Penitentiary (1979)

As a child I remember friends of my mother’s talking passionately about the Penitentiary movies; to hear the tales of these movies you would think they were the best films ever made. These friends were fairly middle class with aspirations to go higher in the class system, as a child our family worshipped this couple, but as an adult I come to realise that this couple had absolutely no class at all. Never have I been so sure about the low standards of these friends than after recently watching Penitentiary, undoubtedly one of the worst “cult” movies I have ever seen.

It’s hard to know where to start with this movie because to be honest with you it’s all kind of a blur. Following the story of Martel “Too Sweet” Cardone (Leon Isaac Kennedy), from the outside world into prison; once inside Too Sweet through bullying decides it’s important to fight in the prison boxing team, from here on out it’s all kind of….Yawn.

Read more: http://cinemaroll.com/action/penitentiary-1979/#ixzz1aOtp0TLR

Death Race

I was a little reluctant to look at Death Race, it had a couple of bad things going for it; firstly it was a re-make of a 1975 movie called Death Race 2000 which absolutely bored me to tears, and secondly the appearance of the incredibly dull Jason Statham. What made me change my mind I hear you cry? Will it was what in my opinion was the unusual casting of Ian McShane (best known from the long running BBC show Lovejoy). Add to this the fact that it's directed by Paul W.S. Anderson who made one of my favourite movies Event Horizon, the big question of course is were my initial gut instincts correct.

In the near future, 2012 to be precise the population burgeons and economy dies a slow and painful death, businesses close and it seems everyone is capable of turning to a life of crime. In order to furnish her pockets with cash, and to make use of the increasing amounts of prisoners in her prison Hennessey (Joan Allen) creates the reality TV sports show Death Race. In Death Race prisoners must race against each other in a three day, three event race. If a prisoner wins a race five times he is freed, given a full pardon in fact, if he loses, well it's best put that the losers don't get to discover the reality of losing, the only way out of Death Race is first across the finish line, otherwise your bound to be in the morgue.

Frankenstein (David Carradine reprising his role from the original movie) is the champion that all the viewers love to see, 90 million viewers in fact; Hennessey's pockets have never been so full. The problem being that after four matches Frankenstein finally breathes his final breath, dying in the prison hospital from severe injuries on his forth successful race. This leaves Hennessey with a problem, but luckily due to disfiguration Frankenstein could be replaced; the trouble being the only man capable of racing as well as Frankenstein is hard working family man Jenson Ames (Statham) who is sadly for Hennessey on the wrong side of the prison walls... What on earth can she do about that?

Death Race is a real no-brainer of a movie, a traditional action packed blockbuster; the sort we got so familiar with towards the end of the 1980's. There is nothing much to think about, a pretty shocking grasp of reality, and some poor judgement choices in the way the story goes, but what does this matter to me, I loved it. Death Race is the same sort of fun packed nonsense we all saw and loved in movies like Robocop. It's bloody, it's violent, but the time passes by like the blinking of an eye. The storyline overview I gave you to open this review quite literally takes you no more than five minutes into the movie, rather like real life racing it's so fast paced that there is no time to think about anything else. Once you allow yourself to be submerged into the world that is Death Race there is no coming out until the end credits roll.

Statham, and I have to hand it to the guy delivers the second movie in a row of his I have to confess enjoying, the first being The Bank Job. Now I really enjoyed The Bank Job, a sort of thinking man's (or woman's) action movie, but that does not even hold a candle to this, unless of course your one of those anally retentive souls that concerns yourself with realism, and accuracy. If we wanted realism and accuracy why go to the cinema or watch a DVD? Get outside and see reality for yourselves! For those that like to take your action with a pinch of salt, this is the place to be and as a much as it pains me to say it, I could see no other actor filling the shoes that Statham delivers here.

But forget Statham, he is the little fish, it was McShane that drove me to see the movie, and what a great job he did keeping me in it. As Coach, McShane is the engineer on the car that Frankenstein buys, engineer and trainer, and a very quick minded, and quick mouthed character too. He is the Mr. Miyagi, the Apollo Creed to Rocky, in fact he is every great action characters rock. This is a thousand miles away from Lovejoy, and the unusual casting of this star I believe has secured McShane the start of the career this very talented actor deserves.

There are a whole huddle of villains in the movie Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson), Pachenko (Max Ryan), and Gunner (Jacob Vargas); but none of these are any competition for Joan Allen's Hennessey. Hennessey is the hardest and most ruthless female villain of a movie for years, changing the rules as she sees fit and ending the lives of those that cross her for the sake of it. Hard to believe that this is the same Allen who played Veronica Guerrin (Renamed Sinead Hamilton in When The Sky Falls), or the loving wife in the Ice Palace. There is nothing gentle about Hennessey, and the smiles and female methods of seduction fool no-one here. You can almost see the enjoyment in her eyes as she clearly loves to be bad.

It's inevitable that Death Race will be criticised and mocked, it will get rotten tomato awards, maybe a Razzie; but if your want, nay need a bit of light relief and a teleport back to the movie making style of the 80's then this has the power to be your big Autumn Blockbuster.

House Of The Whipcord

In a time where laws were seemingly flaunted revolutionary British director Pete Walker had an answer to the question “What’s the world coming too?” His 1974 movie House Of The Whipcord, which is not I must add anywhere near as seedy as it sounds, finds young women who skate through their crimes with a slap on the wrists and a fine imprisoned in a country dwelling ran by the sinister Mrs. Wakeham.

 

Of all Pete Walker’s offerings House Of The Whipcord has to be the most tongue in cheek, with its main character, the vicious Mrs. Wakeham played by Barbara Markham being based on Mary Whitehouse, a notorious British character who wanted everything offensive to her to be put out of sight. Nothing was sacred from Whitehouse, whom being a normal mother took offence at Britain’s declining standards, or at least that was how she viewed it. The effect Whitehouse had on censorship in the UK is a story far too extreme to tell here, but Walkers puppet master approach to Mrs. Wakeham views is obvious and most striking, because rather like Whitehouse, Wakeham is naive, stupid, and misguided.

 

The set up of the movie is a nice idea, and centres around four characters Wakeham, Bates played by Dorothy Gordon, Walker played by Pete Walker regular Sheila Keith; and finally Justice Bailey (Patrick Barr) an aging, senile man who believes he is serving the public.  Chiefly steered by Wakeham, this quartet carry out extreme ranges of corporal punishment and imprisonment on young women who poke two fingers up at the British legal system. A keen reader Wakeham seeks out cases in the papers of women who get away with what she sees as blue murder, arranging for them to find themselves at her custom built prison.

 

As a second element of humour Walkers tool to get inmates to the prison comes in the form of a supposedly suave and debonair man by the name of Mark E. Desade (get it? No? Same the name allowed) played by Robert Tayman, not that I go eyeing up other men but if this guy has anything at all going for him then I have been elevated to stud status by this movie, needless to say however Desade is obviously successful with his captives in order to keep a pretty full prison for Wakeham.

 

House Of The Whipcord is in the same vein as other Pete Walker movies, pretty harsh to say the least. Another trait they have in common is the unusual and often terrible casting and performances. Rather like Frightmare, and Die Screaming, Marianne; Whipcord sadly falls foul of having a number of terrible actors including Ray Brooks who literally plays the same character he has during his entire career (and that includes Mr. Benn), never a particularly good actor Brooks terrible performance literally reeks here. But it’s the casting of Karan David as Karen that creates the biggest laughs, pretending to be French is a road that this actress should never have pursued, and as the movie progresses it’s blatantly apparent that David lost track of exactly what nationality she was.

 

On the flip side of the coin Sheila Keith gives of a well rounded performance as someone both harsh, but capable of the same sort of tongue in cheek humour as the movies director, I’d go as far as to say that the character she plays of Walker was a self imposed homage by the director himself, even naming her after himself. There is a most wonderful piece where Keith and Bates are trying to flee the police, covered in blood and bruises when pulled over and asked if “Do you mind if I have a few words with you?” by a police officer, this moment so amusing it could come off the back of any Carry On movie, it’s a pure delight.

 

Incest raises a familiar head as it does in a number of Walker movies, here the relationship between a mother and her son is certainly moved into a very suspicious light, and anyone not seeing this is looking at the world through those famous rose tinted glasses. The worst factor is the sheer disgustingness of both the characters, the thought of them engaging in anything other than a platonic relationship extreme enough without them needing to be related.

 

While quite a predictable movie now, back in 1974 Walker used an awful lot of techniques in the movie that are now more commonplace, the result at the time was a shocking wakeup call from British horror. Though never banned when the whole video nasty furore in the UK was underway, it was conveniently arranged that House Of The Whipcord was not seen for a period of about 14 years from the beginning of enforced movie certification. It was not until Nigel Wingrove’s company Redemption formed releasing video’s of movies lost in the passage of time that House Of The Whipcord was not only seen again, but generated a new public love for the movie. 

Penitentiary

As a child I remember friends of my mother’s talking passionately about the Penitentiary movies; to hear the tales of these movies you would think they were the best films ever made. These friends were fairly middle class with aspirations to go higher in the class system, as a child our family worshipped this couple, but as an adult I come to realise that this couple had absolutely no class at all. Never have I been so sure about the low standards of these friends than after recently watching Penitentiary, undoubtedly one of the worst “cult” movies I have ever seen.

 

It’s hard to know where to start with this movie because to be honest with you it’s all kind of a blur. Following the story of Martel “Too Sweet” Cardone (Leon Isaac Kennedy), from the outside world into prison; once inside Too Sweet through bullying decides it’s important to fight in the prison boxing team, from here on out it’s all kind of....Yawn.

 

I try never to write off a movie too soon, and in doing so watched Penitentiary until the very end, what I sadly was doing was not giving a movie a chance, but literally throwing away a hundred minutes of my life. Watching this movie is rather like spending 20 years doing a job you hate, it’s offensive and almost painful. The story itself staggers between bad storytelling to bad editing; this is the reason why I find trying to tell the movie in a review so much of a blur.

 

The movie is pretty much an opportunity to display black people in the worst possible light stereotyping them into the category of rapists, drug addicts, murderers and crazy folks. From the first ten minutes of the movie you really get the feeling that this is a piece of racist paraphernalia. What is most sad about the movie is that is written and directed by a black filmmaker known as Jamaa Fanaka, committing the offence of selling his own race down the river.

 

After thirty minutes of stumbled storytelling the movie moves onto the fighting, which seems to dominate the following forty minutes. While Too Sweet fights in the ring, some of his fellow inmates use the opportunity to subdue some visiting women from the nearby women’s prison, when i say subdue they have a choice have sex, or be raped; used as a tool of pleasure, obviously this is all women are worth. While having to endure the unending series of systematic  sexual activity you are forced to hear the sound of the boxing match over the top of the lovemaking, further annoyance is that this sound is on a loop, so every few seconds you here the same shrieks and chants along with some wailing noises that you could only associate with a hippo standing on a spear.

 

All the way through the movie you feel you’re not watching a serious piece of cult cinema, but a spoof; it resembles in some ways the Scary Movie films, with black people with over the top afro’s smoking cigarettes through their ears. While another individual runs round with foam pouring from his mouth and covering his face while holding a monkey, demanding to see the naked rear end of whomever he finds offensive.  I spent a great proportion of the movie laughing my socks off, but not at the great humour playing out on screen, but because of the sheer absurdity of the piece.

 

Further annoyance is delivered in the fact that when the cast are not talking in a as yet unchartered “negro slang”, they are more often than not inaudible due to poor care of the print over the 30 years since the movie was made, in bringing the movie to DVD no time or effort has been spent trying to improve the sound, or the incredibly grainy images on screen.

 

What started out mildly amusing because of the overall “badness” of the piece soon turned to annoyance, I was annoyed that I was watching a movie that literally stood as a piece of intolerable racism at a time in American history where all cultures were supposedly being embraced after years of inequality.