WEIRD WISCONSIN – THE BILL REBANE COLLECTION: MONSTER A GO-GO! (1965)/INVASION FROM INNER EARTH (1972)/THE ALPHA INCIDENT (1978)/THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW (1983)/THE GAME (1984)/TWISTER'S REVENGE (1987) Blu-ray
Director: Bill Rebane
Arrow Video USA/MVD Visual

With William Grefé, Andy Milligan, and Al Adamson getting box set retrospectives, it was only a matter of time before now Wisconsin exploitation maverick Bill Rebane got a boxed set with WEIRD WISCONSIN: THE BILL REBANE COLLECTION, on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

A Latvian immigrant, Bill Rebane first settled in Chicago where he worked in advertising and industrial films, helming a couple shorts on dance crazes before attempting his first feature film. In MONSTER A GO-GO!, a one man rocket sent up to investigate the presence of satellites of unknown origin vanishes off the radar. When it crash lands on Earth, the soldier who discovered it is found horribly mangled and there is no trace of pilot Frank Douglas apart from radiation burn-shaped footprints in the field. After the chief scientist brother is murdered, his brother takes over the project and starts floating the theory that the murderous menace is the radiation-infected astronaut whose change in anti-radiation treatment already resulted in mutations and gigantism in lab mice. As the six-foot-five terror (Henry Hite) makes his way from the countryside towards Chicago, the military and scientists must find a way to destroy the menace as its radius of infection spreads from a hundred feet to miles.

Unfinished when the production repeatedly ran out of money, the footage was turned over to Herschel Gordon Lewis who needed a co-feature for MOONSHINE MOUNTAIN, Rebane's TERROR AT HALFDAY became MONSTER A GO-GO!, and it is nowhere near as wild as its title (indeed, it is about as turgid as any other film with an A GO-GO title). A patchwork of staggered shooting and incessant narration – although this is less distracting since it seems like a throwback to fifties sci-fi – the film replaces its civilian consultant (Peter M. Thompson, SMUGGLER'S GOLD), after a first quarter in which he romances astronaut's widow Ruth (June Travis, THE CASE OF THE BLACK CAT), with another interchangeable scientist, before an anticlimax in which (SPOILER) the titular menace vanishes into the sewers and the scientists receive word that the astronaut has been found in a lifeboat at sea (this might have worked if only the audience and the victims saw the monster, but the scientist secretly trying to reverse the mutations apparently recognized him). There are a couple moments of suspense that, in combination with the fifties library music, anticipate some of the creeping dread of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD but the film feels and looks a decade behind its production dates. Lewis himself provides the narration.

Nine years later, Rebane mounted another science fiction film with INVASION FROM INNER EARTH. A mass-casualty epidemic is hitting major cities across the world. Blissfully unaware of this are brother and sister Jake (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA's Nick Holt) and Sarah (Debbi Pick) who host hunters up at their cabin on the Canadian border, along with a trio of scientist guests: down-to-Earth Eric (Karl Wallace), elitist Andy (Robert Arkens), and joker Stan (Rebane regular Paul Bentzen); that is, until, Jake attempts to fly the scientists back to civilization only to be prevented from landing by a dispatcher who warns them about an infection. Surviving off the land and developing cabin fever, the quintet occasionally receive radio transmissions from a mysterious voice who Stan believes is an alien intelligence trying to determine their whereabouts. Any attempt by the group to get away is stopped by mysterious mind-bending forces, and the survivors may discover that there is no civilization left when they reach the cities.

Just as behind the times as MONSTER A GO-GO! with its scientists and civilians trapped in an isolated location while mass casualty occurs largely offscreen, INVASION FROM INNER EARTH at least feels less dated due to its seventies "regional flick" trappings. While boredom does set in, Rebane does draw some nice atmosphere out of the snowy Wisconsin locations, but the alien forces are depicted as red gel lighting and colored smoke cherry bombs. Least effective are the film's attempts to open up the narrative with cutaways to extras running through the streets and radio and news broadcasts about alien sightings. The ending goes for the 2001-esque headscratcher in which one can only assume that those with an open mind are less vulnerable than the close-minded, and thus deemed more worthy of survival (and rebirth). A more effective, equally stripped-down treatment of some of the same story elements can be found in FOES (1977). The library score includes an electronic riff on THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY also heard in James Bryan's LADY STREET FIGHTER – along with the footage recycled from that film in REVENGE OF LADY STREET FIGHTER and RUN COYOTE RUN – and the film would mark the first feature collaboration of Rebane with his wife Barbara who would work in various production capacities on his subsequent films up through the little-seen GHOSTLY OBSESSIONS. THE WIZARD OF GORE Ray Sager recorded the film's production sound.

Rebane's next film was the larger-scaled, disastrous production THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION but that has already been released on Blu-ray twice in the United States, with the current edition from Dark Force Entertainment still in print, so Arrow moves on to THE ALPHA INCIDENT. When a space probe to Mars splashes down carrying a microorganism, NASA scientists Farrell (Paul Bentzen) and Rogers (John Alderman, PORK CHOP HILL) set about testing it on animals within twenty-four hours. They are surprised to discover that they only have a small sample of it and that the rest has already been sent off for underground storage in Denver by train chaperoned by biochemist colleague Sorensen (Stafford Morgan, THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA). By the time the scientists discover that the microorganism is a virus that attacks the central nervous system, lineman Hank (George "Buck" Flower, THEY LIVE) has already gotten curious about the cargo and broken one of the vials, cutting himself and allowing the microorganism to enter his bloodstream. When the train stops at the station in remote Moosepoint for the car carrying the samples to be hooked up to another engine, Sorensen must alert the government and quarantine at gunpoint Hank and those who have been in contact with him: fellow lineman Jack (John Goff, BERSERKER), station conductor Charlie (Ralph Meeker, KISS ME DEADLY) and receptionist Jenny (Carol Irene Newell). With the National Guard ordered to shoot on sight, the quintet must depend on each other, coffee, cigarettes, and amphetamines to keep themselves awake while the scientists rush to find a cure.

Another variation like INVASION FROM INNER EARTH on the low-fi sci-fi generic conceit of people cut off in a remote location from an alien threat, THE ALPHA INCIDENT may actually be Rebane's best film. The writing is better, the ways in which the characters attempt to pass the time feel truer rather than just marking time to get up to feature-length, and the script offers meaty roles to Goff, Morgan, and Flower (whose role is comparatively smaller but allows him to convey a full range of emotions) but all five convey with degrees of subtlety the arc from cocky and self-assured to frightened; so much so that the film's brain-bursting money shot is largely superfluous to the drama. Apart from what one knows of Rebane's rightwing politics, the anti-government cynicism is a bit more pointed here than the likes of George A. Romero's thematically-similar THE CRAZIES which despairs of society as a whole, and the final shot recalls Romero's earlier NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD while the overall ending is in keeping with the decades other outbreak thrillers.

In THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW, the dying New England town of Ludlow is about to celebrate its bicentennial when the late great grandson of its founder Ephraim Ludlow bequeaths to the town a gold-trimmed piano all the way from England. Mayor Sam (C. Dave Davis) plans to display it in the town hall for everyone's usage and enjoyment, but others are uneasy about its presence including the local preacher Chris (Bentzen again). Covering the celebration, reporter Debra (Stephanie Cushna) – who was born in Ludlow but left it was a child – draws a connection between the town's past tragedies and the rash of sudden disappearances among the townspeople, and she believes it has to do with the piano and the mystery about Ephraim Ludlow's exile from the town. The piano exerts a strange influence over the township, and each time accompanist Ann (Carol Perry) plays it, something terrible happens. Her mentally-ill daughter (Patricia Statz) is literally torn to pieces, a teenage couple (Michael Accardo and Mary Walden) vanishes after necking in the hayloft, a woman is stoned by ghostly villagers, and the preacher's alcoholic wife (Debra Dulman) is shot with an antique musket. While Debra tries to get the truth out of Chris and the mayor, newspaper photographer Winnie (James R. Robinson) tries to translate an inscription on the piano that has shown up in his photographs.

Rebane's most traditional horror film, THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW is interesting in concept, being part of the New England gothic tradition of towns whose slow deaths seem to be an effect of the economy and having nothing to offer its youth as much as a dark sins in its past seeking retribution. Although it does have some surface similarities to John Moxey's HORROR HOTEL, Lucio Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, and John Carpenter's THE FOG, it also shares themes as well as locations, cast, and crew with Ulli Lommel's more complex THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR in which parallels are drawn between the psychosexual sadism of the seventeenth-century witch hunts and the modern day misogyny of a chilly New England town with the arrival of three independent women (whereas THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR's New England town felt barren and truly dead, THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW's town just feels underpopulated due to budget restrictions). Rebane's film some moments of atmosphere and occasionally striking images, but the apparitions are mostly silly – apart from the sexualized nature of the attack on Ann's childlike teenage daughter – and the piano itself sounds like a harpsichord (it is even referred to as a harmonium once or twice but it's a plain upright piano with gold paint trim). GINGER herself Cheri Caffaro is credited as one of the film's producers, as she was on Rebane's earlier RANA: THE LEGEND OF SHADOW LAKE (also not included in this set since the rights belong to Troma).

Rebane's next film was THE GAME in which eccentric millionaires Maude (Carol Perry, THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW), Horice (Don Arthur), and George (Stuart Osborne, THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR) meet up yearly at a swanky resort in the off season and invite unsuspecting guests to participate in "The Game of Fear" for a million dollar prize. This time around, there is law student Karen (Debbie Martin), musicians Randy Sue (Randy Sue Hicks), Ronnie (Ronnie Hicks), Aaron (Aaron Harper), J.D. (J.D. Beckman), bimbos Cindy (Lori Minnetti, BLOOD HARVEST) and Shelly (Lori Minnetti), ex-con Joe (Jim Iaquinta, RANA: THE LEGEND OF SHADOW LAKE), and shifty Jonathan (Tom Blair). Although their hosts tell them they will get a chance to think over participating in the game and a chance to leave the next day, the game starts sooner than they told them and each is subjected to torments by spiders, sharks, bursts of freezing air, claustrophobic environments, and shadowy assailants. When the guests start vanishing one by one, those remaining band together; however, even the hosts are becoming unsure just who is playing the game when some of their shock devices take on a life of their own.

Although certainly a novel concept, THE GAME is poorly thought out with the cast unable to deliver the sort of droll performances expected from the opening "once upon a time" narration of bad rhyming couplets, and the hybrid old dark house/bodycount plot failing to conjure up any real suspense. Characterization is virtually nil so it is easy to forget who has gone missing and the scare are mainly of the dime store variety with dry ice fog, Halloween decoration skeletons, and even a "haunted house" on the property (along with a lurking hunchback). One cannot help but wonder if one aspect of the ending twist was necessitated by the lack of availability of all the cast members while the film undercuts the "irony" of its final twist seemingly (in vain) for laughs. It would be another three years before Rebane would mount another film with the poor Tiny Time slasher BLOOD HARVEST, roughly around the same time that British producer Christopher Webster (HELLRAISER) was pouring capital into his Windsor Lake Studios with the aim of exploiting the Wisconsin scenery for film production.

BLOOD HARVEST is not included in this set – presumably due to the disagreement between Rebane and Films Around the World over who owns the rights – with the final film in the set certainly Rebane's least in TWISTER'S REVENGE. When lowly mechanics Kelly (David Alan Smith, FEELING MINNESOTA), Dutch (Jay Gjernes, A SIMPLE PLAN), and Bear (R. Richardson Luka) learn that cowboy Dave's (Dean West, BLOOD HARVEST) monster truck Mr. Twister is powered by an expensive high-tech computer and artificial intelligence engineered by his fiancée Sherry (Meredith Orr), they decide to steal and sell the computer. After multiple foiled attempts to break into the truck, Dave's garage, and Sherry's high-tech van, they then decide to just kidnap Sherry and ransom her to her rich father. Dave is ready to rush to Sherry's rescue with guns blazing; that is, however, until Mr. Twister reveals that his latest upgrades include his own voice in which he expresses his own ideas about how to get even with Sherry's kidnappers.

Bill Rebane's attempt at something new with a stab at action-comedy reveals along with THE GAME that he had little affinity for comedy. Dave and Sherry are almost non-entities for extended amounts of time while Kelly, Dutch, and Bear have no comic timing to make their bumbling funny. Twister does not even register as a "personality" until a half-hour in when he first speaks, and then little is made of his intelligence (or the ELECTRIC DREAMS-esque conceit that he may be in love with Sherry) since his alternative to Dave's gunplay is to mow down houses and crush cars. The monster truck versus tank climax lacks suspense but the damage they both inflict on private and public property is fitfully amusing. As with other Rebane films, TWISTER'S REVENGE might have played better had it been made and released a decade earlier.

MONSTER A GO-GO! was first released in a Something Weird Video/Image Entertainment double feature DVD with PSYCHED BY THE 4D WITCH. A few years later, Synergy Entertainment released the film as one of their rare legit titles with commentary from Rebane (moderated by future Vinegar Syndrome producer Joe Rubin). Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen transfer comes from a new scan of presumably the same elements, with the heightened resolution revealing textural differences between the Rebane and Lewis footage, with the Lewis material seeming crisper and clearer (presumably a matter of the photography rather than any degradation of the materials turned over to Lewis by Rebane). The LPCM 1.0 mono track similarly reveals the superior recording of the narration, music editing, and some effects over the original sync-sound audio. Optional English SDH subtitles are included.

Originally titled THE SELECTED, INVASION FROM INNER EARTH was difficult to see in complete form on home video. Applause Production's big box VHS under that title was apparently uncut while Genesis Home Video's slipbox release was missing an entire reel and Platinum Productions' HELL FIRE cassette was missing its ending. Easier to find at the time than the Applause cassette was Regal Home Video's THEY which dropped the title sequence but appeared to be otherwise complete. Presumably derived from 35mm blow-up materials, Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.37:1 pillarboxed fullscreen transfer is expectedly grainy but the colors are rich and damage is minimal. The LPCM 1.0 mono track is very basic, and in that respect there is little to complain about, and optional English SDH subtitles are included.

First given regional releases, THE ALPHA INCIDENT was perhaps Rebane's most widely-seen film theatrically due to it being picked up as an oddball co-feature to STAR WARS; however, its home video history was neither as well-curated or convoluted as the aforementioned film series. THE ALPHA INCIDENT went to VHS from Media Home Entertainment, and that video master popped up on various Mill Creek DVD sets and a solo edition from Synergy Entertainment that tried to make a bigger deal of it by packaging the film with a T-shirt. Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray from 35mm blowup elements looks typically grainy with some unavoidable crush in the darker areas of the frame and some light leaks on the right side of the frame in the last reel, but color are generally stable and the lack of pop apart from some red blood appears to have more to do with the color scheme than any fading. The LPCM 1.0 mono audio boasts clear dialogue and some sharp, bombastic music stings, while English SDH subtitles are also provided.

Released directly to video by Trans World Entertainment – which explains its greater visibility during the VHS era – THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW looked dull on tape and cruddy on Mill Creek multi-film DVDs. The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray transfer gives the film new life with an overall sharper image and sometimes vibrant colors in the Shooting Rang soundstage interiors that offer some nice contrast to the chilly location exteriors. The crisper resolution may or may not lend the apparitions a surreal feel, but it reveals for all his faults Rebane could professionally shoot a film (crediting himself pseudonymously for cinematography as "Ito"). The LPCM 1.0 mono track has cleanly recorded live set audio and narration, some creative sound design, but is most clear and bold when it comes to the synth scoring.

Also released on VHS and unauthorized DVD as THE COLD, THE GAME is presented in 1080p24 MPEG-4 1.85:1 widescreen and 1.33:1 open-matte versions of the same element. The open-matte version fares best although the widescreen version is not particularly ruinous to the compositions (nor is it any more artful). Like THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW, the more recent vintage means sharper 35mm photography, better lighting, finer grain, bolder colors, and seemingly a more considered color scheme to exploit that. No real complains about the LPCM 1.0 mono track apart from the library scoring seeming about a decade or more behind the era of the film. English SDH subtitles are included.

Unreleased on VHS in the United States, TWISTER'S REVENGE first turned up in some Mill Creek DVD sets from an old video master (the film had some overseas tape releases including Japan). Struck from the only surviving 35mm theatrical print, the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is boldly colorful with a lack of shadow detail in some sunny exterior shots due to the photography and a couple out of focus shots that Rebane probably felt were not worth reshooting. It is hard to imagine the film looking better with the negative gone, but then again I cannot imagine an audience for a 4K restoration of TWISTER'S REVENGE. The LPCM 1.0 mono track fares better overall when it comes to live sound and music while a lot of ADR stands out sorely (as much due to the mix as the voice artists). Optional English SDH subtitles are included.

Disc one features the separate Rebane interviews for the two films. In "Straight Shooter: Bill Rebane on MONSTER A GO-GO!" (10:46), the director discusses settling in Chicago, attempting to emulate Lewis who managed to make a non-union film before getting run out of town by the teamsters, shooting until money ran out multiple times, casting name actors, starting the editing before turning over what he had to Lewis and not seeing the final product until years later. He notes that some footage was reportedly lost and rediscovered years later, speculating that Lewis might have mixed it in with footage from one of his own films during the processing and lab archiving. In "Straight Shooter: Bill Rebane on INVASION FROM INNER EARTH" (9:58), he discusses going back to Germany for short time after Chicago and then settling in Wisconsin, wanting to exploit the landscape (including his own back forty) in the film, casting Holt who then went to Hollywood and was about to become big on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA before being killed in a motorcycle wreck, casting future regular Bentzen, creating the film's effects, and the innovations of cinematographer Jack Willoughby (RUNNING WILD).

In "Kim Newman on Bill Rebane" (15:07) in which the author and critic discusses the filmmaker in the context of lesser knowns like Bill Grefé and notes how the director's genre takes appear at least a decade or more behind their heydays, from sci-fi (MONSTER A GO-GO! and INVASION FROM INNER EARTH) to the surreally supernatural (DEMONS OF LUDLOW) to the slasher (BLOOD HARVEST). The disc also includes the Rebane short films "Twist Craze" (1961; 8:49) and "Dance Craze" (1962; 14:41), as well as "Kidnap Extortion" (1973; 14:28) and a stills and promotional gallery (3:40).

On the second disc, Rebane comes back for another pair of film-specific interviews. In "Straight Shooter: Bill Rebane on THE ALPHA INCIDENT" (9:24), Rebane notes that the film is his favorite and regards it as his real first film since he had complete control over it, recreating the train station interior and the interiors of the train cars in his Shooting Ranch studio, speaking highly of his cast – including Meeker who was recovering from a stroke – recalling being steered away from casting Jenny as a buxom Jayne Mansfield type by his wife and his screenwriter cousin Ingrid Neumayer, and noting that the film's effects money shot was a commercial consideration to a project he always regarded as character and story driven. In "Straight Shooter: Bill Rebane on THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW" (7:44), he recalls that his film was first and Lommel – who he met through Caffaro – came up with THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR after, even incorporating elements from a script of his own called THE MAGGOTS. He also recalls building all of the interior sets in his expanded 80x40 foot Shooting Ranch studio, with an aisle in the middle to allow the use of a dolly in covering the scenes.

"Rebane’s Key Largo" (16:05) is a visual essay by historian and critic Richard Harland Smith in which he draws parallels between THE ALPHA INCIDENT, KEY LARGO, the aforementioned Romero films, and the various British examples of the genre in which Earthlings shelter from alien menaces in pubs like DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS or NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT. The disc also includes a stills and promotional gallery (3:20) and trailers for THE ALPHA INCIDENT (3:20) and THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW (2:40).

The third disc includes another pair of "Straight Shooter" interview with Rebane. He describes both "The Game" (6:57) and "Twister's Revenge" (8:10) as "brain farts" with the former taking advantage of a resort owned by a friend and the latter inspired by visits of Rebane and business partner Larry Dreyfuss to county fairs observing monster trucks, the access to a real truck called Mr. Twister, and old defense department contacts for the use of the thank. "Discovering Bill Rebane" (28:16) is a Rebane film release history as recollected by Vermont film historian & critic Stephen R. Bissette charting the regional availability of Rebane's filmography theatrically and on videotape, the ways in which the films were promoted – a local venue for THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION provided those Halloween store plastic spider rings and a comic herald by famed artist Russ Manning – tracking down Rebane films in the DVD age (including Rebane's own self-marketed editions), and into the Blu-ray era. The disc also includes a stills and promotional gallery (2:50) and trailers for THE GAME (1:27) and TWISTER'S REVENGE
(3:39).

A fourth disc includes the feature-length documentary "Who is Bill Rebane?" (115:18), a laborious "inquiry" by historian and critic David Cairns that rehashes much of the content of the other extras – including footage from the video interviews with Rebane and Bissette – with tangents about the cinematic highlights of the genres in which Rebane dabbled, and input from other Wisconsin area filmmakers who either knew nothing of Rebane or were directly inspired by him. In addition to input from various crew members of his later films and some coverage of the films not included in the set, what keeps the two-hour piece interesting are some background about Rebane's late wife Barbara who served several functions in most of his films (keeping him grounded among them), musings on the oddities of Wisconsin and how the regional humor seemed to have informed Rebane's later films, a deserving swipe at his politics in the context of his science fiction films viewed in the context of the pandemic (and Rebane pushing the conspiracy theory about the Chinese deliberately spreading COVID to Americans through toilet paper), as well as the events that lead to the loss of the Shooting Ranch.

Also included is "King of the Wild Frontier" (93:39) which consists of the entirety of Cairn's video conversation with Bissette about Rebane excerpted for the above documentary and Bissette's piece on disc three. Viewers may want to put some space between watching the Cairns documentary and this piece to avoid a sense of déjà vu, but it may even be a bit more interesting and focused than Cairns' inquiry. More interesting are previously unseen silent outtakes from INVASION FROM INNER EARTH (16:42), THE ALPHA INCIDENT (11:12), and THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW (9:41), the latter including some effects shots without the optical overlays. There is also the bonus of a theatrical trailer for THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION (3:55) and extensive still galleries that include separate ones for Rebane films not included in the set – THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION (5:40), THE CAPTURE OF BIGFOOT (1:10), RANA THE LEGEND OF SHADOW LAKE (1:00), and BLOOD HARVEST (1:30) – as well as "A Rebane Miscellany" (5:10) and "From the Collection of Stephen R. Bissette, Spiderbaby Archives" (4:00). Not provided for review was the fully-illustrated 60-page collector’s booklet featuring extensive new writing by historian and critic Stephen Thrower, author of "Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of Exploitation Independents", the reversible poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by The Twins of Evil, and reversible sleeves featuring newly commissioned artwork for each of the films by The Twins of Evil. (Eric Cotenas)

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