Oh the horror...

Oh how I love October. The leaves, yes; the autumn light, yes; the breaking out of fleece and flannel layering, of course. What I really love, though, is the movie season. Every year, October ushers in a four-week barrage of the most gratuitous and gratifying movies in the world. And little considerations like taste, talent, logic, and restraint enjoy a month-long vacation.

Here we are, only four days in, and already I have subjected myself (and my indulgent wife) to a splattering of some of the worst and weirdest entries in the genre. And at this very moment, the tireless Tivo is fastidiously gathering up even more gore-fodder for the weeks ahead. But for openers:

Shark Attack 3: Megalodon
Just to set the right tone, and to make sure it's absolutely clear just how low I can and will go this month, let's lead off with this atrocity. This truly is just about as bad as it can get — any worse, and the camp-cheese continuum starts to curve back on itself and you end up with the delightfully bad — Devil's Rain, The Green Slime, Robot Monster, and the like. Shark Attack 3 stays just bad enough to remain only bad, as in not-so-bad-it's-good-but-so-bad-it's-actually-just-bad. You get the idea.

This is a pretty standard grade-Z shark movie (screaming bathers intercut with mismatched stock footage) until about the last half hour, when the prehistoric title creature makes its entrance by popping up to swallow a motorboat and its driver whole. No chomping... just gulp. Hey now, that's new.

Also fallling victim to the surfacing stock-footage head of this fish-of-questionable-dimensions are a bigass life raft holding about nine people (slurp), and a bad guy on a jet-ski (thinking he's made his getaway, the villain chuckles villainously just moments before he, yes, jet-skis directly into the waiting gullet of superimposed slo-mo aquatic justice). Nothing but net.

The dialogue (or so I have read) is some of the worst in recorded history, though I wouldn't know for certain, as I caught this gem on the Sci-Fi Channel, and nearly every line was recut and dubbed to the point that the film transcended itelf and became a whole new creature. I'm fairly sure that lines like “Abso-jumpin'-lutely!” aren't canon, but another line (one which those familiar with the unedited version will remember as the movie's money line) reaches levels of intrigue the original writers could not have imagined: the hero leers slyly at the hot blonde paleontologist and says, “What do you say I take you home and... watch some Lucy?”

Time After Time
There aren't many original ideas left in the sci-fi/horror genres, but here's one: H.G. Wells uses his time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper from 1890s London to 1970s San Francisco. It's better than it sounds, largely because the film takes itself seriously, and perfectly casts Malcolm McDowell as Wells and the matchless David Warner as Jack (in an intellectual and Moriarty-like “adversarial colleague” take on the role).

The time-travel effects predict Xanadu, and Mary Steenburgen's endless promulgation of women's lib gets tired pretty fast, but otherwise this is a suprisingly original story. One nice touch is that the two time travelers are played as highly intelligent men who adapt very quickly to the 20th century — the fish-out-of-water cliches are kept to a minimum.

Their respective adaptability even serves to contrast the two adversaries: Wells remains socially and culturally awkward throughout, never changing out of his Holmesian tweeds, while Jack jumps right into the disco scene, boots and all, and thrives. With great relish, he informs Wells, “I belong here completely and utterly. I'm home.” Yet Wells is the one who appreciates and studies the instruments and machinery of their new world, and late in the game much hinges on the fact that while Jack was mastering the swingers' arts, Wells was learning how to drive a car.

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
Now here's a movie with a title that speaks volumes. Not only do you get the whole story in five words, but you also get a nutshell summary of the film's overall quality. Because there are really two movies going on here — “Earth” is one thing, and “The Flying Saucers” is something quite different. And, somewhat counterintuitively, it's the latter half that comes out stronger.

The saucer effects are really quite good, obviously the work of Ray Harryhausen (he's one of those technicians you don't even have to look up; credited or uncredited, you can spot a Harryhausen stop-motion effect on sight — just like titles by Saul Bass). Whenever the saucers are on screen, you're watching a B+ 1950s sci-fi film.

As soon as we cut away from the invaders, though, we're in a different film. The actors put in a noble effort (especially Joan Taylor's legs), and the writing isn't too shabby, but the earthbound effects go kerplunk. It almost feels like someone found a few reels of surplus Harryhausen effects and decided to build a no-budget film around them, Ed Wood-style. Imagine cutting from a big shot of a damaged UFO crashing dramatically into the Capitol Dome to a little one of a couple actors jogging in place in front of fuzzy rear-projection footage of a forest fire. Huh? Hey! Bring back the other movie!

We do get some splendid little moments out of this though. For instance, when one of the aliens — stiff-limbed foam-rubber robots lacking both faces and hands — is shot and falls to the ground, the sound effects guys layer on a lot of enthusiastic clanking and bonking, even though the dreaded nerfbot clearly lands with what should be just a soft and gentle squish.

Maybe what happened is they blew their whole budget on the explosive finale, so when it came time to fill in the first hour or so, all they could afford to do was give it more cowbell and hope for the best.

Baron Blood
Finally, some actual horror. After all... shark attacks, time travel, and flying saucers aren't real Halloween fare, are they? But Mario Bava? Oh yes indeed. With Bava you get it all:

• dark castles haunted by ghosts of insane mass murderers
• dungeons brimming with instruments of torture and general discomfort
• superstitious bug-eyed villagers murmuring bizarre warnings at jauntily skeptical outsiders
• spiritualists channeling the restless echo-voiced souls of understandably resentful burned witches
• ancient curses scrawled on crinkly, flammable parchment
• mystical talismans of unknown origin and uncertain utility
• hangings, throat-slittings, and impalings galore... including a detailed before, during, and after study of an iron maiden's effects on the complexion

Oh yeah, and there's some blood, too. Not that free-flowing, wine-colored blood you see pouring out of the elevators of the Overlook Hotel, but the thick, oozing, bright-red paint that issues exclusively from the arteries of slashed Italians. Giallo pudding.

Yum. What else could one ask for? How about twenty-seven more days of these movies?!