Ten Days of Terror!: Billy the Kid vs. Dracula

Film: Billy the Kid vs. Dracula
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

When I started this blog at the end of 2009 (Jeez…2009!), I knew I would be going to some places that were going to move me out of my comfort zone. I would watch directors I’d never heard of, movies that took me places I hadn’t conceived of, and would see sights that would stick with me for good or ill. But of all of the places I have gone with this project, I could not have foreseen something as singularly bizarre as Billy the Kid vs. Dracula.

The title of this one doesn’t contain any secrets. We’re literally going to see William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid (Chuck Courtney) facing off against Count Dracula (John Carradine) in the Wild West. Dracula is going cross-country for some reason, and it’s not explained. Honestly, that’s probably for the best. It doesn’t matter how Dracula crossed the Atlantic or why he, a creature who depends on a population to feed on and protection from daylight, is crossing a huge wilderness thinly inhabited by settlers and otherwise populated by an almost certainly hostile native population. It also doesn’t really explain how he manages to travel by night when the average stagecoach traveled through the day. These are things better left unexplored, honestly.

Hunter/Hunted

Film: Nope
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on the kid’s television.

I’ve been in St. Louis since last Saturday. Like last year, I’m pet sitting my daughter’s dog while she is on vacation with her boyfriend’s family. I’ve been watching sitcoms mostly for the week while I’ve been grading papers, but now that I’m pretty much done with my papers for the week, it was time to sit back with a movie. Naturally I brought some discs with me, and I figured this would be as good a time as any to finally catch up with Nope, Jordan Peele’s third film.

Musicians often have a sophomore slump because all of their best songs that they’ve worked on for years go on the first album, and the second one ends up feeling rushed. Movies tend to drop off in the third film these days—think of all of the trilogies you can. With rare exceptions like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the third movie tends to be where things drop off. It’s true of most genres, goes back at least as far as the Star Wars trilogy, and is true of unconventional trilogies like Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy. It’s also true of Jordan Peele’s first three movies.

Southern Gothic

Film: Ghosts of the Ozarks
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

Movies can be the most frustrating thing sometimes. Ghosts of the Ozarks is a really good example of this. This is a film that desperately wants to have an interesting story to tell and does a lot of things right. And when we get to the end, it spoils all of that with perhaps the most contrived ending possible. There’s a tremendous sense of mystery here that holds promise right up to the point where that mystery is revealed, and it really damages the entire movie.

I’m calling this a Western because there very much is a sense of this being a part of that genre despite it taking place in Arkansas. A doctor named James McCune (Thomas Hobson) is recruited by his uncle (Phil Morris) to attend their community. James goes, but is accosted along the way by a man who, when a red mist comes through the forest, is dragged away by something unseen. James soon locates the town of Norfork, which is hidden behind a massive wall. It’s here that he learns about the ghosts, the creatures that surround the area and both protect the town and harass anyone who goes out at night.

Brokeback Ranch

Film: The Power of the Dog
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

I tried to watch The Power of the Dog a couple of months ago, and for whatever reason, I found myself wandering. I walked away from it for a bit until I felt I was more mentally prepared for it. And then I more or less forgot about until I realized that I had to finish up the Oscar movies from last year so that I could complete the Oscar Got It Wrong! posts over the next month. I want to be clear here in saying that my first failed attempt to watch this was on me and wasn’t the fault of the movie. I was just really tired.

There is going to be a natural inclination to make some comparisons between The Power of the Dog and Brokeback Mountain; I’m not immune to that myself, as suggested by the title of this review. First, this is a more modern Western both in the sense that it is a modern film and in the sense that this doesn’t take place in the Old West. For as much as this is at least in part a cowboy movie, this take place in 1925. Second, there is definitely a theme of homosexuality and homoeroticism that runs through this.

The Milk of Human Kindness

Films: First Cow
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on basement television

Let’s talk for a second about one of the serious problems that Oscar has. Since this blog is still at least tangentially attached to Oscar films, I feel as if it’s in my wheelhouse. We’re going to take as our text the film First Cow, which managed to be completely ignored in 2019 despite having a lot of what Oscar appears to look for. Was it the woman director crafting a film with essentially no women characters (Alia Shawkat in the beginning notwithstanding)? Was it the fact that much of the cast is lesser known? That the plot of the movie isn’t controversial? A combination of these things? Something else?

First Cow really is a very simple movie. It’s also one of those rare movies that gives us a sense of the way things are going to end and then the rest of the movie is going to get there. That beginning is an unknown woman (Shawkat) discovering two human skeletons laying side-by-side in the present day. From here, we jump back in time to 1820 and meet Otis “Cookie” Figowitz (John Magaro), who is travelling through Oregon Country as the cook for a group of trappers. One evening, he encounters King-Lu (Orion Lee) who is on the run for killing a Russian man. Otis lets King sleep in his tent for the night and then sees him off in the morning.

Ten Days of Terror!: The Burrowers

Film: The Burrowers
Format: DVD from personal collection on basement television

A lot of horror movies are combinations of the horror genre and another genre. Science fiction, for instance, has a lot in common with horror. I think that almost everyone who is a fan of one of those two genres is going to be a fan of the other. That’s less true for other genres, and yet those crossovers exist. There are horror comedies, horror musicals, horror romances, and more. With The Burrowers, we get a horror western, and there really aren’t enough of those. There’s so much potential for the horror western, and many of them (Ravenous, Bone Tomahawk and even movies like Vampire$ and Tremors have some Western flair) are a lot of fun to watch. So I was excited by the prospect of The Burrowers, which is a classic oater and also clearly a horror movie.

We’re going to dive head-first into pioneer territory as the movie begins. It’s the late 1870s, so post American Civil War. Irish immigrant Feargus Coffey (Karl Geary) proposes to his girlfriend, only to discover that she and the family she lives with has been either murdered or captured in the night. Naturally, the local natives, specifically a tribe of Sioux, is blamed for the crime. Coffey, as well as other locals including John Clay (Clancy Brown) and William Parcher (William Mapother) form a posse, and are soon joined by a military contingent led by the racist and condescending Henry Victor (Doug Hutchison). Soon after leaving the local settlement, the group captures a native and tortures him for information. What he provides is not what they expected—he tells of what the posse assumes is a tribe called “Burrowers” that have plagued the area for centuries. They used to feed on the buffalo herds, but since the herds have been mostly wiped out, they’ve switched to human prey.

Yippy Ki-Yay

Film: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Format: Streaming vieo from NetFlix on the new internet machine.

Say what you will about the new “networks” putting together movies and shows, you can’t really say that they’re not going for it. Amazon, HBO, Hulu, and NetFlix are producing television and original movies that are as good or better than the more traditional networks and studios. That these studios are starting to see Oscar nominations is indicative of this, at least in some respects. A better indication is the level of talent working on these projects. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, was written and directed by no less than the Coen brothers, and has a cast of extremely recognizable talent, even in miniscule roles.

What I didn’t realize when I start watching—I went into it completely cold—is that The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is an anthology. This is essentially six short films in one slightly-more-than-two-hour package linked together by someone flipping pages in a book and showing us a full-page illustration of the story to come. So, it was quite a shock to me when the first story ended and we move on to a completely new story.

Off Script: Bone Tomahawk

Films: Bone Tomahawk
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on laptop.

I’d heard about Bone Tomahawk and that it was a grueling horror movie worth seeing. Imagine my surprise when I found it at a local library. This isn’t the kind of film that libraries normally carry in my experience. It’s easy to find dramas in the library, not nearly so easy to find horror, particularly horror that hits the gore factor hard. But, as I say, I’d heard about it, and figured it was worth a watch.

Bone Tomahawk is very much two different films. There is the Western part of the film, much of which feels like a pretty standard film in the genre. Then there is the cannibalistic troglodyte part of the film that is anything but. In a sense, writer/director S. Craig Zahler has updated the Italian cannibal films like Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox and put a decidedly American spin on them. Or, if you prefer, it’s a Wild West version of The Hills Have Eyes.

Cowboy Noir

Film: Hell or High Water
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on laptop.

I came to Hell or High Water knowing only the name of the film and the picture on the front of the case. That picture shows Jeff Bridges as a lawman, Chris Pine looking angry and Ben Foster wearing a pair of kick-ass shades and packing a very large weapon. Crime movie? Modern Western? Yes to both. In the watching, it feels very much like a newer version of No Country for Old Men mixed with a classic Western and a large helping of film noir. It’s one of those combinations that is either going to work perfectly almost in spite of itself or end up as a train wreck.

Fortunately, it’s the first possibility. Hell or High Water is a modern Western and a modern crime film that, perhaps specifically because of the setting, feels almost like it could have featured Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. In fact, Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) is nearing retirement when a string of bank robberies in his area comes to his attention. The bank robbers are brash and very smart. They’ve been hitting branches of a specific bank, going only when the bank is just opening for business to avoid crowds, and taking only the unwrapped money from the drawers so that the bills can’t be traced and there will be no dye packs in the money.

Hard to Shoot 'Em Like That

Film: Broken Arrow (1950)
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I always forget that James Stewart was a legitimate Western star. He did enough of them, and enough of them were pretty good that I probably shouldn’t forget that so easily. Westerns are a big genre, of course, and there are enough of them that anyone can find a few that fit with their other film sensibilities. That said, Westerns have trouble getting the natives right. Early films painted them (often literally painting white actors) as savages who only existed to be threatening and get shot. Many a later Western (see Dances with Wolves, for instance) paint them as noble savages who were callously abused and slaughtered. The truth, as with many things, probably lies somewhere in between. Broken Arrow is interesting in that regard, because that’s the course it tries to set for itself.

Tom Jeffords (James Stewart) is out panning for gold in Apache territory when he discovers a young boy who has been wounded. Tom nurses him back to health, and after a few days, the boy is healthy enough to return to his home. At this time, Tom and the boy are set upon by Apache, but Tom is spared because of his kindness and because he did not take part in the attack that wounded the boy in the first place.

Rebel with a Cause

Film: Viva Zapata!
Format: Movies! Channel on rockin’ flatscreen.

Whitewashing has been a problem with Hollywood movies for a very long time. It still goes on, of course. You don’t need to look further than the casting of British Tilda Swinton as an ancient Tibetan in Doctor Strange to see it. It somehow seems more egregious in older cases, though, where entire collections of people were replaced by white actors in various cosmetics. And it wasn’t just whitewashing. Ricardo Montalban was cast as Japanese at least once. With Viva Zapata!, the crime seems to reach a new height. The title Mexican folk hero is played by Marlon Brando, while the elder brother was played by Anthony Quinn, who was Mexican. Revenge may be sweet, though; Quinn won a Supporting Actor Oscar for the role.

Emiliano Zapata (Brando) begins the film as a simple farmer, who goes with a group of fellow farmers to see long-time Mexican president Porfirio Diaz (Fay Roope) about a land claim. He and his fellow farmers have been kicked off their traditional land by wealthy farmers who have planted sugar cane in their cornfields. Diaz, notoriously corrupt, passes off the farmers’ claims, saying that fixing the problem will take time. The farmers, however, don’t have time—without corn, they won’t be able to eat. Diaz even tries to bribe Zapata with a decent tract of land, but Zapata rejects the offer. Soon enough, Zapata and his brother Eufemio (Quinn) are openly rebelling against the Mexican government.

Bear Down

Films: The Revenant
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

When The Revenant came out last year, it because the latest film to start the chant of “Give Leo an Oscar!” Well, this time it worked, and strangely enough for the film in which Leonardo DiCaprio says less than in any other of his films. Someone needs to start that chant for Richard Deakins, by the way—the man has 13 nominations without a win. Anyway, even before I saw the teaser of the next version of the 1001 Movies book, I figured The Revenant was a virtual lock. It’s got everything the compilers of the book want in a film. It’s long, it’s daring, it’s highly acclaimed, and it’s got a star they love.

It’s also worth noting that it’s evidence that several people had a really good 2015. Tom Hardy was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for this and also played the title role in Mad Max: Fury Road. Domnhall Gleeson plays prominently in this and was in Brooklyn, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and the critically-acclaimed Ex Machina, a film that also starred Oscar Isaac, who was big in the latest Star Wars film and Alicia Vikander, who won a Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in The Danish Girl. It’s like Six Degrees of Oscar.

I Think We're Supposed to Remember This...

Film: The Alamo
Format: DVD from personal collection on rockin’ flatscreen.

I like John Wayne, although it’s entirely possible that I like the idea of John Wayne more than the actor. Actually, I don’t think that’s true at all. Wayne made a lot of movies that are pretty socially backward and Wayne is kind of a poster child for reasons for white guilt. The problem with John Wayne is that more often than not, he played John Wayne, or played at least the idea of John Wayne. He was actually a pretty good actor, and a lot of his performances are surprisingly nuanced once you get beyond the John Wayniness of them. The Alamo is particularly interesting not just because it stars the man but also because it’s one of five movies he directed and one of only two that he actually allowed himself to be credited on.

It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that The Alamo is the story of the massacre at that building by the Santa Anna-led Mexican Army. The movie runs 162 minutes long and it’s more or less an exercise in waiting for the attack that’s going to end up killing everyone. Again, we know what’s going to happen going in. Everyone is going to get killed. There will be plenty of macho moments, a few victories, some arguments and fights, and then the main cast will die heroically and the credits will roll.

More Sprinkle than Deluge

Film: The Rainmaker (1956)
Format: Movies! Channel on rockin’ flatscreen.

I know it’s not true that it’s been awhile since I watched a film I really liked, but it feels like it sometimes. I genuinely go into each film expecting to like it or at least hoping that I will. That’s certainly the case with The Rainmaker from 1956. Considering that it stars Katharine Hepburn, Burt Lancaster, and Lloyd Bridges, I thought that hope was not unfounded. What I got instead was a movie with a pretty dumb plot, loaded with multiple instances of wild overacting, and that was badly miscast to boot.

We’re first introduced to Bill Starbuck (Burt Lancaster), a con man in the Western states and the Midwest, who travels around on a horse-driven carriage selling a variety of items and services that don’t really work. He initially sells small devices that are designed to prevent tornadoes from striking houses. He gets run out of town and ends up in a small town in Kansas that is hard-hit by drought. While this doesn’t pop out immediately, it’s not a stretch (based on the title) that Starbuck is going to pass himself off as a rainmaker for the drought-stricken town. They’re ripe for picking because the cattle are starting to die off.

Wild Wild West

Film: The Professionals
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

I record a lot of stuff off Turner Classic because there are a number of movies that aren’t available on NetFlix. I get a lot of these from libraries as well, but it’s hard to pass up when they just show up waiting to be recorded. The Professionals is one I recorded because it’s NetFlix unavailable. I went into it cold, knowing only that it sounds like an action film with that name. What a joy to discover that not only is it a badass action film, it’s also a film that has a “holy shit” cast list. Seriously—Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, Jack Palance, Claudia Cardinale, and Ralph Bellamy.

What makes The Professionals interesting is that it’s clearly a Western, but it’s just as clearly a couple of other things, too. It’s a Western in that it takes place in the American West and features horses and gun battles, but it’s a much more modern story. It takes place either during or just after World War I during the tail end of the Mexican revolution. It has similarities to film noir. It’s a rollicking action film as well. It’s also not too dissimilar from war movies that feature a small band of men assaulting a much larger force.

Get Along, Little Lamb Chops

Film: The Sheepman
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

There are a few classic Western plots. The first is that the railroad is coming through town and people fight over whether or not the railroad will be a good thing or a bad thing. Generally speaking, someone is buying up all the land in the area to make money off the railroad and the peaceful and good ranchers will end up getting screwed by the landholder when the train comes through. The second classic plot pits cattle ranchers against sheepherders. With a title like The Sheepman it should be obvious which of these two plots is going to take place here.

Jason Sweet (Glenn Ford) rolls into a fairly stereotypical town (you know, one hotel, a saloon, lots of cattle ranchers) and immediately starts making waves. It’s not long before he has demonstrated to the people in town that he gets what he wants whenever he wants it and takes no guff from anyone. In fact, within those first few minutes, he has managed to bamboozle the local merchant into giving him a saddle at a steep discount, bought the livery stable owner’s personal horse for a pittance, and picked a fight (and won) against the toughest man in town.

Just Desert(s)

Film: Rango
Format: DVD from Schmaling Memorial Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

A bit more than a year ago I watched Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson’s animated film. My issue with that movie is that I have no idea who it was made for. The closest I could come to a potential audience for it is the children of Wes Anderson fans. I’m running into a similar issue with Rango. This is an animated movie about a chameleon who appears in town that’s an odd throwback to the ancient West, but a lot of it seems far more adult than a children’s movie. In fact, I’m pretty sure that this isn’t a children’s movie despite all of the trappings that make it look like one. I’m not bothered by the instances of “hell” or “damn” in the dialogue or the occasional sexual reference that kids might actually pick up on. No, I’m just not sure that there’s much here for a younger audience. At the same time, I’m not sure that a lot of adults would voluntarily choose to watch a film about an animated chameleon.

Anyway, our unnamed chameleon (Johnny Depp) lives in his own little terrarium world where he evidently writes and produces plays of his own design, using the other elements of his cage (including a partial Barbie doll and a wind-up fish) as his other actors. As it happens, his owners are evidently moving. The car hits a bump, the terrarium goes flying, and the chameleon finds himself stranded on a desert highway. The only thing he has to talk to is his wind-up fish and an armadillo (Alfred Molina) that is somehow still alive despite being almost bisected by a passing truck.

In Training

Film: The Tin Star
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

When I did the 1001 Movies list, I knew there would be some duds. I figured the same would be true watching films off a list of Oscar categories. I was right; there are definitely some hills and valleys. It’s easy to get discouraged by films that I hope are good and turn out to be cruddy. Every now and then a film like The Tin Star shows up and it makes the whole thing worthwhile. I’m not a die-hard fan of Westerns and don’t choose them often given a free choice, so I’d likely have never watched The Tin Star on my own. That would have been a shame. While there are some real issues with the screenplay (despite that being its nomination), there’s a lot more here that more than makes up for any problems.

Morgan Hickman (Henry Fonda), former lawman and current bounty hunter, rides into a stereotypical Western town with a body strapped to a second horse. This earns him nothing but scorn from the local residents, who like to have their criminals brought in alive. Morgan discovers that the sheriff of the town is Ben Owens (Anthony Perkins), who looks barely old enough to shave, let alone shoot. We’re also soon introduced to Bart Bogardus (Neville Brand). Bogardus runs a stable and is the cousin of the man Morgan dropped.

Oh, Pancho!

Film: Viva Villa!
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Viva Villa! has been sitting on my DVR since last February. I’ve just never quite gotten around to it. I go through periods of recording films and periods of burning through as many of them as I can. At the moment, I’m more or less engaged in both. Movies that are more difficult to locate keep showing up on cable, which means I continually need to make room for them. There was a certain logic in knocking out something that had been sitting around for a good 15 months.

There are a couple of giant problems lurking in the heart of Viva Villa! I’m not sure the film can really be understood fully without addressing these two glaring problems. The first is one that I often complain about on this blog. Viva Villa! is much more than simply a warts-removed biography of Pancho Villa. It is an almost entirely whole cloth fabrication that bears resemblance to the man only on the surface. The film claims, for instance, that Pancho Villa spent time as Mexico’s putative president. Names are changed, as are a ton of verifiable facts.

Lust in the Dust

Film: Duel in the Sun
Format: DVD from Mt. Morris Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

Anyone who has worked on a group project knows that there’s often a benefit to having the suggestions of other people. Sometimes, though, other people turn out to be much more of a hindrance than a help. In the case of Duel in the Sun, King Vidor is give the sole directorial credit, but there are six uncredited directors on this film. Six. I can only imagine that at some level, this led to a “too many cooks” situation.

This is exacerbated, at least for me, by the fact that this film stars Jennifer Jones, who tends to leave me cold. This is balanced by it also featuring Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, Lillian Gish, and Lionel Barrymore. Still, I specifically watched this because Jones was nominated for Best Actress for this film, so she was the main reason I spent time with Duel in the Sun in the first place.