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The Returning
1991, DVD
Johnny's comments:
Two 1990 movies in
today's update, one Australian movie and a New
Zealand/Australia co-production made in New Zealand.
The Returning is a horror
movie where reluctant lawyer Alan Steadman (Phillip
Gordon) learns of the death of his grandfather and
then in the will is given all of his estate, much to
the chagrin of this father (John Ewart), who's looking
for any excuse to get it. After a drive to the
country, he comes across an abandoned house and Alan
decides then and there to give it all his
grandfather's money to charity and quit being a lawyer
just as his friend/on-off lover Jessica (Alison
Routledge) is made partner. Alan moves into the house
despite a rather cold welcome from the local priest
(Max Cullen) and a truck almost running him over and
on his first night there he has sex with a ghostly
woman. He starts to ask around about the house and
local George (Jim Moriarty) helps a little while the
priest is also helpful in a very unhelpful way. One
day when he asks Jessica to stay over at the house,
Alan stops dead in the dam where he was swimming only
for Jessica to save him. Then that night, he has sex
with the ghost while in bed with Jessica and then when
she 'wakes' him, he runs off naked from the house and
goes missing. Jessica calls George to help find him
and they eventually find him up a tree near the dam in
a stupor. His father and confidantes look for a way to
get the estate back from Alan and find one through his
catatonic mother and then they find out about his
behaviour. Jessica catches Alan again having sex with
the ghost and confronts him but he won't tell her who
she is. Alan's behaviour is now bordering on unhinged
but he finds the ghostly woman's diary in a branch up
the tree he was found in and finds out the truth about
her. All comes to head on the 100th anniversary of her
death and not many will be spared.
A very New Zealand look at the haunted house genre,
very depressing and moody although not at all scary
but it has something a little different with the ghost
sex angle which is a strange fit for a deadly serious
horror movie. Not a lot happens for a long time and
when it does, it comes quickly with a fairly
devastating ending but it takes forever to get there
as the movie meanders in the middle third with
repetition and a rather dodgy priest character who
bumbles around stringing Alan along. There's other odd
things like the relationship between Alan and Jessica
which is ill-defined, they seem to be very casual but
then she has a baby who seems to be fatherless with no
suggestion that Alan's the father and no interest in
being the baby's father. I don't know what to make of
this movie; it's hard to tell why Alan is under the
spell of the house and the ghost who seduces him. The
ending is very sudden and depressing, it's strange
seeing it happen because you're so used to seeing
American movies go in an opposite direction. I think
there's something here, I just don't know what...
The Returning is capped from a
Spanish DVD so the quality is usual DVD quality. Sadly
no nudity from Alison Routledge with the sexy ghost
being played by Jenny Ryken, who apparently only ever
appeared in this movie.
Jenny
Ryken film clip (samples below)
Harbour Beat
1990, VHS
Johnny's comments:
The answer to the trivia
question, "What was Scottish actor John Hannah's first
film role?" Bafflingly, it was an Australian movie.
Harbour Beat is a thriller where rogue Scottish cop
Neal McBride (John Hannah) ruffles too many feathers
so he's dumped down to Sydney to continue his career.
Lance Cooper (Steven Vidler) is a rogue Sydney cop
who's dedicated to the job and has just seen his
previous partner Gavin (Gary Day) retire early
bitching about cops not getting much and becomes an
independent contractor. Neal and Lance are forced to
work together and check out a case that hasn't been
cleared where drugs were hidden in house. Neal manages
to get into the house by posing as an architectural
expert and checks the place out and ends up getting a
massage from the owner Simone (Angie Milliken). She
also shows him that there's been plenty of interest in
the house, particularly from a company called De
Santos run by scummy land developer Andrew De Santos
(Toni Poli). Neal and Simone hit it off and start
going out together while Neal and Lance seem to get
along fine to begin with but tension grows between the
two when it looks like Lance might be involved with De
Santos. Lance also finds out that his former partner
is less than perfect with his wife leaving him which
he finds out is because he hit her and he seems to be
doing dirty work for De Santos. And things are about
to get further strained when they confront De Santos
and he runs Neal over and then Neal gets arrested for
having drugs at his house. Lance begins to realise
that Gavin is neck deep in it and decides to get
evidence of this but while faking that he'd like a
little extra money working for De Santos, Gavin shoots
him and leaves him for dead. With Neal in jail and
Lance in a quandary, it's going to take a lot to get
out of this mess.
Ridiculous cop thriller clearly aimed at the American
market and looks less plausible than the very similar
Signal One. The plot meanders all over the place, it's
hard to keep up with what is the plot and what's just
busy work to get the movie up to 90 minutes. And the
bad guys are really shitty people, De Santos gives his
wife heroin for some reason, possibly a convenient
excuse for the cops to get info from her while former
'good cop' Gavin is just a real shithead, beating his
wife and attempting to murder his former partner. Very
little plausible happens throughout and the criminal
plot makes no sense, something about storing drugs in
houses or something, I don't know. If it wasn't for
the Sydney backdrop it would hardly be considered an
Australian movie there's little to distinguish it from
every other American cop thriller. About the only
thing going for it is the two leads are pretty good,
particularly Hannah who would go onto far bigger
things. Vidler also still acts from time to time but
would also go on to direct the Australian movies
Blackrock and recently Standing Up For Sunny.
Should say that Harbour Beat is capped from a VHS rip
of the movie I've had sitting around forever and
finally gotten around to capping it. It's actually
fairly decent quality which was a nice surprise. Also
didn't know about the nude scene from Angie Milliken,
who by my count had nude
scenes in four 90s movies (see also Dead Heart, Talk
and What I Have Written).
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