April 5, 2016

Last week’s venture into the 3rd dimension to experience the terrors of THE RING in SADAKO 3D left quite an impression on me. It was just a lot of fun sharing in that communal 3D horror experience with friends. So I decided to double down on this week’s Double Take and go full 3D for an evening with 2 recently released somewhat-forgotten genre gems, THE BUBBLE and GOG! Yet again, I opted not to travel into this strange uncharted terrain alone, but brought along my friends Josh Miller (creator of GOLAN THE INSATIABLE and curator/co-host of Cinefamily’s Fright Night Frights series) and writer/editor extraordinaire Garo Setian. And here’s how we were forever changed…

First up, THE BUBBLE! I had never heard of this one, but on the 3D Blu-Ray forums, this seems to be one of the better reviewed titles in terms of the actual 3D, and they were right. Written and directed by Arch Oboler back in 1966, at the time, this feature presented in “space-vision” was considered groundbreaking for its 3D shooting and exhibition techniques, which ended up paving the way for 30 years of 3D technology. Story-wise, it plays like a feature length long-lost episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. It opens with couple Mark (Michael Cole) and Catherine (Deborah Walley) on a small jet flight with pilot Tony (Johnny Desmond) in the middle of a horrific storm. Catherine is literally on the verge of giving birth, so it’s imperative that they land and find a hospital immediately, but with the weather conditions, it’s difficult to determine exactly where they are.

They set down in a mysterious town, rush Catherine into labor and all seems fine – until the next morning when they begin attempting to communicate with the townspeople. Everyone from the doctor to the bartender at the local pub to the man selling newspapers on the corner seem to be on a loop of some sort. They seem like mindless zombies just repeating the same dialogue and barely paying attention to their town’s new inhabitants. To make matters worse, Mark tries to phone his & Catherine’s parents with the good news, but has no luck. Communication with the outside world is completely cut off. The more they explore, the more the town feels and looks like a Hollywood studio backlot, complete with replicas of famous United States monuments.

After being there for weeks on end with no answers, Mark, Catherine and Tony attempt to flee, but only make it about 20 miles outside of town when they discover that they are trapped by a giant transparent bubble! Are they merely toys in some strange alien human zoo? Can they escape? And if they do, then what?

Collectively, our entire group enjoyed the hell out of this movie, despite a few narrative hick-ups. For starters, this film was originally released as THE BUBBLE in 1966, but then was recut and repackaged as FANTASTIC INVASION OF PLANET EARTH in 1976, which trimmed the original monstrous 112 minute running time down to 93 minutes. The original elements for those cut scenes were long lost, so all that exists is the slightly shorter version, however this may be a blessing in disguise as most of the stuff excised was longer takes and things that weren’t necessary. It does feel in a few spots like we’re missing a scene or two, but it just adds to the overall “what the hell” nature of the movie. Also, the ending felt a bit anti-climactic considering the strong set-up, but the more I thought about it after, I really loved it for its weird TWILIGHT ZONE vibe.

I’m sure people like Stephen King, Frank Darabont and Blake Crouch must’ve seen this film in their youths as I spotted the potential influences for UNDER THE DOME, THE MIST and the WAYWARD PINES series throughout. As far as the 3D goes, it is one of the best home 3D releases, and it is one of those examples where characters very often poke things straight into camera to play into the whole gimmick. It’s just fun!

Fun trivia fact: The ticket cashier in the movie is played by Virginia Gregg, who also voiced “Mother” in PSYCHO 1, 2 and 3!

Next up was GOG, a 1954 3D sci-fi cult classic that features a robot choking a man/scientist right on the cover of the packaging! This has got to be exciting, right? Well…..

So, the opening of GOG is actually quite thrilling and terrific. A group of scientists are conducting an experiment on a small monkey to lower his body temperature and freeze him. Then, they slowly bring up the room temperature and revive/reanimate him! It seems like a miracle of science, until one of them gets trapped in the room/device due to a mechanical malfunction!

After that pretty scary opening, a security agent, Dr. David Sheppard (Richard Egan) arrives at the secret space research facility, hidden and located underground in the desert. And… well, not a whole lot happens, for a really, really long period of time. There’s a lot of great, well written dialogue about the science of everything and the way these various experiments work, and I can imagine being a riveted little boy seeing this in theaters in 1954 and wanting to pursue a career in science. But we don’t get to meet GOG and MAGOG (two experimental robots) until very late in the movie. And judging from the cover and poster art, we already know that they’re the culprits behind everything going wrong in this facility. They’re Skynet! We’re doomed!

The action doesn’t pick up until the last few minutes when Gog attacks and they figure it all out, but even by that point, we were pretty spent and tired. The other big issue is for a 3D movie, there was really nothing at all impressive about the framing of the 3D to warrant the format (which I suppose makes sense, as director Herbert L. Strock admits in the 2003 interview (included on the Blu-Ray) that his vision problems prevented him from ever truly being able to experience 3D, so he relied on his collaborators to make sure they were presenting 3D shots. But again, nothing really pops out at the camera or takes advantage of the depth of field as most other releases do.

I’m glad I got to see it though, especially paired up with THE BUBBLE. It still makes for an exciting and interesting foray into the strange world of sci-fi/horror! Both titles were released by the always great Kino Lorber, so hit up their website to investigate these movies and others like them!