Dead Men Walk (1943) 1h 4m

I chose today's film based solely on the fact that it is just over an hour and because I'm coming down with something and feel like death myself.  The disc itself is from a cheap 10-film pack which is supposed to be zombie themed movies but for a $5 set I doubt anyone was quality checking the content specificity with these choices.  That said, let's dig into today's film!

Less vampire, more sadpire.

Dead Men Walk features George Zucco playing the roles of both Dr. Lloyd Clayton and Dr. Elwyn Clayton.  Llody is a man of science and a medical doctor while Elwyn studies the occult and, by the description on the box, is a wizard.  We open at Elwyn's funeral when it is interrupted by our Deus Ex Kate.  I don't know how she knows what she knows, but she knows way too much.  Elwyn's body is collected by his servant and Elwyn rises from the grave.  He then visits his brother and tells him he is going to wreck his life.  The rest of this film is pretty much Dracula except that Elwyn is targeting his niece and Lloyd has to be the doctor and Van Helsing.

I really liked Dead Men Walk.  I thought it was going to be a very 40's matinee film but it was fun to watch.  The pacing is really weird as they squeezed a lot into such a short time.  It's essentially death, but I'm alive, Gayle is to be married, now she's sick, a vampire?! etc. etc.

What I appreciated the most with this film was the dialog.  It felt like someone reading literature to you.  It began and end with semi-poetic verse and there wasn't much in the way of filler, just advancing the story.  I think that my biggest complaint with Dead Men Walk would be that there are no roads.  It's constantly people running through the woods, in the dark, to get to their location.  Elwyn I can write off as he is a vampire, but everyone else must have cat eyes or something.

I give Dead Men Walk 3 copies of Chuck Tingle's Vampire Night Bus Pounds My Butt out of 5:

The Addicition + Extras (Arrow Films)

 Chalking up another entry with our Saturday Screamers is Arrow Films' release of the 1995 movie, The Addiction. Thanks to Arrow Films for hooking us up with this screener copy to review.

Shot entirely in black and white, The Addiction is a vampire film that makes no effort to hide the fact that this affliction is a metaphor for heroin addiction.  Kathleen (Lili Taylor) is working toward a doctorate in philosophy.  One evening Kathleen is pulled into an alley by Cassanova (Annabella Sciorra) and is given a chance to tell Cassanova to leave.  When she doesn't, Cassanova bites her and leaves while telling her everything is about to change.  From here Kathleen begins to fiend, injects blood she takes from homeless people, and starts dressing and acting like Lou Reed, just with intense philosophical monologues.

This film took a bit to grow on me.  Initially the philosophy was heavy handed and it made me feel like I was watching a Jim Jarmusch film that lacked any mirth.  The turn around here came when Christopher Walken was introduced in what may now be one of my top 5 Walken roles.  His character initiates this vacuum where everyone and everything start coming together for the climax.  The earlier philosophical exposition becomes justified when Kathleen is defending her dissertation and makes a point of philosophy being nothing more than propaganda of a single individual.  The very end in which spiritual salvation leads to freedom from the affliction might as well have been an AA/NA commercial, but seeing as how Kathleen is unable to control her habit, it's what works for her (and in this case, some people dealing with addiction issues).  So who am I to sit here and talk shit on something that works for people?

Aside from top notch casting in The Addiction, it's also directed by Abel Ferrara.  You may know him for his work on Body Snatchers, Bad Lieutenant, and Ms. 45.  Additionally, Russell Simmons of Def Jam records was a producer.  I have nothing against Mr. Simmons and everything Def Jam has done, but my biggest complaint with The Addiction is that the only non-score music we get is hip hop and it feels so incredibly out of place.  That, and the fact we get the same Cypress Hill song played twice for street shots is too much.

EXTRAS:

In comparison to some of the extras we covered with other Saturday Screemers, The Addiction is tamer and geared more toward the film geek side.  We have a new interview with Abel Ferrara as well as director commentary, an interview with Brad Stevens (film critic) who wrote Abel Ferrara: The Moral Vision, and a series of interviews entitled Talking with the Vampires.  The Talking with the Vampires was my favorite of the extras as it was made specifically for this release and features Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, Abel Ferrara, cinematographer Ken Kelsch, and composer Joe Delia.  It felt very relaxed, like a conversation between friends.  You find out things like Lili was listening to Debaser by The Pixies a lot while making this film, or Christopher Walken singing a song for Abel.

First pressings of disc also come with an illustrated collector's booklet which has new writings on The Addiction by critic Michael Ewins.

If you're a fan of vampire films then I definitely recommend picking this one up.  I didn't know this film even existed until I was sent this disc but it's well worth the time.  Thanks again to Arrow Films for sending us this for review.

If you want to pick up this blu-ray then you can click here and get it from Amazon.  It's currently around $25 and if you want to get the collector's booklet then I definitely recommend getting it soon.  Also, if you click on that link or the link above for Brad Stevens' book and buy either from those links then we here at 30 Days of Plight get a small part of that sale and it goes towards paying for this website and energy drinks.

The Eyes of My Mother (2016) 1h 16m

If you take nothing else away from the entirety of this website, for as long as it may exist, I want you to remember one thing:  You can't spell "fart" without "art."  Now keep this in mind because I'm going to drag you along with me through this film student project.

IMDB's description for this film is "A young, lonely woman is consumed by her deepest and darkest desires after tragedy strikes her quiet country life," but that's too vague for The Eyes of My Mother.  Francisca's mother was a surgeon in Portugal.  I'm not sure why they're in bumfuck USA (probably something dumb like love) but the mother has been passing her skills and knowledge onto her child.  Then, one day, a man shows up on the property and kills the mother.  The husband comes home, knocks the man out, and chains him up in the barn.  The girl eventually cuts his tongue and eyes out, but not before he answers her question of why he does such things.  Everything from this point is dumber than all the preceded it.

This is something that I would expect to see at a local film festival.  It's entirely in black and white, switches between English and Portuguese, and has long static shots of people sitting in a room or a car driving across the screen or some bullshit.  The attempts at body horror aren't as shocking as they want them to be.  In a time where we have torture porn like the Saw and Hostel films, you can't bring your tiny indie weenie to the big dick competition and expect to stand up against porn star meat slings!

I'm not totally writing this film off as it might be for someone, somewhere.  It just did nothing for me.

I give The Eyes of My Mother 1 ancient Japanese scrolls with men farting out of 5: