Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace

I have to plead ignorance regarding Canuxploitation, "B" movies of Canada, unless Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter qualifies, and I imagine it does.

The Vampire Hunter team of director Lee Demarbre and writer Ian Driscoll return again with characters from their short Harry Knuckles and the Treasure of the Aztec Mummy.

Phil Caracas plays not only Harry, but his evil twin Fuzzy. Jeff Moffet is back as Santo, a Lucha libre character, who plays his partner.

As for exploitation, I saw nunsploitation, blaxploitation, cannibal exploitation, and exploitation of those who sat through this hoping that we would see much more of the lovely ladies shown throughout the film, especially Patricia Bellemore, who appeared in a virtual reality segment that resembled a ripoff of James Bond.

Alas, the film relied on violence and a little gore instead of any nudity. It was heavy on martial arts and massive amounts of slapstick. Some of it was funny, and a lot of groaners.

Harry Knuckles and the Treasure of the Aztec Mummy was 27 minutes long. They supposedly shortened this film to 120 minutes. An average of 74 minutes would have been perfect.

I'm going to preface this review by saying that I'm a big fan of Lee Demarbre's movies. I have two of them in my personal collection ("Harry Knuckles and the Treasure of the Aztec Mummy" and "Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter").

Having said that, I hated "Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace". I appreciate the fact that it was shot on about $40,000, however I felt that the story essentially had no plot, seemed to change direction continuously, and had many scenes which did NOTHING to advance anything other than my confusion at what was going on. I kept asking myself: "how is this relevant to the story?" and by the end it became quite apparent that much of it was irrelevant. This is unlike Demarbre's other movies which have a clear plot and progress towards the end with purpose in most scenes.

This added up to a movie with a LONG running time (almost two hours) that felt even longer. What this movie really needed was some good editing to tighten things up. If it was one hour long, to remove much of the irrelevant matter, then it might have been much better.

It did have its comedic moments, the ridiculous fight scenes are priceless as always and Demarbre does have a knack for the comedic absurd, but they weren't nearly enough to make up for such a direction less mess.

Finally, as another failed saving grace, like in Demarbre's other movies, the music was fantastic.

I cannot recommend this movie to anybody.

Okay, so a lot of people didn't like this movie because the plot (though existent) seemed to take a backseat as the film just displayed a string of incoherent and bizarre fight scenes.

However personally, I think this is the kind of film that though you may not admit to liking, you can easily enjoy it. It's the kind of movie which you'd pop in on a Saturday night when eating junk food with friends (drugs optional).

It's not going to win any awards. However it does what it's trying to do very well, and that is to make us laugh. You can't really judge a film fairly on what it's not attempting to be.

This is not, in my opinion, Lee's best film. It's not even all that close to the level of brilliance of Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, which not only worked even better as a popcorn movie, but actually had some very clever ideas and messages behind it as well if you cared to look for them.

This is more on par (although I can't decided whether it's directly above or below) the 30 minute short Harry Knuckles and the Treasure of the Aztec Mummy, a hectic mess of fun. And personally, I think Phil Caracas is Canada's Bruce Campbell. He does great things with camp.

Obviously you aren't going to find this at your average video store, however I'd say it's worth the $15 to buy it off amazon if you've enjoyed Lee's other work and/or you and your friends enjoy great b-movies.

Why are Canada and Australia so invested in exploring the periphery? My own theory is based on the existence of a few talented teachers in key places. For whatever reason, this is something you are unlikely to find elsewhere.

First, note that every production value that normally paves the way to connection is not present here. Some of the shortcuts are for cost reasons and obvious. But others are deliberate. Some have called this camp and others put this in the Ed Wood category. But my impression -- so far as the actual filming -- is that the people involved just wanted to have fun and could afford to. By itself that is hardly worth your attention.

But there is something else here. Two things actually and they seem unconnected. The most striking is the story. It is bizarre, complex, layered and unexpected. Extremely stylized, the narrative does not quote other movies as would normally be the case.

Instead, the hundreds of external references are to distinctly non-cinematic tropes. They are mixed in there helter-skelter, tied by the complex story that runs parallel streams. This is a literary experiment, illustrated by a couple of men and many women having a blast.

The other interesting thing is that everything is reduced to an image, and within that imperative, everything is reduced to a fight. Some fights are public, sexual, familial, exploratory and/or mistaken. Some are to me, completely incomprehensible, the film fighting with me.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

The film itself was an action adventure spy spoof-a-rama filmed in and around Ottawa for a rather shoe string budget of around 40000CAD over the course of two years. Noticeable when, the female lead, Cassie Nova (played by Nancy Riehle), has a scene that I imagine was filmed the summer after the rest of her scenes. Line is more or less: 'There's Cassie! Why did she change her hair?' 'There's no time for that now, let's go!' ;). Generally, this film was fun and goofy, with the plot revolving around the titular necklace, stolen from the Museum of Nature by a bionic Bigfoot (Josh Grace in a pretty awesome costume, I must say). Harry is asked by two researchers to find the necklace, but do they have ulterior motives? The film is overtaken by a horde of baddies that try and keep Harry from his goal, with punch-ups, sword fights and pilfering. He eventually, with the help of his trusted friend Santo, the world famous masked wrestler, finds out the truth behind the necklace, and Bigfoot and the mysterious figure that has been plaguing him with these attacks, his own evil twin!

It was an extremely fun film to watch, and I hope that they do well with it. I do have a couple of quibbles, but nothing heart stopping. For instance, I found that there were just maybe one too many fight scenes (the film is hours). The scene with Virtual Girl didn't seem to gel with rest of the film, perhaps it was part of a greater subplot that was cut and should have been left on the floor, but I'm not any worse off for seeing it ;). Also, the sound was a bit off. The soundtrack was overpowering the actors from time to time, and I missed some plot points as I couldn't understand what they were saying.

All in all a very good film for very little money!