Blue Murder (Charlie Wiener, 1985)

Opening with what has to be the greatest image in film history... (Whoa! Not so fast, buddy. "Greatest image in film history"? I don't think so.) You don't think the sight of a woman's bum encased in pink bikini bottoms is great? (Don't get me wrong, it's great and all, but greatest in film history? Let's not get crazy.) Okay, how 'bout this: Blue Murder opens with what has to be the greatest image to ever kick off an Emmeritus Productions, Inc. movie ever. (Now that I can live with. Wait, did you say, "Emmeritus Productions, Inc."?) Yeah, so? (The same Emmeritus Productions, Inc. who brought us The Tower?) I guess. (Oh, boy. I hope your brain is ready to go on a weird and wild trip, because if Blue Murder is anything like The Tower, you're about to experience something truly unique.) Well, just to let you know, I've already watched Blue Murder. In other words, I clearly survived the ordeal. On the other hand, I do feel somewhat woozy. (Did you hurt yourself while celebrating the fact that a Canadian flag appears in the corner of the Lieutenant Rossey's office?) No, it wasn't that. I just felt odd afterward. Though, I have to say, the Canadian flag's appearance in Lieutenant Rossey's office was cause for celebration. Just for record, I wasn't celebrating in a nationalistic way (remember kids: nationalism is a form of mental illness - just say no to jingoism), I was celebrating because I'm tired of watching Canadian movies, especially ones made during the 1970s and 1980s, that try to hide the fact they were filmed in Canada.

And judging by the Canadian flag in Lieutenant Rossey's office, the yellow(!) police cars, the old timey TTC streetcars, the Metro Theatre, the hoser accents, the fact they're black people in almost every scene (unlike Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, my Toronto has black people in it), this film takes place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada circa 1985 and never once tries to hide it.

Misguided civic pride aside, I think it's time to stop beating around the bush and get down to brass tax as to why this film caused me to feel so disoriented. See what I mean? The film must still be in my system, as it just caused me to use the expressions: "stop beating around the bush" and "get down to brass tax." You see, I would never use those asinine idioms under normal circumstances. But then again, there's nothing normal about people freely subject themselves to the films produced by Emmeritus Productions, Inc.

I'm probably the worst offender there is, as I have subjected myself to count 'em two films produced by Emmeritus Productions, Inc. If there's anyone out there who been subjected to three or more films produced by Emmeritus Productions, Inc. I can only imagine the kind of mental anguish you must go through on a daily basis.

I know, you're probably thinking to yourself: What is it about these particular films that induces such a visceral reaction from those who watch them? I mean, at the end of the day, they're still just movies. That's true, they're just movies. But there's something majorly off about them. And I don't mean off in terms of acting, directing or general storytelling. There's simply something wrong with them. Seriously wrong.

Take the opening scene, for example. No, not the opening shot, which, like I said, features a woman's ass in pink bikini bottoms (imagine the opening shot of Lost of Translation, minus the twee ennui and Japanese people used as props). I'm talking about the fact that the pornographers who are shot and killed by an assailant wielding a silenced pistol at a pool party had armed guards everywhere. I know, the porn industry, especially in the '70s and '80s had strong ties to the mob, but I don't think the armed guards were necessary. (Did it ever occur to you that these so-called "pornographers" dealt drugs on the side?) It's possible. But... you know what, I don't have to explain myself. There's just something off about this film.

Anyway, on top of the pool party pornographers, anyone involved with porn/sex industry is being targeted by a faceless killer (well, he has a face, it's just that we haven't seen it yet).

The gal in the football jersey sporting the number 66... (You mean, Rebecca Pederson?) Yeah, her. Well, that ain't her football jersey. It belongs to an investigative journalist named Blake, Dan Blake (Jamie Spears), and... (Why is that chick wearing Blake's football jersey?) It's common for women to wear a piece of clothing that belongs to the man they just had sex with. Now, where was I? Ah, yes, Blake gets a strange phone call from a man claiming that he will continue to "rid this world of filth" if his demands aren't met.

It would seem that the person bumping off pornographers, pimps and prostitutes wants Blake to write a newspaper column (Blake has a popular column in the local paper) demanding that all deviant behaviour in the city cease immediately or else more people will die.

Meanwhile, Blake's pal Lieutenant Rossey (Terry Logan) is down at the crime scene of the pool party massacre trying to figure out why the killer leaves cheap clown masks on all his victims.

Later that night at The Brunswick House, a man named Cleo (Bob Segarini) picks up Linda (Denise Duncan), a leggy prostitute in a yellow dress with two massive slits down the side (dig the white stockings, girl). Taking her to a motel, Cleo and Linda are about to have sex, when, all of a sudden, a man with a gun wearing a cheap clown mask bursts into the room. Instructing Cleo to tie Linda to the bed, the man in the cheap clown mask forcefully tells him to spread her legs. This does not bode well for Linda, as people in cheap clown masks don't just tie random strangers to beds for shits and giggles. Or maybe they do, what do I know? My point is, let's say goodbye to leggy Linda and her awesome yellow, slit-heavy dress-white stockings ensemble, 'cause we're not going to see anymore of her.

Which is a shame, because I would rather watch Linda writhe on a bed for an extended period of time, than watch Blake talk to a priest on a park bench for what seemed like forever. I don't what it is with this film, but the dialogue scenes are so fucking long. Though, the scene where Blake and Rossey drink Molson Export (from stubbies) at a bar while discussing such topics as: the "porno murders" and why do so many cops have mustaches, is pretty entertaining. Even more so when Blake and Rossey show up drunk at the next crime scene (for those keeping track, there have been thirteen porno murders committed so far).

However, the film goes back to its old habits when they take to Cleo back to police headquarters (52 Divison on Dundas St. West) for questioning, as this scene goes on way longer than it should have.

(Are you sure Blake and Rossey are just pals?) What are you trying to say? (I got two words for you: bubble bath.) Okay, sure, the scene where Blake sits on the toilet (with the lid down, mind you) while Rossey takes a bubble bath was kind of odd. But it was normal for heterosexual buddies to watch each other bathe in the mid-1980s. (Was it?) What are you asking me for? I was born in the late 1990s. But, yeah, it was totally normal.

It's funny you should mention bathing, because I think Rossey is a dirty cop. Why would I think that? It's simple, really. He takes money from Carlos Vespi (Henry Malabranche), a shady porn producer. The funny thing is, this didn't affect my opinion of Rossey. In fact, it made me like him even more. Oh, and you'll notice that when Vespi throws Rossey an envelope stuffed with cash, that it's filled with Canadian money. Yeah, baby, take that Canadian hush money, you dirty yet lovable cop, you.

The deeper Blake delves into this shady world, the bigger the conspiracy gets, as he runs into all kinds nefarious characters. (Like?) Well, there's Millwood (Andy Knott), a middle-aged gay guy who enjoys siting abroad the "Lady Charisma" with his two Indonesian boy-toys; the basement-dwelling Hermie (Tony Curtis Blondell), a sort of underworld know-it-all; Tyson (Victor Redlick) and Beverly (Ralph Magnus), two henchmen who work for Vespi who rough up Blake for information, Theresa (Stephanie Sulik), the daughter of a gangster's moll who is not fazed at all by improvised explosives that have been placed inside champagne buckets...

...Angelina Scarletti (Roz Michaels), the aforementioned gangster's moll who rocks diaphanous blouses like nobody's business (Roz, believe it or not, is the film's best actor); Kenneth Markham (John Woodhill), a local entrepreneur; and Peter Baillie (Peter Snell), a red herring for hire.

It should be noted that Blake's chat with Millwood spawns the "pinch the wrong boys bottom" recurring gag and features a pretty solid oral sex joke.

With no real porn (unless you count filming inside the Metro Theatre on Bloor St. as "porn" - I'm assuming they filmed inside the threatre) and no real violence to speak of (most of the deaths are bloodless affairs), I would hold off calling Blue Murder a giallo classic along the lines of The New York Ripper and Strip Nude For Your Killer, or even the superior Toronto-shot giallo/slasher American Nightmare, but for those interested in '80s hair and fashion, Toronto in the '80s, male bonding in the '80s, 1980s-style synth music, and, well, the '80s in general, you might want to give this film a look-see.

The Tower (Jim Makichuk, 1985)

A stark, and, some might say, subdued warning from the future, that actually takes place in the past, but, when one analyzes the many different variables that are currently at play, seems like it came from the past, the present, and the future simultaneously, The Tower is here to challenge your outdated views on science and technology. Your toaster transforms bread into toast by transferring energy from a wire that's connected to a wall socket. What happens exactly when you go beyond the wall socket is a bit of a mystery, well, at least it is to me (my expertise is limited to crocheting and industrial music). Either way, I'll be slathering my freshly toasted bread with my favourite fatty butter substitute in no time thanks to the energy coursing through those magic holes. Just for the record, I'm already starting to regret this whole toast metaphor that I somehow got roped into employing, as I despise the idea of people trying to imagine what I might look like ingesting carbohydrates while I'm writing about toast. As my Aunt Judy once told me: "There's nothing more undignified than stuffing food in your mouth in a public setting." Soldiering on. What if your toaster, or, for that matter, that gaudy-looking table lamp languishing in the corner of your room were all powered by the heat generated by your body, wouldn't that be awesome? People powering machines? That's ridiculous. People make machines, they don't power them, that's what fossil fuels are for. Of course, I can picture a person producing power for a bicycle (I'm not as close-minded as I look), but a table lamp? Get real. What if told you could power an entire office structure using this technique. Now you're talking crazy. It's funny that you should mention the word "crazy," because the great city of Hamilton, Ontario is the only place I can think of that's forward-thinking enough to allow a building to be run by a computer named LOLA.

Emanating from the fertile mind of writer-director Jim Makichuk, this Emmeritus Production, in association with CHCH-TV and Telefilm Canada, may look like just another in a long line of low budget thrillers about a bunch office drones struggling to stay alive in a multi-story building where an energy-starved computer wants to convert their body heat into power, but it's so much more than that. How much more, you ask? Even though I feel like I'm the only person living outside of Hungary who has seen this flick, I'm not sure if I'm qualified to answer such an awkwardly didactic question. I mean, I want to say that it's a cautionary tale about the dangers that could arise when a society becomes overly reliant on technology, but I don't really think a statement like that properly captures the unnerving disquietude that this film radiates on a semi-regular basis. What's a blithering idiot to do?

I'll tell you what I'm not going to do, I'm not gonna let the misshapen density of The Tower intimidate me. Sure, it's set in Hamilton, and, sure, the characters don't say the word "out" like you and I (it sounded like they were saying "oot" most of the time), but that's no reason to be afraid of the peculiar goings on at the Sandawn Building. Besides, LOLA can smell your fear, and you wouldn't want her to zap you while you're trying to adjust the whirlpool setting for the swimming pool/jacuzzi located inside the building's state-of-the-art aquatic centre, now do we? In other words, play it cool, man, LOLA sees all.

As you would expect, I'm literally clawing at my taint to explain how LOLA works. Nevertheless, before I do that, I'd like to introduce you Laura (Jennifer Cornish) and Brad (Paul Miklas), two petty criminals who plan on kidnapping Mr. Sandawn (George T. Cunningham), some sort of bigwig (his wig is so big they named the building after him). Why are you introducing us to these wankers? Well, you see, in the film's opening scene, just as Brad is about to call his partner in crime (the garbage bags hastily strewn about the phone booth he enters are meant to illustrate that he lives and/or hangs out in the shady, dilapidated part of town just outside of town), Laura can be seen standing in front of a full-length mirror. Yeah, so, lots of people look at themselves in the mirror before they leave their place of residence, it's called having self-respect. You didn't let me finish, señor dingus. As she's standing there, she reaches down and runs both her hands up the shapely, nylon-encased circumference of her right leg. Making sure there are no creases or crinkles present in the lavender, no-nonsense pantyhose lurking below and underneath her grey pencil skirt (the modest slits, one in the front and one in the back, allow the wearer to navigate an office environment with a greater sense of ease and comfort), the sight of Laura enjoying the sturdiness of her hosiery-adorned legs was an absolute joy.

When it comes to looking at stuff, I find that it usually takes me around ten, maybe fifteen minutes to realize the object I'm currently watching is actually deserving of a sizable chunk of my time. In the case of The Tower, it took only eight seconds for me to start nodding favourable nods of nod-worthy approval. The instant Jennifer Cornish (Friday the 13th, the TV series) began caressing the silky sheer surface of her own leg, I knew I was in for a cinematic treat. Of course, just because you enjoyed the workmanlike proficiency of Laura's impromptu leg stroke (which took approximately one and a half seconds for her to implement) does not necessarily mean that everything that follows it will be able to match its positive, leg-molesting temperament.

On the contrary, my chromosomal friend, after the stem-based high that comes as a result of Laura's corporeal tune up, we could find ourselves trapped inside a windowless stairwell with nothing but lousy acting and hackneyed dialogue to keep us company. Luckily, that doesn't happen, or does it? Are we given a taut cyber-thriller loaded with enough twists and turns to satisfy even the fussiest of viewers, or are we given a giant piece of shit? Who's to say?

Content in the knowledge that her corporate pantyhose are on straight, Laura heads down to the Sandawn Building to meet Brad and execute their devious plan (Laura actually works in the building, but like most young women living in the '80s, finds her arduous journey to the top to be slow and unfulfilling). As Laura and Brad are making their way over to the building, a couple of balding security experts can be seen discussing the disappearance of three people who work at the very building our two opportunists are headed. Apparently, a maintenance man, a typist, and a junior executive have all gone missing recently. However, this couldn't have been the workof Laura and Brad (they only kidnap rich people), there must be something else going on over at the Sandawn Building.

How does a person go missing in a building that's so heavily monitored by electronic sensors and video cameras? I'll get to that in a moment. What I really want to get into is the sequence where LOLA introduces us to the structures many different features. Explaining how it extracts heat from the people who work there, LOLA (voiced by Monique Verlaan) gives us a guided tour of the building. Filled with big haired secretaries, desks, copiers, coffee makers, computer terminals, and sporting a shopping centre (one with a hair salon to accommodate the big hair needs of the big haired secretaries) and a swimming pool, the building is essentially a self-contained universe.

The first sign of trouble comes when a big haired secretary exiting the pool in a black and red one-piece gets a bit of a shock when she attempts to alter the setting of the swimming pool's whirlpool jets. It would seem that LOLA went at a little overboard while trying to withdraw a small fraction of the 3345 BTU's she was putting out there. It's at this point we meet Mr. Watson (Alfred Topes), the self-described visionary who invented LOLA, and Joanna (Jackie Wray), a freshly permed secretary who is "weary of progress." Discussing how LOLA works, the two exchange a largish slab of expository dialogue, then Mr. Watson relinquishes his post, leaving LOLA in charge.

As Laura finally arrives at the Sandawn Building (Brad's waiting for her in the lobby), we also meet Jerry (George West), a slightly dorky security guard, Cindy (Zuzana Struss), his smoking hot girlfriend (she's the reason I called Jerry "slightly" dorky, as supposed to just plain dorky), Ben (Ray Paisley), a frustrated ad man in brown slacks, who apparently used to run his own agency, and Zach (Kenner Ames), one of Ben's co-workers (his nonexistent sideburns imbued his aura with the territorial markings of a frozen ghost).

After one of the balding security experts I alluded to earlier gets absorbed by LOLA, the group of people I just mentioned, including Mrs. Sandawn (Dorothy Clifton), the long suffering wife of Mr. Sandawn, find themselves at LOLA's mercy. In other words, stay away from all outlets, whirlpool setting switches, telephones, elevator buttons... you know what, just don't touch anything, especially if it's electrical.

Painfully inept acting, a glacial approach to pacing (the film clocks in at just over ninety minutes, but it felt like it was four hours long), shots that were repeated (the footage of Joanna and Mrs. Sandawn nervously walking down a flight of stairs is used three times), and amateurish special effects aside, the synthesizer score by David Chester and Julia Hidy was one the best I have ever heard. Every situation that arises in The Tower seemed to have its own synthesizer sound to accompany it. Let me give you a couple of examples. When it came time for Cindy to try out her new bright yellow bikini in the Sandawn swimming pool, the synths were lush and warm. Yet, whenever Laura would appear onscreen, the synths would take on a more eerie sounding tone.

An ambitious young go-getter in a double-slitted pencil skirt, Jennifer Cornish's nasty turn as Laura Martin, the gal who's so sick of working in "purchasing" that she's willing to allow a middle-aged man in a bad hairpiece to penetrate her with his ordinary penis, is the embodiment of the Canadian femme fatale. Unafraid to use her well-proportioned hips to get ahead, Laura toys with the men in her life with an effortless aplomb. And unlike her many of her peers in the femme fatal racket, she exudes a confidence that comes from a real place.

The complete opposite in terms of personality, but no less alluring when it came to tickling the fancies of those with swelling genitals, Joanna, a curly-haired single mother who's terrified of snakes, is the genuine heroine of the piece. It's true, some of the fellas try to fill that role from time to time, but I found Ben to be overly timid, Jerry was too bland, and Zach, well, his complete and total lack of sideburns hampered every attempt I made to evaluate the spiritual makeup of his character. No, I'd say Jackie Wray's performance was the most conventionally tolerable out of all the professional and nonprofessional actors who appear throughout The Tower.

It's kind of ironic that a film that is purportedly about an energy conscious computer vaporizing office workers also does an efficient job at sapping the strength of all those foolish enough to sit in front of its inexpensive glow. The scenes that feature Joanna and Ben bonding with one another in the bowels of the Sandawn Building were pretty tedious, but my favourite example of this energy depleting monotony has to be the scene where Mr. Watson makes a drink for Lois (Charlene Richards), an exotic dancer he met a club, as it just seems to go on forever (the sound of each ice cube hitting the bottom of the glass was agonizing). Speaking of exotic dancers, what's with the nerds in this film snagging overly attractive women? I mean, the pairing of Jerry, the slightly dorky security guard, with Cindy (who's one cup size away from starring in a Russ Meyer movie) was pretty far-fetched, but Mr. Watson and Lois?!? Talk about your odd couples. Of course, nowadays, nerds are all the rage, but back in the middle of the 1980s, nerds were strictly forbidden from dating hot chicks.

If you're interested in obsolete technology, Ontario's classic trillium logo (the door handles on the main doors of the Sandawn Building bear the province's iconic logo), pencil skirts (and other mid-80s office attire), Canadian culture, movies that feature killer computers, bikinis that employ iridescent fabric, big hair, old school computer animation, the city of Hamilton, drum machines, and synthesizers, then, by all means, check out The Tower. However, if you like your films to move at a brisk pace, boast competent acting, and to be filled with mind-blowing special effects, then I recommend you look elsewhere for your tower-based kicks.

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