sean4554

No one will mistake "Fugitive Girls" (the most common title for this film) for great cinema. The ultra-low budget, editing errors and continuity blunders alone guarantee that. But taken for what it is - a 1974 exploitation quickie, a drive-in nudie flick about female criminals - this movie really works. With the legendary Edward D. Wood Jr. contributing one of his finest screenplays and also acting in two different roles, the film won't disappear. "Fugitive Girls" is good entertainment!

The acting ranges from passable to good, the dialogue ranges from classic Woodian nonsense to decent, the music often works very well, and technically...well, this aspect doesn't usually manage to impress. Director Stephen Apostolof deserves credit, certainly, for the superb pacing and for bringing out the best in actresses Tallie Cochrane, the '70's adult superstar Rene Bond (now supposedly deceased) and the strangely overlooked but genuinely charismatic Margie Lanier.

Rarely do these no-budget grindhouse flicks deliver like this one does, and not because of overt sex or violence; "Fugitive Girls" succeeds on it's own quirky charm and likability. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a *good* movie, but a great one for it's genre. Despite all of this, "Fugitive Girls" rarely receives extended mention in Ed Wood discussions, probably because it's such an oddity. It isn't family friendly like, say, "Plan 9 From Outer Space", doesn't feature any of his most famous players from his earlier period (like Criswell in "Orgy Of The Dead"), and this film barely qualifies as softcore, much less hardcore (such as "Necromania"). You get the idea.

"Fugitive Girls" is top-shelf exploitation and recommended viewing for Wood cultists, Rene Bond fans, B-cinema specialists and grindhouse followers alike.

(10 stars for genre excellence, not general brilliance)

I'm not seeing why this sequel is so bad, and I revisited the original "Lost Boys" right before "The Tribe". I completely disagree that the vampires were sympathetic or less idiotic in the first film than in the second. The vampires were real ***holes in the first film and the same in the second, although the Shane character in "Tribe" did seem like he was at least trying to be 'decent' in some way.

The comedy in the first film was almost always poor and took me right out of the movie nearly every time, just as in the sequel. The funniest line between the two movies for me is in "Tribe" where the lead actress, right after learning she's a vampire, says a line with perfect timing and a great delivery. I laughed at least, which is more than can be said for nearly every other attempt at comedy in these two films (the dinner scene with Max in the original is well done and humorous, but not quite laugh out loud funny I don't think).

The first has generally better actors and a better look to it, and the second has nudity. Neither movie is anything all that spectacular; they are good pop-horror flicks, both entertain without pushing anything or being innovative. "The Lost Boys", 1 and/or 2, aren't by any stretch of the imagination great cinema or even great horror, they are just good vampire movies. In my opinion.

If you'd like to see a very artistic and different vampire film, try "Vampyr".

For what turned out to be his final project, Lucio Fulci opted for something different, a type of film that he really hadn't made before - a Rod Serling kind of tale of the journey of an American businessman in search of answers regarding his own existence. As this man drives through the Louisiana countryside he encounters a strange woman several times as well as a hearse with his name on the coffin. It doesn't take long before he realizes something is up and he frantically attempts to discover what it is.

John Savage is superb as the confused Melvin Devereux, likely the greatest performance of his career that I've seen. He doesn't overplay or underplay, and his reactions are seemingly entirely natural. The other actors and actresses in "Door To Silence" cannot compare to Savage but do very well nonetheless, while Fulci directs with a subtle fluidity and sense of reflective affection which had become increasingly rare for the master after his career really took off circa 1980.

This isn't a perfect film, there are a couple of slightly poor edits and several 'what the hell' parts (a motel stay for 15 minutes, a phone that rings before dialing, etc. - although these can be seen as being perfect for the unreality of Melvin's situation). The same camera problem that plagued "Demonia" also pops up in "Door To Silence" here and there, but not to the same extent nor to the film's detriment.

Sadly enough, I don't know if this final effort will ever be truly accepted. It's not generally of interest to Fulci's fans as it's not horror, and despite it's artistic cult appeal, Fulci is unknown to the art-house audience (if not outright vilified). It is really a shame that despite the high quality of "Door To Silence", Fulci's name was replaced with a fictional one for apparently some bizarre commercial reasons.

"Door To Silence" is a near-masterpiece and more than deserves to be seen, and now can be due to it's very welcome release on DVD by Severin. Check it out while you can, you won't be sorry.