THE OMEGA GLORY

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CAPSULE REVIEWS #1

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
Tobe Hooper, 1974

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a rarity in the apocalyptic horror films of the 1970s. It's almost completely devoid of blood and gore, preferring to function on terror alone. Even the titular chainsaw makes only a single victim (and even that is filmed from the victim's back, se we don't actually see anything).

However, the horror of the situation and the resulting growing tension makes for one unnerving movie. And its clear that Leatherface himself is only titularly a bad guy. Obviously autistic, he was just born into the wrong family. Leatherface only kills because strangers have invaded his family home and he panics. However, his homicidal tendencies have been channeled by his crazy relatives, who have become a bit too enamored of working in a slaughterhouse all these years.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre holds together pretty good after all these years. Its restraint in showing the good stuff clearly works in its favour, as it prefers to emphasises horror and terror, a wise move that its many sequels, prequels and remakes have unfortunately ingnored.

THE THING
Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., 2011

Speaking of pointless remakes and prequels, The Thing fits the bill perfectly. A prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter film, The Thing seeks to explain what happened to the Norwegian camp just before the Thing escapes to the American one.

Unfortunately, we already know what happened to them. Watch Carpenter's film if you don't believe me: the Norwegians have dug up the alien space ship, the Thing is found, gets thawed and...well, I guess you can take it up from there. The film offers very little surprise, even less suspense (we already know what's going to happen) and ultimately offers nothing new except...once again...a CGI showcase.

Even in that respect, the movie fails. The Thing may have got itself a makeover after all these years, but it still up to the same tricks (last time however, the actors were able to actually touch the Thing, adding a level of reality clearly absent here). The level of imagination present in 1982 is conspicuous by its absence. Something tells me this hasn't been written by a leaving breathing human being, but by a photocopy machine that has suddenly developped AI.

And that's the problem of prequels in a nutshell: well-made, a prequel might informs us of some forgotten or unknown aspect of a situation we see in the original movie, without changing the narrative. Most of the times, however, they only show us things we already suspected, or gathered from background information. In any case, this one fails at almost every level and cannot be seen as anything other than a complete waste of time.

THE DEVILS
Ken Russell, 1971

The cinematic excesses of Ken Russell are legendary, but every once in a while you can see then methods behind the madness and many of his films holds together far better than others.

Case in point The Devils certainly one of his better films because it has an actual story supported by the growing array of discordant imagery. Set in the explosive period of 17th century France, a time when religious tensions between Catholic and Protestants forced Carnidal Richelieu to take extreme measures to bring back religious unity (by force if necessary). However, when confronted by a rebellious town whose religious unity is a fait accompli, the Cardinal cannot accept this and force the issue by sending corrupt noblemen and insane inquisitors to unravel this hotbed of...harmony by disposing of the one man who stands against him: Urbain Grandier.

However, the dissolute priest (while acting in the best interest of his town of Loudun), offers flanks to criticism so large, than even the lowliest of Stormtroopers cannot hope to miss. In the end, Grandier is undone by his own disastrous reputation as well as by the conspirational forces aligned against him. Watch as city magistrates, priests, nuns and "doctors" work together to destroy their own city. All for the sake of culling the rebels inside it. Loudun residents hoping for a "more perfect union" will be left wanting as any shred of independence shall be stomped by one ambitious Cardinal. And whoever said religion was boring?

DOCTOR WHO-AN ADVENTURE IN SPACE AND TIME

A BBC film crew was lucky enough to shoot the Doctor's first meeting
with the dreaded Daleks

Contrary to popular belief, Doctor Who-An Adventure in Space and Time is not a biopic on the early days of the BBC tv show Doctor Who. No, rather it is a bona fide Doctor Who episode featuring the First Doctor and his original companions Ian, Barbara and Susan.

However, it is set in an alternate reality where the world of the Doctor converge with the real world of 1960s England and the daily travails of producing an amibitous TV show about a time travelling old man and his police box. Very much like Inferno the Doctor has crossed boundaries of space and time and entered a parallel world where he was actually perceived as a fictional character portrayed by typecast character actor William Hartnell.

It only looks like a biopic because that's what Doctor Who does best: make up any sort of programme and then throw the Doctor and his chums in to see what happens. He's done it before, you see. The Doctor has crashed murder mysteries (even one with Agatha Christie herself), Gothic horror movies, Star Wars-like space opera, one of those Greek mythology thingie, a western, a modern-day spy action series with aliens and others as well.

On most occasions, the Doctor is savvy enough to instantly know the rules of the programmes he's crashing, but not this time. Sure, he once inserted himself in someone else's biography (i.e. Marco Polo) but now it's about his own life and we find the Doctor something at a loss. That's why, at some point, we see him standing in front of the control console, completely lost, unable to remember what he's supposed to do. To the point where he needed his eleventh incarnation to anchor things a bit. This must have been extremely confusing for him. Here he was, a Time Lord seen as an unwell, cranky fiftysomething on the comeback trail.

Space and Time offers us the first double narrative in Doctor Who. On one hand we see the Doctor/William Hartnell engaged with Verity Lambert, Sidney Newman, Waris Hussein, William Russell, Mervyn Pinfield, Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford in producing the Doctor's adventures and on the other hand, we see highlights of the Doctor's most exciting journeys: in prehistoric times, on Skaro, in 13th century China, on planet Vortis and, finally, at Snowcap Tracking Station in 1986 where he met the Cybermen for the first time, and regenerated into his second persona. Luckily, the space-time continuum allowed a BBC production crew film these for all to see.

For the Doctor, however, it's all too much. We see him lose and gain companions at an alarming rate and the years go by around him while he stays the same. It wears a bit thin after a while and he finally relents, agreeing to let go in favour of his second incarnation (who, due to the dimensional gap, is perveived to be younger, fresher and much in-demand character actor Pat Troughton).

Most alarming is the Doctor's inability to understand the rules of the biopic genre. Hartnell's most desperate battles against John Wiles and Innes Lloyd (who succeeded Verity Lambert as producers) are absent, as well as story editors David Whitaker, Dennis Spooner, Donald Tosh and Gerry Davis. The companions, after the holy quartet had come and gone, are reduced to publicity photo cameos. Entire adventures are not even mentioned, let alone protrayed on screen, because the film is only an hour-and-a-half long, and not twenty-six consecutive years of space-time adventures.

BY ANY OTHER NAME

"You see, Captain, turning the crew into these allows you
to save considerably on extras and walk-ins"

Air date: February 23, 1968
Writer: D.C. Fontana & Jerome Bixby
Director: Marc Daniels

Star Trek's second season is usually considered the show's best. While it certainly contains a great number of iconic episodes, I find that the second half of the season lacking in certain respects. We'll get back to that when we discuss the relevant episodes.

I get the feeling that the series is feeling the pinch of budgetary expenditures. While competently written, the plot is overly simple with very little frills and, sadly, very little thrills despite being written by two of Trek's heavy hitters. Well, at least it's not offensively bad, as some late Trek episodes will be. On its own terms, the episode is quite fun to watch, but don't expect too much, eh.

The Enterprise answers a mysterious distress signal and the crew beams down on an unknown planet where they are met with the Kelvans, humanoids wearing the ugliest jumpsuits this side of the galaxy. The leader, Rojan, does not waste time as he immediately orders Captain Kirk to surrender his ship. Of course, Kirk has been threatened by experts so he doesn't take Rojan very seriously. Well, he should 'cause the Kelvans have these little devices on their belts allowing them to paralyse the landing party at the mere touch of a button. Other Kelvans invade the Enterprise where they rapidly take control of things (we are never told exactly how the Kelvans can beam on board the Enterprise, but they can due to the script telling us they can. So there).

As far as evil plans go, the Kelvans' is pretty run-of-the-mill. All they want is a lift back home so they can tell other Kelvans to invade us. Trouble is, they live in the Andromeda galaxy and so the trip will take some time. No matter, the Kelvans will modify the engines so the Enterprise will go faster. Even so, the trip will take roughly 300 years, so only the descendants of the crew will get there.

Meanwhile, Kirk and the landing party are held in custody while the Kelvans get bee-zee. This does grant Kirk the opportunity to plot a daring escape using Mr Spock's telepathic abilities. Unfortunately it backfires horribly and Rojan teaches Kirk a thing or too about compliance.

Just to show Captain Kirk they mean business, Rojan demonstrates another use for their belt devices: it turns a human beings into a tetrahedral block representing the very essence of the victim, including personality traits. Anar, one of the Kelvans (with the ugliest jumpsuit yet) turn two redshirts into these blocks and Rojan, playing a version three-card monte, kills one of the two. Well, at least both of them had bits of dialogue and names, a rare thing for red shirts.

Back on the Enterprise, the Kelvans turn most of the crew into these blocks, leaving only Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty. Yeah, that's right, leave the series regular alive so they can work on a devilish plan to get rid of you. Fantastic, Rojan. And whaddayouknow, they do indeed come up a devilish plan. You see, despite their appearances, the Kelvans are decidedly non-human. Their real appearances is akin to a ten-feet large octopoid. They have taken human forms to save space on their journeys. But they haven't just taken human forms, they have completely mimicked our bodies down to its biological functions. Basically, the Kelvans don't just look human, for all intends and purposes they are human. And as such, they share our human weaknesses.

So, our heroes' plan is to use the Kelvans inability to comprehend their human forms to their own advantage. This is where the fun begins. Scotty takes Tomar down for a drink, and getting fantastically sloshed in the process (leading to Scotty's immortal line 'it's green' when opening a new bottle). Dr McCoy, ever the medical experimenter, pumps enough stimulants in Anar (he of the ugly jumpsuit) to make him edgy and confrontational. As for Kirk, well, being Captain Kirk he will use his most dastardly weapon against Rojan and Kelinda: romance! Yes, Captain Kirk instructs the female Kelinda the ways of the flesh, sending Rojan in a jealous rage.

It works perfectly. Rojan finally can't stand Kirk putting the moves on Kelinda and the usual Star Trek Fight begins. I gotta hand it to Kirk, he's the only man I know capable of engaging in a philosophical debate while punching somebody in the face. Well, I guess when you're a captain you have to multitask all the time. Kirk tells Rojan that if you look human, talk human, behave human and feel human then you're human and that when the Kelvans go home they'll be treated by the other Kelvans like...like Kelvans treat other people.

So basically Rojan has no choice but to admit defeat and settle down on that planet where the episode started. The circle is now complete, when I left, you were the master but......errr, nevermind. Wrong franchise.

Stardate: 4657.5
He's dead, Jim: Rather she's dead, Jim. Yeoman Thompson, quite possibly the only female crewman we actually see getting killed.
Strange new world: The unnamed planet where Kirk and Rojan meet for the first time. The Kelvans permanently settle the planet at the end of the episode.
New life: The Kelvans. Although they look human enough, the Kelvans are actually giant octopuses ten feet in diameter. They are creatures of pure intellect whose bodies do not feel anything superfluous. The Kelvans follow a strict code of conduct and expect those they conquer to follow that code as well. They have travelled 300 years from the Andromeda galaxy in search of new conquests since the heat death of their galaxy is threatening their civilisation.
Kirk's little black book: Kirk romances Kelinda for fun and pleasure.
Reporting for duty: The gung-ho Lieutenant Shea and the unfortunate Yeoman Thompson.
Asessment: A slight episode, but at least the cast have fun with it. The drinking contest between Scotty and Tomar is a must and the sight of the crew reduced to little blocks of sugar is also a highlight.