Isn't that title bad ass? How can you say no to a movie title like that? Pretty much all giallo films have intricate and alluring titles like that. Here's a list. Go ahead and check it out. I'll wait.
Unfortunately, Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key is another in a long list of films that doesn't live up to the expectations of the title. Sure, there's some nude table-top hippie dancing, and a satin sheet-filled lesbian romp, and multiple stabbings, and a cat named Satan; but it's kind of boring. What would be really great is if some of the motorcycles in this film knew karate. Now that would be a movie!
I know that sounds fairly random, suddenly talking about motorcycles that know karate and such. Just relax, and wait for the punchline.
No one believes a woman after she witnesses a murder in this early giallo film. The Girl Who Knew Too Much has some very interesting stark black and white cinematography, but the plot is a little meh. Actually, this review is a little meh. Here's the deal...my family had all fallen asleep in the movie viewing room, and they were all stretched out on the furniture and I had nowhere to sit. Normally, this would cause me great consternation. I was feeling unusually charitable, and I decided not to throw a gigantic frothy-mouthed raving fit and let everyone sleep. So I made myself comfortable flat on my back on the floor in front of the television. I had a large pillow under my head and a nice down throw over me. My feet jutted from under the throw at the bottom, but that was ok. It was nice. I really should lie on the floor more often. Anyway, I settled in to 86 minutes of giallo. From the corner of my eye, I see a dark shape very near my head. I hear a quiet purring. The cat, who is not allowed to be near me due to allergies, decided that the urge to sit in the middle of my chest was entirely too great, and she was moving not only into my personal space but also into certain doom. She stealthily crept in the room and was trying to climb on me as if I would never notice. I turned my head and gave her the death-stare, and she slunk back out of the room. I continued my movie. I again feel a looming presence. The cat has begun climbing over me to grab the best seat in the house, which is apparently my head, blocking my view of the movie. So I can only assume that a portion of this film has something to do with the north end of a south bound cat.
Regardless of what your documentary is about, I instantly throw whatever shred of belief I had in the subject matter out the window if the narrator pronounces the word nuclear "noo-cue-lar". I don't care if you're talking about reactors, or string theory, or little green men from outer space; it is not acceptable to pay someone good money to narrate your film and then have them incorrectly pronounce nuclear. You might as well have subtitles below the action on the screen telling the audience, "Disregard everything I'm saying. Turn on something else." Seriously, they could be interviewing a live alien as he's (she's? it's?) walking down the runway from their craft wearing a little sign that reads "I'm a totally real alien from outer space. Come down to the spaceship and I'll give you five bucks and a bag of Reese's Pieces", and someone would say "nucular" and I would have to say "Yeah, like I'm going to believe a huge pile like that. They're probably selling time-shares".
Here's another of those old creaky numbers where some old dude has a bunch of money that his relatives want, and he's only going to give it to his grand-daughter who is conveniently misplaced, and then two grand-daughters show up, and people open doors, and close doors, and open doors, and close doors, and some folks end up dead I guess, and I die of boredom a little.
Hey, that clip was pretty lively, with the shadows, and the skulls, and stuff. Maybe I should watch it again.
I really wanted to like this film. I just can't. I was looking forward to watching it this summer, but I found plenty of excuses to not go see it in the theater. Just as well. I actually think I liked Abraham Lincoln Vs. Zombies better. It at least didn't take itself so damn seriously. In my opinion, if you are presenting the idea of the 16th President defending America against the onslaught of any sort of undead creature, the result should be as just as absurd as the idea itself, and it should be fun. Sadly, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter isn't very fun. Most of the time, I was distracted by the CGI or the MMA. I would see Abraham Lincoln do a spinning back-kick, and I would think to myself, "I wonder what it would have been like in the 19th century if Presidents knew kung-fu. Like if 15th President James Buchanon was a secret kung-fu master. Now THAT would be a movie! Or if he was a ninja! Wow! I'd pay good money to watch 15th President James Buchanon put a ninja beat-down on the Panic Of 1857. He could go flying all Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon president-style, and he could wield a katana, and more presidents should carry around katanas...", and then I would realize that I just missed large chunks of movie imagining James Buchanon delicately flying over the rooftops of pagodas after admitting Kansas into the Union, even if that sounds like an awful idea. So yeah, if anyone wants me to write the screenplay for James Buchanon: Deadly Ninja, I'm available. It'll be terrible.
The 80s were a terrible time, and I wouldn't recommend going there. It was a time when everyone wore polo shirts, jeans and Nike shoes. It was a living nightmare. Actually, it looked a lot like now. I wouldn't recommend going there, either. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "But Stabford, didn't everyone look like Devo in the 80s?". No, they did not. People did not go around wearing yellow jumpsuits all the time. People would have found that fashion choice to be unusual. Just trust me on this.
Anyway, The Stuff starts out with a grizzled old prospector-type guy working at an industrial complex of some sort who finds a white, frothy, viscous marshmallow-fluff type fluid bubbling from the ground and immediately starts eating it because that's what everyone does when they find mysterious fluids on the ground. Nothing unusual there. Someone then decides to put this fluid in containers, call it The Stuff, write a catchy jingle about it, and market it by having models eat it while wearing fur coats and bikinis because that's just fine. Then suddenly, a smarmy guy wearing a leisure suit and cowboy boots appears, and you instantly feel like he might be a villain because of, well, the leisure suit and boots. Seriously, who wears that? It's like you might as well wear a big sign that says "Movie Villain" in big block letters on it. So Smarmy Guy In A Leisure Suit And Cowboy Boots starts investigating the distributor of The Stuff, and he talks to Paul Sorvino who becomes afraid of a regurgitating doberman pincer and hides under a tiny side table because that's fine. I could go on and on about every little point of the film; like how the boom is visible in a reflective lab cabinet, or how the camera is often shaky at best, or how there are way too many leg-warmers, or how everyone wears yellow jumpsuits, but I won't. I will tell you what I learned about The Stuff; that if you're confronted by strangers you should either run for the woods, abandon your business or get immediately in their car, and if Garrett Morris shows up there's going to be some exciting row-boat action.
The Greatest American Hero, Norm from Cheers, and that guy from Night Court star in this horror comedy about a haunted house. No, not Harry Anderson, the other guy. The tall one. No, not John Larroquette, the bald one. Yeah, him. Anyway, I had to break up my viewing of House because Deathrage Towers lost power. The lights went out about the halfway point of the movie, and I had to watch the rest at a later date. I place every bit of blame for the power outage on my custodial staff. They weren't here when the storm hit, probably because I fired them all just the day before for some crazy whim that I can't remember right now. It might have had something to do with the proper storage of all my Halloween candy, and definitely had nothing to do with hurricane preparedness. Regardless, if they were here doing their job, and I'm not certain what that is specifically, I wouldn't have been forced to spend several days wandering through the building trying to find the circuit breaker with a lone lit candle looking like I'm haunting my own house. If they had left a map showing where crucial equipment was stored, like mops or fuses or generators, I wouldn't have had to dock their pay after the fact and I wouldn't have had to throw out all the Halloween candy. There wasn't anything wrong with the candy; in fact I survived a few harrowing hours being lost on the floor where the advertising offices are by sitting in a corner of the room ingesting several bags of 100 Grand candy bars in the dark surrounded by empty wrappers like a weirdo. If each of those little fun-sized nuggets of chocolate, rice crisps and caramel equal $100,000, I think probably I ate $20,000,000 in 100 Grand Bars. I was a little nauseous afterward. Anyway, I just threw all the fun-sized candy out in anger that my Halloween was ruined. Ok, in all honesty, I ate all the good candy and threw out the junky stuff. That's not important right now. My Halloween was ruined, I was trapped in a dark house with no movies, I was nauseous from a caramel overdose, and it was a living nightmare and not in a good way. Anyway, I'm not sure why I had so much candy, because I don't allow access to the building to any trick-or-treaters. Maybe it's because I would rather hoard the candy for myself, compulsively eat the chocolatey ones in a fit of irrational anger, throw it out the crappy suckers and taffy in a childish tantrum, and be a selfish jerk than give it away. I'm sure many people would agree with me, and if they don't, then, whatever. It's my candy I do what I want. And by the way, why did everyone stop calling Sandy Frankenstorm? That's a much better name than Sandy, even though the entire situation sucked.
So back to House. It was a lot better than one would expect for having all those TV stars in it.
