The Finnish star of sexploitation

I just watched two movies from Sirpa Lane, Finland's gift to the world of sexploitation and 70's B-movies, so here's my brief thoughts on them. I must say I'm not really a fan of sexploitation movies, so pardon me if I don't understand the “brilliance” of these two.

The Beast in Space (1980)

Well the camp values surely are strong with this one. Hilarious costumes, funny cheap special effects, some weird light sabre ripoffs, a half man half horse with a big dildo between the legs and a computer robot monster of some sort with some humanoid robot minions, just to name a few. Add to that all the naked ladies of course, so the entertainment values are high. But really even with all that it was rather boring most of the time, that says a lot about the story of the movie and the horrible pacing of it all. The story is some nonsense about people on a space ship looking for some rare material called Antallum, but everyone seems to be focusing on drinking in the bar and having sex. Eventually they then visit a planet which is ruled by some computer monster thing which controls people's minds turning the whole place into one big orgy. I watched the Shameless release of this movie which said it's the most complete “softcore” version with some shots inserted from the hardcore version which contains additional porn footage added to it. It was rather apparent where the actual movie switched to the porn inserts as you can clearly see it's different people having sex than before. And the weirdest part were the “stunt tits” used in some scenes which didn't look anything like the tits of Sirpa Lane which of course are already presented very thoroughly. I mean for example a scene where she is laying on the ground on a green background while a man rubs her tits cuts to some other tits being rubbed with a blue background while the actress is clearly standing and then cut back to the ground and rubbing the actual tits. What the hell is the point of that? Now I did laugh quite a lot watching this and wasn't bored at all but still I'd rate this among the average of it's kind.

48%

Can't find a trailer for this one.

Love Goddess of the Cannibals (1978)

Talk about a misleading name, apart from two scenes which were borderline cannibalism, this movie has absolutely nothing to do with cannibals. This is nothing but the usual Joe D'Amato sexploitation romp. Well there is a slight try for a statement as the movie is kind of anti nuclear energy, but the focus is of course on the naked ladies and softcore sex. The idea is that there's a nuclear plant being built on some exotic island and the natives have a leader (Melissa Chimenti) who seemingly likes to have sex with the scientists before her minions kill them. Amongst all this is Sara (Sirpa Lane), whose purpose being on the island in the first place is rather vague, except for having sex with everyone. So yes, it's not a great plot and neither is the movie. Apart from a few unintentionally funny scenes, the only thing I liked about the movie was the score by Stelvio Cipriani, though that as well was rather repetitive. Sexploitation fans might get something out of this, but can't really recommend it to anyone else, It's not even bad enough to be funny. I have to give some credit to the music and Sirpa Lane who's always pleasing to the eyes.

23%

Apparently I can't link the trailer here as it has an age limit on it, so search for it on YouTube if you want to see it.

The wolfman trying to sharpen it's teeth again

The Wolfman (2010)

Well I didn't exactly rush to see this one as I just think the whole werewolf theme is so overly drained that no matter what it would be hard to pump any life to it. Especially as this was supposed to be a homage to the classic Wolfman, so didn't have my hopes up. Now I had the time to watch it and well it was what I expected. At parts it was actually very nicely done with a good mood to it to boost. But mostly it was just the same old thing warmed up with some modern day effects and action. Kind of like making the wolfman into a super hero for the kids. Rather pointless remake.
35%

A whole lot of shakin' going on

Tremors (1990)

When I first saw this I kinda liked it but didn't think it was anything special so didn't buy myself a VHS of it back then. But during the years I've seen it very often as it tends to run on some channel on telly once every two years or so and I somehow most of the times ended up watching it. During those years I grew to love it and it eventually ended up in my collection. It's an absolutely brilliant mix of comedy, horror and action. Not only that but it's also a brilliant buddy movie, mostly because of the great chemistry of Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward. They nail the whole buddy act down so well that it's hard to find a better pairing in any movie. Another thing I love about this movie is the fact that close to all of the horror bits happen in a bright daylight without the usual night setting in attempt to get additional suspense. And it works brilliantly as this is not a horror movie, it's a comedy with some horror elements and plenty of action to keep the fun up. The monsters, "Graboids" as they call them, are also superb. Hell, with an open mind and some humour you could actually believe the quite unbelievable sounding idea of them. And all that is not even the best part, the best part is that I've seen this movie now about 7 times, maybe even more, and it still keeps me entertained. This has become a classic for me and I will revisit it from time to time in the future too.
95%


The thing is, I never saw any of the sequels. Mostly because I thought they would be crap and would bring down the good feeling of the original I had. Well as I noticed that the original already had an iconic place in my heart, I decided to give them a go. So I bought the four movie collection and tonight I finally finished the last episode and here's what I think of them.



Tremors II: Aftershocks (1996)

This sequel was almost like straight from a rulebook on how to make a sequel. Rule 1; try to get the cast from the first one. Check, well almost, Fred Ward and Michael Gross are there again. Unfortunately Kevin Bacon didn't return so a big part of the first one, the buddy factor, is lost. Rule 2; give the audience more of what they loved in the first one. Check, dozens of Graboids being blown up, tons of bad jokes and lots of fun. With even a bit of an effort trying to make a new buddy pairing, which though fails a bit. Rule 3; try to bring the story to a new level. Check, the Graboids evolve. Not the best idea I think, would have worked better how I thought it would go that there would have been some huge mother Graboid or something like that. The new evolved creatures are quite nice though, they look quite cute little critters so props for that. So it's not a bad sequel, though not a great one either.
62%



Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001)

Where the second part did many things right straight from the rule book, this one tries the same concept. Unfortunately this time it was mostly sad that they tried the same ideas as in the second one. They didn't even get Fred Ward in it so Michael Gross is the only one to return and to be honest that's not a good thing. His character, fun as it is, only works for so long. All the jokes were already done, well at least the funny ones. And of course the Graboids evolve again and that was just complete idiocy. I mean these movies are certainly not made to be taken seriously, but this was just a bit too idiotic. Unfortunately it wasn't so bad that it would have been good either. Was quite a waste of time.
21%



Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004)

So I guess they noticed that evolving the story further was a bad idea so they took another look at the rulebook. Can't go forward, go backwards. And that's what they do, all the way to 1889 to the founding moments of the town. This time the story is actually quite good, but unfortunately the movie isn't. Bad acting and bad jokes. Still it's better than the third part as it's quite true to the original. With a better direction and cast this would have been pretty good actually, now it's just quite bad.
38%

Not your average monster movie

Monsters (2010)

I'll just start off by saying this is one of the best monster movies I've ever seen. Then again it's not that much about the monsters but more about the people in between them. It's also not a big effects movie unlike most monster movies. Sure there are some quite massive scenes in it, but they are not the key in it. It also doesn't try to explain things too much, they just happen and people have to live with them. Something most of it's kind fail miserably by over explaining and thus ruining the mood. The acting was surprisingly good and the two lead characters carry their roles very well. The movie looked great and the mood was near perfect. Sure there were a couple of scenes where it drifts a bit, like the escort scene in the forest, but luckily they don't ruin the mood. Also I think people have seen enough news footage from the Katrina disaster so a flood scenery doesn't really look like an airstrike aftermath, no matter what the character says. But it didn't matter either as this movie does what a brilliant monster movie should do, takes a grand scale event and focuses on the little people in middle of that. Definitely worth watching, even if you don't like monster movies.
88%

Weird things in the mist

The Mist (2007)

Had my hopes up for this one as I've really liked Frank Darabont's previous works. It started off quite good and carried on to be interesting for a while. I really liked the character development and the issues raised of a completely different mix of people being locked up in a small(ish) space. Marcia Gay Harden makes an awesome role as a religious freak and even Thomas Jane manages not to spoil the mood. So that department was well in hand, the problem was the "things" (I'll call them things as I don't want to spoil anything) in the mist and the "horror" they cause. They weren't really scary and all of the scares they make are the age old shock surprises. The only horror was built by the characters themselves and the movie would have worked better with just that, leaving the "things" as smaller side characters. Towards the end the film gets actually quite borig as it focuses too much on the "things" and leaves the great characters aside. Before the last few minutes of the film I would have rated it below 50 percent or something like that, but my god the ending is just something totally brilliant. It's so damn cruel, dark, sad and yet somehow hilarious. One of the best endings I've seen in a long time and especially awesome in the Hollywood standard of endings. Even if you don't like the rest of the movie, the last few minutes make it all worth the 2 hours of wait.
81%


Since we're talking about Darabont, let's look at his previous films in comparison.



The Majestic (2001)

Quite an uneven movie of a suspected communist screenwriter who suffers from amnesia after a car accident being mistaken for another guy and trying to rebuild a movie theatre. Jim Carrey might have not been the right choise for the leading role.
63%



The Green Mile (1999)

Really solid movie of death row inmates and the guards who all have their share of problems. At first I was a bit scared of the cast, but they all do amazing work. Really well done touching movie.
85%



The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

One of my all time favourite movies. If I had to write a book about character development, I would just say watch this movie. Just brilliant.
100%



The Woman in the Room (1983)

Part of the Stephen King's Night Shift Collection. This was quite a surprise when I managed to get a hold of it, you can see clearly that the characters are what drives Darabont, even thou the rest is a bit shaky. Solid first effort.
59%


I still haven't seen Buried Alive so can't comment on that one.