Short Attention Span Review - Jungle Heat a.k.a. Dance of the Dwarfs (1983)

Short Attention Span Review - Jungle Heat a.k.a. Dance of the Dwarfs (1983)

This is one of the first movies that I ever saw, and it may be the first horror movie that I watched.  That honor belongs to either this cheap horror/thriller hybrid or The Boogens.  Recently, I snagged a copy of Jungle Heat on VHS and revisited it.  Despite some pronounced shortcomings that it can't quite overcome (namely, the budget--or lack thereof), Jungle Heat does enough well to deserve a little more love from the horror community.  For starters, I found Peter Fonda to be on point, and the fact that his flawed hero is both a struggling alcoholic and a real dick made the character more intriguing.  As a general rule, you don't want your leading man to be an asshole, but hey, if you go that route, at least you're doing something different.  Deborah Raffin is way too good for the picture, and does a fine job of stumbling into jeopardy and putting up with Fonda's shit.  Which is somewhat understandable, since his role requires him to rescue her whenever he isn't getting drunk or being a dickhead.  The mood is a definite win; Jungle Heat has a wonky vibe that slowly descends into serious dread during a bleak closing reel that feels more 70s than 80s.  The sound design also warrants praise--when we finally get to the creature element of this low rent creature feature, the little boogers may look lame as fuck, but they sound terrifying.  Those roars are seriously gnarly, and an otherwise mundane score ramps up as everything goes bad in that grim finale.  Of course, the script is uneven, the direction is lackluster, and the budget is a genuine embarrassment, so Jungle Heat often runs cold.  Still,  while it's frequently regarded as abysmal by those who remember it at all, I rate it passable at worst and pretty damn dope in brief splashes of creepy mayhem.

Final Grade: C

Peter Fonda is a total dick in this cheap horror flick that I may be somewhat biased toward--it was one of the first movies I recall seeing.

To revisit this childhood fave, I had to seek out a copy on VHS.  Kicking it old school, peeps.

Powerful Pages - Pet Sematary by Stephen King (1983)

Powerful Pages - Pet Sematary by Stephen King (1983)

I started reading Stephen King novels when I was 8 years old.  When I started on this voyage, it seemed like I would never run out of books from the maestro to devour.  But, inevitably, at some point, I approached the finish line.  I put Pet Sematary aside because I always wanted to have one last vintage yarn from Uncle Stevie to dig into.  Decades passed.  And the time came.  I just had to give it a go.  First off, I'm sure glad that I finally took the plunge; Pet Sematary is a demented masterpiece, and it is as entertaining as it is unspeakable.  Secondly, this was probably a good one to set aside, for it is as dark and haunting as anything King has written.  It is maybe as dark and haunting as anything I've ever read, and that puts it right up there with The Exorcist* and Lord of the Flies**.  Pet Sematary is all kinds of heavy, and it puts the characters (a really likable family and a friendly neighbor of the highest degree) through all kinds of awful shit.  And the whole time, you sense the storm brewing, and somehow knowing that these people will suffer in abhorrent ways makes them that much more endearing.  I guess that makes Pet Sematary as much of a tragedy as it is a horror novel, and it does operate on a grand scale that it isn't altogether common within the genre.  King dares to grapple with some of the most difficult questions we all face in this life, and his answers here are as brutal as they are blunt.  At the same time, the prose is warm and inviting, and the book itself unwinds like a tale spun by that remarkable neighbor, good old Jud Crandall, a kindly soul with a gift for piquing our interest.  This story is intriguing from the onset, and as the stakes rise and the tension mounts, it becomes savagely addictive.  I turned pages and begged the main character to change course with considerable tenacity, though I knew to expect the very worse at every turn.  And toward that end, King delivered.  Oh man.  He delivered in spades.

*Surprise!  The scariest movie of all time sprang forth from a novel that is equally intense and frightening.  Indeed, the book has additional depth and takes the startling premise even further.

**Fuck William Golding.  Fuck Lord of the Flies.  Simon's death may be the most traumatic aspect of my high school education, and that little episode in my life had trauma to spare.  Also: fantastic book, hell of a writer.  Highly recommended!

Final Grade: A+