Review: Zachariah (1971)

Spoilers ahoy, if you care.

Zachariah and his friend Matthew (played by a very young Don Johnson) decide to go off and be gunfighters. They meet up with an inept game, have a few heists, then Zach gets the big idea to meet up with Job Cain, the fastest gun in the west. For some reason never really explained, Zach gets cold feet and he and Matthew split up. He then meets up with a mystical old coot who takes him for a romp in the desert that somehow fills in all the blanks. Matthew guns down his boss Job then comes looking for Zach. He finds him, they don't have a shoot out but instead wrestle and then when Matthew realizes the ridiculousness of it all, they ride off into the sunset together. The end.

Zachariah is clearly a product of it's time, and by that I mean the post-Woodstock, post-Easy Rider era. The movie just reeks of the tail end of the hippie era. That in itself isn't necessarily bad, but the problem comes in when Zachariah tries to be both a deep, loner looking for the greater meaning of life movie and a comedy and a head trip movie and a western. It succeeds at none of these things.

Simply put, this movie is a mess.

Part of the problem is that it is trying to be all those things I mentioned above and succeeds at none. The comedy (written by the Firesign Theater, who I always find the definition of hit or miss) really isn't all that funny. The drama isn't that compelling. The mystical stuff is clearly in the who cares category. Very little of this movie makes sense, motivation for any of the characters is really hard to figure out.

It's clear that this movie was trying to be a hip drive-in flick, so the fact that I'm watching it 35+ years after the fact with no chemical enhancements seems to be the rest of the problem. I have to say though, I'd be curious to know what combination of drugs would make some of these sad sack jokes funny. This movie wasn't for me, so maybe I just don't get it.

However, there are two shining moments in this film and I'm using this review as an excuse to post them. First, you get a totally gratuitous (and nonsensical) opening sequence featuring the James Gang. (They return later in the movie as Job Cain's house band.)



Next, and this is truly the highlight of the film, Job Cain is played by none other than Elvin Jones! And Elvin is truly awesome in his role. This is the best scene in the whole movie, though the beginning is truncated a bit.



I mean, damn. He just shot a man and then he busts out a crazy Elvin Jones drum solo. It really doesn't get much cooler than that.

Well, I just saved you the trouble of seeking this one out as there's really nothing else redeeming about it. Unless you are a hippy western completest, stay far away. If you do get it, do yourself a favor and skip to Elvin's scenes and revel in his awesomeness.

(Here's an alternate viewpoint that goes way more in depth than I think this movie deserves. Two points he makes are especially interesting to me: one is the gay overtones between Zachariah and Matthew, which I noticed but thought it was just my imagination. The second is the film's relationship to Siddhartha, which I missed but find myself slapping my forehead about now.)

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972)

I love bad movies. If you've been reading this blog, it's a given. And, I love weird kiddie matinee movies from the 60s and 70s. If they're Christmas kiddie matinee movies, even more so. But Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny...wow.

I'm going to start out by saying, this is easily the worst Christmas film I've ever seen. Really, calling it a Christmas film at all is stretching it, as I'll explain later, but for now let's just leave it at that. It's also probably the worst kid's film I've ever seen as well. (Yes, it's even worse than The Magic Land of Mother Goose, another kid's film with a tacked on Christmas tie in.) I'm going to go so far and say it's on the top 10 worst films I've ever seen. (Now there's a list I need to compile some day.)

If you want to read a recap of the film almost as long as the movie itself, block off an hour and click here. If you'd like a more sensible length recap, try this one. But, since you are here, let me give you my quick run down of what goes on in this movie.

First up, we have Santa's sleigh stuck on a beach in Florida. Why? Who knows? Santa magically summons a motley crew of kids to help unstick him, and they try...for nearly fifteen minutes. When they run out of random farm animals to try to hitch to the sleigh, they hunker down for Santa to tell them a story. And by tell them a story, I mean unspool an entirely unrelated movie, complete with opening titles, within this movie.

For the next hour, we are treated to schlockmeister Barry Mahon's take on Thumbelina, apparently filmed two years earlier. The only connection this Thumbelina has to the Santa bits is that they both have parts filmed at the Pirate's World amusement park. I mention this because it is the only thread connecting these two things.

Thumbelina doesn't have squat to do with Christmas and doesn't even try to. The acting is horrible, the songs excruciatingly long and the animal costumes aren't even detailed enough to be nightmare fuel. One thing Thumbelina has is plenty forced cross species romance. My favorite bit is when Thumbelina reels off a list of why she can't marry Mr. Digger, a rich mole, and the fact that he is not human comes in last by a long stretch.

Anyway, eventually, though not soon enough, Thumbelina ends and we're returned to our Santa stuck in the sand already in progress. I'd like to remind you, we're about an hour and fifteen minutes in and we've barely seen Santa and have seen neither hide nor hair of the Ice Cream Bunny. But wait, we're not done yet. Since someone was nice enough to YouTube it, I'd like to present to you the last ten minutes of the film.



If you're worried that you didn't understand what just happened because you came in at the end, let me assure you, I saw the entire thing and I still have no idea what just happened. You will note, as everyone who has seen this movie does, a distinct lack of ice cream. I guess he was in such a hurry slowly driving to save Santa, he completely forgot about his namesake dessert item. Maybe he was made of ice cream, though that would be highly impractical in Florida.

You should also note someone either pushing the fire truck or a kid who has fallen off the back and is attempting to catch up. My guess is the former, as the truck is moving so slowly you'd have to be dead to let it pass you.

There is one detail you missed from the front half of the film. The two kids in the straw hats? Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Why? No clue. They don't figure into this film at all except for a scene establishing who they are and showing them spying on the Santa scene. When they popped back out at the end, I'd completely forgotten they were ever there, that's how little they added to the movie.

By putting that clip up, I'm afraid I've oversold the film. See, that is literally the best ten minutes in this ninety minute film. It goes downhill from there. All of the stuff I'd read about this movie didn't prepare me for the tedium that sets in quickly while watching.

Other classics in this genre of bad kiddie Christmas movies, like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians or the Mexican Santa Claus, may be inept, but they are never less than entertaining, even if for all the wrong reasons. Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny is just plan boring. The only reason the ending is worth seeing is it's about the only time in the movie anything at all worth watching happens.

Prior to this, I'd have said two of the worst kiddie flick I'd seen were The Magic Land of Mother Goose and Jimmy, The Boy Wonder, two films the great Herschell Gordon Lewis did for other people in between gore and sexploitation films. Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny shares many traits with those two movies (tacked on Christmas theme, nonsensical film with in a film, grade school play production values, terrible songs) but it truly takes them to another level. Jimmy and Mother Goose may be slow in spots, but they're mind blowing in others. The Ice Cream Bunny is just dull.

I sought this one out because it has a bit of a reputation among connoisseurs of crap cinema. After seeing it, I really can't understand the appeal. There's good crap and bad crap and this is definitely bad, boring crap. Unless you are up to an endurance challenge, a completest or a masochist, I'd recommend staying far away from this one.

All This and World War II, Part II

Did I mention I finally saw All This and World War II, a film I'd been obsessing about a little over two years ago? Let me refresh your memory on this one with a (currently live) YouTube version of the trailer:



I remember reading about this one during my Beatlemaniac days and always being intrigued. The soundtrack album is never difficult to find as it was a perennial cut-out bin favorite and isn't exactly worth much more today. The movie however, seemed to have fallen off the face of the Earth. From what I understand, it was yanked a week after it's debut and more or less buried until a copy showed up on the bootleg DVD market a few years ago.

I have a genuine affection for bad taste and bad ideas in cinema and the idea of marrying Beatles covers with World War II footage seemed like a classic. But, the more I read about this film (and since the appearance of the DVD, much has come out about it like this excellent article right here) and the more I put it into context, it just seemed like an excuse to release the soundtrack album, a deluxe box set, I might add.

Watching the film does little to change that opinion. The whole concept is so shaky and so half heartedly executed, you just can't help but feel the producers of this film felt a Beatles revival in the air and wanted to cash in before it passed. (Keep in mind, this film predated the Beatlemania musical and the infamous Sgt. Pepper's movie with the Bee Gees.)

Once the thoughts of "Wow, they really did make this movie" and "I can't believe I'm actually watching this" wear off, you will find yourself repeating the last statement not as a reference to the film's rarity, but to the gawking at a car crash quality of the film. Beyond the novelty of a jawdroppingly bizarre concept poorly executed, the film itself is pretty dull. It's a bit like watching the History Channel while listening to some Beatles covers. Try it yourself and see how long you last.

I'm glad I resisted the impulse to actually pay for a copy of this. All This and World War II is like so many other obscure relics of junk cinema: so much more interesting on paper than on the screen. Still, it's nice to have my curiosity satiated and, if nothing else, I can check another film off my to seek and see list.

Brilliant Site!

I have a hunch I'm the last to know about this, but check out Trailers From Hell. Directors of a mostly cultish nature, giving commentary over trailers of Psychotronic films that influenced them. On the negative side, there's a lot of Eli Roth. However, there's alot of Joe Dante, so it all balances out. (To be fair, the Roth stuff I've watched is actually pretty good.)

Be cautious though, there's loads of spoilers in the commentaries, though you can just watch the trailers as they are.

Here's a good one, where the director of Shaun of the Dead discusses Danger: Diabolik (aka the source for the Beastie Boys' "Body Movin'" video.)



Joe Dante nails From Hell It Came:



PS: dunno if it's just me or my connection, but the trailers really stutter on the streaming.