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Well, those nasty knights are at it again… this time they are accompanied by the haunted seagulls of lost souls. Yes, it is time for La Noche de las Gaviotas (Night of the Seagulls) the final installment of the Blind Dead series! This one continues the trend of “each movie lamer than before” and is a plain old dud. The glorious rotted knights now live in a seaside castle near a frightened village, the folks of which leave out virginal daughters (seven nights every seven years) for the knights dinner. Some city slickers arrive (taking over for the old bejezzus-free doctor) with their fancy brown polyester Italian duds and decide that they know more than the unfriendly locals. Of course, they interfere with the good-natured nightly sacrifices and so the knights come a calling!
Some issues? Well, my two usual problems: the nighttime? They surely could have at least made the nighttime scenes look like they might have been at night, maybe just a thicker blue filter? And also, that damned, unavoidable dubbing. Not only is it irritating, but they’ve given these folks American names! Seeing folks in a Mediterranean village all having names like “Henry Stein” sits a bit funny on the nerves. Then, to top it off, the dead seem less blind and also less dead than before.
High points? Well, the movie starts off with more of the neer-do-well knights back when their clothes were still clean. So that’s good. And, well, the blood scenes at the end were good. Final thoughts? Watch the first and second films. If you like them, then you should have The Blind Dead Collection. Everyone needs a coffin on their shelf.
If you, like me, gain all the knowledge that you have of religion from film, you have maybe noticed that there is a line between that which is good and worthy (Prince of Darkness, the Devils, maybe even the Seventh Sign, for a Hollywood take) and the thousands that are mediocre and those others that will not further your education in any worthwhile fashion (including anything nunsploitation [excluding, of course, the above mentioned]). The Old Testament of all of these would have to be The Exorcist (no, not the version you (thankfully) haven’t seen… and not any of the sequels). Not only is it one of the scariest and creepiest films ever made (I can’t even imagine what it seemed like to theater goers 35 years ago), it is also just a brilliant and wonderful film… But the subject of Catholic Exorcism is is also very interesting. Not just for it’s own merits but because I believe that no matter how huge a percentage of folks claim some kind of Christian faith, I feel that most would also be wary of subscribing to any belief in possession or demons in any real sense. I find it interesting how much folks who subscribed to organized religion feel free to proclaim faith yet to ignore or disbelieve whichever tenets they feel like they can’t buy into. It seems that most churches (including the Roman Catholics and the Anglican Church) have rules, practices and holy men assigned to deal with possessions. Maybe it’s another one of those “Cafeteria Christian†things… Where they like the idea of a christ and a god, but demons? That’s too much, it’s just silly medieval stuff.
Anyway, why this digression on people having faith but only where it suits them? Well, we watched another great exorcism film, the Exorcism of Emily Rose. Based on an incident in the seventies where a German woman died after an exorcism attempt and the priests and her parents were found guilty (though not punished) of manslaughter, it is a rather interesting movie. It’s not particularly creepy or scary but it’s the story of a young woman who receives a visitor in the night while away at college and becomes a bit troubled. The movie takes place after the incident, around the trial of the priest (Tom Wilkinson is great in this role) so alot of it is focused on the limits of faith and the difficult aspects of covering an issue like this in a jury trial. The trial stuff isn’t particularly interesting, but the flashbacks to the exorcism scenes are great fun (and much more family friendly then the Exorcist) and the details of the ritual are good. My only real complaint is that the editing, or whatever, make it flow more like a TV movie or a long episode of some courtroom drama.
Next we have some more down-to-earth bad behavior. After some exposure to Jim Thompson, I have become a big (though not thorough) fan of his work. The Grifters is a wonderful film and after reading The Killer Inside Me, I find his take on the good facade plastered lightly over bad people to be very compelling. I have long been planning on reading Pop. 1280 but instead, I got the disc of Coup de Torchon, a French film that transplants the troubling sheriff of the American south into 1930’s French colonial Africa. It is interesting to see how well it works to takes a racist white minority in the USA and contrast them with colonial Africa. Of course, it works just fine.
Philippe Noiret plays Lucien, an almost unbelievably inept sheriff. He’s easily bribed, avoids confrontation, is frequently cuckolded (in his own house)… Basically a putzy laughing stock, he would be “bungling” but he doesn’t really do enough to earn that title. This reputation is known, not just in his little town, by the law in the nearby city, who also treat him like a joke. One day though, filled with frustration over the constant embarrassing harassment by the local pimps, he heads to the city to complain to his counterparts there… in the midst of them also publicly embarrassing him, he gets a notion to take a joke suggestion a bit too seriously and decides to go back to town and push back. Of course, what separates this from a million other similar stories is that he continues to hide behind his dopey persona as the bad guys fall and others take the blame. It becomes a case of will he get caught and does his remorseless reprisal know any limits?
