Color Out Of Space

(2019) ****

[Sung to the tune of Eyes Without A Face by Billy Idol]

In the Arkham Woods
Deep in private land
The Gardner family home

Lavinia, Benny, Jack
Nathan and Theresa
Who's short a boob

Then one quiet night
The 'rents about to bang
An object falls

(Couleur de l'espace)
Color out of space
(Couleur de l'espace)
Color out of space
(Couleur de l'espace)
Color out of space
Pink malignant race
The color out of space (space, space, space...)

Hydro-expert, Ward
In his Miskatonic shirt
Senses something wrong

Sounds beneath the shack
Of the squatter in the woods
Who's played by Tommy Chong

(Couleur de l'espace)
Color out of space
(Couleur de l'espace)
Color out of space
(Couleur de l'espace)
Color out of space
Pink malignant race
The color out of space (space, space, space...)

[Hard rock riff]

The meteor zapped by lightning bolts
News crew story shows a smoky hole
Theresa chops off two of her fingers
Dactylectomy cool

Benny wanders off, forgets to bring the alpacs in
'Vinia bloody dishes, now's she's in the john yakkin'
Barfin it out, ohhhhh

The fruit in the garden tastes of rotten mutation
The wifi sucks, Theresa losing her patience
Now the parents fighting, and Lavinia gets scared, so

Wiccan prayers
Wiccan prayers
Wiccan prayers

[psychedelic guitar solo]

Alpaca mass of heads
Like Carpenter's The Thing
It's fuckin gross

Jack and mother fuse
Into a beast with spider legs
You wish you'd never seen

The landscape grows
Into something that it knows

(Couleur de l'espace)
Color out of space
(Couleur de l'espace)
Color out of space
(Couleur de l'espace)
Color out of space
Pink malignant race
Color out of space
The light behind your face
The color out of space (space, space, space...)

The water here is cursed

The Blob

(1958) ***

Okay, let's just get this out of the way right off the hop.



So like, we're not taking ourselves *too* too seriously here. This theme song is a frikkin fishbowl-party unto itself, and allows us to take whatever doesn't work in the film that follows in stride -- little things like how distractingly old Steve McQueen is for a high school student. Or how there's a 30 minute lull in the middle of the movie that could have been shortened to a 15 minute lull. Or how much talktalktalking there is, and how not that great any of the dialogue is. None of these are criticisms that anyone writing about the movie when it came out in 1958 was unprepared to write.

Another universal critique of the film, even at the time, is that the effects are bad. Funny thing is, my eyes so seasoned by years of watching VFX get more and more sophisticated, I don't have any more objection to the VFX in The Blob than I would to even the best of what was being done in other movies of the era. All of that stuff looks fake to modern eyes. I don't bother parsing different levels of shittiness when it comes to pre-artisan VFX work, so it's actually easier for me to embrace the goop on the screen for what it's *trying* to look like.

To tell the truth, I kinda feel that way about the acting and the dialogue too. I just expect, going into a 50's popcorn flick, that it's going to be kinda shitty somehow, so I found nothing about The Blob disappointing. And by the time I got through the opening credits, I was already feeling like a swinging, space-age sex machine -- so who cares?

In defense of the writing, there is one aspect that could have been a total downer and *wasn't*, and that bears recognition. For the better part of the movie, Steve McQueen's character (conveniently named "Steve") is the only character to have seen the blob in action; and if the script had been primarily about nobody believing him, this would have gotten real tedious. But that's not what happens. "Steve" is able to recruit, with almost no fuss, a bunch of his goofy classmates to help spread the word, and even the one stick-in-the-mud cop that's complaining about the antics of all these hooligan kids -- even he falls completely in line with the rest of the go-team when he realizes the kids aren't kidding. Takes a while for us to get there, but we get there.

I also want to make special mention of something I read in IMDb trivia that had never dawned on me before.

So it's red because of crushed-people blood?? That's fucking gross. I LOVE IT!!!

Which brings me to the most important point. The color in this movie is delicious. The reds and blues pop like crazy on the print and it makes the whole movie, whatever else may be wrong with it, look stupendously good. So check your high expectations at the door, get high and make some popcorn. The Blob is nothing but good, clean, stupid fun; and it only takes 50 minutes or so of nothing happening to get there.

Also, speaking from my position as a living human on a rapidly warming Planet Earth in the year 2020, the answer to the last question "Steve" poses at the end of the movie is a resounding, "yeah. about that..."

SLUT?

Three Cases Of Murder

(1955) ***1/2

The film is, as you can tell from the title, an anthology of three horror/thriller shorts. Each short has a different director. Considering the subject matter, and the cool camera work, the film feels very much like you sat down to watch three straight episodes of The Twilight Zone.

Orson Welles, featured as the titular Lord Mountdrago in the third story is by far the biggest name in the cast. Mountdrago is the Secretary of Foreign Affairs who is gradually driven insane by nightmares, the target of a hex by a fellow politician after Mountdrago humiliates his colleague in front of Parliament. This chapter was nominally directed by George More O'Farrell (a guy who has More O'Names than you do), though it will come as a surprise to nobody who is familiar with the career of Orson Welles that after three days of making suggestions, Orson muscled his way into essentially directing the rest of the shoot. It's hardly a loss - the camera work and pace are great, and the story is an excellent vehicle for Orson's acting. He infuses Mountdrago's waking moments with great arrogance. To Mountdrago's dreams, Orson's acting has all the panache and daring of a circus clown.

But with Orson appearing in only the third story, the film thrives largely on the performance(s) of Alan Badel, who appears in all three. The variety of characters he portrays demonstrates strong dramatic range. He brings a manic Mad Hatter energy (I thought of that adjective probably because of the silly hat he's wearing for much of the story, but it fits) to the role of an inhabitant of a painting come-to-life. He plays a secondary, and more conventional role in story 2 - a helpful bartender. His performance as the vengeful member of Parliament haunting Lord Mountdrago's dreams is a neat hybrid of the two.

I'm not sure what about this film warrants a spot in Criterion. It's a few years after Orson Welles's highest profile work (Citizen Kane, The Stranger, The Lady From Shanghai, and The Third Man were all released in the 40s) and, limited as my knowledge of British film may be, none of the names of anyone other than Orson Welles were familiar to me. All the same, I said earlier on that the film reminded me of a collection of Twilight Zone eps, and it's worth pointing out that Three Cases Of Murder preceded Twilight Zone by four years. It's possible that the film was an influence on Rod Serling's directorial style. All three stories are competently directed and acted, and on the whole it's a fun ride.

Happy birthday, Johnny Sweatpants!

HBDJSP! When you take your whacks at life, may your aim be as true as whomever was wielding this axe on this cake. [SLURCH]

The Brood

1979  ***

I grabbed this early David Cronenberg movie off of HBOMax's list of horror flicks because it stars Oliver Reed here, who delighted me to no end in The Shuttered Room. He did not disappoint! But instead of a thuggish towny he brings a menacing, smarter-than-you arrogance as Dr. Hal Raglan, a "brilliant" pioneer with a cutting-edge psychological treatment of his own invention.  Psychoplasmics!

So important they stuck some vinyl stickers on a rented bus!

Psychoplasmics looks like experimental theater in which Oliver Reed role-plays as various persons in the patient's life -- sometimes being really mean! -- and the patient's mental breakthroughs manifest as gross make-up effects, because they're externalizing their emotions I guess? I'm going out a limb and saying this premise is not terribly well developed.  I think this might just be a problem with early Cronenberg, because I had to watch Videodrome at least three times before I figured out that "new flesh" nonsense.

Anyway, plot plot plot.  Our hero is Frank, an adorable 70s everydad who is locked in a nasty custody fight with his estranged wife, Nola. He looked familiar and I think that's because he's in Porky's, I'm pretty sure as the older brother who's a cop? I only dug so far.

"And then I'll say 'Faulty hood ornament!' Blam! Heh heh heh... I'm sorry what were we talking about?"

Nola has been under treatment at the Somafree Institute of Psychoplasmics for a while, and demands their daughter Candice visit her there on the weekends.

She's clearly cutting her hair with her heat vision, but nobody talks about it.

The action starts rolling when Frank brings Candice home from a visit and she has bruises on her back. In a completely bullshit scene, his cartoonish lawyer tells him that's not enough to deny Nola next weekend's visit (maybe that's not bullshit in Canada in 1979 but I'd like to think bruises = child protective services = ALL the red flags in reality).  Frank decides to dig deeper, meanwhile Nola's theatrical therapy sessions with Dr. Raglan gain intensity, and the subjects of the sessions start getting hammer-murdered by a deformed child in a snowsuit. First is Nola's mom, who does a ridiculous slow pan of her noisily trashed kitchen before she gets pounced.

"No threat to my life on THAT cabinet, moving on..."

"Curses! That red snowsuit blended perfectly with my 70s wallpaper!"

I thought I knew where this movie was coming from when it threw a curveball and the mutant kid just up and dies mid-attempted murder.

"Attack ships on fire... ACK"

There's an autopsy and a story in the newspaper and everything.  The cops write it off as a deformed kid who's been hidden by his mother all his life out of shame.  "Wouldn't be the first time this happened." WHA

Meanwhile Laser Bangs's kindergarten teacher makes the mistake of answering Frank's phone when Nora calls, and the next day she gets a visit from a couple of ugly kids who really like the cute little wooden kindergarten hammers, but not for banging in cute little wooden pegs. For hammer murder.

It's the snowsuits.  They blend in anywhere.

Poor Frank! He's outside telling another parent about his dead in-laws who were hammer-murdered and a little kid runs out saying the teacher is right now being hammer-murdered and when he checks it out Candice is gone.  We see the bad kids taking her back to the institute, something I want to put a pin in for now.

Canada is what you make if you have a lot left over after making New Hampshire

I had a good time with this movie but it barely rated the three stars, there's a fair amount of padding and the premise, as I mentioned, is pretty thin.  However the actors involved have abilities and bring their A game to a small, well-meaning story, so three stars it is.  However however, I don't have much of a problem blowing most of the ending for you now, because, well, it's not that great and really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, for reasons I am delighted to go into.  So I guess if you really want to keep this surprise, don't let your gaze wander beneath this photo of Nola, played by 70s TV mainstay Samantha Eggar (she was on Love Boat AND Fantasy Island!)

And here she is looking like her crazy treatment is going REALLY WELL I must say.

The endgame begins when Raglan empties all the sick folks from the institute and one of them runs to Frank and mentions the "disturbed kids in the work shed that you're wife's taking care of," and when Frank arrives at the Institute Raglan confronts him with a gun.  But suddenly his whole "you can't see your wife because she's at a critical stage in her treatment" crap is gone and instead he's extremely scared of the monster children that live on his property, explains that it was them who hurt Candice because Nola got upset about something, and they're the reason he has the gun.  Now he's a good guy and he's all "go in there and keep your wife calm so I can extract your daughter from the room full of mutants."

So Frank goes in and the two of them chew a little scenery and then the big reveal is that Nola's skin lesions grow into HUGE GROSS EXTERNAL WOMBS out of which she pulls her mutant babies and licks them clean.  So gross!  

"You have NO idea how hard it was to find this frock, what with there being no internet yet."

Before you start asking questions I need to mention part two of the reveal, which is that while we've seen a total of three monster kiddos, Nola has pumped out something like... a dozen? They're all partying upstairs in bunkbeds and PJs like it's Meatballs or something.

"That was the best summer of my life!"

As effectively gross and Cronenberg-y as the reveal is, the things I can't help but extrapolate make absolutely no sense.  I thought Nola's powers were manifesting these homunculi on the spot, through some sort of psychic hoodoo.  But no, they're very much flesh and blood, and they're also monster children who can't take the bus, so they have to fucking WALK all the way from the woods to downtown Toronto, and BACK.  Remember the pin I put in up there, them walking along the road in the snow? Can you imagine maintaining murderous rage for three hours trudging through that? It really robbed the premise of its mystique. 

The other problem is trying to figure out Raglan's motivation for letting the situation get that far.  I mean how much more do you need to validate your pet theory than the fact you've created a new form of life -- through therapy no less -- after you've done it once? Or two or three times?  Why didn't he tell anybody until he had an attic full of murderous monster kids? How did this never occur to him while he was out buying all those PJs and snowsuits?  I guess you can be a genius shrink but still be bad at math, like for instance bringing a six-shot revolver into a room with a dozen lethal targets.

What would you, the reader at home, do? Think about it won't you?

You Die

 (2018) [Italian] **1/2

REVIEW BY JPX

After lending a distressed male stranger her cellphone, Asia later discovers that he downloaded an augmented reality app which gives her the ability to see ghosts; some standing around, others walking slowly towards her.  The app also includes a countdown clock counting down 24 hours.  Asia soon deduces that the app is a curse and she will be killed by vengeful spirits unless she downloads the app onto someone else’s phone.  This does not end the curse, however, it only buys her an additional 24 hours. She must download the app every 24 hours onto another’s phone if she wants to live.  When she attempts to delete the app she loses 1 hour.  She is informed that she will be instantly killed if she destroys her phone. 

You Die is a fun curse movie with obvious nods to The Ring and It Follows.  The “curse” in this particular story poses a moral dilemma; would you download the app onto another’s phone in order to buy yourself 24 hours of additional life?  (My answer, of course, is a resounding yes).  The story is also an obvious indictment of our societal phone addiction.  For example, in one scene friends watch a movie on a couch while one of the characters plays on her phone the entire time (a major pet peeve of mine).  Although derivative, this film looks good and there is always something about foreign language horror that makes things seem scarier (e.g. every Asian horror movie).  Fun!

Repeaters

(2018) **1/2

*REVIEW BY JPX

Three acquaintances in rehab are given day passes in order to apologize to the people they affected with their addictions.  After a grueling day of atonement, the three return to rehab to process the various outcomes which did not go well.  None are forgiven.  Retiring to bed after this long day of powerful emotions, the three wake up only to realize that they are reliving the same day over and over again.  At first they have fun with this curse given that they are now able to predict how others will respond (e.g. the bully who trips one of the characters in the cafeteria get his comeuppance, etc.).  However the trio soon become bored and start “experimenting” once they realize that there are no consequences to their actions including rape, robbery, suicide, and murder.  One character is eventually revealed to be a sociopath who must be stopped if they ever hope to end the repetitive curse.

 Repeaters is the umpteenth version of Groundhog Day without Bill Murray.  Derivative, yes, but I am a sucker for this well-worn thematic trope.  The acting is acceptable and director Carl Bessai does the most with a small budget.  My low rating is due to the derivative nature of the story but I would recommend it if you are looking for something on Amazon Prime.  Surprisingly engaging.

La Main Du Diable

(1955) ****

Roland Brissot bursts into a busy inn one night. He's missing his left hand and tucked under his arm is a box, and he desperately wants to know whether there's a cemetary nearby. When told that there isn't, he sits back, deflated. Then the power goes out momentarily. When the lights come back on, Roland discovers to great alarm that his box is now missing. Now totally out of sorts, and caving to the pressure of the intrigued hotel guests he tells his story.

Little over a year earlier, Roland was a mediocre painter with no money and no reputation. A chef at a restaurant offers him a fantastic solution to his troubles. For a half a penny, he sells Roland a magic hand that will bestow great talents upon him. It works: a year passes and he is now a staggeringly famous and visionary painter. The night of the greatest exhibition of his career, he meets a bookish little man who explains that the true cost of Roland's talisman is far higher than he'd been led to believe.

I debated whether to even bother writing about the intro at the inn since only one important plot point takes place there. But the amount of detail popping in the background throughout La Main Du Diable is really impressive, and any worthy discussion of how wonderful this movie is has to acknowledge it. For example, zoom in and keep an eye on what's happening through the windows in the back of this shot:

And that's just what I could fit into one .gif on Giphy -- there's at least 20 more seconds of it in the film. I thought for sure there was going to be a scene after this that featured Roland sprinting in a panic around all those carnival floats and explosions. There's no way, I thought, that the filmmakers would go to so much trouble to make a carnival parade just to have it pass by in the background of an uncrucial scene in the middle of the movie. But no, that's exactly what they did. Roland steps into the dining room and that's the last we see of all those floats. But we don't care, because we just get more lovely little details once Roland opens the door.

Masked and seated at a long table are the ghosts of all of the former owners, dating back decades, of Roland's magic hand. For the next few minutes we're treated to a charming montage of each of their experiences with the hand -- each man's rise from obscurity to sensational wealth and success. Spoiler alert: things don't end well for any of them.

Ordinarily, I'd be like, "a flashback within a flashback? Fuck off" -- but the flashbacks are all composed of these adorable dioramas where the actors and extras take up only a smidgen of screen space, and director Maurice Tourneur uses the rest of the screen space to tell stories with shadow play. Seriously, look more closely at that beheading .gif and notice the bottom left corner that there's an audience watching, clapping as the head hits the ground. Because of the relative sizes of actors set in the frame, we can easily imagine a whole concert hall full of people watching that guy's head roll away. And all that energy is packed into a 10 second clip with like 15 actors, sandwiched in with a bunch of other clips with different art and just as much depth.

It's like with the crowd at the inn that we meet in the first few minutes: do we need all that? To get to know any of those people? Not really. But who cares? I was cool with Tourneur loading as much of these whimsical details into his movie as he could stuff in there, all because the main force of it -- the central story line and all of the acting -- is so good and so much fun. Remember the movie Snake Eyes, how amazing that opening scene is, and how much of a mess the rest of the movie is? This is not that. La Main Du Diable takes its goofy, sprawling opening, and parlays it into scene after scene of highly entertaining story, and dazzling detail. I'm thrilled I took a chance on this one.

Cat People

(1942) ***1/2

"Never let me feel jealousy or anger. Whatever is in me is held in, is kept harmless when I'm happy."

This should have been obvious from the get-go, but like, the cat symbolism in Cat People is really good, you guys! There's felinity (totally a word) all over this movie: it's in Irena's sexually finicky vibe around her new husband Oliver, and it's in her territoriality and jealousy whenever Oliver's comely coworker Alice is in the room with him (her *cattiness* if you will. [smirk] The jokes write themselves). But it's evident even in the way people react to Irena. Oliver has this to say about Irena in the middle of the movie:

"I'm drawn to her. There's warmth from her that pulls at me. I have to watch her when she's in the room. I have to touch her when she's near."

You know that thing when you're petting a cat, and the cat's all like, "Yes. Yes. This is workiiiing. Keep doing that. MmmmmmmmmROWR-STOP THAT! I BITE YOU!" Only it's cute because your cat is tiny, so all she can do is scratch and nip. But Irena's a person -- so she herself couldn't be certain what she might be capable of if someone were to take her across that line.

By the time I got to this scene of Irena prowling from side to side next to the panther cage, I began to finally fully appreciate how well thought-out the cat symbolism is in Cat People. Of course this example is rather on-the-nose (boop), but I'm glad it was so obvious because it inspired me to keep an eye out for more of that kind of thing elsewhere in the movie, and it turns out, there's plenty.

And mixed in with all the great subtext, it turns out director Jacques Tourneur's technical game is really strong. Particularly with regard to light and shadow, both in terms of the contrast between them, but also where the light's coming from. I particularly liked the lighting scheme in Oliver's office where late night scenes are lit primarily from the blare of the drafting tables.

I should also mention, speaking of lighting and cat symbolism, that the shadows in Irena's apartment are designed to symbolise the bars of the panther cage in the park she's so fond of visiting -- something I completely didn't pick up on until I read JPX's review before writing my own.

After three 3-star reviews in a row, I was beginning to second-guess my decision to focus on Criterion Collection movies this October. Not anymore. Cat People has a lot of depth and deserves all the praise it gets.

This Island Earth

(1955) *** 

It all began when I was scouting action figures to purchase/invite to my Creature Cantina playset. 

In the past couple of years, my vintage Star Wars playset has become one of the most high profile and exclusive action figure night clubs in the galaxy. Thanks to retro-style action figure companies like Super 7 and Biff Bang Pow, classic Star Wars figures such as Greedo and Hammerhead can now share space cocktails with the likes of Robocop, Bob from Twin Peaks, Pee Wee Herman and Andre the Giant. I came across this magnificent specimen and realized that I had never seen This Island Earth. Please take a moment to admire this beautiful, badass 1950's alien: 

So here we are. 

The Metaluna Mutant doesn't appear until 1 hour and 12 minutes in, but getting there is half the fun. MST3K lampooned this film and I look forward to checking out their take. 

Handsome Dr. Cal Meachum returns to his laboratory to find mysterious instructions on how to build an "interociter", which is similar to what today we refer to as a "computer". He and his assistant Joe build the device without questioning anything. Suddenly a strange man known as Exeter appears on screen and informs him that he has proven his capabilities and is therefore invited to be part of a special research project. Cal says why not and hops a computer controlled plane to a secret laboratory in Georgia.  I should mention that Exeter has an abnormally large forehead. It's not freakishly large but it is quite noticeable. 

Cal is is greeted by a Dr. Ruth Adams whom he recognized as someone he had a relationship with 3 years ago. However, Ruth does not recognize - or is pretending not to recognize - Cal. I couldn't help but speculate as to how sexual their relationship was, and I paid close attention to every meager clue in the dialog. Cal reminds Ruth that two of them lectured in Vermont and that after class they used to go swimming together in a little river by the school. What else they did at the little river is up to interpretation, but it is later revealed that they at the very least held hands. Cal soons meets Exeter, Exeter's assistant Brack (who also possesses a large forehead), a bunch of other scientists, and the guy who played the Professor on Gilligan's Island. 

Dr. Ruth Adams admits to the professor that she and Dr. Meachum did indeed engage in some sort of a relationship and they both chuckle about her reaction to the "cold water" in the river. I'm not sure what conclusion I was supposed to draw about this but I wasn't any closer to understanding the exact nature of the intimacy of their relationship. The professor and Ruth divulge that they were both also enlisted to assist Exeter with his research project, which turns out to be synthesizing uranium. They mention that the other scientists on site have been essentially lobotomized and now blindly follow Exeter's orders. The three attempt to escape but are captured by a flying saucer and taken to the planet Metaluna, where the large-foreheaded species are at war with another species known as "Zagons". Exeter's leader reveals that his people are planning on relocating to Earth where all humans will be lobotomized. He orders Exeter to take Ruth and Cal to get their own lobotomy. When Cal and Ruth attempt to escape, they (finally) find themselves face to face with the aforementioned Metaluna Mutant. This cool looking, iconic mutant is nothing more than slave labor used as a security guard to make sure that people get their lobotomies. Exeter refuses to carry out his boss's orders and he helps Cal and Ruth escape from the treacherous claws of the Metaluna Mutant. 

I loved that the mutant is not some unstoppable killing machine. It turns out that giant brains unprotected by a cranium are actually quite vulnerable. During their first encounter, the ceiling collapses and the mutant is significantly injured. He spends the rest of his short life hobbling around until he's handily dispatched of for good and our protagonists. In conclusion, I can't wait to obtain that action figure so that I may introduce him to his future family. 

The Poseidon Adventure

1972  ****

Seventies disaster movies! While I have long eschewed the lure of "predicament movies" like Open Water, 127 Hours, or Trapped on a Chairlift, I have recently become enamored of this particular cinematic flavor. This is 110% thanks to the 2017 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 that riffs the 1978 movie Avalanche! starring Rock Hudson and Mia Farrow. These days that episode is my Most Watched Thing that I will just have running in the background all the time, while I'm sorting Lego or whatever.

Whether I will watch Avalanche! by itself, minus the MST3K banter, is yet to be seen.  But my many, many viewings have made me familiar with some of the common ingredients of the genre.

First, you gotta have the Guy Who Everyone Should Have Listened To. This movie has more than one, actually, but the first one is the indomitable Captain Leslie Nielsen.

Not pictured: Me, yelling "and don't call me Shirley!"

Then you need the yang to that yin, Guy In Charge Who Doesn't Listen, aka "Mayor of Amity." This movie is actually pretty tight, so that dude gets exactly one speech about saving the company money by getting the Poseidon to the scrap yard on time.  Other than that he just shadows Captain Drebin around, scowling.

"Yes, he's right here next to me.  No, he's not going to listen."

I had actually never seen this movie before, although I'd seen certain iconic moments on shows like That's Hollywood lots and lots of times.  I was hoping for some Love Boat style exposition at the front end, and I was not disappointed.  The character beats are slapped on the actors like post-it notes, and before long our on-deck who's who is over and we're at my favorite disaster movie ingredient, The Party. 

Our Ballroom voted Worst Room to be Upside-Down In 5 years running!

The symbolism of The Party is so obviously front-loaded it hardly bears repeating (blind hubris of man, Nero fiddling while Rome burned, lemmings, whatever...), but there's something SO satisfying about watching a bunch of SEVENTIES people partying into disaster.  Our key players get to add some more toppings to their established archetypes while seated between stunning 70s model-looking ladies who have no lines.  Key among them is the second Guy Everyone Should Listen To, Gene Hackman as the charismatic and radical Reverend Scott.  We intercut from the New Year's Eve countdown watch the gang in the cockpit bring a knife to a tidal wave fight, and then moments after the New Year...

"Save us Gopher!"

Once the tub's flipped over the real adventure begins: snaking an escape route through an upside-down, sinking, burning and occasionally exploding ship.  Gene Hackman assembles a plucky gang made up of the people who have had lines so far in the movie, and another round of "No, listen to ME!" starts spooling out, because the know-nothing Purser says everyone should stay there until rescued. It's pretty much the reverse of that scene in The Mist when the Punisher's next door neighbor leads two dozen people to their doom because he doesn't believe the Punisher.  I wondered if we'd get payoff on how wrong the Purser was and there is no wait at all.  Just as the plucky gang make their way to a perch in the corner there's an explosion and the ballroom is suddenly Action Park deadly.  

But of course panicked people are wicked stupid and they knock the makeshift ladder down, leaving Hackman to ruefully close the door behind him.  The fact that they could rally and put the thing back up, or that the rising water would eventually enable their exit, occurs to nobody.  They stand around in their finery and weep and cry and it's so freaking Noah's Ark you almost expect a pair of llamas to be up there...

Here I must note another perennial dislike of mine, and that's when the gang of survivors argue with each other a la that annoying bald guy in Night of the Living Dead.  But I note this dislike to say it does not apply here: A loud, enthusiastic push-pull does indeed emerge between Hackman and Ernest Borgnine, full of "I've had just about enough" and "you know what I don't like about you!" and stuff like that... but it's GREAT.  I mean, this is scenery-chewing by design and scenery-chewing in execution, and these dynamics are just as in-your-face as the clunky exposition from before, but these actors include some major players at the top of their game and it's entertaining as hell.  It's entertaining enough that I'm giving this the full four stars when it's arguably might be more of a 3 1/2 star experience for some.

Although we're on the open sea, almost all of this flick is indoors.  The thrills are claustrophobic, hurried journeys through shafts and vents with the rising water creeping behind. And that brings us to our final ingredient, Random Death.

Who lives and who dies? The playing out of this phenomenon is actually better illustrated in some other flicks I plan to tackle, as The Poseidon Adventure winnows down its cast pretty hard with that Noah's Ark scene, and seeing who lives from a small imperiled group is pretty standard horror movie fare, right? Nevertheless there are surprises.

My plan is to only hit some of the major players in this genre, of which The Poseidon Adventure is the first and, arguably, the best. I've heard of at least one family who watches this movie every Thanksgiving; it's that kind of thing.  Highly recommended and an excellent start to my month.