannicke is peeved off about being sedated and takes measures to un-sedate herself....what a gal!

The ending is horrific and extremely suspenseful.  Where John Carpenter failed to make the hospital corridors menacing in H2, Mats Stenberg is able to make his corridors ominous and ooze horror.  With the extinction of strong male heroes in film over the past 20 years, Jannicke delivers inspiration for today's women to refuse to be victimized.  Strength and smarts will defeat evil...male or female...a terrific message.

The Magic Sword, Dungeons and Dragons is Born...

As geeky as they are, "Dungeons & Dragons" players grow up to rule the world.  Compare them to "Fantasy Football" participants, whose employers encourage them to opt for early retirement plans.  In 1962, Bert I. Gordon (B Movie Hall of Fame inductee and creator of "Empire of the Ants" and "Food of the Gods") produced, directed, wrote, and created the special f/x for "The Magic Sword."  Set in medieval times, and sure to be loved by the D&D crowd, this film boasts of an all-star cast including Basil Rathbone (pictured below) as the evil Lodac, and Gary Lockwood (2001: A Space Odyssey) as our hero, Sir George.

The plot: Sir George, a 20 year old medieval-geek, is accessing the HAL 9000...er..actually his magic pond.  In the pond he can watch an image of the fair-Princess Helene (Anne Helm) skinny-dip (Helene's privacy concerns are not relevant to the drooling George).  He falls in love with her and then sees her kidnapped by the evil sorcerer, Lodac.  The King promises Helene's hand in marriage to any knight who rescues her.  Sir Brandon (who is secretly in cahoots with Lodac) takes up the challenge.  George, whose mother is a good sorceress (Estelle Winwood), arms himself with magic armor, a magic sword, and seven brave knights in order to rescue the first woman he ever saw naked.  This bunch must battle Lodac's seven curses and a plotting Sir Brandon.  Meanwhile, the fair-Princess is locked in Lodac's dungeon with two other beautiful blondes (daughters of other kings) who, unfortunately, are then fed to the pet dragon.  Battling witches, giant ogres, acidic swamps, and Sir Brandon, George makes it to the castle.  Inexperienced George must now battle Lodac, Brandon, more curses, and a very menacing dragon in order to save the woman he obsesses over (restraining orders were non-existent in medieval times).

This film succeeds on so many levels.  The stunning Anne Helm is perfect as the proverbial damsel-in-distress, always clad in white (except when swimming).  The dragon is very scary.  Lodac, the villain, will have you hissing.  Finally, the ending is epic, and you will not feel cheated.  While you watch the Super Bowl tomorrow, some geek will be watching "The Magic Sword."  Like a medieval sorcerer...this geek will someday have total power over you.  Unless you want to be a dragon's entree, be nice to the geeks.