Sharing the Blame: The Co-Productions [ A-M | N-Z ]

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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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Phobia

1980, Starring Paul Michael Glaser, Susan Hogan, John Colicos, David Bolt. Directed by John Huston.

While the tax-shelter era gave several up-and-coming filmmakers their start in the business, it also provided opportunities for the occasional old-time veteran, such as the legendary John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, Asphalt Jungle), who helmed 1980’s Phobia. In this Toronto-shot Canuck/U.S. co-production, Paul Michael Glaser (of TV’s Starsky and Hutch) plays a psychiatrist who employs a highly unorthodox and experimental treatment to cure his patients—a group of convicts—from agoraphobia, acrophobia, claustrophobia, a fear of men and snakes. Promised discharges from prison if they can overcome their fears, the panicky subjects instead are picked off one-by-one by a killer who dispatches them by way of what they fear most. An interesting premise, and in the hands of the Oscar-winning director it should have made for a fascinating thriller. Unfortunately, Huston seems to be either uninspired or disinterested in the material at hand, as Phobia is a largely insipid offering and arguably the director’s weakest effort. Huston fails to set up several of the film’s murder sequences with any degree of tension or suspense, and star Glaser, who is out of his element here, is sorely miscast, giving an ineffectual and wooden performance. The loophole-filled script (penned by no less than three writers including Jimmy Sangster of Hammer Horror fame) makes the identity of the killer all too obvious to viewers. In Phobia's defense, viewers are treated to a scenery-chewing John Colicos playing another cop (much like he did in The Changeling) and a nude scene by a young lovely Lisa Langlois as one of the patients. (James Burrell)

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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.

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Ripper: Letter From Hell

2001, Starring A.J. Cook, Bruce Payne, Ryan Northcott, Jurgen Prochnow, Claire Keim, Derek Hamilton, Danielle Evangelista. Directed by John Eyres.

Piggybacking on the success of the 2001 Jack the Ripper film From Hell, this collaboration between British-based Studio Eight Productions and Canadian straight-to-video specialists Prophecy Entertainment is a tame, Vancouver-shot serial killer flick. Molly (Cook), a tough but psychologically fragile girl whose friends were gruesomely murdered in an incident several years ago tries to put her past behind her as she concentrates on an assignment about Jack the Ripper for her criminology class. But when some of the students in the class start showing up dead, the others attempt to use what they’ve learned about profiling serial killers to figure out if the mysterious killer is trying to copycat the infamous Ripper slayings. And yet for all this lip service about the famous unsolved case, it’s really just a paper-thin gimmick—there are few tangible connections to the deaths here, which tend to follow a more predictable, twist-laden slasher formula. Although a death by snowplow near the end of Ripper is kind of inspired, most of the film’s potential B-movie thrills are weighed down by Eyres’ self-consciously flashy visuals and an overlong 120-minute runtime.

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Sea Beast

(AKA Troglodyte) 2008, Starring Corin Nemec, Miriam McDonald, Daniel Wisler, Camille Sullivan. Directed by Paul Ziller.

Well, dip me in fish guts and call me “chum”—Sea Beast is actually not a bad little creature feature. Shot on Canada’s west coast by Paul Ziller, who’s done all kinds of similar Sci-Fi Channel/straight-to-DVD movies, it’s got just enough ambition and originality. Corin Nemec, the guy who played Parker Lewis in Parker Lewis Can’t Lose (ha!), stars as a fisherman trying to save his town from an amphibious sea-monster and its babies. Following the Jaws template, even when his boat crew and other townies start dying, no one believes him until it’s too late. Meanwhile, his daughter (Degrassi: The Next Generation’s Miriam McDonald), sneaks off to an island with her boyfriend, where they creature’s offspring have followed them. The monsters are a mix of the creatures from The Host and The Burrowers, with the cloaking powers of a Predator, the mother instincts of a Ridley Scott Alien and the vision of the things in Pitch Black. They pop up on land, spit paralyzing goo on their victims and rope them into their toothy maws with their long tongues. Although they’re shown way too early and too often--especially for mainly CGI creations—there are some good gore gags. It’s hard not to like a film in which a monster bites off someone’s head and the torso spurts blood all over the place. Dialog and performances are about what you’d expect (uneven), but the coastal British Columbia setting lends a nice, seldom seen backdrop. Stay outta the water, eh? (Dave Alexander)

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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. 

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Teenage Space Vampires

1999, Starring Robin Dunne, Mac Fyfe, James Kee, Lindy Booth, Jesse Nilsson, Richard Clarkin. Directed by Martin Wood (Full Moon Entertainment).

Another junky Romanian/Canadian co-production (see Aliens in the Wild Wild West, this "Pulsepounder" indiscriminately combines alien and vampire mythologies just as it mixes (dubbed) Romanian and Canadian actors. The plot, aimed at teen viewers, involves around a pair of teens that uncover an alien conspiracy to replace the locals with Dracula clones. It all ties into a nearby diamond mind that has been the source of paranormal activity for years, as helpfully revealed by the kid's history teacher. Before long, the fate of the world hangs in the balance as the film's reluctant heroes must fight off their school's vampire-fied soccer team and save the day. Now, let's get this straight—Teenage Space Vampires isn't a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, with embarrassing alien makeup, confusing plotting and terrible acting (even Lindy Booth, who would go on to much more high profile work is pretty bad here). Still, it's often better than its pulpy title suggests, taking a lighthearted approach to the outlandish material and successfully tailoring the action for the PG crowd.

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Teen Knight

1998, Starring Kris Lemche, Caterina Scorsone, Benjamin Plener, Paul Soles. Directed by Phil Comeau (Full Moon Entertainment).

Toss together one part Westworld with one part Dragonslayer, add a sprinkle of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and fly your cast and crew to Romania, and you'll have another tedious Romanian/Canadian co-pro timewaster. This one's about a floppy-haired teen (Lemche) who finds the lucky soda bottle cap that entitles him to a fantasy adventure weekend at a medieval theme park. Along with the other winners, he's prepared to have a great time saving damsels and pretending to fight dragons in the robot-populated castle, but things take a turn for the odd when a ominous storm somehow transports them all back to the real 14th century. They find themselves an era of dragons and magic, rendered in equally poor CGI, where they must battle an evil lord (Marc Robinson) and try to find their way back home. Featuring some of the most laughable swordfighting you've ever seen on screen, this thoroughly unoriginal adventure is plagued by the same problems as the rest of its ilk: embarrassing production values and maddeningly stupid plot twists.

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Teen Sorcery

1999, Starring A.J. Cook, Craig Olejnik, Lexa Doig, Aimée Castle. Directed by Victoria Muspratt (Full Moon Entertainment).

Yet another poorly budgeted Romanian/Canadian collaboration, Teen Sorcery centres around a new girl in town, Dawn (A.J. Cook), who discovers that head cheerleader Mercedes (Lexa Doig) is like totally a witch. She even has half of a magic amulet that allows her to get her way with teachers and cute boys, plus be like, a complete bitch, okay? After witnessing Mercedes' incredible powers, such as shrinking clothes in a gym locker and making cafeteria food disappear, Dawn heads to the library with new socially-challenged pals Fran (Aimee Castle), Flo (Nadia Litz), and Mary (token Romanian Ioana Cristescu), where the crusty librarian helps them retrieve the other half of the amulet. They promptly lose it to Mercedes, necessitating a trip back in time to the 11th century where the teen sorceress (who is like totally mean) turns into a CGI dragon that would make Harry Potter stifle a laugh. Featuring not only the same locations as Teenage Space Vampires and Teen Knight but also a similar lack of purpose, Teen Sorcery is a confusing and thoroughly juvenile adventure for undiscriminating tweens.

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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 orchestrated 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 stretches 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.

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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.

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.) (Dave Alexander)

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