A movie called Zeder

 I got recommended a horror movie called Zeder (1983) so I watched it and now we're talking about it.

Back in 2016 I wrote about The House with Laughing Windows by Pupi Avati and it so happens that seven years later he made Zeder. Zeder was released in the U.S. as Revenge of the Dead which is frankly a ridiculous title, designed to ride high on the popularity of the zombie genre which was running hot at the time. This is not a zombie movie.

After a somewhat baffling but interesting intro, we are introduced to Stefano, a struggling novelist who gets an unusual typewriter from his wife as an anniversary present. When it jams he discovers that the ribbon has some fascinating text on it and he eagerly transcribes it. It seems to speak of an experiment to raise the dead by burying them in special places full of spiritual energy called K-Zones. Stefano becomes obsessed with finding out more and goes on the hunt.

To go deeper we need to split the movie into two parts, what Stefano knows and what we know. Stefano spends most of his time talking to people; professors, priests, old ladies etc. and as he gets gradually closer to the goal, tensions rise.

What he doesn't really know but we find out is that there is a sort of conspiracy surrounding the K-Zone theory. It seems to be mostly academics but there are others involved from the church, the police and others and they are willing to kill to preserve their secret. It's interesting to see Stefano stumble deeper into the web without really realizing it. Ultimately it all comes to a head, except it sort of doesn't.

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD

As is normal in a movie with this kind of conspiracy, Stefano unwittingly talks to members of said conspiracy so they are aware of his sleuthing, but even though they decide he knows too much and want to kill him, they really don't. The amount of people he knows that are involved in this plot is also ridiculous. Towards the end, it seems like everyone except his wife and four other people are involved which becomes pretty silly. Sometimes less is more.

SPOILERS END

The first half of the movie is really good. The typewriter idea is inspired and the mystery is tantalizing and you get a feeling of really wanting to know more. The other half however is pretty weak. You discover things that don't really have much of an impact, the conspiracy itself sort of goes nowhere with no real involvement, it's all kind of rushed and half-arsed. As an example, Stefano is investigating in an underground vault in a cemetery when someone locks him in. And then someone lets him out again. Nothing happened, he never questions it and it never comes up again. Weird and pretty pointless.

For this story to really work it needs more time. You see members of the conspiracy but you don't learn of their motivations, their organization or their capabilities. They just do what they want to and stuff happens. The ending also leaves some things hanging which is annoying. I'm alright with an ambiguous ending, but Zeder unfortunately leaves a lot of smaller threads unraveled.

From a technical point of view, Zeder is competent. The shots are very nice, the scenes atmospheric, the actors are solid and the music is excellent. What I didn't like is how abrupt the cuts are between scenes. People are having a conversation and they barely have time to finish a sentence before a new scene is slammed down in front of you. You expect a certain rhythm to this and Zeder just yanks you from one scene to the next. It's not a deal breaker but it is somewhat jarring.

Funnily enough, parts of the plot mirror elements in one of Stephen King's more famous works, but both that and Zeder came out in the same year, so it is likely a coincidence.

Do I recommend this movie? Yes, for all its sins. Zeder is a solid horror movie with some really cool ideas. The second half is a let down, but they do enough to get the job done, even though they lose points. Any horror fan ought to watch it the one time. If I seem conflicted it's because I liked it and I wish it was better, the story deserves that.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

Is he above the law?

 A couple of days ago I decided to watch yet another Italian crime movie, this time Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), written and directed by Elio Petri.

I have to say first of all, that this is a super weird movie. What we have is a reversed murder mystery, in that we know who the killer is within five minutes of the movie starting. It's not even a spoiler for me to say that the killer is the head of the Homicide Division. He kills his mistress and then fluctuates between impeding the investigation and trying to get caught. His ultimate goal seems to be to discover whether he is above the law. That is the mystery.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion is less of a thriller and more of an experience. It's absurd, ridiculous, interesting and at times perplexing. What it isn't is boring, it's much too odd for that. It is also pretty hard to describe, as you can tell.

The main character, know only as Dottore (translated as Chief) is played by Gian Maria Volonté, who is perhaps best known for playing the main villain in Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars more. Even knowing this I had a hard time recognizing him. In the Leone spaghetti westerns he is dirty and unshaven, here he is extremely well groomed. What all three roles have in common is the madness he portrays so well. Make no mistake, Dottore is nuts, but there is method to his madness. Through a series of flashbacks we get a glimpse of his mentality. His manias and insecurities. We also get to know his mistress and her foibles. It all leads up to a rather satisfying story all in all, but I'm not a huge fan of the ending.

In case you think I've watched some obscure unknown film, it won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film as well as the Grand Prize at Cannes amongst other awards. The New York Times called the film "a suspense melodrama with the moral concerns of angry satire”. I guess that is true but I feel like I'm missing a lot of social context as well as a lot of the historical background. What remains despite this is how horrifying a police officer can be when the system is broken. There is an old saying “Who watches the watchers?” and this movie demonstrates what happens when no one is watching the watchers. Citizens have no protection against a corrupt police force when they decide that you are guilty because you'll do. Quite terrifying and the real center of the film compared to a “who dunnit”.

Otherwise Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion is a very accomplished film both technically and actor wise. It is well shot and many of the scenes are pure art. The music is by none other than Ennio Morricone and although it is a far cry from his masterful The Good, The Bad and The Ugly soundtrack it is both evocative and very good.

Do I recommend this film? Yes but with a reservation. If you are a omnivorous film buff or otherwise keen on Italian history of that time, then you are probably going to enjoy it. If you just want to relax and watch a cool movie, I'd say watch something else.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

The Fourth Protocol

 Since I was in the mood for a Cold War spy thriller I had a look around and found The Fourth Protocol (1987) starring the great Michael Caine and started to watch.

This was literally all I knew about it, so imagine my surprise and delight when the following names scrolled across the screen: Pierce Brosnan, Ned Beatty, Julian Glover, Michael Gough and Ian Richardson. There are of course many more but this is already a great cast. To top it off, the screenplay and the novel it's based on is written by Frederick Forsyth. We are in star country folks!

The Fourth Protocol itself is a fictitious part of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that states that all nukes must be delivered either by missile or bomber. They can't just be hidden somewhere and detonated.

Mild Spoilers ahead.

Alright, so Caine plays John Preston, a free wheeling MI5 officer who despite his attitude gets results. He is on the outs with his boss, acting director Brian Harcourt-Smith (Glover) but the director of MI6, Sir Nigel (Richardson) likes him, so when Preston discovers a plot to smuggle an atomic bomb into Britain in pieces, his boss suspends him and Sir Nigel helps him.

On the other side of the plot is Brosnan as KGB Major Petrovsky, whose job it is to do the bomb bit. In fun twist, all but one of the Soviet generals are played by Americans. Usually when an American movie needs a Russian or two they employ a Brit, so the reverse was fun.

Despite the great cast and the general quality of the film itself, it has a couple of problems. First off, it is too long for how it uses the time. Clocking in at 1h52 it is a bit of a slog particularly since there are so many scenes that are superfluous. Most of the bomb parts are delivered to Brosnan without any complications. He just meets the contact, grabs the item and drives off on his motorcycle. Why bother with scene after scene like this when it leads nowhere? Put some excitement in it, please. The second problem is the nuke. Plot wise it is necessary but you know from the very beginning that it's not going to explode, and you are right. Something less over the top would have added a realistic fear of failure.

Michael Caine was an associate producer besides being the main star, and he said that quote: "We wound up with a wordy action movie which, although it was quite a good picture, and did fair business, never had the speed and pace of the best American action movies. So for long sequences in the film, we not only had a talking picture, but a lot of talk, and even worse, most of it unintelligible. I went there as the star and associate producer, and one might have thought this would give me sufficient authority to put my own strongly-held opinions into practice, but no chance. Even I, in my exalted position, wound up making a talking picture, when it should have been a moving one."

He's not wrong. The action is too poor to call it an action-thriller and the talky bits are too weak for a pure spy thriller like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. What we get is a weird hybrid creature that for all it's faults is still pretty damn good.

Do I recommend this movie? Yes. It is more of a lazy Sunday afternoon movie than a must-watch, but it is never the less worth watching. It could have been better but what we get is at least good enough. Besides, all the scenes that takes place in Russia are filmed in Finland so that is a bonus point for me.

That's that an all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

Silent Action

I jumped back into the shadowy world of Poliziotteschi movies, this time with Silent Action (1975). The original title is La polizia accusa: il Servizio Segreto uccide, which means; the police accuses, the secret service kills.

The story starts with some arranged suicide/accidents followed by the murder of a master electrician who lives way above his means in a nice big house. The man in charge, Inspector Solmi smells a rat and he's right. A fairly normal murder investigation turns into a maze of conspiracies that includes murdered army officers, oil barons, the secret service, more murders, kidnappings and more. As usual, I won't spoil anything but there are enough twists and turns to satisfy anyone as long as you can follow the plot, which is a little bit tricky.

When Silent Action is good it is great but it has a few problems. On the good side we have solid actors, an interesting plot, an amazing car chase, some snappy dialogue and an overall great atmosphere. It is also fun watch an Italian thriller that isn't centered around the Mafia.

On the bad side we have several odd plot holes, some strangely clumsy foot chases, some needlessly convoluted plans by the bad guys and a truly unfortunate haircut.

The biggest problem is the runtime of the movie. Even though it is an hour and 48 minutes long, conspiracy stories take time to tell properly. A secondary smaller problem is that one really need a fair grasp of Italy at the time. Between fascists, communists, the mafia and corporate interests, Italy was a corrupt mess and it must have taken balls of steel to be an honest cop back then. Fascinating stuff though.

As I mentioned in my post about The Boss (1973) this story really needs a short TV series to really work. I really wish that someone at HBO or Netflix would take a look at some of these wonderful Italian movies and make a True Detective style show. One where every season is a separate story. Then you could get these things done properly.

As it it, Silent Action is a mixed bag for me. A fan of the genre or the time period should watch it, but I think most casual viewers might get bored. The ending is in my opinion the weakest part of the movie, even though it wasn't bad in any way. I don't know if they ran out of time or money, but it needed something extra, and it didn't get it.

Do I recommend it? Yes, with a maybe, as stated above. I enjoyed myself but was left wanting more.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

Fantastic or Realistic?

Fantasy is a great genre and the perhaps most defining feature of fantasy is that it doesn't have to be realistic. The clue is in the name after all. As long as the fantasy is immersive enough and consistent with its own internal rules, realism can go hang.

That said, I find it incredibly entertaining to poke holes in fantasy to see what is and isn't actually possible. Obviously magic isn't real nor are flying, fire-breathing dragons, but what about shooting a bow from the branches of a tree? What about the old trope of tying a rope to an arrow and shooting it in order to shimmy across a chasm? How much money can an adventurer really carry? I'm not the person to ask, but I know who is; Shadiversity on Youtube.

He has indeed tested these small but interesting tropes and I figured you might want to know the answers. So without further ado, I present to you three answers to three questions.

Arrow and rope:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv0a1m6gIAo

Shooting from a tree:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YCx9byRQKA

How many gold coins can you carry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PmXf9oiNqU

I'll embed them below as well, for your convenience. That's that and all that. Until next time, have a great and safe week! 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

The verdict is in.

 

The Apple vs. Epic trial is over and the verdict is in.

In case you don't remember, Epic Games decided that they wanted to keep all the Fortnite money they make on iOS for themselves instead of paying a portion (30%) to Apple. So, they broke the contract they had signed, got booted off the platform and then sued Apple in court.

During the whole trial, Epic tried to portray themselves as Robin Hood. They played up the narrative that they were taking on the evil monolith on behalf of the little guys. Claims that were completely demolished in court. The court papers proved that Epic was in it for themselves and no one else. The only upside for them at the time, was that the judge decided that Apple had to reinstate Fortnite on the iOS, although with no further updates and no cross-play. Right now it seems that the iOS version is five seasons behind and is hemorrhaging players.

So just the other day, U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers handed down the verdict. In the interest of transparency, I have not read the several hundred pages of legalese, I'm relying on what news outlets are reporting.

In a nutshell, Apple is now forced to allow app makers to inform their users about alternative payment methods and they have 90 days to implement this. Opinions are divided on whether they have to allow links or buttons that take people there, or if it is only information. Interestingly enough, this has never been that big of a deal. You could always, for example, subscribe to Netflix on your PC and then log into Netflix on your iPhone and Apple would get nothing. So this isn't that big of a deal.

Epic on the other hand has to pay Apple $12 million. Not that much for either company but there is more. The court has decided that Epic really did break the contract, so Apple can boot them off their platform permanently if they choose to do so. Due to the fact that Epic has also sued Google, Fortnite is also booted from the Play Store. They also failed to get their own exclusive store on the Apple platform which they wanted. They got nothing except a big bill.

Judge Rogers also stated that if Epic had simply reported Apple for suspected Anti-Trust violations, they would likely have won and there would have been nothing Apple could have done, but because of their contract breaking, manipulative videos, and other histrionics, they lost and are now in a bad position.

Of course, Epic has stated that they intend to appeal, but what good that could do, I have no idea. Just before posting I saw an article on The Verge and Epic has appealed.  This case already pulled all of Epic's dirty laundry out of the closet (and there was so much) so what they hope to gain from an appeal is beyond me.

Finally it seems that several news outlets are reporting this as either Apple losing or Epic winning. PC Gamer reported this as a big win for Epic, but then again, they have been sponsored by Epic on several occasions before... Do the math. Ultimately both companies lost, which is usually what happens when someone sets a fire and throws the extinguisher out the window.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

Houses of Doom: Wake me up when it's over.

 We are in the final stretch of the Houses of Doom quartet. We're finishing with Umberto Lenzi's House of Witchcraft (1989).

This time Lenzi directed and wrote the screenplay on the story by Gianfranco Clerici and Daniele Stroppa so I don't know who to blame for this lackluster snoozer.

The film begins with the main protagonist Luke running from someone or something with the sound of baying dogs in the background. He comes to a villa and enters it. A sound draws him to the kitchen where a hideous old crone is stirring a cauldron. She beckons him closer before lifting up his own severed head and throwing it in the pot. She cackles and he wakes up in a sweat.

It turns out that Luke had a nervous breakdown and is recuperating in hospital were his widowed sister in law Elsa looks after him. She's a shrink, not that it matters much. We find out that Luke is unhappily married to Martha who is “completely obsessed with the occult”.

Upon his release from the hospital the next day, Martha insists that they give their failing marriage one more shot by going to a villa she has rented. Can you see where this is going? I could.

It is of course the villa from his dream... Original, right?

They meet the blind owner who is living there as well, and he informs them that his niece Sharon will join them soon. Weird arrangement for renting a place if you ask me.

That night Luke sees the crone beating a priest to death in the garden, and he reacts by calling Elsa to come down and help him solve the “mystery”. Elsa does so and brings her teenage daughter Maria along.

Still with me? Okay, so strange things start happening and now and then the crone pops up and murders someone. In between this, Martha either walks around in a trance or then flat out tries to run over Sharon with her car. This is never mentioned again... Other happenings in this vein are sprinkled throughout the movie pretending that it means something, but it never does.

I'll not spoil the ending, but it made no sense. Given the name of the movie I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say there is a witch and she is evil. That's it, that's why lots of people got killed. If there was some other motive I completely missed it. It's evil for the sake of evil.

From a technical point, this is a pretty well made movie. The cinematography is good, and the soundtrack is on par for the late 80's. There is even a nice car stunt that has no relevance to the plot, but it was cool. The actors aren't bad, but the lousy dubbing kind of makes it hard to be sure.

No, it is the story that is the main failure here. The setup is based on having a mystery but they don't really do anything with it, it just solves itself almost by default. They make a lame attempt to show some “investigation” but everyone just makes assumptions and calls it evidence. The rest is loose elements of horror spread around to remind you that you are watching a horror movie. A snake appears, flowers drip blood for some reason, there is a blizzard in a cellar... Okay, the effects are decent, but the over all structure is pointless. I could understand the awful lack of a plot if House of Witchcraft was a gore and nudity filled shocker, but there is barely any blood and only one small scene with mild nudity so that isn't it either. Ultimately it's just boring.

Do I recommend this movie? No, not really. It isn't awful like Sweet House of Horror but it is dull, uninspired and boring, things a horror movie should never be. It's like an unfunny comedy.

Summary of the Houses of Doom:

House of Clocks – Good, worth a watch.

Sweet House of Horror – Awful, never watch.

House of Lost Souls – Good, worth a watch.

House of Witchcraft – Bad, just don't bother.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!