BIOHAZARD – A military investigation into Angelique Pettyjohn's psychic powers brings back a homicidal mutant who looks like a kid in a monster costume (cos that's basically what it is). 'Biohazard' is the kind of cheapskate production that sets out to ask the question “what can I do with my kid, his monster costume, a load of fake guns and Aldo Ray?” before providing the answer we all saw coming, which has to do with people wandering around a lot, talking and occasionally being killed. Weirdly enough, I have a lot of time for 'Biohazard' and its ilk. There's something infectious about it that's difficult to pinpoint. This 'something' might well boil down to the sheer will to make cinema no matter what the conditions, no matter how cheap or how essentially pointless. You don't really get that kind of thing nowadays – throwing your relatives in front of a HD camera doesn't count in the same way, and besides, the tone of things was different back then, being goofy as well as serious rather than just cynically knowing. The era of Fred Olen Ray flicks feels strangely and sadly distant somehow. Anyway, I liked 'Biohazard' and maybe you will too.
TIME WALKER – Intriguing little number from the early eighties seems to want to work that whole 'mummy on the loose' thing in with the slasher format. It goes one step further with a baffling ET inspired climax that might warm your heart a bit if you're not the kind of jaded freak who spends most of their time watching rubbish exploitation films from years ago (not just me, then). 'Time Walker' is set on a campus where some kind of archaeological experiment results in a mummy rising from its sarcophagus to pursue those who have nicked some scared jewels. The mummy is also an alien with flesh rotting mould-related powers, and kind of glides along instead of lurching. 'Time Walker' has a lot of interesting weirdness going for it in the ideas department, but unfortunately smothers it in hugely pedestrian filmmaking and stylistic dullness – cinematic competence (but no more) always comes as a slight disappointment with films like this. So, could've done with being a bit more gonzo, but still I was entertained.
DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE - Sleazy slasheresque scuzz from the late seventies / early eighties, DATP probably finds its nearest kin in 'Maniac', that quintessential downer from roughly the same period. Basically, a body building photographer hates women and goes around strangling them with their breasts out – a detective teams up with a radio psychologist to track him down. The scenes with central weirdo Nicholas Worth and his babbling, foam-mouthed performance are similar in tone to the Joe Spinell vintage, and are really the high points of a film which loses a bit too much ground to dull police procedural. Despite the presence of such distractions, the murkiness at DATP's core is fairly pungent, and makes it feel a lot more graphic then it actually is – there aren't even that many kills, and, before I stuck it in the machine the other day, I remembered it as being a lot more icky on the sexual violence front than it actually is. I guess it's all about atmosphere, and, by way of example, the excellent synth soundtrack pushes quite an alienated mood in places.
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