Rain and a Sun Demon
A Monday and rain. You’d think there would be a statutory regulation against that combination but here we are – at our desk with the Dockers drying slowly in the AC (no I didn’t take them off).
Perfect day to write about The Hideous Sun Demon.
No it wasn’t hideous, it wasn’t very good, but it wasn’t hideous – hideous I have to hold for things like Mesa of lost women or Manos (and I fear the urge to run up that mountain is taking hold in my like a fever in my blood). Dull and pointless yes, hideous no.
The story is the basic werewolf tale – male turns into monster, kills, gets killed the end. There isn’t a lot of leeway with this tale – the template of all these The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not a very long book itself – so once the lead turns monster there isn’t a lot to do but kill him.
So even for a movie that is only One Hour and fifteen minutes (it feels longer but it isn’t) there is a lot of padding.
The story opens with a voice over telling us about the strange case of blah blah and we follow stock footage of an ambulance into a hospital. There we meet the female lead and the Older Scientist. Turns out there was an accident in the lab with the three (Female lead, the Older scientist and the Male lead all worked at) we don’t see it, which, with it being a movie and all is kind of strange, movies unlike plays can show things (unless they tried to shoot it but it wasn’t very good or more likely the budget didn’t allow it – but the up shot was that the male lead just took a massive dose of radiation from a new radioactive isotope (which was the big buzz word back in the late 50’s radioactive isotopes were going to do all sorts of things but it was discovered mainly they caused cancer and they haven’t been the big deal as much).
Older Scientist (OS) says it was because the Male lead was hung over “I’ve told him, whiskey and soda mix, not whiskey and science – the female lead says he just had a headache (getting rather tearful about it at the moment), but the OS will not be moved. As I watched I thought having to work day in and day out with this sanctimonious old goat would drive anybody to drink. Still as we will see the male lead not only has a drinking problem, he is stupid as well which is a lethal combination when dealing with radioactive isotopes, or well just about anything. I’d be leery if the goober had had a ball of yarn in his hand.
Days pass – on film and it felt like that as I was watching. The male lead is showing no ill effects (hair loss death) from his exposure – then they take him out to the roof to get some sun and ta-da – he turns into the hideous sun demon of the title. There is some pseudo science who-haw about evolution and that the male lead has under the influence of the sun turned lizard-ish. It’s an excuse to dress the male lead in the suit, that’s about it.
Aghast at being someone who turns into a lizard in the sunlight – the male lead quits his job and spends time in his house (nice one I have to say) and standing on a cliff or such. And at night he goes to a real 1950’s style dive bar – and there sees, doing the worst job of pretending to play the piano in the history of movies and singing just one god-awful jazz-style torch song (thank god for the Beatles) is the bad girl (you can tell she is the bad girl cause she’s blonde and has cleavage) the male lead (hereinafter ML) is smitten and keeps coming back finally talking to the bad girl (BG) who, because we need someone for the ML to kill later has a thug boyfriend – the ML and thug fight then he drives away with the BG to the beach – where in an almost daring for 1959 moment they have sex on the beach – well we see them kiss there is a bit where the bad girl drops the blanket she’d been wearing (don’t get too excited she also has a coat on) then, then there is a shot of, yes waves crashing on the beach – you figure it out.
I’d like to say, as much as Hollywood seems to like sex on the beach the whole issue of sand, sand lots of it getting into places that you really don’t want sand getting into makes me uncomfortable just looking at couples on the beach in the movies.
Well we fade to black and we come back with the happy couple dozing on the beach as the sun is coming up – ML realizes this too late (stupid, horny, drinking problem, and condition that makes him turn into a lizard in the sunlight, is just a lethal combination) drives off, leaving the vile temptress on the beach as he turns into lizard.
Then there is some more time filling actions with the Female lead and the OS and a new specialist who offers hope – which ML proceeds to piss away by staggering out in the dark to the Bad girl and the thug and his friends (after melting down and say why me why me? - Because you were hammered while working with radioactive isotopes maybe? Or you’re stupid and a jerk and have a drinking problem to boot?) – he ends up killing – it’s not important how, but he ends up killing the thug and then flees back to the female lead and then runs out again giving female lead final farewell kiss (this is what you call padding) then more padding ensues as he hides from the police in a shack in an oil field in LA (I assume this has long since closed).
In the last bit of padding, the Male lead is helped by the plot device of ‘the stupid child who wouldn’t last 12 minutes in the real world’ who befriends the male lead as he hides in the shack – she apparently plays there, a lot she has dolls and toy tea cups and the like there – just the place I’d chose if I was a little girl. (By the way the stupid child’s mother is doing house work in high heels which if for nothing else makes me thank god we’re not in the 50’s anymore).
The finale takes place on one of the huge oil or gas (I don’t know which) tanks where the Sun Demon is chased by one cop (what is this not wait for a back stuff when dealing a) with a walking lizard and b) He’s at the top of an oil storage tank he’s not going anywhere soon) they fight – Demon doesn’t kill the cop (everybody else he struggled with is dead this cop no) and if eventually, in King Kong moment shot and falls from top of storage tank – it’s way high up and rather effective, unlike the rest of this damn film.
The end consists of everybody looking at the pretty badly mangled body of the now deceased hideous sun demon. The point? Who knows? The Demon is dead and the credits are rolling, time for the next film.
Peace, Love, Bad Girls.
Perfect day to write about The Hideous Sun Demon.
No it wasn’t hideous, it wasn’t very good, but it wasn’t hideous – hideous I have to hold for things like Mesa of lost women or Manos (and I fear the urge to run up that mountain is taking hold in my like a fever in my blood). Dull and pointless yes, hideous no.
The story is the basic werewolf tale – male turns into monster, kills, gets killed the end. There isn’t a lot of leeway with this tale – the template of all these The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not a very long book itself – so once the lead turns monster there isn’t a lot to do but kill him.
So even for a movie that is only One Hour and fifteen minutes (it feels longer but it isn’t) there is a lot of padding.
The story opens with a voice over telling us about the strange case of blah blah and we follow stock footage of an ambulance into a hospital. There we meet the female lead and the Older Scientist. Turns out there was an accident in the lab with the three (Female lead, the Older scientist and the Male lead all worked at) we don’t see it, which, with it being a movie and all is kind of strange, movies unlike plays can show things (unless they tried to shoot it but it wasn’t very good or more likely the budget didn’t allow it – but the up shot was that the male lead just took a massive dose of radiation from a new radioactive isotope (which was the big buzz word back in the late 50’s radioactive isotopes were going to do all sorts of things but it was discovered mainly they caused cancer and they haven’t been the big deal as much).
Older Scientist (OS) says it was because the Male lead was hung over “I’ve told him, whiskey and soda mix, not whiskey and science – the female lead says he just had a headache (getting rather tearful about it at the moment), but the OS will not be moved. As I watched I thought having to work day in and day out with this sanctimonious old goat would drive anybody to drink. Still as we will see the male lead not only has a drinking problem, he is stupid as well which is a lethal combination when dealing with radioactive isotopes, or well just about anything. I’d be leery if the goober had had a ball of yarn in his hand.
Days pass – on film and it felt like that as I was watching. The male lead is showing no ill effects (hair loss death) from his exposure – then they take him out to the roof to get some sun and ta-da – he turns into the hideous sun demon of the title. There is some pseudo science who-haw about evolution and that the male lead has under the influence of the sun turned lizard-ish. It’s an excuse to dress the male lead in the suit, that’s about it.
Aghast at being someone who turns into a lizard in the sunlight – the male lead quits his job and spends time in his house (nice one I have to say) and standing on a cliff or such. And at night he goes to a real 1950’s style dive bar – and there sees, doing the worst job of pretending to play the piano in the history of movies and singing just one god-awful jazz-style torch song (thank god for the Beatles) is the bad girl (you can tell she is the bad girl cause she’s blonde and has cleavage) the male lead (hereinafter ML) is smitten and keeps coming back finally talking to the bad girl (BG) who, because we need someone for the ML to kill later has a thug boyfriend – the ML and thug fight then he drives away with the BG to the beach – where in an almost daring for 1959 moment they have sex on the beach – well we see them kiss there is a bit where the bad girl drops the blanket she’d been wearing (don’t get too excited she also has a coat on) then, then there is a shot of, yes waves crashing on the beach – you figure it out.
I’d like to say, as much as Hollywood seems to like sex on the beach the whole issue of sand, sand lots of it getting into places that you really don’t want sand getting into makes me uncomfortable just looking at couples on the beach in the movies.
Well we fade to black and we come back with the happy couple dozing on the beach as the sun is coming up – ML realizes this too late (stupid, horny, drinking problem, and condition that makes him turn into a lizard in the sunlight, is just a lethal combination) drives off, leaving the vile temptress on the beach as he turns into lizard.
Then there is some more time filling actions with the Female lead and the OS and a new specialist who offers hope – which ML proceeds to piss away by staggering out in the dark to the Bad girl and the thug and his friends (after melting down and say why me why me? - Because you were hammered while working with radioactive isotopes maybe? Or you’re stupid and a jerk and have a drinking problem to boot?) – he ends up killing – it’s not important how, but he ends up killing the thug and then flees back to the female lead and then runs out again giving female lead final farewell kiss (this is what you call padding) then more padding ensues as he hides from the police in a shack in an oil field in LA (I assume this has long since closed).
In the last bit of padding, the Male lead is helped by the plot device of ‘the stupid child who wouldn’t last 12 minutes in the real world’ who befriends the male lead as he hides in the shack – she apparently plays there, a lot she has dolls and toy tea cups and the like there – just the place I’d chose if I was a little girl. (By the way the stupid child’s mother is doing house work in high heels which if for nothing else makes me thank god we’re not in the 50’s anymore).
The finale takes place on one of the huge oil or gas (I don’t know which) tanks where the Sun Demon is chased by one cop (what is this not wait for a back stuff when dealing a) with a walking lizard and b) He’s at the top of an oil storage tank he’s not going anywhere soon) they fight – Demon doesn’t kill the cop (everybody else he struggled with is dead this cop no) and if eventually, in King Kong moment shot and falls from top of storage tank – it’s way high up and rather effective, unlike the rest of this damn film.
The end consists of everybody looking at the pretty badly mangled body of the now deceased hideous sun demon. The point? Who knows? The Demon is dead and the credits are rolling, time for the next film.
Peace, Love, Bad Girls.
Labels: bad movies -
posted by Unknown at 9:33 AM
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