Pánico

Pánico

Directed by: Julián Soler

Horror, 1966

85min, Mexico

There’s something about anthology films that appeal to me on some sort of primal level. I love them, and I can’t get enough of them. Perhaps it’s the genetic heritage of Amicus movies, or the short form of Roald Dahl TV series The Tales of the Unexpected and The Twilight Zone re-runs, or perhaps George A Romero’s Creepshow, which was amongst the very first VHS tapes I bought in the eighties or the many horror anthology books I received throughout my childhood… Whatever it may be, there’s still something about the short brief story arcs all collected into one movie that I like, which obviously is great now when the anthology film has made something of a comeback with stuff like ABC’s of Death, V/H/S etc., etc.…  Also known as the Portmanteau movie, basically as the word Portmanteau refers to a word being made up of two other words, i.e. a movie made up of other shorter movies, one can trace the portmanteau film as far back as the 1919’s Germany where director Richard Oswald (born Richard W Ornstein) - who later fled the Nazis and ended up in the States, after a fantastic career in Fantasy and horror filmmaking – sorry, back to Oswald, yeah, back in 1919, when Oswald released Unhemliche Gesichten (Erie Tales), starring amongst others Conrad Veidt and Anita Berber and shot by Karl Hoffman, Fritz Lang’s patron saint of the cinematography. Eerie Tales tells five short stories, from the likes of Robert L Stephenson and Edgar Allan Poe, as told by the guests of the wraparound; the devil a prostitute and the death share tall tales with each other in a closed bookshop.

As a sub niche, the Anthology film has always been around; it’s always been something of a trustworthy source for quick fix of irony, the macabre and dark twisted horror. It’s during the 1960’s and early 70’s that the niche gained real renaissance as a platform for collections of cheap thrills and nasty scares. Not just retrained to the film industries of the US or England - where Amicus became masters of the portmanteau film, but even globally with fine entries such as Italy’s Mario Bava and his Il tre volti della paura (Black Sabbath) 1963, Japan’s Masaki Kobayashi and the two hour epic Kwaidan 1964, the French/Italian Fellini/Malle/Vadim sexy arty-horror vehicle Histories Extraordinaires (Spirits of the Dead) 1968, I’d even go as far as calling Jean Rollin’s debut feature Le Viol du Vampire (The Rape of the Vampire) 1968 something of an anthology film as it actually consists of two initially separate films.

Obviously Mexican filmmakers where getting in on the trend too, and why shouldn’t they, as directors like Ramón Obón, Chano Urueta, and Julián Soler tied together short form stories into some great anthology flicks. One such film being Pánico!

Director Julián Soler teamed up with Ramón Obón, although not the legendary Ramón Obón who wrote Fernando Mendez’s El Vampiro (The Vampire) 1957, Misterios de ultratumba (The Black Pit of Dr. M) or El grit de la muerte (The Living Coffin) both 1959, but his son, also named Ramón Obón, on his second feature based on his screenwriting.

Pánico tells three tales in chapters titled: Panic, Solitude, Anguish and it does this with all the traits of the portmanteau film: dark, macabre, ironic with EC horror twists waiting at the finale.

The titular episode Panic starts with the sound of a screaming baby and an empty crib before Maria [Ana Martín] finds herself running through the woods, chased by a screaming witch [Ofelia Guilmáin] Suddenly she’s in a city environment, amongst parked cars, confronted by a band of rough men. She’s dragged to the ground and raped before running through the woods again, first chased by the men, then the witch. Maria carries a doll with a fractured face, she walks with the doll into a small pond of blood, and then the chase is on again up to the point where the narrative is interrupted and the twist is explained. Back in 1966 I’m pretty sure that this was major intense stuff, as the entire fifteen minutes of Panic see’s Ana Maria running through the woods, screaming raving bloody murder. It’s immensely metaphorical and filled with symbolism that leads to that last moment twist.

Solitude starts with two men praying over a freshly dug grave. As they travel the backwater river through the swamp, the backstory comes to haunts them… Both men where involved with the woman they just buried. She, [Susana Salvat] was married to Abel [José Gàlvez] but was having an affair with Carlos [Joaquín Cordero who also starred in Ramón Obón Snr’s anthology horror Cien gritos de terror (100 Cries of Terror) and who also held the titular role in Miguel Morayta’s seminal work Doctor Satán 1966] Their boat crashes on the rapids and they are forced to makeshift camp in the dark damp swamp. Trapped in the jungle their frustrations, ill conscious and guilt surface to keep them company.

The final tale Anguish, clearly based on Edgar Allen Poe’s The Premature Burial, holds something of a dark comedic tone. Scientist Tiberius [Aldo Monti, who starred as Dracula in René Cardona’s Santo en El Tesoro de Drácula (Santo and Dracula’s Treasure) 1969, and Miguel M. Delgado’s Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo (Santo and Blue Demon versus Dracula and the Wolf man) 1973) discovers a spanking new and highly powerful sedative that can be used in surgeries… But before he can celebrate, his damned cat accidentally knocks over the potion, killing them both on the spot… or at least so it seems. In fact Tiberius is alive inside his body even if all vital signs are missing. His wife Melody [Alma Delia Fuentes] cries at his bed as the doctors declare him dead and set about planning his funeral. Tiberius screams inside his head, that he’s alive and will be well in the morning, his deathlike appearance merely the effect of his magnificent drug! The only thing that Tiberius can control are his eyelids which gives a couple of darkly comedic moments as doctors, undertakers and family try to close his eyelids only to see them pop open again. Just like the previous entries into this wonderful anthology, Anguish ends with a shocking ironic twist.

Pánico is a solid anthology flick with plenty of atmosphere and a lot of strong emotions going on. After all this is horror, and horror deals with topics of guilt, redemption, sex and death and it works just as well in short form as it does in long form!

Las luchadoras contra la momia [The Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy]

The Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy

Original title: Las luchadoras contra la momia     

Directed by: Rene Cardona

Mexico, 1964

Horror/Lucha libre

After the success of crime busting Luchadoras Gloria Venus [Mexploitation royalty, Lorena Velázquez] and Golden Rubí [Elizabeth Campbell] in Las luchadoras contra el medico asesino (Doctor of Doom) 1963, the dynamic duo where bought back for anther great collaboration between René Cardona and Alfredo Salazar (with co-writer Guillermo Calderón too); The Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy a charming piece of Mexploitation!

Just as most of the movies in the Lucha libre/horror/crime/sci-fi niche, there’s an opening initial attack. It’s often the introduction of the mad scientist or the fiendish foe or just one in a string of strange murders… The Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Mummy starts with the dumping of a male body as a car swooshes’ by, ditching the lifeless corpse on the road without slowing down. A fast edit later and exposition through newspaper headline, to bring us up to speed, Doctor Van Dyne has a dagger rammed into his heart by the fiendish Fu-Manchu look-a-like, Black Dragon [Ramón Bugarini]! 

Time to introduce our leading ladies, the Golden Girls of the ring, Gloria Venus and Golden Rubí. I really love this opening fight because Lorena Velázquez and Elizabeth Campbell are fab. I love how Velázquez character Gloria Venus is in such torment as Rubí is struggling with her unfair opponent, but at the same time – in her state of frustration tossing herself against the ropes – Gloria Venus is such a fair fighter that she won’t take to the same unjust tricks and get in there. She simply waits for Rubí to get out of trouble and make the by the book, tag-slap- handover before taking part in the action.  That’s how you write a stern and fair Luchadora character! And it’s always great to see Campbell wrestle opponents, as she was always a good foot taller than all her adversaries.

Black Dragon is searching for a secret codex, unfortunately split into several parts, that has been discovered in a pre-camber of an ancient Aztec tomb recently opened nearby by a team of archaeologists… Black Dragon’s method has been to assassinate the archaeologists, one by on, in his search for the one with the secret codec to open the ancient tomb. Inside the tomb, a suit of armour awaits. A suit of armour, which allows the bearer to conquer the world – as magic ancient armours always do.

Setting up the scenario, Dr. Miguel Sorva [Julío de Meriche] lurks around Gloria Venus and Golden Rubí’s dressing room after the initial wrestling bout. They notice him, confront him, and just as they are about to whoop his ass for being a kinky peeping tom, he explains that he’s really there to talk to Gloria Venus fiancée Detective Rios [Armando Silvestre]. Just as he's finished explaining the backstory of Black Dragon and the threat he poses to the team of archaeologists, he’s shot in the neck with a deadly arrow laced with deadly poison. 

With no time to waste, the foursome (now with comedic reliever Chucho Gomez [Chucho Salinas] back as Rios colleague detective) pay a visit to Professor Luis Trelles [Victor Velázquez, also the father of Lorena Velázquez], who explains further the mystery and secret of the codec pieces and introduces Charla, [María Eugenia San Martín], daughter of one of the murdered archaeologists. Professor Luis asks the luchadoras and detectives to each take part of the codex as to keep them safe. Rubí and Venus accept, as this would give them a great opportunity to expose and defeat Black Dragon and his gang of Hench men. Detective Rios wraps it all up with the smart and cunning plan that they all live together until the mystery is solved. Locked and loaded, let’s go!

 Charla is kidnapped by Black Dragon’s goons, taken to his lair, hypnotized, and programmed to be his ears and eyes in the house that they all live in, perhaps completely unnecessary as he also has cameras hidden in the house, from which he observes them secretly upon a large monitor in his hidden lair. If you where wondering where the “mad professor/surgeon” scenario was, well here you go. Albeit a blood free operation, Black Dragon operates on Charla whilst his band of misfits look on and applaud his work. He sends her back to the apartment with an assignment of injecting Professor Trelles with a drug that will have him expose the location of the final pieces to the codex. This results in a great scene where she first stabs the Professor and then is interrupted by Rubí and Venus! Slam down!

Becoming fed-up with Rubí and Venus constant interference Black Dragon proposes his female fighters to take out Rubí and Gloria Venus in a bout of strength in the ring. "We’ll tear them to pieces in three minutes!", say the sisters of martial arts. The plot, now something of a cat-and-mouse race against the clock to find where Professor Trelles has hidden the pieces before Black Dragon get’s them… but remember, he’s got Chala hypnotized and hidden cameras in the apartment, comes to a spectacular Mexican standoff (no pun intended) for the codex pieces… the solution, a very gentlemanlike agreement where Black Dragon’s judo experts are to take on the Luchadoras Rubí and Venus in a fierce battle at the Arena Nacíonal! The winning team of combatants get’s to take all the pieces of the Codex! I know, it’s somewhat ridiculous – especially as the women talk tactics in their changing room - but at the same time a great way to get the opponents into the wrestling ring. Don’t forget that initial bout, where I discussed Gloria Venus sense of sportsmanship, because nothing could have prepared them for the unjust fight that Black Dragon’s martial arts ladies have in store for them.

We’re half way though, and still we haven’t seen Black Dragon’s female fighters beat the living daylights out of Rios and Chucho. Black Dragon still has to layout his delicate plan to swipe the armour from under the good-guys noses, and the climactic trip to the excavation site and entering of the burial chamber, and the realization of the curse… the curse which see’s the Aztec Mummy walk once again!

All right, in all honesty, Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy does have a kind of cheap matinée tone to it. (But don't they all, and would you want it any other way?) It takes some time to establish stuff before reaching the second half - where the Luchadoras take on the, Judo experts from the orient, in a lengthy all-stakes-on-one-card match which goes on for a whopping ten minutes! So despite the somewhat slow build-up, there is a reward coming. The second half also see’s a spectacular backstory of Aztec ritual, mixing stock footage and materials shot for the film, in an amazing segment that explains the Aztec armour, the curse of the Mummy. Mexican Boris Karloff, Gerardo Zepeda, has a decent amount of scenes where he actually get’s to portray the Aztec sorcerer Tezomoc as a living human and not disguised as one of the many brute, disfigured thugs or monster’s characters he portrayed in many of the Mexican shockers he starred in. But not to worry, if you read this far, then you already know who’s behind the hideous Aztec mummy mask.

Then there’s the final act. An act that makes up for any dubious thoughts about the movie up to here, because the last act has a wonderful string of twists – I’m not kidding, you will never see this coming! There’s also the Mummy who can shape-shift into a bat, bringing a Universal horror like vibe to the piece, and the delightful cheesy, cheap archaeology-action-mystery climax in the vein of  “Indiana Jones” complete with curses, creaking tombstones, cobwebs, skeletons, monsters and screaming protagonists!

TUSK

Tusk

Directed by: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Drama, 119min

France, 1980

Alejandro Jodorowsky, man of mystery, man of myth, man of magic. The eighty-five year old Chilean born director has but a half dozen movies to his name, but is still considered to be one of the most daring and original visionaries to ever grace the screen with his images and philosophical narratives.

Lost films. Every director seems to have one. Every fan seems to find it. Tusk was (may still be) Alejandro Jodorowsky’s lost movie. The first time I saw it was off a VHS dupe, not too unlike the one I watched this time around, but this one was obviously a few generations closer to the source and actually had English subtitles. The first viewing all those years ago on a dodgy tape from VSoM – hey there was no Internet back then right! – was perhaps not a fair judgment of Jodorowsky's vision. That time around Tusk failed to leave an impression. I probably only watched that tape once. El Topo and/or The Holy Mountain where more to my liking – and obviously Santa Sangre, but Tusk never really went down well with me. Perhaps because back then I wanted it to be wild and surreal like those other films… Re-visiting it today, it’s fair to say that something’s do change and where I may have missed certain traits that I back then would have said where typical Jodorowsky, they are undoubtedly present in Tusk.

On the same day as plantation owner Morrison’s first child is born, the largest elephant of the herd also gives birth to an elephant cub. It’s the start of two destinies, which will intertwine and depend upon each other for the rest of time, shown clearly as Jodorowsky crosscuts the two deliveries. Plantation owner Morrison [Anton Diffring] is severely disappointed it’s not a boy and turns the child over to one of the female villagers to take care of. His butler acts fast, and returns the infant to it’s still in father… who breaks down, cradles the baby and names her Elise. A few years later Elise (now at age five is played by Oriole Henry) is given an elephant of her own, the elephant Tusk with whom Elise shares her birthday.

Two antagonists (or rather sub-antagonists, as the piece deals with several of them and in various combinations) are introduced into the piece, Shakley [Michel Peyrelon] and Greyson [Serge Merlin, who later starred in several films of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet]…in many ways classical Jodorowsky antagonists, farcical, goofy and filled with slapstick and mime articulations, but also dark and disturbing. They are more the surreal kind of characters that otherwise fill Jodorowsky movies, disturbing facetted fiends swinging between sadistic and moronic. They fart, crack jokes about the stench, smoke Camel hairs, drink till they pass out, but at the same time they are ruthless bounty hunters who will stop a nothing, no matter how fiendish it be to achieve their goal.

Back at the ranch, it’s time to break Tusk and put him to work with all the rest of Morrison’s elephants. The scene is strong, violent and provoking leaving Elise terribly distressed. Morrison tries to reason with his daughter, and delivers the non-comforting explanation that, one day she will understand Tusk cannot be a wild animal, but a worker. Elise hides herself in her room and refuses to eat. When the young Elephant cub starts refusing too the bond is apparent.“So he’s going to die!”  The Village Mystic arrives and Elise is given a false promise of Tusk being “freed”, after which she talks to him and he eats. For the time being all is well, Elise and Tusk lead happy lives but we know otherwise...

Time passes; adult Elise [now played by Cyrille Clair] is about to leave home, travel overseas to England and attend school, briefly illustrated through transitional illustrations. With Elise out of the way for a while, enter Mr Richard Cairn [Christopher Mitchum] a complex character who’s both a fiendish elephant hunter, bit also holds the strong love interest position for Elise’s heart.

Elise returns home from her time abroad, but the celebrations soon come to an end when Ram Baba [T. Venketappa] attacks Samadi [B.N.K. Nagaraj] Tusk’s warden. Tusk [now portrayed by Menoara the elephant], ever the faithful one, looses his and goes off on a min rampage. Luckily Elise steps in right on time and calms down the giant elephant merely seconds before Mr Cairn was going to put a bullet through the beast’s brain. This incident ignites a subplot concerning Ram Baba – now degraded to serving in the cow shed and never to work with Mr Morrison’s elephants ever again – as he demands vengeance on Mr Morrison, Samada and Tusk for this loss of face.

Despite his own elephant escaping and rampaging the countryside, Ram Baba teams up with Shakley and Greyson and hatches a plan to steal Tusk! As she sit’s meditating at a water filled temple, Elise senses Tusk’s kidnapping and runs to him only to be confronted by Ram Baba’s mad elephant…Guess who comes to her rescue –TUSK – cue, elephant fight complete with bloody tearing, gory tusks and dead antagonist elephant! A magnificently wonderful Jodorowsky moment!

In the emotional state after her close call with death, Elise understands that Tusk want’s to be free and pronounces him such. He runs off! But his freedom is short lived as the Eccentric Maharaja’s [Sukumar Anhana] wife wants an ivory necklace made from the tusks of the great warrior elephant, and also requests to drink his blood and steal his power…

The hunt is announced, … Elise is disgusted, but she still takes part in it – and damn does the amazing cinematography by Jean-Jacques Flori, demand a proper release now, as there’s some great stuff here, some stunning shots, as an impressive amount of elephants participate in the climactic hunt. Ram Baba and cohorts have come up with a new plan and that is to snatch Tusk from the massive hunt, as they now realize his value and can use it to make a deal with the maharaja.

Ram Baba with his partners in crime, Shackley and Greyson, plan to snatch Tusk during the hunt, as they know of his value! But the two somewhat comedic characters show their dark side as they lure Samedi up a mountain cliff only to toss him over the edge to his death and then double cross Ram Baba as they sniper shoot him from the mountainside!

Mr Cairn’s get’s to show off his hunting skills as Tusk is snared, held in a giant cage, and the Maharajah’s fiendish wife gets her cup of Tusk blood and Elise is devastated! But no cage is strong enough to hold the mighty Tusk, and after a short struggle, he breaks free and goes on a rampage!

Walls are smashed, busses are tossed over, and Tusk even pushes a train backwards as he makes his stand. The kind of thing that makes us all root for the beast and cheer him on… and cheer him on is what we do for the last twenty minutes of the movie, where Tusk settles scores, rights wrongs and makes the world a better place! Phew… Tusk is very much a Jodorowsky experience, without any doubt in mind!

Based on Poo Lorn L’Elephant by Reginald Campbell and adapted by Nicholas Niciphor, who also served as one of the many co-directors on Deathsport together with Allan Arkush and Roger Corman. The original source material could be interpreted as some kind of critique towards the colonization of India, with elephants and the characters as metaphors for empire and occupied country, although that’s not really the way  I see Jodorowsky using the material. Here it’s put into work as a classical Jodorowsky narrative.

Sandwiched in between The Holy Mountain 1979 and Santa Sangre 1989, Tusk is, as the opening titles declare, “a panic fable” and even though it may not be quite as wild and surreal as some of his work, it is without any doubt a very typical Jodorowsky movie. His common themes of revenge, justice, dark comedy and absurd violence, are all here. Many times a serious scene will end in a laugh, or a comedic scene will end in something serious. Violence will lead to tenderness and tenderness will lead to violence. The classic Jodorowsky magik and surrealism is found too, such as the Indian mystic who can transform himself into a chicken!

Tusk sports a fantastic soundtrack, groovy sitar, fuzz tone guitars, and way weird synthesizer pop, yet another reason why Tusk needs to see a proper release.  Why not a soundtrack re-mastering and re-issue while your'e at it?

There’s a reason why they certain movies become “lost”. At times its due to director negligence. As for Tusk, the movie has slipped into the void after fact that Jodorowsky himself disowned the film due to the politics of meddling producers. When will they ever learn?  In any which way, Tusk certainly is a Jodorowsky movie, and I’d love to see an official release of it. Seriously, not even the bootleg versions one can find have even a decent image, hence the lack of screenshots in this piece. This is one “lost movie” that needs to be rediscovered and presented in a proper release, because at the end of the day there can never be enough Jodorowsky movies out there.