The Fugitive (1993), directed by Andrew Davis

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune - "The Fugitive" by Merle Haggard

       The 1990’s were really the last gasp of 1960’s nostalgia, before all of pop culture was subsumed by the 80’s retrovirus. We saw it in fashion, we saw it in music with the rise of jam bands and the return of Woodstock, and it happened in the world of cinema with a legion of 60’s shows being adapted for the big screen. Mission Impossible, The Addams Family, The Brady Bunch, Josie & the Pussycats, The Flintstones, The Wild Wild West, Doctor Who, even Batman took an ill-fated turn towards his Adam West past. While it is the tendency of modern audiences to denounce reboots or revivals of anything, and some of these remakes ended up falling flat on their giant robotic spider faces, several more were great success and were seamlessly absorbed into the pop cultural consciousness, either proving that good stories stand the test of time or justifying major studios pushing out remakes in the first place. Take your pick.

       Of these revival shows, the one that looms the largest is The Fugitive. Ever since I was a kid I have constantly seen this film referenced by other films and TV shows, to the point where (much like Star Wars) I feel like I have a working knowledge of the film through cultural osmosis. Still the desire to see where all the references originated from has lingered in the back of my mind, even if it’s never been in the running for a Marathon entry, and before I get back into the Marathon grind I figured this was a good time to cross it off the queue.

       Released in 1993, The Fugitive was directed by Andrew Davis, written by Jeb Stuart and David Twohy (who you might know from the Riddick films) and produced by Arnold Kopelson through Kopelson Entertainment, based on the TV series by Roy Huggins which ran from 1963-67. Harrison Ford plays Dr. Richard Kimble, a Chicago surgeon who arrives home one night to find his wife Helen dead, murdered by a one armed man. The cops, helpful as ever, decide to arrest him instead, and thanks to an unfortunately vague 911 call from Helen before her death, Kimble is convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. On the bus ride to the big house however, a series of events leads to the bus crashing, and Kimble getting free. Now he’s a fugitive, moving from place to place, sneaking around back alleys and night-fueled streets as he tries to track down the mysterious one armed man. One step behind him is U.S. Marshall Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), the man who will not rest until Kimble is in chains and behind bars, no matter what. The chase is on, and Kimble better run.

       The Fugitive then is a binary story -- One half the murder mystery plot and the other Gerard’s hunt for Kimble. The former could possibly work on its own, but combining Kimble’s hunt with Gerard’s hunt gives the film an enormous boost of energy. By the first 30 minutes we have some of the most out and out action in the film, including the scene at the dam which has been referenced ad nauseum, and every scene after that is suffused with a frantic energy. Any moment a cop could round the corner or a passerby could recognize Kimble’s face, and because we are beside him we share in that tension as it crests and recedes, driven forward by James Newton Howard’s score like a runaway train. Only increasing as Gerard’s net tightens, and the two plots converge more and more towards the explosive climax. Rather than saying that they don’t make films like this anymore, because of course they still make thrillers, but The Fugitive was definitely one of those films from the 80s and 90s that seemed to capture a ‘classic Hollywood’ feeling with a then modern coat of paint. The kind of movie that Hitchcock would have made, although he’d have probably tried to squeeze in a beautiful female love interest in there somewhere.

       The Fugitive is also built around two performances, that of Harrison Ford as Richard Kimble and Tommy Lee Jones as Samuel Gerard. Harrison Ford...is Harrison Ford. The man had spent the last decade playing Hollywood’s most lovable rogues and badasses, so it’s an interesting change of pace to see him behind the 8-ball here, more haggard and weather-beaten than ever before, even if it’s not earth-shattering. For Tommy Lee Jones, this is a career-defining performance. Samuel Gerard is the complete opposite of Richard Kimble: where Kimble is quiet and reserved, Gerard is boisterous and condescending. Where Kimble is alone, Gerard is surrounded by people, or more accurately subordinates. And where Kimble is ultimately a good person, going out of his way to help people even when it puts him in danger, Gerard ultimately isn’t -- driven to capture Kimble not out of any sense of justice but because the law demands it, and everything else a distant second. All of which he conveys with an ease that feels utterly believable. Jones, more so than Ford, is what makes The Fugitive the film that it is, and it’s no wonder he was later picked up for the MIB films. The dude is concentrated lawman in a can.

       My biggest issue with the film actually comes from the film’s most famous scene, the showdown at the dam. Kimble appears to be caught; Behind him Gerard waits, gun drawn, and in front of him a raging waterfall and a  several story drop in the river below. Throwing caution to the wind, Kimble decides to jump into the waterfall...only it’s not Harrison Ford leaping over the edge obviously, but a dummy. It’s so obviously a dummy that it actually took me out of the movie for a moment or two. Considering that earlier in the film we had an action set piece involving a runaway train that looked very well done, it only makes it stand out even more. Unfortunately I don’t think there was a way to make it look good in 1993, they could have used a bluescreen but you’d probably still be able to tell. Plus a bluescreen would have denied the filmmakers the pleasure of chucking a dummy off of a waterfall, and who am I to deny their fun?

       The Fugitive gets an easy recommendation. It takes the core of the original series and boils it down to its essence, managing to update it for moviegoers at the time without losing sight of why the story was successful in the first place. It’s also just a good thriller film on a base level, which doesn’t require any knowledge of the TV show to succeed. So if you like good thriller films, then you should give The Fugitive a try, and if you’re a one armed man, you better watch your ass buddy. We’ve got out eyes on you.

Massacre Mafia Style (1974), directed by Duke Mitchell

 

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune - "Mambo Italiano" by Dean Martin

       One of the stranger episodes in the saga of Hollywood is the 1952 movie Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. A genre film in the vein of the Abbott and Costello horror crossovers such as Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, the film starred Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, two young comedians who bore a striking resemblance to the duo of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. So much so that Lewis and his manager threatened to sue the ass off of everyone involved with the project, there was even talk selling the negatives so that they could be destroyed, thereby wiping the film from existence. Ultimately though that deal fell through and Brooklyn Gorilla would go on to a life of poor reviews and general obscurity, to the delight of losers like me who talk about weird movies all the time.

       Unfortunately when your debut film is a blatant ripoff of one of the most popular acts in the country at the time it doesn’t bode well for your career, and indeed that was the case for Mitchell and Petrillo, who were hounded by Lewis’ people and essentially blacklisted from the industry up until the dissolution of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis’s partnership in ‘56. Patrillo went into film production with a minor in porn while Mitchell had a couple bit parts in a few movies no one remembers before settling into the club circuit in Palm Springs and typically that would be the end of the story, except for the fact that in the mid 70s, over a decade after his last film appearance, Mitchell pulled a Cassavetes and decided to try his hand at making movies independently. He would end up making two films before his death in 1981, Massacre Mafia Style and Gone with the Pope (which had only gotten as far as the workprint stage), and it would be another couple of decades before these films were rediscovered in his son Jeffrey’s garage and given a formal release on home media. Gonzo exploitation films made by a former Dean Martin impersonator sounds right up my reviewing alley, and it just so happens that while I was in the process of uploading Hellraiser 2 I happened to stumble across one of those films while browsing my local streaming service. That’s the kind of opportunity that this blog was built on, so let’s give it a try.

       Released in 1974. Massacre Mafia Style was written, directed and produced by Duke Mitchell, with additional production help by Joseph R. Juliano and Spartan Films. Duke Mitchell stars as Mimi Miceli, son of Don Miceli, the former head of organized crime in America before he was deported back to Sicily. Mimi is tired of living in his father’s shadow however, and he decides to move to Los Angeles to break into the business with his family friend Jolly Rizzo (Vic Caesar). Which they do in the classic fashion, kidnapping some schmuck and mailing his body parts to family members. Crime today is not the same as they were in Pappy Miceli’s time however -- the former lieutenants are now trying to pass themselves off as legit businessmen, and the seedier aspects of the business have been taken over by *gasp* minorities. The respect for tradition, for family, that once supposedly defined the Cosa Nostra, that Mimi learned of at his daddy’s knee. Well fuck that, Mimi wants the cash and he wants the power, and he’s going to show all these guys what it means to be a mobster. Even if he has to massacre them, mafia style.

      With national morale at an all time low, it’s no wonder that the 70’s saw the explosive revival of the crime film. Loose cannon cops, pimps, street punks, con artists, these were who the youth were flocking to rather than John Wayne or Andy Griffith. Of course that classical archetype of criminal syndicates, the Mob, also got a new generation of eyes on it with Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 magnum opus The Godfather. Massacre Mafia Style takes some cues from Godfather obviously, going so far as to say that Coppola’s film is based on the life of Don Miceli, but this is certainly not a sweeping drama. This is an exploitation film, which means that the focus is on the more visceral aspects of gangster life, meaning extreme violence, gratuitous tits, and plenty of naughty language. The kinds of things you don’t want on the screen when your mom walks in the room.

        Of those three, the most screen time is devoted to violence. The first five to ten minutes of the film is literally like a scene from Postal 2 or some forgotten Tarantino picture, walking up to people and blasting them to hell before moving on to the met room. Nothing especially gorey, except for one scene (you’ll know it when you see it), but then this film was made for 12,000, so they worked with what they had, which was a lot of fake blood and prop guns. Quantity over quality, the calling card of grindhouse films, and this film is a prime example of that.

       That lack of quality shines through when you get to the acting, which ranges from decent to more wooden than a lumber mill. Duke himself is one of the better ones, which you’d hope for considering he made the damn thing, but he often suffers from a monotonal cadence which limits his emotional range. It’s good enough in short one-liners but when the dialogue drags on, like the several speeches Duke likes to give he ends up suffering for it. Still this isn’t quite a Tommy Wiseau situation, Mitchell knows how filmmaking works and the acting, while hit or miss, still has a logic behind it that makes sense. Scenes play out as you expect, characters act as you’d expect them to act, et cetera. While it may be a vanity project, there was some care put into its creation.

       I also think it’s prudent to write a little on the film’s approach to race relations here. Now you can say that this was a more loose period, and that these are bad people who do and say bad things, but there comes a point where it goes beyond establishing a character and starts getting uncomfortable. There’s one scene where Jolly is ranting for what feels for several minutes, and it feels like half the words out of his mouth begin with the letter ‘n’ while the other characters in the scene sit in silence. Again maybe if the Black characters gave it as good as they got, or there was some sort of repercussions then there’d at least be a purpose, but there are exactly two Black people in this movie (one of whom is even named a racial epithet) and they only exist to show off how macho the mafia is supposed to be, and nothing that ends up happening to any of these characters is a result of these scenes. And it’s really only Black people who get it too in spite of this multiethnic cast, I think there might be one Japanese guy who gets a slur thrown at them, but considering that particular word hasn’t seen major use since 1945 it doesn’t have quite the same impact. Mitchell was the sole creative voice on this film, so there’s no one else you can raise the eyebrow at. Just really awkward atmosphere in this dumb gangster picture. 

       Oh yeah, and there are naked breasts. Whatever.

       Massacre Mafia Style is a film that wants to be a hard boiled noir but ends up closer to your run-of-the-mill video nasty. It’s violent and occasionally absurd, but I never felt connected to the story so it amounted to nothing. The story felt disjointed as well, with events suddenly popping in with little preamble and plot points that make little sense, all leading up to an ending that I’m sure Mitchell felt was very profound when he was writing the script. Massacre Mafia Style is definitely a cult film -- in the sense that every low budget movie from the 70s and 80s with a little gore and some tits has some kind of following, but calling it a ‘cult classic’ would be going a step too far. The novelty of watching a grindhouse exploitation flick made by the big band equivalent of an Elvis impersonator might be enough to earn a watch for the exceptionally curious, but I can’t give it the recommendation. Gone with the Pope sounds like it might be fun though, maybe one day I’ll get around to it.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), directed by Tony Randel

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune - "She's A Killer" by Alien Sex Fiend

       The story of Clive Barker, as I’ve written on this blog several times, is one of dichotomy. When it comes to the world of literature he was and is an obvious success, establishing himself almost immediately as one of the premier horror writers of the 80’s, a decade infested with weirdos from Britain, especially if you read comics. Yet when it came to film, the gambling den of writers everywhere, that success seems to have fizzled out. Clive Barker has worked on over a dozen films over the years, written, produced, even directed, the man has been more involved in the creative process of cinema than most writers, but ask the regular movie goer about a Clive Barker film and you’ll be lucky to get three. Again, more than what a lot of writers can say, but absolutely abysmal when compared with the behemoth known as Stephen King, a comparison that I make almost as often as I reference the fact that I make this comparison. 

       I’ve covered several of Barker’s films so far on this blog, and the end results have been hit or miss. Rawhead Rex was lackluster, a goofy monster compared with an psychosexual storyline that probably reads better than it plays, but no one is gonna play it because the name ‘Rawhead Rex’ sounds stupid as hell. Nightbreed was pretty good, a film that probably could’ve been bigger had it been made during the peak of the Twilight years. Candyman I’ve already gone over in this year’s Marathon, suffice to say that my criticisms then are still my criticisms now. Not unmemorable films per se, but not really transcending the limitations and the stigma of genre films.

       Then there’s Hellraiser. Released in 1987, a year after the mediocre Rawhead Rex, Hellraiser was the embodiment of everything that defined Clive Barker as an artist (probably helped that it was directed by the man himself): grotesque gore, an exploration of sexual themes that went beyond what audiences were likely used to at the time, all of which feels darkly surreal in this otherwise mundane world. Watching Hellraiser you can see immediately why it became a hit, and why it faltered when it transitioned into a franchise; It’s Clive Barker’s vision that made the idea work, and when placed in the hands of people who don’t ‘get it’, it becomes just another horror movie but with a love for leather goods. Still most horror franchises have enough steam for at least one more decent movie, and since I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to it during next year’s Marathon, I decided to check it out now.

       Released in 1988, Hellbound: Hellraiser II was written by Peter Atkins, directed by Tony Randel and produced by Christopher Figg and David Barron through Film Futures and Troopstar. Taking place almost immediately after the events of the first film, Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) has been transferred to the local mental institution in order to recuperate from the trauma, although no one seems to believe her about the whole ‘puzzle box unleashing demons and my rapey uncle wearing my dad as a skin suit’ thing. Everyone except the head doctor of the facility Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham), who just so happens to be something of an occultist; So much so that not only does he have a handful of puzzle boxes but he also has the know-how to bring the Queen of Hags herself Julia (Clare Higgins) back to ‘life’. Meanwhile, Kirsty is having visions of her father, who seems to have gotten stuck in hell after the whole skinned alive thing and is now stuck there. Everyone needs to get to hell today, so someone better get to work on that souped-up rubix cube.

       Hellbound is a film with a foundation built on convenience. Kirsty just so happens to be sent to a hospital where the main doctor conveniently knows everything about the puzzle box, conveniently knows how to revive Julia despite there being no reason why he would, conveniently has a character (Tiffany) whose whole thing is solving puzzles, it speaks to a movie in desperate need for a story rather than in desperate need to be told. Now if Kirsty had been a patient for months, constantly dropping hints of the Cenobites and we could see Channard playing 4-D chess, putting all the pieces together for his master plan then it’d be fine, but the way the film is laid out it feels like the whole thing takes place over the weekend, and half of it is just rehashing stuff from the first movie. Other films are a slow burn, Hellraiser 2 is trying to cook with M-80s.

       Until the characters get to hell that is, where things become a lot more interesting. Hell in the Hellraiser universe is not the popular conception of hell, with lakes of fire and brimstone, but an Escher-like collection of labyrinthine corridors that stretch on for infinity, presided over not by a horned guy with a pitchfork but by an enormous floating object known as Leviathan. It’s an alien, dare I say Lovecraftian vision of the afterlife that helps Hellbound stand apart from its peers. Tony Randel loves reusing this shot of characters, barely specks on the screen, walking on top of one of the infinite labyrinth as Leviathan hangs above, sweeping the land like some horrific lighthouse, and I mean I would too because it’s an amazing visual and a terrific matte painting. 80’s genre films had a thing about depicting otherworldly places as cloudy grey voids, but here it works in Hellbound’s favor. As with most of these types of movies you end up wishing that the film explored more of the weirder stuff, like what’s the deal with the whole hell circus thing, but what we do get is arguably the best addition of lore any of these horror franchises have ever gotten. Set it up against the Thorn Cult debacle in the Halloween series and Hellbound blows it out of the water.

       It’s also interesting how the Cenobites are utilized across the two films. In the first Hellraiser they were the secret final boss of the story, while rapey uncle Frank and Julia took the role as the primary antagonists. A little switcheroo for the sequel, Julia is in Frank’s position and we’ve got Channard now, but the Cenobites are strikingly less antagonistic than they were before. They still go on about torture and what not, standard BDSM monster stuff, but their place in the story is less outright villainous and more Cheshire Cat, taunting Kirsty as she traverses hell. By the end they actually achieve a manner of depth, which I wasn’t expecting at all. Clive Barker does seem like one of those people who are super into the whole ‘actually monsters are the good guys’ angle, the Transatlantic Tim Burton if you will, but only Nightbreed and this film actually dabbled in it. Dabbled being the operative word here, this is Hellraiser 2 we’re talking about here not Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, but it is a bit of development that will unfortunately be cast aside as the franchise rolls on and Pinhead loses two of his dimensions.

       As far as special effects go Hellbound maintains the standard set by the first film, and in some cases moves beyond it, as sequels ought to do. There’s the nasty shit for all the gorehounds out there, the excellent matte paintings and cinematography, there’s even some experimenting with (admittedly janky) stop-motion, really helps you to forget how many musty hallways there are in the film. In particular the scene in which Channard allows a patient, believing himself to be infested with maggots, to mutilate his body with a razor blade is the most grotesque scene since Frank’s bloody skeleton pulled himself out of the floor in the first Hellraiser, lasting just long enough to become really uncomfortable. 

       In regards to any ‘flaws’, it definitely seems like they were pushing for Tiffany to have more plot relevancy, given the whole hell circus scene and the implications behind her trauma, that are left on the table, and the Kirsty/Tiffany bond they try to push later on feels thrown together considering the two barely interact in or out of hell until the very end. Channard is also a bit of a letdown; Here we have an psychopathic doctor, a man who is perfectly fine with abusing and sacrificing the people under his care for his own ends, an actual defined villain unlike random dude Frank, and he’s just kind of there. Making confused faces and playing second banana until the film decides he’s relevant again. “Really?”, You think to yourself. “THIS guy is supposed to be the antagonist”? Cranham isn’t a poor actor, but in a series that is extreme to the point of ridiculousness he almost kills the momentum.

       Hellbound: Hellraiser II gets the recommendation. While the creative decisions Tony Randel and company made might have pushed the series closer to dark fantasy than out and out horror, those same decisions defined the world of Hellraiser beyond just weird puzzle boxes and that one Cenobite that looks like a thumb with sunglasses. It’s also a good place to stop; Kirsty’s story is wrapped up, the day is saved and in spite of any sequel bait that appears by the time the credits rolled I felt a sense of satisfaction. We’ve been to hell and back, the characters had their arcs, there’s nothing left to say, and the reception to the later Hellraiser films would seem to agree. Maybe that Hellraiser reboot that’s supposed to be coming out will freshen things up, unlike the Friday the 13th reboot or the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot or the Leprechaun reboot. Until then, Hellraiser and Hellbound make for a fine double feature. Grab a bowl of popcorn and your favorite skin suit and enjoy.