THE DANMAN CAN

🎶 Enough is never enough 🎶 Larry Cohen 's  The Stuff   (1985) is an effortlessly rewatchable cult concoction, a goopy and delightfully bonkers horror sci-fi satire of consumer culture and corporatism. Recommended for fans of  Street Trash   (1987) [ review ],  Invasion Of The Body Snatchers   (1956) [ review ],  Invasion Of The Body Snatchers   (1978), The Blob (1958), and  The Blob  (1988) [ review ]. Larry Cohen Films Ranked

The first time I saw  William Lustig 's Maniac Cop 2   (1990), I was really annoyed by  Leo Rossi 's goofy Mansonesque "no homo" serial killer sidekick, Turkell. I still don't love the character (sorry,  Larry Cohen )—though he is good for a few laughs—but I've learned to accept him in what is otherwise a very solid and entertaining horror action b-movie with a lot of replay value.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that  MC2 is superior to its predecessor , as many feel it is (not enough  Bruce Campbell  and no  Tom Atkins !), but there are aspects of it that are better than the original—the direction, for one, and (especially) the stunts, for another. Woo boy, the stunts in this movie—just absolutely insane. Of the kind which you mostly don't see anymore, as many things have long since been replaced by CGI (which is safer for the stunt people but way less impressive). Friday The 13th Part VII: The New Blood set the Guinness World Record ...

Like almost every  Larry Cohen  film, Full Moon High (1981) is sloppy and struggles to find an identity, but has a certain charm in its chaos. I don't know what it was about 1981, but everyone  was making werewolf movies that year—first  Joe Dante   with  The Howling  ( review ) in March, then  Wolfen  ( review ) in July, followed by John Landis '  An American Werewolf In London   ( review ) in August, and finally FMH trailing last (in quality as well) in October.  Cohen appears to aim for updating 1957's I Was A Teenage Werewolf with  Airplane!  (1980) ( review ) and Animal House (1978) ( review ) style humor (and FMH did beat Teen Wolf to the punch by four years). But the lack of cohesion (he really did just seem to film random shots, apparently worry about editing later, and I have to wonder how much of a script there was for this one) makes many of the jokes fall flat. Still, there are some lau...

A Return To Salem’s Lot (1987) is a mess of a movie. It’s sloppily directed, it has strange (and frequent) tonal shifts, jarring edits, piss-poor makeup, and laughable acting. In short: a Larry Cohen film through and through (to quote my friend Alex ). Like a handful of Cohen’s films, it’s not terribly good, but it’s enjoyable for its improv style and zaniness. Michael Moriarty coldcocks three different people but actually shows more restraint than most of the other actors for a change, Samuel Fuller chomps cigars and shouts (there’s plenty of shouting in this film, natch), and the lead child actor (in his only screen credit) swears a lot.   I can’t wrap my head around why anyone (including the man himself) thought Cohen was a good choice for this material. ARTSL lacks tension, horror, cohesion, and vision. But if you ignore it as a sequel to  Salem's Lot  (1979) ( review ), and treat it as another oddball Cohen vehicle, it’s a pretty fun, occasionally hilarious ride...

God Told Me To (1976) does that gritty NYC thing and that horror/sci-fi conspiracy thing that  Larry Cohen  does so well. It's a bizarre, low budget affair, as only the King could churn out, but it also has perhaps the greatest sense of cohesion of his directed work (of which I've seen). As much as I love Michael Moriarty  and his wackiness in later Cohen jams, Tony Lo Bianco (and his comparative restraint) was the right choice for this film, which has a melodramatic flair, as opposed to the wall-to-wall zaniness of  The Stuff   (1985) ( review ). Recommended for fans of  Q   (1982) ( review ),  Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978), and  The Brood  (1979) ( review ). Larry Cohen Films Ranked

Uncle Sam (1996), William Lustig 's final film (to date), is only marginally better than Maniac Cop 3: Badge Of Silence   (1993) (where the director took an Alan Smithee credit), which is his worst. The film has a very similar premise to Bob Clark 's Deathdream (1974) [ review ], which is a better movie. That's because Uncle Sam  "is incoherent as social satire and perfunctory and routine as a horror film" (to quote the The A.V. Club ). However, it is a lot of fun. The gore is lacking, the acting is not great (despite the presence of a number of solid genre actors), and the logic is mostly non-existent, but there are many laugh out loud moments.  US  provides the same kind of enjoyment gleaned from 1997's Jack Frost  [ review ], which clashes with the rest of Lustig's oeuvre (where, despite limitations, he made better use of budgets and production values), but this little slasher is a good time regardless. William Lustig Films Ranked

Though Joel Schumacher died just recently, my reason for watching Phone Booth   (2002) stemmed from having recently watched three of Larry Cohen 's films. Cohen wrote Phone Booth and it's interesting to think about how the film would have turned out if he had directed it (hint: it would have been very  different). In the hands of Schumacher, it's a fairly straightforward film, albeit one that does utilize some interesting techniques (split screen, multiple formats) to varying degrees of success. The script and pacing are tight and Hitchcock ian, the cast is very good, there's palpable tension, and the real-time high-concept nature mostly works. Phone Booth is an enjoyable slice of escapist cinema but is already a dated film for a few reasons. There are some stereotypes that thankfully don't take up too much screen time, but at this moment in U.S. history, I can't help thinking how differently the action would have played out and the protagonist's fate ...

On the surface,  Bone  (1972) appears to be a darkly comic home invasion satire of race relations. But when  Larry Cohen  is involved, you know that it's going to be so much more. There's plenty of material here (including racism and rape) that may prove offensive to a good number of viewers but that's intentional. Cohen is playfully pointing a finger at stereotypes and touchy topics—in particular making a comment regarding fear of minorities from "liberal" white society. Bone  was obviously made to be controversial in 1972, and while today this film would never be made the way it was, its subject matter is still very topical. A few aspects are no doubt cringy by 2020 standards but the overall message remains compelling. To quote Letterboxd user  DBC 's  review : "The rich white couple are defined by privilege, racial guilt, and moral decay, while Bone is portrayed as some kind of a funky blaxploitation Alex from  A Clockwork Orange  (1971...

Having just partaken in a double feature of Larry Cohen 's two 1973 Tommy Gibbs films ( Black Caesar   ( review ) and  Hell Up In Harlem   ( review ) yesterday, followed by the fun 2017 documentary about the maverick, King Cohen , today, I was in the mood to seek out films directed and/or written by him that I have yet to see and also to revisit some that I'd seen before but hadn't watched for many years. As I began to add films to my JustWatch queue (a great service to find out where films are streaming; not a sponsor) I was simultaneously looking up my and other users' ratings for films written and/or directed by Cohen on Letterboxd . Just prior to this, I had decided to watch Special Effects (1984), as it was one of the Cohen films I hadn't seen. But then I saw that I had rated the film on Letterboxd. Wait, really…I had already seen it (and only given it two stars)? So I checked my "Films Watched" log (yes, I keep a file, in addition to using LB,...

Hell Up In Harlem (1973), Larry Cohen 's third feature and the sequel to Black Caesar (1973) (my review here ), was rushed into production without a script and released only ten months after its predecessor. It shows—while there is some fun to be had, while it's nice that much of the cast of the first film returned, and while  Fred Williamson is again good, Tommy Gibbs' Papa's ( Julius Harris ) turn as criminal is unconvincing, his wife Helen's ( Gloria Hendry ) treatment is worse than in the first film, the rival Mr. DiAngelo ( Gerald Gordon ) is meh, and the whole thing feels pretty slapdash (even for Cohen). James Brown 's intended score was famously rejected and became his album (and hit song )  The Payback , so Edwin Starr  was enlisted instead. Starr's theme " Big Papa " is memorable and enjoyable, but Brown's album was #1 on the Soul Albums chart for two weeks, along with being his only studio album to be certified gold, and his ...

Black Caesar (1973), Larry's Cohen 's second feature and first (of three) with  Fred Williamson  is a solid slice of blaxploitation with a sweet score by James Brown —one of only two (both released in 1973) by the Godfather of Soul. A loose remake of Little Caesar (1931) starring Edward G. Robinson , Cohen's film stars Williamson as Tommy Gibbs, who as a teen growing up in Harlem was brutally beaten by a cop named McKinney ( Art Lund ), an incident which led him to a life of crime. As an adult, he joins the New York mafia and becomes the head of a Black crime syndicate, waging gang war with the Italian mobsters. Gibbs establishes a criminal empire, keeping a ledger of all his dealings to use as leverage over his business associates, including McKinney. Tommy has a strained relationship with his father ( Julius Harris ) and although he loves his mama and tries to do his best for her as his status rises and money flows in, his treatment of his wife Helen ( Gloria Hend...

Q (1982) has a lot going for it—director Larry Cohen 's jazz-like (or scattershot, depending on your opinion) approach to acting, action, and editing; Michael Moriarty 's at times bafflingly hilarious, at times bizarrely dramatic method performance; zany, Z-grade Harryhausen -like f/x, and a killer Boris Vallejo theatrical poster. But Q  is not the sum of its parts. Or maybe it is… Either way, it's a clunky mess of a film, but it's a lot of fun. I've always been convinced that Cohen didn't have a completed script when he began shooting, just a basic idea ("It's King Kong ...but with an ancient bird!")—instead letting his actors improvise away. And that's OK because we love ya for it, Larry; there was nobody quite like you and your tripped-out style.

For his final feature film, Original Gangstas  (1996), director  Larry Cohen  came full circle to the genre that he cut his teeth on, blaxploitation . For Gangstas , Cohen reunited with recurring blaxploitation actor Fred Williamson , star of the director's second film, Black Caesar , and its sequel Hell Up In Harlem  (both 1973), who also co-directs here (uncredited). Other heavyweights of the genre such as football legend Jim Brown ( Slaughter (1972)) and Pam Grier ( Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974)) co-star, with  Richard Roundtree ( Shaft (1971))   and Ron O'Neal  ( Super Fly   (1972)) also making appearances. Much of Gangstas  is quite good—the sense of gritty realism is palpable, Cohen's direction is assured and he seems to eschew the improvisation he's known for, opting for a more polished look and feel. There's even scenes that almost reach the kind of emotional weight that a film like Boyz N The Hood (1991) c...

Though we lost filmmaker Larry Cohen in March of this year, his madcap low budget films will continue to live on. I still have yet to discover more than a few of his films as director and I also have yet to see the documentary about the micro maverick,  King Cohen  (2017). While The Ambulance (1990), like some of his other films, varies in quality—here (as the writer/director commonly did) Cohen gathered talent of varying degrees to make an entertaining acton comedy horror thriller. Eric Roberts sports a wildly distracting mullet and is completely unconvincing as an artist working at Marvel Comics ( Stan Lee stars as, essentially, himself in slightly more than a cameo). He also vastly oversteps his boundaries with women and I wonder if it felt any less creepy in 1990. Roberts's acting is even more unhinged than  Michael Moriarty —star of four of Cohen's films as well as the director's episode of the Masters Of Horror (2005–2007) TV series—but it definitely a...

For the third and final film in the It's Alive  trilogy, 1987's  It's Alive III: Island Of The Alive , Larry Cohen takes the action to a tropical island to show his audience how these mutant babies turn out as adults. The creatures ended up on this island by decree of a judge presiding over a court case to decide their fate. Michael Moriarty and Karen Black play the parents of one of the mutant babies. When we're the on the island I got a very  Predator  vibe (interesting as that film was released just two months after this one), as we see people picked off, occasionally from (as in the other two films) the monsters' perspective (they see double). The action takes place in multiple locations (from Florida to the island to Cuba back to Florida) and while we're treated to even gorier f/x than the first two films and Moriarty's typically "out-there" style of acting, the script feels pretty scattershot and I'm not that big of a fan of the monst...

In Larry Cohen 's It Lives Again (aka It's Alive 2 ) (1978), the sequel to his 1974 film  It's Alive , Frank Davis (again played by  John P. Ryan ), the father of the mutant baby from the first film, returns, assisted by doctors keen to his cause—to help a husband and wife soon to deliver another mutant baby. In the tradition of horror sequels, It Lives Again  ups the number of monsters and the gore (again delivered by Rick Baker ), while still retaining the familial drama at the heart of these stories. It's Alive 2   (as it's also known) is still a slow moving horror film by today's standards and it's not quite as good as the first in some regards but benefits from the improved f/x from Baker, as well as Bernard Herrmann returning to score. Cohen does a good job of retaining the feel of the first film without repeating it.

Larry Cohen 's It's Alive (1974), while being on one hand a "schlocky" mutant baby horror film, is foremost a slow moving family drama about pollution, species adaptability, and the lengths that parents will go to protect their offspring. Cohen's screenplay is excellent, but the low budget nature of the picture can hamper it at times, particularly in the editing. Rick Baker 's makeup effects can look a bit cheesy, but it sort of adds to the charm of the film. The score by Bernard Herrmann  is distinctively his, including a very memorable theme with the added texture of synthesizers to give it an otherworldly feel.

Enough is never enough. The Stuff (1985) is an effortlessly rewatchable  Cohen  cult concoction.

"You don't smile."  "Must of partied it up good in here." "You wanna see the pretty pictures?" "Fucking A, I'm a cop. What the fuck are you?" "Fuck you."

Enough is never enough. Effortlessly rewatchable Cohen cult concoction.