Monday, November 29, 2004

THE OMEGA MAN

Directed by Boris Sagal
Written by John William Corrington and Joyce Hooper Corrington
Based on the novel "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson
1971

Post-apocalyptic movies are Cinegeek's favorite sub-genre and typically fall under horror (DAWN OF THE DEAD), science fiction (THE QUIET EARTH), or straight drama (THE DAY AFTER). THE OMEGA MAN has a smattering of all three with an emphasis on horror elements, elements leftover from the Matheson novella, which was about a plague of vampires and Robert Neville's attempts to defeat or cure the rampaging, blood-craving minions.

With the film, the Corrington writers and director Sagal take a different road, dispensing the blatant vampire mythology altogether and instilling a post-apocalyptic return of the surviving"family" back to the "old ways," debunking and abolishing the destructive disease that is modern technology, which was the cause of World War III and the subsequent use of germ warfare and eventual nuclear fallout. The "family" are infected humans who suffer from sun blindness, albinism and bleeding, oozing syphilitic sores. Headed up Matthias (Anthony Zerbe), "family" members are garbed in hooded, black cloaks and wear shades to block out light. Matthias, who in a previous life was a television newscaster, has the "family" convinced that modern technology was responsible for the downfall of man and the only way to survive is by adopting archaic lifestyle methods, which are positively Amish. Their weapons consist of spears and catapult systems that heave fire balls. They're stength is in numbers. They refer to each other as "brethren," "my brother," or "my sister."

Robert Neville (Charlton Heston), on the other hand, lives in a three story brownstone blockaded by a remote control garage, an elevator and barbed wire wrapped around his balcony. He is armed with countless handguns and machine guns. Neville also developed a serum that can cure the disease but, by the time he was getting it to market, the world broke out in the plague.

Neville - seemingly the only man without the disease, hence the "last" man or "omega" man - only ventures out of his fortress during daylight hours. He spends his days searching for the "family nest," driving a variety of cars or watching the documentary film WOODSTOCK at a neighborhood theater. Neville has seen WOODSTOCK so many times that he talks with the characters on screen. THE OMEGA MAN takes place in 1977 - seven years after the release of WOODSTOCK, a film expounding three days of music, peace and love - a sentiment cut short by germ warfare and the inability for humanity to truly embrace one another in this violent, nighttime world Neville has been subjected to.

Never too sentimental, the WOODSTOCK scene is poignant all the same - sad, in fact -considering Neville would have been part of the dreaded "establishment" that the Woodstock kids railed so resolutely against - Neville, the ultra-conservative, adopting hippie values in hindsight, if not too late - the destruction deed has been done.

By chance, during a day of searching for mutant nests, Neville runs into Lisa (Rosalind Cash) in a department store and, to his delight, she hasn't "turned." He chases her but loses her until the next night when Neville is captured by Matthias and his band. Lisa and her partner, Dutch (the ubiquitous Paul Koslo) rescue Neville in a feat of machine gun mayhem and motorcycle daring-do and bring him to their compound (reminiscent of a commune), which is overrun with kids, with one, named Richie (Eric Laneuville), who is "turning." Richie is Lisa's brother, so Neville comes up with the idea of transfusing his blood into Richie - blood that can work as a serum.

The Neville Serum works and Richie comes back with a head full of ideas about saving the family from their wretched existence. Richie sneaks out and confronts Matthias and the family with his ideas and they want none of them. In the meantime, Lisa goes shopping and starts to turn while Neville packs up supplies to get back to the commune. Upon discovering Lisa has turned, Neville grabs her, with a jar full of serum, and bolts. Matthias, who is now inside Neville's fortress, emerges on the balconey with a spear - and throws it, piercing Neville in the chest. Neville falls back into a fountain (where, conveniently he assumes a Christ-on-the-cross position), and drops the jar of serum in the red water.

Daylight breaks and Dutch and the kids find a dying Neville and Lisa, crouching next to the fountain, hiding her eyes. Dutch grabs the jar of serum, wraps Lisa and they head out of the city.

THE OMEGA MAN does not suffer from its decidedly downbeat ending - in fact, the hero needs to die to elevate the emotional response of Lisa, Dutch, the kids, and the audience. Plus the "died for our sins" symbolism hangs over the proceedings nicely since Neville - though he developed a potential serum just as plague broke - may have also been involved with the development of the germ warfare weapons of mass destruction. Flashbacks point to Neville's guilt - both from the standpoint of development and "too late" consequences.

Made today (and there's been talk of doing so for years - at one time with Arnold Schwarzeneggar), the hero would wreak pyrotechnical vengeance, beating the viewer into CGI submission. Director Sagal opts low-tech - machine gun bursts, fireball explosions and Gordon Bau's eerie make-up artistry that has family faces washed out in powder, pinkish sores, and creepy contact lenses, all of which still shocks without resorting to the cartooning of creatures so prevalent in movies today.

For a desolate Los Angeles - some eye-in-the sky shots are jaw dropping in their scope, block after block without a sign of humanity as far as the screen can hold - Sagal filmed when the streets of L.A. were devoid of people. Sagal shot these awe inspiring aerial scenes at dawn, literally praying nobody would show up in the picture besides a singular Heston. The film is punctuated by Ron Grainer's lush and memorable musical score - as much a character in the film as Neville, Matthias, Lisa and Dutch.

THE OMEGA MAN, 1968's PLANET OF THE APES and 1973's SOYLENT GREEN, make for an excellent apocalyptic trilogy - and, happily, all star Heston as, basically, the same character.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

IT'S ALIVE!

Written, directed and produced by Larry Cohen
Starring: John P. Ryan, Sharon Farrell
(aka Baby Killer)
1974

In the wake of Roe vs. Wade, which came to its logical conclusion in 1973, Larry Cohen's IT'S ALIVE! was probably one of the first films to actually encourage abortion. The film's hatred and fear of children is one of the film's most bonafide points and, if it wasn't so danged hilarious, its politics would be downright scary...at least to the anti-abortion minions. It isn't about choice so much as just do it - yank that thing outta the womb before its too late...before it wreaks havoc on society as we know it. Monster babies? So what? Get rid of 'em all...It isn't by chance that Cohen shows a close-up of printing on the back of an ice cream truck that says, "Stop...Children."

The movie starts with the Davies family happily skipping off to the hospital when Lenore Davies (Sharon Farrell) starts having contractions - even though "they don't feel right." But, still, Lenore and her husband Frank (John P. Ryan) are excited about having a new baby in their lives even though their 11-year old son named Chris (Daniel Holzman) is totally obnoxious. And, yeah, the new baby was conceived "accidentally" and, yeah, they had considered aborting it, but now they've accepted their lot and its off to the delivery room to welcome the new bundle of joy.

While Lenore is strapped down on the delivery table, Frank waits in the waiting room as other fathers-to-be complain about how the world is a terrible, poisonous place to raise kids, that they're generally unhappy with their lots in life. Intercut with Lenore screaming as the doctor remarks about the new baby's "gigantic" head and that the "thing" looks like it must weigh over 10 pounds - nice, reassuring words to the new mother.

As Frank lights up a smoke in the hospital corridor, a bloodied doctor stumbles out of the delivery room to the horror of Frank and the wandering nurses. Frank runs into the delivery room where wholesale slaughter's the name of this game while bloody, mangled bodies of doctors and nurses litter the floor as Lenore screams, legs hiked high in the air. But, the question lingers, where's the baby?

The baby, of course, has escaped fueled by all the blood and flesh its consumed and, as quick as Frank tosses his cigarette to the floor, the cops are all over the case. Wonky science works into the mix as its realized that Lenore may have taken some sort of drug during her pregnancy that has caused this gnarly mutation. But, of course, nobody wants to claim responsibilty for the kid - not even Frank who declares it ain't his. The key isn't just finding the psycho fetus, but finding it and destroying it without analyzing it. Besides, Big Drug doesn't want any knowledge leaked out that the 'lil creature has any of their pharmaceuticals coursing through its veins. Frank agrees - just get rid of it as soon as you find it.

The baby, which has claws and a couple of fangs, crawls its way back to Frank and Lenore's house, claiming victims along the way, including the local milk man whose wares are to much of a temptation for the Davies baby. Baby concocts a blood milk cocktail as pink fluid pours from the back of the milkman's truck, which is truly brilliant mise-en-scene.

Cohen's disdain for children is evidenced by the complete denial of parental figures in the film of kids who are "different." Frank's boss alludes to a co-worker who keeps his "retarded" kid locked up in the basement so nobody will know about it and that Frank shouldn't be ashamed of his offspring (even though Frank makes it known LOUDLY [again!] that the kid isn't his).

Yet Lenore spends the latter half of the film protecting the child by not telling Frank that its in their basement. Never mind that she has gone completely insane (Farrell's performance is deliciously over-the-top). Even Frank, who chases the kid down the sewer systems of L.A. starts to kind of like the poor bastard and does what he can to protect it from the blazing guns of maniac cops, who eventually put the zap on the little shaver.

Ryan's performance as Frank is stunning - one part Ed Harris another part Walter Brennan. He plays a guy's guy so well you forget he's acting. In fact, Cohen, in the DVD commentary, states that this is Ryan's finest performance of his career (disputable - Ryan was excellent in RUNAWAY TRAIN), which was cut short due to a helicopter accident.

Baby f/x were achieved by the ubiquitous make-up artist Rick Baker, who has shown off his fantastical work in movies for over 30 years, with recent make-up contributions to such films as PLANET OF THE APES (Tim Burton's version), THE RING, MEN IN BLACK I AND II and HELLBOY.

But the real star of IT'S ALIVE is composer Bernard Herrmann's amazing musical score, which foreshadows the music in Herrmann's last film TAXI DRIVER. In fact, there are whole movements from IT'S ALIVE transplanted directly into TAXI DRIVER. The music in IT'S ALIVE is dissonant, jarring, with swelling strings and orchestral overtures that are truly unsettling. The music lurks in the dark, scratching and clawing its way into the viewers subconscious much in the same way Herrmann's score for PSYCHO disturbed viewers back in 1960.

Talk about a film having legs...this deranged baby played at drive-in theaters every summer from 1974 (it was actually released in October of 1974) to 1980 with boffo box office. IT'S ALIVE took in almost 7 million over the years - wholly based on drive-in receipts. Ultimately Cohen penned and directed two dismal sequels - IT LIVES AGAIN (1978) and IT'S ALIVE III: ISLAND OF THE ALIVE (1987).

Larry Cohen note: He recently wrote the semi-popular films PHONE BOOTH (2002) starring Colin Farrell (no relation to Sharon), directed by Joel Schumacher, and CELLULAR (2004) with Kim Basinger, directed by David Ellis.

Cohen's best drive-in feature was called GOD TOLD ME TO...