Tag: kevin mccarthy

Suburban Hell (Invitation to Hell, 1984)

So, if Deadly Blessing was mediocre? Invitation to Hell is a bit of a campy and predictable take. It opens with a driver who is making his way through a community. He is distracted and accidentally runs a woman over. It is okay, because she is Susan Lucci and is not going to die in the first three minute. She points a finger at the guy and he blows up or bursts into flame…I have already forgotten.

But the real focus of the (TV) movie Robert Urich as Matt Winslow. Matt is a scientist who has taken a high level job that requires his family to move to a prestigious community. There is an elite club run by Jessica Jones. She immediately sets about trying to convince Matt to join her club. While her family wants to join, Matt does not trust her.

Jessica tells Matt’s wife Pat that she could make an exception to the standard requirement of the entire family joining. So Pat and her kids commit to the club…with a whole selling your soul type of ceremony.

As time passes, Matt starts to feel like an outsider in both his family and the community at large. There are mysterious deaths and ominous goings ons…but um…well, it is pretty obvious between the title and early moments in the film…Matt has to save his family from hot demon lady.

I wish I could say this is campy fun…but it is boringly predictable and silly.

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Fishies pt 1 (Piranha, 1978)

piranha_1978_posterJoe Dante’s third film was one of Roger Corman’s knockoff films.  Corman had a formula and it had a lot to do with seeing what was big or on the verge of big and following suit with lower budgets.  And it worked.  A lot of well known filmmakers and performers came out of the Corman Machine.  Dante, James Cameron, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Gale Anne Hurd and John Sayles are but a few.

The first writing gig for John Sayles, Piranha is the tale of a young private detective named Maggie who is searching for a rich man’s daughter who disappeared on a hiking trip.  She meets up with local guide Paul and they find a remote building with a large pool.  They suspect maybe there could be bodies in the pool.  They find the lever to flush the pool, but get in a struggle with a crazed gentleman who wants to make sure they do not succeed.  After they managed to flush the pool, they find two skeletons.  Ultimately, it turns out that the pool was full of genetically altered piranha who are making their way down the river eating everything that comes into their path.  The river is taking them right to a local summer camp and a grand opening of a resort.

As is to be expected, there is a race against time (Paul’s daughter is at the camp) as Maggie and Paul try to warn everyone.  The local mayor wants them jailed, as he does not want to hurt tourism.  Did I mention that Piranha was made to cash in on the success of Jaws?

Sayles and Dante do not treat this as just a knockoff of a bigger film.  They understand the limits of their budget, and center things to work within those boundaries.  This results in a fun monster movie that has plenty to enjoy.  It is not nearly as exploitative as other Corman films (Corman often had deals with distributors requiring sex scenes and gratuitous nudity) and the gore is low level.  The titular piranhas are often unseen or blurry shadows.  The attacks often involve people disappearing beneath churning waters.

The cast is enjoyable, especially Corman regulars like Paul Bartel and Dick Miller.  Kevin McCarthy is always dependable for the “Maniacal Scientist” role, and he does not let the viewer down here.  Piranha has earned it’s cult status, being one of the more clever attempts to take advantage of a hit movie.  It manages to avoid simply being an imitation and is quite memorable in it’s own right.

 

 

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We Got It All On… (UHF, 1989)

weird-alBack in 1989, Weird Al Yankovic tried to conquer the movies.  He did not quite succeed, as this was Al’s only starring role.  UHF was low on plot, mainly a vehicle for film and television parody.  The film has maintained a cult following, and not without reason.

Yankovic’s UHF is goofy and fun.  The basic set up is daydreamer George (Weird Al Yankovic) is just getting by, working minimum wage jobs, unsuccessfully.  He is big on imagination, but no idea how to put it into use.  His Uncle wins a rundown television station and his wife convinces him to let George run it.

Against all odds, the network succeeds, as George hires local oddballs to have shows.  His own attempt at a kids show fails, but when the janitor Stanley Spadowski (Michael Richards) steps in?  Ratings skyrocket.  This attracts the ire of R.J. Fletcher (Kevin McCarthy), owner of the largest station in the city, who does not want to lose the number one spot.  And so hi-jinks ensue.

uhf_firehoseAs I said, this is mostly a vehicle for film and TV parody, and that is when the film is the most fun.  The film has two modes…most of the film parodies occur as daydreams where George views himself in iconic roles such as Indiana Jones and Rambo.  Then there are the TV clips… ads for TV Movies (Such as Conan the Librarian and Gandhi II), commercials for stores (Spatula City) and then the shows themselves (Wheel a Fish & Rual’s Wild Kingdom).  These bits are often both goofy and clever and the jokes are Gatling gun fast.

There is a romantic subplot where George is trying to avoid losing the love of his life, Teri (Victoria Jackson), by proving he is responsible.  But, along with the other subplots, this is the least creative aspect of the film.

uhf_mccarthyThe film is solidly cast with character actors like Kevin McCarthy (who could chew scenery like few others),Stanley Brock as George’s gambling addicted Uncle Harvey and Billy Barty as Noodles MacIntosh.  It also features plenty of folks who made it big in the 90s, such as Michael Richards & Fran Drescher.  The talent involved elevates a lot of this, especially considering the slightness of story.

The one uncomfortable area is the racism surrounding the character Kuni, an Asian martial arts instructor.  Played by Gedde Watanabe (who has long faced harsh criticism for his role as Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles) the character speaks stilted and awkward english.  He pronounces his “R’s” as “L’s” and barks out responses.  I admit, there are aspects of the character that work okay…he is needlessly tough on the contestants on his game show “Wheel a Fish”.  When someone ends up losing, instead of being comforting, he starts yelling at them deriding them for being so stupid.

uhf-weird-al-oscarFor the most part, though the humor is not cruel, simply having fun with wordplay, slapstick and visual gags.

The 25th Anniversary Blu-Ray from the Shout Factory has a great new painted cover by James Hance.  The HD picture is, for the large part excellent.  There are a couple random moments where the quality dips.  A few instances will just never get better because the picture is imitating a bad UHF signal.

UHFramboThe bonus features are a decent collection.  While the three minute behind the scenes is not too exciting, there is nearly an hour of a 2014 career retrospective from Comic Con International that is funny and enjoyable.  In case you think I am being to rough on Al for the simple plot, he himself states they just needed a story that let them string along the gags.  He suggests that if he were to go back to it, he would have put more effort into the actual story.  The deleted scenes are from the previous DVD…but it is a creative take.  Weird Al hosts explaining that the scenes were deleted because the scenes sucked.  He then pops in between sequences to deride the deleted scenes.  The disc also contains the UHF music video and various promotional materials such as trailers and still photos.  It is, overall a nice and inclusive package.  It would have been neat if they could have pulled off a even a short retrospective of the film, both it’s creation and the later cult following.  But the overall package is worth it for fans of the film and Weird Al Yankovic.

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