Dark and Stormy Night – Double Bill DVD Review, Part 2

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Apparently, THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN – a sequel to THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA – was not enough to keep low-budget auteur Larry Blamire busy, so in the proud tradition of Roger Corman, he shot another film with essentially the same cast and crew, creating an instant double bill that fans of camp sci-fi can now enjoy on DVD. With DARK AND STORMY NIGHT, Blamire kicks things up a notch, taking all the clichés of the various Old Dark House movies from the ‘30s and mixing them together in one outrageous plot. Thus, we have a group of strangers meeting at a mansion on a dark and stormy night, after the bridge has been washed away, in order to hear the reading of a will in a house haunted by a masked killer, a masked strangler, a witch, a curse, and a rumored ghost. As if that weren’t enough, there are also secret identities, an escaped lunatic in the region, and even the return of Kogar the Gorilla (Bob Burns, who played the same role in the GHOSTBUSTERS TV series).
Leading the cast are two competing reporters, Eight O’clock Farrady (Daniel Roebuck)and Billy Tuesday (Jennifer Blaire) who provide snappy patter and elicit exposition needed to understand the situation. The acting honors this time go to Brian Howe, who plays the prissy Burlington Famish Jr., the upper-crust heir apparent in an amusingly arch performance. Alison Martin is much funnier here than in LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN – this time as an addled psychic named Lucy Cupcupboard, who says things such as “The frog of uncertainty danced in my hat, too, as they say.”
After the death of Sinas Cavinder, the reporters, a cabby that Farrady shortchanged (Dan Conroy), members of the Cavinder family, and various hangers-on gather at the Cavinder mansion for a reading of the will. There a lawyer at the gathering reveals there has been an addendum to the will, but he is killed before he can reveal what the addendum was.
Among the suspects are the dimwitted nebbishy Ray Vestinhaus (Blamire in a wig and Harold Lloyd glasses), whose car just happened to break down and who is surprisingly mentioned in the original will, a money-hungry schemer (Kevin Quinn), the self-absorbed wife (Christine Romero), a scared-silly maid (Trish Geiger), a jungle guide (Jim Beaver), a dotty brother-in-law (James Karen of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD and POLTERGEIST), a British twit (Andrew Parks), a snooty butler, crazed cook, and similar genre stalwarts (for a low-budget film, the cast is a large one).
Susan McConnell gets to play the part of the crazed relative locked in the attic, who comes down and insults all the guests in an amusingly overdone Scottish brogue. For a change, Blamire works on an actual set (production designed by Tony Tremblay), which includes such genre cliches as hidden panels, basement laboratory, and paintings with removable eyes. The Chiodo Brothers provide miniatures such as would be found in a ’30sfilm, including a toy taxi cab that approaches a model of the mansion drenched by a sprinkler and a collapsing bridge about to be washed out.
True appreciation of DARK AND STORMY NIGHT may depend with the viewers’ familiarity with the movies it is imitating, from THE CAT AND THE CANARY and THE BAT WHISPERS to ONE FRIGHTENED NIGHT and THE OLD DARK HOUSE. While it has fewer quotable non-sequitors than LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN, it holds up better as an actual plot, crammed with quirky characters.
The DVD includes a brief making-of documentary collage, a commentary track which includes several of the participants, and a short gag reel. Though the film is presented in traditional black-and white (appropriate for the genre being spoof), the DVD extras offer viewers the option to play the film is its original color version.
The task of creating a good, enjoyable deliberately bad movie is a tricky one, which has defeated many who have attempted it. Even making a bad film takes a lot of work, and not everyone is going to be on Blamire’s wavelength when it comes to spoofing genre films. But for those with a taste for the absurd, his movies are meta-commentaries that emphasize not only these kinds of movies’ shortcomings (ineffective effects, tongue-tangling dialogue, silly plot twists, strained acting, etc.) , but also what makes them fun, quirky, and enjoyable. The people who made these movies clearly had a lot of fun doing so, and fun can be infectious.
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The Lost Skeleton Returns Again – Double Bill DVD Review, Part 1

The creator of THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA returns with a one-two double bill of genre movie spoofs: THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN and DARK AND STORMY NIGHT.

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Larry Blamire created a minor cult sensation in 2001 with THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA, a genuinely amusing spoof of no-budget 1950s sci-fi films such as BRIDE OF THE MONSTER and THE ASTOUNDING SHE MONSTER. In addition to writing and directing, Blamire also limned the character of Dr. Paul Armstrong, a scientist dedicated to the pursuit of Science, and provided the voice of the title character: a superior alien intelligence embedded in a skeleton, able to hypnotize others to do his bidding, who spends most of his screen time complaining in a condescending manner about how stupid the humans he manipulates are.
Blamire showed a real knowledge of genre precedents, and clearly knew how to make this material work. Rather than resorting to eye-rolling, mugging, or winking at the audience, Blamire’s cast played things relatively straight, with classic bad-acting coming from the fatuous dialogue and the no-resource aesthetic. Particularly appealing were Blamire’s wife Jennifer Blaire as Animalia, a human conjured up by an alien ray out of a housecat and given to weird dancing, slinky black leotards, and sultry looks, as well as the aliens who created her: Kro-Bar (Andrew Parks) and Lattis (Susan McConnel), who struggle to understand the strange Earth people they encounter with their odd language, rituals, and rites.
Blamire followed CADAVRA with the amusing but still unavailable on video TRAIL OF THE SCREAMING FOREHEAD. Now Shout! Factory has released his two latest efforts, a sequel to CADAVRA called THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN and a parody of ‘30s Old Dark House movies called DARK AND STORMY NIGHT, bringing his repertory cast of actors along with him.
THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN in many ways is a parody both of sequels (characters killed off in the original are brought back as their twin brothers) and of lost civilization films (such as THE LOST CONTINENT). This time, Blamire shoots the film in a digital widescreen format (2.35 aspect ratio) with the first half in traditional black & white and then switching to color halfway through once the main characters reach the Valley of the Monsters.
Government agent Reet Pappin (Frank Dietz) has been sent to the Amazon Jungle to uncover a supply of Jerranium 90 (a “little rock” that made all the papers). Teaming up with Betty Armstrong (Fay Masterson), whose husband Dr. Paul Armstrong (Jerranium’s actual discoverer) has been missing for two years, Pappin searches for the missing doctor and for this valuable geological material. Armstrong (Blamire again) is now a bitter and boozy alcoholic, disappointed that his discovery’s name was granted to a usurper who named it after himself. “The jungle gets into your blood and builds tiny little houses of pain, and you’d better not be there when the rent’s due, ’cause the anaconda — funny thing — they don’t know how to read the lease. Seems they never learned. And the only thing longer than a croc’s mouth is the time it takes to swallow you whole,” Paul intones gravely. Clueless Betty just thinks her hubby has a case of the “grumpys.”
Dr. Peter Fleming (Brian Howe), now under the mental control of the constantly complaining Lost Skeleton (actually, nothing much is left of the lost skeleton except its skull) is urged to find the Dalp of Anacrabb and joins the trio along with his dependable guide Jungle Brad (Dan Conroy). Meanwhile, a competing troop of searchers is led by Ellamy Royne (Trish Geiger), who is accompanied by our old friends Kro-Bar and Lattis as well as a newly resurrected Animalia. They gamely resurrect their shtick, which mostly works except for a silly you haven’t “touched your food” joke stolen from YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. They mouth dialogue such as Lattis’s, “We waste time explaining things we already know.’’ To which Kro-bar responds, “We waste time acknowledging that we already know these things.’’
Once the group reaches the colorful Valley of the Monsters, they encounter Chinfa (Alison Martin), Queen of the Cantalope People (apparently so named because they wear enormous cantaloupes on their heads, and in the case of Chinfa, a cantaloupe brassiere as well). Unfortunately, here is where the film starts to stumble with some long, pointless dialogue scenes and one of the worst “native dance” sequences ever filmed. Nevertheless, the climax is enlivened by some deliberately crummy-looking critters created by the Chiodo Brothers (KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE), including a giant Venus-flytrap monster and the cyclopean turd monster Gralmanopidon who has a brief but memorable climactic battle with the Lost Skeleton skull. (The Chiodo Brothers’ hanging miniatures, including the mountains leading to the Valley of the Monsters and the pyramid of the Cantalope people, are by contrast quite accomplished).
The Shout! Factory DVD also includes a brief making of short, commentary from many members of the cast and crew, and a brief (though not terribly amusing) gag reel of blown takes. While not as amusing as the original LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA, THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN does have some memorable moments of mirth performed by people with a clear love for this kind of genre material.
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