DAY OF THE ANIMALS

Directed by William Girdler. Written by Eleanor Norton and William W. Norton.
Starring Christopher George, Lynda Day George, Richard Jaeckel, Michael Ansara, Paul Mantee, Andrew Stevens, Susan Backlinie and Leslie Nielsen.
1977, 97 minutes, Rated PG, 2.35:1

A very good example of the "nature against man" genre that was popular in the 1970's, DAY OF THE ANIMALS tells the story of a group of hikers trapped on a mountain when the animals, all of the animals, band together to attack man. The idea is that the depleted ozone layer has let too much harmful radiation in and that affects the animals.

DAY OF THE ANIMALS was filmed in TODD-AO 35, or standard 35mm using the TODD-AO wide angle lens. Apparently the only decent material DVD distributor Shriek Show had to work with was a full screen master. Rather than releasing it full screen they cropped it and released it in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen . When you take into account the fact that it was cropped for pan and scan to begin with the additional cropping is pretty bad. Not totally unwatchable, but bad. Also included on the disc is a horrible 2.35 version of the film. (There are two versions of the film on one disc.) And when I say horrible, I mean HORRIBLE. Scratches run throughout, color shifts constantly--one second the sky is blue, the next it's purple, the next it's blue, the next it's gray... There are a couple of entire reels that are fuzzy. Almost unwatchable. I mean, I watched it, but I'm a fan. Others should beware.

As for the movie itself, I love it. It is firmly in the 'B' movie range, but it still has some great aspects.  I have strong memories of watching this on pay cable around 1979 or so.  The cinematography is used effectively to create a suitable atmosphere for the proceedings. The film generates a great apocalyptic feel considering its budget and somewhat variable acting. It ultimately doesn't make much sense, but while you're in the thick of it you don't notice.  GRIZZLY is generally considered a better film, but I prefer this one for its broader scope.

The director, William Girdler would go on to make THE MANITOU, which is many things but it isn't boring.  He would then die in a helicopter accident while scouting locations for his next film.

There is also a novelization that expands the scope of the disaster a bit by including more of how the town is affected, but is otherwise identical to the film.

TV master version:


Theatrical version:


2013 Blu-Ray:










Comparison of OOP Shriek Show DVD and Scorpion Blu-Ray. DVD images are first, Blu-Ray images are second:

Minor editing done 12/01/11. Original post was 07/2009

THE SWARM

Arthur Herzog wrote a series of ecologically themed novels in the 1970s, the most famous of which is The Swarm. It's a good book and I'll devote a post to some other time, but most people are likely more aware of the 1978 movie based upon it than the book itself. The movie is not that good, although one can still derive pleasure from it provided they are in the proper frame of mind. That is, if they are willing to use its ineptitude as fodder for entertainment. Admittedly, not everyone can do this.

My feelings about the movie have swung from being quite enamored with it to being unable to watch it anymore. In between, there was a period where I could revel in its badness as film entertainment, but I must have less patience because the last time I tried to watch it that way I turned it off in disgust. I was just a youngster when it came out and I can still vividly recall the "The Swarm is Coming!" advertisements leading up to the film's release. Then, when the film was released there were full-page ads proclaiming that "The Swarm Is Here!" NBC expanded the film by 40 minutes when they showed it in the 1980's and that's the first time I really got into it. I read the book after seeing it on NBC and was disappointed that it was so different from the movie.  For the purposes of this discussion, we will look at the 'Extended' version of the movie, released on home video on both laserdisc and DVD. The movie was released to theaters at 116 minutes, whereas the longer version runs 155 minutes. The movie plays better in the shorter version, which is partly why I won't be discussing it. The main reason I won't be discussing it is that I no longer have a copy of the shorter version.

In the 1970's Irwin Allen was the king of disaster movies, having produced and co-directed such theatrical films and TV movies as THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972), THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974), FLOOD! (1976, TV), FIRE! (1977, TV), HANGING BY A THREAD (1979, TV), BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1979) and THE SWARM (1978). Some of these films are good, most are only decent, and some are downright bad. None are boring, however, and for me, that's the important thing. Allen's formula for his theatrical films was to assemble a large cast of well-known ageing actors, place them in danger and then start killing them off. THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE is probably the only film in which this formula doesn't feel like a formula because the characters are more fully fleshed out than in any of the later films. Additionally, in Ronald Neame POSEIDON had the best director of any of the films made by Allen. INFERNO had John Gullermin, who did an okay to good job, but for THE SWARM Allen decided to do all of the directing himself.

THE SWARM boasts a pretty impressive cast, at least on paper: Michael Caine, Katherine Ross, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Richard Chamberlain, Bradford Dillman, Slim Pickens, Lee Grant, Ben Johnson, Fred MacMurray, Olivia de Havilland, José Ferrer, Patty Duke and Cameron Mitchell. With a cast like that, you would think there would be a certain level of competency, but several of the performances are downright awful. Leading the charge is Michael Caine, who alternates between being utterly stone-faced and being in a teeth-clenching screaming rage. To be fair, the rest of the cast is not much better--only MacMurray, Fonda and de Haviland truly escape into the "decent" category. To be even fairer, the bad acting is actually excusable. See, the movie was directed by Allen himself, and as a director he makes a pretty good producer.

The plot concerns Africanized bees that threaten to take over America. Caine is a leading entomologist who gets caught up in the struggle after stumbling upon an Army base wiped out by bees. Katherine Ross is the army doctor who survived the bee attack, and who ultimately becomes romantically involved with Caine. Widmark is the Army General tasked by the President with defeating the bees.

The film has two main faults. The first is a script full of bad dialogue. Or rather, I should say that the script is hopelessly outdated. At one point Katherine Ross says words to the effect of "Oh, I'm sad. So, very, very sad" while walking with Michael Caine, who also looks very sad to be stuck in the film. Second, the science depicted in the film is ridiculous.

While THE SWARM as film entertainment fails on most levels, it nevertheless does some things right. Two things, in fact. Jerry Goldsmith's score is truly great and, by far, the most accomplished aspect of the movie. The scenes of the bees swarming in the skies are generally well done, such as during the build-up to the attack on the town:

Once the bees are at ground level, however, the results are not good. Imagine puffed rice being blown by big fans, intercut with actors running around with puffed rice glued to their bodies. Add to that some truly bad dialogue spoken poorly and you pretty much have the movie in a nutshell.

The scenes of mass destruction caused by the bees are generally poorly handled, with some shocking lapses in continuity thrown in for good measure. Consider the train crash that occurs late in the film (killing good old Fred MacMurray in the process). When the train derails on a curve it starts to tumble to the left:

Yet in the very next shot we see the train tumbling to the right. The interior and exterior is intercut two more times.

Sloppy, no?

Shortly after the train debacle, the bees attack a nuclear power plant, which looks like it was designed and built by the Krell (click on the pics to get a better look):

The bees attack and Richard Chamberlain runs around with puffed rice blowing in the air, and with some glued to him as well.

And then the plant explodes.

Now, exactly why the plant explodes is never made clear. One could surmise that the bees clogged something important. Or perhaps the bees planted explosives. Don't laugh. The bees are attributed with all types of human qualities over the course of the film--intelligence to coordinate attacks, revenge, and anger to name three.

Certain scenes are blocked so poorly that they can be amusing--or at least illustrative on how things shouldn't be done in films. For instance, early in the film, there is a discussion between Michael Caine, Richard Widmark and Bradford Dillman. They stand in a circle, facing each other, and have a heated discussion. The scenes starts statically, but a few seconds in the camera starts circling the actors as they take turns raising their voices and pointing fingers. It is as inorganic a moment in a film as you are likely to find, and I can't help but wonder if Allen wasn't inspired by Brian DePalma's use of the circling camera in CARRIE. It worked in that film in part because the audience was invested in the characters' dialogue, and the swirling camera mirrored Carrie White's emotional state. In THE SWARM, the audience is most certainly not invested in what the characters are saying at this point in the movie, and the swirling character doesn't mirror anyone's state of anything save perhaps Bradford Dillman, who looks pretty befuddled throughout the scene.

I've gone over why I think THE SWARM is a poor movie, and I stand by the criticism (and abuse) I've dished out towards it. However, a few years ago I stumbled into a way for me to again enjoy the film. The movie fails on just about every level of modern movie entertainment, and that's the key to enjoying the film: setting aside modern expectations. If you stand back from the film and squint at it a bit it becomes clear that the film is in fact firmly in the 1950's monster movie mold.

Try watching it in black and white some time. It plays much better. In the context of a 1950's monster movie, all of a sudden the clunky dialogue scenes seem more at home--they are exactly what you would find in a B-level monster movie of the 50's. In fact, the more time that passes the easier it is to take it in this manner.

I don't for a second think that this was intentional, mind you. I am convinced that it was done with every intention of being 'current'. Allen was probably just making the movie the best way he knew how, and it turns out he had absolutely no idea how to handle actors. Left to flounder the majority of the actors do just that. It's debatable whether another director could have made a good movie out of THE SWARM using the same script. I doubt it myself but who knows?

NOMADS

Written and Directed by John McTiernan. Starring Pierce Brosnan, Lesley Ann-Down, Mary Woronov. 16:9 enhanced. 1.85:1 widescreen.

The plot of NOMADS is this: Lesley-Anne Warren is a doctor who treats a crazed Pierce Brosnan one night in the ER. Right before he dies, he whispers something in her ear and somehow transfers his memories to her. After he is dead she starts to experience flashbacks of what happened to him in the last two days of his life. Brosnan was a french anthropologist who had spent the previous 10 years in the field, and was taking a teaching job as a concession to his wife. On the first day in their new house he notices some shady looking people who vandalise his house. Intrigued by their look, he slips into anthropologist mode, grabs a camera and starts to follow them.



He follows them for 31 hours straight. They don't sleep and are always moving from place to place. Ultimately, they notice him so he breaks off his study. They are Nomads, of a type that is not quite human. The point is made that they are spirits who roam the earth. Most people do not notice them (probably cannot physically see them), but a few unlucky one do notice them. Once noticed by the nomads, they are generally killed by them in a violent manner. Because of the manner in which they die, they become Nomads themselves, which is kind of similar to the whole Ju-on concept I suppose. As I said, it was an interesting idea, but handled too abstractly.

He is visited in a dream by a nun who warns him to run from them, but of course he doesn't.



The film is "arty" and generates an effective atmosphere, but the framing structure doesn't work well. The idea is gripping enough that a linear approach following Brosnan's character would have worked better. I have a novelization of this by Chelsea Quinn-Yarbo that is quite good and have always meant to catch up with the movie itself. It's generally bad reviews didn't help me to become motivated to tracking it down. Anyway, overall I quite liked it. It also features a tremendous dream sequence (that may not have been a dream). The major problem is a needlessly abstract and disjointed narrative.

Notice the capture of the man/nomad falling. McTiernan would use the shot to better effect in DIE HARD.

FAIR GAME (1986)

Directed by Mario Andreacchio. Written by Rob George. /> Starring Cassandra Delaney, Peter Ford, David Sanford
1986, 86 minutes, Color, Rated R, 1.85:1
Umbrella Entertainment, released 2018

This is an Australian/New Zealand movie that seems to have taken it visual cues from RAZORBACK (1984), which is to say it looks a lot like early MTV but with a fair amount of nudity. The plot is a standard "pretty girl harassed by thugs then gets revenge" tale, but the girl in it is attractive and can act reasonably well so it's easy to get involved. The overall plot is more than a little bit pseudo-misogynistic--at one point the thugs strip the girl naked, strap her to the front of their truck and take her for a ride. I say "pseudo" only because the lead actress is openly gawked for almost the entire film, so it's not like it should have come as a surprise. Overall, the film was mildly diverting but I will never watch it again.

The DVD I saw ages ago was full frame.  The more recent Blu-Ray from Umbrella Entertainment is 1.85:1 and is a big improvement compositionally. The combined picture below is from a slow horizontal pan of the lead actress. There was also a slight pan upwards as well, which is why there are areas of white spots. Enjoy. I wasn't able to easily recreate this from the 1.85 Blu-Ray.

ZARDOZ

Written and Directed by John Boorman
Starring Sean Connery (Zed), Charlotte Rampling (Consuella), Sara Kestleman (May) and John Alderton (Friend). 1974.

Synopsis:

ZARDOZ takes place in the year 2293, where after an unnamed global apocalypse human beings have attained immortality through the use of a supercomputer they call the “tabernacle”. Settlements of immortals (called "Vortexes") are scattered throughout the world, and in an effort to ensure that the society achieves longevity the secret to immortality is purposely forgotten. This results in a society where it is IMPOSSIBLE to die--even if one kills themselves, they will be 'reborn' through a technological process and continue on with all of their memories intact. Outside of the immortal settlements, survivors of the global apocalypse live in enforced primitiveness. The immortals use these refugees to grow food, and also employ 'enforcers' to keep their numbers down. The 'enforcers' are given guns by the immortals to accomplish this task. Additionally, the immortals have created their own religion based upon the god 'Zardoz' who is embodied by a giant floating head. This head is used to travel the wastelands, gathering food and damaged immortals to take back to the main settlement.

Being immortal is not all it's cracked up to be. With unlimited time to do whatever they want, the immortals embrace a life of scientific study and gradually evolve. They do not need sex because sex is no longer needed to propagate life. Without sex, love slips away. Without love there is no emotion. Without emotion, life becomes unbearably boring. And this is what ultimately brings the immortal society down: boredom.

One of the immortals, bored and seeking death, embarks upon an experiment in genetic breeding. He creates a god, Zardoz, and a religion to go along with it. "Exterminators" work for Zardoz and do his will. Zardoz's will is to kill the savage people who populate the world. Amongst these Exterminators, he chooses the strongest and smartest and breeds them with each other with the goal of one thing: to make a race that will have the intelligence and power to destroy the immortal society. This is what ZARDOZ is about.

In the book CULT MOVIES 2, author Danny Peary comes down pretty hard on ZARDOZ. He calls it an out and out embarrassment, saying that it takes too long to explain itself and by the time it does you don't care anymore. He really can't come up with anything to like about it save for Charlotte Rampling, who is admittedly young and gorgeous, and was left with far too many questions as to what it all means. I won't refute the bulk of Peary's claims on the narrative construction, for he pretty much hits the nail on the head; ZARDOZ does indeed take too long to explain what's going on and as a result it can be something of a chore to get through until everything starts to make sense. I wouldn't go so far as to call it an embarrassment, but your enjoyment will depend on how tolerant you are of its aggressively arty approach. At least, the first time around. Subsequent viewings are considerably easier to take.

ZARDOZ cost a million dollars to make and was Boorman's first film after DELIVERANCE. In his commentary on the DVD, Boorman concedes that a million dollars wasn't enough money to make the film, and this lack of money shows in the sets and costumes. He states in the commentary that to save money some of the background extras had their costumes painted on. I never noticed this, although once pointed out I was able to pick it out. Boorman also says that Burt Reynolds was originally set to star in the film, but had to drop out due to illness. I have to wonder if Reynolds was really ill or simply got spooked by the far-out nature of the plot. Certainly, Reynolds has nothing in his filmography that is anywhere close to ZARDOZ in tone or content. When he dropped out Connery was available and looking for something as far from James Bond as possible, so the timing was good.

The first couple of times I saw ZARDOZ I found it to be a baffling film experience, but baffling in a good way. I liked the jigsaw-puzzle approach to telling the story and how you had to work to understand what was going on. I also reacted positively to the young Charlotte Rampling and the numerous naked women on display. But I freely admit I was never quite clear what was going on. Boorman drops us into the middle of the story with no explanation and lets us discover how things work along with Zed, but even that is a cheat, since we ultimately discover that Zed knows considerably more about what is going on than he lets on. Even then there are things that are never clearly explained in the film, such as what functions the Zardoz head performed. Clearly, it brought guns to the enforcers and took bread back to the vortexes, but what about the bodies in plastic? Are they immortals who died and are being taken back to be reborn? Are they savages being brought back for experiments? Circumstantial evidence points to the bodies being immortals from other vortexes, but it is never clearly explained.

It wasn't until I read the novelization, which was written by Boorman and Bill Stair, that the story made complete sense. It tells the story in a straight linear fashion and this helps immeasurably in understanding everything that is going on. It also provides a crucial opening chapter that details Zed's life before he stows away in the head, and explains that Zed was not like the rest of his people. Rather, he had a superior intellect and "saw things that were not visible". It is made clear the Zed was one of the "chosen ones", or that he was one of the ones being selectively bred.

This is the film's biggest deliberate omission. In the film, it is not until the last third of the movie that we understand that Zed is something of a superman. The novelization makes this clear at the outset, and it can't help but change how we view Zed's early scenes in the vortex. Instead of being a barbarian floundering about we see that he is instead systematically probing for a way around the defences of the vortex. Once he does he destroys the computer that controls everything, not by brute force but by using his superior intellect to deduce its secret location. Exterminators who had been waiting for the defences to come down instantly flood into the Vortex killing everything in sight.

After reading it, I found watching ZARDOZ to be a very different experience. Much of the mystery is gone, true, but once you know exactly what is going on you can appreciate the film for what it is, and as a film I find much to like in it. I like the low rent set decorations. I like how the inflatable bags that adorn much of the vortex sigh and moan when touched. I like how Zed ultimately has to use his intellect to break the Tabernacle. I like how the immortals embrace the enforcers (and violent death) rather than eternal life and unending boredom. I like how the immortals view Zed's memories of his violent past as entertainment, which nicely points how removed they are from the world outside. It's also something of a statement against violence in the media.

The novelization is long out of print but can be found used. The DVD is still in print, I believe, and features the film in anamorphic widescreen, Dolby 3.0 surround (in English only), a reasonably lively commentary by John Boorman, radio spots, the theatrical trailer and a still gallery. It was originally released in 2000 and while shows its age is still an acceptable way to view the film.

More recently, the film was released on Blu-Ray by both Twilight Time and Arrow Video. Both editions share the same transfer and some bonus features, but each has exclusive features. From an image quality standpoint, the new transfer is amazing. It brings clarity where there was only murkiness before. True, it does point out some of the sets' cheapness, but that is more than made up for by the ability to see everything else more clearly. Good stuff. I believe the Arrow edition is Region B only, and the Twilight Time (out of print as of this writing) was Region A only.