MYSTERY STREET (1950)

Highly entertaining police procedural about a small town cop (Ricardo Montalban) who's trying to solve the murder of a prostitute. All he has to go on is some bones that washed up on the beach. He takes the bones to Harvard Medical School and from what he learns there he starts his investigation. Who the bones belong to, how she ended up missing and whether she was murdered or not and if so by who? Of course all kinds of roadblocks arise including and lying witness and a landlady who's looking to blackmail the killer!

The story was well-written (it was even nominated for an Oscar), but the most surprising thing to me about the film is how wonderful Ricardo Montalban was. I've always known him to be a good actor, but he was really good here portraying the driven detective who starts to have internal doubts about the case. A lot of what goes on with his character is unspoken and Ricardo does an excellent job relaying all of that to the viewer. I kept finding myself wishing that they'd made an entire series of these crime dramas centered around his character.

As far as film noir goes MYSTERY STREET isn't a dark film filled with deep shadows. It's really just more of a mystery/crime drama, but who's cares? It's a great film and it would make an excellent double feature with T-MEN.

UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US (2008)

I'm always excited to see new metal documentaries both from a historical viewpoint and hoping that maybe I will discovers a few new bands. But neither one of those things happened here.  UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US is strictly entry level. If you know absolutely nothing about black metal or metal in general this movie is an alright starting point, but even then there's really not enough information.  I think there's something like 9 people interviewed total. You have the nerd from Dorkthrone, I mean, Darkthrone (I actually love Darkthrone); Varg (who's already been interviewed ten million times) from Burzum, Immortal and my favorite: the geek from Satyricon who tries to beat up a sofa and fails.  What a toughie.

There's no real structure, so it's simply a bunch of interviews talking about the same old shit: the church burnings back in the early 1990's, Dead killing himself and Count Grishnackh stabbing Euronymous to death. Ninety-nine percent of the people who would be interested in a black metal documentary already know all of this stuff.

New black metal fans might find the movie insightful, but I would have much rather it delved deeper into the genre and brought something new to the table.  If you need me I'll be in my room listening to "Live in Leipzig".

Frost tries to stab a couch (I don't know why) and the knife is so dull it doesn't even puncture it. It's hilarious.

PIG (1999)

PIG is a relatively obscure movie and after watching it I fully understand why. Let me give you the rundown...shot in b&w the film opens with a dude packing his belongings in a suitcase. There's a dead body nearby. He drives off into the desert. In the desert there's another dude walking around with his entire head wrapped in gauze. Somehow these two dorks hook up and drive to a old, shitty looking house. They go inside and the first dude (now wearing a pig mask) tortures the other guy by piercing his nipples and carving the word "PIG" into his chest. He then plays with the dude's wiener and extracts some blood from his arm with a syringe. He wraps the dead body in plastic and drives off, taking twenty-three wasted minutes of my life with him.

Avoid this movie at all costs.

ACT OF VIOLENCE (1948)

[Update 02/16/2022: Need to fix the screenshots.]

Van Heflin is living the ideal post-WWII life. He has a beautiful young wife, a little baby, a growing business and the respect and admiration of his fellow small town citizens. But it all came at a price: a bad decision he made in a Nazi prison camp. Only one other person in the world knows about what he did...and that man has finally come for his revenge.

At only 82 minutes, ACT OF VIOLENCE moves along at a brisk pace. Add on top of that the impressive cast, director Fred (FROM HERE TO ETERNITY) Zinnemann and the only noir by legendary cinematographer Robert Surtees and you've got a pretty good movie.

Rumor has it that Humphrey Bogart and Gregory Peck were originally going to be the leads and that would have been awesome, but I really like the way things turned out. I'm a big fan of both Heflin and Ryan and it was a lot of fun watching Ryan charging around like the Terminator stopping at nothing to kill the increasingly unstable Heflin who resorts to more and more desperate measures to outrun his past when actually the real danger is the guilt inside of him.

Mandatory viewing for film noir fans.

Film crew visible in reflection.

THE VISITOR (1979)

[Update 7/2/2019: I want to revisit this movie. Maybe I missed something. Need to fix the screenshots also.]

It's probably safe to say that the makers of this films were baked out of their fucking skulls.

From what I gathered, John Huston is a super old wizard or something and a shitload of years ago he kicked some dude's ass and that dude somehow spread his seed all over the universe. So now Huston is going around capturing this dude's offspring and returning them to some room where they hang out with some blue-eyed hippie that looks like Jesus.

Huston's latest travels bring him to Atlanta where he's tracking down a little girl and her killer falcon. She shouldn't be too hard to find though, just look for the foul-mouthed little girl with the glowing eyes who's busy throwing other kids through windows, tossing somebody into a large aquarium, shooting her mother in the back (leaving her paralyzed), kicking people down the stairs and causing all kinds of bizarre freak accidents.

As far as THE OMEN ripoffs go, this one is definitely one of the strangest and most discombobulated. And I'm not saying that in a good way. This movie is a mess. The story is silly, the special effects are shit, the music doesn't even belong in this type of film, there's little violence and the pace is almost torture. The only thing saving this movie from being a complete piece of shit is the cast. How the filmmakers talked so many talented actors to be in this movie I have no idea. They must have blown their entire budget on getting names on the marquee when they should have been concentrating on the script.

Good for a few laughs, but beyond that forget it. That poster is awesome though. It reminds me of the one from TERRORVISION.