Ulli Lommel — Producer (11)
Revenge of the Stolen Stars (1986) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
Revenge of the Stolen Stars
director: Ulli Lommel actor: Suzanna Love / Klaus Kinski
other title: Diamant des Grauens / La venganza de la estrella robada
Klaus kinski plays the ghost of Duncan McBride, murdered owner of a plantation and ruby mine on the island of Sunanow, in the South China sea. The mine, and the Curse which killed his uncle, are inherited by the inept Gene who comes from San Francisco to look for the Six Stars, (missing rubies) accompanied by the lovely Kelly Scanlon and persued by the villanous Alex and Lupe. Written by Michael Crew
BrainWaves (1983) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
BrainWaves
director: Ulli Lommel actor: Keir Dullea / Suzanna Love
other title: Brain Check - Das andere Ich / Telepatía de un asesinato
After a traffic accident Kaylie is in coma for months and her doctors want to try a new procedure on her. To regain her consciousness, they stimulate her brain with the neural patterns of a woman who has just died. It works and Kaylie fully recovers. However, she begins to relive the dying moments of her donor and realizes that she was murdered! Along with her husband and mother, she tries to find out what happened.
B.T.K. Killer (2005) [Movie] IMDb TMDB
B.T.K. Killer
director: Ulli Lommel actor: Gerard Griesbaum / Eric Gerleman
other title: BTK Asesino en serie
Veteran Boogey Man and Zodiac Killer director Ulli Lommel continues his long tradition of delivering tense thrills with this relentless look at the life of the elusive, Kansas-based serial killer known to authorities only as "B.T.K." before his arrest...
Curse of the Zodiac (2007) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
Curse of the Zodiac
director: Ulli Lommel actor: Cassandra Church / Jack Quinn
other title: Zodiac: La Maldición / Zodiac: la maldición
The story of the most famous serial killer in the United States who frightened Americans in the seventies. He was never caught by the police and remained an unsolved case. The only trace he leaves is a zodiac sign at the crime scene. A possible motive is sexual, driven by hatred against women and homophobia. A faceless killer who could be the neighbor who lives next door, waiting to kill the next victim.
Boogeyman II (1983) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
Boogeyman II
director: Ulli Lommel / Bruce Pearn actor: Suzanna Love / Ulli Lommel
other title: Boogey Man 2 - Die Rückkehr / 恶巫2
Lacey, the shaken survivor of a bloody supernatural rampage in the countryside, is flown to Los Angeles where a slick movie producer plans to cash in on her story. At a decadent Hollywood party, plans for the beginning of a new horror movie franchise are torn asunder when a fragment of the original haunted mirror turns these hotshot movers and shakers into screamers and quakers!
The Boogeyman (1980) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
The Boogeyman
director: Ulli Lommel actor: Suzanna Love / Ron James
other title: 恶巫 / Spectre
A young girl witnesses the brutal murder of her stepfather at the hands of her brother, by mirror reflection. Years later, when the mirror is accidentally shattered, a dark and vengeful curse is unleashed on the family, and anyone unlucky enough to come into contact with its shards falls victim to heinous murder.
Zombie Nation (2006) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Zombie Nation
director: Ulli Lommel actor: Günther Ziegler
other title: 僵尸国家 / 僵屍國家
A psycho cop has a habit for pulling over random women and taking them to an abandoned warehouse, where he tortures and kills them. He gets what's coming to him when a pack of zombie women rise from their graves in order to get proper revenge.
Green River Killer (2005) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Green River Killer
director: 尤利·隆美尔 actor: George Kiseleff / Jaquelyn Aurora
other title: 绿河杀手 / 断头河杀人魔(台)
Over the course of 20 years, deranged serial killer Gary Ridgway murders dozens of prostitutes and dumps their bodies in a river.
Whity (1971) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB Douban
Whity
director: 赖纳·维尔纳·法斯宾德 actor: 罗恩·兰德尔 / 汉娜·许古拉
other title: 威迪 / 死白仔
When is a Western not really a Western? When it’s directed by Fassbinder! WHITY is only my sixth film from the so-called German wunderkind: I admire Fassbinder for his prolific and versatile output, though I’ve yet to be won over completely by a film of his; frankly I was hoping this would prove to be the one – but, as it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong! For the record, I’ve got four more titles from him to watch: still, considering my dismal experience with WHITY (especially since I had fully expected it to be the most accessible of the lot!), I don’t know when I’ll muster the courage to get to them now…even if DESPAIR (1978) is a reasonably enticing title, given the participation of Dirk Bogarde and the Vladimir Nabokov source.
To be fair, the Western ambiance is delivered in spades throughout. The film was stunningly shot in Widescreen – by Michael Ballhaus (later a valued collaborator of Martin Scorsese) – in Almeria, location site of many a Spaghetti Western. It generally has the right feel for time and place with regards to settings and wardrobe, while the all-important score is highlighted by a decidedly infectious riff. Even so, the repertoire of English-language ballads (the bulk of the film, of course, is in German) allotted to chanteuse/prostitute Hanna Schygulla – not to mention her own affected delivery – is inappropriately modern and comes across as unintentionally laughable! Schygulla was a fixture in Fassbinder’s work; the film also features Ron Randell (best-known, if at all, for playing Christ’s attorney[!] in Nicholas Ray’s KING OF KINGS [1961]) and Ulli Lommel (who later graduated to directing himself, notably TENDERNESS OF THE WOLVES [1973] and THE BOOGEYMAN [1980]).
The overriding pretentiousness at work here is palpable above all in the film’s lethargic, indeed deadly, pace (never have I seen a movie in which the characters moved more s-l-o-w-l-y!). Besides, it isn’t helped by unsympathetic (even annoying) characters – mostly members of a dysfunctional family (and particularly the pasty-faced, frizzy-haired sons of landowner Randell) – indulging in all manners of transgressions (from such commonly-depicted capital sins as greed, lust and murder down to nymphomania, masochism, interracial relationships and incest!). In the midst of all this is an unsavory gay subtext which, inevitably, seems to be on the agenda of virtually all directors so inclined in real-life (but becoming obviously more pronounced in the liberalized modern cinema)!
The plot, for what it’s worth, is reminiscent of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s THEOREM (1968) – coincidentally another gay parable – as the life of everyone involved is influenced in some way by the household’s black manservant (the character bears the ironic titular nickname but is also curiously underwritten and inexpressive), who’s actually the fruit of Randell’s illicit affair with his frumpy colored maid! The fact that each, in turn, pleads with him to slay the other could have turned this into a pointed black comedy – but the film is simply too labored and deliberately self-conscious for the subtlety intrinsic to such refined treatment...
In the end, one should note that 1971 saw a boom of arty Westerns with other such offerings as Alexandro Jodorowsky’s EL TOPO, Peter Fonda’s THE HIRED HAND and Robert Altman’s McCABE AND MRS MILLER. As for WHITY (whose shooting, by the way, inspired Fassbinder’s own BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE [1971]), I had owned the Fantoma DVD – which includes an Audio Commentary from Ballhaus and Lommel – for quite a while before actually sitting down to view it. I’d purchased the disc through the company’s own website during a sale but, as I said, could only manage to find a slot for it in my hectic/eclectic schedule after having enjoyed a couple of equally stylized (but far more satisfying) Spaghetti Westerns – DEATH SENTENCE (1968) and YANKEE (1966) – earlier this week.