February Quick Picks and Pans

 

Elizabeth Harvest (2018) Elizabeth (Abbey Lee), a young trophy wife, arrives home with her rich middle-aged husband, Henry (Ciarán Hinds), but it doesn’t take long for her to realize something isn’t quite right about the ultramodern household. He stresses that the house and its contents belong to her, but admonishes Elizabeth not to enter one basement room. When he leaves for an overnight business trip, the room’s secret is too irresistible for her to ignore. Writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez fashioned a thoughtful modern-day science fiction spin on the classic Bluebeard tale, pondering the consequences of unfettered wealth coupled with unethical scientific practices. 

Rating: ***½. Available on Blu-ray, DVD and Kanopy 

Black Zoo (1963) The final film in producer Herman Cohen’s horror trilogy with Michael Gough (preceded by Horrors of the Black Museum and Konga), might be a notch below the first two titles, but it still entertains. This time around, Gough plays Michael Conrad, the owner of a private zoo in Hollywood. His abusive relationship with his alcoholic wife Edna (Jeanne Cooper) and mute son Carl (Rod Lauren) carries over to the mistreatment of Joe (Elisha Cook, Jr.), his employee. When he’s not tending to his zoo, he attends meetings with a secret animal-centered cult, with anyone who displeases him becoming a target for his retribution. He carries out his dirty work with a couple of big cats and a gorilla (played by a guy in an unconvincing ape costume). Gough chews the scenery as Conrad, a character you love to hate, with his over-the-top performance worth the price of admission alone. 

Rating: ***. Available on DVD

The Glove (1979) John Saxon plays small-time bounty hunter Sam Kellog, who’s looking for the one big score that will save his finances and keep his ex-wife in alimony payments. His hopes seem to be answered when the possibility of a $20,000 reward falls in his lap. His only obstacle is catching dangerous ex-con Victor Hale (Rosie Grier), who broke bail and skipped town. Now, Hale is on a one-man mission to get even with his sadistic former jailors, using a medieval-looking metal-reinforced glove to pummel them into the next county. Despite his character’s violent tendencies, Grier manages to make his character (who’s arguably done more for his community than Sam) too likeable as Kellog’s nemesis. Ultimately, director Ross Hagen’s ersatz-gritty urban drama is a little too sanitized to carry its pulpy premise – for a movie about a deadly gauntlet, it sure pulls its punches. 

Rating: **½. Available on Tubi

 

Demented Death Farm Massacre (aka: Honey Britches, Shantytown Honeymoon) (1971) A group of jewel thieves lay low in a backwoods shack with a young woman and her middle-aged, bible-verse-spouting husband. Predictably, things don’t go well. This cheapie would-be exploitation flick went by many names, but no matter what you call it, it’s bad. Originally directed by Donn Davison in 1971, the film was purchased by Fred Olen Ray in 1986, who inserted new footage of a decrepit-looking John Carradine, and sold it to Troma for a profit. As a result, we get a few tacked-on non-sequitur scenes with Carradine (who died only a couple of years later) commenting on the hellish torments that await the characters in the afterlife. Neither gory enough, nor sexy or quotable enough, this disappoints on every level. 

Rating: *½. Available on Tubi