"You'd Be Amazed How Many People Believe In It Now" - Mark of the Witch (1970) - Part 1 of 3

Let us now discuss a parable of the sins of the fathers and the hubris of modern man, 1970’s Texas-set Mark of the Witch.

As always, I will present a sampling of clearly mistaken reviews from your universe's most distinguished critics. On IMDB, Wizard-8 writes, “the movie could still have been a decent supernatural shocker. But it isn't. It's very slow moving, and with a LOT of chitchat to pad things out.” The author of The Horror!? writes about the lead actress, “I really wouldn't call her a good or effective actress…so dreadful as to make the witch automatically incredibly sympathetic.” About the film’s dialogue, Dan Scarpa on IMDB writes, “all the lines are incredibly cheesy and bad.”

As always, the description below includes spoilers.

The film opens on a striking image: a hangman's noose swaying in the wind. A young woman is led by soldiers through the mud to a gallows, observed by a nobleman with striking blue eyes. The woman helps the hangman--nontraditionally, he is hoodless and apparently nude--by moving her long hair out of the way.

The hanging party allows the woman to make a three-minute speech cursing the nobleman, Macintyre Stuart, because he betrayed the coven of witches to whom he had previously sworn allegiance. "The mark of my lord Satan will be with you always," is the extent of her curse, though she indicates that the cursed family will remember her words until the last star gutters from the sky.

Charmingly, and appropriately for a fantasy film, the hanging appears to be taking place in an unspecified time and place. The witch mentions the English county of Lancashire, but her accent is clearly American. The locale is universal, simply a blue sky over a muddy field, adding to the fairy tale feeling of the opening sequence.

It must be noted that the actress playing the witch, Marie Santel, displays a remarkable and fascinating range of facial expressions during this sequence.

Mcintyre Stuart is not impressed.

Once the witch's curse is fully spoken, the hangman does his job. The witch's bare feet dangle in the air. (The film is thus unclear about the apparently nude hangman’s allegiance, as he could have accomplished his executory task several minutes earlier when it became clear the witch meant to invoke a curse on Mr. Stuart and his family. The issue of the hangman’s allegiance is left undiscussed.)

We move forward in time, and elsewhere in space, to a Texas college campus in 1970. A student named Allen buys books on witchcraft for his psychology course, taught by a professor named Mac Stuart. Allen explains to the cashier that Professor Stuart "has got us all involved with this stuff. Ouija boards, tarot cards, witches, graphology, the whole bit. We're studying the psychology of superstition this term. You know, way back to the pagans and how they worshipped fire and water and how it grew into various kinds of belief in magic. You know, you'd be amazed how many people believe in it now."

The bookstore cashier is so intrigued he invites himself to Professor Stuart's weekly seminar. "How about that," says the cashier with a chuckle. "A spook seminar."

The next sequence of the film details a group of clean-cut college students organizing books for a book fair. This sequence runs for about five minutes until it finally culminates in Jill, Allen's girlfriend, finding a dusty book with a red cover, which she decides to buy.

At the seminar, Professor Stuart hosts a fun evening of ouija boards and palm reading conducted by a spectacularly clean-cut collection of students in colorful dresses and pressed suits. Allen confesses to his professor that "there really is a big thing about witchcraft." Demonstrating the defiance of the youth culture in Texas in 1970, Allen and the professor lend books to each other.

On the other side of the room, a loutish student interrupts a tarot card reading in which the subject asks about romance. "I like my chicks dumb, baby," he says, "but you really are something else. I mean, if you want romance in your life, you don't have to ask her. Let's just split and head for the grove. I'll show you all the romance you can use...if that's what you want to call it."

Of course, the girl is flattered. "Oh, Harry," she flirts with him. "Can't you ever think of anything else."

Jill arrives late to the party...that is, the seminar. She has the book she found at the book fair. "Listen, we can have our own black magic sort of thing," she says to Professor Stuart and Allen. "Honestly. I've got it all right here."

She presents the book to the gathered students. "Boy, it smells," one student says. "It's old all right."

Professor Stuart is impressed. The book appears to be real. The clean-cut group decides to conduct one of the spells to summon a witch, under the sponsorship of the professor.

During Jill's recital of the spell, Professor Stuart begins mouthing the words and flashing back to the witch's hanging from the prologue.

But the spell seems to be a failure. Nothing happens. The students return to the party.

However, Jill begins to act strangely. She looks more serious and her accent changes subtly. She calls Professor Stuart "Macintyre," which is Mac's full name, and the name of all the men in his family. (We are not informed whether or not he has brothers with the same name.) She starts calling people "impudent lackwits." The astute viewer might catch on that the spell has indeed had an effect, though its extent is difficult to predict.

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We end Part 1 here. What will happen in Part 2? How will the witch implement her curse? Will the students be able to stop her? We will have to wait until next time to find out.

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Frighteningly Successful: Box Office Grosses of Horror Movies in 2016

2016 was a strong year for horror movies. Many received praise from critics as well as audiences (for example, The Witch, 10 Cloverfield Lane, and Don't Breathe all received Rotten Tomatoes averages of 85% or higher). While artistic and subjective success are important, the health of cinematic horror can also be measured by box office success. (After all, if horror movies are financially unsuccessful, critical acclaim itself won't  justify the financing and distributing of new horror movies.) How well did horror movies fare at the U.S. box office in 2016?

The answer is pretty damn well. The 16 horror movies in wide U.S. theatrical release in 2016 grossed over $639 million.

The graph below shows theatrical gross for these 16 horror movies, ranked from highest grossing to lowest grossing. The Conjuring 2 was the most successful horror movie of 2016, grossing over $102 million, but it was followed fairly closely by the smaller movies Don't Breathe ($89 million), The Purge: Election Year ($79 million), 10 Cloverfield Lane ($72 million), and Lights Out ($67 million). Only three horror movies grossed less than $10 million: Incarnate, Morgan, and The Disappointments Room.

Of course, gross revenues are only a part of a movie's financial success. The Conjuring 2, after all, cost an estimated $40 million, while the average budget of these 16 movies was about $12 million. Profitability needs to be accounted for to get a better picture of financial health.

The graph below shows U.S. total theatrical gross minus estimated budget. This is a clumsy estimate of profitability because it ignores the significant costs of prints and advertising, but it allows for some comparisons between movies.

While the graph above shows The Conjuring 2, Don't Breathe, The Purge: Election Year, 10 Cloverfield Lane, and Lights Out to be the highest grossing horror movies of 2016, the graph below shows a slightly different picture. When accounting for budget, Don't Breathe and The Purge: Election Year topped the Conjuring 2 in terms of (probable) profitablity, and Lights Out topped 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Another clear point of the second graph is that most horror movies that received wide theatrical releases in the U.S. were, most likely, profitable. Even Blair Witch, considered a theatrical flop, grossed almost $16 million more than its estimated budget; unless the costs of prints and advertising were over $16 million, Blair Witch was profitable even ignoring international box office and non-theatrical revenues such as streaming and home video.

Four movies grossed less than their reported budgets. The least successful horror movie in wide release in 2016 was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which grossed under $11 million on a budget of $28 million. Similarly disappointing was The Disappointments Room, which grossed $2.4 million on a budget of $15 million. Morgan and Incarnate appear to have lost smaller amounts, but they also grossed less than their estimated budgets.

The graph below is another way of looking at the same data, with all three data points (budget, gross, and budget minus gross) on the same graph. Gross minus budget is shown in green, while gross is shown as a blue bar and budget is shown as an orange bar. This graph makes it easy to see which movies had similar budgets (e.g., The Shallows and 10 Cloverfield Lane), and to compare their estimated profitability. It also makes it easy to find unusual movies such as The Conjuring 2, with its large budget and massive grosses, and Lights Out, with its tiny budget and high grosses.

All of this just shows that horror movies released theatrically in the U.S. tended to be quite successful in 2016. If we ignore costs other than production budget, 12 out of the 16 horror movies with wide releases were profitable. If we could take other costs into account, it is likely that 10 or 11 of these movies were profitable. At least five were massively profitable by any measure. If nothing else, these numbers bode well for at least the near future of the theatrical horror movie.

I plan to continue with more analyses of horror movie box office results in 2016. The next post on this topic will look at horror movies with relatively low budgets that had wide releases in 2016, and the post after that will look at horror movies with relatively high budgets. Post #4 in this series will look at the relationship between box office revenues and critical reception. I hope you find these posts interesting. Please let me know in the comments, and also let me know if I've overlooked anything important or otherwise interesting.

"That Rich Dessert, More Likely" - The Demon (1981) - Part 3 of 3

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This is Part 3 of our discussion of the South African slasher film The Demon. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

We have reached the final act of the film. The killer is stalking preschool teacher Mary in her home. What will happen next? Is the killer really a demon? Will he be brought to justice? Read on.

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A few minutes after we witness the killer murder Jo, Bob drives Mary home. She tells him she wants to get to sleep, but after he drives away she runs a bath. Before she steps into the tub, however, she hears a sound, investigates, and finds that Jo's bedroom has been ransacked.

Thus begins the film's brilliant cat-and-mouse suspense finale.

The lights go out. Mary grabs a flashlight and walks downstairs. After first passing the room where her cousin's body rests, she wanders around and then back into the same room. Finally, she sees Jo's body, the face covered with plastic. Mary screams.

The killer confronts her, destroying the phone.

Mary runs upstairs to another phone and calls not the police but her boyfriend Bob. Bob answers his stylish Fisher Price telephone and hears that Mary is in trouble.

The killer, truly more than a man, punches his way through the door. 

Mary picks up the bedside lamp and aims for the door and the killer's arm, but when she throws it, it sails into the window, alerting the elderly neighbors.

Mary hides beneath her bed, a gambit that ends poorly as the killer simply tosses the mattress aside. Somehow the overturned bed turns on a radio whose announcer is reading what sounds like a bible verse. It distracts the killer sufficiently for Mary to run out of the room.

Bob, on the other side of town, dashes toward his car, but he somehow manages to break his key in the ignition.

(It is a credit to the film's ability to generate suspense that Mary, her neighbors, and Bob all have access to working telephones, but none of them feel the need to call the police.)

The killer's razor-studded glove appears on the staircase. Mary screams and runs upstairs again. 

In the neighbors' house, the husband peers out the window. "I tell you, that was a scream."

"That rich dessert, more likely," his wife scoffs. When her husband notices the lights going on and off in Mary's house, his wife says they're just playing games. "The young folks these days like to add a little spice to life. Kinky, they call it. Or wouldn't you know?"

Back in her house, Mary has perhaps unwisely left her bathrobe on the floor as a lure for the killer. Wearing only her panties, she creeps through the attic and spies on the killer, who rips her robe to shreds, accompanied by the sound of tearing paper.

Mary is able to move some roof tiles aside and climb from the attic to the roof. The killer hears the tiles clattering to the ground. He follows her to the attic and grabs her legs, forcing her to fall through the floor of the attic and back into her bedroom.

She finds some scissors and, somewhat incongruously, wears a shower curtain a poncho, then covers her hair with a shower cap. She implements a desperate plan involving shampoo on the floor and the shower spraying possibly scalding water toward the door.

When the killer enters, the water splashes him in the face and Mary attacks him with the scissors, burying them in his neck.

The plan is surprisingly effective. Mary is able to overpower the killer, who is no longer wearing a mask. He stumbles backward toward the tub, and then gently lowers himself into it.

Only a second later, the killer is masked and still struggling in the tub.

The killer, or perhaps the mask itself, appears to have truly supernatural powers.

Mary screams and runs out of the house and down the street, clearly traumatized irreparably by seeing a featureless mask appear suddenly on the killer's face.

The End

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Filmed in South Africa and directed by Percival Rubens, The Demon, also known by the less interesting title Midnight Caller, pulls together the wildly disparate slasher and jello (excuse me, "giallo" in your universe) genres. Like the slasher movies popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the killer is a big, mysterious figure with no backstory. Like the giallo movies popular around the same time, the killer wears black leather and gloves; another similarity with gialli is the photography scene and the presence of a psychic investigator. The Demon also dispenses with some of the less interesting aspects of each genre. For example, the whodunnit aspect of the giallo is jettisoned completely; the killer's identity and motive are never explained. Likewise, the graphic violence of the slasher movie is also abandoned. As a result, the film is streamlined and suspenseful, though a critic searching for flaws might complain that it spends a bit too much time on Jo's romantic escapades.

The Demon is also a visionary work well ahead of its time. The killer's razor-tipped glove is a clear precursor to Freddy Krueger's weapon of choice, introduced a few years later in A Nightmare on Elm Street. The Demon might have been even more influential if the killer had used the glove in his murders rather than wrapping plastic bags around his victim's heads. (We shall chalk up to cinematic license the question of where he stores his apparently inexhaustible supply of what can only be called murder bags.)

As we must whenever possible, we will end our discussion of The Demon by considering the performance of the great Cameron Mitchell. Although his storyline fades into the background after Mary is introduced, this film would not be the same without his professionalism and the quirky character touches he brings to his role. Colonel Carson is a fascinating character, and he would doubtless have been the centerpiece of dozens more films if he had not been tragically murdered in cold blood in the second act of this film. Mr. Mitchell brings his wealth of experience to the character of the psychic colonel. What other actor could sniff the bedclothes with such commitment? Who else could command our rapt attention for nearly 10 minutes while handling the contents of a young girl's bedroom? And who else could make us gasp in shocked disbelief as he crumples to the sofa, shot in the head?

No one else, is the answer. No one but the great Cameron Mitchell.

"Less Than a Man...And More Than a Man" - The Demon (1981) - Part 2 of 3

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This is Part 2 of our discussion of the gritty South African slasher film The Demon. You can read Part 1 here.

So far, we have followed the grieving parents of a young girl kidnapped by a mysterious black-clad man as they hired the psychic Colonel Carson, played by Cameron Mitchell. We have also followed preschool teacher Mary, who is being stalked by the same black-clad man.

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Colonel Carson continues his psychic investigation by sniffing around--again literally, as he is grasping and inhaling from an article of the girl's clothing that is probably best left unidentified.

"She's high," he says. "High up. She's floating." He can't be certain whether she is alive or dead. But she is probably dead.

The girl's clothing allows him to psychically connect with her abductor/probable killer. He sees that he is looking down on a crowd, and he is feeling good.

"If only we knew what he looked like," the girl's father, Mr. Parker, says. The colonel pulls some drawings out of a leather case.

The sketches are detailed but they are missing one part that might be considered important. "The face just doesn't come to me," Colonel Carson explains before he imparts the mysterious knowledge that "he's less than a man...and more than a man....much more."

The colonel has also sketched a building that he feels is associated with the abductor. Mr. Parker asks if he can keep the drawings.

When preschool lets out, American schoolteacher Mary sits meditating with her charming South African cousin, who also works at the school. Mary's cousin, though only 18, has a date with a man named Dean. Mary is suspicious that Dean is involved in something unsavory, but she allows her cousin to go on the date.

On the date, Mary's cousin Jo, drunk on French wine and lobster thermidor, allows Dean to drive her to his apartment in a skyscraper. Looking fetching in her purple, blue, and green striped poncho, Jo flirts with Dean--the actor is an enticing combination of Anthony Perkins and Adrian Zmed--while he explains his family is wealthy. She fends off his advances, and then agrees to go out with him again.

The next day at school, Mary looks out the window and sees the black-clad man, now maskless.

The film next spends what might be considered more time than necessary detailing Jo's courtship with Dean, including their difficulties deciding on their next date. Dean sets up a photography studio in his apartment to take photos of Jo while she psychoanalyzes him.

At night in an alley, a confusing scene occurs. Two women see the black-clad man and convince a group of four men to beat him up. Needless to say, the four men are unsuccessful. The black-clad man uses his razor-tipped brass knuckles to kill all of them.

The same night, Mary receives a phone call. The caller only breathes raspily. There is a knock at the door. It is Mary's neighbor with a long story, delivered breathlessly but charmingly, about why he came over: "Chippy's been making a devil of a row, hackles up and all. Janet thought she saw someone prowling around under your trees. I went out to have a look but he vanished. Then about half an hour later, Chippy started up again. This time I thought I saw someone. Again, he vanished. Anyway, I thought I'd come over to see if you girls were all right. Any trouble, I'll be right over...with the old .38 special."

Back in the house, the phone, despite sitting in focus in the foreground, fails to ring.

When Mary returns to bed, we watch as the door opens silently and a black-clad figure enters the bedroom. It turns out to be Jo who, in time-honored cinematic tradition, climbs into Mary's bed to tell her about her date tonight. But Jo sits there silently, so Mary tells her about the mysterious caller and Chippy.

Meanwhile, Mr. Parker has been searching the city for the building in Colonel Carson's psychic sketches. He finds one that looks similar, so he makes note of the one apartment in the building with a light on, then enters the unlocked building. Negotiating a series of staircases, Parker finds the lighted apartment.

He pulls a gun and opens the unlocked door.

Parker is suddenly assaulted by the black-clad man, who appears to have superhuman strength. Parker is killed. The black-clad man carries the body to another room in the building.

The Parkers' story comes to a tragic end. Mr. Parker has been killed, and then his daughter's skeleton is found high in a tree. Only Mrs. Parker remains. Colonel Carson visits her home, and Mrs. Parker berates him, even suggesting that Carson might be the abductor and murderer.

The colonel responds by saying, "The time of the demon--our demon--is drawing close."

Surprisingly, Mrs. Parker pulls a gun on Carson. In her charming accent, she says, "Did your extrasensory perception prepare you for this?"

She shoots him in the forehead, killing him [spoiler]. (Perhaps she deduced that Colonel Carson was the one who pocketed her late daughter's necklace earlier.)

Thus ends another of Cameron Mitchell's fine performances.

In his apartment, the black-clad killer sits in a chair and rips up pictures of women in bikinis. Then he washes his featureless mask in the sink.

The film then intercuts two romantic dates, as Jo and Dean spend time at Mary and Jo's house, while Mary and her date Bob go to Bob's place. Both couples end up in bed almost immediately. Then, suddenly, Jo and Dean are skinny-dipping in a swimming pool, where Dean proposes and Jo accepts.

After they get dressed, Dean gets in his car to leave, but he is strangled by the black-clad man from the back seat. The man wraps Dean's head in plastic and suffocates him.

Jo is in the house alone. There is a knock at the door. She opens it to see the killer standing there. He punches her and she flies backward, somersaulting to the carpet. Following his usual procedure, he picks her up and carries her through the house.

We hear Jo scream behind a closed door.

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Could this be the end of Mary's cousin Jo? The answer is yes. What will happen next? We will have to wait for the thrilling conclusion in Part 3 of our discussion of The Demon.

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"This Must Look Like Witchcraft" - The Demon (1981) - Part 1 of 3

Our next classic is a gritty slasher movie from the early 1980s, The Demon. Even without seeing the film, it clearly has the markings of a high-quality cinematic experience. First, it has the word “demon” in the title, potentially putting it on the level of classics we have discussed such as Demon Wind, Demon Seed, and Night of the Demon. Second, it stars Cameron Mitchell, only one year after his groundbreaking performance in The Nightmare Never Ends.

Predictably, the respected critics of your universe regard The Demon as less than a classic. On IMDB, BillyBC writes, “The soundtrack is very loud and erratic and people are always screaming, which makes sleeping straight through this often-dull movie pretty difficult. It ends rather abruptly.” Also on IMDB, matoolz2 writes, “It quickly becomes a disjointed mess as it jumps completely away from it`s beginning plot. I kept getting the sense that they started a movie and after getting so far into it they decided the plot was`nt working so they scrapped their original idea and went for something else but left in the footage they had already shot.” On Rotten Tomatoes, Julian Toepfer writes, “Not only is it shot for cents on the dollar, uncreative, horribly scripted and acted, and ludicrously stupid, but its flat out boring.”

Contrary to these uninformed "opinions," with their inconsistent uses of the word "its," The Demon is  in fact a tightly scripted suspense film showcasing another brilliant Cameron Mitchell performance.

The film opens with a mundane nighttime scene, distinguished only by charming South African accents, that is suddenly punctuated by a shocking home invasion. A woman and her daughter are attacked in their home, the mother left with a plastic bag over her head and the daughter kidnapped and carried into the forest screaming. This is intercut with waves crashing against rocks. Back in the forest, we hear something ripping in the night.

Search parties accompanied by multiple helicopters fail to find the abducted daughter.

At night, a friendly man in a pickup truck stops to pick up a typical hitchhiker sitting alone in front of an abandoned gas station. The hitchhiker wears black leather, black gloves, and what appears to be a set of brass knuckles with sharp points. And he carries a heavy suitcase.

"You're lucky I came along," the friendly driver says in his charming South African accent to the shadowy hitchhiker. "Not much traffic along this road at night."

The hitchhiker says nothing. The driver, an actor, goes on and on about how verbose he tends to be while the hitchhiker adjusts his knife-edged brass knuckles.

In this tense driving sequence, the film astutely plays on our expectations, knowing we have seen many films in which hitchhiking scenarios turn out poorly. The audience wonders who is dangerous in this scenario, the whistling mustache-wearing driver or the black-clad hitchhiker with the deadly weapon? It is nearly impossible to guess.

We find out soon enough--the hitchhiker attacks the driver, forcing the pickup off the road. The hitchhiker wraps the man's head in clear plastic and steals his wallet.

Waves crash against rocks.

Back at the scene of the home invasion, we are introduced to Colonel Bill Carson, U.S. Marines, retired, played by the estimable Cameron Mitchell. The parents of the kidnapped girl are desperate. It has been over two months without a sign of their daughter. They have called Colonel Carson because, like most high-ranking military officers, he is also a skilled psychic.

"I'll give you everything I've got," says the father, "if you can find this monster."

"I'm not a kind of medicine man, a mystic," says Colonel Carson. "I'm just someone who's been gifted with ESP--extra...sensory perception."

As the girl's mother weeps, Colonel Carson grabs her head. It is a mark of Mr. Mitchell's skill as an actor that we cannot be certain whether he is using his ESP powers or simply holding her head more tightly, and for a longer span of time, than social convention would dictate.

Continuing to elaborate on his psychic powers, the colonel explains, "Sometimes I...just sniff around, sometimes I get pictures in my mind. Pictures of places, people." He asks to see the kidnapped girl Emily's room, but when the father begins to direct him, the colonel brushes him off, whispering simply, "I know."

Thus starts an acting tour de force, an extended scene of Mr. Mitchell investigating Emily's room in which he commands the screen for approximately 10 minutes all by himself, leaving the audience breathless.

In the girl's room, the colonel starts touching things, including an unusually large doll and a music box.

He takes a silver necklace from the music box and pockets it. Then he sits on the girl's bed, which apparently makes it difficult for him to breathe. He has a quick vision from the point of view of the abductor, but it unfortunately provides no clues.

The colonel then uses another tool in his arsenal of tricks, grabbing Emily's pillow and sniffing deeply. When he said he sniffs around, he clearly meant it literally.

When the parents enter the room to find the colonel sniffing and futilely ripping the pillowcase, Carson apologizes and feels the need to explain yet again his psychic methods. "This must look like witchcraft to you, but sometimes I get feelings. Vibes, as the kids would call them." He needs to absorb more of the environment before he can discern more useful information.

We cut to a preschool and meet the teacher Mary, who bears some resemblance to Marilyn Monroe, though perhaps more to the platinum-haired Ginger in the animated versions of Gilligan's Island. She is singing a charming South African children's song with the charming South African kids:

Fish and chips and vinegar,
Pepper, pepper, pepper, salt.
Don't throw your trash in my backyard
My backyard
My backyard.
Don't throw your trash in my backyard
My backyard
My backyard's full.
One bottle pop, two bottle pops, three bottle pops, four bottle pops, five bottle pops...

As she sings, Mary looks out the window to see the figure of a man that appears and disappears.

On a rocky beach, Colonel Carson has a vision about the kidnapper that revolves around a white mask, girly pictures from the 1950s, and pushups.

In the city, schoolteacher Mary makes a bee-line for a clothes shop, grabs a shirt without looking at it, and heads straight into a dressing room. Undressing, she sees the black-clad man in the mirror, but when she turns around nobody is there. The salesgirl slides open the curtain. Unapologetic about catching Mary topless, the salesgirl asks if she likes the dress.

After a fun-filled trip to Boobs Disco, Mary walks home with her friend.

After they separate, Mary's friend encounters the black-clad man, who now wears a bright white mask. Mary's friend runs awkwardly down the street. The black-clad man runs equally awkwardly after her. When he catches her, he picks her up and carries her back into the shadows, where he proceeds to tear off her clothes to the sound of paper being torn.

But it appears she is in luck. A motorcycle appears at the end of the alley and drives toward the scene of the crime. Unfortunately, the motorcyclist drives past the black-clad man, who knocks the rider off his bike with a quick swipe, causing the bike to explode.

The girl runs away and the motorcyclist grabs his helmet. The black-clad attacker is nowhere to be seen.

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I don't believe my heart can take any more suspense at this time, so thus ends Part 1 of our discussion of The Demon. Stay tuned for Part 2.

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"You'll Have to Use Pure Illogic" - R.O.T.O.R. (1987) - Part 3 of 3

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This is Part 3 of our discussion of 1987's R.O.T.O.R. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Previously, we watched as rancher/scientist/police captain Dr. Coldyron explained the development of the R.O.T.O.R. project, a police android capable of cleaning the streets of human scum, though it will not be ready for deployment for at least a decade. Unfortunately, the android was activated early, escaped, broke into its own police locker to find its uniform and helmet, and stole its own personalized motorcycle. Now it is chasing an innocent woman named Sony across the Texas highways.

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Sony takes refuge in a trucker's semi, only to watch R.O.T.O.R. shoot the trucker, who has committed no apparent crime, in cold blood. In seconds, Dr. Coldyron comes to the rescue, shooting the android multiple times to surprisingly good effect. Coldyron is also able to momentarily paralyze his creation by showing him what appears to be a small yellow tape measure.

Sony gets back in her car and drives away, and R.O.T.O.R. gives chase on its motorcycle. Coldyron takes advantage of the fact that everyone in Texas uses a C.B. radio to contact Sony and tell her to keep driving until he can get help. And he also needs Sony to serve as bait, a plan to which she has, again possibly unwisely, no objection. He tells her to drive to a fishing camp on Lake Dallas, where they can confront the android.

After setting his plan in motion, Coldyron leaves a phone message for Dr. Steele in Houston. He informs Steele that R.O.T.O.R. has escaped and he will meet her at the Dallas airport.

A few hours later, we watch as the android recharges itself at a garage by using jumper cables and a pickup truck battery, the electricity rendered in beautiful shades of copper and green.

Dr. Steele's plane arrives at the Dallas airport, accompanied for unknown reasons with an arrival message for an unrelated flight from Los Angeles. Next we witness the film's gripping and justly famous airport arrival sequence as passengers exit the ramp. Finally, Dr. Steele, a female bodybuilder/scientist with a hairstyle similar to that of the feline object of Pepe Le Pew's affections, emerges from the plane and meets Dr. Coldyron.

Driving Dr. Steele in his car, Coldyron says, "He's out there. We made him, and he's doing what we made him for."

"In science," Dr. Steele says, "there's no room for human error. There's no place for it in law. We built the perfect lawman, one who could walk into the streets of blood, the cities of fire, the...the edge of destruction, and function perfectly again and again."

Coldyron holds up the small tape measure. In reality it is the deactivation key, the only thing that can stop R.O.T.O.R.

After an extended sequence where they park and check into the Lincoln Hotel, Coldyron and Steele, who cuts a dashing figure with her multicolored hairstyle, resolve to go get the android.

   

Coldyron reasons that R.O.T.O.R. is programming itself because something has happened to the self-learning alloy from which it is made.

Using pure logic, Dr. Steele reasons that "to combat pure will, you'll have to use pure illogic." Coldyron will have to allow himself to fail and use his failure against the android, because its brain matrix is based on Coldyron's lower brain functions.

On another stretch of Texas highway, Sony is still driving fast, roughly nine hours after being told by Coldyron to drive to Lake Dallas. R.O.T.O.R. is still chasing her but in a stroke of luck the android drives off a cliff.

Concerned, Sony gets out of her car to make sure the android is neutralized. At the bottom of the cliff, R.O.T.O.R. stirs. Sony, again showing somewhat questionable instincts, runs into the forest instead of getting back into her car.

When she reaches the lakeside, she steals a boat but forgets to untie it. R.O.T.O.R grabs the line and pulls the little boat back to shore. "I am R.O.T.O.R.," it says. "You are guilty." It points its gun at her head, but Dr. Steele arrives and shoots the android. She attacks it and there is a short fight in the shallow lake, after which the android drags Dr. Steele to the shore. She continues fighting it while Coldyron rescues Sony.

The thrilling fight continues for several minutes, an expert showcase of action filmmaking including judo moves and horn-honking, which again incapacitated the android, who eventually stumbles into a rope trap--but the ropes are primer cord, which explodes when the android discharges electricity!

The massive explosion destroys the android cop.

We cut back to the interrogation room, where Coldyron has finished telling his incredible story. (It is unfortunate for the viewer that he does not relate what occurred between the android's explosion and the beginning of the film with a battered Coldyron emerging from the forest with an unconscious Sony and stopping the Mercedes. This would undoubtedly have been a high point of the story, but perhaps it would be better left to a sequel.)

His fantastic story finished, Coldyron saunters out of the interrogation room, leaving the detectives in awe, and heads across the parking lot toward his car.

Shockingly, however, we see Coldyron gunned down by a man in an overcoat with a rifle. It might take us a moment to recognize the gunman as Division Commander Earl Buglar from earlier in the film. "Justice served," the man says. "C.O.D." We are left to imagine what the acronym stands for, proving that this film is thought-provoking, if nothing else.

In a neat twist, we are introduced to Coldyron's nephew, a college student who inherits everything from his uncle. The nephew continues the R.O.T.O.R. project with R.O.T.O.R. II--unfortunately not a produced sequel but in fact the next generation police android, which now looks like Dr. Steele instead of the late Dr. Coldyron.

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R.O.T.O.R. is both an exciting vision of the future of law enforcement and a sophisticated critique of the predictions of earlier science fiction cinema about law and order, such as RoboCop and The Terminator. Many of these films satirize the actions of law enforcement or exaggerate them to make them ridiculous. R.O.T.O.R., however, is true to its Texas roots in that it truly respects police work and does not fall prey to the easy temptations of "satire." The unstoppable android's creator, Coldyron, is above reproach, the epitome of the morally straight rancher/scientist/policeman with exactly zero character flaws. The downfall of the R.O.T.O.R. project is bureaucratic haste in letting it loose, and the resulting lack of mercy in its artificial intelligence. Coldyron, in fact, foresaw these flaws, but was prevented from addressing them due to his dismissal from the department.

R.O.T.O.R. is also exciting in its hard-science vision of near-future technology. The android's abilities cannot be too far off, what with all the technological advances in hardware and software we see every day, such as exploding tablets and apps that train your brain to play memory games. How much more advanced is R.O.T.O.R.'s time vision, a property of its computer brain that allows it to stand in any location and view what occurred in that location's recent past? And how much more advanced is the android's ability to transform from a mechanical skeletal structure into a mustachioed motorcycle cop complete with uniform and helmet? Not much more advanced, clearly.

   

In the end, R.O.T.O.R. succeeds almost effortlessly as a thought-provoking, action-packed work of speculative cinema due to the clever script by Cullen Blaine and Budd Lewis, and to the efficient, fast-paced direction by Blaine. Its wonderful innovations--the multiple opening scenes triggering the start of the story, the colorful hard-boiled but technologically savvy dialogue, the enjoyable story interludes advertising local Dallas restaurants and hotels--all combine into one of the finest action films of the 1980s. Avoiding the crudely satiric clumsiness of RoboCop and the bare bones cheapness of The Terminator, R.O.T.O.R. is the science fiction/action hybrid that finally showed these kinds of films in a positive light.

"I Don't Like It Even More" - R.O.T.O.R. (1987) - Part 2 of 3

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This is Part 2 of our discussion of 1987's R.O.T.O.R. You can read Part 1 here.

Previously, we watched as rancher/scientist/police captain Dr. Coldyron explained the development of the R.O.T.O.R. project, a police android capable of cleaning the streets of human scum, though it will not be ready for deployment for at least a decade.

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Dr. Coldyron ends the scientific meeting with an invitation. "Twenty-five years from now, if you come back next fall, you'll see the only thing that stands between humanity and itself." The meeting over, Dr. Coldyron is approached by his assistant, who has a message for him. Coldyron needs to explain his project to Division Commander Earl Buglar downtown by phone. Buglar starts off in a no-nonsense way: "Let's not spar with the social amenities, Coldyron, and say we did. Now down to business." Buglar is angry at Coldyron because Buglar had to lie to a Senator and tell him the project is ahead of schedule. They have 60 days to complete the R.O.T.O.R. project, but Coldyron needs more time. The commander threatens to fire him but Coldyron has the perfect comeback: "You fire me and I'll make more noise than two skeletons makin' love in a tin coffin, brother."

This eloquent threat works and the commander backs off, but Coldyron decides to quit anyway. The project is put into the hands of Coldyron's second-in-command, Dr. Houghtaling, who commiserates with Willard, the wisecracking robot in the officer's cap.

In the lab, a jive-talking American Indian with the traditional native name of Shoeboogie flirts with a blonde scientist and combs his hair with a switchblade, a practice that results in the accidental triggering of an electrical circuit.

   

Elsewhere, through a series of plot complications too intricate to detail, Dr. Coldyron runs an errand to pick up some charcoal at the gas station near his farm. Outside the convenience store, Coldyron grows suspicious of some young punks--possibly also dope dealers or another form of society's scum--who walked inside. Coldyron convinces the getaway driver to drive away by showing him his gun, then knocks one man unconscious with the pistol wrapped in a newspaper. In the parking lot, Coldyron shoots one punk who took a woman hostage, but when the last of the punks emerges from the convenience store, the woman--a confused expression on her face the entire time--kicks her abductor repeatedly until he is subdued. (Note: We never see this woman again.)

After the police arrive, a detective gives Coldyron his gun. "Don't use that next time," the detective says. "Hank and his boys don't like pickin' up bodies with a pooper scooper."

Coldyron replies, "I don't like it even more."

Back at the lab, the R.O.T.O.R. Project, no longer a skeletal metal frame but an android that could pass for human male, complete with a bushy mustache, breaks out of its chamber, steals a motorcycle cop's leather outfit, and steals its own custom monogrammed motorcycle.

Walking through the police station's parking garage, the android rudely bumps into an officer, after which the officer gives an impassioned soliloquy to the audience: "Spit and polish academy snot! God save us all!"

Houghtaling and Willard are aware something is wrong because every battery in the lab has been drained. Deciding to leave their eclectic, mint collection of 1970s video display terminals, they investigate the source of the trouble, just missing a message that appears on one screen: "R.O.T.O.R. Activated."

Not content to simply present a chase narrative like the inferior Terminator series, the filmmakers of R.O.T.O.R. add interest by introducing new characters with a fully developed storyline. Sony (occasionally called Sonya) and her fiancé are driving through the night. Sony wants to get a job after their honeymoon but her fiancé says it would be embarrassing if his wife worked. Unsurprisingly, he also feels that weddings are pagan rituals for sacrificing virgins, and they are expensive as well. He makes a deal with Sony that, if they elope tonight, he will help her find a job. To clinch the deal, they head for the nearest IHOP.

But their excessive speed has drawn the attention of R.O.T.O.R., still posing as a motorcycle cop. The android pulls the car over. Sony is suspicious: "A police officer? This far out of town?"

When the man attempts to bribe Officer R.O.T.O.R., the android shoots him in the head. In the car, Sony stumbles against the horn, revealing Officer R.O.T.O.R.'s weakness: a car horn. The robot grabs its helmet, nearly paralyzed by the blaring sound.

Taking advantage of the machine's paralysis, Sony speeds away. Officer R.O.T.O.R., moving quite slowly, eventually gives chase.

For unclear reasons, however, Sony stops her car and reaches into her purse to get her license and registration. The android reaches into the car and grabs at her in a Frankensteinian manner, but again she escapes by speeding away, dragging the robot outside the car until it is thrown off into the dark.

Back home, Dr. Coldyron is informed via beeper that a murder victim was found clutching a police nametag with Coldyron's name on it. Coldyron instructs the police to ignore the fact, and they agree. He heads back to his lab in Dallas to investigate. When he finds out R.O.T.O.R. has escaped, he makes a series of phone calls informing people that the android will stop at nothing to perform its prime directive: to judge and execute. "It's like a chainsaw set on frappe."

Sony drives to a gas station and uses a phone booth to report that she is being chased by a murderous motorcycle cop. Despite pleading with the officer on the line that she cannot go anywhere because the rogue motorcycle cop is after her, she hangs up and drives away. Unfortunately for Sony, the android catches her trail, being able, like most androids, to see through time.

When Sony stops at a roadside diner for coffee, we hear a loud blast and the sounds of bricks crumbling as the filmmakers suggest through audio effects that the android has forced his way through a wall. "Hey," says a short order cook," you can't come in here like 'at!" The cook grabs a knife and attacks the android, to little effect. The android presses the bucktoothed cook's face against the grill.

   

Dramatically, the mustachioed murderbot enters the diner to search for Sony. He stands still for about a minute, then moves slowly through the place, showing off his custom R.O.T.O.R. motorcycle helmet.

Perhaps unwisely, Sony chooses not to run away until R.O.T.O.R. Is right beside her. Fortunately, the android is distracted by three ineffectual patrons who pick a fight with it. These overconfident patrons are quickly dispatched by the machine.

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We have come to the end of Part 2 of our discussion of R.O.T.O.R. Stay tuned for Part 3.

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