Positive week is coming to a close and as it has been
difficult maintaining a positive outlook in comparing other horrible movies to
SPEED 2, the topics have been weak, at best. It is important to show the how execrable
a creation this movie is in the history of filmmaking, so I will continue to do
my best in a positive light, at least for two more days. To take a cue from the
first day of a week of positives, I’m going to dig back into the annals of B
movie madness, with 1958’s FIEND WITHOUT A FACE.
I was introduced to FIEND WITHOUT A FACE around 1990, by a
coworker we’ll call… Alec Pectin. (If he ever reads this and sees the name I
gave him, I hope he recalls it.) Alec was surprised that I’d never seen it, considering
the plethora of crappy 50’s B-flicks I was aware of, and knew well. F W/O A F I
not only didn’t know, I’d never even heard of it! A trek to my favorite local
rental place was happy to inform me that not only did they have it; they had a
new copy on VHS for me to see. After my viewing, I returned it – and promptly
ordered myself a copy. It was wonderfully, beautifully, pointedly gross and disgusting. I loved it.
FIEND WITHOUT A FACE is a silly tale of a nuclear testing
and a science experiment gone mad, with locals dying from mysterious punctures
to the base of the neck. When the residents demand answers, they send an Air
Force investigator to get to the bottom of the deaths, which escalate when they
start occurring at the air base nearby. The “fiends”, initially invisible, draw
on the power of the nuclear testing and become visible, and horrifically
terrorize in both modes. The fiends end up looking like disembodied brains with
attached tails of spinal cords, tiny eyestalks and whipcrack attacks. Fun,
right? Watch it, turn up the volume and revel in the sound effects. It’ll
disturb and disgust you, and you’ll love every second of it. Black and white
stop motion at its best!
The star of F W/O A F is “Canada’s Greatest Actor”, Marshall
Thompson. Thompson became a household name for all of five minutes with
CLARENCE THE CROSS-EYED LION and the television series DAKTARI! The handsome
and imitable actor pretty much was the driving force on screen, handling the
insane story, terrible sets and special effects with an ease unlike other
top-billed B stars of the time. In fact, if Marshall Thompson, in his prime,
was to replace Jason Patric in SPEED 2, he would probably have brought some
serious credibility to the role. When you consider he willfully allowed an
optically impaired lion to steal the show from him… well… you put it together.
F W/O A F was filmed entirely in England, set in Canada and
used all Canadian and American actors in England. It made waves on both sides
of the Atlantic for the detailed special effects. You have to give a film of
this nature high points for the great effects, particularly in sound. It was so
repulsive the Brits didn’t even want to show it without an X rating (which
meant something completely different in 1958 England than it does in the modern
US).
This is what I said in my old article, 15 Short Film Reviews (that are better than Speed 2): “Starring Canada's greatest actor, Marshall
Thompson, this phenomenal black and white horror/sci-fi stunner has some of the
most disgusting and grotesque sound effects from any movie. That says
much, considering the budget. Speed 2 had a budget that dwarfed FWaF as
the sun dwarfs the Earth, so that alone says we have a better film here.”
Honestly, comparing the two films is not something I would
normally do, as I prefer to avoid showing up SPEED 2’s faults with films of a,
let’s say, lesser pedigree. Or, more accurately, a lesser intended pedigree.
Even so, Marshall Thompson at his absolute worst acts rings around anyone in
SPEED 2. Yes, I’m including Willem Defoe in on this.
Day 12 will end positive week, with a look at another movie
released in 1997, and a guilty pleasure of mine. Are you ready to… COME
OVER HERE!
No comments:
Post a Comment