Video

Rip It Up, Issue 116, 1 March 1987, Page 33

Video

Under a Cherry Moon (Warners) Purple Rain this sure ain’t. Unlike that garish and loud rock and roll spectacle, this is an attempt at a stylish 40s romantic comedy. Shot in crisp black and white and directed by Prince (with the help of video wunderkind Mary Lambert), who does a wonderful job in this baroque fantasy.

Prince and Jerome Benton (from The Family) play a pair of super cool ladies’ men, whose search for gold ends with the discovery of the true meaning of love. Every cliche in the cinematic book is on display, but the film escapes its own limitations by a sense of perversity that pervades each frame. There are some fine vignettes, like Prince and Jerome in doo rags looking like young Little Richards, Emmanuelle Sallet playing ‘Planet Rock’ on the drums, and the ever so self-conscious attempts at re-defining the birth of the cool. The humour comes from Prince’s attempts at the romantic matinee idol, with the smouldering eyes and the licked lips stance. But he looks more likea cross' between Jerry Lewis and Liberace than Cary Grant. In fact he’s really funny. Throughout the film the music from the Parade album comments on the action, climaxing in the jaunty rhythms of ‘Kiss.’

A financial and critical disaster all over the world, but a more interesting exposition of the Prince persona than the over-the-top Purple Rain, and a by far the better film. A kitsch classic bar none. Kerry Buchanan

The Re-Animator (Vestron) A free-form adaptation of H P Lovecroft with some of the most over-the-top gore sequences around. Here’s the menu — brain surgery, decapitation by spade, exploding entrails, power drills through the chest and a sex scene that gives new meaning to the term giving head.

Another look at the Frankenstein myth, with the earnest Herbert West (played wonderfully by Jeffrey Combs) discovering the ability to re-animate corpses by injecting the dead with this lime green stuff. But of course this is another sad tale of science gone too far. Which leads to our old friend the zombie running wild and crazy, leaving a trail of gleeful destruction.

Certainly one of my fave films and a whole heap of fun. Comic turns abound when the evil Doctor Hill has to walk around with his re-animated head in a bag and a plastic replica covered in a surgical mask placed on his stump. Let us not forget poor old Dean Halsey, who spends most of the film banging his head against the wall.

A film that can best be described as very moist, and a laugh riot in the grand tradition of the Three Stooges and the Evil Dead. Perfection! Kerry Buchanan

This is Spinal Tap (Embassy) For something as ridiculous as rock music, there have been some awfully po-faced films made about it. The Last Waltz, Gimme Shelter, Let it 8e ... all great films, but none of them send-ups. With the 20/20 vision of hindsight, we can look back on the likes of Alice Cooper, Jethro Tull, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer and have a chortle. Thank

god for David Lee Roth, and thank Rob Reiner for This is Spinal Tap, the funniest, most accurate and perceptive parody of the rock world since The Rutles. Reiner, formerly “Meathead” in the Archie Bunker show, has put on Martin Scorsese’s hat and directed a mock doco that is far more subtle and cutting that the British Bad News Tour. A take-off of every rock doco since the Maysle Brothers’ What’s Happening? 1964 cinemaverite look at the Beatles, it’s the sort of film you want to share with everyone who’s ever had an interest in rock music.

Every rock band in history has its own version of the great rise and fall curve, as their fortunes spark, catch fire and burn out, or perhaps never ignite at all. All the way, they believe in themselves totally, talk endless amounts of shit about it, and believe the big one’s just around the corner. The scenes in this movie are so perfect, they’ll have tears running down your face, but also a chill of self-recognition going up your spine. You want true-to-life? This month one of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s girlfriends took over as manager. I wonder if she’s into astrology ... Spinal Tap is essential viewing. Chris Bourke

The Hotel New Hampshire (Roadshow) Now this is really distasteful, a middle-class hippie movie with all the confusion and psycho-babble of the Me generation. The second John Irving book to hit the screen, and I really hope it’s the last. Now I’m not easily shocked, but this merry mixture of incest, sexual violence, homosexuality and dead dog jokes is just the pits. Tony Richardson directs this yuppie disaster flick with all the style of a drunk truck driver. Not even Jodie Foster and Nastassja Kinski (dressed as a bear for god’s sake) can save this. People tell me it’s an allegorical movie, but there’s more art and vitality in Friday the 13th Part VI than this weak excuse for a filmed encounter group session. Kerry Buchanan

House (Premiere) From the makers of Friday the 13th — parts two and three — and starring the greatest American hero (William Katt), a roller-coaster of a scary movie, that is enjoyable in a numbskull type of way. On one level a haunted house flick with the usual chills and spills with the music of Harry (Friday the 13th) Manfredini building to ridiculous climaxes every second. But highlighted by the special effects of James (Strange Invaders) Cummins with the flying garden implements and various organic zombie things adding some spice. On another level a story about a man confronting his psyche and unblocking his fears and inner demons. Done through a series of Vietnam flashbacks that hinge on Katt’s failure to mercy kill his buddy Big Ben, played by Richard (Night Court) Moll. Ben comes back to get Katt and cause psychic havoc. The film has a lot of comic touches, perhaps the best being supplied by George Wendt, the great Norm from Cheers. Another highlight is this huge stuffed marlin that still thinks it’s swimming. House provides a fun time, but hell I wouldn’t want to live there.

Kerry Buchanan