The Midwest is my home. I was born and raised in Minnesota. It is, as Judy Garland—a Minnesotan herself—said, “It’s a pretty state, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.” Still, Minnesota’s such an uneventful place that we often get lumped with the entire Midwestern U.S.—and I suppose that means that Wisconsin’s my home just as Minnesota is. I’ve been to Wisconsin a number of times, and given that it’s not much different from Minnesota really, I guess I could just adopt that as my homeland as well.
In 1952, at the age of fifteen, Bill “Ito” Rebane emigrated with his family from Latvia to Wisconsin. He blended in pretty well, but didn’t understand English too much. So, he decided to learn it from movies; he was a fast learner and before he knew it he could speak the language and had a huge knowledge of movies. By the time he graduated from college, he knew that he would want to make some, based in and around his homeland of Wisconsin. In 1963, he purchased a camera and the magic began…
I love Bill Rebane. I’ve never met him, even though I’m pretty sure he still lives in Wisconsin, probably just a few hours away from me, but then again, just because I’ve met David “The Rock” Nelson doesn’t mean I need to meet every director I’m a fan of. I’ll never get to meet H.G. Lewis or John Carpenter. His films are like home—backyard gore/sci-fi flicks shot in the Midwest, the Breadbasket of America. They have a particular scent—I can sense when a movie’s his not just from the style, but from the location. There’s just something there, familiar to me the sea to a dolphin. I can’t quite place it.
In the end, all that matters is that I love his stuff. I’ve seen all of it, up till 1983’s The Demons of Ludlow. Demons was a changing point for Bill—it featured nudity, something that was formerly taboo to him up until then. Plus, it doesn’t feature a sci-fi plot, nor does it feature another of his favorites, old Indian legends. After Demons, he made The Game (1984), Twister’s Revenge! (1987), and Blood Harvest (1987) before dropping out of film for the most part. I’ll probably take some time to see those three in the future but I have a weird feeling that they just won’t be the same as his other adventures.
I’ve thought it over and declined myself the lengthy pleasure of reviewing each and every one of Bill’s movies. Instead, I decided to put together this little piece on him, featuring my thoughts and feelings on his movies up until Demons. I feel like I owe him that much.
Monster A Go-Go (1965)
People have heard of Monster the most because of Mystery Science Theater 3000. And I have to admit it—I haven’t seen this movie besides the MST3K cut myself. Although the MST3K episode has received a cult following, most people consider this to be a horrible movie. There’s a reason for that—it’s not exactly Bill’s baby. The story is that in 1963 he started work on his first sci-fi film, Terror at Halfday, but went over budget and had to sell the film to H.G. Lewis. Lewis added in some extra scenes to make it his own and slapped it on a double feature with Moonshine Mountain. Therefore, Monster has this weird discontinuity to it that is actually a lot more like one of Lewis’ films rather than one of Rebane. It’s like an extra joint in your arm that only bends a few degrees—clumsy, awkward, and painful. Worse yet, it’s boring, even in MST3K format. Pretty much, an astronaut goes into space wearing a defective brand of “radiation repellent”. He crashes in a field and the repellent has turned him into a herpes-skinned monster. He runs around, killing people, until he gets cornered. A narrator tells us that infamous zinger of an ending, like a bad joke, “There was no monster”. The end. Mouths go agape, but it’s too late—it’s over, and all screams are now moot.
This is the worst possible place someone can start for a Rebane film. It’s horrifically detached and screamingly dull. We see more teen dancers than we ever see the monster (H.G. Lewis was here, folks) and the fact that Lewis redubbed the entire picture to decimate the plot goes beyond mention. This is the only Rebane film I would tell anyone to avoid at all costs—if someone says this is one of the worst, they ain’t lying.
Invasion from Inner Earth (1974)
Aliens appear, or rather don’t appear, on Earth. The Earth begins to be swamped in a weird red mist that kills everyone it touches. The only people who aren’t aware of it are safely tucked in their Wisconsin winter cabin, camped out but also stranded. I’m honest-to-goodness sure that this is the same cabin that will show up in Legend of Shadow Lake and Capture of Bigfoot. They try to raise someone to rescue them using the radio, but a weird voice on the other end is apparently using the radio to track them down. Eventually they realize that the red mist is killing the world, and with a slowly crazier radio DJ as their soundtrack, they run out into the snow. One of the guys and one of the girls makes it, the others do not. Then…the ending. The ending cannot be explained by anyone that claims to be human—and since that’s a claim I like to make on a regular basis, I’ll just have to tell you to see it.
I really do like Invasion. It’s fun, and a big step up from Monster A Go-Go—a whole staircase up, actually. It drags, but I suppose that’s part of the charm. I didn’t fall asleep like I did in Monster, so it couldn’t have been that bad. I really like the ambiguity of this one, how we never see the aliens, only hear them—I think. Also, the scenes where the group in the cabin starts to go insane from the stress and when a drunk stepping out of a bar gets it at the hands of the red fog are amazing. Invasion, tragically, isn’t for anyone, but it’s a definite sign that practice makes perfect.
The Giant Spider Invasion (1975)
Ah, now this is a wonderful movie. I’ve seen both this movie raw and with the MST3K boys. The MST3K cut is funnier—naturally—but who cares? Giant Spider Invasion might just be my favorite Rebane classic.
What do you get when you put enormous pipe-cleaner legs and fake fur on an old car, get some hairy people (a Rebane favorite after this one), and an Evangelical message? That’s right, The Giant Spider Invasion. A preacher warns people that we’re pretty much all doomed to Hell. Coinciding with this is a meteor strike consisting of diamond meteors that contain the eggs for the giant spiders, which start out tiny but many and become giants. Two hicks, a bickering husband and wife, decide to cash in on the diamonds, but find out that they’re worthless--all this time plotting behind each other’s backs as people mysteriously die and Alan Hale (yes, the Skipper!) plods along as a doughy, friendly Sheriff. Some scientists determine that there is an extra dimensional gateway that was opened, perhaps by the meteor strike, which is definitely intriguing—it is later revealed to be the home of the spiders. Eventually the heroes, in this case some teens and Hale, get together when the spiders turn giant and begin to destroy the town. Sheriff Alan sacrifices his life so that the spiders can be destroyed. Still, the preacher warns about the dangers of Hell, and the night sky holds many mysteries…
What is it about this movie that I can’t stop loving? The fact that the print hilariously goes between perfect picture and something that implies the film we’re looking at is starting to rot? The fact that Alan Hale’s first line of the movie is, “Hi, little buddy!”? The hillbilly bickering? The spiders themselves? I’m not sure. Contrariwise to Monster A Go-Go, The Giant Spider Invasion is the perfect place to start one’s Rebane affair. See it whenever you can, on MST3K or otherwise.
Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake (1975)
Boy, I thought I didn’t understand women—Kelly is up at his cabin with his girlfriend. He starts telling her a story from his boyhood about a lake not far from the cabin where he encountered a humanoid frog monster. She starts making out with him and he keeps breaking away from her to tell the story. I guess some people just don’t get it.
Kelly and his father, Kelly Senior, go up to the cabin for whatever reason, where they find some girls, a bunch of greedy loggers after some gold, and of course a crazy old man who has plenty of old Indian legends. Kelly, despite being about five, has a crush on one of the girls, and the loggers keep trying to kill the old man. It’s a drama as old as time, out on an eerie old lake that holds the mysterious Rana, an Indian monster made of latex, rubber, and plenty of green paint. One of the girls gets killed, and a logger gets his leg almost torn off—eventually, the old man almost dies, and warns young Kelly about Rana, who will be coming for him now. Rana attacks the door after killing off the rest of the loggers and they escape in a boat. They make it away from the lake at the cost of Kelly Senior’s life. Kelly, in modern times, grimly concludes his story, and he and his girlfriend reveal that they’re going down into the lake to get Rana’s gold, part of the Indian legend. They succeed, but another Rana hatches to chase them down.
I like the prospect of gold and weird humanoid frogs, all done in the style of good ol’ Creature from the Black Lagoon. It’s actually pretty inventive, and I love how distinctive Rana himself looks. Plus, this entry has much more gore than Creature, like when Rana’s hand gets chopped off by a falling window. Tying in the Indian story was a bit much, I think, and it takes a little while for everything to get going—even by the somewhat slow Rebane standards. Still, it’s a nice little flick for a rainy day. I’m content with everything present, but this one just seems a little plain for Bill.
The Alpha Incident (1978)
Let’s get back on track—literally. A mysterious train brings is carrying a microbe from Mars. Some scientists learn from experiments on mice that the microorganism causes heads to explode if the person infected falls asleep. Then, the typical Rebane bearded hick (who I honestly swear and will continue to swear is the same bearded hick from every other Rebane film) breaks a vial of the stuff and becomes infected—he then infects three other people at a train station. They receive a report from the scientists studying the microbe that if they sleep, their heads will explode. So, they have to stay awake. That’s the entire movie.
Does that sound like a boring premise? I’m sorry if I painted it that way. Ultimately, The Alpha Incident is not boring. Rebane knows his suspense and knows it well. It’s a strange sort of suspense—that really, really good tension that almost makes you sick to watch it. You can feel what the characters are feeling, and that’s not the sign of a good filmmaker—that’s the sign of a brilliant filmmaker. I don’t want to say that the tension is something that’s lacking in his previous true entry into the suspense category, Invasion from Inner Earth, because it’s been a while since I’ve seen Invasion, but Alpha Incident really had me on the edge of my seat. See this one at all costs, that’s all I can really say. And that’s not hard—it’s on dozens of horror collections, several brand name DVDs, and the original VHS tapes are not rare.
The Capture of Bigfoot (1979)
This is the most recent Rebane movie I’ve seen; essentially, two hunters bring back a yeti (I say that instead of Bigfoot because it has white fur) from the North, which begins to attack a snowed-in town, killing some people, though not as many as in previous Rebane adventures. There are a few people, including a beard-guy, that learn about how the yeti ties in with old Indian legends from an old man; there’s also Olsen, a guy with fantastically massive eyebrows and jowls that wants to capture the yeti, as he apparently had a run-in with a Bigfoot twenty-five years ago and wants revenge. Everyone gets their just desserts at the end, and the yeti goes back into the wilderness with its mate to live in peace.
This movie is pretty much just Legend of Shadow Lake set in the winter wonderland of Invasion from Inner Earth, with Rana replaced with the yeti, right up to the Indian mythology. Yet this is all turned down, somewhat—the yeti doesn’t kill just to kill like Rana does, and there is barely any blood. In a strange fashion, I guess crazy Olsen takes the place of Rana as well as the loggers, taking the greed and anger levels up to eleven. Actually, Olsen’s a very compelling character, just because he goes from a fat idiot out for vengeance to a murdering psycho who will do anything to capture the yeti. In a way he drains the other characters, which just aren’t as interesting. I don’t want to say you should avoid this one, but if you see Rana you’ve pretty much seen this one—and Rana is much more fun.
The Demons of Ludlow (1983)
Something has somehow failed to click. I take the DVD out of my player, and say, “Well, it could have been worse.” Only years later do I discover this is the same guy who made The Alpha Incident.
The Demons of Ludlow is the least Rebanian of the Rebane canon. In essence, a town gets a piano, which turns out to have been made by a sorcerer that the town pissed off centuries ago—of course, the piano turns out to be cursed. There is some square dancing; a weird girl (who I think is supposed to be autistic) gets her shirt ripped open by some ghosts. A writer who comes back to the town, as per ‘Salem’s Lot, and his girlfriend manage to defeat the spirits who dwell in the piano. The end.
My brother, who has been a faithful companion in my movie-watching career, was disappointed with this one, and even more so when he learned it was made by Bill Rebane. I have to admit, I really like the piano-ghost idea, and that Rebane stepped away from sci-fi in the place of supernatural horror. All the same, something’s missing. Is it the thin plot? Is it the introduction of nudity—the lack of a good old flesh-ripping monster?
This one is my stop. The Mars microbe train from The Alpha Incident squeals to a halt, and I step off into the sea of other films—a sea not too far from Rana’s mystic lake. I know that I can always return if I want to, but the journey is at an end. I feel some temptation to maybe grab The Game—and if I like that one, maybe I’ll press on. For now, though, it’s time to rest. And I can smile into the Wisconsin sunset with pride—I’ve seen a man from my motherland take a long trek from something genuinely awful through the lands of true cinematic glory.
- Adam Mudman Bezecny
