Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 20, 1995 TAG: 9505220006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Dark Angel: The Ascent" may be the best sleeper on the shelves of your favorite video store. Rent it right away. Yes, you'll have to ignore the lurid box art that makes it look like a hundred other "erotic" videos. (Like books, videos cannot be judged by the cover.) This one is a genuine original; a horror film with humor, imagination, intelligence and perhaps even wisdom. Director Linda Hassani makes a memorable debut.
The film begins beneath the surface of the earth, literally in hell, the fire and brimstone hell of Hieronymus Bosch where the souls of sinners suffer eternal pain. The place is run by fallen angels, some of whom still worship God even though they have been banished from his presence.
These, after all, are rebellious angels, and none more than Veronica (Angela Featherstone). She's a headstrong young woman who fights with her brutal father and dreams of the world above. When a friend tells her about an unguarded cavern that leads to the surface, she's outta there.
Up she pops, buck naked, from a manhole cover in the middle of an unnamed city. She quickly discovers that things here are just as nasty and dangerous as they are back home. And to make it worse, humans don't recognize sin for what it is, and don't punish it. The mugger gets away; the corrupt cop is still on the job; the mayor who builds his career attacking welfare moms is re-elected.
Veronica knows what they'll get after they die, and she's not averse to hurrying them along when the opportunity presents itself. At the same time, she's an innocent who falls hard for Max (Daniel Markel), a good-hearted doctor.
Matthew Bright's script borrows bits from such diverse sources as "Splash," "Death Wish" and "The Exorcist," but it's neither derivative nor predictable. Even the most jaded horror fan will be surprised by some of the twists. Fuzzbee Morse's score steals blatantly and effectively from Bernard Herrmann.
On the minus side, acting in supporting roles is less than perfect and in some scenes, the Romanian locations are so unusual they detract from the story. But those are a reviewer's quibbles. Everything else about the film is outstanding and audacious. It's one of Charles Band's Full Moon productions. Those can always be counted on for workmanlike entertainment. This one is well above average.
"Embrace of the Vampire" is a more conventional horror tale about another innocent, Charlotte (Alyssa Milano) who's pursued by a vampire (Martin Kemp). For reasons never explained, he needs her to recharge his batteries or something. At any rate, he lives in a tower on the campus of the Gothic college where Charlotte is a student. (The place looks a lot like Duke and if there really are vampires living on that gloomy campus it would explain a lot of things, but the film was shot somewhere in Minnesota.)
Director Anne Goursaud is not interested in logic or coherent storytelling. Like most vampire tales, this one is about sex and Goursaud certainly knows how to steam things up. Her approach ranges from bodice-ripper romanticism to "90210" stereotypes to artfully posed eroticism.
"The Girl With the Hungry Eyes" is another independent production on the Ed Wood side of the horror spectrum. It's hard to tell whether auteur Jon Jacobs means for his film to be so unhinged, but it certainly is. Loosely based on Fritz Lieber's famous short story, this one's about Louise (Christina Fulton), a Miami vampire who is brought back to life by a South Beach hotel. (I swear I am not making this up.) The hotel commands her to find a key and a deed so that it will not be demolished to make room for a parking lot. In the process, she meets Carlos (Isaac Turner) a photographer who's in trouble with drug thugs.
In the title role, Christina Fulton is almost indescribable. With her eyes wildly rolling like speed-crazed pinballs, she makes Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, look like Katherine Hepburn. Jacobs uses simple reverse motion camera tricks to complement her excesses, though in some scenes, the quality of both lighting and sound are so poor as to make the proceedings unintelligible.
Moving back into the mainstream, "The Last Vampyre" features the world's most famous consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett). It's a Grenada Television adaptation of "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire." Though the production values aren't equal to the best of the old Universal feature films, Jeremy Brett is near perfect as Holmes. Just as importantly, writer Jeremy Paul remains fairly faithful to the spirit of the source material while reworking one of Arthur Conan Doyle's best stories to fit the demands of the screen.
Finally, Hitchcock fans take note. It's time to fill in the gaps of your video library. Next Tuesday, MCA Universal will re-package and re-release 14 of the Master's films. Included in the group are several of my own favorites: "The Birds," "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956), "Marnie," "Psycho," "Rear Window," "Rope," "Saboteur," "Vertigo," and, perhaps his best, "Shadow of a Doubt." At $14.95 each, the price is right.
Next week: Westerns!
New releases this week:
Heavenly Creatures ***1/2
Starring Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet. Directed by Peter Jackson. Buena Vista/Miramax. 99 min. Rated R for subject matter, sexual content, brief nudity, violence.
In an odd way, this is a horror film, though the only monsters are creations of youthful imagination. It's also a true story, but like so many true stories, it's much harder to believe than any fiction. In 1950s New Zealand, two teen-aged girls create an elaborate fantasy world and kill one of their mothers. How and why make for an inventive and absorbing psychological mystery told with surprising visual effects.
(In an ironic postscript, it has been revealed since the film's release that one of the girls, Juliette, has grown up to become mystery writer Anne Perry.)
Highlander: The Final Dimension *1/2
Starring Christopher Lambert, Mario Van Peebles, Deborah Unger. Directed by Andy Morahan. Buena Vista/Miramax. Time not listed, about 95 min. Unrated, contains graphic violence, strong language, sexual content, nudity.
This is a fitting third chapter in a goofball sword-and-sorcery series. Like the first two, it's built around excellent but uninspired special effects, bad acting and a story that doesn't even attempt to make sense. The "exclusive director's cut!" video contains some sexual material left out of the theatrical release.
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle ***
Starring Jennifer Jason Leigh. Directed by Alan Rudolph. Turner/New Line. 124 min. PG-13.
Leigh creates an amazing portrait of a very sad character in this film about Dorothy Parker's life and the legendary Algonquin Round Table. The movie seems to be at cross-purposes as to how to present the truth about the alcoholic, dissipated literary figures that were The Circle. The outrageous fun is here, dressed up in pretty '20s attire and shrouded in soft-focus. Only Leigh's Parker and Campbell Scott's Robert Benchley seem completely real but finally, it is Leigh who makes this movie worth seeing.
by CNB