I, MADMAN (1989)

To throw an overused cliché your way, I, Madman is the kind of film no one makes anymore. Not a huge-budget project, not cast-driven, and not based on a franchise or pre-existing material (a big deal for an '80s horror film), I, Madman is, simply put, a movie. It's harmless, charming, inventive, clever, and quite silly, and it's the kind of film that horror audiences hardly ever get to see anymore. Though obviously a product of its times, its use of practical effects and even stop-motion animation, cheesy though they may look nearly thirty years later, pleasantly reek of that old-school filmmaker's mindset of how best to bring the story to life.

The idea of reality and fiction blurring in the eyes of the lead character has proven to service all kinds of genres: I, Madman for horror, The Purple Rose of Cairo for whimsical comedy, and Adaptation for abstract art. The idea of the art on which we depend for mini slices of escapism soon taking over and encompassing our reality not only makes for a clever conceptual hook, but it also satirizes the human experience, which every so often it desperately needs. The inclusion of a sequence in which Virginia is walking down Hollywood Boulevard - more specifically, down the Walk of Fame, housing the stars of many Hollywood elite - only to stop when she sees a newspaper headline about an actress being found murdered, was by purposeful design. It is reality slamming heads with fiction. What I, Madman posits is that, simply, it's okay to escape the mundanity of our lives every so often, but if we fail to confront our realities as presented to us, our fantasies will soon corrupt them, forcing us to act - AND run from claymation mutants.

Director Tibor Takacs is likely better known for the mid-'80s, Steven Dorf-having, backwards-demonic-record-spinning monster mash The Gate, which also featured a healthy dose of his fondness for extravagant practical effects and stop-motion animation. (He's also responsible for the too-weird sequel Gate 2: The Trespassers.) Having disclosed that, I, Madman is the filmmaker's superior effort. The script by David Chaskin (Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge) features reasonably believable characters, given the rather fantastic circumstances in which they exist, existing in their small and somewhat stunted lives. No one's a doctor or a lawyer or some high-falootin' big deal. The lead and the supporting characters are regular everydayers. Chaskin's small touches are the most appreciated, such as the night security guard of the piano repair shop across the street who plays melancholy melodies into the night. Such additions contribute to the uniqueness of our lead heroine's home, so when that home becomes slowly infected by the living nightmares of mysterious pulp writer Malcolm Brand, it allows alternate and unexpected means to make that infestation more disturbing. The fact that the man is a security guard is obviously representative of Virginia's life, which begins losing stability as her razor-wielding threat becomes more and more real. These are the kinds of inclusions that make the script stand out and reinforce the notion it was written with good and artistic intentions, rather than simply counting bodies to drop.

Jenny Wright (with whom many audience members, mostly male, fell in love following her role of Mae in Near Dark) plays a likable lead. Tasked with performing double duty as also playing Anna, the hunted "fictional" heroine of Brand's novels, she's equal parts frumpy and attractive, vulnerable and resourceful, helpless and strong. Alternately, William Randall Cook (also responsible for the film's visual effects) plays the creepy and unnerving antagonist Malcolm Brand. He scalps women, so you know he's a creep. Both actors play well off each other and preserve that essential horror dynamic of strong female versus maniacal male.

In keeping with certain horror expectations, I, Madman presents an engaging and sympathetic lead, an intriguing and psychotic antagonist, inventive special effects, and a healthy dose of the red stuff. Stylistically, it boasts somewhat of a giallo look, consisting of some pretty heavy and unsubtle primary colors, and the gothic and mood-setting score by Michael Hoenig (The Blob) is suitably rich and heavy. A film that manages to be fun, thrilling, philosophical, and creepy all at once, it's a wonder that I, Madman didn't land harder with audiences during its release in 1989. 

SLEEP FOREVER

10 TO MIDNIGHT (1986)

“I’m not a nice person,” Charles Bronson explains to a reporter in the film’s opening scene. “I’m a mean, selfish son of a bitch. I know you want a story, but I want a killer, and what I want comes first.”

Immediate smash cut to black, the name CHARLES BRONSON, and the driving electronic score by Robert Ragland.

One of the greatest opening sequences to any film, and it belongs to 10 to Midnight.

Charles Bronson worked with director J. Lee Thompson an impressive nine times, with 10 to Midnight being their fourth collaboration. Though none of them would be considered “classics” (as Bronson didn’t have many of those), their films are fondly remembered by the then-current and what would become the next generation of Bronson fans: films like St. Ives, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (which, while still ridiculous, opted to take a restrained step backward from the cartoonish Death Wish 3 and reground the series in reality), and lastly, 10 to Midnight, the closest Bronson ever got to making a horror film. A psychosexual thriller, 10 to Midnight has Bronson hunting down a serial killer preying on women, who commits his murders while totally in the nude when not placing obscene phone calls to girls and using a Spanish accent. It’s…as awkward as you’re thinking it is.

But, in spite of that, 10 to Midnight is one of the better made films not just in the Bronson/Thompson collaborative period, but really in all of Bronson’s career. One of the critical notices about the film claims that 10 to Midnight “sees Bronson back in his Death Wish shoes,” which really isn’t anywhere near accurate. (Sorry to call you out on it decades later, London Times.) Even a vague awareness of Bronson’s career is mostly comprised of his Death Wish series, which can be dumbed down to a simple image of him walking around with a gun blowing away people indiscriminately. But that’s the furthest thing away from what 10 to Midnight is presenting, which is Bronson taking on quite a human and subdued role as Detective Leo Kessler, a cop who – no lie! – kills exactly one person during its entire running time. You…can guess who.

It might be the presence of Charles Bronson, or perhaps producers Golan and Globus (Cannon Films, essentially) that make critics misremember this film and write it off as nothing more than typical exploitation for which the ’80s (and Bronson…and Cannon Films) were infamous. And yeah, the film sure doesn’t miss the chance to flash a random set of bare breasts on screen, but behind the somewhat slimy on-screen events (this will sound weird), there are signs that Thompson was attempting to make a film that’s classier and more intelligent than other films of its type, despite all the…well, slime.

J. Lee Thompson would go on to direct more straightforward horror fare like Happy Birthday to Me, one of the many holiday-centered slasher films made to exploit the popularity of Halloween. This decision surprised a lot of folks, being that Thompson had been responsible for a handful of classics, among them the original Cape Fear – especially when it came to Happy Birthday to Me's marketing campaign, which sold audiences their only reason to see it: “Six of the most bizarre murders you will ever see.” By this point, studios were well aware that audiences (mostly teens) were flocking to the slasher film for this reason alone: bloody murder. Shades of what was to come are present in 10 to Midnight; though the body count is rather low, the grisliness and seediness of their execution does often come off with a certain slasher film aesthetic. The final sequence, which sees “The Slasher” going after his last intended victim, is legitimately thrilling and disturbing. These instances, however, are planted into a rather traditional police procedural, which sees Bronson’s Kessler doing whatever he can – even unethical – to be sure the killer doesn’t walk on a technicality.

Uh oh, wait a minute. You mean Bronson plays a character who circumvents the frustrating machinations and loopholes of the law only to exact his own kind of vengeance?

Maybe the London Times was right after all.

For the uninitiated who are aware of Charles Bronson’s legacy but have sampled only a few more obvious titles, 10 to Midnight may come as a surprise. Not quite a horror film, not quite a slasher film, and certainly not an action film for which he was most known by then, 10 to Midnight borrows from nearly every genre to present an interesting mishmash of sensibilities and, miraculously, ends up with a rather solid “genre” picture – though which genre to which it belongs will be up to the audience to determine.

FREEZE YOUR BLOOD

OPERA (1987)

 

From the very beginning of his career, filmmaker Dario Argento was on a roll. 1970’s giallo The Bird with Crystal Plumage, his debut, still remains one of the most celebrated films of his career. Subsequently, Deep Red, Suspiria, its semi-sequel Inferno, and Tenebrae would follow, each preserving Argento’s uncannily beautiful skill with the camera and his further exploration of the giallo sub-genre. Following Tenebrae, like many of our beloved horror directors, his work would begin to fall off. Next would come the befuddling Phenomena (starring a very young Jennifer Connelly) and then 1987’s Opera, the second film in the portion of Argento’s career that’s considered gray area — a quasi-limbo each of our celebrated horror directors eventually entered. 

Argento’s Suspiria, or Deep Red — these are commonly accepted as high points, even classics. And every horror director has them. John Carpenter’s Halloween or The Thing, Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead — all have achieved classic status because they deserve it. But each director would later make films that fell into that gray area where it’s not so much they are beloved because of the films, but because of the director who made them. Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, Craven’s The People Under the Stairs, and Romero’s Monkey Shines. None of these are patches on the directors’ earlier classics, but fans love them anyway because of who made them. Basically, call Halloween or The Thing silly in a fanboy’s presence and it’s war. Call Prince of Darkness silly and the response is, “Well…”

If you’ll forgive the long-winded opening, that sums up the enduring legacy of Dario Argento’s Opera. If the direct-to-video platform had been as prominent in the late ‘80s as it would eventually be in the late ‘90s, Opera would feel like it had gone direct to video, or even made for television (despite the violence). Even though it’s made by a proven director, large portions of it feel very workman and frenzied. Argento’s camerawork is still as beautiful and indulgent as ever, but it’s often ruined by the chaotic and unfocused scenes of…well, you name it. Intrigue? Investigation? Anything involving dialogue? Even the murder sequences, something Argento used to excel at, seem cornily rendered, as if he’s a director working outside of his comfort zone, even though up to that point he’d been murdering people on screen for 17 years. For long stretches in Opera, nothing will happen, and then within the span of just thirty seconds, so much will happen that you can feel your brain trying to process all the outlandish information bombarding it. Because of this, you can never just settle into the story and allow Opera’s sense of pacing to carry you along, because it doesn’t really have much of either. Not helping is that, like a lot of Italian productions of this era, Opera was filmed without on-set sound, so all the dialogue was later looped by either the actors themselves or different voice-over artists altogether. Many of Argento’s films and Italian productions in general were made the same way, but Opera bungles that as well. Much of the dialogue is rattled off with either too little emotion or way too much, which leaves the whole film feeling off kilter and strange.

Opera would be the last feature length film that Argento would make that falls into that lawless land of debate as to whether or not it’s worthy of attention. Everything that follows generally falls into the land of “for Argento completists only” where I dare not dwell. (Only the most ardent of Argento’s fanbase can make it through Dracula 3D.) If you’re an Argento fiend, then it's a given this is for you, but if you’re only a casual fan of the director, I definitely wouldn’t buy tickets to this Opera.

AN ADULT NIGHTMARE

CLASS OF 1999 (1990)

Looking back on films that were supposed to represent the future, long after that “future” has come and gone, can be hilarious. For example, according to Demolition Man, L.A. was to be reduced to one gigantic warzone, constantly on fire where busloads of people were being kidnapped.

In 1996.

As I’ve said before, every movie you have ever seen that’s set in the future doesn’t offer a sunny and optimistic look at what’s to come. Color everywhere has been replaced by sterile white; warmth is non-existent. And technology has run rampant, making humans nearly useless on their own (uh oh!); meanwhile, right in front of our stupid faces, that technology is threatening to undo the very rules of civilization (uh oh!).

Mark L. Lester’s Class of 1999 (made in 1990), a very loose sequel to his Class of 1984 (made in 1982), is a pretty good example of that, only instead of something like 2001: A Space Odyssey, and all the colorless, cold, and mechanical environments that come with it, there’s the usual amount of ‘80s-era bright colors and Mad Max-ish carnage. Not only is technology a future danger to society, but so are high school students. Run!

To backtrack, Class of 1984 was about a high school teacher pushed too far by his unruly gang member students, and this is a concept that’s been seen time and again. James Belushi’s silly but underrated flick The Principal, and later on, Tom Berenger’s The Substitute (which would spawn a direct-to-video franchise with Treat Williams). Class of 1999 takes that same basic concept and then throws robots into the mix, and in case you weren’t aware, adding robots to any movie makes it instantly better 99.999% of the time. 

This can be confirmed scientifically by using the following equation:

Movie x └[ ∵ ]┘ = 🙂

Class of 1999 is an amalgam of the previously mentioned Mad Max, along with The Terminator, The Warriors, and your choice of any typical ’80s action flick. It’s utterly beyond stupid and addictingly watchable. The action, the robots, and the robotic-action go a long way toward achieving this, but also helping? The inclusion of Stacy Keach, who as science has also proven, also makes any movie better 99.999% of the time. So now that we’re operating at 199.998% worth of superiority, it’s easy to see why Class of 1999 is so much fun. And this is before I mention the inclusion of John P. Ryan (Cannon’s go-to villain during the ‘80s and ‘90s) and blaxsploitation icon Pam Grier as grinning killer robots, and lead groog himself, Malcolm McDowell, as a sometimes caring/sometimes shrugging principal.

Lester had previously directed one of the greatest films of all time, Commando, and though Class of 1999 doesn’t come anywhere close to that film’s amount of carnage and violence, you can still sense Lester’s affection for it, so his sequel goes as far as it can on the budget he was given. There are still lots of explosions and fatalities during the finale and it’s an absolute blast.

If you haven’t guessed by now, not much of Class of 1999 is to be taken seriously. In case you missed the plotline, it’s about robot teachers murdering their gang member students, who eventually take revenge. If for some reason that kind of plot doesn’t interest you, frankly, I don’t want to know you.