SCHOOL OF THE HOLY BEAST (1974)

"I can smell the foul odor of witches..."

Did you know that a full proof way of detecting if a woman is a witch or not is to pour a few gallons of salt water down her throat and then have her piss directly onto an image of Christ?  It's true!  If the urine touches Jesus then she's a witch and if miraculously the piss doesn't touch Christ's image then she's innocent.  As easy as that!

Free-spirited teenager Maya (Yumi Takigawa) goes undercover in a convent to find out what happened to her mother who used to be a nun there 18 years ago.  What she discovers is these nuns are pretty wild.  Lesbian sex, drinking and beatings are just the beginning.  These psychos are also into torture and murder!

SCHOOL OF THE HOLY BEAST's story might not be the greatest thing ever written, but it gets the job done and the direction by Noribumi Suzuki (who also co-wrote the script) is really good.  I loved the look and feel of the film.  It was just cool.  Strange story, bizarre camera angles, non-stop blasphemy, attractive nuns, incest, steady pace with lots of torture and female nudity.  What's there not to like?

KRAMPUS (2015)

Boasting a cast way better than the story deserves, KRAMPUS is about a kid who is so upset about people's lack of Christmas spirit that he rips up his heartfelt letter to Santa and tosses it out the window.  This causes Krampus and his minions to show up and start wrecking the joint.  It's kinda like how in XANADU when the artist got upset, ripped up his drawings and tossed the pieces out the window causing Olivia Newton-John and her sisters to show up and start wrecking the joint...with their awesome dance moves!

For a lightweight, PG-13 holiday horror film KRAMPUS is alright.  It's more like an extended episode of an 80's horror anthology show (like "Tales from the Darkside") than an actual horror movie. I am curious as to why the film was named after Krampus when Krampus himself didn't do anything?  For real.  The dude ran around out in the snow for a bit, sent in his minions to take care of everybody then at the very end of the film he just stood there staring at the kid.  The End.

No blood, no nudity, no gore, no scares, very little foul language, slow pace.  I was halfway entertained while watching it, but I didn't care at all about any of the characters. Worth a watch, I guess, but it's nothing to get excited about. Now, if you will excuse me, I'm gonna go to the bathroom and drop a krampus of my own!

HAIL, CAESAR! (2016)

Around a hour or so into HAIL, CAESAR! I thought to myself "What the hell is this movie?"  IMDb lists it as a "Comedy, Mystery", but there's nothing worth more than a smile throughout the entire thing and I have no idea what the mystery portion could have be.  Yeah, there's a kidnapping but we know who the kidnappers are right from the beginning!

Whatever.  Set in the early 1950's, HAIL, CAESAR! is the story of a Hollywood studio big wig (Josh Brolin) who spends all of his time taking care of production needs and keeping the various studio stars in line.  One day something big comes up when the main actor (George Clooney) in the studio's most expensive film disappears off the set.  Is he on a bender?  Shacked up with a dame?  Or maybe even kidnapped by Communists?  69'ing in the woods with a mountain lion?  Brolin has to get his star back while at the same time taking care of various other problems (pregnant single actress, miscast actor, a tempting job offer, etc), it's all very...blah.

I love classic Hollywood and I was excited to see a modern day film set back in 1950's Hollywood, but HAIL, CAESAR! is a dud.  It looks nice, but the story was all over the place with no true center or even likeable characters.  I kept waiting and waiting for something to develop, then I realized that the movie is already 3/4's done and it's still just flailing around like a boat lost in a storm.

With so much talent (both in front and behind the camera) I was expecting a delightful throwback mystery-comedy, kinda like the wonderful THE CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION, but that didn't happen.  Instead HAIL, CAESAR! simply putters along and leaves more questions than it answers.  On the bright side I really enjoyed the performances of Alden Ehrenreich and Veronica Osorio.  They were both great. Also, the lighting was nice.

Is that a white SUV off to the right?