Sharing the Blame: The Co-Productions

When the Canadian government designated Canadian film productions as tax shelters in 1974, there were many other countries who wanted to get in on the act as well. American-Canadian co-productions began to flourish as a direct result of these incentives, just as they had during the 1930s, when England offered favourable treatment to films made in British colonies.

By the mid-to-late 1970s, Europe began showing interest in our shelters as well, and several high-profile Canadian cult films have come out of our partnership with one country in particular, France. Nicolas Gessner's The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane was probably the most widely seen of these co-productions, but Eddy Matalon's Blackout and Cathy's Curse have earned respected places as well. Hot on the heels of these successful genre films, many of the craziest and most obscure Canuxploitation films appeared as co-productions with smaller countries like Romania and the current Czech Republic.

Today, the government offers subsidies for films that are not entirely Canadian, but have filled key creative roles (writer, director, highest-paid star) with Canadians. Through their "official co-production agreements" with countries including the U.K., France and Germany, citizens of other countries can also qualify for these positions. And it seems to be working, since Telefilm reported that co-productions were responsible for $870 million in 2001.

While not every one of the films listed below is representative of a distinctive Canadian vision, this page acknowledges these quasi-Canuck efforts which are interesting nonetheless. These lists are by no means complete, and I've limited the inclusion of the the many big-budget Hollywood films being shot in Canada these days.

---

 

Blackout

1978, Starring Robert Carradine, Jim Mitchum, Ray Milland, Belinda Montgomery. Directed by Eddy Matalon.
Visiting French director Eddy Matalon's Blackout is a major improvement over his wretched CanHorror pic Cathy's Curse. This Cinepix-helmed international co-production, partially shot in New York, is a nicely made highrise thriller with just the right amount of sleaze. When the Big Apple is blanketed in darkness from a power failure, a prison bus crashes and four trigger-happy convicts (Robert Carradine, Don Granberry, Terry Haig, and Victor B. Tyler) break out and take cover in a nearby apartment building. A lone cop (Jim Mitchum) called to the scene tries to stop them as they terrorize the residents for money and some means of transportation. Robert Carradine is wonderfully scummy as Christie, the literate leader of the escapees who ends up going head-to-head to Mitchum in the exciting, car-crashing finale. An aging Ray Milland also gets a brief but memorable role as a hardnosed millionaire whose refusal to cooperate with the thugs results in the torching of his priceless collection of Picassos. Definitely worth a look, though the level of CanCon is minimal.

---

 

Black Roses

1988, Starring John Martin, Sal Viviano, Karen Planden. Directed by John Fasano.
After crafting the wildly surreal Thor vehicle Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare, fledgling director John Fasano continued to mine the heavy metal horror vein with this silly, but still engaging B-flick shot jointly in Ontario and the director's home state, New York. In this one, popular rock act Black Roses is about to kick off their world tour in the sleepy town of Mill Basin, but the PTA is up in arms over their dark lyrics. And as well they should be--the band's vocalist, Damien (Sal Viviano) is actually a demon who hypnotizes his teenage fans to engage in murder and other lewd acts. A big step up from the dime store production values of Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare, Black Roses still maintains the same goofy 1980's atmosphere with dozens of weird puppets, bizarre dialogue and hair metal soundtrack cuts. Don't miss the screen debut of The Soprano's Vincent Pastore, who is sucked into a stereo speaker. Silly but undeniably fun to watch--they just don't make 'em like this anymore!

---

 

Born For Hell

(AKA Naked Massacre) 1976, Starring Mathieu Carrière, Debra Berger, Andrée Pelletier, Carole Laure. Directed by Denis Héroux.
A complete 180 degree turnaround from his earlier maple syrup porn films, Denis Héroux's Born For Hell is a very nasty little number indeed. Based on the Richard Speck murders, but relocating the real-life tragedy to revolution-torn Belfast, the film stars Mathieu Carrière as a marooned and penniless Vietnam vet who begs for food at a boarding house for student nurses. When one of the girls takes pity on him, he is reminded of his wife back home and snaps, returning that night with a switchblade. Once inside, the increasingly insane vet holds all eight nurses hostage in an upstairs bedroom, taking one or two downstairs at a time to humiliate, rape and murder them. This grim Canadian/West German/French/Italian co-production is technically well made, but it isn't much fun to watch. There's almost no exposition in the gratuitously bleak story at all—not only is it never revealed exactly why this Speck substitute is hellbent on killing the girls, but he's never even given a name. German star Carrière plays the killer vet with an understated evil that is undeniably creepy, while sole Canadians Andrée Pelletier and Carole Laure make up part of the body count. Despite the almost unpalatable final half-hour, Born For Hell is still an interesting film, though it probably has more in common with Eurosleaze flicks than with Canadian film.

---

 

Brainscan

1994, Starring Edward Furlong, Frank Langella, T. Ryder Smith. Directed by John Flynn.
Because almost everything takes place in one house, there's not much that stands out as Canadian about this sci-fi/horror co-production made in Quebec. Edward Furlong stars as a spoiled-rich yet disenfranchised teenage horror fan who thinks he's seen it all when he buys a new CD-Rom horror game called Brainscan. On popping it in, he experiences something like a virtual reality slasher film where he is the heartless killer. He loves it until he realizes that a real murder took place at the same time down the street. Confused, Eddie calls the company at which time an evil gnome named the Trickester appears and forces Eddie to play the game three more times. In each, he kills again, much to his own horror. Finally he is forced to face the Trickster (his other self) in the bedroom of the curiously unattractive girl he has a crush on while the police close in on him. There's some good special effects for the budget here, but unfortunately, Eddie and the Trickster's relationship comes off kind of like an adult version of the Fred Savage/Howie Mandel classic Little Monsters. The material is somewhat original, but Brainscan takes itself way too seriously (as evidenced by the dreary musical score) and is seemingly confused in it's message about the nature of violent entertainment.

---

 

Cathy's Curse

(AKA Cauchemares) 1977, starring Randi Allen, Alan Scarfe, Sylvie Lenoir, Beverly Murray. Directed by Eddy Matalon.

As co-productions began to play an increasingly important role in the late 1970s, Cinepix tapped French director Eddy Matalon's talents for two Montreal-lensed films: Cathy's Curse, a horror film in the vein of The Excorcist, followed the next year by the action/thriller Blackout. Cathy's Curse is hands down one of the worst films Canadian horrors of the 1970s, sunk by a terrible script, indifferent acting and a palpable cheapness. Randi Allen stars in her only role ever as Cathy, a girl who moves into her father's boyhood home, and is compelled to kill by the spirit of her dead aunt whose spirit is embodied in a doll and a spooky portrait painting. Thrills are just about as sparse as the film's budget, and although the climax features better-than-average special effects, they only serve to remind the viewer how talky and tedious the first 80 minutes are. Cathy's Curse makes little acknowledgment of its Canadian heritage, but this is one case where I'm thankful of that fact.

---

 

Class of 1984

1982, Starring Perry King, Merrie Lynn Ross, Timothy Van Patten, Roddy McDowall, Michael J Fox. Directed by Mark Lester.

Class of 1984 provides a sleazy updating of one of the best known delinquency films, Blackboard Jungle. The plot involves music teacher Mr. Norris (Perry King), who has moved to a new "inner-city" school. Although many of the students are clean cut go-getters like Arthur (Michael J Fox), there are many tough punks like Stegman and his crew, razor carrying, dope dealing vandals, who recruit prostitutes and cocaine dealers at a Teenage Head concert. When Arthur's friend buys some angel dust from Stegman, he climbs the flagpole and falls to his death. Mr Norris tries to bust the punks, but in retaliation, they drop a Molotov cocktail in his car and kidnap his wife. Then it's time for revenge-- teacher style! Strangely enough, this film was scored by Lalo Schifrin, and features the theme song "I Am The Future" by Alice Cooper. Although Class of 1984 is cheap and exploitive, it is also fun. It's the kind of film you can watch with your friends and laugh. Filmed in downtown Toronto.

---

 

Deadly Eyes

1982, Starring Sam Groom, Sara Botsford, Scatman Crothers, Cec Linder, Lisa Langlois, Lesleh Donaldson. Directed by Robert Clouse (Golden Harvest).

Hong Kong kung-fu kingpins Golden Harvest Films invade Hogtown in Deadly Eyes, a killer rat movie directed by genre stalwart Robert Clouse (Enter the Dragon). In the film, rats feeding off steroid-laced grain grow to uncomfortable sizes and attack humans, including "special guest star" Scatman Crothers. High school teacher Paul (Sam Groom) and health inspector Kelly (Sara Botsford) are the bland, middle-age love interests who fight back. Deadly Eyes is infamous for its cheap effects, which included disguising a pack of small dogs to portray the marauding rats, but it does wring some entertainment value out of its well-worn premise. The finale has the rats overrun a movie theatre (showing a Bruce Lee movie, natch) before attacking subway system patrons. In the end, Deadly Eyes is a co-production that's most notable for an interesting turn by Lisa Langolis as a cheerleader intent on seducing her teacher, and a surprising amount of footage of downtown Toronto.

---

Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders

1989, Starring Vince Murdocco, Robyn Kelly, Tony Travis, Morgan Fox, Melissa Mounds. Directed by Howard Ziehm

If you are turned off by the sophisticated wit and highbrow art of Heavy Metal, this may be the film for you. Howard Ziehm, director of the inspired 1972 Flesh Gordon movie trades the raunchy sci-fi frat humour of the original for distasteful scatological jokes. The bad guy, known only as "Evil Presence," develops an impotence ray, which he unleashes on the universe. Flesh is apparently immune to this ray because he possesses the "virile force," and so EP and his mad scientist sidekick Master Bator launch a plan to steal Flesh's manhood by using his girlfriend Dale as bait. An interplanetary chase through attractions like "Mammary Mountains" and "The G Spot Café" reveal a stop-motion penis creature that resembles a California Raisin and "The Turds," a race of people dressed in actual poo costumes. Flesh Gordon Meets The Cosmic Cheerleaders suffers from a lack of taste, logic or acting skills. While these aspects might be considered secondary to the action in an "adult" film, the first Flesh Gordon holds up with all the hardcore scenes edited out for television, so why should this one be so terrible? Needless to say, this film may have more in common with "Turd Town" than just featuring it in one scene.

---

 

The Glove

1979, Starring John Saxon, Rosey Grier, Joanna Cassidy, Jack Carter. Directed by Ross Hagen (Tommy J. Productions.).

After directing The Mask in the early 1960s, Julian Roffman faded into the background of Canadian film, producing several B-efforts like The Pyx and Explosion. His last big screen production, The Glove, is a decent, L.A.-shot quickie directed by character actor Ross Hagen. John Saxon is typically solid as a bounty hunter looking for a killer who has been laying out off-duty prison guards with a 5lb riot glove. Turns out that it's an ex-con played by ex-footballer Rosey Grier, who has been getting revenge on those who beat him up while he was serving time for a crime he didn't commit. Though Canadian connections are tenuous, The Glove is fast-paced and (barely) passably directed, but it paints itself in a corner by portraying Grier just as sympathetic as Saxon, requiring some ingenuity to pull off the ending. It's not a particularly memorable genre exercise, but it's still an agreeable timekiller.

---

 

Happy Hell Night

1989, Starring Nick Gregory, Laura Carney, Ted Clark, Frank John Hughes, Charles Cragin. Directed by Brian Owens (Pavlina Ltd.).

Canadian horror had all but fizzled out by the onset of the 1990s, making this joint Canada/Yugoslavia slasher something of a lone voice in the wilderness. The film teams experienced producer David Mitchell (Food of the Gods II) with director Brian Owens (Brainscan), in the tale of a Nosferatu-like priest whose penchant for slaughtering frat boys with his trusty scythe landed him in a lonely asylum cell. Now, 25 years later, a fraternity prank sets him free, and he wreaks havoc on a new generation of backwards ballcap-wearing mooks. Happy Hell Night is a jumbled mess of a film that lacks a clear protagonist, an explicit reason for the murders, and even linear editing, but it's got it where it counts: a menacing slasher who rampages through well-done scenes of gratuitous bloodshed. Darren McGavin, who starred in the Alberta-shot Firebird 2015 A.D. a decade earlier, only appears for about five minutes as a survivor of the original killings. Look for a nurse watching a video copy of Busted Up, a 1986 Canuxploitation boxing film also produced by Mitchell.

---

 

Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks

1974, Starring Dyanne Thorne, Victor Alexander, Michael Thayer, Richard Kennedy. Directed by Don Edmonds.

Cinepix commissioned the sequel to Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. This time, the "most dreaded Nazi of them all" shows up in the Middle East. The lustful El Sharif (Victor Alexander) depends on Ilsa to run his white slavery ring, which kidnaps young American girls and sells them to the highest bidder. Between auctions, Ilsa trains the girls to please their new masters, rich oil barons looking for new additions to their harems. When secret agent Commander Adam (Michael Thayer) shows up to investigate, Ilsa risks the security of El Sharif's operation as her sexual desires once again outweigh her duties. No longer trapped in the dingy, wooden concentration camp, the lush Arabian palace setting is used to full advantage, with vibrant colors, bright sunny exteriors, and more interesting production design. Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks is also a little lighter on flagellation, but perhaps even more cartoon-like than the first film. By not being quite as focused on pushing extremes, the sequel settles into a relaxed pace and makes is simply a more endurable film. The only really excessively unpleasant scene, involving a diaphragm crafted out of plastic explosives, is much more disgusting in concept than execution. Keep your eyes peeled for Russ Meyer supervixens Uschi Digart (Cherry, Harry and Raquel) and Haji (Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!) in El Sharif's harem.

---

 

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS

1974, Starring Dyanne Thorne, Gregory Knoph, Richard Kennedy. Directed by Don Edmonds.

Not many recognize Ilsa, the most notorious character in exploitation films as a Canadian creation, but she was invented by the demented minds at Montreal's Cinepix. In her first adventure, a Nazi medical camp provides the backdrop for brutality as Ilsa (Dyanne Thorne) and her minions perform bizarre experiments. A truckload of fresh prisoners, both male and female, are subjected to insidious torture as Ilsa tries to prove that women have a higher threshold for pain and suffering than men. At night, Ilsa indulges in a liaison with one of the new inmates, an American named Wolfe (Gregory Knoph) with abnormal sexual powers. While Ilsa prepares to show off her cruel scientific breakthroughs to the General (Richard Kennedy), the other inmates plan a revolt to get their revenge. A cut above the sequels, this film features sickening Nazi atrocities including a vicious castration, flesh eating maggots, and gratuitous whipping. It's all pulled off with tongues planted firmly in Nazi cheeks, of course, but even with a sardonic sensibility, Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS makes for an unsettling viewing experience.

---

Incubus

1982, Starring John Cassavetes, Kerrie Keane, Helen Hughes, Erin Flannery, Duncan McIntosh. Directed by John Hough.

John Hough made this film in Guelph, Ontario after he finished Watcher in the Woods, a live-action "horror" film for Disney. Incubus is a violent effort that mixes rape, the occult and heavy metal into a stew that has managed to repel viewers of all ages. Coroner Sam (John Cassavetes) lives in Galen, Wisconsin with his 18 year old daughter Jenny. Jenny is dating a descendent of the founding family, Tim Galen, who lives with his grandmother Agnes (played by Helen Hughes). Tim has an interesting problem in that he keeps having the same nightmare of a woman on a rack, being tortured by men in hoods who repeatedly say "Tell me!" When Sam is called in to investigate several rapes that match a pattern of attacks that occurred 30 years ago, Tim believes that he is unconsciously committing the acts. One day he falls into a trance and ducks inside a theater where British metal pioneers Samson are playing Goblin-esque synth rock. Another girl is raped in the bathroom of the theater, and this time Tim tells Jenny he believes he is the rapist. Then we find out about a shape shifter (also known as an incubus), who tries to impregnate witches. Tim is taken back to Sam's house, where Sam believes that by inducing the dream, he can catch the creature. Critics were quite unkind to Incubus because of it's rather repulsive look at sexuality.

---

Kinky Coaches and the Pom Pom Pussycats

(AKA Crunch, Heartbreak High) 1979, Starring John Vernon, Robert Forster, Norman Fell, Thom Haverstock, Christine Cattell. Directed by Mark Warren (Sandy Frank Productions/Astral).

A ribald title is the most risque and humourous element of this limp, Montreal-shot tax shelter comedy. A co-production between U.S. shlock kingpin Sandy Frank and Astral, Kinky Coaches and the Pom Pom Pussycats is a limp ensemble piece about high school football rivals trying to out-prank each other in the days leading up to the big game. Canada's own John Vernon, hot off of playing Dean Wormer in the classic frat house comedy Animal House, stars as City High coach Bulldog Malone, who faces off against the rival Johnson High Eagles, under coach Alan Arnoldi (Robert Forster). Mild hijinks including an embarasing strip poker game (which offers the film's only glimpse of female nudity), the theft of Coach Malone's lucky longjohns and the City quarterback's attempts to steal away Johnson quarterback's feminist girlfriend set the stakes for the game, which takes up the final third of the film and predictably comes down to a disputed final play. What's strange about the film is that it refuses to take sides--rather than the standard slobs vs. snobs underdog story, both teams are equally likable. This turns into a major problem, because the viewers don't have much invested in the outcome of the lengthy football sequence. Even worse are the lame jokes, including a marching band that gets lost on the way to the game, a snorting linebacker named "Pigger", and Norman Fell in a cameo role as a two-bit sportscaster who can't seem to get an interview with his coaches. The humour just never works.

---

Les liens du sang

(AKA Blood Relatives) 1979, Starring Donald Sutherland, Aude Landry, Lisa Langlois, Laurent Malet, Donald Pleasence. Directed by Claude Chabrol.

Incest, murder and child-molesting. What do these words have in common besides assuring this page more hits? Why, they're the plot of Les Liens du Sang (Blood Relatives), a Canada-France co-production made by seasoned French genre film director Claude Chabrol. Detective Steve Carella (Donald Sutherland, minus the giant mustache he sported in Bob Clark's Murder by Decree) is investigating the murder of 16-year old Muriel Stark (Lisa Langolis). Muriel's cousin Patricia explains that they were both attacked on the way home from a party, only she got away. Carella rounds up all of Montreal's pedophiles for no other reason than to feature a cameo by Donald Pleasence in perhaps his greatest role, Sweaty Sex Offender #4. After a few more red herrings, Patricia reveals that it was her brother Andrew. The last half of the film is told in flashback as Carella recovers and reads Muriel's diary. Turns out that she and Andrew were kissin' cousins until just a few days before her murder when a pregnancy scare ended their fun. Having Muriel fall in love with her much-older boss at work sets up at least one additional suspect, but there's not enough characters with motives to provide a real surprise ending. Despite a few problems, including horrendous English language dubbing, Les Liens du Sang is not a bad little crime film which clips along nicely despite a lack of anything really substantial or interesting going on in the plot. As a special bonus, the film's flashback of Muriel's murder is perhaps the most uninspired killing in the history of cinema.

---

The Little Girl who Lived Down the Lane

1976, Starring Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen, Alexis Smith, Mort Shuman, Scott Jacoby. Directed by Nicolas Gessner.

This understated, genuinely creepy psycho-thriller is one of the finest Canadian co-productions of its time. Hungarian director Nicolas Gessner's first film in English stars Jodie Foster as Rynn, a wise-beyond-her-years teen whose parents seem to be conspicuously absent from her life. Well-to-do landlady Mrs. Hallet (Alexis Smith) is determined to find out the whereabouts of her phantom poet father, while her admitted pedophile son Frank (Martin Sheen) puts the moves on the young girl. Rynn manages to foil them at every turn with the help of a local cop (Mort Shuman) and his crippled nephew (Scott Jacoby), whom Rynn falls for. Primarily a character piece, there's little blood or violence in the film, but the cast is excellent and the cinematography of the rich Quebec countryside proves surprisingly evocative. Released to theatres the same year as Freaky Friday, The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane has some striking similarities to Foster's Disney blockbuster, albeit with much darker results. A must-see classic.

---

Millenium

1989, Starring Kris Kristofferson, Cheryl Ladd, Daniel J Traranti, Robert Joy, Al Waxman, Maury Chaykin. Directed by Michael Anderson.

The wonderfully bearded Kris Kristofferson hits on washed up ex-Angel Cheryl Ladd in this loving tale of plane crashes. Super airline sleuth Bill Smith (Kristofferson) investigates some crash sites where the people were all dead before the plane exploded. It's a tough case, but not so tough that he can't help but smile as flight attendant Louise Baltimore (Ladd) runs away from him on visual contact. Luckily, Bill wins her heart, but that's before he realizes that she is a time traveler from the future. In the 30th century, people cannot reproduce, so Louise and her friends steal doomed airplanes from the past, and unload all the passengers in the future before sending the empty jet back to be destroyed. When Bill follows Louise into the future, the production values start to become embarrassing. Directed by Michael Anderson of Orca: The Killer Whale fame, this confusing movie repeats almost 20 minutes of footage.

---

Of Unknown Origin

1983, Starring Peter Weller, Jennifer Dale, Lawrence Dane, Kenneth Welsh, Louis Del Grande, and Shannon Tweed. Directed by George P. Cosmatos (Famous Players/Warner Brothers).

American import Peter Weller easily outshines an esteemed all-Canadian cast in this badly named, slightly trashy Montreal-shot killer rat flick. When his wife (Shannon Tweed, in her first role) and child take off for a vacation, business professional Bart Hughes (Peter Weller) discovers that his beautifully renovated brownstone has attracted an unwanted tenant—a dirty, foot-long rat who rips apart his home when he's away at the office. After laying out traps and poison proves ineffectual, Bart starts to get obsessive about killing the rodent, and his mania threatens to drive him off the deep end and ruin his career. Finally, armed with a baseball bat and a miner's helmet, he vows to destroy the rodent, almost completely destroying his house in the process. Italian-born director George P. Cosmatos packs Of Unknown Origin full of metaphors and symbolism, as Bart tries to prove his intellectual superiority over the rat, barricading rooms and swatting at the creature with books from his well-stocked library (including Moby Dick!) No matter how much you try to dress it up, though, a killer rat film is still a killer rat film, and Cosmatos gets the job done on a visceral level. Produced by Pierre David and Claude Héroux the same year the hard-working pair backed David Cronenberg's Videodrome, Of Unknown Origin is not a bad little timewaster at all, and probably represents the absolute pinnacle of Canadian giant rodent cinema.

---

One Magic Christmas

1985, Starring Mary Steenburgen, Gary Basaraba, Harry Dean Stanton, Arthur Hill. Directed by Phillip Borsos.

Nowadays, Disney trucks up to Canada for quite a few of their live-action movies, especially the made-for-TV variety. This didn't happen too much in the 1980s, which makes One Magic Christmas a bit of a rarity. This film is also from a period where Disney was starting to explore slightly darker subject matter with films like Watcher in the Woods and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Grinchy Mary Steenburgen doesn't like Christmas, so harmonica-playing Christmas angel Harry Dean Stanton teams up with her son and daughter to instill the meaning of the season. She refuses to mail her daughter's letter to Santa or even to say "Merry Christmas." Things take a big turn for the worse when a local resident down on his luck robs a bank, accidently shooting Mary's husband in the process. Then, he steals her husband's car with the kids still in the back and drives off a bridge into the river. Pretty festive stuff! Luckily, Harry saves the kids and takes them to the North Pole to meet Santa. Santa gives Mary's daughter an old letter Mary once sent him, and when Mary sees it, her heart swells and she mails her daughter's letter. Suddenly the day starts over again and Mary buys her husband's life by giving his potential assassin some money. This pastiche of past Christmas movies steals bits and pieces from A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life, and then adds the one missing element-- Santa! Features Sarah Polley in her first role!

---

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

1983, Starring Raul Julia, Linda Griffiths, Maury Chaykin. Directed by Douglas Williams.

This Canadian movie was put together by Robert Lantos (under his RSL label usually reserved for steamier films) and WNET, a PBS affiliate in the US. Without exaggeration, it has the absolute worst production values of any Canuxploitation film. In Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, Fingal (a very embarrassed Raul Julia) gets in trouble for watching movies like Casablanca on the TV screen at work. He is sent to be reconditioned at Nirvana Village, a facility run by NoviCorp to transfer or "dopple" people's minds into the bodies of computer simulated animals. When Fingal arrives, he is ushered to a dentist's chair and doppled into the body of Daisy, a female baboon. Then we see lots of stock footage of a baboon running around while Raul Julia's voiceover proclaims things like "Ha ha! I am a wonderful baboon!" When it comes time to take Fingal's mind out of the doppling machine, NoviCorp cannot find his body, and his brain is placed into a simulated environment where Fingal starts meshing his artificial reality with the movie Casablanca. This gives Fingal the opportunity to visit "Rick's Bar," but for some unknown reason the characters are all played by Raul who give us extremely laboured impersonations of Bogie and Lorre. Once you realize that the futuristic transportation vehicle is actually the Toronto subway with "space" sound effects overdubbed and the "10 commandments of computer programming" appears, you will probably reconsider donating to public television ever again.

---

Parents

1989, Starring Randy Quaid, Mary Beth Hurt, Sandy Dennis, Bryan Madorsky, Juno Mills Cockell. Directed by Bob Balaban.

A stylish, dark comedy about Michael, a boy dealing with the adult world in the 1950s. This great cult film was directed by versatile actor Bob Balaban (Midnight Cowboy, Gosford Park). Michael is scared of his parents (Mary Beth Hurt and Randy Quaid) after accidently witnessing them having sex. He is so traumatized that he won't eat his dinner. Michael starts getting more suspicious when they start having mysterious "leftovers" every night and starts asking questions about where they came from. His mother replies "Why, from the fridge!" Michael again asks, "Well, what were they before they were leftovers—" "Why, leftovers-to-be!" With Sheila, a kindred soul, Michael sneaks into Toxico, his father's company and sees his dad in the morgue, cutting up a body. When the school psychiatrist comes over to show Michael that the bloody knife and meat hooks he saw in his basement were just imagined, she ends up in little tiny pieces on the barbecue. An enjoyable little comedy about cannibalism was shot mostly in Toronto.

---

Pinocchio's Birthday Party

1973, Starring Sean Sullivan, Nancy Belle Fuller, Danny McIlravey. Directed by Ron Merk.

A sequel to director Ron Merk's 1969  film Pinocchio, this slackly paced kiddie musical matinee was produced by TIFF Founder Dusty Cohl and Flick director Gil Taylor for K-Tel's short-lived movie distribution arm. in the film, Gepetto (Sean Sullivan, Deadly Harvest) is reminded by a Blue Fairy (Nancy Belle Fuller, The Hard Part Begins) that it's his wooden son's birthday. With the local kids, they plan a party in the woods to share stories and give Pinocchio (an impressive, life-sized marionnette) a pair of roller skates. An evil wizard  (Frank Vohs) tries to stop them. Unlike the "Tales For All" films, this early children's film is a stagey affair featuring colourful sets and costumes that more closely resembles the 1960s Barry Mahon productions and the K. Gordon Murray Mexican imports. The two "stories" are actually decent stop motion shorts from Germany's DEFA studio and are less treacly than the rest of the film, including the uniformly awful disco-styled songs, written by Cohl's teenage daughter Karen.

---

Seizure

(AKA Queen Of Evil) 1974, Starring Jonathan Frid, Martine Beswick, Christina Pickles, Herve Villechaize, Mary Woronov. Directed by Oliver Stone.

Oliver Stone's mostly unseen directing debut was made in Quebec and stars not only Mary Woronov, but Herve Villechaize! It sounds like pure lunacy, and it is. But not the fun kind of lunacy, more like your weird uncle who always forgets his prescription. The plot involves Jonathan Frid (of Dark Shadows fame) as a struggling writer named Edmund who keeps having the same weird dream in which a dwarf, a big mute executioner and a Vampira/Elvira clone (named "The Queen Of Evil") kill his family and a bunch of house guests. In totally unrelated news, Edmund's family is expecting a bunch of house guests. Things get weird when the three evil characters kill a few peripheral characters, then advance on the house where they hold everybody prisoner and force them to compete in games against each other. Seizure's main problem is that is flogs the "Is it real? Is it a dream?" ambiguity to death. What Stone obviously hadn't realized at the time was that a horror film audience is willing to suspend their disbelief when it comes to watching crazed ventriloquist dwarves and disfigured executioners. 

---

Welcome to Blood City

1977, Starring Jack Palance, Keir Dullea, Samantha Eggar, Barry Morse, Hollis McLaren, Chris Wiggins. Directed by Peter Sasdy.

This undeniably strange British/Canadian co-production ranks as one of our few modern westerns, and even then it's got a distinct sci-fi twist. Five strangers awaken in a barren countryside with no memory of who they are, other than an I.D. card in their pocket explaining that they are a convicted murderer. Sheriff Frendlander (Jack Palance) appears and corrals the new arrivals to Blood City, a strange western town/detention centre where they are forced to either become a slave, or try to take a place in society by killing an older resident—unarmed. Michael (Keir Dullea) manages to procure a shotgun and shoot a dentist, and tries to stop the auctioning off of fellow arrival Martine (Hollis McLaren) to a dispicable rancher. Instead of waiting until the final reel, cut-aways throughout the film reveal that it's all a virtual reality game orchaestrated by technicians Lyle (John Evans) and Katherine (Samantha Eggar), who are trying to identify potential assassins to be used in some not-to-distant future war. There are some interesting ideas tucked away in this offbeat, Westworld-inspired offering, but Welcome to Blood City suffers from a painfully low budget that streches its already far-fetched scenario to the breaking point. The VR lab scenes are disruptive and awkward, as Katherine manipulates the game to land Michael in bed, then ultimately writes him off after he expresses a preference for Martine. Palance has played this role dozens of times before and he's the clear highlight, backed up by a capable supporting cast of Canadian character actors, including Jack Creley, Henry Ramer, Calvin Butler and Al Bernardo. Never as interesting as its high-concept plot might indicate, Welcome to Blood City is worth a look for completists only.

---

Yeti: The Giant of the 20th Century

(AKA Yeti - il gigante del 20. secolo) 1977, Starring Antonella Interlenghi,  Mimmo Craig, John Stacy, Tony Kendall. Directed by Gianfranco Parolini.

Guest review by Dave Alexander

Unlike many co-productions shot in Canada, Yeti: The Giant of the 20th Century doesn’t hide its Great White North backdrop. If, fact this Italian-Canadian co-pro was neurotically determined to leave its giant footprints all over Ontario. Shots of the Toronto skyline taken from the CN Tower, rousing helicopter footage of Niagara Falls, mentions of Port Credit, Lake Ontario and Humber Street, Toronto’s City Hall on its poster and plenty of literal flag waving (presumably shot during Canada Day): ladies and gentlemen, these are your tax credits at work. More than a little influenced by the previous year’s King Kong remake, Yeti has a scientist enlisted by a businessman to embark on a “humane expedition up at Northern Canada,” where a giant Himalayan humanoid has been discovered frozen in ice that floated to the coast of Newfoundland. Thawed out (via flamethrower!), he looks like Colin Farrell crossed with Chewbacca, and after falling for the businessman’s granddaughter, played by Antonella Interlenghi (best known for her supporting role in Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead), he’s flown around in plexi-glass box, becoming a hit with the public. Too many camera flashes in his face, though, and soon the Yeti—whose size fluctuates wildly in the movie—is running amok in Toronto, smashing fake buildings, making this the closest thing out there to Canadian Kaiju. Throw in some commentary on the Bigfoot craze of the time (“Kiss Me, Yeti” T-shirts), a ludicrous Lassie-style subplot and some gut-busting dialogue (“Professor! The oscilloscope shows a heartbeat!”) and you’ve got must-see proof that spaghetti and maple syrup make one weird combo. (Track it down at cosmichex.com.)