Open Season 1974

    1974's Open Season is one of those films that has sadly fallen thru cracks on home video, as it has yet to get a legit American release, as it  floats around on torrent & trading sites passed from collector to collector and has earned quite a cult following. A European production (Euro horror star Helga Line can be seen in the beginning) that was shot in Spain, England, and Italy with some exterior stuff shot in Michigan - a quick view of the old Tiger Stadium can be seen from I-75 and a trip across the Mackinac Bridge is shown in an aerial shot. Directed by Britisher Peter Collinson, who also helmed the excellent 1967 thriller The Penthouse (also missing on DVD). Collinson directed some great films (the original Italian Job from 1969 among others) and unfortunately passed away at the young age of 44 in 1980. 

  Peter Fonda, John Phillip Law & Richard Lynch play respectively Greg, Ken & Art, a nice bunch of guys on the surface who unfortunately are all pretty psychotic. Once year they head up the mountains for a couple of weeks in a cabin and along the way they always stop to pick up a random man & woman to partake in the old Most Dangerous Game scenario. Although the guys are all past military vets (Vietnam is hinted at), the military side of it is never really brought up as a reason for their behavior and in a prologue its shown that even as teenagers they had an inclination toward violence.
   On the current trip they kidnap Martin & Nancy (Alberto de Mendoza & Corneila Sharpe) who as it turns out are having an affair and with Martin unwilling to leave his wife, this ramps up the tension even more between the couple. After arriving at the isolated cabin a real claustrophobic horror show begins as the guys use mind games & psychological terror on the helpless couple climaxing with the hunt.

  As they three main character's Fonda, Lynch & Law are all quite good. Fonda seems to be the same character from Dirty Mary & Crazy Larry (also from '74) with just some added psycho creepiness. His constant giggling after each line gets a bit on ones nerves (which may be the purpose) and he really seems to enjoy playing a totally evil persona. Richard Lynch with his scarred gaunt features was one of the most reliable character actors of the 70's (including a great turn in 1973's The Seven Ups) and was a regular on TV from the 80's on. His facial scarring occurred as the result of setting himself on fire while on an LSD trip in 1967. However, its John Phillip Law who's the real standout here as he portrays perfectly the perceived nice guy who slowly turns into a psychotic monster before our eyes. In fact the best part on the entire movie is the slowing dawning realization that these guys are truly insane.

   The film has a nice twist ending with the prologue neatly wrapping around full circle to tie into the end. The only thing that is a bit problematic is the re-appearance of top billed William Holden at the end. Since we only see him for a few minutes at the beginning , we know he's going to show up again at some point (and most likely will be a major plot point). An excellent movie that really deserves a long overdue DVD and/or blu release.

Rosalba Neri Friday # 10 - The Castle of Fu Manchu 1969

    This was Christopher Lee's fifth outing as the Oriental arch-villain for producer Harry Alan Towers and the second one from director Jess Franco. This time around Fu and his faithful daughter Lin Tang (Tsai Chin) have a device that will freeze solid the worlds oceans. This is shown in the opening scenes of the film as he uses to sink an ocean liner in the "tropics" (which is strangely populated with passengers bundled up for winter), as this orgy of stock footage comes from 1958's Titanic opus A Night To Remember. This pretty much gives a big hint to the production values (and logic) of the rest of the movie. After discovering his new "ocean freezing" invention needs some tweaking to prefect it, he kidnaps a Dr. Heracles.

   The Dr. informs him that massive amounts of opium crystals are needed to make it work and with this in mind he takes over the governor's castle in Istanbul with the help of opium dealer Omar Pasha (along with his assistant Lisa - Rosalba Neri), because as it turns out the governor's castle has a massive supply of opium stashed there.  Opps ! - seems that the Doc has a bad heart, so next Fu kidnaps a heart surgeon and as the castle happens to have a fully equipped operating theatre (along with the tons of opium) this is no problem. After taking over the castle he double crosses Omar and throws Lisa in the dungeon. Soon Fu Manchu's nemesis Nayland Smith (Richard Green) shows up, beats up a few of the guards in some really badly choreographed fight scenes and by doing absolutely nothing at all saves the day in the end. "I think" & "somewhere" would seem to be the two most common phrases you'd use in describing the plot.

    A typical Jess Franco "I don't really care about this one" production with a very ludicrous plot and huge jumps in logic (lots of "Hey, how'd that happen ??"). Rosalba's presence (and Chris Lee) was the only thing that helped me make it thru this, as it is an endurance test. The plot clunks & drags along and when something needs to happen, it usually just happens - with no explanation. Fu Manchu needs to get the secret formula from Dr. Heracles and he won't give it up ? Hey, no problem as Fu has it in the very next scene - as things just sorta happen "somewhere".  His laboratory consists of what looks one of those chemistry sets you use to be able to order out of the Sears catalog placed upon a wooden table and the dungeon consists of paper mache rocks and lots of psychedelic lighting (to most likely help HIDE the paper mache rocks).

   Rosalba (3rd billed here in the secondary credits) shows up for about the first twenty minutes then disappears until the climax as she escapes from the dungeon and attempts to rescue Omar. For some strange reason (I'm sure known only to Jess) he dresses her a series of really ugly men's clothing - including a stripped suit and fez (??) and almost seems to go out of his way to make her seem unattractive (which is a real challenge). Not the best movie on her resume, but hey its Rosalba, so here you have it.