Hex (1973)

Excellent adaptation.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

When it really comes down to it, this is not a sophisticated movie. There's this soundtrack, see, and it's pretty goofy with lots of jaw harp boing boing and fiddle-de-doo tunes and that certain barnyard pig chase type music that often accompanies country/co boys falling in the dirt with that "aww, shucks" look upon their faces. But, like with all sorts of movies, there's just something about this (the copy I have of it is called "The Shrieking") movie that I adore. I'm not sure if it's the audacity of the movie for being as weird and unruly as it is yet still holding together, not sure if it's the way the actors all bounce off each other in a nice way or what...I think mostly it's just the unexpectedness of the script, truly one of the strangest stories I've ever seen on film and by the end we can look back at all the oddities and know that whoever wrote it must have had a very healthy supply of something that was probably illegal in the early seventies, because this is a drug movie. I GUESS it could be called "horror" but it isn't that exactly, and it is a "teen movie" more or less, but not like any other "teen horror movie" I've ever seen, and it does have a serious propensity for the incredibly goofy, but that goofiness makes the horror (when it actually does happen) quite horrific (the scene with the frog comes to mind)...I notice that this film has a very low rating on IMDb, and that's a shame because it's funny and kinda scary at times, and altogether interesting and entertaining, not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but worth watching. Anyone else notice this one "feels" very similar to "Dead Birds"?

WWI vet Whizzer (Keith Carradine) leads his ragtag motorcycle gang (including Scott Glenn and Gary Busey) into the tiny town of Bingo, Nebraska. They quickly get into it with another gang (led by Dan Haggerty) and hide out on the farm of half-breed sisters Oriole (Cristina Raines, billed as Tina Herazo) and Acacia (Hilarie Thompson). When the gang begins to offend Oriole (either via rape or bad manners), she starts to use her deceased father's shaman tricks to off them. Man, what a totally odd film. The Prism VHS (as THE SHRIEKING) tries to sell it as straight up horror, but this could easily fit on the cult board due to the mixing of genres. Within its horror trappings, it is also a period piece, an art flick, a road movie, a comedy, a drug flick, a romance, and a revenge thriller. I suspect it was greenlit in a post- EASY RIDER haze (20th Century Fox produced it). The story is from Vernon Zimmerman (director of UNHOLY ROLLERS) and Doran William Cannon (writer of SKIDOO and BREWSTER MCCLOUD), so you can guess when the oddness comes from. Director Leo Garen and Stephen Katz receive the screenplay credit. Everyone in the cast is good with Raines/Herazo being the stand out as the sister with the darker edge. Also worth seeing for the bit where Busey refuses to smoke some pot. Gorgeous locales in South Dakota stand in for Nebraska. The film also ends with one of the most baffling shots I've seen it a long time as Whiz and Oriole head off on his motorbike and see modern era jet fighters zoom over their heads.

Marauding early 20th century motorcycle gang takes lodging in a rustic prairie farmhouse owned by two weird young sisters. We come to learn that the girls' parents are both deceased, and that "Ma" was a white woman, and "Pa" was some sort of Native-American spiritualist. Mysterious events soon begin to occur, and the misbehaving motorbike gang loses members rapidly. All this creepiness transpires to the accompaniment of a rather harsh washboard/jews-harp/kazoo music score which will have many folks ripping their hair out at the root within minutes. Things get off to a decent enough start in this rummy little "rara avis", but it soon begins to amble off on a hundred different roads to nowhere. The initial intrigue of the story is quickly lost in a badly overcooked, audience estranging botch. There was a worthy prospect in all this...sadly, what is ultimately given rise is a very curious and atmospheric imbroglio.I suspect this movie could have some type of specious or abstract appeal to a very select few...no way, however, would it get my personal unstinting approval. 3.5/10

This is a very bad and very confusing film that apparently never saw a theatrical release, and with good reason. In the early 1900s, a dirty outcast motorcycle gang (?!) on vintage WWI cycles, blows through a prairie town and riles everyone up, including two sisters who live alone on an isolated farm. The pretty "half-breed" sisters (children of a Native American mystic, or some such bs) are young, blond, dumber-than-a-box-of-sticks Acacia, and sultry, dark haired Oriole, whose facial expressions and tone of voice NEVER change, no matter what the situation; she always looks stoned, or maybe she just doesn't care. I know I didn't. At first, Oriole tries to scare the bikers off her land, then realizes there are no bullets in her rifle, shrugs and invites them to dinner. Yeah, right. Then they all smoke pot and have a good time. No, seriously, they do! It's pretty silly. Then, Gary Busey (playing Gary Busey, like he always does) tries to rape Acacia and is found dead the next morning. Do the remaining bikers leave? Gosh, that would make too much sense, now wouldn't it? This painfully stupid film finally manages to come to an end and takes its twangy, annoying soundtrack with it. There is no plot, the acting is atrocious and the sisters spend way too much time spouting ridiculous, trying-too-hard-to-be- ominous statements in inbred-hillbilly-ese that'll either make you laugh or groan with pain. It's sooooo bad. I wouldn't wish a viewing of this film on my worst enemy.