Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman (USA, 1943/44)

Despite being a wartime product, with this film, the fifth in the series of Rathbone/Bruce Holmes & Watson Universal programmers (and seventh if you count the two 20th Century Fox films) the propagandistic elements so heavily present in the first three of the [then] contemporary-set Universal entries — i.e., Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942) and Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943 / trailer) — are, as in the preceding entry, Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943 / trailer), pretty much absent. (The movie was released 10 December 1943 or 21 January 1944, depending on the source you choose to use; WWII officially continued until 2 September 1945, which is when Japan officially surrendered soon after the US obliterated Nagasaki and Hiroshima.)

Trailer to

The Spider Woman:

Indeed, about the only overtly allusion to the current political situation of the world found in The Spider Woman is visual: during the scenes at the fairgrounds, the cartoons figures Dr Watson (Nigel Bruce) and Inspector Lestrade (Dennis Hoey) are taking shots at in the shooting gallery are of Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito. As in Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, the villain(s) in this movie are not Nazis or working for Nazis, they are simply greedy and after the money of easy targets. Unluckily for them, the easy targets are of that certain social class that gets someone like Sherlock Holmes interested... and if the apparently lowly amounts of the diverse life insurance policies mentioned in the movies strike you as too paltry to instigate murder, keep in mind that the purchasing power of £5,000 in 1944 is roughly equivalent to £210,000 (or $270,000) in 2024.

Though The Spider Woman does incorporate elements of actual published works by Sir Arthur Conan, the narrative as written for the screen by Bertram Millhauser* (24 Mar 1892 – 1 Dec 1958) is pretty much an original one, though Millhauser does incorporate elements from, and make verbal allusions to, diverse Doyle stories, including The Sign of the Four, The Final Problem, The Adventure of the Dying Detective and The Speckled Band. But although Millhauser does give both Rathbone and Sondegaard some great dialogue, rather unlike most other scripts he wrote for the series — he worked on five in total — he leaves some king-size holes in the story. The Spider Woman is one of the more well-known films of the series, possibly due to its title and the actor playing the titular villain, the legendary Gale Sondergaard (15 Feb 1899 – 14 Aug 1985), and is both truly entertaining and well made. That said, it is truly dated in some annoying ways that seriously hamper one's ability to take Holmes seriously, which substantially damages the movie and thus keeps it from being truly great. Likewise, the film pales somewhat in comparison to the more horrific and atmospheric entries that were to follow, such as The Pearl of Death (1944 / trailer), The Scarlet Claw (1944 / trailer), The Woman in Green (1945 / trailer) or The House of Fear (1945 / trailer).

* Here at a wasted life, we remember Millhauser primarily because he co-wrote one of the lesser Universal horror movies, The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944 / main title). Roughly a decade prior to The Spider Woman, he also wrote the script to the pre-code movie Sherlock Holmes (1932 / full movie), poster above, the first sound version of Sir Doyle and William Gillette's play of the same name, which first hit Broadway in 1899. The relatively forgotten film version stars Clive Brook (1 Jun 1887 – 17 Nov 1974) as the titular detective, and includes a dearth of Dr Watson, an engaged Holmes preparing to get married, a car-destroying ray gun, Holmes in drag (as an old woman), and a oddly unnecessary child element in the form of Billy, who appears to be Sherlock's ward.

Still, Sondegaard is wonderful as the titular "Spider Woman", the beautiful and intelligent but ruthlessly evil Andrea Spedding. A female variant of Dr. Moriarty, she is more than a match for Sherlock Holmes and twice almost succeeds at killing him. That she never again reappeared in the series — though she did subsequently appear in the non-sequel The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946 / trailer further below) with the likewise legendary Rondo Hatton (22 Apr 1894 – 2 Feb 1946), the killer from The Pearl of Death — is un-understandable.*

* Equally un-understandable is the premature end of her career in 1949 due to her being blacklisted along with her husband director Herbert J. Biberman (4 Mar 1900 – 29 May 1971) during Joseph McCarthy's witch hunts. A talented thespian who had even won an Oscar for supporting actress for her first film Anthony Adverse (1936 / trailer) and has the classic B-film The Black Cat (1941 / trailer) to her credit, Sondegaard remained absent from films for a good 19 years after being (unjustly) labelled a communist. She returned to the screen in a miniscule part in the trashy proto-blaxploitation flick Slaves (1969 / trailer), thereafter remaining somewhat active as a guest star on TV shows. Rare later-day movie appearances include her (and Ruth Roman's and Mercedes McCambridge's) final film, Echoes (1982 / full movie), and the rare grindhouse slab of flotsam that is Donald Wolfe's Savage Intruder a.k.a Hollywood Horror House (1970 / opening credits): a trashy version of the classic Sunset Boulevard (1950 / trailer) that proved to be Marion Hopkins' final feature film and with a blink-and-you-miss-her appearance of Fatty Arbuckle's ex-wife Minta Durfee (1 Oct 1889 – 9 Sept 1975).

The plot plays out in wartime Britain, where well-to-do gamblers are killing themselves in great numbers. What all suicides have in common is that they happen at night after the men have put on their pajamas, gone to bed and have locked themselves alone in their rooms — thus the sobriquet, "the pajama suicides". (It would appear that back then men still wore pajamas when they went to sleep; today, one would be hard placed to find a male after puberty that still sleeps in jammies.) Holmes, on a fishing trip with Dr. Watson, fakes his death for no logical reason and then reappears to solve the case. The murders are so crafty and devious that it is obvious to him that only a woman could be responsible. Disguising himself as Rahjhi Singh, an Indian gambler, Holmes quickly discovers the murderess (Sondegaard), but she just as quickly figures out who he actually is. Her first attempt to kill Holmes using the same method as her other victims fails, as he is expecting it and manages to kill the big nasty spider her henchmen lets loose in his room. The spider is a rare, highly poisonous, and with a virtually indistinguishable bite, and its poison induces painful hallucinations. (Some versions of the film have cut the aspect of her pygmy helper, which results in some clues being introduced but never being followed up on or actually making any sense.)

A second attempt on Holmes' life almost succeeds, but at the last moment the great detective is able to save both himself and Watson from the deadly smoke. The clues he follows eventually lead him to a circus where the bad guys trap him and tie him up behind the moving targets of a shooting gallery. Watson, waiting with Lestrad, decides to do a little shooting to pass the time. Is he going to be the one to kill his true friend? Well, the fact that another half dozen films followed this one answers that question, now doesn't it?

There are many nice touches in Sherlock Holmes & the Spider Woman, not the least of which is the interesting, almost sexual tension between Holmes and the Babe of Evil. Both Watson and Lestrad are in good form, neither being as overpoweringly dense as they often are in other episodes. The emotion they show when Holmes is believed dead is touching and, on Lestrade's part at least, somewhat unexpected.

But age of the film aside, Holmes' badly dated justification for suspecting a woman is simply idiotic, not to mention misogynistic. (And face it, Holmes in brown face as "Rajni Singh" doesn't exactly sit well nowadays either. Worse, the brown face simply looks like brown face, not skin tint, so his disguise simply does not fly.) Likewise, his "death" is unneeded plot padding, as are various short scenes of unnamed English families commenting on such subjects as the suicides or his death. Also, at one point Holmes states that one reason he cannot arrest the Spider Woman is that he has no proof that she is guilty; at the end of the film, when she finally is arrested, he still doesn't really have any proof. At most, he would be able to send up a couple of her henchmen, but unless they were to turn state's evidence there would be no provable evidence to her guilt. And why does he say Lestrade doesn't need to put her in handcuffs? In what way or form did she give him or us reason to believe that she wouldn't escape if given the chance? As evil and cold-blooded as she is, all logic would say that she would probably have some trick up her sleeve to kill Lestrade and orchestrate her escape...

Overlook these obvious but minor flaws, and the obviously dated film is rather entertaining minor classic of arguably quality, the last especially when compared to some of the later films in the series. Regardless of whatever flaws, however, Sherlock Holmes & the Spider Woman is well worth watching.

Trailer to the non-sequel,

The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946)*:

* Initially intended by Universal as the first of a cycle of Spider Woman horror movies, the somewhat slow and confused movie was so poorly received that the concept of a new horror franchise was tossed. Rondo Hatton's interpretation of the Hoxton Creeper in the later Sherlock Holmes entry The Pearl of Death (1944) fared better: he returned as the Creeper in two subsequent films, House of Horrors (1946 / trailer) and the surprisingly exploitive The Brute Man (1946 / trailer).

Breach (USA, 2020)

(Spoilers.) A.k.a. Anti-Life. Hey! To simply steal the entire opening paragraph from our review of Force of Nature (2020): "Towards the end of his life, Sir Laurence Olivier (22 May 1907 – 11 Jul 1989), one of England's great thespians, was known, during his later years of declining health, to take pretty much every half-way decently paying project that came his way — The Betsy (1978 / trailer), anyone? — ostentatiously because in his later years he 'devoted himself to making money for his children and grandchildren' [Harvard Crimson]. He was/is hardly a rarity in his desire to rake in the dough before going six feet under. More recently, Bruce Willis, prior to and during his decent into dementia, pretty much did the same thing, filling his probably already healthy bank account with bucks earned from headlining but shot-in-two-days appearances in a plethora of third and fourth rate 'geezer teasers' [...] before, well, he got to the point that 2-million-dollar, 15-minute parts were no longer an option."

Indeed, by the time Bruce got around to filming Out of Death (2021 / trailer) in November 2020, famously (or perhaps infamously) enough, Mike Burns, the director of that tax write-off, felt compelled to reduce Willis's dialogue to a minimum because the actor no longer seemed to know what he was doing (LA Times).

Trailer to

Breach:

While filming Breach, on the other hand, in September and October 2019, Willis could obviously still remember lines, for though he is hardly the lead — regardless of how the trailer makes it look like — he still has a relatively large amount of dialogue and, actually, does a fairly decent off-the-cuff, almost dryly and comically camp, performance as the manly senior janitor, Clay. Willis seems to know he's in a crap film, and his apparent lack of respect for his own part serves his character well.

Of course, it could also simply be that the true lead of the movie, the extremely uncharismatic Cody Kearsley (of River Road [2022 / trailer]), as the stowaway pretending to be a janitor, Noah, is so miscast and offers such a piss-poor performance that Willis comes across almost Shakespearean when sleepwalking. Other familiar faces (such as Ralf Moeller and Thomas Jane) add some mild enjoyment to the movie, although one does really get the feeling that their given appearance is probably due to either a lack of decent film offers or a desperate need to pay rent (or, maybe, like Betsy Palmer in the original Friday the 13th [1980 / trailer], they each simply want a new car).

Breach is a contemporary science fiction horror film, a distant cousin of films like Creature (1985) or Forbidden World (1982), both of which probably cost a lot less than Breach to make and are sleazier and more fun and much better films in every way. Like those movies, the basic narrative concerns an apparently unstoppable monster aboard a spaceship — in Forbidden World, to be exact, aboard a planetary space station — decimating the crew as the dwindling number of survivors tries both to survive and destroy it.

Here, the spaceship, the Ark, is a huge vessel carrying some 300,000 people in suspended animation to a new world (called "New Earth") from the doomed old Earth. No everyone aboard, however, believes that mankind is worth saving or deserves a second chance on a new planet, so they smuggle an infectious parasite aboard. Soon after hatching, the parasite begins infecting those on the vessel, converting them into unstoppable zombie-like killers before, eventually, absorbing them to become a tacky-looking, ever-growing monster. (Odd how, some 60+ years after grindhouse projects like Creature and Forbidden World, a project like Breach still cannot manage to make a monster that looks even half-way as real or scary as the one found in the original Alien [1979 / trailer] and its numerous sequels. But to give credit where credit is due: the critter looks better in the film stills than in the film itself.)

Breach is probably at its tensest and ickiest in the scene of the first infection (a scene that calls back ever so slightly to movies such as Night of the Creeps [1986] and Shivers [1975 / trailer]), but once the creature is ingested little that follows is frightening, surprising or suspenseful. Instead, most of what happens is unintentionally funny or oddly illogical, and by the film's expected (as in: you see it coming miles away) resolution, one is truly left with a deep sense of disappointment. All the more so because the movie conveys the feeling that it could have possibly been good, had it only been made correctly.

In itself, as old as the basic narrative is, it does offer the skeletal structure for a good story if handled well; likewise, as crappy as Breach is, it does have a few good ideas — for example, the way the exploded dead slide back together to regenerate into a bigger (but unluckily, funnier and less-effective looking) monster is pretty nifty. The problem is that the filmmakers simply drop the ball once too often, and nothing seems to gel into a coherent or effective horror or action movie. The movie takes too long to get moving, is amazingly empty of atmosphere or tension, and the simplest of logic is often missing. All things that other movies have managed to overcome, but generally thanks to a solid and charismatic main character, if not some creative filmic technique, things that Breach sorely lacks.

One can only scratch their head, for example, that although Noah has discovered the only way to truly destroy the infected, he doesn't bother to share the knowledge with Admiral Adams (Thomas Jane of 1922 [2017], Mutant Chronicles [2008] and Nemesis [1992]) and his unit when they are awoken from cryosleep to fight the monster. Likewise, the sudden revelation that Teek [Callan Mulvey, of Miss Meadows (2014 / trailer)], is the hidden saboteur is a hard pill to swallow as, up until the revelation, he has seriously and fully tried everything possible to fight and stop the situation faced. His revelations, the arguments of which in themselves carry some sense of verisimilitude, would have been far more believable had they been revealed by someone else at some other point in the narrative. (Although, hell, real zealots can actually hide their true fanatic intentions well enough if they want to — Republicans, for example, did it for years before MAGA raised its fascist head.)

Breach: a crappy movie with a few misplayed good ideas, a watchable and almost camp Bruce Willis, a totally wasted Thomas Jane, a totally uncharismatic lead identification figure (i.e., Cody Kearsley), and a surprising surplus of predictability and lack of suspense. The movie's resolution and final lines of dialogue, in any event, are truly hilarious. If you bother to watch Breach, we can only recommend to do so as a group and with a lot of beer and weed, for without the group experience Breach is still too new a movie to be enjoyed as the bad movie that it is, and for which it might perhaps gain a minor reputation in a decade or two. (Doubtful, actually.)

They Came from Beyond Space (Great Britain, 1967)

"Sentiment! I will not have sentiment interfering with our vital work!"

Lee Mason (Jennifer Jayne)

 

We're not in Kansas anymore — which is good, because The Gods Hate Kansas. Or at least they do according to the forgotten author Joseph [John] Millard (1 Jan 1908 – 18 Feb 1989), whose thus-titled science fiction novel was first published, in 1941, in Startling Stories (1939-55) magazine and then eventually reprinted, in 1964, by Monarch Books. That's the cover of Millard's only published science fiction novel above, with some pretty groovy artwork by the unjustly overlooked and totally forgotten Jack Thurston (5 or 15 Aug 1919 – 27 April 2017), who went on to create, in 1966, the iconic Raquel Welch poster to One Million Years B.C. (1966 / trailer) below. (A better film then the one we're looking at here, needless to say, if only because of the pulchritude of the make-up-wearing cavebabes.)

Although as an author Joseph Millard wrote numerous novelizations of films (for example, For A Few Dollars More [Tandem, 1967] and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot [Tandem, 1974]), as far as we can tell The Gods Hate Kansas is the only original book of his that has ever been adapted to the screen. One of the first things that probably got jettisoned when the decision was made by producers Milton Subotsky (27 Sept 1921 – 1 Jun 1991) and Max Rosenberg (13 Sept 1914 – 14 Jun 2004) — otherwise known as the CEOs of that beloved and long-defunct production house, Amicus Productions (Robert Fuest's Abominable Dr Phibes [1971 / trailer] & Dr Phibes Rises Again [1972 / trailer], Madhouse [1974 / trailer], The Beast Must Die [1974] and so much more) — was the novel's original title, for unlike the book, the film is set in the rural Cornwall in stiff-upper-lip England. But instead of going for something like The Gods Hate Cornwall, which they surely do, the slightly more marketable They Came from Beyond Space became the film's title.*

* Two years later, when the far more jugular-minded English production house Tigon stole, without giving any credit, half the plot to They Came from Space for their loose and far more abysmal and far more ridiculous and far more cheap-looking and far more unintentionally funny version of the tale, they went with the far-more exploitive title, The Body Stealers (1969 / trailer).

To direct the movie, Amicus turned to Freddie Francis (22 Dec 1917 – 17 Mar 2007), whose directorial projects after the decided flop of his first film, the romantic drama Two and Two Make Six (1962 / scene), are almost all of the horror or science-fiction genre. As to be expected of a director who is also a twice-fold Oscar-winning cinematographer, one really cannot fault the cinematography of They Came from Beyond Space, but other than that the movie doesn't have that much going for it. On the whole, it is hardly as bad (or as fun) as Freddie Francis's worst and most infamous film, Trog (1970 / trailer), but of the seven films in total that he was to make for Amicus between 1965 (Dr. Terror's House of Horrors [trailer]) and 1972 (Tales from the Crypt [trailer]), it vies with The Deadly Bees (1966 / trailer) as his biggest turkey. A mildly enjoyable turkey, perhaps, but nevertheless a turkey — and our version watched, going by the running time of 85 minutes, seems to be the uncut turkey version. 

Trailer to

They Came from Beyond Space:

If there is a theme to the movie, a lesson that They Came from Space wants to impart, then (as in The Body Stealers) it is surely "If you want something, don't take, ask." But it is doubtful that scribe Milton Subotsky put too much thought into conveying a message, as he doesn't really seem to have put too much thought into his script. For the most part slow-moving and stodgy, the narrative is populated by too many characters, picks plot points and characters up only to drop them or leave them half-explained, brings in plot-development-important characters much too late and without any proper introduction, and sort of wanders about as if it doesn't really know where it wants to go. It feels very much 1957, not 1967, and the lack of blood, skin or sex, adult language or situations, or (almost) any believable sense of threat often makes They Came from Beyond Space feel less like a serious science fiction film than a kiddy movie. As Subotsky, the film's producer, has sole credit for the script, we would conjecture that there were simply too few cooks in the kitchen, which spoiled the poorly seasoned brew.

They Came from Beyond Space was released in the UK on a double bill with Montgomery Tully's cheesy The Terrornauts (1967 / trailer). Freddie Francis was apt to claim that Tully's film ate so much of the production budget that nothing was left for his film, but truth be told, with the possible exception of the spaghetti-colander helmets introduced towards the end, They Came from Beyond Space really doesn't look any cheaper or worse than some other rural-set genre films of the period, such as the far more respected Island of Terror (1966 / trailer). No, the flaws of the film lie elsewhere...

Like, in the serious miscasting of American Robert Hutton* (11 Jun 1920 – 7 Aug 1994) of as the main hero, Dr Curtis Temple. Hutton, at the age of 47, looks much too old for role: a man of the time when people always looked way older than they actually are, when he starts punching and kicking, it looks less like a man fighting than a persiflage of an agent film, and his visual age make his reputed recklessness (which prior to the film's narrative led to the silver plate in his skull) and taste in cars (a 1924 Bentley!) appear less manly than the possible results of a midlife crisis of a man who looks like he's pushing his late 50s.

* Miscast or not, Hutton, who spent his final days in a nursing-care facility after breaking his back at home, has some fun and cheesy genre films to his name, including The Man Without a Body (1957 / trailer), The Colossus of New York (1958 / trailer), Invisible Invaders (1959 / trailer), Wild Youth (1960 / full movie), The Vulture (1966/ trailer), Torture Garden (1967/ trailer) and, of course, Trog (1970). Of special note, however, is his only directorial credit, in which he also starred, the mind-bogglingly terrible but sort of fun The Slime People (1963 / trailer), and his later screenplay to the dreary and justifiably forgotten British hagsploitation flick with Lana Turner, Persecution a.k.a. The Terror of Sheba (1974 / trailer).

Indeed, why the few women of the film find him worth a second look is unfathomable, for above all he looks like a lecherous grandfather (and not of the GILF sort) when he's around the ladies. One of the beautiful ladies is his right hand at his office, Lee Mason (Jennifer Jayne [14 Nov 1931 – 23 Apr 2006], below not from the film, of The Crawling Eye [1958 / trailer] and Escape by Night [1965 / full film]). As normal in those times when the world was good to real men — and manly white men in particular — she and Dr Temple are a secret couple. Later, after she has been sent down to Cornwall to take a look at some "meteors" that have landed in perfect formation and suddenly drops all contact with him, his worry for her is one of the major motivations of his actions — indeed, when he finally breaks into the huge, newly built underground headquarters of the aliens that have taken over everyone's bodies and minds, he does so above all so as to kidnap her.

And speaking of women who inexplicably give Dr Temple the eye, let's not overlook the woman at the gas station (Luanshya Greer a.k.a. Pamela Greer): she is introduced and given a big build-up as a plot-relevant character with the possible hots for Temple, only to promptly disappear. (She does actually reappear at one point, which proves to be one of the film's better shocks.)

Rather the reverse of the fate of the character Farge (Zia Mohyedden of Work Is a Four Letter Word [1968 / Cilla Black's title track] and Deadlier than the Male [1967 / trailer]), who is basically dropped into the narrative well past midway with no other introduction than Temple saying, "[...] a friend, the only man I know who might possibly believe me." He does, of course, and the two naturally find a way to not just see the "pure energy" aliens and free Lee from their thrall, but realizes that wearing silver spaghetti colanders on the head prevents the aliens from taking over one's mind. And so the three, wearing some really funky-looking homemade goggles and carrying funky-looking ultraviolet-light-shooting guns, set out to stop the aliens by breaking back onto the compound, running into a rocket, and (seriously!) taking a ride to the moon. There they meet the ashen-blue leaders of the aliens, who seem to have stolen their ridiculous robes from some third-rate Italo peplum movie, and the "Master of the Moon" (the great Michael Gough [23 Nov 1916 – 17 Mar 2011]) and... well, it's all rather funny and impossible to take seriously. 

But then, most of They Came from Beyond Space is impossible to take seriously, even if some of the concepts are good and would probably work in a better movie, beginning with the old chestnut of mind-controlling aliens. Harder-hitting than that, however, is the sudden introduction of a deadly "Crimson Plague", which comes out of nowhere to first kill a suddenly found ally, Agent Stilwell (Maurice Good [8 Jun 1932 – 10 May 2013 of Murder Most Foul [1964 / trailer] and Quatermass and the Pit [1967 / trailer]), and then quickly obliterate an entire town and spread further. For some inexplicable reason — the silver plate in his head? — the plague never infects Temple, despite his literally being present at Moment Zero at Ground Zero. (Utter bollocks: the scene filmed like a TV news report in which a stiff-upper-lip commentator [real-life BBC newsreader Kenneth Kendall (7 Aug 1924 – 14 Dec 2012)] walks through the plague town explaining the sickness without wearing any hazard suit, mask, or precautions of any kind. And that after it has been established that the plague is also airborne.)

When watching They Came from Beyond Space, one thought cannot but arise in the heads of a viewer: Why don't the aliens just kill Temple? Indeed, at one point Temple even places that question to alien-enthralled lackey Richard Arden (Bernard Kay [23 Feb 1928 – 25 Dec 2014] of The Shuttered Room [1967 / trailer], Witchfinder General (1968], Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger [1977 / trailer] and so much more), but he responds that they have no desire to kill him* — a statement, actually, that contradicts both alien-minded Lee's earlier order that Temple should be shot should he show up at the compound entrance again, and her later direct order to Arden to kill Temple — which, of course, he fails to do because Temple is such a hot-shot fighter. (When she herself has the chance on a deserted country road to do Temple in at one point, she chooses simply to ray-gun him unconscious.) Doing something logical like simply kidnapping Temple in the dead of night or off the deserted country roads and keeping him sedated never occurs to the advanced alien race.

* But releasing a deadly plague that kills a whole town and more, that's okay.

They Came from Beyond Space is a bad film, no ifs or buts about it. It might be well-shot and competently edited, and often the acting isn't too shabby, but the half-baked narrative of the poorly structured screenplay sinks the movie. It is not a movie that really calls to be watched, and even the youngest set might find it illogical and stupid. But when properly mind-addled and in the proper mood, and with a group of like-minded folks, They Came from Beyond Space might offer an evening of mild giggles and laughter and jeers. Those of you who like evenings like that could give the movie a go — keep a lot of liquid mood-enhancer at hand, though — but the rest of the world should look for a different film to watch. 

And remember: "If you want something, don't take, ask." (And don't obliterate any towns, either.)

Killing Gunther (USA, 2017)

Way back in 1992, four film students in Belgium made the black comedy named C'est arrivé près de chez vous, otherwise known as Man Bites Dog (trailer below), a mockumentary along the lines of Spinal Trap (1984 / trailer) or, to go even further back, the funny Take the Money and Run (1969 / trailer), or to get back to the time of your great-granny, Bunuel's not so funny short Land without Bread (1933 / full short), but with a dark streak and mean bite. The French-language, B&W and extremely low-budget movie concerned a group of documentary filmmakers documenting the life and times of a serial killer. The film, which was rather a critical and financial success in Europe, eventually made its way to the US with an NC-17 rating where it wasn't exactly a hit, and has long since become a cult movie — in 2002, it was even given the stamp of cultural validation: a DVD release (original cut) by Criterion Collection (#165).

Trailer to

Man Bites Dog:

For that, nowadays that movie remains somewhat obscure, but there is little doubt in our minds that former SNL alumni Taran Killam watched the movie somewhere along the line and decided to do an American-style remake: bigger and "better" and in full color. (Aside from the basic concept and structure, both movies also share a major plot twist, if to greater importance in the newer movie.) Whether or not Killam's mockumentary, Killing Gunther, is "better" is open to discussion — for one, it lacks the subliminal social criticism of the original, and two, it is far less in-your-face and boundary-pushing. But, for that it is "bigger": it's in color, is a lot flashier, has a larger cast of killers, a lot more explosions, and a name star in the title role — no one less than a wasted life's favorite hunk o' muscles from the turn of the century, Arnold Schwarzenegger.* (That's him directly below, not from the movie but in his youthful prime, when we would have been happy to bend over or drop to our knees for him.)

* Arnie didn't exactly make waves or show promise as "Arnold Strong" in the bad-film fav Hercules in New York (1970 / trailer), but twelve years later his career took off with Conan the Barbarian (1982 / trailer) and The Terminator (1984 / trailer). It took Batman & Robin (1992 / trailer) and the unjustly reviled Last Action Hero (1993 / trailer) to really put a dent in his acting career, but what crippled it was probably his stint as the governor of California and the yellow-press scandal of his affair and child with a family housekeeper, Mildred Patricia "Patty" Baena, while still married to Maria Shriver. The scandal is more or less passé by now — after all, not being faithful and divorce, like school shootings and grabbing women by the pussy, are national pastimes in the US and have the full approval of the Republican party, and they are the heart and soul and penis of the country — and even if Arnie's name is no longer a guaranteed audience draw, he still has a solid twilight career. In the case of Killing Gunther, his name didn't exactly draw in an audience, and the movie proved to be anything but a success.

Killing Gunther, the "bigger" and "better" and full-color directorial debut of Taran Killam, concerns an assassin named Blake (played by Taran Killam) who, in the name of fame and glory – and, we eventually learn, for another reason that we won't reveal – decides to kill the world's most infamous hitman, Gunther (Arnie). He gathers together a team of fellow likewise fame-seeking killers to help, and forces a group of documentary filmmakers to document the entire undertaking as proof. The problem is, not only is Gunther always a few steps ahead of the hapless group of killers, he seems very much to be playing games with them...

Trailer to

Killing Gunther:

In general, Man Bites Dog might be the movie that deserves greater respect and reputation, but as far as mainstream American action comedies go, Killing Gunther is not all that disappointing as a black comedy. It delivers more than enough grins and laughs, and even surprises on occasion. True, Arnie (i.e., Gunther) doesn't show up until the last hour of the movie, but once he's there he is omnipresent. And, unlike other aged action stars — Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis promptly come to mind — he doesn't phone in his performance. In fact, his Gunther is amazing: an offbeat narcissist with oodles of charisma,* the screen literally lights up whenever he is on it, and despite the fact that he is a major asshole, he proves himself rather likable. Even if Killing Gunther sucked completely (it doesn't), his performance alone would make it worth seeing.

* The last film of his in which Arnie displayed as much cold-blooded narcissism as in Killing Gunther is Pumping Iron (1977 / trailer), but in that docudrama he was hardly funny.

If there is a flaw to Killing Gunther, it is the over-abundance of characters. The team that Blake puts together is as large as it is incompetent, and the result of such a plethora of characters is that few become truly memorable or have a lot to do. The psycho, proto-redneck Russian siblings Mia (Allison Tolman of Krampus [2015 / trailer]) and Barold (Ryan Gaul of Space Station 76 [2014 / trailer] & The Happytime Murders [2018 / trailer]) Bellakalakova, for example, hardly register while alive and are not missed once Gunther kills them. In turn, Izzat (Amir Talai), a former Islamist extremist with technically faulty Iron Man arm, may perhaps be given more attention but his demise is less funny than predictable, while Blake's mentor Ashley (Audrey Sixto) never becomes much more than a running (and thus predictable) joke. Of the tertiary (i.e., expendable for the plot development) members of the team, the funniest is perhaps Yong (Aaron Yoo of Demonic [2015 / trailer]), who kills only with poison and is thus pretty much worthless: he doesn't get much screen time, but every time he does something he instigates giggles or laughter.

And while here are other key parts of the narrative that garner laughter and mirth, an unexpected development of the movie that works rather well is all that which arises between Donny (Bobby Moynihan), the typically chubby (for the US) and incompetent bomber, and Danna (Hannah Simone of the Oldboy remake [2013 / trailer]). What could easily have been a shallow running gag — especially with the involvement of Sanna's helicopter and retired-hitman father Rahmat Fairouza (Peter Kelamis of Turbulence 2: Fear of Flying [1999 / trailer]) — is built upon and expanded, remaining funny till the movie's final scenes.

It is perhaps in its resolution that Killing Gunther does finally lose steam: what appears to be a highly ironic if not downright mean resolution, one in which Blake succeeds only for Gunther to have a post-death final laugh, segues into a final scene that truly insults the viewer and only diminishes the movie.

So, in short: A perfect example of a good movie not ending when it should, Killing Gunther is a blackly humorous action comedy that manages to overcome its flaws and keep you happily entertained until it finally drops its balls during the last scene. Arnie has seldom been funnier, and alone the fun he has with his character makes the movie worth watching, despite the fact that he only shows up after an hour. Whatever Killing Gunther's flaws may be, it does offer 1.5 hours of fun and action, and as such is more than entertaining. It hardly deserves to be the forgotten flop that it is.