IF YOU GO DOWN THE WOODS TODAY – A VISIT FROM VEGETABLE MAN!

 

Man meets Vegetable Man! A photo-still from If You Go Down The Woods Today (© Richard Svensson/The Lone Animator – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

I have been friends with Swedish fantasy artist and independent film-maker Richard Svensson for many years, and his diverse, prodigious output of amazing work has always delighted and mesmerized me – but never more so than now, courtesy of his brand-new short movie, If You Go Down The Woods Today. For it dramatizes one of the weirdest alien encounters ever reported in the annals of ufology, and which has long fascinated me.

The encounter in question, which took place during 1968 in West Virginia, USA, featured a truly unique entity that for reasons which will soon become obvious was subsequently dubbed Vegetable Man.

So, to put Richard's movie in context, here is what I wrote about the Vegetable Man incident quite a while ago in a published magazine article of mine documenting my personal choice of the 10 strangest alien entities ever reported, which I later uploaded onto my ShukerNature blog (and where you can read the full article here):

Never trust anyone whose body resembles the green, slender stalk of a plant, and who sucks out your blood through three 7-in-long fingers with needle-like tips and suction cups – that's what I always say! And Jennings Frederick would certainly agree, because he allegedly met just such a being while hunting one day in a West Virginia woodland during July 1968.

According to American paranormal researcher Brad Steiger, Frederick suddenly became aware of what he later described as "…a high-pitched jabbering, much like that of a recording running at exaggerated speed", yet which he could somehow understand, and which was informing him that it came in peace but needed medical assistance.

At the same moment, Frederick saw beside him the extraordinary quasi-botanical entity described above, with a semi-human face, long ears, yellow slanted eyes, and two stick-like arms. Before he had time to be surprised, however, he felt a pricking sensation in one of his hands, as if it had become entangled in some thorns - but when he looked, he discovered to his horror that the entity was draining blood from it, through its own fingers. Moreover, its eyes suddenly changed colour, becoming bright red and yielding a rotating, hypnotic effect that rendered its blood-sucking operation painless.

A minute later, Frederick's enforced transfusion was over, and his mesmerising recipient fled, bounding away rapidly up a hill, each leap covering a distance exceeding 25 ft. Unfortunately for Frederick, however, once the entity had disappeared, the pain in his hand reappeared. And as he set off back home, he heard a strange humming sound, which he believed to be the entity's craft, transporting it back from whence it had come.

Frederick was so disturbed by his grotesque experience that he did not speak about it for several months. Some researchers have speculated that it may be a hoax, but those who have spoken to him seemed convinced that his account, albeit highly unusual, is genuine.

Now, this surreal encounter is recreated with superb visual éclat in just 3.24 minutes –courtesy of Richard's beautifully-crafted live-action/animation movie short, If You Go Down The Woods Today. His evocation of Vegetable Man is a sinister study in macabre, preternatural potency, vibrant with ambivalent pathos and antipathy. Was the creature truly ailing, in need of medical assistance as it claimed to be, or was all of that merely a devious, artful pretence, a cunning ploy to deftly deflect away from this eeriest of alien entities' true intent – its vampirish desire to extract a sizeable sample of blood from its petrified human victim?

As Vegetable Man departs our world in its airborne craft, satisfied and satiated with human blood, it leaves the viewer with an almost palpable feeling of horror, of shock, that such an outlandish, phantasmagorical occurrence could ever take place. And indeed, we have only the word of sole eyewitness (and unwilling blood donor?) Jennings Frederick to vouch that it did. Then again, they do say that fact is often stranger than fiction, which if this sighting is indeed true, would certainly be the case here.

But don't take my word for it. A few days ago, Richard uploaded his mesmerizing mini-movie on YouTube, where you can view it here on his bluworm/The Lone Animator channel, together with many other fascinating films by him too (click here to access a full set of directly clickable thumbnails of all of his movies' videos presently viewable on YouTube).

So be sure to check out If You Go Down The Woods Today, and experience for yourself Richard's engrossing rendition of this thrilling but decidedly chilling incident.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

An artistic interpretation of Vegetable Man's possible appearance (© Tim Morris)

 

 

NAPOLEON AND SAMANTHA

 

The official UK VHS video release of Napoleon and Samantha (© Bernard McEveety/Walt Disney Productions/Buena Vista Distribution – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

In recent times, I've succeeded in tracking down a fair few movies that I'd fondly remembered from childhood but whose titles I could no longer recall. On 1 September 2021, I added another one to my tally of rediscoveries, finally identifying after a mere 49 years a mystifying Disney film from my distant past.

Back in the 1960s and early 1970s (possibly later too), whenever as a child I went to the cinema with one of my parents to watch a classic Disney animated movie, it was always part of a double-bill (great value for money!), being partnered with one of Disney's lesser-known live-action movies.

On one such occasion, I remember that the live-action movie in question was about a young boy running away into the wilds of North America with a pet lion (as you do!), together with his only friend, a little girl, seeking a young man aged in his 20s who was a family friend, wore denim, rode a motorbike, and would look after them all, which he did when they eventually found him.

Unfortunately, that sparse little précis was the sum total of my memories concerning this movie, and was all that I had to call upon, therefore, when trying to identify it in later years – except, however, for one additional, intriguing little fact about it that I'd read somewhere way back then.

The little fact in question was that the actor who played the young man was the son of a very famous Hollywood actor and had recently begun following his famous father into the acting profession – but instead of helping me identify the movie, this fact actually led me astray. That was because I had it in my mind that the young actor was Patrick Wayne, son of John Wayne, because I knew that Patrick had indeed starred in some Disney movies from that same time period. But after reading up on them, I realized that none of their plots matched my memories of the film that I'd seen as a child. Consequently, I remained resolutely puzzled down through the decades, until just over a month ago, when this mystifying movie came to mind yet again.

So, just like I'd done several times in the past, though always without success, I entered some relevant words into Google Image's search engine to see if anything that looked familiar came up – and this time, lo and behold, something did. Up popped some photographic stills of a young boy and girl with a lion, and the same young boy with a young man dressed in denim (one of these latter photos is included at the end of this present blog article), as well as some of the man riding a motorbike, plus the all-important information identifying which film these photo stills were from!

At last, I'd tracked down and identified the elusive film – it was Napoleon and Samantha, a Disney movie from 1972, directed by Bernard McEveety. And I'd been correct in remembering that the young man was the son of a much more famous actor – the only problem was, I'd misremembered who the famous father was!

It wasn't John Wayne after all. Instead, it was Kirk Douglas, and his son who was just starting out in acting was none other than Michael Douglas, as the photos from Napoleon and Samantha called up by Google unequivocally confirmed. Another movie mystery duly solved!

Since then I've been looking out now for a decently-priced DVD or VHS video of Napoleon and Samantha, as it would be nice – and nostalgic – to watch it again and add it to my Disney collection, and a few days ago I finally succeeded in purchasing its official DVD. So I now look forward to revisiting this tenaciously recalled movie from my youth.

Incidentally, in case you haven't seen this movie and are wondering about the names in its title, Napoleon is the boy (played by Johnny Whitaker), and Samantha is the girl (played by a young Jodie Foster no less, in her big-screen debut). The lion's name in the movie is Major, and Michael Douglas's character is the impressively-named Daniel Arlington Williams III (or simply Danny, as the children called him).

As for director Bernard McEveety, he went on to carve out a major name for himself in TV, directing and/or producing such classic 70s and 80s shows as Knight Rider, The Fall Guy, Petrocelli, The Incredible Hulk, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Charlie's Angels, with earlier, pre-Napoleon and Samantha credits for the likes of Rawhide, Bonanza, The Virginian, and various other Western-themed shows.

Another interesting little snippet, especially for animation fans and historians is that although Napoleon and Samantha is a live-action movie, its executive producers were none other than William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who were famous for their animation studio and its prodigious output of TV cartoon shows. These included such perennial favourites as Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Scooby Doo, Wacky Races, Pixie and Dixie, Secret Squirrel, Atom Ant, and, further back in time, Tom and Jerry for the big screen.

If you'd like a preview of Napoleon and Samantha, be sure to click here to view an exciting scene from it on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Danny (Michael Douglas) and Napoleon (Johnny Whittaker), in a scene from Napoleon and Samantha (© Bernard McEveety/Walt Disney Productions/Buena Vista Distribution – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

VIVARIUM

 

The official UK DVD of Vivarium (© Lorcan Finnegan/XYZ Films/Fantastic Films/Frakas Productions/PingPong Film/VOO/BeTV/Saban Films/Vertigo Releasing – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Imagine a sci fi/horror movie based upon the classic cuckoo-themed concept of brood parasitism, in which an egg laid by a cuckoo in the nest of a pair of unsuspecting warblers or some other little songbird species hatches into a young cuckoo that is much larger than the birds' own fledglings, which it swiftly evicts by pushing them out of the nest, and thereafter demands loudly and persistently from its beleaguered foster parents constant attention and constant food until it has matured and flies away. That is the fascinating premise of Vivarium, a decidedly dark, sometimes chilling, but thoroughly engrossing film whose DVD I watched on 31 August 2021.

However, in this cleverly-structured movie, which was directed by Lorcan Finnegan, based upon a short story co-written by him, and released by Vertigo in 2019, the cuckoo's unwitting foster parents are a young couple of our very own species, Homo sapiens – namely, primary school teacher Gemma (played by Imogen Poots) and her handyman boyfriend Tom (Jesse Eisenberg). They are tricked into rearing something that looks outwardly human but whose rapid growth, bizarre mimicking behaviour, deafening shrieks when demanding food or attention, and unnatural lack of normal human emotions swiftly reveal it to something fundamentally alien – in every sense.

Leading up to this unnerving scenario is the sinister luring of unsuspecting Gemma and Tom by a decidedly creepy estate agent called Martin (a frighteningly memorable performance in every sense by Jonathan Aris as one of the aliens in human-facsimile form) into what looks ostensibly like a new housing estate, named Yonder, only for them to discover too late, and to their total horror, that Yonder is actually an immense inescapable labyrinth of identical houses. Moreover, these are all seemingly empty, except for the one that they now find themselves abandoned in by Martin, who surreptitiously disappears while they are looking around it.

It is not long before Gemma and Tom receive on their doorstep the first of what will prove to be a regular series of parcels (although they never succeed in glimpsing who or what is leaving them). These contain supplies of familiar-looking yet totally tasteless food and drink. Their physical appearance has been accurately copied from real human food and drink by the aliens but without their having any concept of how they should taste, nor of the nutrients that they should contain. This explains why Gemma and Tom become progressively weaker as the days, weeks, and months of their trapped existence drag remorselessly by.

They also receive via the same unseen agency a box containing a human-looking baby but which swiftly grows into an exceedingly weird 'boy' (Senan Jennings, in a very fine, skin-crawling performance redolent of the unearthly children in the classic 1960 sci fi movie Village of the Damned, based upon John Wyndham's famous novel The Midwich Cuckoos, also inspired by brood parasitism). Moreover, according to a message on its box, if Gemma and Tom rear it, they will be 'released' from what is evidently a meticulously manicured yet wholly fabricated, unending vista of alien vivaria, or human death cells in all but name – a grim fact that they ultimately become resigned to amid the malaise and madness that gradually consumes them after realising to their horror what their alien captors mean by the word 'release'. Welcome to the stark, surreal, psychological nightmare that is Vivarium.

Yes indeed – be warned, you should not expect any lightness to break through either the fake clouds in the fake sky over Yonder or the foreboding, all-pervading emotional darkness of this disturbing, macabre movie's claustrophobic substance. Nor will any explanation be forthcoming regarding the origin or precise nature of the alien cuckoos utilising captured humans to rear their offspring (only once is a faint clue as to their true physical form revealed, in a short but shocking scene that is quite terrifying in spite of its brevity).

All that you need to know, and keep in mind throughout it, and which is emphatically signposted at this movie's beginning via a foreshadowing scene featuring the original feathered variety of cuckoo at work, is that Nature can sometimes be cruel, very cruel, and ruthlessly single-minded – especially when a species' survival is at stake...

Click here to pay a visit to Vivarium by way of an official trailer for it on YouTube, and give thanks that unlike poor Gemma and Tom, you will be able to exit it without being 'released'…

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

FROM FALLING STARS TO UNDERSEA ALIENS - FLEXING A FURTHER SIX-PACK OF MINI-REVIEWS

 

The original soundtrack for The Congress, depicting a scene from this movie's surrealistic animated section (© Ari Folman/Pandora Filmproduktion/Drafthouse Films – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only

As noted elsewhere on Shuker In MovieLand, I've been watching a fair few movies lately (especially during the various Covid-incited lockdowns experienced spasmodically here in England since March 2020 to July 2021) – far too many, in truth, to be able to devote full-length reviews to all or even most of them. However, certain ones definitely deserve at least a mention by way of a mini-review, so here is a further six-pack of them, covering another diverse selection, and which I hope will do those movies justice, albeit of an abbreviated kind.

 

 

Official UK DVD of Stardust (© Matthew Vaughn/Marv Films/Ingenious Film Partners/Paramount Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

STARDUST

It's only taken me nine and a half years (I know, because its original shop receipt, dated 15 January 2012, was still inside its box), but on 11 July 2021 I finally watched my DVD of the fantasy movie Stardust. Directed, co-produced, and co-written by Matthew Vaughn, based upon fantasy author Neil Gaiman's eponymous 1999 novel, and released by Paramount Pictures in 2007, it stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert de Niro, Claire Danes, Sienna Miller, Ricky Gervais, and young Keanu Reeves-lookalike Charlie Cox among many others.

It's all about a young man named Tristan (Cox) who enters the magical kingdom of Stormhold in search of a fallen star to give to the feckless young woman Victoria (Miller) he loves in the hope that he will win her love in return, only to discover that the star is also a young woman (Danes), named Yvaine, whose heart is desired by an evil trio of witch sisters led by the aptly-named Lamia (Pfeiffer) as well as a devious, murderous prince. Also becoming involved in the proceedings are the secretive captain (de Niro) of a skyborne pirate ship who is not exactly what he is expected to be, and an insufferably garrulous fence (Gervais) from the criminal fraternity who receives a deliciously apt punishment from Lamia. Tangled times ahead!

Stardust is a thoroughly charming, engaging movie, very reminiscent in style of The Princess Bride, which can only be a good thing. So I'm glad to have seen it at long last – and it even features a unicorn! My cinematic cup runneth over, forsooth! Click here  to view a mind-blowing official Stardust trailer on YouTube!

 

 

Publicity poster for The Congress (© Ari Folman/Pandora Filmproduktion/Drafthouse Films – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE CONGRESS

On 10 July 2021, I watched The Congress, a 2013 live-action/animated hybrid movie directed by Ari Folman and starring American actress Robin Wright as a fictionalised version of herself.

The first half of this movie, which is live-action, does at least make sense, in which Robin signs a contract permitting a major film studio to create a computerised version of herself to act in all future movies while she retires with a hefty pay-off cheque to care for her ailing son. The second half, in which she enters an animated version of reality in order to attend a film congress but where everything is hallucinatory and illusory, makes little if any lasting sense at all, very trippy visually, but also very disjointed and at times totally unintelligible. Ralph Bakshi did this much more effectively many years earlier with Cool World, starring Brad Pitt.

The Congress is an unusual, undeniably distinctive movie, and once the animated half of the movie began it held my attention because of its fantastic, fascinating visuals, but plot-wise it was a mess. Overall, therefore, it is disappointing, at least in my opinion, but if you click here, you can watch an official trailer for it on YouTube and make up your own mind.

 

 

Publicity poster for The Abominable Dr Phibes (© Robert Fuest/American International Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES

My interest in the more unusual, little-known fantasy/sci-fi movies out there means that sometimes I've never got around to watching certain cult or classic examples from these film genres, but I am trying to make amends, one movie at a time. On 3 November 2020, for instance, I finally watched for the very first time the much-lauded UK comedy-horror movie The Abominable Dr Phibes, famously starring Vincent Price in the starring role.

Directed by Robert Guest, and released in 1971, its plot concerns the deadly revenge inspired by the 12 biblical plagues of Egypt that concert organist and theologian Dr Anton Phibes mercilessly exacts upon those surgeons and associated persons whom he blames for the death upon the operating theatre table of his beloved wife Victoria, following a terrible car crash that had left her severely injured and him hideously disfigured, unable to speak, and forced to wear a mask in order to conceal his fleshless skull-like face. Notwithstanding the horrific means by which Phibes's victims respectively meet their maker, this is a very tongue-in-cheek movie thanks as ever to Price's famously droll delivery, and is visually sumptuous – especially the scenes inside the bad doctor's mansion.

However, by the very nature of his character no longer possessing a recognisable face, only a virtually immobile mask, viewers are robbed of much of Price's characteristic and priceless facial expressions and mannerisms, especially when speaking (because his mask's lips do not move, his voice emerging from a tube in his neck instead), which normally so greatly enhance his films and augment his singularly distinctive, expressive voice.

Nevertheless, The Abominable Dr Phibes is still a very good if gory film, as silkily showcased with grand guignol glee in the official trailer that can be accessed here on YouTube.  I now need to watch its 1972 sequel, Dr Phibes Rises Again; and also Theatre of Blood, released in 1973, which is another Vincent Price horror movie featuring a vengeful lead character taking revenge upon his enemies in a melodramatically murderous manner. Incidentally, I love the black-comedy tagline used in posters and other publicity material for The Abominable Dr Phibes (being a merciless parody of the infamously slushy one used just a year earlier for the 1970 Ryan O'Neal/Ali MacGraw weepie Love Story): Love means never having to say you're ugly!

 

 

The full cover from the official USA DVD of Green Ice (© Ernest Day/ITC Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

GREEN ICE

30-odd years after taping it off the TV, on 14 August 2021 I finally got round to viewing the 1981 heist-themed movie Green Ice. Directed by Ernest Day, it stars Ryan O'Neal as American chancer Joseph Wiley who, as a result of giving attractive young woman Lilian (Anne Archer) a lift in his car while driving through Mexico, gets drawn into an exceedingly dangerous racket smuggling precious emeralds – the green ice of this movie's title – out of Colombia. Omar Sharif plays their inestimably wealthy gemmological nemesis Meno Argenti.

Green Ice is a somewhat disjointed movie inasmuch as it never seems sure about whether it is a comedy thriller or simply a thriller thriller – sadly, however, what I am sure about is that it is far from thrilling. Indeed, by the time that the climax to this movie's interminably drawn-out plot finally arrived, I had already lost all interest in discovering how it played out, though having spent more than 90 minutes waiting for it to arrive, I did watch it, if only so as not to have wasted all of that invested time.

But perhaps you may find it more captivating – so click here to watch its James Bondesque opening titles or here to watch the entire movie for free (albeit in less than ideal viewing quality) on YouTube, and see if it's your kind of movie.

 

 

Publicity poster for Aeon Flux (© Karyn Kusama/MTV Films/Lakeshore Entertainment/Valhalla Motion Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

AEON FLUX

My early evening movie watching on 26 May 2021 was the live-action film version of the cartoon franchise Aeon Flux. Directed by Karyn Kusama, and released by Valhalla Motion Pictures in 2005, it stars Charlize Theron in the title role as a warrior-type fighter trying to discover just what is truly happening in her hyper-secretive post-pandemic world in which only 1% of the former human population survived the pandemic 400 years ago, and they did only as a result of a cure finally being created. Everyone now lives inside an intensely-monitored walled city, the last city left on Earth, where people keep disappearing and everyone is suffering more and more with strange memories of things they've never done and people they've never met – or have they?

Moreover, the pandemic cure had a major side-effect ruthlessly concealed from public knowledge by the city's rulers, one of whom created the cure – it rendered everyone infertile. Consequently, women have been covertly implanted with embryos produced clandestinely by cloning in order to keep the population going. But what if all of this subterfuge should one day become public knowledge? Let's just say that there is a notable faction out there intent upon that radical possibility never happening, plus an opposing rebel faction fighting for liberty but without realising just what is really happening, not to mention some seriously serious fraternal rivalry.

In short, it's all very cloak-and-daggerish, augmented by some exquisitely beautiful CGI effects. This movie version of Aeon Flux is basically a sci fi comic rendered as live-action, but it is certainly no less spectacular - great fun! So be sure to check out an official trailer for this movie here on YouTube and view for yourself a selection of the visual dramas and delights that it holds in store.

 

 

The full cover of the official UK VHS video release for the Special Edition of The Abyss (© James Cameron/20^th Century Fox – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

THE ABYSS (Special Edition)

On 25 May 2021, I watched the Special Edition of the sci fi movie The Abyss, directed and also written by James Cameron, and released by 20th Century Fox in 1989, which contains more than 20 minutes of footage deleted from the cinema-release version.

This movie's storyline centres initially upon the desperate attempts of a US SEALS team, utilizing a requisitioned underwater drilling platform and its reluctantly-assisting crew, to retrieve a sunken US submarine from the sea bottom before approaching Soviet ships can seize it, but the team is severely hampered in their efforts by a hurricane. Moreover, this is not all that they face, when a hitherto-unsuspected but immensely-advanced alien civilization inhabiting the ocean depths makes contact with them.

A big chunk of the Special Edition's extra footage shows the drilling platform's foreman, Bud (played by Ed Harris), in the luminescent ocean-bottom city of the undersea aliens, where they are showing him film footage of our species' heinous reputation for wars, killing one another, atomic bombs, etc. This is followed by their own species sending a chilling message to ours on the surface in the form of mega-tsunamis rising up out of the oceans all over the world, poised to flood the land and sweep everything away. But instead of doing so, they fall back harmlessly into the oceans again. It was a warning sent by the aliens, a demonstration of what they could do if our species persists in its recklessness and wickedness.

Cameron should definitely have left this footage in the cinematic release of The Abyss, because it is just as valid today, more than 30 years later, as it was back then, and gives the movie additional purpose and gravitas. The Special Edition also contains more close-up footage of the aliens themselves, resembling angelic gelatinous beings with opalescent manta-like wings, which is absolutely beautiful and again totally deserving of inclusion in the cinema-release version. At least, however, all of this additional material was retained and incorporated in this aptly-named Special Edition – for it is indeed special, and should certainly be watched by everyone who enjoyed the original, edited release. Click here to view an official trailer for The Abyss on YouTube, and here to view a spectacular, revelatory excerpt from the additional material contained in the Special Edition.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Close-up of one of the undersea aliens from The Abyss (© James Cameron/20^th Century Fox – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)