Alligator (1980)

It’s difficult to know what’s more ferocious in the movie Alligator (1980): the hormone growth accelerated sewer-dwelling alligator with an insatiable appetite or the string of wise-cracks people make about Robert Forster’s male pattern baldness? Yes, Forster is sporting some fresh plugs, but give the guy a break! He plays a cop investigating body parts washing up from the city’s water system and gets an eye-load of the reptilian mutant when it gobbles up a flatfoot red-shirt investigating the darkened sewers. Forster is then assisted by a university professor/reptile expert played by Robin Riker, and soon enough they’re generating sparks to take some time exploring a relationship in between the city being gripped by fear with this gigantic alligator busting free of the sewers and going on a chomp-crazy rampage. For some reason I always assumed Alligator was a Roger Corman production, but it’s a similar type of indie horror movie cashing in on the Jaws formula with a wry script by John Sayles, the socially conscious filmmaker who made his bones writing movies like Piranha and The Howling. Directed by Lewis Teague (Cujo), this was a fun creature feature that clocks in at 90 minutes and keeps things cooking with alligator carnage every ten or fifteen minutes, finding some novelty once the alligator escapes the sewers and slithers down alleyways, backyard pools and outdoor weddings. Forster is a gift to this movie with the affable gravity he gives to the proceedings, and there’s a group of recognisable character actors in good supply including Michael V Gazzo as the Chief, Sydney Lassick as a dodgy pet shop owner, and none other than Henry Silva as a big game hunter in the doomed Quint role. Available to stream in a remastered edition on Shudder in Australia. Recommended.

Scanners III: The Takeover (1991)

When they came to the third entry in the Scanners franchise – based on David Croenenberg’s original film where a strain of people in Canada are born with psychic powers due to government experimentation in drugs given to expectant mothers – they were really having fun with the possibilities here: What if a pigeon annoyed you? Could you have a psychic battle underwater? Can you record your scanning ability on video tape? These questions will be answered in Scanners III: The Takedown (1991), which has the same director as Scanners II, Christian Duguay, and was released the same year direct-to-video.

The actors took a different approach when it came to conveying “scanning”. Still plenty of facial contortions and head shaking. But in this one, the cast curve their necks and raise their eyebrows when they exert their mental powers. Resembling broadway dancers performing Cats on stage. For this and a lot of other reasons, Scanners III is completely over-the-top with goofy comedy bits and violent comicbook scenarios. Without any relation to the first two movies, we focus on another brother and sister pair who have scanning abilities. After a scanning demonstration results in tragedy, our hunky hero Alex (Steve Parish) undergoes a meditation training retreat with some monks in Thailand straight out of a Jean Claude Van Damme movie produced by Cannon Pictures. Meanwhile back in Canada, his sister Helena (Liliana Komorowska, giving the wildest performance of the movie) experiments with a new drug intending to heal scanners but instead suffers the unexpected side effects, namely turning into a complete sociopath climbing the corporate ladder in powersuits, like a Special Guest Star on Melrose Place but with head-melting abilities.

When Alex returns to stop Helena’s nefarious plans, other scanners are conscripted into action and dress up like old-timey gangsters to chase our motorcycle-riding meditating hunk hero across rooftops and abandoned docks through action sequences that reminded me of Darkman. Though I weirdly preferred Scanners II more, Scanners III is still nutty fun with grotesque special effects, campy dialogue and heightened performances. Worth it just to see Komorowska’s delirious turn as the bitchy and glamorous head-exploder. Supreme proof that auteurless direct-to-video sequels can sometimes deliver the goods. Streamed on Shudder in Australia. Recommended.

Scanners II: The New Order (1991)

A new acting category in the Oscars should be the Best Scanners Acting Award, actors undertaking the challenge to either be the one who is scanning (using their mind to express psychic power) or who is being scanned (getting your mind overpowered by an invisible force). Both offer the chance for an actor to give full facial contortions, quivering and trembling, as if trying to pop a vein in your forehead: a true acting challenge as it looks simultaneously exhausting, painful and ridiculous. A David Cronenberg-less direct-to-video sequel, which looks great remastered for Blu-ray release, Scanners II: A New Order (1991) is about a hawkish police captain (Yvan Ponton) in Canada who kidnaps scanners so he can use their mind power to exert control, force criminals to confess or self-execute, and basically climb the ladder of political power. Into the fray is a nice guy (David Hewlett) moving from the country to the big city to become a vet, whose latent scanner talent has only been used to soothe upset animals (amazing scene). There were two key highlights in Scanners II that had me hooked: 1) the nice guy hero, a wispy type who reminded me of a young Peter Sarsgaard, unleashes his full force in the middle of a convenience store hold-up and provides a grotesque special effect explosion that blew me away; and 2) when he visits his girlfriend (Isabelle Mejias) in hospital and they ask about his power, he solemnly walks over to the window and a big sax solo drops on the soundtrack before he talks about his past (I’m sure the name of the instrumental would be ‘Lament Of A Scanner’). This scanner’s power is exploited by this fascist cop until he decides to fight back with the help of his long lost scanner sister (Deborah Raffin). This movie was a blast, particularly if you’re in the mood for vapourwave/normcore fashions and interior design, grotesque face-melting special effects and head explosions (naturally), and plenty of psychic warfare in the Canadian streets. Raoul Trujillo is memorable as the most cracked-out, sinister scanner foot-soldier. Directed by Christian Duguay who would also later make the Pierce Brosnan bomb thriller action flick I really enjoyed, Live Wire. Similarly this has some great energy, satisfying set pieces and flashy camera angles. Even ends with a closing credits rock power ballad called ‘Mind To Mind’. Available to stream on Shudder in Australia. Recommended.

Messiah Of Evil (1973)

I was keen to see Messiah Of Evil (1973) as it had often been compared to Carnival Of Souls, a low-budget horror movie that I’ve come to love because of the atmosphere it creates. Like in Carnival Of Souls, a close up on a suspicious, evil person in Messiah Of Evil might reveal bad, cheap ‘ghoul’ make-up, but the overall vibe is effectively eerie and transcends the dated, limited special effects. We hear narration of Arletty (Marianna Hill) warning us from an ayslum about a place they’ve visited – Point Dume on the California coast – and an unfocused shot of a woman in a darkened hallway, made a glimmer through the light shining at the end of the corridor. We see the past story unfold as Arletty drives out find her father (Royal Dano), a painter who relocated to Point Dume to join an artist community, and who has not been in contact for several months. Her father’s beach side house is made up of fabulous interiors of eye-catching murals (crowd scenes, the face of Lee Harvey Oswald, etc), which contributes to the mounting feeling of paranoia. The town seems empty and characters wander large spaces unbeknownst that a strange crowd lurks where least expected. When Arletty connects with a visiting trio of bohemian types – a well-suited aristocrat (Michael Greer), a vampish model (Anitra Ford) and a hippie chick (Joy Bang) – they wind up staying at her father’s place. It feels like the set up for a groovy scene, but as people drift off due to sexual dissatisfaction or boredom, a sinister force reveals itself further. There are some brilliant sequences of slowly mounting dread, such as a late night supermarket jaunt that prefigures Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead and an homage to the playground scene in The Birds but in a cinema with too many patrons sitting behind you. Even when everything is fully explained, it’s not really, and much remains mysterious and confusing by the end. It’s a waking dreamscape feeling, an expression of being a stranger in a strange town and behind every corner, there’s a group wanting to envelop you. I was into it, from the haunting early synth score by Phillan Bishop to the alluring images by cinematographer Stephen Katz. Even the great Elisha Cook Jr appears as a trademark harbinger of doom. Directed and written by Williard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who helped George Lucas write American Graffiti, and eventually wrote Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom and helmed the infamous flop Howard The Duck. I didn’t realise that was a young Walter Hill in the pre-title murder sequence. Streamed on Shudder in Australia (but you can also find a number of copies on YouTube). Recommended.

Night Of The Demons (1988)

I found Night Of The Demons (1988) a lot of fun even before the demons show up. With a classic horror movie set-up – a bunch of teens decide to party on Halloween night at an abandoned crematorium called Hull House – the characters are all teen cliches archetypes dialled up to cartoonish levels. There’s the Goth, Angela (Amelia Kinkade), whose wacky idea this party is (as well as a seance to call upon the spirits who haunt this place); the Wiseguy Sal (William Gallo) with the over the top attitude; the Party Girl, Suzanne (Linnea Quigley) who only wants to dance and meet cute boys; the gross punk Stooge (Hal Havins); and the Girl Next Door dressed up as Alice In Wonderland (Cathy Podewell) with her himbo preppy boyfriend (Lance Fenton). With obnoxious banter and wacky costumes, the movie exists in the same brain-dead junk-food suburban teen hellscape as Night Of The Comet, Night Of The Creeps and even Heathers, and has a sense of fun about its descent into blood and gore similar to Return Of The Living Dead. It’s sleazy, skeezy and slimy – but there are several memorable sequences that help define Night Of The Demons as a cult classic, particularly once the evil demons that plague the house start to possess the party-goers – Angela’s strobe-lit dance by a fireplace to a Bauhaus tune or Suzanne losing her mind by painting herself with lipstick. There’s a definite Evil Dead influence with the zooming POV camera and gross-out demon faces, though it never escalates to the whacked-out level of Riami’s trilogy. Directed by Kevin Tenney and written by Joe Augustyn, this was fun Halloween viewing, the type of movie you feel like if you watched it on VHS when you were a teen, it’d be an all-time go-to favourite (despite and maybe because of its flaws). Shout Factory remastered version available on Shudder. Recommended.