THE OUTFIT

year: 1973

cast: Robert Duvall, Joe Don Baker, Karen Black, Timothy Carey, Robert Ryan

rating: ***1/2

A bank robber, having done two years after being set up, gets out of jail, learns his brother was killed (the first scene in the movie) by the same mob that fingered him and, with the help of his former partner and a very cranky gun moll, hit the road, killing all the encroaching thugs and sometimes take out the baddies in their homes, fortresses, banks, and even a church. The two main characters played by Robert Duvall and Joe Don Baker seem protected by the gods. Nothing can stop them, and it's pretty unrealistic in that they get away with everything with ease, but then again, who cares? It's a cool ride... and what a cast!

KILLER FISH

aka: NAKED SUN
year: 1979

cast: Lee Majors, Karen Black

rating: ***

The famously bad low-budget Brazillian import isn't so bad after all. Centers on a group of diamond thieves in South America who, after blowing up a big outpost during the opening credits and nabbing a cache of jewels, hides the goods in a lake that becomes inhabited by killer fish i.e. piranha, all pets of shady millionaire James Franciscus to weed-out any takers. A couple of the thieves are killed attempting a premature recovery and because of this, Lee Majors and Karen Black, both leaders of the heist, are pitted against each other: Black joins with Fransiscus and beautiful Margaux Hemingway, as a fashion model on a location-shoot, beds the Bionic Man. Eventually a boat is stuck in the inhabited lake and the surviving cast attempts to get ashore without becoming piranha burgers. The title body count element ultimately trumped by the Noir aspect that, overseas, is titled Naked Sun... cool, huh? 

TRILOGY OF TERROR

title: TRILOGY OF TERROR

year: 1975

cast: Karen Black

creator: Richard Matheson

director: Dan Curtis

rating: ***1/2

Seeing Karen Black play four roles (or rather, three roles and four characters) in a TV-movie showcasing three Night Gallery style stories is a great thing. The first involves an uptight spectacle-wearing college teacher who's seduced by her handsome bad-intention-driven honor student. Without giving away the twist, it's a great episode because Karen's playing someone she's not, and you'll have to watch it a second time to truly get it. The next deals with two sisters: one a crotchety sourpuss, the other a sexy blond. The twist is way too obvious: they're the same person. Blame the writer for this, not Karen, for she plays both roles well. The third and best is what the movie's known for, dealing with Black's character who purchased a foot-high spear-donning Zuni Fetish Doll. If the waist-sash falls off the doll, it comes to life. Guess what falls off the doll? The little bugger chases Karen around the apartment sounding like the Tasmanian Devil on PCP; imagine Animal from the Muppets gone loco. It's beauty and the doll at this point, a battle that doesn't let-up. This is the most entertaining and scariest of the bunch - dealing with a thing you just can't kill that can get you from beneath: the fear of snakes or spiders on hyperdrive. But the first story's where Black's acting (as opposed to reacting) really shines, making it my personal favorite.

HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES

title: HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES

year: 2002

cast: Sig Haig, Michael J. Pollard, Erin Daniels, Karen Black

writer/director: Rob Zombie

rating: *

I enjoyed the purposely-cheesy dialog in the beginning, with Sig Haig and Michael J. Pollard as two hicks in the middle of nowhere. Haig is "Captain Spaulding", a cocky trickster in clown garb who runs a gas station/oddity-museum/freak-show and... well... Pollard sort of disappears after a robbery occurs, blood is spilt in a Tarantino fashion and then two couples (who seem from the nineties yet it's set in the seventies) happen upon this odd little town and are very deserving to be butchered, you know, like in all horror movies. But these folks are simply BEGGING for it - and the hick family who takes them in seem more than willing to oblige. Rob Zombie really knows his stuff; though I'm still not sure what it is. Along with THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE I'm sure he was inspired by Troma's MOTHER'S DAY, which has murderous hillbillies pointlessly torturing and killing innocent city folk in a lot more coherent fashion, and without random images flashing like a music video. There's too much going on to be scary; too much gore to be fun. The oddball clan (of which veterans Karen Black and Dennis Fimple are members) are more cartoonish than creepy. The main baddie resembles a concert pianist possessed by Beetlejuice. And the prop-saturated town in which the targeted victims are hunted feels like Tim Burton's version of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, with entrails. If only the entire film took place in Captain Spaulding's bizarro lair... It was a lot cooler, scarier and way more inspired than anything that followed...