Logan's Run

Logan’s Run 

Michael Anderson

1977, USA

Screenlay: David Zelag Goodman based on the novel by William F Nolan & George Clayton Johnson

 

One of those future utopias/dystopias that I grew up with, in the same pack as ‘Westworld’, ‘Silent Running’, ‘Planet of the Apes’. Those films that are sci-fi smart pulp, but ‘Logan’s Run’ is inferior to those.

The dialogue strikes as the kind of future-speak that adults write for kids. Only Jenny Agutter has an innate naturalness that cuts through: Michael York as Logan 5 (yes: numbers as surnames) is probably apt in his certain sincere blandness actually: people’s banality would be intentional in this society. It’s the 23^rd century where civilisation survives in a dome and live for leisure and pleasure; they wear colour-coded clothing according to age and enjoy “the carousel”, where people who reach thirty are “renewed”; a super-computer seems to be in charge. An A.I. is using a Big Lie to maintain population control. It’s that well-known receipt for the undoing of humanity: technology and hedonism. The more sordid side of this life of indulgence was mostly cut to reduce the film’s rating and the most we are left with is a sex club where nudes move in slow motion and try to grope you.

Logan is a Sandman, who hunts and kills those running from “carousel”: seems like not everyone believes in renewal. Logan is introduced to discontent when he meets Jessica (Agutter), and then when he retrieves an Ankh from a runner’s corpse, the computer instructs him to “run”, to find “Sanctuary” – the place runners are trying to escape to – and destroy it.  (The poster seems to imply that Logan goes a-running with Farah Fawcett-Majors, who graces proceeding with feather hear and come-ons.)

After an encounter with a psychotic robot that makes it clear that previous runners probably never got out – which is grim – Logan and Jessica get outside and meet an old man. It is when they meet Peter Ustinov that the stiffness of their dialogue makes more sense as the product of their limited culture. Ustinov’s mumbling spontaneous charm contrasts and adds texture and context: the banality of the characters makes sense when juxtaposed with warmth and improvisation.

But this texture is squandered when Logan and Jessica go back to the dome to share the truth with others, but they don’t actually have any plan for this apart from shouting it to an amused, uninterested mob and being caught by Sandmen. Luckily, the truth overloads the computer, it does a “Does Not Compute!” and a simple gunfight brings the whole city to exploding. If it wasn’t so hard to thwart this civilisation after all, you might think the insurgents might have accomplished something by now as complacency isn’t absolute. Surely the computer would have encountered an Ankh before (runners have them and certainly would have been found earlier when the corpses are frisked)? This would then make more sense as another attempt by it to destroy “Sanctuary”. And why does the Doc risk everything clumsily when trying to kill Logan; can’t rig an “accident”? etc.

So perhaps internal logic isn’t ‘Logan's Run’s’ strong suit and plot holes are everywhere, but there’s lots to enjoy in the future city model-work and sets, as well the overall camp of the costumes and flashing lights and mad robots, etc. You can just feel the intelligence of a novel's ideas being siphoned off for movie platitudes (it would be 'Logan's Run's peer 'Star Wars' to show film makers that you needn't hint at smart, just Faith and spectacle to make it work). Michael Anderson’s direction is a little stiff, but it’s episodic enough that it’s never boring. There’s enough that audience imagination can paper over the cracks and there is always the hint of a better film that keeps the interest. Not so smart, but entertaining.

FrightFest 2020: digital edition - day 1

 

Of course, Corona19 is pretty much a horror scenario come to life. Didn't I see an article saying research shows horror fans coping better with its stresses?

Anyway, the pandemic put paid to the annual trek to London to stick my head into horror films  and, as they say, “the dark side of cinema” and not to come out for days. Dodgy eating, racing for the night bus, spending a bit much on new films at Fopps, etc. But, like everything else, FrightFest moved online, so here we are. It’s minus the casual party atmosphere and it means there’s no eavesdropping on other’s comments when leaving a film for the lobby, or overhearing the groups outside The Empire Leicester Square, or buddying with your seat neighbour, so I’m missing out there.

It’s a slimmed-down programme, but it’s great to still have it!

And I am going to take a moment to recommend the documentary Chris Collier’s ‘FrightFest: beneath the dark heart of cinema’, made by friends and acquaintances of mine. This is a great primer for those that don’t know or those that are new to it (I’m assuming devotees have already seen it), and as I’ve been going for ten years now, I remember several of those events and speeches featured. 

So to digi-FrightFest 2020.

Things started off with the Evolution of Horror podcast’s FightFest pub quiz, hosted by the very agreeable Mike Muncer. This was on YouTube and free for anyone. I got about 50% of the answers right each round, give or take, so I maybe I’m not as much of a nerd as occasionally accused. Actually, I’m just crap at trivia. But I did get a particular question in the FrightFest specific round - the question was (I’m paraphrasing): what was the film screening at FrightFest where two people were caught in a sex act. It was ‘R.I.P.D.’: two people were caught masturbating and the incident was labelled the “‘R.I.P.D.’ shuffle” (I’m pretty sure it was Paul McEvoy announced this).

The Short Film Showcase used to be on the main screen but has moved to other screens in recent years. I always enjoyed the short films but mostly just stay on the main screen. I even asked Alan Jones once if there was going to be a FrightFest short film release DVD, but he said no as it was a rights nightmare.

Even if not remarkable, the Short Film Showcase One starts off with at least agreeably quirky genre angles. Ryan Irving’s ‘Bark’ a slasher scenario told from the point-of-view of a tree; Florence Kosky’s ‘A Bit of Fun’ where a séance exposes the rifts in some housemates’ friendship; ‘Breakfast’ by Paul Beattie and Melanie Rios is decently conveyed portrayal of a woman’s descent into zombiedom; Christopher McSherry’s ‘FLESH Control’ told from the point of view of bugs and featuring agreeably clunky costumes. But ‘Subject 3’ is all set-up and then ends just as it gets going.

The second half is a stronger crop. Ordinarily I find a story’s retreat into anthropomorphosis when concerning robots and AI a weakness, but of course it depends how it’s done. Aidan Brezonick’s ‘Jeff Drives You’ does it right, concerning a self-driving car loaded with so much AI and raised empathy that it’s more a commentary on how everything is marketed to sell to the consumer’s preference, the customer’s indulgence. You know: The world revolves around you. It’s wry, darkly funny, nicely played and, considering where it goes to, convincing within its 17 minute run time.

Nat Luurtsema’s ‘Ouzo and Blackcurrant’ isn’t remarkable, but it knows what it is and does what short films do so well: a striking single location, nice performances, the hint of backstory, just enough to let us know what the trope is, and then find an angle to hinge scares on.

Similarly, Finn Callan’s ‘Guest’ uses an anxious air and one unforgettably creepy visage to power his short. Inspired by a nightmare, apparently, and it shows.

Brian Gillespie’s ‘Tarrare’ has hardly any visuals at all, just an unsettling drawing and words across the screen. It’s a tale told in narration by Ian Lassiter but it’s fully engaging for it’s one of those horror tales that’s simple and nasty and works vividly in the imagination. Alternatively, although using similar storytelling, Shaun Clark’s ‘The Beholder’ is an Edgar Allan Poe rendition that uses animation and live action for a super-short (1 minute) Gothic shock. It’s a beautiful as it is quick.

 

SKY SHARKS

Mark Fehse, 2020, Germany

Nazi-zombies riding on flying sharks, so you know that drill. And there's plenty of amusement to be had from that even if you have to sidestep the issue that Nazi's aren't perhaps so much a thing of the past that they can be harmlessly trivialised.

It starts of decently enough with the first attack on an unsuspecting flight and there’s plenty of CGI gore and breasts and that knowing homaging to 80s cheese. Oh, and there’s some family stuff. But it’s one of those meta-exploitation tributes that gets bogged down in backstory – Nazi experiments to raise the ultimate army from the undead, etc – and in plot instead of gags that the fun wears thin. Decent zombies though, and that’s where practical effects have the edge.