Nocturna Side A (and B), Terror Train, Not of This Earth, and Attack of the Crab Monsters
Nocturna Side A (and B), Terror Train, Not of This Earth, and Attack of the Crab Monsters
Episode 153 Summary
This week, we’ll be watching our usual line-up of four full-length films and a short film. This week, we’ll look at the upcoming film “Nocturna Side A: The Great Old Man’s Night” and also Part B. Then we’ll watch “Terror Train” from 1980, and watch a 1950’s double feature with “Attack of the Crab Monsters” and “Not of This Earth,” both from 1957.
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2022 Nocturna: Side A: The Great Old Man’s Night
• Directed by Gonzalo Calzeda
• Written by Gonzalo Calzeda
• Stars Pepe Soriano, Marilu Marini, Lautaro Delgado
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 47 Minutes
• Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
At first it seems like we’re just going to watch a confused old man wander around, struggling with a grasp on reality. The longer you watch, you realize it’s so much deeper than that. It’s frightening, poignant, horrifying, heart wrenching, and joyful. Sometimes all at the same time. Beautifully filmed and superbly acted.
Synopsis
Children run through the bright, foggy woods; it looks like a fun time. Young Ulises has his eye on young Dalia. We flash forward to old Ulises, nearing ninety years old. He calls for Dalia, who isn’t there anymore. He seems confused. Daniel, the superintendent, asks if he’s OK, and Ulises admits he got lost. His heart thumps painfully from time to time. There is mention of some burglaries in the building.
He goes back to his apartment and gets yelled at by Dalia, who says they haven’t had any food in the place in two days. She seems fairly paranoid that the people who run the place want to evict them, but he doesn’t think that’s true.
He goes from room to room, forgetting exactly what he’s doing. The two go to bed, but Ulises complains that his chest hurts. He wakes up later that night hearing things. He sees flashes of someone in the courtyard.
Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door; a woman out there screams that she needs help. Ulises and Dalia are afraid to open the door. She’s Elena, the neighbor from upstairs. Dalia says it’s a trap.
Next, Daniel comes knocking on the door. He says the neighbor, Elena, fell out the upstairs window, and the firemen need to go through his apartment to get to the courtyard. They go out back and find Elena’s body. Ulises tells Daniel about Elena coming to his door; he’s sure that she committed suicide.
Their son, Carlos calls. Daniel called him and told him what happened. Carlos wants him to go to a retirement home, but Ulises refuses to consider it. Carlos says he’s coming in the morning.
A few minutes later, the whole thing happens again with Elena coming to the door, although this time through, it’s a bit more violent. He calls Daniel, who explains that it all happened a couple of hours ago, and it’ll all be clear again in the morning.
Ulises tells Dalia that if it happens again, he’s going to help Elena. Their estranged daughter needed help too; there’s something bad between Dalia and their daughter. She got pregnant and Dalia hated the embarrassment. They disowned her, something Ulises still regrets. He wants to call her and apologize; Dalia says he’s had his whole life to do that.
Ulises calls his daughter, but finds he can’t remember her name. He suddenly forgets what he was doing. They fight, physically, and Dalia is injured. He tries to call for help, but can’t make the phone work. Ulises goes looking for help and winds up upstairs in Elena’s apartment where he finds photos of himself. He has a long conversation with Elena. He then watches her jump out the window to her death. He turns around and Elena is still there.
She goes downstairs and beats on his apartment door, and he follows her. She goes positively weird on him.
Finally, he opens the door and lets Elena inside. He helps her to move on. Then he sees his own mother and asks her what he did wrong. In the morning, he calls his daughter and apologizes. Finally, Carlos and Daniel come for Ulises, but it’s too late. He’s back in the foggy woods where we saw him in the beginning, both he and Dalia young again…
Commentary
The real question is how much of this is supernatural and how much is Ulises dementia?
A few weeks ago, we slammed “The Amusement Park” for how terrible it treated the topic of aging. THIS is how you show how terrifying it is to get old; not through silly metaphors, but by actually showing us old people just being old. And remembering being young.
Almost from her first scene, we wondered if old Dalia was real or a ghost, of either the real or imagined kind. Just about the time we figure out what the deal is with Dalia, then we have to deal with Elena.
I would classify this as a dramatic mystery with some horrific elements. If you’re looking for a stalker, serial killer, or monster, you won’t find it here, but it really is excellent. Pepe Soriano as old Ulises is awesome - just frail enough for pity, but still sympathetic in his old age.
2022 Nocturna: Side B: Where the Elephants Go to Die
• Directed by Gonzalo Calzeda
• Written by Gonzalo Calzeda
• Stars Marilu Marini, Pepe Soriano
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 7 Minutes
• Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It was a disappointing follow-up to a wonderful side A. It’s a series of images and clips, some strobing with fast words spewed at us, some longer and slower. All grainy and distorted. While we think we saw what they were trying to accomplish, we can’t recommend it.
Synopsis
Elena from the first film narrates. She talks about photography as we watch an epilepsy-inducing montage of shots from the first film. Credits roll.
Elena describes old Ulises as if he were the subject of a nature documentary. There are elephants howling in the background.
We then see many of what appear to be scenes cut from the film, all sped up and covered in bland piano music. We then get jumbled scenes of the mysterious man downstairs. Then it follows various segments and scenes of the characters from part A accompanied by music and disjointed narration.
Commentary
The first film, Part A, was one of the best things I’ve seen all year; certainly in my top ten of 2021. Part B, on the other hand, can easily be dismissed as “tedious and completely unnecessarily pretentious crap.” I think I’m going to leave it there.
Give Part B a try to decide for yourself. But our thought is to save yourself an hour. Watch Part A and skip part B.
Terror Train (1980)
• Directed by Roger Spottiswoode
• Written by T.Y. Drake, Daniel Grodnik, Justin Roscoe
• Stars Ben Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hart Bochner
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
• Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
What if you took “Halloween” and put it on a train with lots of magic tricks and silly costumes? Although it’s a pretty solid 1980 horror film, it’s starting to look a little dated for modern viewers.
Synopsis
It’s New Year’s Eve at the frat house. We meet various annoying teenagers, one of whom is Alana, who looks suspiciously like Jamie Lee Curtis. They’ve set something up where Kenny the nerdy kid is supposed to go to her room and have sex. Instead, they’ve substituted a corpse from the medical school. Kenny is not amused. Credits roll.
Three years later, the whole gang is taking a trip by train. We see that it’s mostly the same group of annoying kids. The conductor complains that there’s no radio on the train. As they all board the train, we see that the class clown has already been murdered on the station platform and rolled under the train’s wheels.
It’s a New Year’s Eve thing, so lots of people are wearing masks. Doc tells some freshmen the story of what happened to Kenny in their freshman year. Alana comes in, and she’s not proud of the prank; poor Kenny wound up in the hospital. She still regrets that.
Unbeknownst to Alana and Doc, the other seniors are being killed one by one. There’s a magician who entertains the passengers. The conductor does some crappy tricks as well. Doc wonders, “Who hired a magician? I didn’t hire a magician.” Meanwhile, the conductor finds a mutilated body in the restroom. When he brings in the other conductor to look, the blood is gone and so is the body.
The conductor finds Michy’s body and shows it to Alana. Doc finds Mo's body. Doc pulls the emergency brake cord, but the train doesn’t slow down. The conductor races to the front of the train, but there’s no one there. He stops the train manually and wonders what happened to the engineer.
With the train stopped, they do a car-to-car search for the killer. Alana tells Doc that she thinks it might be Kenny from that prank. That means the two of them are all that’s left as his targets. Doc locks himself in a cabin and the killer gets him next.
Alana tells the conductor that the magician is the killer. The train gets back underway, but now everyone knows there’s a killer aboard. The conductor locks the magician in a car by himself, but he is a magician after all. The conductor goes back in after him and the magician is gone.
The killer comes after Alana, but she stabs him in the back. He chases her, and she screams. She locks herself in a cage, and he tries to get in, but she stabs him again. She ends up pushing him off the train.
Of course, that’s not the end of it. We see the masked killer through a window, clinging to the side of the train. Alana soon finds the magician’s body— guess it wasn’t him after all. She’s soon face to face with Kenny, who had been masquerading as the magician’s assistant. The conductor whacks him with a shovel, knocks him out of the train for real this time, off a very high bridge, and he falls onto the ice, through the ice, and washes down the river. That was pretty thorough!
Commentary
I like the conversations between the engineer and conductor about the future of rail travel. Passenger trains are still a thing but not the futuristic vision the engineer had.
These are all medical students, so why is only one of the guys named Doc?
What’s up with the magic tricks? How many college medical students would want to hire a stage magician to perform on their train ride? Was David Copperfield that big of a draw in 1980 that they felt the need to shoehorn him into a horror movie?
This is a fairly by-the-numbers slasher film. This time around, the killer puts on the costume of his most recent victim, so he looks different for each death. The whole thing being set on a train is an interesting feature as well. Otherwise, it’s looking a little dated. It’s not exactly a train wreck, but it is slower-paced than a real passenger train.
Not of this Earth (1957)
• Directed by Roger Corman
• Written by Charles B. Griffith, Mark Hanna
• Stars Paul Birch, Beverly Garland, Morgan Jones
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 7 Minutes
• Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Synopsis
A girl walks home from her date and is confronted by a strange man in sunglasses. She screams and passes out and the man drains her blood into a machine. The man has white eyes; wild guess, but I’d say he is “Not of this Earth.” Credits roll.
The man with the suitcase full of blood goes to the hospital for a transfusion. His name is Paul Johnson. He refuses to get a blood-type test. He cuts himself and says it will bleed later. Johnson hypnotizes Doctor Rochelle and forces him to keep his information secret. Johnson then hires Nurse Nadine as his personal nurse.
Johnson goes home and tells his servant Jeremy to prepare a room for Nadine. He then puts several bottles of blood in the fridge. Johnson speaks in a stilted, uncomfortably formal accent. Nadine arrives, and he locks her in her bedroom. Nadine’s boyfriend Harry is a cop.
Johnson uses a communication device to “phone home” to his commander on the planet Davanna. He’s here to study humans and send blood home. There are several phases to the plan, and phase five is conquest, followed by obliteration of the planet.
A vacuum cleaner salesman comes to the door, and Johnson invites him in. Johnson drains him dry and puts the body in his incinerator. He tells Jeremy to invite three homeless “bums” to dinner tonight.
Dr. Rochelle returns, and he has many questions about Johnson’s blood. His blood is different from any man on Earth. His blood is breaking down, evaporating. The doctor thinks he can keep it from continuing with more research. Johnson is aware of all this, admitting that he will die if the process is not halted.
Jeremy brings the bums over as ordered and soon they end up drained and in the incinerator. The police are finding bodies with neck wounds, like a vampire. Jeremy notices that the bums came in, but they never left.
Johnson drinks a strange liquid instead of food. Nadine sneaks a sample to Dr. Rochelle to analyze, and it’s a perfect food substitute.
A woman comes through the portal from Davanna and gives Johnson bad news about the wars at home. She explains that they cannot go home; not only that, but she’ll die in four days without a transfusion. Johnson gives her canine blood. She passes out in front of Dr. Rochelle’s office; she soon dies from rabies. Harry is there too, and he thinks there’s a connection between her and Johnson.
Nadine and Jeremy search the house, looking for anything out of place. They stumble upon his communication and teleport machine. Jeremy finds skulls in the furnace. They come to the conclusion that Johnson is from another planet. Johnson is onto them and kills Jeremy. Nadine escapes.
Johnson regenerates a freeze-dried flying creature to assist him. The thing flies through the air and kills Dr. Rochelle. Johnson pursues Nadine through the park in his car. He catches up to her and commands her to go home and enter through the portal as a sample for Davanna.
Harry chases Johnson down the road; Johnson crashes his car and dies, breaking his control over Nadine.
Commentary
Paul Birch, who played Johnson, quit halfway through the film. After about the 45-minute point you can see that he’s been replaced by a double in several dimly-lit scenes.
It starts out interestingly enough but quickly devolves into a chase through the woods. Without Paul Birch, they had to end the whole thing in an impersonal car crash, which was far too abrupt and over too quickly.
Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)
• Directed by Roger Corman
• Written by Charles B. Griffith
• Stars Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, Russell Johnson
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 3 Minutes
• Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Giant radioactive, telepathic, mind-absorbing, morphing crabs. What will the atomic age think of next? This one mashes too many things together, weaves them together with bad science, and doesn’t have a great script. It’s watchable and kind of entertaining, but not a praise-worthy classic.
Synopsis
A group of people disembark from their dinghy onto a deserted inhospitable island. There had been a previous expedition here, and it went badly. This group has brought along a surprisingly large amount of dynamite and several cases of hand grenades. One of the men falls overboard, and we see that there’s something down there with big, hungry eyes. Except it’s not exactly a deserted island, there appears to be an abandoned motel.
Hank explains that a lot of atomic radiation fro the H-Bomb test landed here and may have done something to the plant and animal life. He describes and introduces each of the five scientists in the expedition for us. As the airplane leaves it explodes.
They read Dr. Mclane’s journal, the only remnant of the previous group, who completely vanished. They all notice the strange little earthquakes that keep shaking the island.
Next morning, Dr. Hunter goes down in her scuba suit to look at the undersea life. They don’t see any unusual life forms, but she does see a rock that she thinks moves. That night, she hears McLane’s voice calling to her. Dr. Carson hears the voice as well, and he climbs down the cliff face to investigate. He screams off-screen.
Meanwhile, back at the base, Dale and Martha are attacked by a monster that tunneled in somehow. The thing deliberately destroys their radio. Martha notices that there was a mountain in the distance yesterday, but today it’s gone. They go back into the caves looking for Carson, but have to stop when Jules loses a hand.
Two of the seamen are attacked, and soon Jules hears their voices in the night. He follows their voices to the pit until he’s killed by a giant crab claw. Soon, the others hear his voice. In the morning, they find the seamen are missing and presumed eaten, but a big portion of the dynamite is gone too.
The voice returns and reveals that he can talk through any metal object. The three men return to the caves, where they find a giant crab. Dr. Weigand explains his theory about how the mutant crabs can absorb people’s minds and melt solid stone. Martha notices from the photos that the female crab is pregnant.
Hank figures out that electricity will kill the crab. They go down to place the machines and find the female creature asleep. They wake it up and it pursues them underwater. The monster taunts them with Carson’s voice. Hank builds a new radio and tries to contact someone for rescue. They have to hurry, as the island is getting smaller and smaller due to the crab’s destruction.
They find oil in the caves, and Dale ignites it, but not before the crab kills Dr. Weigand. The earthquakes intensify as the island sinks into the sea. Hank pulls down the radio tower and electrocutes the crab monster in the fastest, most out-of-the-blue ending ever.
Commentary
It starts out really good. It’s got good pacing, interesting characters, decent acting, and it’s blissfully short, but it’s saddled by ridiculous creatures and a sillier concept. Toward the end, the script goes way off the rails as well, with far too much exposition. The actual crab monsters don’t move very much, but otherwise look pretty good.
Suspension of disbelief is one matter, but I can’t wrap my head around all those fat scientists climbing up a rope. That always looks so easy in movies.
And that ending. You know they just completely ran out of ideas and budget.
Closing Stuff:
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