#from the experiment and how even though it was horrible experimentation that colonel ran into the explosion trying to get them back safe

[rmbunnie]

Just watched Akira and it was so so good but What The Fuck is Going On because I had no clue it would be like that from what i’ve seen people say about it. The general focus I’ve seen before when discussing Akira was “nice retro animation” and “iconic motorcycle slide” but the motorcycle slide happens like 20 minutes in and I was COMPLETELY unprepared for the rest of the movie?? I mean the things I’ve seen about it online are right, the animation is really cool and the bike slide is nice, but I haven’t seen a single image of Tetsuo before watching the movie, you’d think he wasn’t in it? But disregarding my naivety in thinking I’d get an accurate impression of it from what I see online, I really liked it! Theres a LOT going on, but not in a disorganized way. Kaneda was cool and fun, but I also very much got the wrong impression about him, he seemed like he’d be a lot more stoic/serious than he was, and it felt like Tetsuo got equal or more screentime than him, which makes the total lack of Tetsuo i’ve seen pre-movie more confusing to me. The scene with the glass and the toys was probably the most representative of the tone of the movie to me, not the setting or anything, there aren’t any motorcycles or frozen vaults or sci-fi guns until the end of the scene, but the brand of unsettling is consistent with the rest of the movie. Overall, it was odd to watch with the things I’ve heard about it in mind because you can read that it’s rated R for violence, and it isn’t a lie, but the “cyberpunk action” isn’t the most intense aspect of the movie, and the scenes of violence would have a lot less intensity without the context behind them. The movie was also a lot sadder than I thought it would be! The “cyberpunk biker 80s aesthetic” description that I saw before watching it really doesn’t give it a fair summary, I liked it so much more as the real thing than as what I thought it would be, especially in the character writing. Also the sound design/score was amazing, that one fucking song with the breathing noises was absurdly cool.

#not that i have any issue with cyberpunk #it just gives off a way different vibe than what it really is when thats the only description #akira #akira 1988 #i am thinking so hard about tetsuo #not like in a blorbo way or like he was completely innocent or anything #just thinking #also thinking about those psychic kids #from the experiment and how even though it was horrible experimentation that colonel ran into the explosion trying to get them back safe #i saw an edit post watching it and lots of comments like it looks cool but i didn't finish it and it's cool but i didn't get the plot #*post-watching #and its not like its some niche undiscovered treasure or anything its iconic #but there was so much amazing about the plot #so the massive focus on the visuals alone confuses me #not too much because like its beautiful #but watching tetsuo fall to his knees terrified post-surgery didn't leave an impression because it was pretty you know? #or post-experiment #im doing another anime/manga review just because i feel like typing up my thoughts #and posting it out animal crossing recipe that washes up on the beach style #nothing new #its not even a review im just talking about the movie #speaking of i haven't read the manga so i can't speak for any manga specific bits #but the fact that the writer also wrote the movie makes me believe that even if it wasn't 100% accurate #the changes were changes he thought were acceptable and true to his vision of what it should be #i also really liked that you could only contextualize some things from earlier in the movie with info from the end scenes #which is just how movies work tbh #but its still a treat #when the movie is a movie :0 #anime

[mst3kproject]

Dracula vs Frankenstein (1971)

 I’ve been meaning to get to this one for a while.  It was directed by Al Adamson and stars Lon Chaney Jr. from Indestructible Man in his last and worst film.  Also featuring appearances by Greydon Clark (director of Angel’s Revenge), Forest J. Ackerman (the comic book guy from Future War), and Jim Davis (the grandpa from The Day Time Ended, not the guy who invented Garfield), and generally being one of the shoddiest and most confusing movies I’ve ever sat through, it is a mystery to me why Joel chose Carnival Magic and just left Dracula vs Frankenstein sitting there.  Maybe it was the widescreen thing.

It’s hard to say what the hell is going on in this movie but I’ll give it a try.  Under the cover of a carnival freak show, mad Dr. D’Ray is decapitating nubile young women and then sewing their heads back on, because… uh… because.  One night, his work is interrupted by none other than Count Dracula!  The Count reveals that he knows D’Ray’s secret – D’Ray is really the last surviving member of the Frankenstein family, and Dracula has recovered the body of the original Frankenstein’s Monster and wants D’Ray to help him bring it to life, because… uh… because.  Meanwhile, a woman named Judith Fontaine is looking for her sister, Joannie, who was last seen on the beach near Dr. D’Ray’s Creature Emporium.  Judith and her boyfriend Mike eventually find their way into D’Ray’s lair, and the doctor and his various deformed assistants (obviously he has deformed assistants) are all killed as the couple attempt to escape again.  What Judith and Mike don’t know is that they’re not safe yet.  They still have Dracula to deal with!

That outline actually only represents a fraction of the madness in Dracula vs Frankenstein.  There’s a rapey biker gang and a bunch of noticeably over-age hippies who seem to think they’re in a very different movie.  There’s D’Ray’s hunchback Groton and his pet puppy, and Grazbo the Angry Midget. There’s the stunningly unhelpful detective who’s supposed to be looking for Joannie.  D’Ray brings the Frankenstein Monster back to life with the help of a magical comet.  The idea that creatures like Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster actually exist is treated as obvious and commonplace, and the climactic fight between the two is over who gets to feel up Judith.  It’s a mess.

The reason Dracula vs Frankenstein is such a mishmash of incongruous ideas, at least according to El Santo of 1000 Misspent Hours, is that Adamson filmed for a while, then ran out of money and had to set the project aside while he raised more.  During this intermission, he got a bunch of new ideas, and had to shoehorn them in with what he’d already shot to turn his original sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll film into a monster-versus-monster piece.  It should therefore surprise nobody if the results are about as graceful as a giraffe on roller skates.

The two title monsters are astonishingly shitty. Frankenstein’s Monster looks like the Pillsbury Dough Boy gone horribly wrong.  He looks like his head got stepped on and they couldn’t afford to fix it. The first time you see him, when Dracula digs him out of a cemetery, you can barely tell you’re supposed to be looking at something’s face – it looks like a mass of home-made play-dough that’s been left out in the sun.  He has claws for some reason.  That sequence of similes still doesn’t do justice to just how absolutely terrible he looks, and yet, shockingly, he’s less stupid than Dracula.

Oh, god, this movie’s Dracula.  His face is slathered in Observer makeup (though his hands aren’t, probably because it would have gotten all over everything) and he wears bright red lipstick and fake fangs that don’t allow him to fully close his mouth.  His vinyl cape almost definitely came from Party City. His voice echoes like he’s talking into an empty garbage can, even when he’s sitting in the back seat of a car. He has an incredibly funky goatee and a ring that shoots fire.  Everything he says and does is deeply, self-consciously dramatic and it all comes to an absurd crescendo in the series of priceless faces he makes as he turns to dust in the sun.

On a scale of absurd theatricality, Dr. D’Ray is only shortly behind him.  The mad doctor dresses like Colonel Sanders, has some classic evil facial hair, and spends much of his screen time monologuing… but nothing he says ever makes a lick of sense. The stuff that comes out of his mouth is literally indescribable so I’m going to have to give you some examples:

Rambling in his lab, D’Ray describes his work as follows: “human blood is the essence from which future illusion may be created, but the secret is not to have the blood at rest.  No, the circulatory system must experience a traumatic shock, one that is inconceivable to the human mind.  The idea of trauma is not a new one, but I am sure I am the first such experimenter to incorporate the horror of an actual decapitation into later rejuvenation of a human body!”  This is evidently supposed to be a justification for the sewing-heads-back-on thing – it ‘activates’ the blood and allows D’Ray to make his ‘serum’.  He then injects that ‘serum’ into Groton, who transforms into an axe-wielding maniac.  Later, Dracula claims that the same ‘serum’ would have made him invincible.  I, uh… what?

Sorry, I was talking about D’Ray’s monologuing.  When describing his Creature Emporium, D’Ray informs some guests, “the greatest mysteries in the world are not mysteries at all, unless we take time to become familiar with them.”  Isn’t that the opposite of how mysteries work?  It’s easy to believe in, say, the Loch Ness Monster, until you familiarize yourself with the history of the ‘evidence’ and realize that it’s almost all complete bullshit.

When Dracula shows up, D’Ray declares, “I am too old and too sick to be interested or surprised by anything, but when a man comes into my house and casts no reflection on my mirror, and on his hand wears the unholy crest of Dracula, there is no scientific answer to anything.  Now, what is on your mind, Count Dracula?” Honestly, this nonsense is spoken with such conviction that you almost don’t notice that the end of the sentence has nothing to do with the beginning.

The movie has two things that might qualify as a ‘special effect’.  One is Dracula’s zappy fire ring.  It’s crummy, but you can tell what they’re going for.  The other is the ‘comet’ that is instrumental in giving life to the Frankenstein Monster.  This is represented by a slow pan past a flickering light bulb against a black background.  Even having just heard Dracula talking about the importance of the comet, it took me a minute to figure out what I was supposedly seeing – it’s that bad.  This might be halfway forgivable if the comet were somehow important to the plot… if the Monster, for example, had to complete some mission before it sets or something.  But it’s totally gratuitous.  They could have taken that out, avoided a distractingly awful effect, and made the movie a little bit shorter!

As for meaning anything… Dracula vs Frankenstein does not, and indeed seems to go out of its way to avoid it.  The events that unfold are remarkably meaningless.  Judith finds her sister Joannie, who is not dead but neither is she alive, and then the story just forgets about Joannie and gives her no resolution.  Hippie girl Samantha is saved from being raped by her angry ex and his biker gang, but then she, too, is entirely forgotten.  D’Ray and his henchmen die in a series of contrived accidents that serve no purpose but getting them out of the way so that Dracula and the Monster can fight uninterrupted.  This is particularly anticlimactic because so far, D’Ray has been presented as our main baddie.  Dracula disintegrates Mike with his magic ring and then the movie rushes to its climax without giving either Judith or the audience time to deal with it.  Dracula, the movie’s actual main baddie, just turns to dust in the sun.

There are a couple of moments that are probably supposed to be social commentary, but they have nothing to do with the meandering main plot. One is the scene where a hippie guy says to his girlfriend, “let’s get ready for the big protest tonight.”  She asks, “what are we protesting this time?” and he shrugs and replies, “I dunno, but I bet it’s fun.”  Later we see this protest, which does seem to have a major ‘party’ component and features some very unspecific placards being waved.  In another sequence there’s a druggie bar with the walls covered in graffiti that say things like POT and SOCIETY SUCKS.

Boy, I bet Adamson was really proud of sticking it to those angry young people.

Dracula vs Frankenstein is mesmerizingly bad.  Usually the best bad movies are the kind where you can follow the story a bit, so you aren’t wasting time wondering what the hell is going on instead of appreciating the nonsense dialogue and unconvincing effects.  Dracula vs Frankenstein is a singular exception.  You never have any idea what anybody’s doing and yet somehow it doesn’t matter… the movie gives up on making sense very early, and just forges merrily ahead, dragging you along behind it.  What’s actually happening never matters enough to distract.  I honestly don’t know if this is a point in the movie’s favour or not… but it would have made a hell of an MST3K episode.

#mst3k #reviews #epsiodes that never were #dracula vs frankenstein #tw: rape #all carnival no magic #70s