Michelle was working last night at the Continental Club, so I watched an Austrian film from 1983 called "The Inheritors" and began another I'll write about shortly. "The Inheritors" is, well, timely, let's say. Even if it is from 1983. Europe was having a rise of fascism, and that's essentially what this movie is about. And I suppose you get why I say it's timely. The plot involves a teenager of 16 becoming involved in a neo-Nazi group. He has a troubled home life already, and it's easy to see how he fell to prey to recruitment techniques by one of these groups. It's not a very long film, 88 minutes or so, and it's pretty compact in the telling. And there are some pretty disturbing scenes, as well, mostly after the halfway mark. I've read criticism of the movie for the sex scenes, and I sort of get that, although (and I can vouch) when you're a teenage boy, sex is pretty much on your mind 96% of the time. What that does do however is marginalize the teenage girls in the movie as little more than objects. But again, this movie was made 35 years ago. And the sex scenes are only in the first half or so of the movie.
The ending is blunt and not what I was expecting at all. Give it a watch. If you've seen "American History X" (which I'd argue is a better overall movie), you won't be able to not think of that one while viewing this. I'm inserting the English trailer here, as that's what I found first, and both German and English are available on the Mondo Macabro release, but I'd strongly suggest watching it in German. The actors are clearly speaking that.
To cleanse the palette a bit, I guess, I began (and finished this morning) "Lake of Dracula." That one is the second of a trio of Japanese movies made in the seventies aping the Hammer horror formula. The trio you can get in an Arrow Video release, and I've greatly enjoyed these first two films. Neither one is going to change how you think of anything, but they're both great popcorn entertainment. Vivid colors, creepy mansions, pasty-faced vampires, etc. That's about all I have to say about these so far (the first one's called "The Vampire Doll;" the third one, which I've yet to watch is "Evil of Dracula"), but I'm looking forward to the third one. I might also mention they're all in the 80-minute range, so you won't be looking at the disc time or your watch very much. The only reason this one was a two-parter for me was my getting extremely sleepy after starting it at 3 am. Give 'em a try!
Quick, I know. More soon....
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