Reviews

Wicked City

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Wicked City (1992)

Tokyo has quite a crisis on its hands. There are monsters disguised as humans walking the streets and there’s an epidemic of people addicted to a drug called ‘Happiness’ which has some seriously bad side effects. Taki (played by Leon Lai) is a member of an elite anti-monster task force who has a lot of issues. His partner, Kai (Jacky Cheung), is a half-monster full of angst and his ex-girlfriend, Gaye (Michelle Reis), is a full-blooded monster who is also full of angst.

Taki’s boss has put him in charge of capturing Daishu (Tatsuya Nakadai), a monster who he believes responsible for bringing the happiness drug into Tokyo (and who also happens to be Gaye’s lover). All hell breaks loose when Daishu is captured by the anti-monster squad and Daishu’s son Shudo (Roy Cheung) decides to destroy the city. Can Taki and Kai save the day or will the differences between monsters and humans be too much for them to handle?

That is approximately 33% of the plot of Wicked City (or as I like to call it: Wacky City). This movie has so much going on that it still baffles me after multiple viewings. Double crosses and triple crosses and a duder humping a living pinball machine, this one has it all. Director Tai Kit Mak brings us a visionary splatterfest in primary colors that can barely sit still long enough to tell the viewer what the hell is going on. But then again, it’s also childishly simple in terms of character motivations and it’s pretty obvious that the writers (one of which is director Tsui Hark) don’t give a double goddamn about wallowing in the cheese in order to get this wild ass story told.

Oh, this cast is awesome. Leon Lai is great as the conflicted hero and Roy Cheung of Fight Back to School is perfect as the creepy evildoer. Jacky Cheung of A Chinese Ghost Story III gets all mopey and emo (waaa, I’m half monster, waaa!) but rises to the status of hero when the going gets tough. Prolific Japanese actor, Tatsuya Nakadai (Illusion of Blood), tries to steal the movie as the wise and completely bad ass 150 year old monster, Daishu. (But what about those lovely ladies? First up is Michelle Reis (A Chinese Ghost Story II) who kicks 100 different varieties of ass. She makes me want to find my own Happiness-addicted monstrette to call my own. Carmen Lee of Forbidden City Cop squeezes into her tight white dress oh so nicely which is probably standard issue for female anti-monster squad agents.

If you can look past the convoluted plot, great magic awaits you. The word ‘spectacle’ barely does Wicked City justice. I can pretty much guarantee you have never seen anything quite like this before. Wicked City is the bright green mango cherry Slurpee version of Blade Runner. When you need your fix of eye-popping gore sequences and hyperactive fight scenes, give this one a spin. Oh yeah, be sure to watch the dubbed version for even more insanity and I also suggest you watch Wicked City as a double feature with Johnnie To’s ridiculous epic The Heroic Trio.

Don’t Let the Riverbeast Get You!

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Don’t Let the Riverbeast Get You! (2012)

When Neil Stewart (Matt Farley), the greatest tutor Rivertown, USA has ever known, returns to town, he has to face many obstacles. You see, after being left at the altar by his fiance Emmaline (Elizabeth M. Peterson) when his claims of seeing the mythical Riverbeast made him the town laughing stock, Neil’s life fell apart. With nearly every citizen openly mocking him at every street corner with the nickname “RB” (that stands for “Riverbeast”, btw) and a shameless muckraking reporter on his heels, duder is really up against it.

But Neil is determined to get his life back. First, he moves in with his best friend, Teddy Hollingsworth (Tom Scalzo), who has been living in near-seclusion since Neil left town and not pursuing his path as a guitar-plucking busker. Next, Neil starts tutoring again as well as trying to get his ex-fiance back (even though she’s engaged to the biggest jerk in all of Rivertown).

Out of pure desperation, Neil hires big game hunter/ladies’ man Ito Hootkins (Jim Farley) to help him capture the Riverbeast and prove to Emmaline and the residents of Rivertown that he is not a crazy kook. When that plan backfires and he gets blamed for a series of murders committed by the Riverbeast (yep, it’s real), things are looking even worse for Neil. But all is not lost. With the help of his fellow tutors and his plucky pupil (and wannabe reporter), Allie Stone (Sharon Scalzo), Neil is going to put an end to all this Riverbeast business once and for all.

When was the last time you spent 99 minutes away from your terrible life with something good? Why don’t you just forget your troubles and give yourself to the happy homemade bafflement of Don’t Let the Riverbeast Get You!? I did and look how great I’m doing. I’ve been a huge fan of director Charles Roxburgh, Matt Farley, and company since Freaky Farley and this entry in their oddball canon does not disappoint.

The camerawork lovingly captures the beautiful New England landscape and the writing is genius. All of the dialog is outstanding and characters say some insanely elaborate sentences that are just mind-blowing. There are moments so strange and so droll that I thought I was hallucinating. Who knows, maybe I was. The monster suit is cheesy but also quite impressive and the music is excellent. You’ll be humming “River Party Days” long after you hear it.

If you dig indie horror films in the least, then you need to swing by Rivertown, USA. You’ll be glad you did. Don’t Let the Riverbeast Get You! is an eccentric, zany, family friendly (and I mean that as a compliment), and laugh-out-loud funny horror film with a positive message and a gaggle of kooky characters. The film even features one of those warning systems that go off whenever something monster-related is about to occur. The screen will flash red letting you know it’s time to cover your eyes but peek through fingers just a little bit.

“Ah yes, the ever elusive Riverbeast. Half ape, half reptile, half I don’t know what.”

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Queens Of Evil

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Queens of Evil (1970)

David (Ray Lovelock The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) stops to help a man with a flat tire one night. As David changes the tire they discuss the differences between the burgeoning hippie culture and the older generation’s set of  ideals and the man surreptitiously punctures David’s motorcycle tire. As the man drives off he warns David not to fall to the devil. David fixes his own tire and catches up to the man but he crashes his car into a tree and no one will stop to help them. The man dies and David drives on, stopping to sleep in the shed of a house in the forest.

He is awakened the next morning by a beautiful girl named Liv (Hadee Politoff – Count Dracula’s Great Love) who lives there with her two sisters Bibiana, (Evelyn Stewart – Spirits Of Death) and Samantha (Sylvia Monti – The Fifth Cord). David is invited in for a madcap, psychedelic breakfast but doesn’t seem to realize that there is something a little off about the sisters. After his attempts to leave go nowhere, we realize that David has stepped into another world like Alice through the looking glass or maybe, more appropriately, like Lisa from Lisa and the Devil, the moment she strays from the crowd.

I don’t want to give away too much about this dreamy, hazy film from Tonino Cervi (director of Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die, a Spaghetti Western co-written by Dario Argento). There are castles in the forest, mysterious nighttime visitors, midnight bonfire rituals, and general unexplainable goings on; all with a pop art Italian Horror fairytale sheen throughout the whole film.

In fact, it is a very fairytale-like film that combines a Grimm’s Fairy Tales feel with the aforementioned Lisa And The Devil and a touch of the weirdness toward the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Queens Of Evil is very much an Italian horror gem waiting to be rediscovered, don’t blink toward the end as you’ll miss Geraldine Hooper the actress that played Carlo’s ‘boyfriend’ in Deep Red. How’s that for trivia?

-Brad Hogue