Slowly, I'm getting these done...

New York City, 1955. A black cat wanders the dark streets. A woman screams. Soon, she’s in a creepy hospital, about to give birth, surrounded by sinister-looking doctors & nuns (the latter wearing those big, floppy hats like Sally Field in “The Flying Nun”). The woman fears for her child, which turns out to be a girl. Moving a bit too quickly for someone who’s just had a baby, she attempts to snatch her daughter from the hospital nursery & escape, but is stopped by one of the nuns. The woman flees, terrified. She takes a stairwell, but sees the black cat. She tries to run in the opposite direction, but a fierce wind whips up, & she tumbles down the stairs...

An elegant man, Mr. Rimmin (Richard Lynch, the alien messiah of “God Told Me To”), is seen at a party. He steps up to a candle-lit area at the front of the room. The guests fall silent, & he begins to speak of the newborn as a nun brings the baby in. Rimmin lifts the little girl up to a goat’s-head statue. “The child is ours,” he says, & the candles mysteriously blow out.

This “Rosemary’s Baby”-like moment is actually the opening for “Good Against Evil” (http://imdb.com/title/tt0076094/), a made-for-tv love-story-cum-supernatural-thriller...sort of.

The story picks up twenty-odd years later. Now a successful young fashion designer, the little girl, named Jessica (Elyssa Davalos), is living & working in San Francisco. There, she meets a freelance writer named Andy (the late Dack Rambo) when he accidentally runs into her parked car. They argue for a bit, & he ends up taking her car to have it repaired. By the end of the day, he returns it, good-as-new, & though he invites her to dinner, she declines. However, he’s quite persistent, & she finally agrees.

Despite a few teething troubles (mainly due to Jessica’s independent nature), she & Andy develop a relationship. They go on several dates, once to a fortune-telling booth. Jessica receives a cryptic prediction: “In the new millennium, the child of a child will takes its place, & havoc shall reign.” (Can you say, “Devil’s Advocate”, kids?) All the while, there’s an older gentleman following her, a man who possesses a goat’s-head statue & Satanic altar, over which is hung a large picture of Jessica with a pentagram drawn on her head.

The black cat - a refugee from the Munsters’ house, it seems - comes back into play while Jessica & Andy are out horseback riding. Satanic Altar Dude (he’s never actually given a name, as far as I could tell) steps in to help when one of the horses wigs out at the sight of the cat, though he gets killed. Afterward, a distraught Jessica admits to Andy that any man she’s ever had feelings for has died. Naturally, she tries to push Andy away so he won’t be the next to perish. But that proves more difficult than she realises, because she’s totally fallen for the guy, & vice-versa.

Rimmin starts performing rituals in the name of the demon Astaroth. According to “Fallen Angels & Spirits of the Dark” by Robert Masello, Astaroth was a member of Satan’s “unholy aristocracy” who “rode around on a dragon, but...had only one head” - several demons are described as having more than one - “usually depicted as quite ugly - & carried a viper in his left hand. Grand Duke of the western regions of Hell, he was also Treasurer of the whole place. The original couch potato, he encouraged men to sloth & idleness. In his spare time, he served as a kind of guidance counselor for other fallen angels.” Apparently, Jessica is - unbeknownst to her - betrothed to Astaroth, thanks to Rimmin, who seeks to gain immortality in exchange for his match-making services & all-around obedience to the demon.

Of course, what Rimmin doesn’t know yet is that Jessica’s promised to marry Andy. But when Andy takes her to meet the priest set to perform the ceremony, the church grows dark & cold as she approaches the altar. The priest naturally recognises this as a sign of evil, & wants to postpone the wedding & bring in another priest who happens to be an expert on evil. And the happy couple’s problems are further compounded when Rimmin abducts Jessica & hypnotises her so she’ll forget all about the time she spent in San Francisco...& especially about Andy, who’s resolved to track her down.

For a supernatural thriller, the first two-thirds of the story are interesting enough, but not terribly thrilling. Cat lovers will be in seventh heaven during at least one scene, though the animals themselves are used as harbingers of evil, or at least some general nastiness. The movie gets a bit better, though a tad out of hand, toward the end, veering almost completely off-track & becoming a shameless “Exorcist” rip-off with Kim Cattrall & Natasha Ryan (the little girl from the flashback scenes in “Sibyl”) in place of Ellen Burstyn & Linda Blair. All that’s missing is Max Von Sydow (though we do have the late Dan O’Herlihy - Andrew Packard to all you “Twin Peaks” aficionados), “The power of Christ compels you,” & a can of split-pea soup.

According to what I’ve read, “Good Against Evil” was supposed to be a launching pad for a series that never got picked up. Thus, the film is given no resolution. But since we’ve had oodles of supernatural series on tv in recent years, such as “Buffy”, “Angel”, “Charmed”, & “Supernatural”, maybe it was just an idea ahead of its time.

But probably not.

Okay, maybe I'm not so slow...

“This film really appeals to my sensibilities!”

That’s what I wrote whilst taking notes about a funky little box-set acquisition called “Baba Yaga”, here re-titled “Kiss Me, Kill Me” (http://imdb.com/title/tt0069753/). Beware: there is another movie bearing the English title “Kiss Me, Kill Me”, an Umberto Lenzi flick starring Erika Blanc. But this isn’t it.

Based on a 1960s S&M comic by Guido Crepax (http://www.jahsonic.com/Valentina.html), in conjunction with a figure from Slavic mythology, the film opens with classy comic book-ish images & some very groovy music during the opening titles, inter-cut with chic photographers & models at a party. Lounging around looking very haute couture & fairly decadent, they reference obscure art films like “Pierot Le Fou” (later, we’ll see someone watching “The Golem” at a German Expressionist retrospective!) & philosophise in their semi-pretentious, pseudo-intellectual way (my favourite line is, “Even Snoopy, in his own way, is anti-establishment”).

One of the photographers, Valentina (Isabelle De Funes), declines a ride home from her friends after the soiree, preferring to walk the streets of Milan at 3 in the morning. She finds a dog whimpering in the road, & ends up saving it from being run over by a large, black car. The driver is a pretty, elegant woman in black who introduces herself as Baba Yaga (Carroll Baker), & insists on taking Valentina home. On the way, Baba Yaga speaks in cryptic tones about her meeting with Valentina being pre-ordained, & knows the way to Valentina’s place without being given the address. When they arrive, she rips off one of Valentina’s garters, saying she needs a personal item from Valentina, but will return it.

Despite a troubled sleep in which Valentina is haunted by strange dreams about nudity & Nazis, she shoots a photo session the next morning with her model friend, Toni. Afterward, Baba Yaga shows up to give back the garter. Valentina asks her about the whole “pre-ordained” thing, but Baba Yaga says it’s too soon for her to know. She takes an interest in Valentina’s camera - “the eye that freezes reality” - & invites Valentina to her house, though one senses a darker tone beneath the request.

Later on, Valentina gets a call from her more-than-friend, Arno (George Eastman), a cameraman who shoots strange (but cheezy) commercials. She brings her camera with her, hoping to get a behind-the-scenes photo or two. But when she tries taking a picture, Arno’s camera completely jams up. When Arno takes Valentina home & pops up to her place for a drink, Baba Yaga is parked across the street, watching.

I gotta tell ya - normally, I dislike - dare I say, even loathe - sex scenes. I find that most of the time, they’re gratuitous, having no relevance to the story whatsoever, & sometimes they come off as a little vulgar. But this movie has what must be the greatest non-sex sex scene ever committed to film!

Toni comes back for another photo shoot (note that one of her costumes is 'half-naked cowgirl'; I found this amusing because it’s the picture used on the main menu of the DVD), but when Valentina takes the first shot, Toni collapses. She isn’t dead, but she has to lie down for a while before Valentina & Arno send her home by taxi.

Valentina goes to Baba Yaga’s huge old house, telling Baba Yaga she has to photograph some jewelry & would like to use some of the rooms as backdrops. Baba Yaga says fine, & admires the touch & sounds of the necklaces Valentina’s working with. Valentina takes her shots...

At one point, Valentina steps on a spot on the rug, & nearly falls through the floor. What she finds under the carpet is a bottomless pit (she drops something in & we never hear it hit anything). “Don’t worry about the hole,” Baba Yaga says. “That part of the house needs some repairs.” She then suggests Valentina photograph some of the interesting relics in the attic.

After a near-orgasmic moment with a pair of gloves, accompanied by memory flashes & strange, photographic visions, Baba Yaga gives Valentina the dominatrix doll (yes, you read that right) that sits watchfully in the attic. Her name is Annette, & Baba Yaga tells Valentina, “She will protect you.”

But what does she need protection from? And why, when she uses her camera, do the subjects of her photographs collapse? What are pictures of Annette as a real woman doing on Valentina’s roll of film? Why does Valentina have these weird Nazi dreams? Is Arno right in his assumption that Baba Yaga has a lesbianic interest in Valentina? Just who is Baba Yaga, anyway, & why does she begin promising Valentina riches & power & the knowledge of cosmic secrets? Is the bottomless pit in Baba Yaga’s house really a portal to Hell?

Sadly, many of these questions remain unanswered when the credits roll. But it almost doesn’t matter. “Baba Yaga” (or whatever title you see it under) is a weirdly cool Italian horror flick - sleek, stylish, original, & very, very artsy. Atmospherically, it absolutely screams 60s/70s, but the lesbian/feminist undertones & overt sado-masochistic touches (we’re talking whips, chains, & shackles here, people!) give it an extra dose of subversive edginess that helps distinguish it from its genre & era counterparts.




Swiped this from planetcrush:

I asked the magic cactus, what is the meaning of life? and THE MAGIC CACTUS SAID TO ME: Um, well..., that really depends how you look at it, doesn't it.

reality subversion @ www.irreality.net