HALLOWEEN HORROR CHALLENGE Movie #29 KILLDOZER (1974)

KILLDOZER (1974)
D. JERRY LONDON
Warner Archives
Full Frame

This made for TV shocker is fondly remembered by those who lived through the 70's. Mostly for the outrageous title than any sort of groundbreaking content. There were comic books and even a punk band that swiped the name. This is one of those weird little movies that entered the popular zeitgeist. Hell there is probably a Family Guy episode that references it. 

But does that mean the movie is any good? Not really. It is perfectly functional and well made enough, considering the era it was made. yet this is pretty much by the numbers stuff. 

A meteor falls from space in all its paper mache glory and lands on the construction site of Warburton industries who are digging in Uganda to build some sort of something or other. The mutant space rock possesses the nearest bulldozer causing it to come to life and destroy things and kill people. 

That's it. An unmanned bulldozer wrecking the place and the occasional under paid character actor. Credit goes to the whole cast and crew for playing it serious as something like this could be campy. I'd also be curious to know which was first; this movie or the SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN pair of episodes where Steve Austin fights an alien life form that is basically a runaway military war machine aka a Bulldozer. 

Review © Andrew Copp

Halloween Horror Challenge Oct 5th: DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (1973)

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (1973)
D. John Newland
Warner Brother's Archives
Made For TV

This 1973 made for TV horror movie has a lot of memories for old school horror fans and was recently remade by Guillermo Del Toro's production company. But many fans seem to prefer this low-fi original with it's tiny rubber monsters and hysterical leading lady. As I have been doing all month I have been dipping into the piles of horror flicks I have neglected to take a look at in the past and this mini classic was another of those movies.

Kim Darby (best known as the neurotic mom from 80's classic BETTER OFF DEAD) stars as a a young wife of a upwardly mobile businessman. They have just purchased a home in hopes to make a new life together. John Hutton plays her husband and from the get go it is pretty clear he doesn't value her the way he should, that his work comes first. In the basement of the new house if a bricked up fireplace they are warned not to mess with, but of course she cracks it open. Soon there are these tiny little creatures scampering around the house tormenting her. Naturally her husband doesn’t believe her at all, even when things aren't adding up. Finally it all climaxes on a stormy night after they little ghouls have managed to drug her.

While the movie is not really violent (only one person dies) it is consistently creepy, preying on those fears we all have of things we can't see in the dark. Those same primal fears that make us afraid of things like rodents, snakes and small animals. If you are afraid to go into a darkened room, or to have your feet hanging off the side of the bed this is the kind of the kind of thing this movie exploits effectively. Every-time the little creatures in DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK creep around a book case or are under a table it is the universal fears we all have.

The treatment of the lead female character in the movie is abominable though as every character in the movie treats her as she is stupid, hysterical or just being a child. Even well past the point when her Husband should be excepting there is something going he he clings to the idea that she is somehow at fault, until it is too late. There is even some dialogue taking the piss out of Woman’s Lib. Making this very much a sign of the times it was made.

But at the end of the day the movie is still very effective, and most if that is because of the creepy little monsters and creative photography involving them. It is no surprise people still remember this one.

Available remastered from the Warner Brother's Burn on Demand Archive. 

Review © Andrew Copp 

Who okayed Rape on TV?

Day twelve of the September exploitation challenge takes me into the woods and on TV.  

REVENGE FOR A RAPE (1976)
D. Timothy Glafas
Made For TV
Full Frame


Probably not the most common storyline for a made for TV movie, this outdoors drama follows a Travis Green (Mike Conners) and his wife Amy (Tracy Brooks Swope) as they go into the woods to go fishing and take pictures of nature. Low and behold they didn’t think about it being hunting season and every yokel with a gun and a six pack being out there with them. We know from the opening frame of the movie bad things are going to happen because some shitheel hunter in the local store looks down the sights of his gun and this is what he sees...

If that freeze frame doesn’t set up a film, then you are deaf dumb and blind! the couple are your typical Liberal natural loving peaceniks too, so you just KNOW they are going to learn some hard lessons on this trip. Very soon we learn that Amy is pregnant as well (the movie just keeps laying it on thick and saucy) and that Travis has a hair trigger temper when some bumpkin makes a crack about her being a hot piece of ass in the local grocery. By the afternoon’s end Travis is out fishing and tree faceless goons have cut their way into her tent and gang raped her (off screen as this is a TV movie after all).

After a hair raising trip to the hospital through town, where Amy spots the three guys and Travis gets in a fight with some cops trying to get to them, she ends up at the hospital where we learn that, not surprisingly, she has lost the baby. Even worse they damaged her to the point she will not be able to have anymore kids. Naturally the men folk decide she doesn’t need to know this fact for a while. 

 "She's just out in the woods, strutting her stuff for all the nasty hunters to see..."

Meet the Sheriff played by TV favorite Robert Reed. When I saw his name in the credits I was hoping he was going to play one of the rapists. I mean what a career turnabout that would have been for Daddy Brady to play a low life sexual scumbag. But no such luck. Instead he plays the laziest cop in TV history. He tells Travis that his wife was raped at “a very bad time” and that “the guys will most likely never be caught”.  While he swigs back a beer at his desk. So naturally Travis ends up doing what any sensible and angry husband would do. he follows the scuzz buckets into the forest to try and take matters into his own hands. 

 "After The Brady Bunch you actually expect me to get off my ass and find some rapists?"

**SPOILERS**

He tracks the three goons and commences with some cat and mouse shenanigans that end up feeling more like DELIVERANCE than I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. But after he has killed the fat man, the movie pulls a curve ball on us (though one you can see coming if you have paid attention) and the Sheriff turns up at the hospital to see Amy and has her identify three dudes who turn out to be the REAL rapists! Oh Snap! Travis is out killing three innocent dudes, he thinks are the guys! Never mind that the Sheriff never got off his ass once to actually find these guys.

"He's really not doing what it looks like he's doing here." 

There are also these sugar sweet flashbacks throughout the second half in which we get to see how Travis and Amy met, got married etc. That are sure to make you more sick than any of the violence on display. you also learn that they have lived in a small mountain town for several years, so you would have thought they would have known all about hunting season, and the dumb-asses who would be out there during that time. But now such luck because they live in their own little closed off world of happy love. Yeuch. You’ll be happy when Travis picks up the hunting rifle and starts blowing people away if only because he wont be having another flashback. 

"Mannix loses his cool!!!"

So ultimately the movie is trying to make some sort of point about vigilante justice and how it never works out. About how the wrong people can just as easily end up dead and how it turns the angry into monsters. But it provides a few thrills along the way and the last act is surprisingly violent for a made for TV movie of the week. But the title is a misnomer as there really is never any “revenge for a rape” thanks to that plot twist. 

Review © Andy Copp

Raping will put you in a RAGE!!!

RAGE (1980)
D. William A. Graham
USA Home Video (VHS O.O.P.)
1.33 Made For TV

This made for TV drama is probably out of place on a blog titled Exploitation Nation as there is really nothing very exploitative about it, though it does deal in potentially nasty material. David Soul, most known from Starsky & Hutch, plays Cal a blue collar man who is arrested one morning bright and early for rape. He is quickly tried and sent to prison for 30 years in a special correctional institute for sexual offenders that specializes in therapy and treatment. He maintains his innocence of course, even though he is befriended by the other inmates who are very open about being rapists. The thing is, they are RECOVERING rapists. See, they are all under the care of the head doctor Borski, played by James Whitmore, who is using experimental regression therapy and other psycho-analytical therapeutic techniques to get these men to confront their inner demons. In the process, figuring out why they committed the crimes they have. The supporting cast of thugs and rapists are played by some outstanding actors such as Yaphett Kotto, Craig T. Nelson, Tom Noonan, and a very young Robert Davi. Naturally our lead dude eventually relents that he indeed did commit the crimes he was accused of, and in fact, more than he was caught for. Then the movie begins the journey into his past to see what made him the man he is today.

Rage is a liberal humanist look at how to deal with monsters. As a character study it is an interesting movie that holds together thanks to earnest and heartfelt performances from the pretty much the entire cast. Even TV heavy Vic Tayback throws in a few memorable scenes. But the problems are in that the psycho analysis that is supposed to explain why this man hates women and has become a rapist is pretty thin to say the least. The screenwriters really screw up in one scene by giving us a flashback to his childhood trauma that is almost laughable. Where as no other moment for any character provides any flashbacks to their pain. Instead we watch and listen to them acting out what happened and it is chillingly effective. But for the lead we instead are shown this cackling fat woman with a kid's hand being pushed towards her, and instead of it being horrifying, it is just kinda lame. Maybe its years of hearing child abuse stories in hundreds of other movies but this trauma seems so mundane that it would seem to hardly register on someones radar these days. NOOOO don't make me touch the fat lady!!!

The idea of humanizing a group of rapists for an entire movie as we see what makes them tick may seem like a bit of poor taste for a film. The movie unfortunately leaves the victims and women’s viewpoint pretty much out of it. Even the lead’s long suffering wife refuses to leave him, even after she is told the truth. The horror of rape is mentioned several times, but it is never really felt, as they all seem like pretty good guys just going through a rough spell in their lives. The movie really could have used a counter balance character of someone who was in there who really just got off on the power trip of the crime and could not be rehabilitated. But then that would fly in the face of the thesis of the movie I suppose. The therapy session scenes are kinda creepy too in that they are all touchy feely with the characters all rubbing and touching each other a little too much for comfort. I know if I was dredging up all kinds of memories about being molested as a child, the last thing I would want is some sex offender rubbing my naked belly.

So this movie is a bizarre little curio from a period when made for TV movies tried to tackle serious issues and attracted very good actors because of it. It is not a great movie, but it has some value. But its no I Spit On your Grave!

Andy Copp