Wolves, Angel Heart, Nightmare On Elm Street 5, The Castle of the Living Dead, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982), and The Return of Captain Invincible (1983)
Horror Bulletin Weekly Newsletter #275
We’ve got a mostly random selection of fun this week. We’ll watch the “chosen one” werewolf story, “Wolves” from 2014, then go back and watch the classic “Angel Heart” from 1987. We’ll advance through another Freddy movie with “A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child” from 1989. Finally, we’ll catch Christopher Lee in 1964’s “The Castle of the Living Dead.”
The weekly newsletter this time around adds two more oldies:
“The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1982 ) Anthony Hopkins!
“The Return of Captain Invincible” (1983) Christopher Lee!
Those two can be found at
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Next week, there’ll be another!
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Here. We. Go!
The Castle of the Living Dead (1964)
Directed by Warren Kiefer, Luciano Ricci
Written by Paul Maslansky, Warren Kiefer, Fede Arnaud
Stars Christopher Lee, Gaia Germani, Philippe Leroy, Mirko Valentin, Donald Sutherland
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was pretty good, with Donald Sutherland making his movie debut and Christopher Lee doing some polite gentlemanly villainy. The science is bad and it’s a little formulaic, but overall, it kept us interested.
Spoilery Synopsis
A man kills a pair of lovers in the woods. A highwayman kills a man on the road. We’re told that the war is over and Napoleon has been exiled. There was no war, but the killing has not stopped; criminals are everywhere. Public hangings are commonplace.
We cut to what appears to be the world’s stupidest hangman– no, it’s all just a comic skit for the crowd. The comic troupe gets a message from the count to come to his castle and perform for him. Bruno pays Gianni, Nick, and Dart, but only because Laura insists. Dart and Bruno fight over money, but Eric breaks up the fight. Since Dart has quit, they invite Eric to replace him. In the morning, the whole troupe heads up to the count’s castle.
On the way, they wonder about the forest’s silence, and then they find a taxidermy bird perched on a tree branch. As they stop, an old witch walks up and offers them a prophecy. “Some will live and some will die!”
Arriving at the castle, they go inside to find a huge number of taxidermied creatures inside. Laura calls it “The Castle of the Living Dead.” Count Drago comes in and introduces himself. He says he’s looking for the secrets of death; he means the taxidermy. The count’s creepy servant, Sandro, is suitably weird.
Eric and Laura talk about the castle and the count while Bruno has a drink with the count. There’s obviously something wrong with Bruno’s drink, and he staggers out to the stage to do his show with the others. When they do the hanging trick, it kills Bruno for real this time. Nick remembers the old woman’s prophecy. Eric thinks Dart was behind the accident.
Meanwhile, Dart rides up on his horse and climbs up the wall outside the castle. Drago talks to Eric about the actors, but Nick and Eric still think Dart was involved somehow. Laura spots Dart outside the window, looking in– thirty feet up.
Dart runs into the old woman in the graveyard later. She warns him to watch his back. Sandro runs into Dart on the grounds later and cuts him up with a scythe.
In the morning, the count shows Eric his laboratory. He’s been trying to make an “instant suspension of life.” He’s found a new embalming chemical that causes instant death and rigidity in perfect preservation. The police sergeant arrives, and Eric tells him about the accident with Bruno last night. They box up Bruno and carry him to the cemetery for burial.
As the funeral progresses, Gianni examines the noose from the accident as Sandro comes up behind him, loads a crossbow, and shoots him in the eye.
The count asks Laura where they’ll go when they leave, and she says the next town over. She’s always dreamed of living in one place, and he invites her to stay with him. “You should never grow old. You should stay like this, forever. Eternal life might be a dream, but eternal beauty can be achieved,” he says.
Sandro whacks Eric over the head. Laura watches as a cat drinks her wine and freezes solid. “The count meant that for me!” She finds Nick and tells him what’s been happening. They find a bedroom with a dead woman on the bed, frozen solid, with spiders and rats crawling all over her. Sandro follows them as they run through the castle; he throws Nick off the roof, but the little man lands in a pile of hay, where the old witch drags him away.
Laura makes her way into the count’s laboratory and sees Dart’s body posed in the corner. She talks to the count, and Eric wakes up. Outside, Nick and Sandro play hide and seek until Nick gets the other man’s gun and shoots him.
The count shows Gianni and Bruno’s bodies to his guests. He’s got a whole room full of preserved people. The three policemen come in, and Eric takes on all three of them. During the fight, one of the frozen birds is broken, and the count freaks out. The witch comes out of nowhere and attacks the count, and in the scuffle he gets frozen like the others. The sergeant looks in the next room and sees the count’s collection.
Paul orders that the three actors be released and are free to go. Eric, Laura, and Nick ride off.
Commentary
IMDB says the dwarf’s name is “Nick,” but in the film, they all call him “Meep.”
A group of people go to an old castle and mayhem ensues. We’ve seen this same story a hundred times. Although there’s nothing especially wrong with this film, the story is about as generic as you can get.
This was Donald Sutherland’s first film, appearing as both Sergeant Paul and the Witch. Christopher Lee is good as the count, and Mirko Valentin is awesome as the creepy Sandro.
A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989)
AKA “Nightmare on Elm Street 5”
Directed by Stephen Hopkins
Written by Wes Craven, John Skipp, Craig Spector
Stars Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Kelly Jo Minter, Dandy Hassel
Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Despite what we were led to believe in the 4th movie, Freddy isn’t gone for good and neither is Alice, survivor of the previous film. This continues the battle, along with working in a little more of Freddy’s origin story. It’s decent in every way and on par with the other sequels.
Spoilery Synopsis
Credits roll over glimpses of two people having sex. Afterward, the girl takes a shower. Something nasty comes up out of the drain, and then the stall starts to fill with water. Rather than drown, she somehow ends up in a dark, mysterious place where she’s suddenly dressed like a nun. She’s Amanda Krueger, in an asylum room with a hundred lunatics, and the guards lock her in. One of the hundred maniacs has a very familiar face.
Alice wakes up; that was a dream. She gets up and thinks twice before taking her shower. It’s graduation day at the high school, and both Alice and Yvonne are graduating. Greta, Mark, and Dan are there as well, and they’re all 80’s teen stereotypes with even more obnoxious parental stereotypes. Alice tells Dan about her dream last night.
On the way to work, Alice hallucinates two little girls chanting the “stay awake” nursery rhyme. She also sees the Nun running into the creepy old asylum. Alice watches as the attendants grab Amanda and wheel her into an operating room where they deliver her baby, who looks like a little puppet version of Freddy Krueger, burns and all. He quickly grows up into the adult Freddy. He’s back!
Before Freddy can kill Alice, Amanda the nun walks in and tells Freddy that she’s going to kill him. “I must be released from my earthly prison.” Alice is now suddenly in a diner, where Anne complains that she’s four hours late.
Meanwhile, at the pool party, Dan talks about him and Alice going to Europe for the summer. A guy gets cut, and Mark doesn’t like the sight of blood. Alice phones Dan and tells him that Freddy’s back. Dan hops in his truck and drives over there, but nods off on the road and crashes. He steals a motorcycle, but he’s still in the dream, so the motorcycle turns into Freddy, who crashes him again.
At the diner, Alice gets a vision of Dan's death. She goes to the hospital, in shock, and the doctor says she’s pregnant. Alice tells Yvonne and her friends the history of Amanda and Freddy, bringing them up to date on all the stuff we’ve seen in previous films. Freddy uses Alice’s powers to draw people into dreams. Except, when Dan died, she wasn’t even asleep; Freddy must have found some other way.
Over at Greta’s house, her overbearing mother wants her to be a model, but Greta isn’t interested. Freddy shows up and makes her eat everything on the table as the guests watch. She blows up like a blimp but chokes to death in real life. Alice “sees” this happen as well.
Alice talks to Mark and Yvonne about what’s going on; he believes it, but she doesn’t. Mark draws comic book characters, and he’s suddenly “drawn” into one of his pictures. Alice goes in after him this time and runs into Jacob, a little boy she first met in the hospital. He says he’s been having bad dreams. It’s clear that Jacob is a “friend” of Freddy’s. Alice thinks that Jacob is her baby somehow. “Do unborn babies dream?”
Alice goes for an ultrasound, but the baby looks normal to the doctor. She gets a glimpse of the baby in the womb, and it looks like Freddy’s been feeding it the souls of her friends. Yvonne thinks Alice sounds insane. Dan’s parents want to know what Alice intends to do with the baby. They want to adopt it, but Alice isn’t interested.
Mark researches Amanda and reports that she killed herself after giving birth, so her soul is in torment, trapped in its earthly resting place. Alice goes to sleep to find Amanda. Meanwhile, Yvonne goes to the pool and sits in the hot tub. She jumps off the high dive and ends up in Freddy-land, where she runs into Alice.
At the same time, Mark battles Freddy with his own dream-powers. Freddy, of course, also becomes a superhero to fight back. Freddy then shreds his pulpy nemesis. Yvonne is now a believer.
Alice battles Freddy again, this time in the asylum with the hundred maniacs. They literally tear him limb from limb. She finds Freddy and Jacob together. They run through a collection of Escher’s stairways and visual weirdness until Jacob and Alice are together. It turns out, Freddy’s been inside her all along, and she finally drives him out. Meanwhile, Yvonne finds Amanda’s final resting place and releases her spirit.
Down in Freddy's world, Amanda shows up and tells Jacob what to do. She tells the little boy to unleash his power, which releases Alice’s dead friends and pulls the ugly baby Freddy out of his body. Amanda grabs Baby Freddy, and Alice grabs baby Jacob. Both babies “go back inside” their mothers. Amanda then locks herself away, taking Freddy with her.
Much later, Yvonne and Alice talk about her new baby, who looks perfectly normal. His name is Jacob. We cut away to them in the park as little girls do the “Stay Awake” rhyme in the background.
Commentary
This one continues where the previous three films left off but it’s built up on Freddy’s mother and the whole “son of a hundred maniacs” idea. It’s got good sets, decent enough acting for the franchises, and interesting situations. It also adds a bit of new lore to Freddy’s mythos.
If you liked the others, you’ll like this one, but there’s not really a whole lot new to see.
Short Film: Final Days (2023)
Directed by Joseph McDonagh
Written by Joseph McDonagh
Stars Danann McAleer, Naomi Richards, Ben Dalton, Danny Chase
Run Time: 11:07
Watch it:
What Happens
Synopsis: When a family he used to know mysteriously disappears, A church Pastor helps detectives piece together the family’s last days.
We’re told that the Colton family’s car was found abandoned on the side of the road. There are bullets, a Satanic Bible, and a bunch of cash. We watch as the pastor tells his side of the story…
Commentary
It’s got very moody black-and-white visuals. What really makes this one stand out is that it’s essentially a silent film. It’s got dialog intertitles that appear instead of audible dialog, just like an old-timey silent film.
The visuals are excellent, the story, as it’s told, moves by briskly enough. My only real complaint is that the choice of music is very monotonous and got annoying about halfway through the story.
Still, it’s an interesting story, and it’s clear enough what happened even if it’s not all spelled out. Nice!
Angel Heart (1987)
Directed by Alan Parker
Written by William Hjortsberg, Alan Parker
Stars Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet, Charlotte Rampling
Run Time: 1 Hour, 53 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is very much a noir detective story with horror elements. It builds nicely as we follow the case along. Mickey Rourke is great in the lead role, managing to be likable and ruthless at the same time. The settings, cinematography, and direction are excellent. It’s a winner.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a dog in an alleyway looking for food. It passes a dead body and moves on. We are told that it’s 1955 New York.
Harry Angel walks into his office and gets a call from Mr. Winesap and agrees to meet him in a Harlem church. He passes a woman washing blood off a wall after a man killed himself there. Winesap’s client is Louis Cyphre, a strange man sitting up in a chair like a throne. Angel is a detective, and he’s not quite sure why these men have called him.
They discuss a man who went to war and came back a vegetable; Cyphre’s contract was never honored, and he wants Angel to find Johnny Leibling AKA singer Johnny Favorite to make sure he’s still alive or dead. Angel takes the case.
Angel pulls out his fake ID from the National Institute of Health and goes to the mental hospital looking for Leibling. The man used to be there, but he was transferred away more than a decade ago.
Angel’s next stop is the doctor who may have treated the man. He breaks into the doctor’s house and finds lots of morphine bottles in the fridge. The doctor comes in, and Angel asks about Liebling. He says that some people came and took him away in a car years ago; he had amnesia after waking from a coma. After giving the doctor some time to suffer from withdrawal, Angel goes back, hoping for more information, and finds the doctor has killed himself.
Angel updates Cyphre about what he’s learned. Angel doesn’t like being involved with a death and wants to quit. Cyphre increases his fee tremendously, and Angel can’t refuse. He goes back to the Harlem church and finds a weird shrine with dead things on it. Some men attack him and chase him down the street.
Angel talks to a reporter friend about Liebling, and he was pretty popular as singer Johnny Favorite. He goes to interview an old bandmate, Spider Simpson, who tells him about another guy, Toots Sweet. Angel travels to New Orleans to follow more leads.
Angel next follows up on a fortune teller that “Johnny Favorite” used to see a lot; “Madame Zora’s” real name is Margaret Krusemark. He finds Margaret quickly and goes to her under the pretense of getting his fortune read. She says Johnny Favorite is dead, or at least dead to her.
Following up on a lead, he meets up with Epiphany Proudfoot, the daughter of someone who knew Johnny. Afterwards, he goes to see Toots Sweet, a musician. The meeting does not go well, so Angel follows him after the show is over. Sweet goes to a big Voodoo ritual where Epiphany dances with chicken blood; she’s a Mambo Priestess.
In the morning, the police show up; Toots Sweet is violently dead and he had Angel’s contact information in his hand. He goes back to Margaret the palm reader and finds her dead too. On her desk, he finds an old, mummified hand and her very fresh-looking heart.
After getting beat up again, he tracks down Epiphany again; he thinks she set up Toots, since she was the only one who knew he was involved. She admits that Johnny Favorite was her father but denies hurting Toots.
He meets up with Cyphre again, this time in a big church. Cyphre doesn’t seem impressed upon hearing about the murders. Angel thinks Johnny is the one killing all the people who might know anything about his location.
Reuniting with Epiphany, they talk about her father and then start dancing, which leads to sex as the ceiling rains blood. It’s a weird, hallucinatory scene.
Angel goes to see Ethan, Margaret’s father. He and his daughter are the ones who broke Johnny out of the mental hospital. Margaret was into “hocus pocus” and wanted Johnny released; he says Johnny sold his soul to Satan for stardom. Angel doesn’t believe any of it. Johnny tried to get out of his deal with the devil. He tells the whole story of Johnny’s ritual. The only way out was to steal someone else’s body, memories, and identity who was the same age as him by eating the other guy’s heart. Suddenly, Angel finds Ethan dead in the gumbo pot.
Angel runs back to Margaret’s place and finds a pair of Harold Angel dog tags— his own dog tags where they sealed them away after the ritual. Yes, he has been Johnny all along, but with a new identity as Harold Angel so good that even he didn’t realize it. He starts remembering everything, fighting hard against it.
Cyphre shows up, and Angel realizes that Louis Cyphre is Lucifer. Angel denies killing everyone, but Cyphre just smiles. Everyone who’s had any connection to him has been killed, the devil using Johnny to clean up the loose ends. Angel now remembers killing all those people, even the doctor who wasn’t actually a suicide. Cyphre picks up the dog tags and Johnny’s gun and vanishes.
Angel runs back to Epiphany, who is dead like all the others. She’s wearing his dog tags. And his gun is there as the murder weapon. Angel tells the cop there that she was his daughter. “You’re gonna burn for this, Angel,” says the cop. “Yeah. In Hell,” he answers.
Commentary
“I got a thing about chickens.”
The story just gets weirder and weirder as it goes along, adding in hints that things aren’t exactly what they seem to be. The various Voodoo, occult, and Satanic imagery gradually fill in what’s going on all along.
The locations are amazing; the cinematography is interesting, and the whole setting really makes the movie. It’s a very strange film, but also really good!
Wolves (2014)
Directed by David Hayter
Written by David Hayter
Stars Lucas Till, Stephen McHattie, John Pyper-Ferguson, Merritt Patterson, Jason Momoa
Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was pretty good with a story that’s pretty predictable. It’s more heavy on action than horror, but there are loads of werewolves. The acting and effects are decent enough to get the job done. It’s not a great film, but we were entertained without any boredom.
Synopsis
We open on a teenager, Cayden, who had been getting the same nightmares, every night. He’s a football player, but he’s not very good at it. He leaps about twenty feet to attack another player and beat him senseless. He can’t explain it.
Later, he’s making out with his girlfriend in the car at night, under the full moon, and he has a headache. We see that he’s a werewolf. He wakes up in a puddle of blood at home and finds that his parents are both dead. The police come, but he runs away, hitching from town to town.
One night, at a truck stop, he watches the news, who call him the “Cannibal Killer.” He interrupts a prostitute getting beaten up and wolfs out to eat the attackers. He’s like the Hulk, only bloodier. He knows that suicide is his only option to stop the changes.
He runs into a guy at a bar, Wild Joe, who talks about being “afflicted.” Yeah, he’s a werewolf too, and Cayden has many questions. “You’re a predator, that’s what you are. Don’t fight it.” Cayden says that he was adopted, so his parents had no idea. The purebred werewolves are born this way, the ones who are bitten are just mutts. He doesn’t say much, but he points to “Lupine Ridge” on the map.
In Lupine Ridge, Cayden goes into the bar, and everyone there looks at him funny. Angel runs the bar, and her boyfriend Deke wants to start a fight with Cayden. Outside, he runs into John, who offers him work on his farm. Time passes, and Cayden is happy working there on the farm– except all the animals are afraid of him.
The big guy from town, Connor, comes to see Cayden, and he’s got funny eyes. John calls Cayden his nephew, but Connor doesn’t believe that.
The next morning, Cayden finds one of the sheep dead. John blames wolves from the hills. How much does John know about… Things? A guy named Carter says he’s Cayden’s second cousin, and warns him to get out of town before Connor finds out who Cayden really is. Later, Connor’s goons grab Carter in the woods; that goes badly for Connor, as the whole gang are wolves.
Angel takes Cayden to spy on Connor’s gang, who are eating what’s left of Carter. She takes him home to John, who knows everything. John tells Cayden about his mother. Cayden really is John’s nephew, and he’s from a very old, very pure bloodline. He explains purebreds and the mutts. Connor is actually Cayden’s real father, and he wants to have a son with Angel, who’s not at all into that.
Angel asks, “Is it a gift or is it a curse?” as they have a “bonding montage.” Then they have ultraviolent sex with claws and teeth. Afterward, they have to figure out how to get home with their clothes all torn up.
John and some of the town wolves know what’s up and talk about defending themselves. Tomorrow night is the full moon– and Halloween. They want to give the young people up to Connor; some of the town wolves haven’t changed in years, they’re all out of practice. Cayden says he’ll take care of it.
At the bad-wolves camp, they all know about Cayden now. Cayden walks right into the camp and confronts Connor about being his son.
The gang chases Cayden into the woods, but he’s tougher than all the mutts and kills them. Angel hears roaring from the hills and runs to help. Cayden jumps off a cliff to get away, but he survives.
Cayden wakes up and sees Wild Joe, who motivates him to survive. John tells him he has to change back to a wolf to heal properly, but Cayden doesn’t want to do it. Angel gets him to do it.
John and Cayden make explosives out of fertilizer, along with other booby-traps. Somehow, Connor’s guys kidnap John, Clara, and Angel. All the normal werewolves left town in fear, so no one’s gonna help them.
There’s a whole werewolf wedding thing between Connor and drugged-up Angel. Cayden makes a dramatic entrance. Angel wolfs out and frees the others. John chases after the pack, who are following Cayden through the woods. John sets off the booby traps and kills several of the gang members.
Soon, it’s just Cayden and Connor, one on one. Connor tells a story that shows that he might not be as bad as they all say. Suddenly, Wild Joe laughs and takes credit for everything. This was all Joe’s plan to get revenge on Connor for ripping out his eye. Oh, and he also killed Cayden’s parents and framed him for it. Joe kills Connor, but then John comes out with his gun, which promptly jams. Wild Joe runs, giving the whole “You’re too good a person to kill me in cold blood” speech. Thanks to Cayden, the buried trap Wild Joe is standing on explodes and little bits of him go every which way.
Later, Cayden and Angel wake up in bed together; it’s all gonna be fine now. John buried the bodies in the field. They get ready to leave town, so John gives him an old scroll with the names of all the werewolf family lines; he should look them up as he travels.
Commentary
It’s pretty straightforward. Cayden is the “chosen one” in a werewolf town. The werewolf makeup is actually pretty good here, and the fight scenes are fun. The transformation scenes are basic CGI, but they’re pretty decent too. The acting is fine for this kind of story; everyone is believable, but the roles are all pretty one-dimensional and cliched.
The werewolves here are actually very good, but the film is hurt by the extremely predictable story. It was entertaining, but it’s not gonna win any awards.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982)
Directed by Michael Tuchner, Alan Hume
Written by John Gay, Victor Hugo
Stars Anthony Hopkins, Derek Jacobi, David Suchet, Leslie-Anne Down
Run Time: 1 Hour, 42 Minutes
Watch it:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was a very bland and tame version of the story. The cast was powerhouse and the makeup effects were very good. But the low budget feel and mediocre script really brought it down. It was okay, but not equal to any other version that we’ve seen.
Spoilery Synopsis
We gather around a group of nuns in church. “It isn’t human. It’s a monkey.” Someone’s left a really ugly baby at the church. Dom Claude Frollo names it Quasimodo and keeps it as his own.
Twenty-five years later, Frollo is appointed Archdeacon of Notre Dame. Outside in Paris, it’s the Festival of Fools. Frollo meets Esmerelda, a girl accused of dancing in the streets. Frollo is not happy when he hears that Quasimodo has left the church to go to the festival. Among the other Renaissance Fair acts, Esmerelda dances. Then it’s time to pick the King of the Fools, the ugliest man in all of Paris. While all this is going on pickpockets work the crowd.
Someone spots Quasimodo in the crowd and before long, he’s crowned King of the Fools. Quasimodo isn’t very intelligent, and he’s deaf, but they make him understand. Esmerelda watches in pity until she’s arrested for dancing again. Eventually, Frollo shows up and puts a stop to the fun, making Quasimodo return to the church.
Frollo interrogates Esmerelda, claiming there’s a demon inside her. He likes what he sees and says she has no hope but to claim sanctuary here in the cathedral… with him. He gives her a room in the tower, right next to Quasimodo. She runs away, and Frollo sends Quasimodo to go and bring her back. Captain Phoebus of the Royal Archers captures Quasimodo as a kidnapper and lets Esmerelda go.
Elsewhere, Clopin, the King of Thieves, captures Pierre Gringoire, who considers himself a poet. He sentences Pierre to death unless Pierre joins them and passes a pickpocket-test. He fails, and they’re about to hang him, when Esmerelda claims him as her husband. They’re married on the spot. She doesn’t really want him; she only has eyes for Captain Phoebus. Pierre tells her all kinds of nasty stories about Phoebus.
Quasimodo goes on trial, but he’s deaf and has no idea what’s going on. They order 30 lashes on the pillory. Frollo hears about this, but he lets the punishment stand. Quasimodo is whipped repeatedly in the town square. He yells for water, and everyone but Esmerelda laughs at him. She brings him a drink, and he immediately falls in love with her. Eventually, he is released back to the church.
Frollo has Pierre called in to ask about Esmerelda, whom Pierre claims is his wife. Frollo offers to “buy” her from Pierre. Pierre tells Frollo about Esmerelda’s infatuation with Phoebus. She goes to meet Phoebus but is shocked that he doesn’t want to marry her; he’s already married. Frollo, listening outside the door, jumps in and stabs Phoebus, and dashes away. Esmerelda gets the blame for his murder and is sentenced to torture before death.
Elsewhere, we see that Captain Phoebus has escaped death. When he hears that Esmerelda is doomed, he doesn’t get very upset. He doesn’t see any need to correct their mistake. Frollo comes for her in prison, but she still doesn’t want to go with him. He goes on and on about how much he loves her, but she’s not falling for his lies.
Esmerelda is carted through the streets on the way to the gallows, and Quasimodo notices from the tower. Just as they’re about to hang her, Quasimodo crashes the party, grabs Esmerelda, and escapes to the church, yelling “Sanctuary!” Later that night, Quasimodo shows Frollo his new prize.
Quasimodo explains to her why he rescued her from the gallows - she gave him water. She looks down from the tower and sees Phoebus in the crowd. She tells Quasimodo to bring him inside. Phoebus still thinks she’s one who stabbed him, so he’s not cooperative.
Quasimodo catches Frollo trying to rape Esmerelda and runs him off. Pierre learns that an act of Parliament has been signed that will force the church to turn Esmerelda over for hanging. He rouses the rabble among the thieves to storm the cathedral to save Esmerelda. Clopin is in agreement, and soon, the peasants are revolting.
The people inside the church think the mob outside wants to kill Esmerelda. Quasimodo goes up to the roof and starts dropping stones and boiling oil on the people below.
Inside, Frollo goes after Esmerelda again, but Quasimodo fights back this time. Quasimodo hangs Frollo on a hook, impaling him. Pierre climbs up the scaffolding as soldiers arrive outside. Quasimodo shows Esmerelda and Pierre to a tunnel that will let them escape Paris.
The soldiers chase Quasimodo back up to the roof, where he swings around on the bell ropes. He hides on the outside of the church and eventually falls to his death.
Commentary
A lot of lettuce was thrown in this film. I wonder what the vegetable budget was?
This was made for TV, and it shows. It’s the basic “Hunchback” story with few changes that were worth mentioning. It was fine, but noticeably low budget other than the main cast. This version focuses heavily on Frollo rather than Quasimodo.
There is absolutely nothing to recommend this version over any of the others.
The Return of Captain Invincible (1983)
Directed by Philippe Mora
Written by Steven E. de Souza, Andrew Gaty, Peter Smalley
Stars Alan Arkin, Christopher Lee, Kate Fitzpatrick, Bill Hunter
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was weird, campy, maybe cultish, but it’s really not very good. It’s fun seeing Christopher Lee singing, there are some chuckles here and there, and a few bright spots. But mostly we thought it was mediocre, choppy, and a little on the dull side. Check it out if you’re in the mood for something strange, but we don’t highly recommend it.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on old newsreels about mobsters getting attacked by Captain Invincible. He easily defeats the bootleggers. He’s a hero, and then he crushes Nazis in WWII. We see that the head bootlegger and Hitler’s #2 guy both look like Christopher Lee. Captain Invincible is clearly a ham and likes to show off for the camera. Unfortunately, he ended up in a congressional hearing to inquire about his loyalty. We see that same evil guy sitting behind Invincible in the audience. In disgust, Captain Invincible vanishes. Credits roll.
We resume with a guy standing on top of an Australian mountain, singing drunkenly. The man is interviewed by the news when he witnesses Skylab falling. The guy is clearly intoxicated, as he talks about trying to catch it.
We cut to “Mr. Midnight,” the evil guy behind just about everything in history. He sits in his lair and calls the shots for criminals all over the place– and he’s got some kind of alien henchman. There’s something about a mind-control ray that he’s using to make people buy real estate.
We cut to the Australian alcoholic, annoying people by sitting in the doorway. When some criminals harass a cop, he stands in front of their car, which explodes ridiculously. The president is briefed on the “Hypno Ray.” The President’s advisors aren’t especially helpful. The President breaks into a “Bullshit” song. They wheel in a band to play along as he sings about needing a hero.
Patty Patria, the cop we saw earlier, gets an APB on Captain Invincible. The President wants to talk to him. Funny, he looks a lot like that homeless alcoholic. She soon finds him and asks for his help. He sings a song about the “Good Guys and the Bad Guys” and how he couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Patty can’t convince him, so the President himself tries.
The captain agrees, but he’s out of practice, addicted to booze, and has to sober up before putting on the old uniform. He doesn’t even remember how to fly or use his magnetism powers. Mr. Midnight is soon informed about the American plan. Patty explains women’s lib to him, since he’s really out of touch; he wasn’t even aware he’s been living in Australia.
The captain has some kind of hallucination at Patty’s house which causes some magnetism issues. He tells Patty his origin story, which involves alien voyeurs zapping his parents as he was conceived. She sings to him about not getting discouraged.
The captain uses his computer brain to read a bunch of books and identify the criminal, who works in a vacuum repair shop. Mr. Midnight recognizes his old nemesis immediately. The Captain and Patty are attacked by vacuum cleaner hoses. They suck up all the air in the room, but the Captain barely saves the day.
Returning to base, they learn that there’s a traitor in their midst, so they have to fly away. Captain Invincible realizes that Midnight is behind all this. Invincible and Midnight do a sort of split duet about evil midnight. Invincible, who now finally seems to have his mojo back, sings about being back “Into the Blue.”
Invincible has his lair inside the Statue of Liberty’s head. He calls the President about Mr. Midnight. He goes looking for Midnight at a Jewish Deli, and that goes badly, with a pie fight. This is not the world the Captain knew, and he sings about that.
Invincible falls through a hole and ends up in Midnight’s factory lair. He confronts Midnight, but keeps falling into traps that don’t hurt him. Midnight tempts him with a whole array of alcohol bottles and a whole song and dance number about “Name Your Poison.” The captain is about to start drinking again, but Patty breaks in on the radio playing old time patriotic music, which hits the spot for him.
Midnight launches his missiles at New York City. Captain Invincible beats Mr. Midnight, destroys his lair, and flies away to rescue the people of New York. The President gives him a medal.
Commentary
It’s an “Ozploitation film,” and also the first Australian superhero film. The advertising of the time claimed the special effects were better than “Superman” (1978). We assume they were just kidding, because they were not. This is what superhero movies were before the 2000s, silly parodies that make little sense.
Christopher Lee chews the scenery, sitting around feeding animals to each other. He does eventually sing, and he’s pretty good. Lee would go on to release a number of albums afterward, everything from old show tunes to metal.
I’d not seen this before, and Kevin says he remembered it being better than this. It may have been “Rocky Horror Show” level popular at one time, but it does not hold up today. The songs are too short and not very good for the most part. The plot is just a bunch of random stuff. Lee and Arkin are the only ones who can act at all, and they’re both really hamming it up here.
It’s weird, that’s for sure, but it has not held up well.
Stay tuned for more regular and bonus reviews next week!
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