Rollercoaster, the movie, the review (aka: Happy Birthday, Malcolm X)

[originally posted on myspace on Saturday, May 19, 2007]

(aka: Don't read movie reviews!)

I spent many of my formative years (do you still have formative years by high school? Eh, whatever) watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 and, as a result, I love to watch bad movies. I have one cable channel that tends to play lots of '70s movies which is so fantastic for the bad movie cravings. There is a second channel that will show the same movie that is on the retro channel, but starting about an hour behind. If you miss the beginning on the retro channel, you can usually catch it on the other channel.

So, the other night, I am flipping through the channels and see a listing for a movie called Rollercoaster. A movie about rollercoasters? Maybe this is like Jaws? An evil rollercoaster? I was slightly interested. The basic TV description just said it was about a maniac bombing amusement parks. Amusement parks in the 1970s. I had to watch.

To be honest, I did not see the movie in it's entirety. I saw maybe the last half on the retro channel and the first twenty minutes on the other channel (to answer all my unanswered questions).

I searched for the movie the next day online (it's on DVD!), expecting a ton of nasty reviews, rankings on worst movie top fifty lists, etc. I was wrong. The reviewer on allmovie.com loved the film for it's "modesty" (just want you want in an action/suspense movie). Tons of rollercoaster-love related websites reveled in this movie. I highly recommend everyone see it for it's pure 1970s bliss (I used to watch Rockford Files reruns for the same reason) and for it's badness. You probably won't get through it all in one sitting, but try (it's on again towards the end of May, search your TIVO). So, here is my review, in honor of it's wonderful crappiness.

The 1970s were a simpler time, when you could build a suspense, horror and/or disaster film around something simple, like a shark, a dog, the mall, a cruise ship or Robert De Niro. And maybe future generations will say the same in thirty years (hello, Snakes on a Plane). In 1977, Hollywood set out to scare us the hell away from amusement parks.

The storyline of Rollercoaster is simple. There is a crazy man who likes explosives and doesn't (apparently) like rollercoasters. Credited as "Young Man," our villain causes some damage, tries to extort money from amusement park owners and blows some more stuff up. It is never explained why he is doing this, outside of the money (maybe he worked for Disneyland). The review on allmovie claims our villain has a "devious intellect." If the people you are against are just plain stupid, I don't think it means you are smart by default. The other review also applauds the movie for it's character development. Yes, not giving your villain, who is all over this movie, a name, that is fantastic attention to detail.

The film gives lots of detail to the character of Harry Calder (played by George Segal). For some reason, our villain really likes Calder (or maybe he's using him as a pawn, oh so devious) resulting in a long sequence of Calder following the radioed commands of our villain, who forces him to go on rides while carrying the briefcase full of the demanded money (great part of this movie – Segal in a suit riding a bunch of rides, too funny). Our hero is the head of some sort of amusement park ride inspection agency (though other summaries say he is a police detective). Regardless, he is one of my favorite aspects of 1970s movies – the everyman. He's gruff (aka down to earth) and somehow super-smart and probably drinks a lot. He's got a girlfriend/wife and a kid (it's Helen Hunt!). His superiors try to keep him out of the case and dismiss all his "crazy" ideas, but in the end, have to turn to him because he is the one that will save the day.

Another 1970s staple of this film was the cinematography. Lots and lots of gloriously unnecessary, indulgent scenery shots, shots of crowds and of rollercoaster track, as if someone from the studio said, you need to slap thirty more minutes of film onto this movie. I was just in heaven watching the crowd shots (lots and lots of 'em), to see the clothes and the hair. Apparently, when the movie was first in theaters, it was shown in Sensurround, where the chairs in the theater would shake during certain scenes (explaining the lots of lots of rollercoaster ride scenes).

And in what is probably my favorite 1970s staple – the musical performance. The band Sparks performs towards the end at an outdoor concert (right before the big climax of the movie, right before our hero chases down the villain). Sparks performs two songs, but the best part is the scene in which Ron Mael is chilling out at his piano and it really looks like he has completely forgotten that he's being filmed (shortly after, he starts breaking equipment). Sidenote: Five years after this movie, Sparks bassist Jim Mankey would co-found the band Concrete Blonde.

It drags. The dialogue is laughable. Come on, it's a movie about amusement parks. If you can get through it, Rollercoaster is worth it for the concept and for the pure 1970s of it. You will laugh, you will get a little confused, and you will wonder how plausible parts are. And you get to see '70s mustached, permed, leisure-suit wearing men at an amusement park. So good and so bad on so many levels that it makes you wish MST3K was still around.