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New Beginnings

2010-07-24T00:38:00.000-04:00

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The October Ordeal III 02: Daughters of Satan (1972)

2009-10-08T19:41:00.003-04:00

While the title Daughters of Satan seems fit for a Jean Rollin or Jess Franco production, Daughters is an American film, notable for featuring Tom Selleck’s first lead performance, and also for being one of the only films directed by veteran Television director Hollingsworth Morse. Selleck plays Jim Robinson, a buyer for a New York art museum, hunting down paintings and other artifacts in the Philippines, where the film was actually shot. While this casting now would be labeled “off-type,” it’s not unusual for 1972, the year Daughters of Satan was first released. While Cassavetes, Ashby, the American Zoetrope crowd and others were changing the way American film-goers thought about leading men, genre cinema was still catching up, and Selleck, with his classical Hollywood image, is a typical lead man for this era of horror cinema.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with casting a handsome man as the lead, but there is something strange about the consistent casting of hunks as nerds, a confusing institution which creates its own particular archetype in horror and science fiction. Elsewhere on Dreamscape, this phenomenon is discussed in my review of Brian Yuzna’s Society. In the 70s, it wasn’t uncommon to throw a pair of glasses on Selleck or McQueen for a few scenes and hope that this would be enough to sell the character as an academic.

While Selleck gets the most screen time, and Jim Robinson is clearly marked as protagonist, the crucial character in the film is his wife Christina (or Chris, as she’s most often called), played as temperate and ethereal by Barra Grant. While Robinson’s life in the Philippines is all-business, Chris spends her time as if on a lazy, extended vacation. Perhaps apologetically, Jim buys her a painting of a witch burning, specifically because the central woman in the painting bears a striking resemblance to Chris herself. Thinking her reaction will be amusement, Selleck gives it to her—wrapped even—as a gift. Instead of being amused, she’s disturbed on a deep, spiritual level by the painting, feeling more than a bond of resemblance to the figure in the painting. Her reaction is so sympathetic that she believes she can recall specifics about the place and time of the burning.

While the basic plot of the film has something to do with destiny and reincarnation, the film is more about the relationship between Chris and Jim. Occult 70s relationship drama is an interesting horror sub-genre, which includes such moody films as Burnt Offerings (1976), The Mephisto Waltz (1971) and the later The House Where Evil Dwells (1982), which also deals with concepts of time and destiny. Unlike those films, however, the relationship here is underdeveloped. While she is beautiful, and an appropriate gothic presence, Grant’s performance is tranced-out and disinterested, in a fog of confusion and uncertainty. While Selleck is workmanlike, his performance at least adequately conveys that of the arrogant Western predatory academic—whether or not this is intentional.

As the mystery deepens, Nicodemus, a dog similar to one seen in the painting, appears at the Robinson home, heralding the arrival of a maid whom looks suspiciously like one of the Daughters in the painting (this is four years before the Satanic guard dog/nanny pairing found in The Omen, mind). As characters come into the film, and facts about the actual burning are revealed, the painting changes. Incremental changes keep the film from swinging too heavily in any direction, a move designed to build tension gradually. Daughters of Satan’s narrative plays out in the deliberate style of an Ace Gothic or Avon novel from the 70s (novels which also blend Occult intrigue with relationship drama).

While the genre of supernatural romance is often bloodless, Daughters of Satan is surprisingly gory and transgressive. The film opens with a mean-spirited scene of a nude Filipino woman being whipped at a Black Mass—a scene which will be replayed—and features gratuitous extras nudity and gleefully blasphemous lines such as “Deny Christ… Spit on him!” (A full year before The Exorcist).

Despite his consistent presence, Selleck as Robinson is a clueless bystander in the story. The character himself a weakness, because due to his imposed screen dominance, Chris is never properly characterized, thus her character’s esoteric stress and transformation lack weight and impact. With material so flimsy, the best Grant can do is play the part of the beautiful, wounded, confused and passive wife, which is a major misstep, not only because of obvious sexism, but because it’s Chris’ story, really, and a more active character would have improved the film. Because Selleck effectively steals her rightful screen-time, the film betrays both halves of the relationship. If this were a Giallo, Robinson would be a minor character, serving only as a reactive force, necessary to move certain scenes, while Chris would at the center, an active instigator of her occult dilemma.

While the film’s emotional core is anemic, Daughters of Satan is at least powerful visually. The film is beautifully shot, with diffuse lighting typical of the genre, psychedelic and eerie music, location sets, and creative shot compositions, with the usual amount of Dutch angles and impulsive camera movement in the ritual scenes. While Morse cut his teeth on economic television-making, this film doesn’t feel at all like TV. Its vibrant imagery, elaborate set-pieces and languid pacing hardly reflect Television convention.

The esoteric narrative kernel of the film is interesting at least: a second chance for some preordained demonic process to complete itself. The mystery of the film is neither rewarding nor engaging, nor is Robinson’s quest to solve the mystery of the magic painting. The detective scenes of Jim wandering about town are totally devoid of tension. There are incidental characters, including the shop keeper from whom Jim buys the witch-burning portrait, the Robinsons’ psychiatrist, and the third witch from the painting, Kitty (Tani Guthrie), who, in one scene, attempts to seduce Jim by casually disrobing in front of him, an act which neither party comment or act upon. The plot movies slowly, however there is neither a feeling of despair nor the impending danger that should accompany such an occult transformation or realization as presented. Instead, the film is merely dull; this is a middling, indecisive, if nicely shot and composed film.

The final scenes of Daughters of Satan feature Chris in the exact position as the woman from the beginning of the film, nude, being whipped by Satanists, dedicated to fulfilling the recreation of the Coven burnt at the stake years ago. Why exactly this must happen is unclear. Ultimately, it’s hard for the audience to sympathize with Chris, as her character is so slight.

This clumsiness also renders the final reveal impotent, as a twist ending can only shock through earned viewer investment. While visually the film is strong, it is only recommended for those whom are interested in horror that is both domestic and supernatural.

The October Ordeal III 01: Pinocchio's Revenge (1996)

2009-10-01T23:53:00.002-04:00

In the wasteland of straight-to-video and small-run 1990s genre cinema, “horror versions” of classic folk tales and fairy stories proliferated. In the 90s, shelves were crowded with titles like Leprechaun, Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White: a Tale of Terror, Jack Frost, and Grim Prairie Tales. These films either slot a folk creature into slasher frame-work, or play up strange and vicious elements of classic myths—an act, in this context, both transgressive and traditional. This reaction likely has to do with the last great era of hand-drawn Disney animation. While there is a point to be made that folk tales from around the world have been Christianized generally, and diluted even further by Disney, the films are often uninspired, supplying only gore and cheap laughs in place of what could have been cultural reclamation of the genuine creepiness of Grimm’s fairy tales or various Slavic myths. Interestingly enough, there were many live action iterations of classic tales during the decade as well, even a Jonathan Taylor Thomas/ Martin Landau vehicle simply titled Pinocchio, which remarkably came out the very same year as Pinocchio’s Revenge, in 1996.

Kevin S. Tenney’s Pinocchio’s Revenge appears, from box art, title and trailer, to fit the Leprechaun formula—with a Child’s Play twist—it’s wholly different film. This uniqueness is thanks to writer/director Tenney, creator of the underrated Witchboard series, and director of Night of the Demons and The Cellar.

Pinocchio’s Revenge opens with the caption, “Tampa, Florida, five years ago”. In an economical opening sequence, a Patrolman finds a car on the side of the road, with a child’s lifeless body inside, and a man in the forest, digging a grave. While examining the area later, Police discover that the man, Vincent Gatto, was burying a large wooden Pinocchio puppet. After this short intro tag, a generic news reporter explains that Gatto worked as a wood carver before his arrest, implying that he built the doll, and brings us into the present day, outside the court room where Gatto’s appeal is being heard.

While the sullen Gatto (Lewis Van Bergen) refuses to explain himself at all, his attorney Jennifer Garrick (Rosalind Allen) is convinced of his innocence. Her attempts are unsuccessful (partly due to Gatto’s uncooperative attitude), even though she believes he is lying, to protect a greater, perhaps stranger, truth. Before much can be discovered, Gatto is executed, although Jennifer is haunted by the case. She even takes the Pinocchio doll home to her daughter Zoe.

If this scenario brings to mind a generic episode of Law & Order, that’s not far off. While Pinocchio’s Revenge is an interesting film in many respects, visually it’s rather uninspired, looking and sounding like a TV-movie. While this is somewhat fitting, as the film features many such procedural scenes set in offices and court rooms, the difference between the visual integrity of Tenney’s Witchboard (photographed by Dream Warriors’ Roy H. Wagner) and this film is immense. Cinematography here is by Eric Anderson, an experienced TV DP, who delivers a simple, serviceable image, rather than the rich atmosphere of Tenney’s earlier films.

The relationship between Zoe and the wooden Pinocchio seems at first like a subplot, or a Child’s Play-inspired position for a killer doll to inhabit, it becomes much more. Zoe (Brittany Alyse Smith) is a disturbed child, dealing with not only the separation of her parents, but bullying at school. The crucial weakness of the film is Smith’s performance; however the TV-movie Mise en scène forgives this problem somewhat. Acting is generally poor, with Allen’s performance being the best, even if just above serviceable.

Zoe’s therapy scenes are important to the film, and serve as place-markers throughout, as Zoe becomes further unhinged. While her mother and psychiatrist initially see the Pinocchio marionette as a coping mechanism, it soon becomes clear that the presence of the doll is a negative force in Zoe’s recovery. If I’m being obscure about the doll, this is because the film is obscure about Pinocchio by design. His true nature is never really explained, and it makes as much sense here to assume Zoe is talking to a hunk of wood as it is to guess that Pinocchio is container of some sort of possessing demon. It is never suggested that this is Pinocchio the literary figure, as the character is only tangentially related to the film, and is never linked thematically. Whether he can actually talk and move, or we are privy to Zoe’s delusions, is mysterious. While he is silent for the first forty or so minutes of the film, when he does eventually speak, Pinocchio is voiced by veteran voice actor Dick Beals (best known as Davey from Davey & Goliath). In the few scenes where Pinocchio is seen to move, he is played by a young Verne Troyer in his first role.

While the mother-daughter relationship is the focus of the film, there are many peripheral characters, whom really only exist as victims or potential victims. Most important to the film's central mother-daughter-doll core is Sophia (Candace McKenzie), the Garrick’s Italian nanny. Also in the mix are Jennifer’s co-worker Barry (veteran television face Ron Canada)--who serves only to gift the doll to Zoe in the first place--and Jennifer’s boyfriend David (Todd Allen), whom is hardly developed at all. Sophia however, has many scenes, including the only real moment of humor in the film: after Sophia finds Zoe and Pinocchio waiting for her outside the shower, Zoe tells her mother, referring to Pinocchio: “He’s curious about ladies’ bodies.”

Two characters in the film serve to define the central ambiguity of the film. First is the aforementioned Psychiatrist, Dr. Edwards (Aaron Lustig, character actor whose resume is stuffed with similar roles), and an unnamed priest (Michael Connors) who outlines (by his very presence) one possible Pinocchio theory, whereas the counter is presented by the scientific authority of Dr. Edwards. Clearly this device serves to condone differing audience reactions. This becomes undeniable considering the film’s conclusion.

Whether or not Pinocchio is possessed or alive, it’s clear that Zoe needs him to deal with abandonment issues. From here the film makes a connection between Gatto’s son and Zoe, which leads Jennifer to think that Gatto may have been protecting his disturbed son, whom she thinks had committing murders of his own. She fears Zoe is enacting a sympathetic duplication of Gatto’s son’s ordeal. At this point three interpretations are possible, and the audience is invited to decide. A frustratingly ambiguous ending endorses this ambivalence.

There is no doubt that D.S. Tenney is saying something here; what this is however is somewhat mysterious. So much care is expended structuring the film that room for thematic resonance is small and specific. Regardless, the relationship between mother and daughter is believable and tragic, as is Zoe’s elementary school experience. This is in keeping with Tenney’s oeuvre, as Witchboard is essentially character-study and relationship-drama disguised as supernatural chiller.

While this central question mark works structurally, its impact is lessened by the confounding choice of Pinocchio as a character. There is no great reason for the doll to be anything more than an original character, as this is not a retelling of the Pinocchio story, and the Pinocchio of this film is not the classic Pinocchio. Also, the title is nonsensical. The working title is a little better, The Pinocchio Syndrome. Better still is the UK title, simply, Pinocchio. The low budget (and low profile) of the film leads to believe that Tenney is to blame for this, especially considering that he wrote the film. It is possible that Tenney saw a market, and used a gimmicky premise to tell a personal and uncommon story.

In the final third of Pinocchio’s Revenge, Jennifer asks her priest, “Do you believe in evil?” She asks because she thinks Gatto killed his son to save his soul. She wonders if demonic forces are speaking through Pinocchio, which in many ways is a more acceptable theory than simply believing her child is mentally unstable. The film’s final tag suggests some cyclical link to the “five years ago” intro, but this is never substantiated. Both the psychiatrist and priest survive the film, as if to preventing either theory from achieving dominance.

Eventually the film reaches the climax of its slow-burn escalation, and a final confrontation is put in place. There is no denouement to speak of, and questions are never satisfactorily answered. The conclusion, interpretive elements notwithstanding, is nonetheless tragic, earned by the care with witch Tenney builds the central relationships of the film.

Pinocchio’s Revenge is a unique, genre-mashing film, almost to fault. By keeping so much about itself obscure, the film risks locking viewers out rather than inviting their interpretation and debate. As an exercise, it narrowly fails in this respect. By making the conclusion of the film obliquely frustrating, critical tension is low, because any and all wild interpretations become valid. Despite this flaw in execution, Pinocchio’s Revenge is still strangely interesting, if dated and low-rent, with an emotional and spiritual core, allowing it to transcend the sub-genre in which it masquerades.

Death Warmed Up (1984)

2009-07-30T15:47:00.014-04:00

(Spoilers throughout)

David Blyth’s 1984 film Death Warmed Up has achieved some degree of notoriety for being one of the New Zealand’s first slasher films, if not the first. This is debatable—and not merely because such claims are always dubious—but because Death Warmed Up resists any sort of neat categorization. On paper, the film has a typical horror set-up, and contains all the constituent elements of a slasher, but somehow these elements never seem to come together in a meaningful way, and what is instead presented is a confusing and uncomfortable—although in many ways interesting—mess of a movie.

Confusion should be the operative term here. The film opens in-media-res after some beautiful pop-art design-y titles (a bizarre through-line), wherein precocious sixteen year old Michael Tucker (Dangerous Orphans’ Michael Hurst) barges into some strange facility, where a woman shouts at him “Wonderful news about your father’s promotion!” as he rushes absurdly fast down a hallway. He stops at the door to some sort of operating room and peeks in. Mike’s spying is indicative of the absurd amount of voyeurism found in this film, and the first hint at the bizarre sexual undertones lurking behind practically every scene in the film. An unknown man (who turns out to be Mike’s father’s research partner Archer Howell) claps a hand down on Mike’s shoulder and leers “You’re all sweaty… let’s get you cleaned up.” Before Michael can respond, the scene cuts to a highly eroticized shot of him luxuriating in the middle of a large locker-room shower. This low-lit, steamy scene is the first of many which heavily sexualize Michael Hurst’s nude or semi-nude body. Dr. Howell (Gary Day) enters silently and sticks Mike in the ass with a needle, cradling him in his arms as he passes out, whispering “trust me”. The lighting in this scene is of a sickly yellow hue. Most of the lighting in this film is monochromatic, the color palette mostly consisting of reds, greens and yellows.

Death Warmed Up is full of smash-cuts, and the first one comes directly after this scene of penetration. Michael is on the same operating table he spied earlier, thrashing about while the camera hovers around his crotch as he turns into some sort of mind-controlled zombie soldier. Following another smash-cut, the locale switches abruptly to Mike’s home, as his scientist father and mother return from some sort of awards banquet. In another heavily sexualized scene, Mike’s mother (Tina Grenville) is seen hanging out in a see-through nighty while his father (David Weatherley) scoffs at a television interview with his partner Howell, who raves “We are the generation of the end!” while detailing his theories about immortality. What follows then is a very uncomfortable sex scene, similarly lit by pallid yellow light (note that it’s light, and not lens gels, which goes farther to create the film’s diseased verisimilitude than stylistic gel shading could).

Just when it seems the film has abandoned Michael, he appears in the bushes outside his folks’ house with dead eyes and a shot-gun. Piling on more scenes of voyeurism, compounded by explicit Freudian theory, Michael pauses to observe his nude mother, before—in what can be read as Oedipal rage—blowing his parents away with Howell’s shot gun, held at crotch level. His father he even blasts below the waist. The grimiest part of this coitus-interuptus is the way the camera seems to sympathize with Michael, lingering outside the house with him and presenting him as a bystander, an innocent pawn, although certain choices he makes seem representative of psychological impulses rather than efficient drone tactics. The shot-gun blasts are presented in agonizing slo-mo, with extended blood-spray and time-stretched screaming.

Amidst more smash-cuts, Michael is taken to an abusive mental ward by Howell, where he is kept in a padded cell lit with blue lamps. The color palette in Death Warmed Up seems at odds with the typical cinematic color wheel, because colors usually associated with warm and positive emotion—yellow, blue—are used to indicate sickness, decay and abuse. I can’t imagine this was an intentional bit of unsettling bait-and-switch, but such counter-intuitiveness works nonetheless. After Mike’s institutional abuse is adequately represented, unassuming text awkwardly explains that “…on an isolated island Doctor Archer Howell is now operating on human patients a trans-cranial application. His first patient was Mr. Tex Monro.” (Whom is played by the great Bruno Lawrence from The Quiet Earth and Jack Be Nimble). As awkward as this bit of exposition is, it’s welcome, because despite the prior detailed synopsis of only the first ten minutes of the film found here, exactly what’s happening can only be realized upon multiple viewings. So much is unstated; characters names aren’t necessarily provided; relationships are unclear; motivations are mysterious. Questions which viewers would naturally ask are never answered. Everything that has just happened could provide the complete narrative for an entirely different film, but here it is squashed down to preamble.

“NOW”, appears on the screen (more 1980’s pop-art advertising-type design, with the same sharp lettering, jagged marks and bright colors from the opening credits), and it’s seven years later, and Michael is traveling to “an isolated island” (coastal Australia) to confront Howell. Yet, for some unknown reason, he’s brought his girlfriend Sandy and two of his dopy friends along. There is of course no great reason to bring pals along on a quest for vengeance; this is simply the transparent and non-diagetic supplying of murder victims.

Michael’s quest for revenge/closure could begin on the island, but instead we meet Mike & Co. on a ferry en route to the island. While the film’s prologue moves at break-neck pace, the rest is disproportionately slow, meandering and frustrating. Unimportant scenes drag and drag, while significant plot points come and go with neither care nor attention. There is no reason to include a ferry-ride to the island if not to introduce and set up characters. However, Mike’s pals are so thinly characterized that the opportunity is wasted. Most of the characters in the film are at least shown on camera in this sequence, as it seems the ferry is sailing into the remainder of the film, rather than to an actual island, because all the henchmen and human guinea pigs Mike will confront later are also on the boat. A severely fucked up and decomposing Bruno Lawrence in sequestered in captain’s quarters, while Howell’s lap dogs Jannings and Spider wait in a black van watching Michael’s friends Jeannie and Lucas having sex; “I love the smell of blonde pussy in the morning”, one quips.

These are the patients who’ve undergone Howell’s immortality treatments. The greasy, strung-out lowlifes Howell is experimenting on look like they walked off the set of a post-apocalypse film. Lawrence’s Tex is a creepy hunchbacked retard who’s practically rotting. Presumably Michael underwent a similar treatment, which somehow failed to have the same effect on him. Before the close of the sequence, Tex sprays some neon vomit on the deck and Lucas (William Upjohn) starts a fight with Spider after pissing on his van. Spider is the movie’s most interesting character, really, played with sadistic relish by David Letch (“Ratbag” in Nate & Hayes).

Over the course of this scene (which feels like prologue number two) Michael is revealed to be a rather unlikable character, a hick with a faux-punk attitude. This seems a strange choice, as Michael is a sympathetic character from the start, and, in such an unambitious revenge film, it seems in the film’s best interest to position Mike as a justified protagonist, not a reject from the Future Kill fraternity.

What’s interesting about Death Warmed Up has to do with how the fractured narrative allows for interesting mistakes and flaws. For example, instead of building up to the final confrontation between Howell and Michael, Michael sees Howell walking across the street the moment he arrives on the island. Instead of getting to work at collecting information and planning some sort of attack, Mike takes his friends to the beach or to explore some weird tunnel. The film takes unnecessary diversions into embarrassing comedy, including a truly offensive scene were a white guy plays an obnoxious Indian convenience store clerk.

And while we spend a lot of time with Mike’s pals, we know nothing about them. Lucas is an annoying jock, Jeannie his horny leopard-print wearing girlfriend. Mike’s girlfriend Sandy is largely underdeveloped, although some tics and idiosyncrasies serve to flesh out her character somewhat. In the beach scene, Mike’s ass and boner (!?) are center-frame, as he struts around in his underwear. When he is dressed, he’s wearing a Roy Lichtenstein-esque print shirt and cut-offs, complimenting the film’s specific design scheme. While there’s a lot of slack creatively here, at least the costume department and title company seem to be in sync. All the fashions here are fetishistic, from the tight pants and muscle tees to the post-apocalyptic leather to the revealing nurses’ outfits Howell’s supermodel-assistants wear.

The tunnel-exploration scene at least moves the film forward, as the crew are ambushed by Spider and his pal, who chase the kids on motorbikes. As they ride they pass through orange, red, yellow and blue lights. By this point, any interpretation of color-specific thematic resonance breaks down. In a rapid-fire succession of events reminiscent of the opening scenes, Spider’s partner is killed and Jeannie is nearly killed. What exactly is wrong with her isn’t clear, aside from perhaps a vague head injury. Sandy flips, and demands that Mike take her to the psychiatric hospital, and gets so heated that she strangles Michael while yelling at him. Of course, asking the same people who are responsible for one’s injury for help is ridiculous, but, the narrative needs to get the kids to get to the hospital somehow. Of course, this could have been solved by simply giving Mike a plan in the script, instead of sending him off to the beach without any sort of concrete plan.

As Michael and his friends make their way to the hospital, all hell is breaking lose, as Spider—heartbroken—has decided to free all of Howell’s patients, essentially turning the film into a zombie flick. This scene features a Doctor yelling, “We got an outbreak of psychos!” which is particularly offensive. The zombies mob the island, while Mike and the rest finally arrive at the hospital. In a succession of clunky set-piece action scenes, most everybody dies, including Jeannie. In a satisfying moment, Spider kills Lucas. The subtext here is that Michael is directly responsible, as he’s risked his friends’ lives, and doesn’t seem to feel any guilt or even make the connection.

If it seems like I’ve barely mentioned Dr. Howell, this is because he’s barely a presence in the film. His motivations are broad and clichéd. His part is mysterious. In fact, he’s only really on screen at the beginning and end of the film, serving only to motivate changes in Michael’s personality and priorities. Their confrontation is a role reversal from the early shower scene, and is just as intimate. Howell again wields a phallic weapon under sickly yellow lighting, only this time Michael does the penetration, thrusting a scalpel into Howell’s body as he says “trust me”, mocking Howell earlier line. While this should be the film’s denouement, it seems merely to be another inconsequential moment in a fractured narrative full of confusingly isolated moments.

The real climax comes while Sandy and Mike attempt to flee the island (Spider and hundreds of zombies presumably nearby). They come upon some debris in the road, and are unable to pass. Sandy sobs “Why!?!?” while banging Michael’s head violently while they sit in the defeated getaway-car. Her impulsive violent outbursts are bizarre, but at least serve as some kind of characterization. “It’s over,” he says, then “It hasn’t even begun.”, as if the film is actually the prelude to an epic zombie apocalypse.

(Major spoiler here).

After this, this histrionic and weird film wraps up with a histrionic and weird ending. Michael walks stiffly to the side of the road—recalling his zombified movements from the film’s opening—and is killed by falling power lines. This seems to suggest that Mike is paying for his earlier sins, and that he accepts this, as something about the action of the power lines seems supernaturally predetermined. That said, this is a film which stubbornly resists psychoanalysis. Attempts to pin ideas onto certain moments seem futile.

After Michael dies, Sandy clutches his lifeless body and wails in agony, which is a suitably depressing end for a rather misanthropic film. After the end credits (in the same style of the opening, set to a minimal Eno-esque score), there is one final tag, Spider’s catch-phrase “I’ll get you all!” which seems directed at the audience. This is actually a nice touch, in keeping with this film’s strongest attribute: its assured, cutting edge style, which seems more in line with European art-house cinema, which actually became a hallmark of NZ genre cinema. There isn’t much in Blyth’s resume to indicate this, however. In fact, I don’t know much about Blyth, as his filmography is obscure. Apparently he was fired off the set of House III and directed a childrens film called Grampire. Aside from Bruno Lawrence’s extended cameo, there’s not much here to attract the average genre fan. And while Death Warmed Up is a minor cult film, it hasn’t achieved nearly the notoriety it demands; it would be interesting to see some sort of special edition DVD release.

What’s most unique about Death Warmed Up is how its flaws actually work in its favor. Instead of being a typical slasher film, it is instead a dense and curious mess of a movie which demands repeat viewings. The counter-intuitive workings of the film ask questions that are hard to answer. Why does the film focus its attention of the trivial yet gloss over important events, creating a confusing and elliptical narrative. Why the elevation of typically uninteresting minutia and irrelevant characters driving, waiting and hanging around, while presumable more interesting plot developments take place elsewhere. The film is seriously flawed, yes—these interesting elements never gel as a cohesive whole—but it’s strangeness and ineptitude seem almost experimental in light of the deliberate, assured stylistic choices made. This internal juxtaposition works to cook up a film which has many problems, yet still stands as an intriguing and dreamlike cinematic mutation.

Shaun Luu Horror Fest 2009

2009-06-16T13:02:00.006-04:00

Last weekend most of the Samurai Dreams writers and I drove to Syracuse, NY for the fifth annual Shaun Luu Horror Fest. Held as a fund-raiser in memory of Syracuse-based hardcore singer and horror-nut Luu (who died of brain cancer), the fest is a two day marathon of genre flicks and hardcore music. We were there for the films only, eight 35mm prints* shown in a row at the Palace Theatre. While they showed some pretty strong stuff this year, none of it can compare to what they've shown in the past. Can you imagine the 2008 fest, which featured Salo, Holy Mountain, Re-Animator and Cannibal Holocaust!? Insane!

Never in my life have I sat through so many movies in a row. While it was a great experience, by the end I was tired and my eyes were totally wrecked. Check the lineup: Ghostbusters 2, Monster Squad, Black Devil Doll, City of the Living Dead, Deep Red, Cannibal Ferox, The Warriors and The Thing! I thought I'd post a play-by-play of the marathon.

Ghostbusters 2. I hadn't seen this in probably ten years, so it was interesting to revisit it on the big screen. This was the "family friendly" portion of the fest, and GB2 began at about 1pm after some introductions from fest organizers. As much fun as I had, my enjoyment was blunted slightly by my anticipation for seeing Monster Squad. Not surprisingly, this was probably the best-looking print of the night aside from Grindhouse Releasing's restored print of Cannibal Ferox.

Monster Squad. Yes! This was the flick I was looking forward most to seeing on the big screen. I would have loved to have seen this one as a kid, so this was major wish fulfillment. I noticed so much I hadn't before (the complete matte painting of the town seen from Sean's roof at the beginning, the Being poster in the clubhouse, etc). And the print was in great shape too, which I wasn't expecting.

After Monster Squad there was a two hour break, and we went to a cool vegan restaurant in the area. Drinking a bottle of Kombucha boosted my stamina levels.

Black Devil Doll. The only contemporary film of the fest, this is the debut feature from Rotton Cotton's Jon Lewis. Billed as a cross between Child's Play and Dolemite, the titular villain is an executed black serial killer reincarnated in the body of a wooden ventriloquist dummy. He spends the rest of the film killing women and raping their corpses, shitting on people and quoting Chapelle's Show. As tasteless and offensive as this low budget flick tries to be, it's more dull than anything, and I actually dozed off at one point. While I admire Lewis for making this small movie and promoting the hell out of it--and for releasing those awesome VHS-company logo shirts at RC--this really just isn't my kind of thing.

City of the Living Dead. The second in Fulci's trilogy of zombie films, I was really excited to see this one for the first time. A rare uncut print with dutch subtitles was used, and it took me about fifteen minutes to stop instinctively looking at them, even though the dialog was spoken in english. Of all the films, this felt the most unique to me, because when do you get a chance to see something like this in the theatre? The maggot-shower scene was particularly gross on such a huge screen. By this point the theatre was pretty packed, and I really felt that the audience was in synch. A totally respectful and enthusiastic crowd.

Deep Red. While it was still great to see, this was probably the most damaged and faded print of the night. But man, it ruled to hear that music at such volume. I think I may have dozed off for a few minutes here and there, but by the end I had caught my second wind.

The Warriors. Since I saw a midnight showing of this at the Hadley Cinemark last year I was thinking of taking a walk or something during this, but the audience's hype level was infectious, and I had to stay. Each gang introduction drew applause, and I was grinning through the whole thing. Really keyed into the homoerotic subtext of the film, amazed I never really noticed it before. Before the film began, the main organizer of the event (whose name escapes me) warned that Paramount was so worried about the condition of the one print they could find that they sent it over for free with warnings of extreme damage. Who knows why, because the print was absolutely beautiful, and one of the best of the night. Weird.

Cannibal Ferox. Of all the films, this was the only one I was kind of afraid to watch. While I've seen Cannibal Holocaust, Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Mountain of the Cannibal God and Porno Holocaust, the jungle adventure genre of Italian sleaze usually makes me queasy, especially the nasty animal-slaughter bits. And in Ferox, the scenes of animal torture and slaughter are relentless. Apart from this unfortunate business, Lenzi's film is equal parts camp and sleaze, and even at its bleakest there's humor and disarming weirdless to laugh nervously at for most of the film. The humor slowly drains out of the film however, and the last third is relentlessly dismal and depressing. And that ending! While I can't condone the animal bits, this film, like Cannibal Holocaust, is at least loaded with social commentary as well as gore and exploitation (which makes it kind of hard to deal with critically, as it makes itself impossible to dismiss, as much as one might like to do so). The audience groaned and squirmed practically in unison at every turn, and while this is an unpleasant film, viewing it with a huge audience on a large screen was a singular experience.

The Thing. It was about 2:30 am by this point, and I had to keep moving around the theatre just to stay awake. Only the most hardcore of film freaks were still in attendance by this point, and I saw more than a few people totally cached out and napping. While I wasn't at my sharpest, and I had to take my glasses off to soothe my eyes, it still ruled to see one of my all time favorite films up there. Tried to pay really close attention to where all the characters were at all times, and noticed that MacCready's shack is still standing at the end. Awesome.

Fun to notice: Mary Ellen Trainor in both Ghostbusters 2 and Monster Squad and Thomas Waites in Warriors and The Thing. Also, James and I got pretty excited when we realized that the protagonist in Cannibal Ferox is played by Lorraine De Selle, the warden from Women's Prison Massacre.

The End!

*Aside from Black Devil Doll, which must have been a DVD.

Women's Prison Massacre (1983)

2009-05-07T14:48:00.019-04:00

While Bruno Mattei's Women’s Prison Massacre (Emanuelle Fuga Dall'Inferno, literally Emanuelle Escapes from Hell in Italian) is technically a Black Emanuelle film (Gemser actually stars as the character Emanuelle, and not just in re-dubbed and re-titled international cuts), it’s pointedly different than the original Black Emanuelle films made infamous by Joe D’amato. Despite directing films like Porno Holocaust and the fake Caligula sequels, Mattei’s films are much tamer than D’Amato’s (but, really, that isn’t saying much). While Emanuelle is still a head-strong, free-spirited reporter here, her character is quite different than the Emanuelle found in D’Amato’s classic exploitation films.

In films like Emanuelle in America and Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Gemser plays the photo-journalist Emanuelle as a carefree, precocious nymphomaniac, following illicit thrills around the globe. So, it’s strange to find her locked in a prison here, robbed of D’Amato’s defining cosmopolitan characteristic. Consensus being that Gemser can’t act, one would assume that her performance here would lack the nuanced performance potentially afforded by this alteration. Granted, Gemser is wooden, but that may have more to do with her icy, impassable beauty, a disposition that can occasionally convey only aloof boredom. However, Gemser’s performance here is actually quite good, and certainly among the best of her career (the Russian Roulette scene is particular evidence of this).

The film begins with a perplexing bit of performance art that barely serves as exposition and fails to set the proper tone of the film. Emanuelle and two compatriots are seen on a make-shift prison stage, slathered in harlequin face-paint and flatly presenting a three-hander monologue, the type of “I’m a whore/ I’m a woman” pseudo-feminist hot-air found in many exploitation scripts. Workman Italian stalwarts Claudio Fragasso (notorious director of the D'Amato-produced Troll 2, which Gemser had a hand in) and Olivier Lefait (first A.D. to Mattei on Rats: Night of Terror and writer of the lesser Violence in a Women’s Prison, which this film is a sort-of sequel to) really outdid themselves with this bizarre trio of monologues.

While at odds tonally, this strange and off-putting opening scene in Women’s Prison Massacre seems added as some sort of notification (or warning) to the audience that this is not a typical women-in-prison film. In fact, nods in the film to genre convention (lesbianism, rape, riot, escape) feel compulsory and tangential; in the average by-the-books WiP picture, these moments would be highlighted and heavily presented, as the execution of lurid subject matter is the raison d’etre of most exploitation genre films. Chalk it up to characterization perhaps, but it’s rather unsuccessful in that regard. The inmates find this bit of theatre so offensive they begin to riot and throw fruit (where the hell did they get it?), at the urging of Emanuelle’s rival Albina (Ursula Flores, for some reason playing a different character than she played in ViaWP).

While Emanuelle is at the film’s core, Women’s Prison Massacre is in many ways an ensemble piece. Albina and at least two other inmates are adequately developed. And midway through the film, a half dozen new characters are introduced in an inspired run of scenes. The prison’s warden (Carlo De Mejo as Harrison) is for some reason tasked with housing a gang of vicious male killers in an unused portion of the prison (as to why they would be brought to a women’s prison is a question you’re going to have to ask the gods of exploitation cinema). Italian character actor Gabrielle Tinti provides the film’s best performance as the gleefully sadistic Crazy Boy Henderson (He and Gemser would reunite the following year in D’Amato’s post-apocalyptic sleeper Endgame).

With the introduction of these characters, the film nearly shifts into Poliziesco thriller territory, as the gang manages to take control of a police van en-route to the prison, enlisting police-impersonating thugs as blockade and taking the warden captive. The crew hole up in the prison, locking the inmates and guards away as they negotiate with the cops gathering outside the compound (including the corrupt D.A. who put Emanuelle in prison). These action scenes are incredibly visceral and lively, and perfectly complimented by Luigi Ceccarelli’s Simonetti-esque score. This is a welcome twist on the formula and a fully functional and successful genre-mash-up.

While up to this point the violence in the film is of a prisoner-catfight type nature (aside from a blackly-comic scene where Emanuelle takes a brutal baton-hit to the face from Cannibal Ferox's Lorraine De Selle), the sadistic nature of Crazy Boy’s gang pushes the film into new mean-spirited directions. While directors like Sergio Martino and D’Amato craft films with a pervasive tone of sleaze, Mattei’s WPM contains only isolated moments of shocking violence and sexual depravity, which makes these scenes more powerful than they would be alongside the non-stop cavalcade of shock formula of the D’Amato Black Emanuelle films or Martino‘s cannibal pictures. While Crazy Boy taking a mouthful of gore is a high-note, the film’s most gruesome scene has to be the sequence where a broken and abused prisoner fatally wounds a thug by inserting a razor blade into her vagina and seducing him (luckily this isn‘t a D‘Amato film, as Gianetto De Rossi would have actually figured out some way to film the appendage/razor contact).

Despite a predictable climax, Emanuelle’s fate at the end of the film is somewhat ambiguous. Presumably this device is a bit of insurance, material to fuel the start of more Emanuelle WiP films. However unless I’m mistaken, this and ViaWP are the only such major pictures. While the triumphant tone of the film’s dénouement is depleted by this bit of business, this film is still jam-packed and engaging, and certainly a high-point for both the women-in-prison genre and the sub-genre of Black Emanuelle films starring Laura Gemser. Recommended.

Year End of Films in Life 2008

2008-12-31T20:00:00.004-05:00

Every film I saw in theatres in 2008:

Aliens vs. Predator Requiem

Some friends wanted to see this. Worse than I could ever imagine.

Black Orpheus

One of my favorite films. A nice print at Amherst Cinema.

Hellboy II the Golden Army

Better than the first. I liked this in an uncomplicated way. Liked.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Oppressive CGI, lame-brained story peppered with 2012/Mayan fad hokum, phoned-in performances, over the top yet boring action scenes. No thanks.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall/ Pineapple Express

Fine and funny comedies both!

Iron Man/ The Incredible Hulk

I didn't care for either of these. There's a lot I'd like to say about this new era of Marvel Universe films, so I'll save it.

Zabriskie Point

Amherst Cinema again. Terrible acting, inane dialog, a pointless, unearned finale. Yet somehow it's still a great film.

The Dark Knight

Fantastic. Deserves the extreme hype. Mainstream to the core, yet somehow still truly dismal, nihilistic and ambiguous. A nice deconstruction of something like Iron Man, I think.

The Punisher

My buddy and I saw this opening day in an empty theater. I actually enjoyed this, it's stupid, bizarre, nasty and offensive in the finest 80s exploitation tradition. A kind of update of something like The Exterminator. A review should follow the DVD release.

The Happening

I absolutely loved this film, it's probably my pick for film of the year. I may be the only person who totally liked this movie. Me and Ebert. It's everything a mainstream film isn't supposed to be: weird, idiosyncratic, hermetic, unapologetically hammy, political, singular, perplexingly cast. If you watch the bonus footage on the DVD, it becomes apparent that Shyamalan did exactly what he wanted to do, and he's seen acting strange and purposefully unnerving his actors, conciously creating an otherwordly vibe on set. Reading reviews of this film after I saw it, I was shocked at how closely they all resembled each other. The same narrative is trotted out: Shyamalan makes three good movies and two bad ones, this time it's three strikes you're out with his third unsuccessful film. I liked The Village and Lady in the Water quite a bit. It's fine if the majority of critics disliked this film, but does everyone have to hit it from the same angle?

DVD times: Diary of the Dead, Christmas on Mars, Sukiyaki Western Django, Cloverfield, Doomsday, Tropic Thunder, X-Files: I Want to Believe, King of Kong.

I spent most of 2008 watching older films, but I would have liked to have seen the following, overlong list of films: The Wrestler, Man on Wire, Wall-E, Speed Racer, Funny Games, Drillbit Taylor, Burn after Reading, Synecdoche NY, Transsiberian, Gammorrah, Red Cliff, Rachel Getting Married, Wendy & Lucy, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, Paranoid Park, Tell No One, Eden Lake, The Orphanage, Hunger, Taxi to the Dark Side, Nothing like the Holidays, The Strangers, Slumdog Millionaire, Milk.

Pleasant and Enjoyable

2008-12-20T14:52:00.003-05:00

Back in the day I used to write short, nearly pointless reviews for films on IMDb... The Rankin-Bass Hobbit, Mafia vs. Ninja, The Brain that Wouldn't Die... some of the cult films I was digging in high school. I should delete them really. Today I was checking out my neglected IMDb profile when I noticed that I had posted a review which I have no recollection of writing. Strange, because it was posted about a year ago, so Samurai Dreams was in full effect, so it makes little sense I would write a review that wouldn't make it's way to this blog or the pages of SD. It's a little longer than a capsule, but provides little substantive information about the film, Crimezone. The film couldn't have been fresh in my mind, because I think the last time I watched Crimezone was as a junior in college, several years ago. The "my friend fell asleep watching this" part is mysterious as well, and must have been college-era. The jazzy style and complete lack of punctuation, capitalization and proper sentence structure by the end might point to inebriation, but I recall consistant clean-living from that period.

Did I let somebody write a review on my account? I think I would remember that. Most likely I did write it, and possibly after a few beers... strange all the same.

Check it out.

Skatebraoding

2008-12-11T22:24:00.001-05:00

The October Ordeal II 04: The Monster Club (1980)

2008-10-31T20:27:00.003-04:00

Roy Ward Baker’s The Monster Club is a typical anthology horror film, unique only for its retro style. While the film horror genre had gotten quite nasty by 1980, The Monster Club reminds of Vincent Price and Boris Karloff in its style, tone and attention. In fact, its wrap-around interstitial segments and source (a single author, here a more contemporary figure than Poe or Hawthorne), are taken directly from older, classical fright films. Production house Amicus had produced several such anthology films, of which this is the last.

Price, in fact, is present here in the role as host, as Count Eramus, an ancient vampire and member of “The Monster Club”, a clandestine joint where monsters can hang out and catch some tunes (the film is based on this “monster underground” concept). The tales he tells are based on the work of R. Chetwynd-Hayes, acclaimed British writer. Confusingly, Chetwynd-Hayes is present in the film as a character, played by John Carradine. Chetwynd-Hayes meets—I presume—a character of his own creation in Eramus, who introduces himself by biting Chetwynd-Hayes on the neck. Not enough to turn or kill him, of course, just enough for a taste (“You’re my favorite author” Eramus says, and “It was the finest blood I have ever tasted”). Eramus brings Chetwynd-Hayes to a Halloween party at the club, with promise of inspiring tales. This is strange, as he’ll be telling Chetwynd-Hayes his own stories.

The scenes in the club are light and humorous, and each features a full musical performance. The music is a mix of new-wave and Thin Lizzy-style pub-rock, featuring such bands as Night, The Viewers, the Expressos and a reunited Pretty Things (one of the greatest psychedelic bands ever, here shilling a bland reggae-influenced style). In fact, music is practically oppressive in this film, present throughout. When a band isn’t performing in the interstitial bits, a UB40 song is playing. During the segments, the music of a single composer is featured, including John Williams in the first.

Each segment is in some way based on a hierarchy of creatures which Eramus outlines early in the film. For example: if a werewolf mates with a ghoul, it produces a “were-ghoul”. This idea may have seemed clever in the script, but is confusing on-screen, despite the handy chart Price keeps pointing at. The subject of the first story is a “Shadmock”, creatures which look like gaunt humans and have the ability to melt people with a deafening whistle (this odd concept is typical of the film). The well-off Shadmock we meet here is looking for love, which he finds with his house-keeper, who is working for a con-man, who plans to rob his mansion. Inevitably, he catches her in the act, and shows the audience what happens when he whistles. This segment is competent if a little dull, and ultimately the least successful of the three.

In the second section, Eramus and Chetwynd-Hayes turn to hear a man on stage tell a humorous story from his youth, in what is the most overtly comic of the three tales. The boy in the film is the son of a human woman (the gorgeous and talented Britt Ekland) and a vampire, “Count Manfred”. His family has moved from Transylvania to England, but have been followed by vamp-hunter Pickering, played by Donald Pleasance, who approaches the boy as a priest and delivers the creepiest line in the film: “I’m not a stranger, I’m a clergyman! Would you like a caramel?” Pleasance and his cronies follow the boy back to his house, in an attempt to assassinate the Count, with the stakes they carry (“Beware men who carry violin cases,” Manfred tells the young Viscount). The music in this section is fantastic, traditional Transylvanian folk music performed by John Georgiadis. This is the most likable segment in the film, and the type of story that really fits the format. Pleasance is great here, high-energy and committed to the story’s inherent camp.

Between this and the final tale is the film’s most awkward moment. A rock band called Night performs while a woman strips down to her (animated!) skeleton. “Magnificent!” and “Beautiful bones!” are a few of Eramus’ remarks. This scene feels inappropriate, as the film feels decidedly PG otherwise. This moment is more in keeping with dismal grime-fests like Night Train to Terror, another horror anthology (which also features a gimmicky premise—God and Satan telling tales on a moving train—and live musical performances). The tone otherwise is carefree and sentimental, almost melancholic in its nostalgia (palpable but vague). The animated skeletal frame reveals the budget for these wrap-arounds, and feels more movie-of-the-week than feature film in its tackiness. This criticism aside, the dark turn of this act sets the mood for the final third of this film, its heaviest and scariest.

In this tale (told partly in illustrations by John Bolton, the still-active British comic artist), a horror director is out scouting locations when he finds himself marooned in an anachronistic village of ghouls, who want to eat him. With help from Luna, a hilariously naïve “Humghoul” (“They not go in there, fall down if go in there!”), he manages to escape, (spoiler) only to be picked up by police and driven right back to the village square. The police are escorting the mysterious “Elders” to the town for—what? Some kind of inspection maybe. This is the creepiest, most depressing moment in what is otherwise an light-hearted, inoffensive horror film. This segment also features fine music, by electronic composer Alan Hawkshaw.

After this story is over, the film fits in one final set-piece joke as its conclusion. Eramus officially inducts Chetwynd-Hayes into the club, reasoning that humans have committed more atrocities than any monster. It’s hard to see any political dimension to this, as the film is—for the most part—very silly and slight, without significant depth (I haven’t read any of the source stories, so I can’t comment on their richness). This is simply the final tag in a series of goofy moments, cheesy jokes and “Gotcha!” gags. Price is the perfect presider, as he’s in enthusiastic ham mode throughout. While I enjoy Price in anything, ultimately I prefer his toned-down, less-theatrical performances in such films as Last Man on Earth and The Conqueror Worm.

After Eramus’ induction ceremony, he and Chetwynd-Hayes throw up their hands and head to the ballroom floor to dance (with fat women!) as the Pretty Things (whom the audience has been waiting for) play the film’s theme, “Welcome to the Monster Club” over the credits. While this film’s length is typical of the anthology, it could have been tidier, especially in the wraparound segments. While the three stories are pretty clearly defined and ordered-by-tone (melancholic, humorous, frightening), they are all equally as successful. Which an audience member prefers will ultimately reflect personal taste. That said, its doubtful any one person will entirely enjoy the entire film. Well, the good with the bad, I suppose. As horror anthologies go, The Monster Club isn’t essential by any means, but it is still entertaining as an unpretentious (and un-ambitious) entry in the form.

The October Ordeal II 03: Virgin Witch (1972)

2008-10-21T19:09:00.010-04:00

(Spoilers throughout)

Although Virgin Witch (also known as “Lesbian Twins”, which I’m sure sells more DVDs) came at the height of the European horror-sleaze boom, in many ways it’s an isolated and singular film. Partly this is because of narrative—which I’ll get to later—but moreso because it seems to lack specific time and place. It feels like an Italian film, but it’s British. It’s director, Ray Austin, has otherwise worked only for television. It’s writer, Beryl Vertue, is an accomplished producer, but has only this one writing credit on her resume. It promises a swinging mod-London setting, but takes place mostly inside a single house. It looks on the surface like exploitation—which it is—but offers little in the way of eroticism, really. For these reasons, Virgin Witch is rather obscure, and while it isn’t essential, its still an above average and unique genre entry.

Virgin Witch starts off with out-of-focus stills of nude torsos, a montage of nudity to come, with the actors’ names pasted on, much like the opening of an average porno. Then—suddenly—creepy psych rock blasts and a woman is seen being burned alive, screaming, with no explanation. All of this happens in about two minutes, leading an informed genre fan to expect a brain-melt along the lines of Black Candles or any Jess Franco picture. Well, forget this strange opening, because it will never be explained or revisited. The eternal question when viewing Giallo is this: is it better to exhaust oneself attempting to keep the narrative strands in order, or is it appropriate to just give in to sound and image, and hope that by the end something makes sense? I was prepared to ask myself this same question, until I realized that Virgin Witch isn’t a Gialli slasher, it’s a British vampire film. Aside from this first section, Virgin Witch makes sense, and can easily be followed, processed and understood.

After the surreal first minutes, Virgin Witch begins in earnest, with its central characters, Christina and Betty, played by Ann and Vicki Michelle—who are twin sisters, although I didn’t pick that up until researching the film, as they are by no means identical, and never explicitly referred to as sisters in the film. Outgoing Christina and demure Betty have escaped their boring country lives to slum it in London, and they’re living with the middle-aged Johnny (Keith Buckley), a stylish guy who is really just that; it’s a mystery what he does for a living (he exists because later on the film will need a third party to intervene later). This in-media-res opening finds Christina looking for modeling work and finding it with the icy Sybil Waite (Patricia Haines), a character defined solely by the fact that she’s a businesswoman and a lesbian, usually shorthand for villain in a film like this (hold that thought). Christina is willing to go nude and Sybil needs a model on short notice, so she instantly gets the job, and is immediately on her way to an ornate mansion in the countryside, with Betty along for the ride as her chaperone.

This all happens in the first ten minutes or so. By the time Betty and Christina make it to the secluded mystery house, most characters are established, a mystery is developing, and all gears are in motion. Virgin Witch wastes no time establishing itself, making for a breezy and digestible narrative, a feature rare for the genre.

There are two major characters left to introduce, both waiting at the foreboding manor. The owner of the house—and prime-mover of action—effete charmer Gerald Amberly (Neil Hallett), and horny photographer Peter (James Chase), who seems as in-over-his-head as Christina and Betty are about to be. These two are introduced first as voyeurs, preying on the two women in that way; while Peter is an innocuous character, Gerald will soon be preying on Betty and Christina in a more real and serious way. Peter’s voyeurism is work, and more for the benefit of the audience, as his camera’s lens records Christina in progressive states of undress. Gerald is more sinister, as he watches Betty in the tub through a Norman Bates hole in the wall.

While Christina poses outside, Betty explores the interior of the mansion, coming upon an altar in a sub-basement room lined with red curtains, decorated with demonic masks, daggers and other magickal ephemera. When she’s confronted by Gerald, she’s shocked to learn that Gerald and Sybil are open about their esoteric practices, and are happy to reveal to the women that they are the two pillars of a witch’s coven. Gerald brings Christina down to see the room, and is pleased to discover that she’s into it, and wants to join the circle. In fact, this is what the coven needs exactly, a virgin to simultaneously complete a complex ritual and to join as an initiate. According to Gerald, the group practices white magick only (as opposed to the black magick of most films, I presume).

Lest the audience forget, there’s a guy named Johnny in this film, which Virgin Witch points out mid-way through with a London call-back. Johnny is hanging out with a cool Jazz singer chick in a swank club, where news somehow reaches him of Betty and Christina’s predicament. Since he has Sybil’s business card (for some reason or other), he rushes off to the mansion to see what’s up. This scene is an unnecessary one, just a bit of exposition that could have been handled with a phone call, but it’s a nice diversion which really adds a bit of levity to the film, right before one of it’s most intense moments, the first ritual, which is like a watered down version of Behind the Green Door.

During the night-time initiation, a group of new characters gather with Gerald and Sybil around Christina, the ritual’s focus. Some robed minions strip Christina, Sybil rubs oil on her nude torso, and Gerald drops robe and deflowers Christina to jazzy psych-rock akin to Angus MacLise’s score for Invasion at Thunderbolt Pagoda. She wakes up the next morning in bed with Sybil, who apparently demanded Christina sleep with her as well as Gerald. During this scene, which occurs two-thirds of the way in, one wonders where the horror was. Sure, the focus is on typical horror material, but the film isn’t scary, and doesn’t create any sort of foreboding atmosphere. More accurately, Virgin Witch would be called a drama about magicians and models, if not for some strange supernatural elements introduced in the final reel. Up ‘til this point, Virgin Witch is an atypical genre film, a laid-back, unhurried unspooling of events over a long weekend.

The supernatural element I’m referring to is Christina’s burgeoning—and unwarranted—telekinetic abilities, which develop seemingly only out of her desire to force Sybil from the coven and take her place in the circle. This is a strange development, as its abrupt and severe tone betrays the preceding tone of the film. Complaints aside, I did enjoy this final section on its own, Christina drunk with dark power, nastily betraying both Betty (by passive-aggressively forcing her into the second part of the ritual against her will) and Johnny (by applying newfound mind control techniques to bring him into the ritual as well), and by psychically assaulting Sybil, forcing her out of the circle, and (spoiler!) later killing her, turning their white magick coven into a black magick group in a single night.

This final ritual (and the climax of the film) is more intense than the first. Christina rubs oil on Betty’s breasts (fulfilling the explicit promise of the film’s alternate title, and the implicit promise of lesbianism any film of this kind seems to offer by default), and Johnny has sex with her, entering the ceremony in a black robe and Onibaba mask. This scene is the creepiest and most uncomfortable in the film. The music in this scene is even wilder than before, a mix of Comus and Jade warrior, wailing away while a full-blown orgy takes place, bringing in all the characters of the film, including Peter. (Major spoiler for rest of paragraph) Mid-coitus, Johnny snaps out of it, but instead of fleeing with Betty, he moves her to a more private spot, and continues to deflower her! I suppose because they’ve moved outside the circle they’ve decided to have sex on their own terms, simultaneously ruining the ritual. Meanwhile, Christina kills Sybil by stabbing the dirt, somehow.

This is a strange and confusing ending, its signification obscure. At the same time, it’s satisfying, because it’s a pitch-black, weird, atypical, dark and desperate off-type ending, and totally morally ambiguous, ending the film without clear heroes and villains. There may not be any major thematic point delivered; this is simply how this story ends. As to what happens next is anyone’s guess. The one reason this ending is offensive is because it betrays the earlier good-natured tone of the film; if the entire film were as strange as its conclusion, it wouldn’t be impacting, it would just be a bummer, as nasty as the grimiest English and Italian horror (Evil Eye, House with Laughing Windows, Girly, et al).

While I’m not going to seriously suggest that a film I’ve already compared to mainstream porn is feminist in nature, this is one possible long-shot interpretation: to Gerald and Sybil, Christina and Betty are another set of pretty-girl acquisitions, necessary for their power rituals and important only in that way. The women have subverted their positions in both the film and the genre to steal back control of their own destinies. By upsetting the balance of power in the coven, Christina has asserted herself in a surprising and unique way, even if her strategic tools are sex, subjugation, manipulation and murder. Keep in mind a woman wrote the screenplay, so its not surprising that power would be wrestled back by Christina at the end, who as a character also satisfies the sexist demands of the genre for the majority of the picture.

Despite major problems, Virgin Witch is unique enough to warrant attention. It’s a well paced and easy to watch film, without major breaks and confusing jump cuts, usually inherent to the genre. The actors in the film are uniformly good. The music is fantastic. The photography and idiosyncratic and atmospheric, without being as cavalier and bold as in other similar films of the era. This may even make it appropriate for non-genre fans, as it fails to make mistakes many similar pictures do. For genre fans, Virgin Witch may be somewhat disappointing, as its not as weird, profane, perverse and pornographic as Vampyros Lesbos, for example. It’s also British, which has a lot to do with why its markedly different from the Giallo films it nevertheless takes inspiration from. In translation, the genre has both lost and gained in Virgin Witch, an obscure entry, but nevertheless an interesting film.

The October Ordeal II 02: Cutting Class (1989)

2008-10-19T17:42:00.009-04:00

(Spoilers throughout)

The low-budget psycho-killer whodunit Cutting Class can be considered part of the final wave of non-franchise 80s teen slashers. While the proceeding decade would produce films riffing on the genre and deconstructing it, Cutting Class settles comfortably into the parameters of the form. While its plot and narrative arc are rote, there are many bizarre—and unfortunate—idiosyncratic moments which make Cutting Class interesting—if not enjoyable.

First time director Rospo Pallenberg (writer of Exorcist II, and the John Boorman films Excalibur and The Emerald Forest) helms an ensemble cast of high-school students and faculty: Brian Woods (Donovan Leitch, Jr.), Paula Carson (Jill Shoelen of Popcorn, Chiller and The Stepfather) and Dwight Ingalls (Brad Pitt!) on one side, with veteran character actors in the “adult” roles, including Martin Mull as Paula’s father, and Roddy McDowall as the lecherous school Principal. Once the murders start, Cutting Class goes out of its way to provide about a dozen possible suspects, including several clear Red Herring throwaway false-leads.

Basketball hero Dwight, his girlfriend Paula, and their old friend Brian are simultaneously suspects and potential victims throughout. Brian seems the too-obvious choice, as he’s recently been released from a psychiatric hospital for causing his abusive father’s death. He’s erratic, secretive and dresses all in black. In most films, he would be the secret hero, noble yet misunderstood. (Spoiler!) Not here, as Woods is in fact the killer. Cutting Class did have me guessing throughout, but not in the kind of way where, through deduction, the mystery could be solved—it could have been anyone, really. For example, we discover that Dwight taught Brian how to cut brake lines, which is the method he used to do in his dad, and that Paula has feelings for Brian, and that her father acted as a lawyer during Brian’s trial. I never believed for a second that the pervy Principal, the creepy night janitor (quote: “I am the custodian of your fucking destiny!”) or the tough gym teacher were serious contenders. By making the young “psycho” the villain, Cutting Class merely becomes yet another film in the horror genre perpetuating negative stereotypes about those suffering from mental health conditions or those who have spent time in psychiatric facilities. Great.

Cutting Class is best remembered for featuring a “young” (26) Pitt. It isn’t difficult, however, to forget about the media superstar Brad Pitt of today when viewing this film, as he isn’t given any more screen time or space than Leitch or Shoelen. In fact, there isn’t a thing remarkable about Pitt’s performance as the homophobic, racist, slick and arrogant Dwight. Dwight is relentlessly hard on Brian, his former friend. He tells Brian he went to the hospital with “a broken mind”—as in, not a leg. In one brazenly offensive scene—played for laughs—he convinces an entire classroom full of kids to fake electrocution, mocking Brian by reminding him of the electro-shock therapy he was subjected to. Pitt’s performance is broad: he plays Dwight the jock as dopy, jiving and erratic, in what is surely an attempt to cast Dwight as a reasonable suspect, but which instead comes off as uneven and bizarre.

Shoelen’s Paula is a jumbled and confused character. On the surface she’s a squeaky-clean good-girl cheerleader and straight-A student (who’s actually withholding sex from Dwight until he brings his grades up). Yet, at the same time, she is made the object of lust for nearly every male character in the film (yes, including her father). The advances of these men and boys are obvious and sneering, yet she seems completely oblivious, which ultimately amounts to subconscious compliance here. Never have I seen the classic media “whore/virgin” binary contained so completely in a single character. This point is really the film’s most blatant and baffling stumbling block, which demands further attention here.

The universe of Cutting Class is an exploitative, mean-spirited and libidinous place, with Paula at its center. In the first scene of the film, Paula goes outside to talk to Mull in her underwear, while he loads up his truck for a hunting expedition (this “city boy goes to the country” thread runs throughout as comic relief). She seems always in the act of presenting herself as a sex object, as if the film acts as a medium connecting her directly with the wishes of masturbating 14-year old viewers. Later on, she fingers a photo of her and her father, and then makes out with Dwight—who’s wearing her dad’s suit—on her parents’ bed. Sheesh!

While Roddy McDowall is a welcome presence in a sea of bland performances (he’s clearly having fun playing a sleazy authority figure), his Mr. Dante is a truly despicable character (who is of course comic relief). He drinks booze in his office in one scene, and makes Paula bend down in front of him, exposing her panties, and suggests she try on her new cheerleading outfit right there in his office. Inexplicably, later in the film Dante is seen hanging out in the theatre, trying on ladies’ clothing and make-up. Even worse than Dante is Paula’s art teacher, who presents a scantily-clad Paula as a figure model for his students to sketch. This seems not only creepy and inappropriate, but nearly illegal as well. Dwight says to the teacher “You like boys don’t you?” to which the teacher sneers “No!” while eyeing Paula to prove it. Is the audience really supposed to think Paula is such a naïf? Or is she into it? She’s a chaste character in the script, but as directed, she becomes merely an object, as framed by the film’s unapologetic male gaze. The teacher is later placed in a giant kiln by Brian and killed.

During each of these scenes, Brian is in the background somewhere, out of sight, spying. Whether he’s “protector” or killer, this is still serious, obsessive voyeurism, which I guess is supposed to be romantic. Dwight usually isn’t far off either. Is this a typical day at school for these kids? While totally different in tone, the presentation of these characters reminds of contemporary Troma, in that not a single principle is likable. And while Shoelen is an interesting actor (with a unique gravelly off-type voice), Pitt and Leitch are dull and thin in their performances. A bit more intensity from Leitch would have helped, and a lot less of what Pitt clearly thought was intensity.

When Cutting Class finally gets around to its conclusion, it is without much satisfaction. In some ways the film never really gets started, as it never achieves any sort of appropriate tension or dramatic rhythm. Dwight and Paula are final boy and final girl, and the two manage to kill Brian in a shop-class brawl, where Brian and Dwight fight each other with various power-tools. For most of the battle, Paula merely screams. When it looks like Dwight is going to lose, she distracts Brian by taking her shirt of. She then hits him in the head with a hammer and yells “I’m sick of people playing with my emotions!” This is almost the single clear statement in the film, only if framed in the context of her position here as both a character and an actor. Whatever is gained with this declaration is promptly lost in the next scene (a final “Gotcha!” where Dwight and Paula nearly crash Dwight’s Jeep, of which Brian sabotaged earlier), when Paula tells Dwight and her father “I likes Brian… so much for feminine intuition!” Mull answers a few questions for the audience (still leaving a few plot holes), and ends the film with both a titular line and a final tag” “You kids aren’t cutting class are you?” Freeze-frame, and we’re done.

Scores of slashers work similar plots into fine films that work on any number of levels. Cutting Class however opts to highlight the negative and essentialist assumptions which are often implicit in the form. That said, the film could have used itself as a commentary, a kind of genre expose, or at least as a template for black humor and transgression. Instead, it merely wallows joylessly in it’s own grime, content. Most slashers have an established set of leads, but Cutting Class goes out of its way to present the worst aspects of these stereotypes, simultaneously congratulating its jock-hero asshole boyfriend and objectifying its naïve teenage girlfriend—for laughs. Cutting Class is a historical and genre curiosity; it is recommended only in this way.

The October Ordeal II 01: Dead Heat (1988)

2008-10-01T23:04:00.004-04:00

(Thanks to Analog Medium for some of these images)

With the right four leads, zombie comedy Dead Heat could have been a minor cult-classic. Unfortunately, we have Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo as Roger Mortis (get it?) and Doug Bigelow, and Lindsay Frost and Clare Kirkconnell and plot-moving ingénues Randi James and Rebecca Smythers. That said, Dead Heat is still a fun, harmless B-pic that manages to successfully exist in several genres: Buddy-Comedy, Cop Actioner, Science Fiction and gross-out Zombie horror.

While writer Terry Black has a slim resume, director Mark Goldblatt has an interesting oeuvre. He’s edited many Arnold movies, from Terminator and T2 to Commando and True Lies. He edited Get Crazy, Predator 2, The Howling and tons more. Dead Heat was his first foray into directing, which he followed with the Dolph Lundgren Punisher the following year. Also, Goldblatt is credited as First A.D. to Paul Verhoeven on Robocop (also he edited Starship Troopers, Showgirls and Hollow Man).

And, Robocop clearly had an influence on this film. Dead Heat opens with an aerial skyscraper tour of L.A. against a Pouledouris-biting main title theme. The similarities continue as we join a crime already in progress: two masked hoods robbing a yuppie Jewelry store. The cops soon arrive to complete the triad, and a spectacular display of indiscriminate gunfire seems to kill everyone except the thieves, who nevertheless take plenty of bullets, baffling the cops (PCP? They wonder). The way civilians and cops alike go down reminds of the ruthless and misanthropic action cinema of the time.

The comparisons to Robocop end here, with the entrance of Piscopo and Treat as Doug and Roger, two rogue cops on “double probation,” who cruise around listening to generic new wave tunes in a drop-top. Piscopo plays himself, mugging, wearing muscle-tees and telling offensive, unfunny jokes. Treat’s character, “Roger Mortis”, is his foil, a dry, deadpan stoic. Treat Williams is a B-string lame leading-man of the Matt McCoy or Parker Stevenson variety, here doing a straight man’s version of an off-beat cop. This casting (a boring actor as a low-key guy) actually makes you want more of Piscopo, which I never thought would be possible.

The two hear about the stand-off on the Police radio, which gets Piscopo so hyped-up he squeezes his hot dog really hard, causing the ketchup to obscenely bust up out of the bun. This seems to really shock them both. They jam on over to the scene, finally disposing of the long-lived criminals with a grenade and a speeding car, which really steams the chief! But the force has bigger things to worry about, because the coroner’s office immediately recognizes the bodies as recent arrivals... as in dead guys who walked away.

While the shifty Dr. McNabb (Darren McGavin) is uncooperative, Roger and Doug turn to his assistant—and their friend—Rebecca Smythers, played by Clare Kirkconnell, who has the right look and attitude, but not the chops. Her and Treat together are really a snooze-fest. She discovers that an experimental drug called “Sulfathyasol” is pumping through their un-dead veins, which can be traced back to the monolithic “Dante Pharmaceuticals”. While Becky stays at the morgue to perform a second autopsy on the thugs, Roger and Doug head over to Dante Pharm to check it out.

There they meet PR head Randi James, who gives them the standard tour. Of the four principles, Lindsay Frost is the best actor, well-cast and game for the part (she’s been in loads of TV shows, including Lost). Doug sneaks off to break into the super-secret wing of the facility, and is immediately assaulted by a many-faced mutant biker. My Netflix DVD started to skip at this point, so I lost a few minutes of the battle. While this is going on, Roger finds himself locked in a decompression chamber, where he suffocates and dies. Doug joins up with Randi (who claims ignorance), and they promptly rig up the re-animation machine and bring Roger back to life, with little deliberation aside from Piscopo trying to emote and saying “But what about the soul?”
The two cops visit Becky, who diagnoses Roger as a walking corpse, with less than a day to live. He’s determined to use his remaining hours to bring down Dante, so Doug and zombie-Roger rush off while Randi continues doing whatever it is that she is doing. They stop off at Randi’s, and find two hilarious zombies straight out of Miami Vice, who they kill with a harpoon and an electrified hot tub.

Randi seems to recall something about a sketchy Chinese butcher Dante Pharm makes mysterious deliveries to, so the three zip over to his deli to check it out. They find Professor Toru Tanaka chopping up a chicken! This is the best scene in the film, as Doug and Roger have to fight not only Tanaka but also a roomful of reanimated deli-meat, including a giant headless cow, which Doug dispenses with a meat hook. The pre-CG special effects here are impressive, as are the prosthetics and make-up FX throughout the film. They miss out on the butcher, “Thule” (Keye Luke), who’s escaped back to Dante.

After a short stop at the library (to give Treat a chance to freak out and flail through an existential crisis), they split up to follow different leads. Roger and Randi travel to Randi’s adoptive father’s crypt (Dante Pharmaceuticals honcho Arthur P. Loudermilk, played by Vincent Price!), where they discover some useful cryptogram on a lampshade. When they get back to Randi’s, they find Doug upside-down in a fish tank dead! From here they race over to Dante for the big conclusion, as all parties converge. Loudermilk isn’t dead after-all, as we see him trying to convince a crew of oldies to invest in his regeneration tech. A nearly decomposed Roger comes in with a machine gun, and has a hilarious fight with a zombie where they shoot each other about a thousand times. Also, most of the old people go down as Thule indiscriminately shoots up the room. A brain-dead Zombie-Piscopo comes at Roger, but he snaps him out of it by quoting homophobic jokes the two had cracked earlier in the film. I’m not lying. (Spoilers coming’) They then swiftly take out McNab and Loudermilk and blow up the lab. The two walk off to the cheesy credit song, flipping Casablanca: “This could be the end of a beautiful friendship.”

Dead Heat is completely dumb, and derivative, but it’s still fun, and has fantastic special effects. While it’s a far cry from its source material, Dead Heat is loosely based on DOA, which it references twice, with the character of Bigelow and also with a scene playing on a television in Randi’s apartment. Dead Heat is also clearly inspired by An American Werewolf in London, which inspired a whole micro-genre of transforming-buddy or family member horror comedies in the 80s and 90s: Teen Wolf, She's Back, My Mom’s a Werewolf, My Boyfriend’s Back, Idle Hands, et al.

The Anchor Bay DVD I watched is loaded with extras, including twenty minutes of deleted scenes (including a lost Dick Miller cameo), promos, the script, and a commentary with Black, Goldblatt and the producers, where Black reveals that a sequel was commissioned but never filmed, which he wrote the script for (makes sense—Loudermilk’s body is never seen and Becky hints that she’s found a way to slow or reverse the decomposition process). Too bad, as the fully zombied-up duo could have been more fun leads than they are here—neither particularly shines, unfortunately. If Michael Nouri and Wings Hauser played Mortis and Bigelow, this film would have been much improved. Nevertheless, I present here a well-paced, fun, lively, gory little flick with great special effects to kick off The October Ordeal ’08.

Samurai Dreams 5 SNEAK PEEK #5

2008-05-25T22:15:00.001-04:00

Sorry, there is no "Samurai Dreams 5 SNEAK PEEK #5".

All my reviews were posted here first.

Samurai Dreams 5 SNEAK PEEK #4

2008-05-23T00:42:00.001-04:00

Human Highway (1982) Reviewed by Andy

Hopper only plays a small role in this one but I thought I’d mention it anyway since the movie itself is so weird and unknown. It was directed by Neil Young and Dean Stockwell, and Neil Young actually plays one of the main characters: a doofy looking gas pump operator at a roadside diner. The diner is located in the middle of nowhere (the Arizona desert maybe?) and the look and feel of it (as well as the movie as a whole) resembles something out of Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Hopper gets very little airtime but he plays a psychotic cook (surprise surprise!) named Crackers.

For Neil Young and Devo fans this movie is a must-see. Yep, Devo—along with their annoyingly cute pal Buji Boy—take up a big chunk of this amusing mess by playing an irradiated disposal team at a nuclear power plant. A few songs are sung and towards the end there’s a completely random scene where Neil Young passes out and hallucinates himself and Devo doing an extended 10 minute long jam of “My my hey hey”. What the…?!! I know it sounds too good (or bad) to be true but I’m not lying. It’s also true that it will take at least a few days to get Devo’s cover of “It takes a worried man” out of your head after watching this.

Samurai Dreams 5 SNEAK PEEK #3

2008-05-19T00:53:00.004-04:00

Spasms (1983) Reviewed by Kevin

I had a good feeling about this one—the cover had a ‘classy slasher’ vibe to it and Peter Fonda’s in it. So how bad could it be? Bad. The plot had something to do with a giant poisonous snake that is transporter to the U.S. for some reason and gets loose, I think. For some reason, one guy can see what the snake sees, but he doesn’t really do much with the ability besides bug-out his eyes and sweat. Everyone hangs out and acts boring and the snake eats people and that’s the movie.

Nearly all of the snake’s scenes are shot from the first person, presumably so the filmmakers wouldn’t wear out the effect of a 35 dollar rubber puppet that can’t do anything but open its mouth. It’s strange, but the effect where the snake’s victims swell up after they are bitten is pretty cool. Just goes to show that even in a piece of garbage like this, someone was doing good work. Oh, one more thing there wasn’t one spasm in this whole movie, let alone multiple spasms. What gives? *

Samurai Dreams 5 SNEAK PEEK #2

2008-05-13T00:32:00.004-04:00

Full Eclipse (1993) Reviewed by James

From Anthony Hickox, the director of the Waxwork movies, comes this hard-hitting werewolf cop HBO original movie starring Mario Van Peebles and the obnoxious Bruce Payne. Van Peebles plays your typical movie cop: he's tough as nails, takes unnecessary risks, hates authority, talks about "the job" a lot, has a rocky marriage, and feels really guilty when he gets his partner almost killed.

But then the movie’s formula starts to change when his dying partner gets injected with werewolf blood, and is instantly healed. He starts hopping around and is impossible to kill, and the movie's best scene is with him chasing a car full of thugs while jumping crazily over cars and driving a guy’s motorcycle straight into a wall! But he doesn't like being a werewolf cop, so he shoots himself in the face with a silver bullet. Our man Mario then gets invited to Bruce Payne's police officer therapy group, which is actually a squad of vigilante werewolf cops!

Most of the werewolf cops don’t get any character development at all, except for Patsy Kensit, who is the required babe who gets to sex up Mario. The worst part is definitely Bruce Payne, who is a really shitty actor. His idea of acting cool is talking really dumb alliteration, having really long, flowing locks, and strutting around like a retarded robot learning to be human. The action sequences are fun and well put together, but the make-up blows. Bruce Payne is the real werewolf, while the others are just hooked on a derivative of his blood that acts like a drug. When they show their werewolf powers, its just goofy claw hands and fang faces, while Payne turns into a lame poofy werebear at the end. *1/2

Samurai Dreams 5 SNEAK PEEK #1

2008-05-09T00:15:00.007-04:00

In the coming days I'll try to post a review from each contributor. Here's one from Max.

Chameleon Street (1989) Reviewed by Max

If you know who Wendell B. Harris is, I salute you. According to IMDB, he’s only been in three films, the last being Road Trip. He wrote, directed and stars in Chameleon Street, one of the best true independent films I’ve ever seen. Harris plays William Douglas Street, a young black man growing up in the Midwest. He works for his father’s locksmith business, freezing his ass off in a van and listening to the Sex Pistols on a walkman. For a man with larger than average brains and smaller than average means, he knows there’s gotta be an angle of economic escape. Being a drug pusher is attractive, but ultimately unprofitable, so he attempts to blackmail a Cubs player. Unfortunately his partners in crime published the blackmail letter in the local paper and signed it William D. Street.

With a sudden rush of media attention, he tries to play his way into writing articles for Time magazine (really, he just wants to meet female celebrities). When he’s found out, he impersonates a graduate of Harvard Medical School and becomes a staff surgeon at a local hospital (he gets by on a handy medical manual which he hides in his briefcase—he even performs a hysterectomy!). Of course the consequences of duping a hospital and performing amateur medicine catch up to him with a simple background check, and he’s sent to prison, from which he escapes

All through his “careers” Street gets the same message from his wife every morning: “Make some money.” The financial and emotional burden of having to support yourself is real, and so there’s more than a little bit of sympathy for this con man’s foibles. He is of course a selfish cad who always assumes he’s smarter and more important than those around him (he’s right about 75% of the time). Street’s got a pretty good sense of humor, though, and great taste (or maybe it’s all just from Harris, because I can’t find one solid indicator of the reality of Mr. Street’s existence—which could be meant as a joke on the audience, but nonetheless would add another layer of meaning to the narrative).

Favorite moment—I dunno, it’s a toss up between the weird murder dance around a little girl’s tea set and the super-duper fashionable French/Renaissance costume ball. ****

The October Ordeal Day 31: Halloween III

2007-10-31T23:12:00.001-04:00

October 31^st: Halloween III (1982)

One of the reasons I’ve always loved Halloween III is because it’s so damn weird. Some of its strangeness comes from observation (how strange it is to see kids running around in gross masks once a year), but most of it is inspired. This is a kitchen sink film and then some: a doctor investigating a vast conspiracy, robot henchmen, witchcraft… Stonehenge? Some aspects of Halloween III simply make no logical sense at all. Writer and director Tommy Lee Wallace made one of horror cinema's true historical curiosities, and decorated it extensively with carved pumpkins. Halloween III is a favorite of mine, and I’ve chosen it as the cap to The October Ordeal.

While Halloween III is generally well-remembered by genre fans now, it failed to excite at the box office. John Carpenter intended to kick-start a yearly series of diverse films under the “Halloween” banner. Unfortunately, fans simply didn’t want a Halloween without Michael Myers. Pity, as this film has more life than the sequels that followed it. The back of the original VHS release spends half the synopsis on the back cover explaining that Michael Myers in not in fact in Halloween III. Halloween IV is even apologetically sub-titled “The Return of Michael Myers.” It's hard to imagine what all the fuss was about. While this film is a self-contained story outside the Michael Myers continuity, it contains enough fun references and in-jokes to at least place it in the same universe.

There are of course differences. John Carpenter’s music—for instance—is considerably more upbeat, at times approaching disco. Many aspects of this film feel strangely familiar yet also displaced. At times it feels like an odd riff on the horror genre altogether. Truth be told, Halloween III is more of a Sci-Fi mystery than a fright film. While it may not be a typically "scary" horror film, Halloween III finds its inspiration in the American holiday itself, way more so than the first two films. While the first Halloween makes great use of the season, its concern is not the particulars of Halloween itself. Not only are the aesthetics of the holiday amplified here, but the ancient origins of Halloween as well, specifically its roots in pagan Samhain and Hallowe’en.

Tom Atkins is right at home as an alcoholic absentee dad cracking an occult conspiracy. I have no idea why he’s playing a doctor (Dr. Dan Challis); he plays it the same way he’d play a cop or detective. He's casually drawn into the pulp plot when a dying man in his ward exclaims “They’re going to kill us all” while clutching a pumpkin. Challis then sets out to find the killer, perhaps out of boredom. Dan O’ Herlihy is characteristically professional as the witch CEO of Silver Shamrock, a mask-making corporation based in sleepy Santa Mira, CA (the location of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers). Kids nationwide can’t seem to get enough of Silver Shamrock’s colorful masks, despite the fact they come in only about three varieties.

Silver Shamrock’s masks, unfortunately, are deadly. Each mask contains a coin chipped off of Stonehenge (?) which, when triggered, will lazer a kid’s face off and release bugs and snakes from the skull (??). Staging it as a media event, at nine PM on Halloween, Silver Shamrock plans to broadcast the image of a blinking Jack O’ Lantern to trigger the deadly masks (???). Conal Cochran (O’ Herlihy) plans to use the event as a way to punish ignorant kids. As a pagan wizard, Cochran is disgusted by Trick or Treats; he still sees Samhain as a time to honor the dead and confront mortality. Out of desire to “Control [the] environment” and appease an angry universe, Cochran has planned this mass sacrifice via TV and Toys, turning Halloween’s commerciality against itself. Television itself features in the film; a set is on anywhere Challis goes. Halloween III actually manages to exploits Halloween clichés in an interesting way, more so than Halloween. John Carpenter’s original film may be the masterpiece, but Halloween III is truer to its namesake.

Instead of the other Halloween films, the obvious reference point is Larry Cohen. There’s a playfulness here that reminds of The Stuff and Q. From the noncommittal Hitchcockisms to the hard-boiled characters and action, there’s a lot in common between Wallace and Cohen, throwing all ingredients into a blender so unapologetically being the most striking similarity.

Halloween III features a great (and reflexive) ending, ambiguous in one sense yet also definitive. Far too many horror franchise endings seem only to facilitate the next sequel. While it may be a good distance from the first film in quality, I argue that this is the second best film in the series, perhaps because it's the most unorthodox entry. The October Ordeal has been an ordeal, and this is the best film I could have chosen to end it with. Halloween III rocks, and belongs on the Halloween-party marathon list of any rowdy crew of drunken pagans.

The October Ordeal Day 30: Deathdream

2007-10-31T00:43:00.003-04:00

October 30^th: Deathdream (1974)

(While Deathdream is an evocative title, Bob Clark’s chosen title, Dead of Night actually makes more sense. However, since Blue Underground has released the film as Deathdream, this is how it shall be referred to here.)

Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things is a generally well-remembered cult film I rather dislike. I find Bob Clark and Alan Ormsby’s script arch and theatrical. Rather that criticize Clark and Ormsby’s earlier film I can instead confidently say it’s a film that I just don’t get. The Clark-directed Deathdream on the other hand, is not at all the mannered and decidedly-hammy horror-comedy CSPWDT is. While a few moments of witty banter remind of Ormsby’s comic impulse, this is a sober and straight-faced affair.

In a set-up which recalls Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, soldier Andy Brooks (Richard Backus) is killed in battle in Vietnam. With this knowledge, the audience follows Andy on his journey home, looking very much alive. As to how Andy made it to North America is a mystery; we meet him hitchhiking. Andy’s folks are quite shocked to see their son, whom they believed to be dead. When Andy shows up in the middle of the night, the entire family wakes to greet him: father Charlie (veteran actor John Marley), mother Christine (Lynn Carlin), and sister Cathy (Alan’s then-wife Anya Ormsby). When Charlie exclaims “We thought you were dead” Andy coldly responds “I was.” Thinking this a joke, the family laughs nervously. Respecting Andy’s wishes, the family keeps his return a secret, and accommodates his every wish. As happy as they are to see him, they soon realize he isn’t the same old Andy; he’s changed.

Considering horror’s broad scope, the family melodrama is a relatively unexplored avenue. It’s practically novel to find a horror film in which a family is given full attention (or at least a horror film in which the family is not comprised of cannibals). While Deathdream is a film with various attentions, the potential for fracture in any family’s stability is a strong theme. Charlie finds out early on that Andy killed the truck driver who drove him home, yet can’t bring himself to notify the police. Charlie, an alcoholic, is accused by Christine of being a bullying, inattentive father. While there is little evidence of this, there may be a reason that Charlie turns against Andy while his wife is still in denial about Andy’s crime. For an unknown reason, Andy needs living blood to survive. Besides this, he seems completely emotionless, aside from a black sense of humor and a sick feeling of pity for those around him. In one disturbing scene, Andy strangles the family dog Butchy to death in front of neighborhood kids. From here mother and father become divided not only because of Andy, but against each other as well. While her character is never fully developed, sister Cathy seems to be the only character with any sense, the family member most unaffected by sham reasoning and willful ignorance. After Andy kills several more family acquaintances, Christine still stands by his side, even though Andy cares nothing for her.

The acting is uniformly great here. Both Marley and Carlin are Oscar-nominated actors, and all the supporting roles are great. Even Alan Ormsby and Bob Clark appear as extended cast, and both do a fine job. Backus isn’t asked to do much, but he does it well. Originally a theater actor, it seems Backus has spent the last 30 years acting in soap operas and soft-core porn. I’m quite surprised his career went in this direction, as he is a commanding lead presence.

In a final sequence potent with dread, Cathy tries to normalize Andy by bringing him on a double date with her boyfriend Bob (Michael Mazes) and Andy’s ex-girlfriend Joanne (Jane Daly). A disastrous trip to the drive-in seems to surpass even the final act in Bogdanovich’s Targets. Andy by this point seems to be decomposing, and fresh blood will no longer sustain him. Tom Savini worked make-up for the first time on Deathdream, and while the gore effects are minimal, they are convincing. Savini would later claim that he identified with the film, as he himself had been in Vietnam as a photographer.

Setting a scene at a blacked drive-in is in keeping with the dark, moody composition found throughout. “Dead of night” refers not only to a specific moment (Andy’s return), but the emotional and existential tone of the film as well. This is a dark film compositionally because it’s a dark film thematically. Bob Clark kept things dark in Black Christmas, but allowed strategic lighting as well; Deathdream is a film where Andy spends most of his time literally sitting in a darkened room. Also fully dark is Carl Zittrer’s fantastic score. The musique-concrete Zittrer would perfect on Black Christmas he tests here: layered voice, dense clouds of reverb, treated piano. In fact, Zittrer remained the go-to guy for both Ormsby and Clark on many of their later films.

While Deathdream may be dark, its darkness doesn’t come from a strong ontological position, it comes from an era-specific political ideology. The anti-war message of the film is unstated but read loud-and-clear. While it stands as a competent thriller, Deathdream is really an examination of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Andy sits alone, hides behind an affected macho mask, keeps his family and friends at a safe distance, and often acts recklessly and violently. As it was in ‘72 (the year Deathdream was filmed), it is in '08. By taking a non-partisan stance on a measurable consequence, Ormsby effectively presents the breakdown of one family unit, via the destruction of one man’s soul, as a real consequence of war. With his sure hand, Clark masterfully gives style to Ormsby’s substance. A genre masterpiece.

The October Ordeal Day 29: Skinner

2007-10-29T23:18:00.001-04:00

October 29^th: Skinner (1995)

In one of his few starring roles, Ted Raimi plays the eponymous Dennis Skinner, the mild-mannered serial killer. We join a cross-country spree in process as Skinner boards at the home of Geoff (David Warshofsky) and Kerry Tate (Ricky Lake). Viewers may note the plot of Skinner is similar to that of contemporary sleeper The Minus Man. Geoff is a trucker constantly on the road, so Kerry is happy to have the company. Though they needed the money, Kerry’s real motivation for posting the room ad is to find companionship. Callous Geoff dislikes Skinner, but isn’t around often enough to really care. Skinner recognizes Kerry’s loneliness, and exploits it as part of a cruel game. While Skinner only uses Kerry to amuse himself, at night he stalks the streets with his duffel bag full of “tools,” scouting unsuspecting prostitutes. To pay the rent Skinner takes a job as janitor at a nearby factory.

Ted Raimi is perfectly cast. Skinner himself is nearly a cipher, his personality largely unknown. What we do know about his past is vague at best; he drifts comfortably, his crimes unnoticed because of not only his preferred targets but also his unassuming demeanor. His politeness and quirky sense are humor are totally affected however, a strategic act. Whoever the “real” Dennis Skinner is, the audience never knows. Following Skinner is Traci Lords as Heidi, a prostitute who survived Skinner’s blade. Heidi’s skin is disfigured, horribly scarred, and she hides half her face behind a blonde wig. Lords’ performance is typically bad here, her vocal and physical handicaps poorly played; she can’t even limp convincingly. Heidi stays in a rundown hotel near the Tate home, spied on by creep hotel owner Eddie (Richard Schiff, an actor this film is lucky to have in a supporting role).

The camera, music and pacing of Skinner remind of Cemetery Man, and like that film, Skinner revels in moments of awkwardness. The dialog in Skinner has an eerie, subtle layer of echo. The score--by third-wave industrial band Contagion--is dated but nevertheless effective. Stylistically this film is better than it ought to be, considering that besides Skinner, director Ivan Nagy has only directed soft-core porn and bad television. Skinner almost looks like a Skinemax movie sometimes, except that there’s no sex, only bad vibes. Considering the script (by Paul Hart-Wilden), it’s ironic that Ivan Nagy dated Heidi Fleiss, and was suspected of being a former pimp himself. Wow!

The awkwardness of Skinner comes mainly from its characters and their interactions. This has something to do with the three principle performers. Lake, Raimi and Lords were perhaps chosen for that very reason. Its strange to see three character actors known for supporting roles play leads. Scenes concerning Skinner and Kerry Tate’s relationship are especially unsettling. Its hard to believe that Kerry is in danger around Skinner, as Raimi is so convincingly harmless. Of course, she is in danger. Skinner eventually seduces Kerry, and plans her murder as a sort of step-up from his usual prey.

Most of the violence here is elliptical, or at least happens off-screen. Skinner will lead a woman into an alley, a quick flash of violence will be seen, and then Skinner will emerge from the alley alone. While the torture and violence is left to the viewer’s imagination, Skinner contains much gore, courtesy of KNB EFX Group. In one disturbing sequence, Skinner is harassed by his coworkers at the factory. An ex-boxer named Earl (Dewayne Williams) slams Skinner against a locker, calling him a “loon.” In the next scene we see Skinner exiting the building at night, wearing Earl’s skin. Skinner begins to mock Earl, punching the air and repeating his catch-phrase: “I could’a’ knocked Tyson out!”

(Spoilers here)

The factory is host to the film’s final sequence, the showdown between Heidi and Skinner. Geoff leads Heidi to the factory, where Skinner is holding Kerry hostage. Ineffectual because of her bum leg, Heidi is overpowered by Skinner. Hearing the commotion, an ancient night-watchman (Time Winters) feebly fires his gun in dumb desperation, fatally wounding Heidi and nearly hitting Kerry. He only manages to shoot Skinner in the leg. In the film’s final, frightening moment, Skinner—his arm around the dying Heidi—chuckles, “They love people like me.” He may be referring to the media, to his unsuspecting victims, or just to people in general. The construct he hides behind enables his brutal lifestyle; Skinner is conscious of this, and seems to find it hilarious. While this would have been a fine ending, Skinner perplexes with its final line (this is becoming an October Ordeal trend): “Doesn’t it just make you wanna scream, doesn’t it make you wanna rip a good one out!?” With this, Heidi screams her last scream and Skinner fades to credits.

The October Ordeal Day 28: The Carpenter

2007-10-28T20:21:00.002-04:00

The Carpenter (1987)

While the Republic Pictures box art suggests an entry in the Slumber Party Massacre series, The Carpenter is of a unique knit. Owing nothing to slash cinema or Cronenberg (Canada’s genre overlord in the 80s), this film brings to mind the slow menace of Skinner or Parents. Shot in Montreal, The Carpenter features Lynn Adams as Alice Jarett, Pierre Lenior as her unfaithful husband Martin, and Wings Hauser as “The Carpenter.”

The Carpenter begins with a slow-motion shot of a board running through a table-saw, releasing torrents of suspended-in-air sawdust particles. In fact, the entire film seems to run in slo-mo; this is a slow, slow film. After the titles we meet Alice, introduced in the first of many silent montages: first Alice is seen doing simple household chores, then lying around depressed, and finally leaned over a bed, cutting up her husband’s suits. Nearly every cut in the film is a dissolve or a fade. Combined with frequent disorienting montage, The Carpenter creates a kind of narcotic, out-of-time diegesis.

These three tasks outline Alice: she stays at home while her professor husband works days and has an affair with a female student; she is severely depressed and suffering from other mental-health conditions; she despises Martin, and desires to in some way hurt him. After this there is yet another montage, of Alice being treated in a psychiatric hospital, the consequence of destroying Martin’s suits. Here she is plagued with psychotic visions and night terrors, imagining her doctor a cruel sadist. While Martin is a rather unlikable character, he isn’t a villain. Martin is presented as simply a flawed person. Since he does still in some ways care for his wife, he’s decided to move to an old country home, and hires a crew to renovate the aging farmhouse.

While Martin is at work, Alice is harassed by the laborers, who are all misogynist creeps. Late one night (Martin out with his student), Alice hears someone working in the basement. Roused from sleep, she finds a mysterious man working alone. Wings and Adams have a good chemistry throughout, which is as it should be; the film wouldn’t work if their relationship wasn’t believable. To escape the menacing workers during the day, Alice finds work at a paint-store near the estate. This plan doesn’t work however, as the men begin to show up at Alice’s home at night, with her husband still away. Wings begins gruesomely killing the imposing workers, beginning with one who tries to rape Alice. The question at the center of the film becomes is he real, or is he simply a figment of Alice’s imagination? Or (long shot), is The Carpenter some sort of externalized thought-Golem, a guardian spirit?

Barring some clichéd final reveal, the audience assumes The Carpenter is real in some capacity, as the crew’s diplomatic yet ineffectual foreman Farnsworth (Bob Pot) begins to notice that not only is his crew disappearing, but that someone is indeed working through the night. Yet there is still something unreal about The Carpenter’s presence. Alice usually encounters him after waking, so these scenes potentially could be a sort of subjective dream-like interpretation. When Wings casually saws off the rapist’s arms without breaking a sweat, it seems reality has become quite unstable.

The Carpenter is an intelligent film, yet it presents a contrived plot with clichéd characters, especially the mulleted workers. Their one-dimensional personalities may be a fantasy of Alice’s as well, or at least a subjective view, as I have suggested. If The Carpenter is not a fantasy, he at least plays to Alice’s desires. This appealing vagueness is reined in as a lecture from Martin is used as a device to spell out the film’s themes. This is a film trope of course, and the horror genre is rife with examples. Martin lectures on the archetype of Paul Bunyan, describing also The Carpenter, a man whose qualities embody everything Martin is not: strong, honest, attentive, loyal, protective. When we learn Alice has gone off her medication, this scenario seems even more plausible. The Carpenter could have done without this obvious piece of convenient explanation.

While the film raises many questions about its narrative, the answers are not always forthcoming. Most are only inferred. Also it must be said that for a thriller, The Carpenter has almost no tension (by design). There are no scares, and each kill is methodical and measured, and an inevitability seen from a mile away. In The Carpenter, events simply play out. Somehow the murders become mundane. This is strange considering The Carpenter’s weapons: power sander, nail gun, power saw, stapler, battery drill. If there’s one guy who can pull off nonchalantly slaying someone with a power-tool, its Wings.

When a police cruiser pulls up to The Jarett home, we assume the Sheriff is investigating the disappearances. However, the creep sheriff has only appeared to give Alice (and the audience) a bit of crucial information: it seems a murderous carpenter named Ed once lived in the house, until he was put to death. Now there is a third possibility: Wings is Ed the ghost. The Sheriff’s arch over-acting is so out of place that his reality is suspect as well.

In turn, Martin discovers a shocking bit of information himself: his student-plaything is pregnant. This sets off a chain of events which will lead to the film’s denouement; a series of events, in which the events are primarily murders. Around this point in the film Ed the ghost’s motives become as suspect as Martin’s: Alice wakes from a dream (?) in which Ed, in a white suit, unzips his fly and says (with a hideous grin) “There’s always this” to the sound of a power-saw.

This saw, like most of the film’s foley track, is practically inaudible. The sound mix is so low that most of the film is totally silent. The visual integrity of the film is of the same muted tone: specific lighting gives The Carpenter an oil-pastel look, everything has a dull golden glow. Natural light is often used as well, and nearly every surface is white. The slowly panning camera seems stuck in a glacial drift. Complimenting this hazy look is the aforementioned use of dissolves and fades. Although most of the film is empty of music, the score is rather ambient, as low in the mix as the dialog or foley track.

I won’t discuss the film’s conclusion here, but I will say it is somewhat unsatisfying. It is a pronounced, conclusive end, but rather hard to swallow. Yet another promising genre film stumbles at the goal. Despite the wonky ending, The Carpenter is nevertheless a subtly compelling and intelligent psychological study disguised as a thriller.

The October Ordeal Day 27: Warlock Moon

2007-10-27T17:07:00.001-04:00

October 27th: Warlock Moon (1975)

The first shot in Warlock Moon looks like the coverage to a scene that belongs in the final reel of some other horror film. A young woman walks around a creepy old house with a candle, looking for her boyfriend. Suddenly, a man with an axe appears, and the title card comes up. The nameless, identity-less "First Girl" is a slasher staple, but not enough is done to indicate that this is what's going on until the end of this sequence.

Our real heroine is Jenny (played by future TV star Laurie Walters), a college student with the world's worst fashion sense (absurd red bell-bottoms, floral ponchos). Her new friend John (Joe Spano, one of the ugliest leading men ever) convinces her to leave her studies for a late-afternoon drive into the country. After the two get lost, they come upon what looks like an abandoned old spa, and decide to check it out. Of course, the spa is not abandoned, and a crew of Texas Chainsaw-lite Satan worshipping cannibals live there, with a creepy old crone of a matriarch as their leader (Edna MacAfee as Agnes Abercrombi). This initial visit goes on far too long. Most scenes in Warlock Moon last too long, in fact. There are too few set-pieces, and what the filmmakers had to work with, they overworked.

It becomes obvious that John is in fact a member of Mama Abercrombi's clan. The bringing-in of an outsider is of course a classic horror trope, from Horror Hotel to Wicker Man (both Christopher Lee films, come to think of it). The luring here takes up the entire arc of the film. This is a slow paced film; an hour of build up in an hour and twenty minute film is far too much.

The film's real saving grace is its quite interesting finish. In a sequence I haven't seen, the end credits run over the film as its still cooking. In fact, the climax comes after the credits have scrolled, and for several more minutes the film runs past this traditional end cap. If only the rest of the film was so daring. Very slight, Warlock Moon, but still watchable. In a genre of low, low lows, sometimes "just average" will make for a pleasurable viewing. Warlock Moon actually went into production before Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but the plots are quite similar. Yet, there's a good reason that Chainsaw is still talked about, and this film is all but forgotten. Joe Bob Briggs and Media Blasters haven't forgotten however, and the recent DVD re-release is a nicely packaged and presented product, with some interesting bonus materials. Completists only.

The October Ordeal Day 26: Terror in the Aisles

2007-10-27T00:03:00.001-04:00

October 26th: Terror in the Aisles (1984)

Andrew J. Kuehn's Terror in the Aisles is a collection of clips from (mostly) horror movies. While this has becomes a sort of cottage industry now (Something Weird Samplers; Synapse's excellent 42nd Street Forever series) with the advent of DVD, there were plenty of themed trailer collections in the days of VHS as well. Often, these tapes are simply commercials for a distribution company's back catalog. Terror in the Aisles is neither a nostalgic gimmick nor a marketing strategy, Kuehn seems to really love film. The objective here isn't to sell you on lesser-known fright films, its to remind you why the ones you already know about are still relevant. This is the intent anyway. The films on display are the bright lights of the genre: The Thing, Carrie, Scanners, Jaws, An American Werewolf in London, Exorcist, and Chainsaw Massacre.

Oh yeah, and Halloween. Lots and lots of clips from Halloween. This may have something to do with one of the hosts of the anthology: Loomis himself. Donald Pleasence hosts Terror in the Aisles along with Nancy Allen as his counterpoint. Pleasence, basically playing Loomis, roams a dark theater, where a room full of actors respond to unseen images on the big screen. Allen appears mostly in voice only, but occasionally the roaming camera will find her in one of the rows. Despite Pleasence's typical theatrics, Allen's calm, controlled demeanor is the real commanding presence in the film. Pleasence is grim, cryptic, teacherly; Allen is more inviting, inclusive in her earnestness (she's clearly having a blast). The typical Pleasence line goes something like: "There's something delicious about fear," or: "Perhaps we invent artificial horrors to help us cope with the real ones." Not limited to these wrap-around scenes, Allen and Pleasence are heard throughout, often speaking over clips.

The clips are divided into thematic clusters. One for Hitchcock features archival interviews with Hitch, and is the only section to feature a filmmaker speaking on his or her work. One section weighs the merits of suspense building over sudden shocks (Alien is used, as well as Jaws). A bizarre section on villains introduces clips from films which aren't in the horror genre (Nighthawks?), including clips from Vice Squad featuring Wings Hauser. At this point Nancy Allen takes over to host the bulk of the final segments.

Allen introduces a segment on women in horror with "And, unfortunately, in these movies, the victim is almost always... a woman.", and later adds "We are all born... totally vulnerable... slowly but surely, we learn to be afraid. We're taught the difference between right and wrong... and yet we're only human." This is in sharp contrast to Pleasence's constant talk of "evil" and "the Devil". I can't say whether Kuehn intended for their to be a difference in viewpoint, but it sure seems that way. Kuehn introduced the segment this way in order to examine closely the genre, to criticise it if necessary. Alas, the message only seems to be that this is unfortunate for the female characters themselves, which is obvious. Allen: "What the one thing these films have in common? People in trouble! [extreme playfulness here] And what gets people in trouble? Sex!" This is a totally irrelevant and tasteless section serving only to get some tits into the film, including revealing shots of Allen herself in Dressed to Kill. Yet, Allen also recites, with a sincere critical tone, "In terror films, sex rarely ends in pleasure; it ends in violence." If Kuehn meant only to point to abusers on screen, Allen seems to question certain filmmaker's motives via the power of her delivery.

A short section on science fiction is also included. Pleasence: "Malevolent life forms from other planets may jeopardize our position as supreme beings on this planet." Clips from the Body Snatchers remake are then shown. At the end Pleasence comes back to talk about horror's evolution from the Famous Monsters to slashers, and a truly awful song, "They're not very nice," by Larry Weiss, plays over some recap clips. After this, an unhinged Pleasence sits in the vacated theater: "It's only a movie... it's only a movie... but sooner or later, you must leave the theater and go home, perhaps alone!" This is all great fun. The interstitial bits are actually the best part of the film. Light on insightful commentary, it's a bit of a bore to sit through too-long scenes from movies best viewed as a whole, even if they are occasionally edited together in interesting ways (example: dialog from Rosemary's Baby and The Omen spliced: "God help me!" "God is dead!"). If someone makes a comp clip of just these theater scenes, definitely watch it. In the meantime, just watch the films themselves.

(This is kind of a cop-out review. Gimme a break I was busy today.)

The October Ordeal Day 25: Ghostwatch

2007-10-25T22:49:00.001-04:00

October 25th: Ghostwatch (1992)

(Whole review is a big spoiler)

In 1992, Leslie Manning put together a live BBC expose concerning the paranormal. The special aired Halloween night, with English personality Michael Parkinson as host. While supplemental interviews with skeptics and believers alike are included, the special focused mainly on one particularly haunted house: the home of Pamela Early and her two daughters Suzanne and Kim. A camera crew had agreed to spend the entire night in the Early homestead, to see if a malevolent poltergeist young Kim has named "Pipes" will show his presence. In studio with Parkinson was paranormal investigator Dr. Lin Pascoe, and--via satellite feed--skeptic Alan Demescu. Operators stood by to answer phone calls from viewers. As the special progressed, it became apparent that something was indeed haunting the Early home, and was somehow affecting not only the studio crew but also viewers. A caller with some shocking information about the house set events in motion which cut through the stuffy BBC presentation to create uncontrollable chaos. By the end, it seemed all involved were in extreme psychic danger, and "Pipes" seemed an irrefutable reality. The rub: none of it was real. Besides the known television personalities, the characters in the film are played by actors.

I had the benefit of starting this film believing it was in fact a documentary; while I figured out it was a hoax less than fifteen minutes in, I can imagine many viewing the film wouldn't catch on, especially children. Indeed, Ghostwatch supposedly makes the British Medical Journal as the first television show to have caused Post-Traumatic Stress in young viewers. If you read the IMDb message boards, it becomes obvious that this film had a major impact in the UK when it first aired, and that many believed it the entire way through. Parkinson and the other British reporters in Ghostwatch are all household names in the UK, which lent the film a special believability.

The opening scene in the film is a bit of archival footage from the Early girls' bedroom. This sequence is the film's most frightening. For several minutes the audience is forced to scan a pitch-black room, which remains distressingly still, until eventually the girls begin to scream, as the room shakes its contents until a lamp crashes to the ground. At this point I began to suspect I was being had. Watching the shape of the film solidify, this fact becomes rather obvious. The editing is too tight to be live, and some of the actors give it away, especially mother Early. All of the newscasters, however, are fully believable. After all, these are professional fakers. Also by the end, subtle musical cues are audible. The filmmakers perhaps thought viewers would be too terrified to notice.

Pipes, while never the subject of a filmic reveal, is hidden throughout, flattened in dark crevices of the frame. Many viewers have attempted to make lists of his many appearances. Pipes is even supposedly standing in the crowd of rubberneckers gathered outside the Early home. I must admit, I didn't see him once, and I was looking too. I'll definitely be revisiting the picture with this in mind.

While the reality of the film might have been better handled (style would need to be sacrificed), this is still incredibly bold, riveting television. A DVD is available from bfi which contains an informative commentary track. Ghostwatch, after all, is more than TV, its a historical event. While on this side of the ocean it may not be as effective, and time is not on its side, this is still a tight, brave, and yes, scary film.

The October Ordeal Day 24: Warning Sign

2007-10-24T23:59:00.000-04:00

October 24th: Warning Sign (1985)

Warning Sign begins with an old-fashioned establishing main titles-montage. In a procedural sequence, we meet our Hazmat-suit clad subjects, average-looking scientists occupied with mundane yet dangerous work: the sequencing of airborne bio-chemical weapons. In a rather Spielbergian manner, a series of random events result in the infection of the team, which they unknowingly carry to the rest of the industrial plant where they work (Director Hal Barwood actually worked under Spielberg on Close Encounters). A stray test tube, a piece of electrical tape and a Polaroid camera all play their part. As a result of this random—yet totally logical—mistake, the film is absent any specific villains; accidents can happen. While the virus—synthesized by living breathing humans—is a serious threat, it is a blind, uncaring nemesis, motivated not by anything like human emotion.

Noting early the contamination, chief of security Joanie Morse (Kathleen Quinlan, perfectly cast) follows her own pre-scripted procedure and initiates the plant’s contamination protocols, shutting the plant down and sealing its workers inside. Lockdown. The agitation the workers feel is compounded by the fact that it’s mere minutes before closing time. While there are plenty of upset people inside, there are just as many gathered outside, unable to reach their quarantined family members. While Joanie Morse is in-charge inside the plant, maintaining order outside of it is the task of her husband, Sheriff Cal Morse (Sam Waterston, another fine choice).

Arriving almost instantaneously is the “U.S. Accident Containment Team,” led by Yaphet Kotto as the deliberately hard to read Major Connelly. “USACT” lies to the community (and gathering media), claiming an experimental yeast has been loosed in the lab, and may damage area crops if allowed to escape. Turns out no one in town (somewhere in Utah) actually knows what really goes on inside the walls of this typically banal industrial building. For—what I assume to be—narrative reasons, Connelly is honest with Sheriff Morse, describing genetic engineering as a “new technology,” with “certain risks.” While Warning Sign may ultimately be an apolitical film with a topical source of dramatic material, Sheriff Morse is a germaphobe skeptic cast as Connelly’s counterpoint. Connelly sees chemical warfare as the appropriate response to a perceived arms-race. “Deterrence in kind” he reasons.

While Morse’s intellectual argument with Connelly on the outside may be mere banter, if there is any argument made against chemical weaponry it is articulated inside the sealed compound. The scientists first infected (including G.W. Bailey in a dramatic role) pass out from fatigue, only to awaken agitated and irrational. While still capable of reason, they are gripped by an uncontrollable “rage” (shorthand for the effects of the virus) which eventually crosses over into remorseless savagery. As the infected become murderous, the film turns sharply to horror, whereas prior to this point it has more in common with politically-motivated thrillers such as The Andromeda Strain and The China Syndrome. Since the film has been watertight and provocative thus far, the audience is willing to follow the film into horror territory. Connelly explains that the virus is “…designed for tactical confusion”; the effects seem manageable at first, but steady escalate.

Escalation is central to Warning Sign. A level of intensity is difficult to maintain in any film, let alone to control. Remarkable then, that a film with such a low budget manages to ramp up so expertly action, tension, conflict, and audience excitement.

At this point in the film knowledge becomes a fractured force. Those on the inside need information about action outside, and those outside not only need to know the inside status, but maintain order among the increasingly agitated community members by feeding them disinformation. While Warning Sign is a serious—almost grave—film, two bits of comic relief are allowed: the few workers who made it out before the doors sealed are forced to walk around in bubble-boy type apparatus, and are the obsession of the sensationalist media; and while the plant is becoming a living hell for the other quadrants, one group of scientists and laborers hole up in a break room playing Atari and eating snacks, largely ignorant as to what’s going on outside the locked door. As a kind gesture, these characters actually manage to survive.

(Spoilers ahead—watch out!)

After losing radio contact with Joanie, Sheriff Morse decides to break into the facility. With the help of a former employee, Dan Fairchild (Jeffrey DeMunn, an actor with an incredibly expressive face), Morse enters in through an air-intake at the back. While it is slightly far-fetched, an acceptable Deus Ex-Machina allows The Morses and Fairchild to synthesize an anti-virus, which they use to save many of the infected. In an often fatalistic genre, its interesting to see such a roundly optimistic ending. By the film’s end, all zones of the facility are completely clear. At least, “for a while” as Fairchild says, making for at least a bittersweet conclusion. Sheriff Morse replies “Worry about it tomorrow.” As a “Hollywood” ending, its somewhat cheap, but still a fitting end to a highly successful formalist thriller. Warning Sign proves that despite a micro-budget, a trio of great character actors and an accomplished sense of mood and pacing can be all the necessary ingredients in the recipe for a fine film.

(The Anchor Bay DVD looks great by the way)

The October Ordeal Day 23: Lifespan

2007-10-23T23:42:00.001-04:00

October 23rd: Lifespan (1974)

Elysian Fields released in May of this year a pair of lost Terry Riley soundtracks on one disc, songs composed by Riley for both Joel Santoni’s 1972 film Les Yeux Fermes and Alexander Whitlaw’s Lifespan. This bit of excavation put me on the lookout for both films, and only days after learning of Riley’s film collaborations, Lifespan appeared to me during my last visit to the now on-hiatus Astro Video. However, it became clear almost immediately that Riley’s music operates in the film as a phantom, an empty substance. Riley’s music here is barely noticeable: it’s chopped up, lost under dialog and low in the mix, present for no more than 30 seconds at any time. While an Erik Satie piece is also used, Riley’s contribution is slight, with original pieces but also a repeating snip from Riley’s “Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band,” the companion piece to Riley’s landmark “A Rainbow in Curved Air.” While Whitelaw may have good taste, he has wasted the contribution of a true master, the genius of minimalism who is now over 70.

The story: American doctor Ben Land is determined to find the genetic fountain of youth, to develop a serum to “cure” death, which Land terms “a disease.” While Land may claim altruistic motives, he himself is terrified of dying. As one of his colleagues points out, its odd such a young doctor has chosen to devote his life to the eradication of natural death. Land is called in Lifespan’s early moments to Amsterdam, to dialog with the world’s leader in the field, Dr. Linden (Eric Schneider). Before Land can meet with Linden, he is found dead in his apartment, an apparent suicide. Land agrees to continue Linden’s work, and is assigned a personal assistant in grad student Pim (Frans Mulder), the nephew of Linden’s friend Professor Van Arp (Fons Rademakers). In what appears to Land to be a serendipitous encounter, he also meets Linden’s mistress Anna (Tina Aumont, delivering one of the film’s best performances), whom he stalks around Amsterdam after he is blatantly used by Anna to satisfy her kinky sexual desires. Anna is somehow involved with a mystery man from Switzerland, the enigmatic millionaire Nicholas Ulrich (Klaus Kinski, who manages to infuse this stock character with depth and nuance).

The major reason there is no room for Riley’s music to breathe is that it becomes muted by an incessant and unnecessary narration. While the film is Dutch, the protagonist, Dr. Ben Land (American actor Hiram Keller) is an American, and his dialog and narration do not appear to be a feature only of the English-language release. Lifespan’s unending voice-over nearly sinks the film; Land’s narration recounts the events of every scene and outlines the film’s obvious themes. Every scene transition is smeared with this unwelcome insurance. Lifespan is a lesson in how first-person narration can become a heavy blunt object, smashing the film’s integrity as it barges blindly forth.

The narration may be a late addition to the final cut, an attempt to flesh out a main character, who should have allowed to simply be a cipher. Ben Land is a shallow character, driven by his obsessive nature. Keller is a dull leading man, an actor playing it cool but obviously clueless. This would be an example of mindful casting if the narration were removed; throughout Lifespan Land is positioned as a powerless pawn in a game larger than himself. The empty vessel of Ben Land eventually becomes Linden, as Land finds himself inhabiting Linden’s life, examining his notes, inheriting his position at the university, dating his girlfriend, and living in his apartment. Since his ambition was also Linden’s, his fall is orchestrated in a similar manner and Kinski is there to recruit the technician he needs to give his mad scientist dreams shape and structure.

What Ben calls “the horrors of the aging process” are being experienced by Ulrich, who realizes immortality is within his reach as long as he acts. Ulrich and his disciples Land and Linden represent the arrogance of science without ethics or reflection, and while Ulrich may be a more cautious Deadalus, Icarus is played by both Linden and Land, younger seekers flying too close to the sun.

While Lifespan squanders its score, the cinematography is of a specific and well-conveyed mood. Black and white are used to represent life and death, and whomever is in search of immortality (or whomever has found it) surrounds themselves with white; in many scenes, sheets of white linen hang inexplicably. From the white walls of the psychiatric hospital, to the long-lived mice to the reverently photographed Swiss Alps of Kinski’s Fortress of Solitude.

Late into the film, what seems like a traditional narrative essentially crumbles. Ulrich and Anna reveal to Land that Linden was studying the secret notes of a Russian scientist named Rashinski, who discovered the genetic secret to immortality before his death. This revelation breaks into the film uninvited; it is convenient, yet brings the film into a hallucinatory and bendable place. All story up to this fracture is cast into doubt as the crust of a massive conspiracy is exposed. An old man granted immortality by Linden has died, Pim has sold Land out to his uncle, lab notes concerning Linden’s immortal test mice have been doctored and Land is committed to a psych-ward for digging up the dead. This may be the proof of a campus-wide cover-up, it may also be Land’s delusion. Land is a fool no matter the case, led along by all parties, blind in his single-mindedness.

Land breaks from the University and Van Arp to join Kinski in Switzerland as his Igor. After the film’s only piece of inspired narration, Lifespan abruptly ends on a note of appropriate ambiguity. This conclusion is highly satisfying and even the film’s flawed elements crystallize into a cohesive and cooperative whole. While editing could have made Lifespan a classic, it is nevertheless a dreamlike, hallucinatory film about the collective mad quest for immortality.

The October Ordeal Day 22: Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors

2007-10-23T00:14:00.001-04:00

October 22nd: Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors (1986)

From the beginning of The October Ordeal I intended to review Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors at some point. This is one of my all-time great Astro Video finds. As you can see, it features a fine painted cover, complete with the two greats of slasher cinema, Freddy, and... Troll? This perplexing coupling indicates the schizophrenic nature of this one hour documentary (if it can be called that), which appeals to the lowest common denominator yet also yearns for legitimacy and respectability for the horror genre. This is why a typical (and unacknowledged) irony underlines the entire film (film?). Example: Robert Englund sincerely relates, "They're very intelligent... [the] fans" after we've seen a montage of fan chatter where a mustachioed stoner enthuses "Some movies have tasteless blood and guts… and the other ones where you see girls getting hacked up in bed… those are OK." What the hell? Moments later a kid who must be ten gushes “I like the blood coming out of the eyes, the mouth.”

These days, the convention circuit is of course a really big deal. Cable television channels report from the floors of Comicon and E3, which have both in many ways become live commercials for Hollywood properties. This is all supposedly in the name of "giving back" to the fan community, but this is rather transparent in its falsity. Comicon especially seems merely a cheap way to generate buzz, particularly the Internet-based kind. It's interesting here to see a con the old fashioned way. It's 1986, and there are no PR suits anywhere in sight.

While I doubt the fans in 1986 would approve of the corporatisation of the con, because of their perceived marginalization, the filmmakers here (including Fango editor-in-chief Kerry O'Quinn) seem above all committed to proving that horror fans are regular folks. While the mullets and stone-washed jeans are quite frightening, I doubt most people hold real prejudice against horror fans. Just to prove these people aren't dope fiends or gutter-punks, the filmmakers ask every attendee interviewed what they do for a living and--can you believe it--it turns out they have normal jobs like everyone else. They even have families and live in houses! Who knew?

That said, the fans do seem overwhelmingly nerdy, the vendors especially. They are asked to explain how they got into the business, and most relate the rather boring (and sometimes sad) stories of their lives. But there is something genuine about these gore-hounds; I'll take these denim-clad stoners any day over smug guys with Eli Roth haircuts who smell like Axe body-spray.

While an overwhelming percentage of the running length is spent with the fans, a fair amount of time goes to creator interviews as well. Englund's articulate, erudite, almost fey presence is by contrast quite interesting. He and Craven both have a lot to say about the horror genre, and elucidate certain concepts and theories in ways no fan present seems to be able to. Craven's riff on "rubber reality" (he compares the first Nightmare to Cocteau) is particularly good. Dan O’Bannon gets in-depth, positing the universal fear of death as the beginning of all art. Not all the guests are so serious, and its great to see Elvira, Dick Miller and Clu Gallager just having a good time. Effects-men are particularly idolized (this is Fangoria), and Rick Baker, Stan Winston and Tom Savini are given plenty of face-time.

While the on-the-floor stuff is fantastic, the center of the film collapses into a black hole of boring fan-films, culled from Fango's annual short film competition. As far as the technical aspect, while I'm sure that documentation by any means was the goal, the image and sound are fine, from what I can tell. I say this because the tape is completely degraded and fucked-up. Waves of rolling fuzz began to engulf the VHS at about the ten minute mark and never let up. The sound eventually became a garbled crunch and my VCR began to literally wince in pain, emitting a high-pitched squeal. Its a miracle I made it all the way to the end. Better retire this Media tape to the cabinet.

Despite a terrible Casio score, overlong clips from Nightmare and Return of the Living Dead, the dreadful fan-film showcase and its incredibly scarcity, this film--which is essentially a promo item--is a prime pic for a Halloween party; its a time capsule sure to please any horror crowd. And don't worry about exploitation, the filmmakers themselves are totally geeked-out and enthusiastic. Enthusiasm seems to be the theme of the piece, coupled with a plea for mainstream acceptance. Unfortunately, if these hardcore gore-heads could see where "fandom" would go in the future, they might choose to retreat back into their solitary dungeons (and dragons).

The October Ordeal Day 21: Body Bags

2007-10-21T23:51:00.002-04:00

October 21st: Body Bags (1993)

Like the Romero/Argento effort Two Evil Eyes, Body Bags is an early 90s horror anthology largely forgotten by genre fans. John Carpenter directs the first two segments ("The Gas Station", "Hair"), while Tobe Hooper takes care of the final section, "Eye." Body Bags was originally conceived as a Showtime original series. When the network bailed, a longer edit of the pilot was released as Body Bags the feature film. More than ten years later, Showtime gave the fright anthology a chance with Mick Garris' Masters of Horror/Fear Itself series, which failed to live up to its potential in three seasons.

Carpenter is featured here also as an actor, playing a kind of zombie coroner who introduces each segment. In these brief wrap-around moments, Carpenter lazily plays the Crypt-keeperesque "Coroner" while Tom Arnold and Hooper appear as assistants. The gags in these scenes fall flat; it's hard to imagine this set-up working in an ongoing television series.

The look of Body Bags is similar to every workmanlike, homogenized Stephen King television adaptation or Sci-Fi channel original movie. I have nothing against this stock style; actually there's something nostalgic and disorienting about the look of this type of television. The uniform and dressed-down sets and camera set-ups wouldn't be out of place in a sitcom or Lifetime movie, and perhaps that's why this style is inexplicably frightening in its seeming displacement.

This lends a lonely, depopulated feel to the segments, particularly the first, "The Gas Station." College student Anne (Alex Datcher) faces a serial killer while working her first-ever shift at an all-night pay-and-pump. While accomplished in mood and pacing, this segment suffers from a poor performance by Datcher and a distracting series of cameos. In a row Wes Craven, Sam Raimi and Carpenter favorite "Buck" Flower drop by. The entire film is full of cameos, in fact, from Arnold to Roger Corman to Debbie Harry and beyond. While the comedic second half benefits from its crowd-pleasing cameos, here they serve only to take the audience out of a segment which relies on the immersive rhythm of a taut thriller narrative.

Stacy Keach chews it up as Richard Coberts in "Hair", the film's best section. Coberts is a balding man who'll do anything to grow his hair back, equating his receding hair with receding vitality. Coberts, desperate to gain his self-confidence back, signs up for an experimental program in which intelligent hair follicle-monsters are grafted onto his scalp. In what plays like an adult version of The Peanut Butter Solution, Coberts wakes up the next morning with a ridiculously long, flowing mane of Fabio hair. The hair won't stop growing, and the killer micro-organisms seem to be eating him alive. While gruesome, "Hair" takes full advantage of its comic premise. Many of the jokes are laugh-out-loud funny. By allowing the segment to play for laughs at the expense of scares, Carpenter makes the film's smartest decision.

In the section which is the closest to the EC Comics/Creepshow aesthetic, Hooper directs "Eye" as a gory shocker, only subtracting the black comedy altogether. "Eye" is the weakest of the three segments, especially due to Mark Hamill's typically awful performance as Brent Matthews, a rising major league baseball star who loses his right eye in an auto accident. You guessed it-- the eye is cursed, transplanted from the dead body of a serial murderer (Ala yesterday's flick Body Parts). Hamill is just terrible, and sports a gnarly 'stache I found difficult to look at. Twiggy plays his wife. Weird.

While Body Bags may have been something of a throwaway gig for many involved, it actually remains interesting, despite the obvious and dated elements. I much prefer Body Bags to Masters of Horror, honestly. Who doesn't dig a good anthology film? While this may not be a classic, at least Carpenter's contributions are fully worthwhile. With Halloween fast approaching, now would be the best time to check this one out.

The October Ordeal Day 20: Body Parts

2007-10-21T01:43:00.000-04:00

October 20th: Body Parts (1991)

(This is the final cop-out, I swear. Here's an old review. It isn't very well written. I'm running out of reserves, so this should be the last time I'll have to mine old SD material. There was simply too much going on today for me to watch a flick)

Body Parts is directed by Eric Red (writer of The Hitcher and Near Dark, and also potential murderer- Google it), and stars Jeff Fahey as Bill Chrushank, a psychology professor who loses his arm in a freak accident. As part of a new experimental program supervised by Dr. Agatha Webb (Lindsay Duncan), he receives a new arm, cut from a recently deceased serial killer (naturally). It takes Bill a while to get used to his newly grafted-on arm, especially since it seems to have retained some homicidal tendencies!

After alienating his family and freaking out his students, Bill decides to do a little P.I. work and figure out what’s up. He manages to find the names and addresses of the other participants, including unstable artist Remo Lacey (played by Brad Dourif!), who received the other arm and is now famous for his gruesome paintings, which are actually the killer’s murderous visions. He also locates the legs, which went to basketball player Mark Draper (Peter Murnik), an all-around nice guy who now runs incredibly fast, and hilariously drop-kicks people left and right. When Bill finds him, he’s just narrowly avoided crashing his car, when his foot slams unexpectedly on the gas at an intersection.

The three go to a bar to hash things out, but are so messed up from the killer parts they instigate a massive bar-brawl, fighting the patrons and each other. But things get even worse, when the killer returns- his head on a new body- and starts killing our protagonists to get his limbs back.

From then on the twists and turns never stop, with questionable science, schizoid performances, flying dropkicks, amazing basketball skills, evil doctors, suspicious cops, and Fahey shooting a gun at living body parts, suspended in a holding tank.

The film’s most inventive scene comes towards the end, when the resurrected killer (whom we learn is Dr. Webb’s son) pulls up alongside a police cruiser which Bill is sitting shotgun in, handcuffs Bill’s hand to his own, and speeds off, while the Jamaican cop in the driver's seat has no choice but to follow! Body Parts is one of the most inventive and enjoyable horror flicks I’ve seen in a while, thanks to real-life madman Eric Red.

The October Ordeal Day 19: Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly

2007-10-20T01:16:00.001-04:00

October 19th: Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (1969)

While the décor of Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (simply Girly in the States) is unmistakably upper-class, it makes no attempt to be anything other than trashy English sleaze. I can dig on sleaze. While being sleazy in an obvious manner, MNSaG is also surprisingly cruel and sadistic a film, delighting in its own transgressions.

The film’s title names the four surviving members of an old-money clan, essentially closed off from the outside world. Mumsy (Ursula Howells) and Nanny (Par Heywood) don’t seem to leave the estate, and have created a sick game to occupy their days. Siblings Sonny (Howard Trevor) and Girly (why didn’t Vanessa Howard’s career take off?) venture into town and round up drunks and club-hoppers, bringing them back to the house where they are drugged and imprisoned. The family subject their “new friends” to strange and complex games involving obscure rules and rituals. If a “friend” breaks too many rules—or becomes tiresome—they are chopped up and buried.

While we meet several unlucky drifters, in order to explain the family’s ongoing game, the only “friend” we spend any time with is Michael Bryant, playing “New Friend #2.” Bryant is a sort of non-entity in the film even though he’s given an excess of screen-time. He smartly realizes that he’s dead if he doesn’t play the game at least for a while. As he grows accustomed to the family dynamic, he discovers ways to upset the balance of power, turning Nanny against the family matron Mumsy, and Sonny against his sister--the object of his repressed desire--Girly. Bryant as New Friend #2 goes about bedding the women of the clan one by one—even ancient Nanny. These scenes aren’t played for titillation. In fact, there isn’t any nudity in the film. He simply sees several lonely women behind their whimsical/malevolent front, and takes an opportunity which he also finds pleasurable and natural, being a hip socialite. These scenes are played believably, and create the domino effect that may topped the house and allow “New Friend #2” to escape.

While Bryant may play the supposed antagonist, Howard and Trevor are the real life of the film—their dialog is a maze of snappy routines, children’s rhymes, extended riffs and spontaneous song. Its all very English, and very theatrical. No surprise then, MNSaG is based on a play. While over-the-top acting can kill the mood integral to this type of picture, here it really works. The structure of the film also points towards theater. The usual art of a typical horror film is nowhere to be seen. We spend almost the entire film with the villains, yet are never asked to like them.

The reason theatrical acting is appropriate is that the attitude of these characters is studied affect—they’re faking it. Being precious is part of the family put-on: they pretend to be a terribly average old-fashioned family as a sort of sick joke. Girly, for instance, has clearly been instructed to play the Lolita role, complete with short, short skirts and piles of porcelain dolls in her bedroom. When New Friend #2 seduces her, she reveals she is a virgin; this is the only scene in the entire film where one of the family lets their guard down. Whether or not this signifies anything is anyone’s guess. In a sense New Friend #2 is taking advantage of her the same way she has taken advantage of him. Every move in this film can be considered part of a grand strategy. There may be no lesson to learn here at all. New Friend #2 may play the game better than the makers of the rules themselves, but I’m not sure if any knowledge is gained from this observation. At no moment did I sympathize with his (intentionally) empty, playboy character. The film desires not to impart anything other than cheap thrills and a superficially cruel good time. Yet, there is a strange substance in its commitment and boldness.

Director Freddie Francis has had an interesting career. He began his directing career with Sci-Fi Horror film Day of the Triffids, then directed large handfuls of 60s and 70s English fright films, authored many an anthology-show segment, and topped off his career as David Lynch’s frequent D.P. After seeing this truly twisted piece of Euro-trash cinema, I’m quite interested in this era of his diverse career. Love the jazzy-psych soundtrack as well. While I have good things overall to say about this film, I doubt I’ll ever revisit it. So here it is, the classic cop-out in the face of indecision: this one is recommended for genre fans only.

The October Ordeal Day 18: Scarecrows

2007-10-19T01:06:00.001-04:00

October 18th: Scarecrows (1988)

Every now and again I'll read about a film and think to myself "Why the hell haven't I heard of this?", especially if the film is of a genre and era I have some familiarity with. While Scarecrows is a very minor cult classic, I'm convinced that if the film had a name or two it would be a much better known horror picture. It certainly is deserving: Scarecrows is really quite good.

Scarecrows takes place over the course of a single night. The premise is simple: a group of ex-military theft a big bag of cash from the Army and escape with a hijacked plane and two hostages. A guy named Bert decides not to share the money and jumps from the plane over an old farm house. The gang land the craft and make chase, only to find an abandoned old farm and some seriously creepy scarecrows staked next to a family graveyard. The folks who used to run the farm--the Fowlers--seem to have migrated from the grave to the rotting scarecrows, and aren't too happy about being invaded. This is what we know, the rest is unexplained.

Thus Scarecrows is extremely short, barely 80 minutes in length. There is no central character, instead an ensemble cast, the actors of mixed ability. While there is barely any back story, there is a lot of set-up. The scarecrows don't even move until about 50 minutes in. While this may be a sure sign of a limited budget, it actually creates a real mood of fear. Each time the camera closes in on a scarecrow, The audience wonder if this will finally be the scene in which one comes to life.

Besides being legitimately frightening, the film gracefully maintains a bleak and moody atmosphere. And while there is some obvious day-for-night shooting, the darkness surrounding the action is quite effective. Interestingly there is almost a total lack of music in Scarecrows; often the airplane's radio or the group's walkie-talkies will stand in for a score. The film looks great, and the camera work is admirable. In most scenes the camera is constantly in motion, panning around, shooting through windows, suggesting the point-of-view of an unwanted prowler.

The film is also admirable for the mistakes it doesn't make. The cast is kept to a minimum, the running length is just right, there is no cumbersome and unnecessary back story, there is no stock nudity, there's no excessive gore, there's no romance, and--thankfully--there is no twist ending. The ending, in fact is great. While a NotLD style stand-off seems inevitable, the film actually takes the climax out of the Fowler's home and through the woods into the getaway plane.

One reason I'm surprised this film isn't better known is that it seems very much of its time. Like Pumpkinhead, this is essentially a morality play. While the thieves become likable as the film progresses, they ultimately must pay for their actions (they have in fact killed many Policemen since the robbery). This aspect also lends the film the quality of a good anthology segment, perhaps as a choice episode of Night Gallery. If I've made my points rather quickly, its because this is a brief, breezy film. No masterpiece, yet fully accomplished. If you have an empty slot on your Halloween-night marathon list, add this one. Your friends will all ask, "How come I haven't heard of this?"

The October Ordeal Day 17: Race with the Devil

2007-10-18T01:21:00.001-04:00

October 17th: Race with the Devil (1975)

Jack Starrett's Race with the Devil is a trim, confident road-thriller. RwtD simmers for the first two thirds (the way good thrillers often do), establishing rhythm between characters and creating tension, simply by not alluding to any terror to come. This provides necessary context for an extended series of scares in the final act (think Texas Chainsaw Massacre). This model may be named "endurance cinema": the payoff is going to be big, going to be great, only patience is required. And the payoff in this film is fantastic; Race with the Devil really cooks in the final third.

Peter Fonda and Warren Oates star as two old friends on a skiing trip with their wives in a brand new RV, whom stop over in a small Midwestern (I presume) town for some shut eye. Putting a few beers away outside the RV, Roger (Fonda) and Frank (Oates) notice something a bit strange just over the hill. It seems a black magic ceremony is underway, robes and all. Frank and Roger have a great time checking the action out with binoculars, until things get ugly: it seems a human sacrifice is needed to complete the ritual. From here the Satanists pursue the men across the film, on and off the road.

While Starrett claims he cast real Satanists for this early scene, the film is not concerned with the supernatural. Its not really even about the practice of Satanism. We never see these specific people again; there is no villain, there is no mastermind. The threat in the film comes in the form of the automobile, as anonymous trucks pursue the RV Ala Duel.

Oates and Fonda play the only real characters in the film. Loretta Swit and Lara Parker play their wives, yet are completely decorative in function. While many chase movies mythologize the male speedster at the expense of any strong female characters, Race with the Devil is really remarkable in its blatant sexism. The wives here are constantly weeping, and utterly unable to defend themselves or even think rationally in the face of any obstacle. Wives Alice and Kelly are in constant need of consoling from their heroic husbands, and only require that they assert themselves, rather than include them in any strategising or defensive action. In this capacity women are presented merely as cinematic trope, as necessary props.

In fact, male assertion is the theme of the film. In one scene, Fonda stands reluctant with a shotgun before a Satanist climbing through the RV's rear window. Oates, driving, barks, "Do it!" and Fonda fires. The idea, I suppose, is that post-hippie city-boys must regain their manhood via a test, a quest through the unknown wilds of uncivilised America. It always struck me as odd in films like Deliverance that the "city-folk" presented acted pretty much exactly like the hicks they faced off against (except with better teeth, of course).

Alas, this stuff comes with the territory. I'm willing to overlook this particular nastiness out of respect for the excellently choreographed final chase. This sequence is plainly the film's raison d'etre, and it must have been great on the big screen. While the "gotcha!" final reveal I saw coming a country mile away, I was left quite satisfied by this well-dressed, expertly-paced bit of genre filmmaking. Liked Death Proof? Give this one a queue.

The October Ordeal Day 16: Black Roses

2007-10-17T00:29:00.001-04:00

October 16th: Black Roses (1988)

The micro-genre of “metal horror” is made even smaller considering that its two best examples are directed by the same guy. John Fasano struck b-movie gold with Rock and Roll Nightmare, a perfect example of the “so bad its good” genus. The fact that Black Roses is of a considerably higher budget actually creates a new challenge for Fasano; Rock and Roll Nightmare is a blast partly because its so unbelievably cheap (that and the fact that it stars metal-warrior Jon Mikl-Thor). Black Roses does not immediately signify “B” the same way RNRN does from its first frames. Its harder to like, in other words.

The plot of RaRN is strategically confined to one central shooting location and a half-dozen characters. In contrast, Black Roses’ narrative arc involves an entire town, lending what is practically an ensemble cast. The story in Black Roses is something Stephen King could have dreamt up: an upcoming metal band (the Black Roses) book several shows in a small town (somewhere in Canada, from the look of things) to test out new material before launching a national tour, much to the dismay of the town’s adults. Their kids, of course, are thrilled, and Black Roses-mania sweeps through the high school. John Martin plays Mr. Moorhouse, a progressive English teacher who notes a change in his students as soon as the Black Roses flyers start showing up all over town. The Roses’ glam-metal stylings turn out to be so bitchingly bad-ass that they cause average kids to turn into gothed-out murderers. It’s up to Mr. Moorhouse to put an end to the Roses, who may or may not feature Satan himself as lead singer.

Concerns over the PMRC by guys with goatees is a pretty widespread (and rather uncontroversial) cause in art from the 80s and 90s. From Twisted Sister to G’n’R, the impression is that butt-rock and hair-metal are the final warriors in an epic battle in the name of free speech. Figures like Tipper Gore and Joe Lieberman hardly make dynamic villains, so in films like Black Roses demons and killer stereo speakers stand in. This makes for some silly self-mythologizing on the part of metallers and their sympathizers; the idea that drug-fiend womanizers are really standing up for anything is a strange one indeed. However, I do dig the tunes, and like RaRN, the score here offers some stoopid thrills at every turn.

Besides a presentation of the Fear of a Metal Planet, this film offers plenty of cheap-thrill effects scenes, a monumental improvement upon the sock-puppet monsters of Fasano’s previous metal masterwork. The performances are pretty bad, but this only adds to the charm. The personalities are stock, and that’s fine by me. The film visually is interesting, with a large amount of camera variation, from shaky hand-held to neighborhood-surveilling crane shots. Fasano has gone on to direct high-profile television since, but some scenes here point to music-video potential. The concert scenes in both this film and RaRN stand alone as dynamic sequences. I imagine the coveted VHS copies floating around out there look grainy and faded, the recent Synapse DVD looks fantastic.

Aside from its obvious flaws, Black Roses is a fun, fast-moving film. The politics aren’t heavy-handed, and underpin the story in a natural way that allows for Black Roses to exist first and foremost as an old-fashioned gothic horror film. A cheesy gothic horror-film, yes, but a highly enjoyable one at that. While my fellows at Samurai Dreams are divided on this film (Andy digs is considerably more than I; Kevin, Max and James loathe it), I can recommend it with clear conscience. Just don’t get your hopes up for a Thor cameo.

The October Ordeal day 15: The Incredible Melting Man

2007-10-16T00:03:00.001-04:00

October 15th: The Incredible Melting Man (1978)

(Spoilers, but who cares?)

The Incredible Melting Man may be a drive-in sci-fi/horror film from the 70s, but it feels more like a cheap 50's monster flick (Hideous Sun Demon specifically). A guy (Alex Rebar as Steve West) goes into space (to Saturn, actually) and comes back as a melting maniac compelled to kill.

Like Octaman, this film boasts early Rick Baker makeup effects. The melt-fx look fine, but rather average for the era. This is an extremely average film, fitting all the stereotypes of the worst in an already maligned genre (The Clones is similar in its uniform dullness). A pattern develops early on: the local sheriff and some doctors run around looking for Melt-face while he murders whoever happens to be wandering the country side. Featured is Burr DeBenning as Ted Nelson, former friend of Steve's.

Each of these scenes last so long they nearly morph Incredible Melting Man into an anthology film; this makes sense, each attack necessarily pads out the film. Melt-face attacks a group of kids, some fishermen, young lovers and tramps hanging out by the tracks. In fact, the entire film feels padded: it even seems to wait for its own end impatiently. Even though TIMM is less than 85 minutes long, it feels like dull, lifeless eternity.

The tone of this film is strange. While a guy melting to death might lend a seriocomic element to any horror film, at times Melting Man feels downright slapstick. In one nonsensical sequence, Nelson's mother-in-law wanders around trying to pick wild lemons... to circus music. The dialog in this scene is beyond inane.

From the Vestron cover art, I assumed The Incredible Melting Man would have something in common with Frankenhooker or Slime City. While this film and Slime City share a similar plot, they could be no different in tone. The only interesting thing in this film is the ultra-bleak ending: some cops shoot Nelson in a moment of confusion, Melting Man regains his identity momentarily, kills the cops and then melts to death. If this isn't depressing enough, the credits roll to a radio message announcing further trips to Saturn (think the final moments of Mutant or Rabid). A quiet moment belies the fact that the world is about to fall apart. If only the entirety of the film could have mined this one scene for its dark potential.

The October Ordeal day 14: Slime City

2007-10-15T01:53:00.001-04:00

October 14th: Slime City (1988)

Of all the low-budget trash horror flicks (and I’m talking low) of the 80s, the cheapo gore fests filmed in New York City seem to have the most life. When you watch a film shot in who-knows-where with a cast of eight and only two or three sets, it seems fake, the budget limitations obvious. Something about this same strategy works if the film is set in a big city however; it’s somehow believable that in a city so large and dense a gruesome scenario could play out behind closed doors without anybody noticing. We get that it’s a big city, so instead of wondering where everybody is, we are simply unsettled by the fact that a character in a place so packed could be so isolated. Yesterday I reviewed Frank Henenlotter’s Frankenhooker, a gory flick placed in NYC. His earlier picture Brain Damage benefits further from this quality. The director of Slime City, Greg Lamberson, is credited as first AD of Brain Damage, so these two films share more than just the same aesthetic, they share the same DNA.

Shameless sleaze-merchants Camp Video can actually count Slime City as one of their higher-budget releases, if you can believe that. Camp’s recent DVD releases (mostly of SOV obscurities) claim “The Awesome 80s are Back!” Well, back in the VHS days, their logo read “Your Ticket to the Future.” Whether Camp looks forward or backward depends on the market I guess. Whatever the case, Camp knew their target in ‘88: the box boasts “A horror film with guts!”

The guts in question belong to our man Alex (Robert C. Sabin, fresh off the no-budget I Was a Teenage Zombie), a starving artist who works at a video store (see also: Night Vision, Remote Control, Video Violence). Alex may be an underground painter, but he acts like a typical frat boy. This is the type of character you only find in horror and soft-core porn. Alex’s major dilemma in life is that his square girlfriend Nichole (Mary Huner) won’t have sex with him. T.J. Merrick plays his stock best friend Jerry, a creep who drools over Alex’s goth neighbor Lori (arbitrarily also played by Huner).

Alex has just moved into a new apartment, a decent room in a decaying building. Roman (Dennis Embry), an unhinged guy from the floor just below, initiates him into a black magick cult by feeding him green yogurt and putrid wine, which all the tenants consume. The confusing origin of the cult involves alchemy, suicide pacts, murder and reincarnation. Soon after, Alex becomes addicted to the slime, and unless he murders bums and prostitutes, his face will melt. Doesn’t make sense, but allows for some interesting sequences. Alex goes through the same sort of bodily ordeal seen in Henenlotter’s films, or Cronenberg’s, a clear influence on the entire gore crowd (there’s even a handful of obligatory bathroom mirror scenes). As Alex becomes more and more addicted to the slime and the subsequent killing, he feels alienated from his friends, even though he’s reluctant to commit fully to the cult living all around him.

In the final scene, it’s a face-off (can I say it? Literally) between Alex in full-on melt mode and Nichole, who causes all kinds of harm to Alex using various kitchen appliances. This effects-heavy scene is what has gained Slime City its minor notoriety. Yet, as with Henenlotter’s films, the gore here is not what interests me. This is a fun, trashy flick which confidently allows its aesthetics to be the substance. The riff-raff populating the film create an idealized NYC; this is a love letter to scum. The crumbling buildings, drug addicts and prostitutes here seem to represent an era that maybe shouldn’t have been idealized, but nevertheless was and is. In such a cinematic environment, a mobile brain escaping from a severed head seems slightly less weird.
Special attention must be paid to Slime City’s fantastic score. Robert Tomaro’s original songs sound like something from a Messthetics compilation, and remind me specifically of the L.A. synth-punk bands, especially Nervous Gender and the Screamers. Synth and piano dominate, but jagged edges of surf, dub, jazz and minimalism jut out as well. While New York’s rich underground history has been well-mined, the trash-synth soundtracks to many NY underground gore flicks have yet to be revisited.

The October Ordeal Day 13: Frankenhooker

2007-10-13T23:07:00.001-04:00

October 13th: Frankenhooker (1990)

Once in elementary school a kid told me that he and his cousin had cut up a Playboy magazine in order to construct the “perfect woman.” This seemed really strange to me at the time, as I imagined attractive parts actually looking rather nightmarish when combined. Well, perhaps Henenlotter once did the same thing; if he didn’t, he gets to do it here. Protagonist Jeffrey Franken (get it?) is a failed surgeon who works at a power plant in New Jersey. When his fiancée dies in a freak lawn-mower accident, he gets to construct a new and improved version of Elizabeth Shelley (get that one too?) from scratch, utilizing his unique skill-set. Since most of Liz (Patty Mullen) is chewed to bits, he has only her severed head to work with. Jeff’s problem (and—in his mind—an opportunity) is that he needs to find replacement parts somewhere.

One thing that’s always struck me about Henenlotter is that his films are extremely economical. Here, you know all you need to know before the title card, and the rest of Frankenhooker is open for gags, gore, and plenty of stray ideas. Henenlotter here seems concerned with the same themes present in Brain Damage and Basket Case, and elaborates these ideas further and with greater clarity. Also, the tone of this film is quite different. The laughs are more genuine here, as the bleak tone of Basket Case is completely absent. This is a wild and thrilling film, well-paced and bursting with gross-out humor. The budget is also considerably higher, thanks to the investment of producer James Glickenhaus, the director of Exterminator, who brought much of his regular crew along.

The point is clearly made here that while Jeff wants his girlfriend back, he also sees her accident as a perverse opportunity to construct his own super-model fantasy. Jeffrey is a flawed character, but Henenlotter still clearly wants us to like him in spite of this. As Dr. Franken, James Lorinz isn’t a great actor, but he’s well cast here. Henenlotter’s protagonists are never played by the most talented performers, he seems to cast for some schlubbish quality rather than chops, which is fine. It works. While Jeffrey is quite average in many ways, there’s a heightened strangeness about him that Lorinz conveys nicely. How many mild-mannered med-school drop-outs regularly drill holes in their cranium to stimulate creative thought? This trepidation motif is nicely carried over from Brain Damage.

Come to think of it, Henenlotter’s protagonists are all well-meaning but totally selfish obsessives, dedicated to one strange goal: Duane in Basket Case is wholly devoted to the well-being of his brother Bilal; Brian in Brain Damage needs the parasite Aylmer to get high. Jeffrey’s quest to bring Liz back from the dead is both pathetic and touching. In his single-mindedness he never pauses to question his true motives. In one hilarious scene Jeff asks Liz’s severed head: “Honey can’t you picture yourself in this body, kneeling on ma’s couch in the basement?”, while pointing to a centerfold model. His world-view, like much in Henenlotter’s world, is candidly low-rent.

Where does Jeff go to find the “spare parts” he needs? Across the bridge to NYC of course, Henenlotter’s home and creative inspiration. Jeffrey sets out to find a half dozen prostitutes, whom together have the different body parts he needs. Jeff is conflicted in that he isn’t a murderer, but his stubborn determination forces him to rationalize and justify any wrong-doing on his part as an unfortunate necessity. “I can’t feel guilty now. I just wanna make life” He tells himself. In order to feel that he is not responsible, Jeff sets up a scenario so that he himself does not have to perform the act himself, he merely has to create the ideal circumstances. He finds an ally in the bane of the film’s prostitutes: crack cocaine. Jeff synthesizes a “super-crack” which causes the smoker to explode into a heap of junk limbs. Carrying a bag full of eviscerated bodies to his trunk, he promises he’ll bring them all back once he’s got Liz among the living.

With the introduction of crack into the film, a clear line is traced from the anti-drug themes of Brain Damage. While Brain Damage feels a bit short-sighted and reactionary, Henenlotter adds layers of complexity to what it still essentially the same argument here. While in Brain Damage avoiding Aylmer’s addictive juice is simply an act of initial will power, here the message is matured. Henenlotter admits the solution to the problem of addiction is much bigger than “Just Say No.” Jeffrey even, in a moment of intentional ignorance, even recites the slogan. Jeffrey himself, however, is an addict: he’s addicted to his power drill. He also uses drugs to manipulate others, and is mirrored by the pimps who populate the film.

Once he has the raw material, Jeff assembles Elizabeth and sends her on a raised platform into a raging storm. In a technically impressive scene, bolts of lightning bring the patchwork Liz back into the living world. She looks quite monstrous of course, her skin a mosaic of different color tones and textures, stitched together with huge medical staples. He hair is also bright purple, somehow changed by the bolt. Patty Mullen as zombie-Liz is both attractive and repulsive, much like Elsa Lanchester as the original Bride of Frankenstein.

Unfortunately for Jeffrey, she’s not the Liz he once knew, as all the women he murdered to recreate her have lent her pieces of their psyches as well as their bodies. She becomes a kind of ur-prostitute, bent only on drugs and money. Her mad mission is parallel to Jeff’s, in fact. Her mantra: “Got any money?” All of her lines are actually cribbed dialog from earlier in the film. As there is an unusual amount of characterization for a genre film, its even possible to notice individual personalities bubbling to the surface. Re-animated Liz leaves Jeff baffled and heads for New York, her clunking Frankenstein pumps a nice touch. The following scenes are great: sleazy, neon and wonderfully time-stamped (the Batman logo is everywhere).

(spoilers in this section)

After Jeff finds Liz he re-zaps her and manages to momentarily bring back the woman he knows and loves. In the film’s smartest scene, she chides Jeff for his mad quest, and realizes that his selective reconstruction has afforded him certain chauvinistic luxuries, granted without her consent or approval. This moment is short-lived however, as what follows is not only the film’s climax but its goriest moment. Sadistic pimp “Zorro” has followed Jeffrey home, and has finally figured out what happened to his “employees.” Zorro (Joseph Gonzalez from Brain Damage), in a surprising moment, cuts Jeff’s head clean off. After this, Jeff’s storage tank flips over, and the reconfigured prostitutes from earlier in the film spill into frame. Don’t ask how, but the parts have assembled themselves into monstrosities Brian Yuzna may have taken note of. Here the effects come courtesy of Henenlotter collaborator Gabe Bartoloz. The flesh-beasts drag Zorro into the tank and close the lid, leaving the rest to the viewer’s imagination.

(major spoiler here)

In the film’s final moment (which is also the final gag), Liz reconstructs Jeff. But since his mystery serum is estrogen-based (did I forget to mention that?), she needs the leftover parts of women to bring him back to life. Jeff’s lesson is learned here via his castration; it’s a great gag, yes, but it also sums up the entire film in a really smart way. Jeffrey’s quest to create the perfect woman at the expense of all others is reversed; he himself must become that ideal woman. Roles here are also reversed. While I don’t think Henenlotter is that deep, this scene brings into question the validity of essentialist ideas about men and women, at least implicitly. So much of 80s horror is informed by Reagan’s mad rule. While Frankenhooker was filmed in ‘89, as Reagan had left office, he feels present here. While Henenlotter has intelligent things to say here about the failed war on drugs, his strongest move is to cut the predatory yuppie male’s dick off.

It’s clear from the relatively few films Henenlotter directed that he knows his craft. If things had gone a different route, he could have parlayed his low-budget, less-is-more visionary talents to mainstream success, like Raimi or Jackson. He stayed true to his roots instead, putting his time into Something Weird, unearthing lost cult films for DVD. While I find much of Something Weird to leave a sour taste, I admire his commitment. A look on IMDb reveals he’s completed work on a curious new picture, one co-written by shock-rapper R.A. the Rugged Man and featuring many underground-rap stalwarts. While I now find Vinnie Paz and Reef’s faux-underground gun rap unbearable, I would have been hyped up if this film came out five years ago, when I couldn’t get enough of underground “horror-core” hip-hop. We’ll see.

Slime City tomorrow! Black Roses soon!

The October Ordeal Day 12: Necropolis

2007-10-13T02:38:00.000-04:00

October 12th: Necropolis (1986)

Cop out time-- this is an old review, reposted. There was simply too much going on today. Tomorrow I start the gross-out series with Frankenhooker!

This is a strange review. I don't write like this anyone.

I had very low expectations of Necropolis. James and I both wrongly assumed this was a post-apocalypse flick, seeing the case frequently at the North Adams library. A while back, Kevin checked it out, and I decided to throw it on. The cover features a burning NYC cityscape and offers an “action-packed zombie thriller.” Well, there are no zombies that I could see, and Necropolis is neither thrilling nor action-packed (that is to say, it’s neither a thriller nor an action film). It’s actually about a group of people united by and throughout time, who reincarnate repeatedly as a group dedicated to fighting the Satan-worshipping Eva, who’s now cruising around New York collecting minions and searching for a mystical ring and its bearer: priest Henry James (hmm…).

Eva is a cool character, a punky chick who’s like a trashier version of Anne Carlisle (writer and star of Liquid Sky). When I watched Necropolis initially, I was feeling kind of dragged down, and the film didn’t make me feel any better. Its low-budget junkiness and gross-out effects just added to my gloom. Well, I got a chance to watch the film again when Andy gave me a copy for my birthday (this review has mentioned nearly every writer for SD—it’s not that we live in some kind of cult-film commune or anything, its just that we share a kind of collective trash-culture consciousness, and often synchronously pick things up). After a second viewing, I can honestly say I really like Necropolis.

The beginning is really hyped-up and fun, as we meet our principles in a previous incarnation, and Eva does a satanic strip-tease in front of a giant pentagram. Fast forward to the present (the mid eighties): Eva is now reincarnated as a no-nonsense punk rocker, who cruises around the city on a motorcycle, while ultra catchy synth tunes blast in the background. Circumstances lead Father James, a London ex-pat named Dawn, and her Italian stereotype detective boyfriend together as they unravel the mystery, and go up against the satanic powers of Eva and her ghouls.

There’s a lot of random weirdness in this film: in one scene the ghouls nurse ectoplasm from Eva’s breasts (which she has six of in some scenes), and a bed in an alleyway is played as Dawn’s apartment (it’s really obvious; I mean, the budget is obviously low, but the filmmakers couldn’t find a bedroom to shoot in?). One interesting thing about the film is that is positions both reincarnation and Christian theology as non-conflicting forces. Note: the VHS case for Necropolis has three large taglines distributed on the front and back: City of the Dead; Beneath Hell lies Necropolis; and one that makes me think the Misfits may have seen this flick: It’s the Ghouls Night Out!

The October Ordeal Day 11: Thirst

2007-10-12T00:10:00.001-04:00

October 11th: Thirst (1979)

Rod Hardy’s Thirst, while shot in Australia, has a lot in common with English and Italian thrillers. Short on logic, the film communicates its style first and foremost: brooding, brutal, cold and claustrophobic. The pulp acting and lyrical dialog remind of Italy’s genre films; what’s substantial in most narrative films is merely ornamental here.

So I wasn’t alarmed when ten minutes into the film I had no fucking clue what was going on. Half the scenes in Thirst are revealed to be dream, hallucination, or drug trip. The diegesis of the film is splintered and notional; Thirst could be chopped up and rearranged in any way.

Thankfully, Thirst isn’t overloaded with characters, as films of this nature often are. Chantal Contouri is totally game as Elizabeth Bathory’s direct descendent Kate Davis. Shirley Cameron (credited as “Ms. Cameron”) plays an ice-queen cult-leader who’s definitely been reading Ayn Rand. David Hemmings, at the beginning of his fat-phase, is Cameron’s mad doctor Fraser. Henry Silva hangs out--as far as I can tell that's his only purpose here. Cameron and co. kidnap Davis and take her to their Jonestown-esque compound for conditioning (complete with machine gunning guards). Turns out she’s genetically predestined to love the taste of blood, which our villains claim is the source of ultimate power. This isn’t a vampire film, although the standard vamp imagery and symbolism are evoked with glee. The film is actually about a gang of neo-fascists systematizing the Big N’s “will to power.”

This isn’t my own observation, as the film’s characters take every opportunity to proclaim as much. Cameron gets the best lines (“[Drinking blood] is the ultimate aristocratic act.”), including a monologue theorizing the revulsion people feel when witness to violence is actually veiled attraction. Our natural state, she claims, is to crave power, here represented by sweet, sweet blood. The blood’s not for everyone though. The cultists keep stores of “Bloodcows,” on-hand. These willing young WASPS hang out by the pool all day, happy to donate the occasional pint. I guess all you need to attract a slave-class is a bitchin' pad. These dozy kids look like they wandered off the set of Logan’s Run.

Kate isn’t down with this scenario. So she’s drugged, and spends most of the film running through her own mind. Hemmings as Fraser dopes her with some mystery serum to induce “90-minute” composite memory hallucinations grown from favored past-events. Once this motif begins, it becomes impossible to tell dream and reality apart. Often scenes will telescope out via false awakenings until not even the script is sure which is which.

The film’s endless pile-ons do becomes tiresome eventually. As the conditioning sequence drummed on I began to suspect that the film’s running time was merely being padded out. That, or the producers wanted a reason, any reason, to place nudity in the film (via Kate’s occasional sex-dreams). Its an over-long excursion for such a short film (about 90 minutes, actually… Hmmm). The ending is just as confusing as everything else here, and whether Kate feeds or not is a mystery. The twist of all twists at the very end is less a denouement than simply another head-scratcher.

I must mention Bryan May’s excellent score. May is something of an unheralded genius. His versatile scores have enlivened many Australian films, including Mad Max and the films of Brian Trenchard-Smith. Here, May’s score morphs from Sci-Fi treble pulses to buzzing white-noise to Debussian string-swells. The key word is sustain. I dig the score so much I’m considering purchasing the OST album from Movie-Grooves.

Is this a great film? Not really. It is however, a solid genre entry. If you dig this sort of thing, go for it. You could do worse. If for no other reason, watch this to see Silva make a strong impression merely by standing in the background and smirking.

Tomorrow I begin one of two cycles. I’ve got some Gialli coming in the mail from Netflix. If the post is late I’ll start a gross-out circuit including Slime City, The Incredible Melting Man and Street Trash. I’ll be taking in some heavy audio-horror tomorrow, as I head to Hampshire College to catch Wolf Eyes. I’ve gone to see a lot of bands these past few months, but this is the most amped-up I’ve been for a show in ages.

The October Ordeal Day 10: Mutant

2007-10-11T00:10:00.001-04:00

October 10th: Mutant (1984)

(Also known as Night Shadows.)

If there is one actor who’s truly captured the collective heart of Samurai Dreams, its Wings Hauser. The man is a maniac. The man is an uncontrollable force of nature. Wings doesn’t chew scenery, he eats it alive. Yet every now and then, Wings proves he can actually act. Check him out in Vice Squad, The Wind or Norman Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance. And while Mutant is no masterpiece, Wings reins in his Wagnerian instincts enough to turn in an atypical low-key performance.

Low key or not, however, Wings is incapable of playing an everyman. Here he plays a man who’s written as such, but his idiosyncrasies as an actor override the character. Wings plays Josh Cameron, a guy with a strange sense of humor who’s on a backwoods road trip with his younger brother Mike Cameron (no relation to the prankster who famously wore a Pepsi shirt to school on “Coke Day”). Lee Montgomery plays Mike as a whiny city-boy, who’s happy to spend time with his brother after a messy break-up, but doesn’t trust the small-town roads. And with good reason. No sooner than they pass into one particularly insular town, the two brothers are run off the road by a particularly ornery batch of rednecks. Their car busted, Mike and Josh are forced to venture into town. Finding a few friendly folks, Mike and Josh decide to stay the night at a local bed & breakfast. Josh’s ordeal begins in the morning, when he awakens to find Mike missing from his room.

Josh finds allies in the town doctor, Myra Tate (Jennifer Warren, turning in a competent performance), local teacher Holly Pierce (Jody Medford as Wings’ love interest), and the inimitable Bo Hopkins as the soused Sheriff Will Steward. These four characters seem to be the only sane component of Goodland, GA, and that’s not just because toxic waste is turning denizens into cannibals. The evil town is a convention as old as the horror genre itself, one that surely predates film itself. How many horror films feature a city-boy learning all about country folk the hard-way? Plenty.

Josh soon realizes that the mystery of Goodland is deeper than the location of his lost brother. It seems like everyone’s coming down with a strange “virus,” and this may have something to do with a sharp increase in zombie activity. About mid-way through, Mutant becomes a somewhat different film. The desolation of Goodland is almost tangible, as more and more people fall off the charts. The deserted-streets motif is really attractive to me. This spooky convention helped to shape the aesthetic of many films; the Phantasm sequels for instance.

Once our gang figures out what’s going on, it’s too late to do anything except hide. In the film’s best scene, Josh and Holly find Doc Tate’s OR trashed, blood everywhere. Finding the Doc’s tape recorder, Josh plays back her last autopsy report, which quickly turns into the soundtrack to her murder. As tinny screams play on the tape, hand-held camera violently scans the wreckage of the destroyed room, Josh and Holly standing motionless. The frenzy of the sequence is remarkable. As artful at this scene is, it’s immediately followed by a poorly-lit (although my worn Vestron vhs may be the culprit here) zombie chase. This is the film’s downfall: something rather good is followed by something rather bad (the bad often a genre convention poorly played). This discord is eased by Richard Band’s dynamic score. I like Band’s Full Moon work, but this is subtler—and ultimately better—work.

The final moments of the film are overwhelmingly desperate. Things really do seem hopeless. In one scene, Holly and Josh share a quiet moment while making Molotov cocktails in an abandoned grocery. Wings’ presence in this scene is undeniable, and he proves that subtly isn’t actually beyond his ability. Its too bad the character is given almost no substance (via a back-story, a rounded personality, etc).

Even though the ending seems hopeful (the chemical plant responsible for the virus is shut down), the momentary victory of Josh, Holly and the Sheriff is shattered by the downbeat voice-over which ends the film: the company responsible has already begun building new plants across the state (despite this late edition to the film, it doesn’t seem justified to call Mutant a political film; there’s no explicit environmentalist theme). While the radio announcer’s message is bleak, the relieved smiles of the three surviving characters may not point to irony or pessimism, but ultimately the virtue of hope, no matter how fleeting. I can’t say if this is the right interpretation, but this is certainly how Wings plays it.

The October Ordeal Day 9: 976-Evil

2007-10-10T00:02:00.002-04:00

October 9th: 976-Evil (1989)

Robert Englund may have picked up a few ideas for his directorial debut watching Wes Craven work; 976-Evil is very much in the style of Craven's 80s output. Unfortunately, this film is quite unexceptional. Englund’s direction is competent, but the film itself is middle of the road: not great, not horrible, just very low-key and unambitious.

976-Evil is a tale of Satan-sponsored nerd-rage revenge (a premise also found in such middle-of-the-road pictures as Evilspeak and The Gate 2). The nerd here is repressed mama’s boy Hoax (that’s really his name), a straight-A student living in awe of his biker cousin Spike. Spike is the black sheep of the family, who’s mother has recently died. His aunt is Hoax’s Christian-Fundamentalist mother Lucy (Sandy Dennis), a cat-collecting fanatic who’s withholding Spike’s inheritance until he turns 18, essentially keeping him hostage.

Despite this unhealthy living situation, things are going alright, until Spike (Patrick O’Bryan) finds an ad for daily “Horrorscopes” in a porno mag. “Dial 666-976-EVIL” the ad says. Drunk enough to try it, Spike calls and inadvertently opens the gates to hell. A strange voice on the other end gives him situation-specific bad advice. With Spike, the advice is about misdemeanor-level. When Hoax (Stephen Geoffreys) decides to call, things get much more intense. In the film’s pivotal moment, Hoax follows Spike and his girlfriend Suzie (Lezlie Deane) to the movies on a date. Spike is derailed at the entrance by his loser pals, all gambling addicts running a high-stakes game in the projection booth (the set for these games is fantastic, with Black Flag and A Clockwork Orange posters everywhere). Hoax shows up to intercept a very pissed-off Suzie. Their first date at a pizza joint is going smoothly, until Suzie finds a pair of her panties in Hoax’s back pocket(!), and storms out. Hoax over-reacts a bit and hexes Suzie in a black-magic ritual involving a giant pentagram and a pizza plate full of poisonous spiders. From then on Hoax becomes an elf-faced demon with claws and a pitch-shifted voice, and its up to Spike to send him back to Satan, with the help of the school principal and a private investigator (J.J. Cohen and Maria Rubell as stock support).

976-Evil is stuck in neutral right until the end. It never takes off. The spark of life found in even Craven’s worst films is missing here. Englund clearly had a lot more to learn. That said, its competent; had the script and actors been upgraded, this could have been a good film. As it stands, 976-Evil is as average as it gets. There is a sequel, which I will try to seek out in the coming weeks.

The October Ordeal Day 8: Hobgoblins

2007-10-09T01:21:00.001-04:00

October 8th: Hobgoblins (1988)

Robert Zajonc, along with Greg Markus, developed in the ‘70s a theory he called the Confluence Model (this idea is sometimes referred to as “youngest child syndrome”). The basic idea is that birth order has something to do with intelligence. During development, the first-born child has the advantage of an all-parent environment. Subsequent children must compete for attention, and also have their older (still developing) siblings for intellectual models. While a problematic theory, there is some evidence to suggest that, statistically, the younger the child, the lower the IQ. The baby of the family has the extra disadvantage of having no younger siblings to “teach,” and often tests lower than the next-youngest child considerably. With this theory in mind, consider the fact that Gremlins came first in 1984, then Ghoulies in ’85. Critters followed in 86, Munchies in ’87. A year later, our severely disadvantaged subject appeared, a film known as Hobgoblins.

I saw Hobgoblins on the shelf at Astro Video probably ten times before I decided to buy it. Eventually me and my dollar bill parted, and Hobgoblins became mine. The film sat on my shelf for months, until I decided, today, to watch the damn thing. I had a bad feeling when I noticed the twin logos on the back of the VHS box: Trans-World Entertainment and Goodtimes. TWE and Goodtimes are two of the worst video distributors ever, companies whom often released films in EP mode to save money. T-WE is a bit more obscure, but anyone who’s ever bought a DVD at the dollar store may recognize Goodtimes’ logo. I once bought a Goodtimes release of Fists of Fury that didn’t include the entire film, just the 45 minutes of it that would fit on the tape. Over at Critical Condition you can find write-ups on both of these fifth-tier VHS villains.

When I began the film, things didn’t seem so bad. Old man McCreedy (Jeffrey Culver) is training a new kid on the lot. McCreedy for thirty years has been the night-watchmen at an unused Hollywood lot. Phasing McCreedy out, the higher-ups are hiring young punks to take his place. McCreedy tells the kid, “don’t go in the vault.” Kid goes in the vault. We don’t see how or why, but the kid ends up torn to shreds. Cue music, cue credits. So far so good. I can get on board with something dumb and derivative, as long as it's fun. The fun in Hobgoblins is extremely fleeting however; it ends here.

Its time for a new recruit, and a dude named Kevin (Tom Bartlett) gets the gig. Kevin’s a bit smarter than the other guys, but he still can’t stay out of the vault. When a prowler breaks in, Kevin accidentally lets whatever’s in “the vault” out, and we see the Hobgoblins for the first time, but unfortunately not the last. This scene explains why it took a half hour for the little trolls to show up. We see three or four inanimate dolls sitting on a golf-cart, cruising around to zany synth music. The Hobgoblins aren’t puppets, they’re toys. They don’t move. Let’s just say there’s a lot of scenes where characters catch the goblins when a prop guy throws them from off-screen and hold on to them while pretending to fight them off.

McCreedy tells Kevin that the beasts are from outer space, and that they use psychic powers to lull their victims into trances via there own subconscious fantasies. OK. So Kevin is given a group of friends (roommates?) who all embody cliché 80s personas, so that they may be “cleverly” flipped by the Hobgoblins to show us who they really are. The prudish girl wants to strip in a punk club, the nice guy wants to prove himself, blah blah blah. These characters are unbearable. They all seem to hate each other as well. Including average Joe Kevin, this is truly an unlikable gang of losers. One of the gang, the macho Nick (Billy Frank), is an Army recruit, who carries grenades in his glove compartment. These scenes reminded me that the unhinged military gun-nut psychopath is actually a pretty common character in 80s comedies. I guess it takes a few years without a visible war to bring this stock character back into the culture.

This soulless film is one of the worst I’ve seen in a while. It manages to be simultaneously boring and infuriating. Hobgoblins is overlooked, and rightly so. I recall that Astro Video still has a few more copies. Don’t buy it, unless you plan to bury it ten feet into the ground. A quick look on IMDb reveals that director Rick Sloane has had a lucrative career in softcore porn, and has completed the filming of Hobgoblins 2. He also directed the Wings Hauser dud Mind, Body and Soul. Great. I can’t say any more about this film because, well, its giving he a headache.

Its tough being the youngest child.

The October Ordeal Day 7: Long Distance

2007-10-07T23:36:00.001-04:00

October 7th: Long Distance (2005)

A visit to the local big-box video store will reveal that contemporary American direct-to-DVD horror films come in (mainly) two varieties: the vulgar Photoshop no-brainers like Frankenfish or Leprechaun in the Hood 2, and the stuff that, if it had featured a star, could have been in theaters. If Long Distance had nabbed Halle Berry or Angelina Jolie instead of Monica Keena, it could have bombed at the box office instead of Blockbuster. Most of these films are as bad as Frankenfish, but every now and then something really interesting slips through the cracks (see Friday’s film, Chasing Sleep, or Stuart Gordon’s King of the Ants). Unfortunately, Long Distance is not in this category.

Marcus Stern’s first film Long Distance is a film with a tiny budget. Excepting one short scene, the entire story takes place inside an apartment complex, really one apartment. There are about four developed characters, and less than a dozen altogether. Many of the actors are represented in voice only. A film with such restrictions is often classified de facto as an art film (evidenced by this film’s appearance on the Sundance network). Actually, Long Distance is a limp psychological thriller with aspirations to complexity greater than its ability to deliver.

Monica Keena isn’t a great actor, but she is very likable. In Freddy Vs. Jason, her performance is appropriately all-surface. Her big eyes and expressive face communicate very well in such a film. And she was quite charming on the small screen in Judd Apatow's Undeclared. Also, she can scream. Here, an actor capable of subtlety could have saved Long Distance from its script. Keena plays Nichole Freeman, a grad-student studying Psychology in Boston. She’s just broken up with her boyfriend, Chris, and calls her mother to talk about it. She makes a mistake and misdials, reaching a strange answering machine. A minute later, an unknown man with a creepy voice calls, asking “Why did you call me?” Turns out the guy is a serial killer calling himself Joe (as in “average Joe”), who’s just murdered the owner of the cell phone. Joe (Kevin Chapman) decides to call Nichole before every subsequent murder, leaving the phone on so that she can hear his victims screaming for help. Keena spends many of the film’s remaining scenes on the phone (she does have an expressive voice, fortunately).

When the cops find a corpse with a cell phone, they send Detective Frank Halsey (Ivan Martin) to Nichole’s apartment, to question her about the dead woman’s last outgoing call. From then on Frank remains in Nichole’s apartment, as a tech guy (Tim McIntire as Charlie) back at the station traces Joe’s calls (always too late, of course). The FBI sends over expert profiler Margaret Wright (Tamala Jones, pretending she’s in a CSI episode) to coach Nichole on how to keep Joe on the line long enough for Charlie to trace the call and dispatch the police in whatever town Joe is in. Throwing some pins in a map on the wall, Frank realizes that Joe is traveling in an arc across the country, Boston his next location.

A straight-forward conclusion would have been welcome. Instead, (a spoiler here) Long Distance ends with a lame twist, re-framing the entire film as a psychological fiction. While dream sequences throughout the film hint at this, and certain aspects of the script make sense as fantasy (the Hollywood romance that develops between Nichole and Frank), this final reveal is truly groan-worthy. When Joe shows up, things start to get weird, and we realize that Joe (spoiler) may not even be real at all.

Long Distance plays a slasher premise seriously. Fine. Yet, Long Distance could have been a more traditional slasher. The film would have been simpler, yes, but probably better. Every horror film doesn’t have to be as psychologically complex as Silence of the Lambs—especially if the screenwriters (here Shawn and Michael Rasmussen) aren’t up to task. There’s nothing wrong with a good twist; there is something wrong with an unearned one. The final scene in Long Distance is clumsy and confusing. Keena’s performance doesn't have the layers necessary to sell the revelation that she’s dreamt up an entire narrative to hide the fact that she’s (big-time spoiler) murdered her own boyfriend.

The filmmakers made a commitment to keep the film small in many ways. The cinematography is uniform, the sets are simple, the music is subtle. Had the script been reined in, Long Distance could have been a tight and satisfying thriller. The pacing in Long Distance isn’t slow, it's just that the events are mostly minor. Nothing about this film needed to be grand. An overlooked film such as Mimic 3 keeps the action indoors, and—I gotta say—Mimic 3 actually ain’t that bad. Its always frustrating when a film’s mistakes are this obvious.

The October Ordeal Day 6: Society

2007-10-06T23:46:00.008-04:00

October 6th: Society (1989)

In Brian Yuzna's Society, the title refers to the same 80s cinema stereotype found in Less Than Zero or any Brat Pack movie, the idea that the impeccably mannered (and all-white) upper-classes who constitute an impenetrable over-culture may actually be hiding something rather ugly. The ugliness is made explicit in Society, a literal groteque of Lovecraftian proportions.

Yuzna, long-time producing partner of Stuart Gordon, moved to feature directing with Society, a film written by Rick Fry and Woody Keith (who worked with Yuzna again on Bride of Re-Animator in 1990). Yuzna has directed interesting films since, yet Society has a certain original quality he has yet to match. Besides Yuzna, the other creative force behind the film is prosthetics-wiz Screaming Mad George (Predator, Freeked, Big Trouble in Little China, and most Yuzna/Gordon films), whose distinctive effects are practically Society's raison d’etre.

Our protagonist, Billy Whitney (mugging Soap-actor Billy Warlock), is being groomed by his wealthy parents (Charles Lucia and Connie Danese as Jim and Nan Whitney) for entry into the Los Angeles elite. However, Billy—the Whitney’s adopted child—is too much a rebel to conform to their ideal. So, he’s become a mullet-headed football jock instead. I want to claim that They Live! kick-started the trend of positioning a jar-head as the renegade, the voice in the wilderness, the non-conformist. But this is an archetype that goes back to early Sci-Fi (Quatermass Xperiment), and even to John Wayne. The myth of the rugged individual is embedded in the romantic fiction of Capitalism, after all. Billy may not look like the Spader clones who out-class him, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a jerk. His mullet and football jersey hardly signify “integrity.” He treats the class nerd cruelly. He strangles his girlfriend for lying to him. Think Kevin Dillon in Remote Control, or Charlie Sheen in The Wraith. By placing such an oaf in the rebel role, the film cheapens its central notion. By leaving out deep cultural assumptions in its surface-level condemnation of the rich, Society’s message may be that it’s only okay to break some of society’s rules.

Convenient for Society’s running time, however: Bill is so dumb it takes him the entire length of the film to figure out what’s really going on. His doughy pal Blanchard (Tim Bartell) disappears midway through the film, but not until he plays Billy a tape proving that his parents are involved in something quite strange, including incest (Bill’s WASPy sister Jenny the object of their lust), and—from the sound of the tape—bestiality (Blanchard conveniently happens to be a surveillance expert?). Billy plays the tape for his psychiatrist, only to find the tape has been mysteriously altered. It seems that nearly everyone in town is involved in this yuppie-conspiracy. Bill can’t trust his parents, he can’t trust his sister (Patrice Jennings as Jenny), his classmates, the police (who protect money—like in life), not even his therapist.

Society features a quite obvious message. There isn’t anything controversial about the conclusions the film comes to about class, exclusivity and conformity; in fact, these ideas are classic film tropes. But still, it works. There is something genuine about Society. Horror is a powerful vehicle for satire and social commentary, even when it comes to Yuzna’s somewhat inarticulate film. By the end of Society, it becomes clear that the elites in the film are a kind of symbiotic species, who party hard by melting into a single mass of hive-mind goo. This extended scene is like something out of a Burroughs orgy-scene: sex, gore, submission and assimilation are one and the same.

Even this gross mess is exclusive: a townsperson tells Billy: “You aren’t one of us… you have to be born this way.” Subtlety Society may lack, but it does have a kind of political integrity. There is even some suggestion that members of L.A.’s mutant "Society" are upgraded to Washington after their final initiation.

Society may be termed a smart-dumb movie. Dumb characters, dumb protagonist. Smart premise, smart tone (tongue-in-cheek but serious in the right places). Whatever doesn’t work is smoothed out with a gallon of liquid latex. The look of the film is adequate, and nostalgic for any direct-to-video aficionado. Gordon’s films look like this. Jim McBride’s later films look like this. Full Moon looks the same. New Horizon. So on and so forth. The lighting could be better. The photography and acting are workmanlike. Workmanlike is the operative term here. You won’t marvel at any of the visuals, but the look of the film is fine, and allows for the effects to make a strong impression. If nothing else, Society is entertaining the whole way through. In the genre of gross-out late twentieth-century horror, and in the arena of low-budget direct-to-video, Society may be something of a narrow-scope masterpiece.

The October Ordeal Day 5: Chasing Sleep

2007-10-05T19:22:00.001-04:00

October 5th: Chasing Sleep (2000)

Recently a friend and I were talking about The Squid and the Whale, and I was saying how great I thought Jeff Daniels’ performance is. I also added that Daniels in person appears a total goof-ball, and nothing like the character he plays in TSatW. Hearing this, my friend said “If you like Jeff Daniels, then you should definitely try to see Chasing Sleep.” I was intrigued, so to the top of my Netflix queue it went.

I was surprised at the many surface similarities between both Chasing Sleep and The Squid and the Whale. While TSatW isn’t a thriller, and Chasing Sleep isn’t funny, there are many points of commonality: in both films Daniels plays a snob professor who sleeps with a student; he separates from a woman who is also a teacher (a college professor in TSatW, a high school teacher in Chasing Sleep); and in both films he despises the man his wife is involved with for being his athletic and outgoing opposite. I must say that while the similarities are many, the two films are quite different. And to Daniels’ credit, the two leads (Bernard Berkman in TSatW and Ed Saxon in Chasing Sleep) are two different people. Daniels plays both as unique characters with unique problems, despite the fact that the characters are similar and that their problems also are similar. It would have been easy for Daniels to play both characters the same way, but he manages to find the nuance in each. Hollywood’s master character actors (sorry Denzel) often settle into specific ready-made grooves, playing the same characters over and over again; its an immense credit to Daniels that he plays two very close characters as separate individuals. Both may be self-righteous slobs who teach English at the college level and suffer marital problems, but they’re different self-righteous slobs.

First time director Michael Walker’s Chasing Sleep begins with a classic noir motif, and moves into some unexpected places from there. Ed Saxon wakes up one morning and his wife is not by his side. He calls in to work and begins to investigate. He calls his wife’s work, he calls her friends, and—when things seems seriously strange—eventually the police. To compound his problems, Saxon suffers from severe insomnia. Time falls out of sync, expanding and contracting wildly. For example: the police call to say they’re coming to the house, Saxon hangs up, the doorbell rings a moment later. The film is full of disorienting moments of lost time. And while the film is short on flashbacks, and the narrative moves in a relatively straight-forward direction, its quite obvious that time is seriously out of joint. Day and night constantly fold in on each other, as if some sinister force is at work, manipulating either Saxon’s mind or reality itself. Except for when the door opens, it is impossible to know if it is day or night. The sickly indoor lighting (noir doesn’t always equal dark) creates a kind of shades-drawn in-between state. In many ways Chasing Sleep refuses to differentiate. For example, Daniels plays every emotional response as if subdued by a dose of sleeping pills, pills which Saxon is indeed taking (a motif throughout the film). The tension of the character is played entirely below the surface; Saxon only half understands what’s going on, but its clear there are things he simply refuses to comprehend.

Daniels’ performance alone would make Chasing Sleep a fine film, but the script, set design and subtle touches make this a compact and powerful neo-noir. I mention the set design; this is of supreme importance, as Ed Saxon doesn’t leave his home for the length of the film. Saxon’s wife is missing, and he dares not leave, his phone and front door his only means of contact. The few auxiliary characters who flit in and out of the film serve only as human MacGuffins, who exist in the film only to move the plot forward. And—spoilers, watch out!—by the film’s conclusion there is some doubt as to the very reality of these characters. Several tired police officers appear and disappear, dropping pills and cryptic remarks that only increase Saxon’s paranoia. An adoring student (Sadie, played by Emily Bergl) brings Saxon soup and then propositions sex; Gym teacher George (Julian McMahon), the man his wife is sleeping with, punches Saxon in the face. All of these characters exist on the periphery, acting as triggers and nothing more.

The film’s true secrets are not held by the supporting cast, but by the house where Saxon lives. While all the action takes place in a few rooms, Chasing Sleep never feels like theatre. The attention to detail is uniquely filmic: the camera examines every inch of dirt, grime and decay, paying particular attention to the water damage found in the bathroom. Saxon will be left to his own devices for minutes as the film’s focus shifts to the crumbing details of the old house. This is the kind of decay an old house miraculously attains when no one lives there. The score is more like sound design than traditional soundtrack: drones and high-pitched frequencies, resembling the ambient sounds of the night and the electronic hum home-owners only notice in the dead of night.

While an unsettling psychological examination throughout, Chasing Sleep only becomes qualified horror in the last act, when the house’s (and Saxon’s) secrets are revealed. One particular scene is so disturbing and visually disarming that it frames the rest of the film in a new and unexpected manner. Questions are answered, but instead of satisfaction, the feeling is resignation. The anti-climactic resolution answers many questions, but leaves the audience cold. The largest question, “Is this all real?” is never answered; interpretation is up to the viewer; a certain indifference is present in this ultimately pessimistic film.

Chasing Sleep is already an obscurity. Much like The Minus Man, this is a film of quiet and arresting power, one which requires patience but rewards it, and warrants repeat viewings to fully appreciate its many angles. Doing more with less has always been a hallmark of noir; the emotionally restrained yet psychologically complex nature of Chasing Sleep places it among the greats of the genre.

The October Ordeal Day 4: The First Power

2007-10-04T23:14:00.001-04:00

October 4th: The First Power (1990)

The First Power is a film which stands in the shadow of the great 80s and early 90s occult thrillers: Jacob’s Ladder, From Beyond, Prince of Darkness, Candyman, Angel Heart and The Serpent and the Rainbow. While this statement may be derisive by definition, I don’t mean to say that there is never a possibility that a film like The First Power can be good; in fact, the existence of Samurai Dreams is in part predicated upon the premise that it can. While countless “me too” rip-offs crowd around superior films, this does not mean that there will not be superior “B” category films like The First Power.

I’ve actually had my eye out for this film for a while. About a year ago, I saw it for sale at a local video store for three bucks. I got something else instead, and decided to come back for it later. However, the next time I made a visit to the video store in question, it had closed its doors for good (an all-too common occurrence these days). So when I saw it for sale at Astro Video a few months ago, I was happy to throw it in my stack and take it home.

Lou Diamond Phillips plays Logan, a tough cop chasing a vicious satanic serial killer named Patrick Channing (Jeff Kober) with the help of Tess Seaton (Tracy Griffith), a psychic. Tracy has “the second power,” while Channing has the third: possession. While Tess is a reliable police informant, Logan does not come to trust her abilities fully until Channing continues killing after his execution and Logan starts seeing some pretty weird things of his own. Also around to help out is Sister Marguerite (Elizabeth Arlen), a nun who knows quite a bit about Satan and the three heavenly powers (as she holds a cross she says to Logan: “the only person in history to have all three powers,” and then pulls half the cross away, revealing a blade). The first power we can assume is held by Logan, but the film is somewhat ambiguous about this.

Lou Diamond Phillips is not a good actor in the traditional sense. That is to say, his range is very limited; Phillips can not adapt to any character. He can however play one character very well. So, like Keanu or Furlong, he can be cast well. And Phillips is more than adequate here, pulling off angry, confused, cynical and impulsive. The acting in The First Power is uniformly workmanlike. The gray and black indoor and outdoor sets are well decorated, and communicate well the kind of seedy urban (in this case L.A.) environment where occult power could conceivably manifest itself (see also: Candyman and Larry Cohen’s Q: The Winged Serpent). The First Power does a lot of things right—albeit while working within a tested framework—and ends up being wholly entertaining.

The most disappointing thing about The First Power is its conclusion. So often a genre film will unnecessarily end with an ambiguous “Gotcha!” moment, which subverts audience expectation, but for no real reason. As vague as what exactly “the first power” is in the film (and who has it) the ending is even more confusing. A simple and concise conclusion would have been appreciated. But this criticism aside, I very much enjoyed The First Power.

(This review originally appeared in Samurai Dreams issue #4. Its been a busy day so I had to cop out. I haven't posted this review here, so I think I can get away with it. Luckily I don't have many such reviews on reserve, so I'll need to be more diligent in the coming weeks)

The October Ordeal Day 3: The Shrieking

2007-10-03T23:01:00.001-04:00

October 3: The Shrieking (1973)

Prism's VHS release of this obscure Leo Garen exploitation pic is titled "The Shrieking"; the original title is Hex. "Hex" actually makes sense, as plenty of people in this film get hexed. I don't recall any shrieking. A confusing title isn't the only dishonest part of Prism's box art; The Shrieking isn't really even a horror movie. Can't blame 'em; this is a confusing film. IMDb says: "A group of friends who were World War I flyers ride their motorcycles across America in search of what they believe their generation lost during the war." I've seen the film, and this is news to me. Apparently, The Shrieking never saw a theatrical release. Strange, as Hex would have been a perfectly adequate drive-in flick.

The bike gang (referred to as "The Company") doesn't ride motorcycles across America, they ride them to Nebraska, and stay there. The Company finds its way to the home of Oriole (Tina Herazo) and Acacia (Hilarie Thompson), two half-Indian (no tribe is given) sisters living alone on their small ranch. An uneasy arrangement is made, yet Oriole's hospitality soon wears thin as inter-personal complications arise. Any further plot synopsis would only lead to a headache on my part, so this premise will have to do.

The film isn't about narrative. Mood is the important thing. The film has that particular dustiness of drive-in classics like Deadly Harvest and Vanishing Point. The archetypal setting could be the creepiest episode of Little House never seen; it isn't set in any immediately recognizable time period. This could be the 20s, it could be the 50s--only the bikes kept me from placing The Shrieking in the Hollywood Old West. The specific time period doesn't matter. The idyllic prairie-town only signifies an already mysterious past. The quiet pastoral languor of The Shrieking at times feels even more tranquilized than Idaho Transfer or Picnic at Hanging Rock. This isn't a bad thing: while there's a lot wrong with this picture, the image itself is confident.

The characters themselves are stock. Oriole and Acacia are opposites: Oriole the strong, dark, handsome older sister; Acacia the blonde innocent. The gang has all the typicals: Keith Carradine plays Whizzer, the idealistic young kid; Gary Busey is Giblets the unhinged madman, Scott Glenn the stoic leader Jimbang; Robert Walker plays Chupo as a Jodorowskian mute wild-card with a big beard. The histories of these two sets are left to the imagination. Most of the company are running from something, or someone, but details are absent. All we really know about Acacia and Oriole is that their "Injun pa" taught 'em how to smoke marijuana and talk to bees before he died. The dialog between these characters is painful, the yokel phrasing laughable ("Shush up!", "Makes no never-mind"); but the non-verbal interplay amongst the group is often interesting.

No character is identified as protagonist, and none as antagonist. In one scene everyone's smoking prairie-weed and playing Jew's harp, in the next Giblets is trying to rape Acacia in the front yard. The Shrieking is full of abrupt shifts in tone, usually signified by Charles Bernstein's strange electroacoustic score. The role of any character can change from scene to scene. Whether a point is being made about the nature of human interaction and game-playing I cannot say. It's just as likely alliances and loyalties shift merely to push the film to its inevitable bloody conclusion. Ultimately it doesn't matter, as the film seems to posit that fate has brought these characters to a specific point in time from which there is no easy escape.

The uneven rhythm of the film becomes uncomfortable. Long periods of cinema-hypnosis are punctuated by moments of grotesque cruelty and acid-trip surreality. Oriole as a character grows more malovolent as the film winds, performing strange rituals: she sews a lock of biker-chick China's (Doria Cook) hair into a toad's mouth, and walks around in a cow's skull like a compelled witch. Her black-magick outbursts occur whenever the pace of the film slows to a stand-still. One thing I love about drive-in movies is how strange they can often be; in an earlier review I mentioned the bizarre images in the slasher Final Terror being especially memorable.

Somehow out of all this two romances develop. Whizzer and Oriole pair off in an antagonistic, almost-violent subset, and Acacia finds her familiar in the company's runt Golly, a flax-haired kid so passive he's almost ethereal. These four actors seem the most competent but also the most mystified: they play every hokey line ("What the jim-jam are you doin?") straight, as if in a trance. The acting in The Shrieking can't be called great, but it is appropriate.

Ultimately, The Shrieking offers no explanations. Moments in the last reel point to clumsy political commentary (the company ride "Indian" bikes, after all), but the stronger point here may be an implicit assumption about the malleability of human psychology in certain situations, or in certain archetypal positions. The final scene is the most bewildering of all, and I can't find the words to assess it. Like many of the films that find a home at Dreamscape, this is a bewildering and perhaps even off-putting film. Its strangeness, however, is the glue holding it together. Like the otherworldly aura of a dream, The Shrieking is often mundane, but the mysterious collection of these mundane moments grants surprising and unqualified occult dimensions.

The October Ordeal Day 2: Video Violence 2

2007-10-02T23:30:00.001-04:00

October 2nd: Video Violence 2 (1987)

Camp DVD packages both Video Violence 1 and 2, but it might as well have put the sequel in the “extras” section, because that’s what this feels like. Released less than a year later and featuring much of the same cast (and some of the same footage), Video Violence 2 feels more like an excuse to reunite the ol’ gang rather than an effort to create a stand-alone film. Shame, because technically it’s an improvement. Despite the fact that its shot on video, Video Violence 2 actually looks (and sounds) much better than the first film. But, trust me, that’s still not saying very much.

For the sequel, Gary Cohen throws away the traditional narrative structure of the first film and structures the film as an extended television show. Sadistic TV hosts Howard (Bart Sumner) and Eli (the actor is listed only as “Uke”) return, this time bringing their snuff-variety show to the air-waves, via a pirate signal. And--we learn via an unconvincing news report at the film’s opening--the show is a big hit. Besides a dozen fake commercials and interludes, we spend the entire movie with these two goons. Besides introducing clips, Howard and Eli torture a bound woman live, with the participation of their music-man Gordon (the film’s composer Gordon Ovsiew).

Videodrome had a huge impact on gore-hounds in the 80s. The late-night pirate snuff/torture porn premise of Video Violence 2 is clearly inspired by Cronenberg’s film. I imagine there are a lot of Fango-junkies who love Rick Baker’s effects but probably didn’t really get the film. There’s nothing funny about the routines in Videodrome; the murders in Video Violence 2 are played for laughs. Like the first film, VV2 is creepy in its contrived “zaniness”, an awkwardness that occasionally plays as downright disturbing.

While the original Video Violence was clumsily plotted for sure, VV2 is constantly in the process of falling apart. Simply, the film has no center. Also, it's not that great. There was a kernel of something worthwhile in the original; here there is none. It took a lot of self-control not to watch the last half of the film in fast-forward. The two protagonists from the first film appear only in a cameo, and the video store itself is the setting for only one scene. The two best things about the original film are essentially removed. While there are things about it I like, I can barely recommend the original Video Violence. The sequel however, I can confidently warn against. Alas, since both films are available on one DVD, this point is practically irrelevant.

The October Ordeal Day 1: Video Violence

2007-10-01T22:33:00.001-04:00

October 1st: Video Violence: When Renting is Not Enough (1987)

The fuzz audio that begins Video Violence cannot have been a choice. Rather than being a decision made in editing, the noise in Video Violence that stands in for silence is the result of cheap tech. This suggestion of affordable equipment continues when the score enters over the opening credits. You guessed it: one guy with a synth. Yet: the simple-dumb notes that cycle over the opening scene (cars driving us to suburban Frenchtown, NJ) are actually quite pleasurable. Although overbearing and goofy, the budget sounds of the opening theme are somehow mildly unsettling. Much about Video Violence feels voyeuristic in that its anonymity borders on an aura of violated privacy. The sub-verite aspects of the film make it feel like an all-warts home movie. So, the film’s music fits because it sounds like a private-press synth-pop obscurity.

I can’t stress how cheap Video Violence is. While the director reveals that it was actually shot on film and mastered to video in the editing, its almost hard to believe him. The sequel is authentic video, and it looks exactly the same. This is perhaps the cheapest horror film I’ve ever seen that isn’t something my friends and I made in eighth grade. It’s cheaper than Blood Cult. It’s cheaper than Troma. The film has a graininess to it that’s deeper than the mere quality of the image. This isn’t so much like watching a horror film from the 80s; its like watching local television commercials from the 80s.

I’m not one to seek out a film merely for its low-rent obscurity; the premise of Video Violence is actually what attracted me. How can a genre-fan resist a horror film about horror films set in a video store in 1987? Nearly every scene in the store had me pausing and zooming to verify each film on the shelves. We catch glimpses of big boxes and posters galore: Pieces, Ghostbusters, Critters, The Hunger, Dreamscape, Brainstorm, April Fool’s Day and loads more. A customer even rents the aforementioned Blood Cult, which (as the legend goes) is the first SOV (shot on video) horror flick ever produced.

Video Violence isn’t the only horror film set in a video store or about video tapes; in fact, films like Terrorvision, Remote Control, Video Dead and Night Vision practically constitute a micro-genre (see also: Videodrome. See also: The Ring). And although the plot parallels 2000 Maniacs in many ways (the director, Gary Cohen, claims he hadn’t seen the H.G. Lewis film), its still quite novel and a great set-up. Steven Emory (Art Neill) and his wife Rachel (Jackie Neill, his real-life partner) move to Frenchtown from the big city to open up an independent rental store. Rachel works at the court house, Steven works the store counter, and hires a local kid to help him. The Emorys settle in, and business is surprisingly brisk for such a small town. The really strange part: customers only seem interested in horror and porn. But since the store is a success, Steven tries not to think too much about it. One morning, however, he becomes nervous when someone leaves a blank tape in the store’s drop box. His employee convinces him to watch the tape, which the two play on the video store TV. What they witness looks surprisingly real, and Steven wonders if what he’s seen is what it looks like: a snuff film. The kid who works for him even thinks he recognizes the victim. More tapes arrive, and eventually Steven and Rachel decide to investigate what appears to be a small-town snuff conspiracy.

The snuff tapes actually take up quite a bit of the running time. These scenes are unsettling in that they look like home movies within one long home movie. While the gore in the film isn’t frightening (although I must say it isn’t incompetent), the pace of these scenes is. The violence in films like Henry: Portrait of a serial Killer is often called “unflinching” or “unrelenting.” The operative phrase here is meandering. Or tedious. There is something stomach turning about watching prolonged scenes of extras rolling in buckets of fake blood, their screams peaking the audio.

While the plot is entirely sensational, Cohen explains that the film is meant as social commentary. This is only really evident in an early scene taken from Cohen’s own experience as a mom-and-pop video store owner. A mother with a young child rents Blood Cult and asks “is there any nudity?” When Steven tells her he doesn’t think there is she responds “Oh good, then the kids can watch it,” oblivious to the film’s violence (although I must say those watching Blood Cult face more bores than scares). This scene casts the rest of the film in at least a slightly different light than most SOV gore-fests.

Camp’s new series of DVDs celebrating 80s SOV no-budget horror, the “Retro 80s Horror Collection”, is surprisingly high-profile. I noticed their gory full-page ads for Video Violence 1 & 2 (“The awesome 80s are back!”) in several magazines, and read reviews for these lost and tossed little cheapos in various corners of the web. Its strange that Camp has managed to market these films so well, considering the seemingly unanimous agreement (even among fans) that they are not, well, good. There must be something else going on here. The director even warns in a DVD extra: “It’s not good…” I don’t know if I can explain the appeal of trash SOV. Sites like Critical Condition and Bleeding Skull have done a great job of cataloging and celebrating these historical curiosities, and Camp DVD, to its credit, has made no effort to pose these films as anything more than what they are.

I haven’t yet seen a great 80s SOV horror film, and I’m not sure one is out there. That said, there is something likable about Video Violence. There’s something appealing to me about no-budget flicks that read like enthusiastic community productions. I think the draw is that these films play like something other than cinema. If the filmmakers had more money and resources, Video Violence could easily have been a traditionally fun horror flick. They didn’t; they made the film anyway. There’s something admirable about that. I find that the language of criticism even breaks down here, as calling Video Violence a bad film is patently redundant. We all agree on this point. Most of the time, this ends the discussion. Interestingly, this is exactly where the discussion begins with a film such as Video Violence. We’ll see how the sequel fares.

The October Ordeal

2007-09-30T23:37:00.000-04:00

Fall is my favorite season. The strong aesthetic of Halloween I feel as soon as the leaves start to change. I've already noticed that I've been shifting all the horror flicks on my Netflix queue towards the top. Television gets really good come mid-October; I remember taking in Godzilla, William Castle and Hammer marathons with my friends in middle school, back in the days when AMC and TCM would do such a thing.

About two weeks ago I began toying with the idea of doing something here for the month of October. Reviewing a bunch of horror flicks only seemed natural. I began to wonder: how insane would it be to review a film a day, for the entire month? When I thought of a name by which to call this ambitious project, the challenge was official. 31 horror films in 31 days... The October Ordeal.

Let's see if I can pull this off! First up: Video Violence 1 & 2.

Ghost Story (1981)

2007-07-22T00:11:00.000-04:00

(Spoilers ahoy)

Ghost Story is formally presented as “old fashioned”; this description is only partly accurate. Ghost Story stars a quartet of former leading men, all Old-Hollywood royalty. The 1981 film also begins with a fantastic 50’s premise, but the similarities between Ghost Story and the old Price/Karloff pictures evoked by the notion of “old horror” (the Famous Monsters would be going too far back) end there. Ghost Story is an astute commentary on the horror genre itself (and not just horror in film, I must add), a meditation; Ghost Story interrogates the intersection of “Old” and “New” (read: post Hitchcock) film horror’s colluding.

Lawrence D. Cohen, who’s main gig is adapting Stephen King novels and short stories for television, here adapts Peter Straub’s novel. John Irvin directs. Irvin’s asymmetrical oeuvre includes films as diverse as Raw Deal and Hamburger Hill. While neither scriptwriter nor director have particularly impressive careers, here their efforts create an interesting film, perhaps the best of both their careers.

Ghost Story refers to the business of the “Chowder Society,” a group of old men whom once a week gather to spin ghastly moralistic narratives. The Society is Ricky Hawthorne (Fred Astaire), Dr. John Jaffrey (Melvyn Douglas, who appeared in the comparable The Changeling only a few years earlier), Sears James (John Houseman), and Edward Charles Wanderley (Douglas Fairbanks Jr). While the Society are the prime movers of the film, much of the present-time narrative concerns Don Wanderley, son of Edward, whom is called back to the spooky and anachronistic town of Millbrook, Massachusetts after the mysterious death of his twin brother David (both played by Craig Wasson of Body Double and The Men’s Club), and the equally strange death of one of the Society’s members: his father. While initially the connection between the two deaths is vague, both have something to do with two women from different eras who may in fact be the same person: Eva Galli and Alma Mobley (both played by Alice Krige, whose performance may be the film’s best). The film’s narrative from this point on begins to twist through space and time, meting out the complete story in pieces, presented as stories told to one character by another. I have not read the original novel, but this diegetic strategy may be a way of inserting necessary information outside the story's selected arcs.

It is a testament to the film’s script that these scenes never feel like meandering digressions. The mindful pacing of the film conceals the fact that Ghost Story takes huge risks by dropping in and out of the main narrative. The center of the film is in fact a lengthy departure in which David relates a tale to Fred Astaire’s Ricky Hawthorne (the bond between these two is the strongest relationship in the film). While the film is in some sense part of the mystery genre, an unusual amount of patience is required, as not every flashback brings the viewer closer to solving Millbrook’s riddles. Storytelling itself is an important part of the film; much of the film is actually told as story: the Chowder Society is formed around the act of storytelling; film itself is storytelling (no matter how abstract or non-linear a film is, all films have a narrative if only because there is a timestamp: all films have a beginning and an end in the experience of the viewer).

While the plot of Ghost Story could be the premise for a fine revisionist-William Castle film, neither the script nor the acting in Ghost Story point to camp or nostalgia. The four leads are all veteran actors who can command attention here, yet there are no attempts made in their performances to belie the simple fact that these old men inhabit frail bodies—bodies most likely not strong enough to survive the hazards of 1980’s horror. The commonplace yet keenly observed frailty of the actors is a testament to the film’s direction, as the old men of the story are allowed to be old men; many films betray this biological fact, presenting elderly performers as outside-of-time.

As excellent as the four leads are (particularly Astaire), the other two players in Ghost Story are equally fantastic. Interestingly, both play two characters: Krige portrays Eva and the ghost Alma, Wasson doubles up as Don and David Wanderley. Craig Wasson is an interesting specimen. Wasson spent the 1980’s perfecting a kind of anti-charisma, a talent prefect for certain films. Wasson became the uncertain, slight, ineffectual everyman of the 1980s. Wasson often represented a perceived hand-waving liberal powerless in Reagan’s America. In Ghost Story, the Don and David Wanderley sub-plot could be a film in-itself. While the wealthy and successful David checks out early in the film, Don carries much of the film’s weight (and buckles underneath it), as the Wanderley failure, a disappointing shadow of his father and twin brother; a loser who twists his ankle at the film’s climax and only cowers in fear when the hammer drops. In the story Don tells Ricky, his mundane life is ignited by the overt sexuality and power of Alma, whom he meets at the college where he teaches English. When he begins to suspect something is the matter with Alma (she is in fact dead), he cuts the relationship short, only to find out she has found and seduced his brother David.

The ghost of Ghost Story, Eva/Alma, is masterfully and subtly played by South African actress Alice Krige. This is a ghost who operates metaphysically, ageless and even supra-conscious of the film itself, reflexively embodying the conflicts pertinent to the film. By this I mean to say that Ghost Story is in many ways about the meeting of old and new horror, articulated by the unraveling of the old fashioned Chowder Society by the (often ugly and intrusive) outside world. When Hawthorne investigates an abandoned old building from his boyhood, he only finds a derelict named Bate (Miguel Fernandez), who’s seemingly been appropriated by Eva/Alma, and his pre-teen boy companion. The boy, (Lance Halcomb) rising dirty in a woman’s nightgown, is somehow shocking, especially by contrast. The Chowder Society ultimately represent an obsolete lifestyle.

Ghost Story in fact mixes and matches the old and the new. The chilly New England settings recall Lovecraft, Bradbury and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The score feels decades old, fit for a children’s fright film actually, a kind of wistful version of classic Hermann. Not classic, however, are the gory special effects of the film. While used sparingly, when the kills occur, they remind the viewer of Argento in their forwardness and unflinching intensity. In several scenes Alma’s long flowing hair obscures her face, which may be borrowed from Gialli thrillers, yet still prefigures one particular obsession of J-Horror.

While I may give the impression of a binary here, Ghost Story actually demystifies the seeming duality created. The Old Horror represented by The Chowder Society is interrogated during a flashback to the college years of the four men. “50 years ago” the story begins. The elderly Society are mostly confident, commanding and mindful; the younger Society are altogether different. The four young men are cast as smart, effeminate, republican geeks, a casting which feels distinctly Lovecraftian. What might have been a formalistic flashback becomes a weird, embarrassing and awkward sequence to watch, as the stately old protagonists of the film (and actors of an older generation) are in their origin seen as four social rejects whom constantly embarrass themselves and eventually funnel their misfit status into misogynistic rage and end up doing something rather horrific to Eva, the girl of their dreams who will later return as the vengeful Alma.

During this sequence it becomes clear that this is a film which pulls no punches. While the elderly Chowder Society is refined and gentlemanly, this betrays the total picture of these men and perhaps more broadly the entire idea of the “old-fashioned gentleman”; which is often merely a pose for a kind of confused male-white supremacy. In this interpretation Eva/Alma becomes entirely sympathetic, despite her bizarre and cruel behavior. While the Society is ultimately remorseful, it becomes apparent by the film’s end that the horror of the film is in fact of their creation. Eva’s death is an accident, but motivated by the Society’s perceived emasculation by Eva. By Ghost Story’s end it becomes apparent that these are not leading men in the traditional sense, but flawed individuals, living in a world of false appearances, carefully constructed as a defense mechanism.

What exactly Ghost Story’s point is, it is hard to say. It makes more sense to see Ghost Story as polyglot. Part horror genre history lesson, part multi-level demystification (social, filmic), part ode to storytelling, and part good-old fashioned ghost-thriller. Significantly, Ghost Story proves that elderly actors can carry a genre film, and not just a film posed as revival or nostalgic revision. More than anything, however, Ghost Story is a fine film which is now something of a buried treasure (of its genre, certainly, but a marvel by any measure). The reviews of Ghost Story were initially rather unkind; I say it's time for a reappraisal.

God Save the Village Green

2007-04-30T16:39:00.000-04:00

(Hot Fuzz spoilers ahoy)

About a year ago, National Review writer John J. Miller sent a peice called "Rockin' the Right: The 50 greatest conservative rock songs" spiraling into the blogosphere. There are plenty of legitimate choices (Sammy Hagar, Charlie Daniels... I don't know who thinks these guys are "great," but they certainly are conservative), yet, most of the list (and Miller's follow-up list) is inane: The Who? Black Sabbath? The Sex Pistols? Dead Kennedys? (Are you fucking kidding me?). I have no interest in playing these right-wing/left-wing games, yet there was one recurring group that interested me. The Kinks show up more than any other band on Miller's lists, and this selection is what interested me most.

Miller describes the songs on his lists as needing to meet this requirement: “The lyrics must convey a conservative idea or sentiment, such as skepticism of government or support for traditional values.” Speaking of "traditional values" as a quantifiable set is troublesome, but I'll leave that alone for now. While Miller hops all over their discography, he suprisingly doesn't mention The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society. A great album by any means, I've often wondered about the philosophical leanings of TKATVGPS. Here, The Kinks clearly look back at an idealized past, and seem to yearn for the "traditional values" of Old England (whether or not this idealized past actually existed is another matter). The nostalgia of the record points to radio serials, tea and biscuits, lazy weekends and simple pleasures like cats and taking pictures of your friends. I'm not sure if this is actually a conservative idyll as much as a uniquely English nostalgic holiday. An equal argument could be made from the left: The Kinks here lament industrialization and the the 40-hour week, as well as the potential confines of the traditional family unit. Note this lyric: "We are the skyscraper condemnation affiliates." The Human League's "Empire State Human" is, by contrast, much more conservative in the relevant sense ("High-rise living's not so bad!")

I thought about this tension the other night when I went to see Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz, which uses the opening cut from TKATVGPS, "We are the Village Green Preservation Society" early in the film, in a remarkable, thematic way (I bet you were wondering what the payoff to all this was). Not to give too much away, the villainous force in the film is a kind of literal Village Green Preservation Society. The film imagines a kind of Village Green Secret Society, in fact, an enterprise to keep the imagined traditional English values alive, no matter the cost (no matter the "externalities" to use the language of economics).

Complete with Hammer robes, clandestine rituals and secret catacombs, the town elders in Hot Fuzz dedicate themselves to what Miller thinks The Kinks are getting at in Village Green, and more than a conservative/liberal contrast, this is a philosophical position, ultimately. The elders here represent a kind of Kantian absolutist morality, one in which the Good isnt good because its good, its good because it is "the Good." The externalities of upholding the Good (the murders staged as accidents) are irrelevant to the Good. Hot Fuzz provides a counter-point in cop Nick Angel (Simon Pegg), who speaks of "the greater good" in a different way. Angel here represents the Utilitarian ethic: greatest good for the society, not the greatest Good for the sake of an abstract, ideal good. J.S. Mill found Kant's categorical imperative a thorny ethic, and sought to draft a more pragmatic form in the notion of utility. Mill's moral theory is just as problematic, but the two work as interesting counterpoints, as do Pegg and The Village Green Secret Society in Hot Fuzz.

This may be all a fancy way of saying that I think Hot Fuzz is a really smart flick.

Blood Sisters (1987)

2007-04-30T16:01:00.000-04:00

(Preface: for some reason I cannot find the exact VHS cover image online. There is a similar image on some editions of the DVD, but this is still not the version I refer to here. A black & white representation is found in Samurai Dreams)

While some of my fellow reviewers at Samurai Dreams explicitly prefer the VHS format to DVD, I do not. I have a great fondness for tapes, but the plain fact is that I’d prefer to watch films in their original format (This of course, has nothing to do with my enduring love of tapes; yet it may be necessary to clear any confusion). There is one thing, however, about VHS tapes that is undeniably better than DVDs (at least thus-far): the cover art. Often in DVD design art, the film logo dominates half the case, with a Photoshop-altered still from the film taking up the rest, usually a picture of the lead. A good example is the DVD cover for A History of Violence, a film which even featured an excellent 1-sheet during its theatrical release. There are certainly exceptions, such as the packaging of Criterion Collection discs, or the designs from the folks at NoShame, but on the whole DVD package-design is an afterthought. VHS tapes, on the other hand, often feature fantastic original paintings. I have bought cheap VHS tapes solely for the cover art. While Octaman is goofy fun, I bought it with the intention of displaying the oversized painted cover as an Objet d’Art. When trolling video-store blow-outs and flea markets, at times the only thing I can base a purchase on is eye-catching package design. Often this is a poor strategy, as a VHS tape itself can be more artistic and interesting than the film contained. It works both ways,certainly; some terrible cover designs have marred interesting films.

Not quite at either extreme, Blood Sisters is a very average 80’s slasher. Fans of the genre will enjoy it; the average viewer will probably get through the film without the aid of the fast-forward button. One thing about Blood Sisters which is exceptional, however, is the awesome, mind-blowing painted VHS cover. In the basement of Astro Video, during one of my many recent visits, Blood Sisters leapt of the shelf. As I was on a tight budget, I even ended up putting a film I had already grabbed back, so I could purchase this film. Featured prominently on the VHS case is an evocative young woman, gazing maniacally skyward, as her wild orange hair morphs into fire engulfing a Victorian mansion. A dark skyline frames her, and a wooden floorboard pattern emerges at the bottom, as a demonically possessed rocking horse rears to life. A grinning skull shoots beams of light out of its eye sockets in the center of the image, and the title, "Blood Sisters," sits in raised lettering in a streak of red paint.

The film itself is a trim haunted-house slasher at eighty-five minutes, full of the anticipated gore and nudity. The plot is rote: occultist sorority sisters camp out in a haunted bordello and get murdered. Simple. There are actually some creative and well-composed shots in the film, and the opening kill is a fully realized sequence, mostly shot in POV, Halloween-style. And despite Blood Sisters’ adherence to sexist genre conventions, is not particularly mean-spirited or nasty. Watch it with friends, especially if they can’t get enough of Prom Night knock-offs.

(I'll be looking for a cover image in the coming days and weeks)

End Credits

2007-04-28T22:41:00.000-04:00

Just got word today that Astro Video is officially closing its doors May 15. Prices on VHS and DVD couldn't be lower, so I'll definately try to make a few more trips before the Warehouse becomes an eBay dealer exclusively.

Astro Video has been going out of business for almost a year now, so I wasn't suprised when my buddy told me over the phone today. But what did suprise me was the other bit of news he had: Video To Go in Greenfield is also closing down. I called up today and learned that VTG has stopped renting, but will keep the place open for a few more weeks to sell off some stock. The prices are pretty high, but Video To Go is full of treasures.

Good and bad news for a tape fiend like myself, of course.

The mom n' pop video store is really on its death bed, if places as well stocked as Astro and VTG can't even stay open (in an area dense with college students, remember). Shame what's left is the uniformality of the chain and the anonymity of Netflix and torrent sites. I remember hearing a while back that Astro was waiting for one of the big rental players to buy the upstairs space to close, so perhaps soon we'll see that retro-future Astro Video + Video Warehouse sign (with its endearingly ridiculous boast "The world's largest selection") replaced with a Hollywood or Blockbuster logo. While I haven't gotten the chance to actually go into Video To Go (driven by it a few times), I've heard my friends rave about its wide selection of foreign and independent films often. Too bad that the first time I'll step inside of it will probably also be the last.

Well, on the bright side, these kind of sales are always a good way to add to my collection. I can't really afford to blow much cash on tapes and DVDs, but I think I can justify it in this instance, as this might be my last chance to walk down rows and rows of vintage videos at Astro, overwhelmed by the evocative painted covers of obscure horror, post-apocalypse, science fiction and spy films.

Expect a proper eulogy in the next Samurai Dreams

The Kiss (1988)

2007-04-24T21:50:00.000-04:00

Film directors with workmanlike sensibilities will often try out a few genres before they find the one that makes bank. I can only assume this was Pen Densham's strategy, when he sandwiched a low-key horror entry titled The Kiss between Moll Flanders and something called The Zoo Gang (IMDb plot summary: “Homeless kids need a place to stay, so they rent the club ‘The Zoo’ out, from Old Leather Face."). Also, the guy wrote A Gnome Named Gnorm, a film which I routinely see going for less than a dollar at library book/vhs sales. If I had known his resume, I would have had low expectations for The Kiss from the first frame (I suppose if I had known The Kiss was co-written by Ken Russell collaborator Stephen Volk I might have at least given it a shot); however, in these lean days my apartment-mates and I go without the internet, so I entered The Kiss blind.

This little horror film is very easy to watch. This is not necessarily a compliment. However, when you watch as many "B" pictures as I do you come to accept diminishing returns, so when something is at least entertaining--if not interesting--it can be a welcome break. No mistake, The Kiss may be predictable and unambitious, warranting its obscurity, yet--it ain't half bad either.

A short prologue set in "Belgian Congo, 1963" establishes two of the main characters, Hilary and Felice Dunbar, and also the generic curse, and a generic cursed totem. Flash forward to the late 1980s, Albany, New York, where Hilary (Talya Rubin) lives with her husband Jack Halloran (Nicholas Kilbertus) and teenage daughter Amy (child star Meredith Salenger). Their suburban stability is shattered however when Hilary receives an unexpected phone call from her estranged sister Felice (Joanna Pacula), now a globe-travelling model. The two arrange to meet, yet Hilary dies in a gruesome car accident soon after inviting Felice to visit her family in Albany. Well, Felice shows up anyway, "five months later" and swiftly seduces Jack, kills a few interlopers, and makes quick enemies with her neice Amy, the film's protagonist.

The plot is rote; I'll not waste too many words in this regard. The film which is probably playing out in your mind is accurate: Felice appears amiable yet mysterious at first, but eventually reveals her true intentions. In fact, Felice turns out to be an undead occultnik femme fatale who must pass on the generic curse (via "the kiss") to a young relative (Amy) before she withers away. Amy wins of course, yet the ending is somewhat ambiguous. Of course, these building blocks say little about this type of genre film: an entry like The Kiss can sail or fail by virtue of its style. Problem is, The Kiss is so damn average. I liked the occaisional 80s slang and fashion, the well-done gore FX by some guys who worked on The Fly and Scanners, and I was especially hyped up by the gonzo black magick rituals Felice performs throughout The Kiss, even if the strikingly handsome Joanna Pacula's performance remains one-note "mysterious." In these scenes Felice writhes nude with body paint, candles, bones, and a mangy stray-cat puppet, which somehow causes people to die in horrible accidents elsewhere. If the film maintained the style of these montages throughout, it would play like a higher-budget Necropolis.

The characters here exist merely as archetypes: dopey husband with a vague office job; highly sexualized yet innocent daughter; valley girl best friend; nosy yet well-meaning neighbor; heroic boyfriend, ad naseum. This is fine. Yet a few wild cards could have elevated the film (come on, yr telling me no magician-tracker from "Belgian Congo, 1963" is following Felice around the globe?). The Kiss is full of missed opportunities.

I can't recommend The Kiss. I also can't say I regret watching it, or that I'd never pop it in the VCR again. Use your discretion.

Note: Has everybody noticed how weird the user-submitted plot tags have gotten on IMDb? Here's what you'll find for The Kiss: Occult, Severed leg, Curse, Model, Murder, Person on fire, Female nudity, Menstruation. Fellow fetishists look out for each other, I suppose.

Blood Link (1983)

2007-04-16T17:57:00.000-04:00

Blood Link begins in the midst of a surreal and fantastic waltz. Members of a high-society social club are seen stiffly dancing in an ornate ballroom. The camera, frozen in place amidst a crystal and gold chandelier during the title sequence, comes unlocked and begins to zoom into the floor. The dancers' movements appear regimented and passionless. This disorienting opening is glued together by Ennio Morricone’s fantastic theme: a somewhat traditional waltz made ominous by occasional, dark, ethereal passages. The camera eventually zooms in to focus on one particular couple—an unnamed woman and man. The music ends, and the dancers clear the floor save for this mysterious couple. One club member exclaims to another “They don’t even seem to notice the music has stopped.” The woman, considerably older than the man, in a close shot, says, with awkward reservation “Do you… know how happy you make me?” The music resumes—this time a more traditional waltz with more frequent and more sinister sour passages. The man sashays the woman into a dark corner of the room, and—with a wide smile—produces a blade and stabs the woman in the back. He calmly and slowly eases the body against the floor, and exits the frame. A ringing phone interrupts the pace and style of the scene, and the man from the previous scene rolls over in bed and answers the phone.

The film’s opening is seemingly a nightmare, and the dreamer appears to be Physician Dr. Craig Manning (played by the inimitable Michael Moriarty). While initially the connection between these two scenes in unclear, we conclude that the opening is a dream only after the mundane rhythms of Mannings’ life are established. Manning chats on the phone with his sweet, average-looking girlfriend Dr. Julie Warren (Penelope Milford), makes small talk with his elderly neighbors, and sits through tedious meetings with his physician colleagues. These few scenes are carefully crafted to establish the dual reality of Mannings’ experience: his personal life and his fantasy life of disturbing dreams and visions. In one Argentoesque sequence, Manning follows a nude woman up into a bell tower and murders her, only to snap to, alone in the tower. However, this second fantasy is achieved through more traditionally “B” movie devices—particularly, Vaseline smeared on the lens. This criticism aside, the dynamic of the film is swiftly and adeptly established within the first act of the film, allowing the final two thirds of the film to unravel in interesting ways.

The potential cause of Mannings dreams and waking visions is his self-testing of his own radical new psychological treatment, which involves acupuncture and electric shocks. Its not clear what exactly this cure will achieve nor for whom it is intended—yet it makes for an interesting device, much the way pseudo-science and pseudo-psychology play a role in many horror and science fiction films, particularly Brainstorm, Altered States, Prince of Darkness and the mid-period films of David Cronenberg. While this would make for a sufficient thriller alone, the curveball of the film comes at the start of the film’s second act, when Craig Manning learns of his long-lost Siamese-twin brother, Keith, whom he only vaguely could recall until now (I hope it is not a sick joke that his brother has relocated to Cleveland). Craig learns of Keith when he visits an aging foster parent, who calls him Keith, and seems to warn of impending danger. This all comes as a surprise, and the introduction of this element could have been handled more carefully, as its bizarre randomness betrays the mundane tone established by the "real life" scenes of the film. However, as we learn that Craig’s visions may not be his fantasies at all, one could rationalize that Craig represents the mundane aspects of life, while Keith represents the mysterious and forbidden. The two begin to bleed together once Craig realizes that the ballroom he dreamt is a real place, “The Crystal Ballroom”, as he stands in the center of the dance floor, all glamour stripped from the location, as a janitor sweeps up in the background. Craig discovers soon after that the two women he’s seen murdered, were, in fact, killed exactly as he dreamt it. We soon learn that Keith is able to “see” through Craig’s eyes as well, and that Keith knows Craig is close.

Moriarty is often credited as a reliable character actor, but rarely is he acknowledge as being a talented actor, generally. Moriarty, although always recognizable, is able to adapt to the particular tone of whatever film he’s cast in. His performance here is entirely different than the fairly uniform performances in Larry Cohen’s films for which Moriarty is best known. Moriarty’s evolution as an actor only points to his progressive talent and adaptability. For instance, in the first season of Showtime’s Masters of Horror series, his terrifying portrayal of a murdering trucker remains the highlight of not only the episode in question (also directed by Cohen), but of the entire—albeit, rather lackluster—series. His performance in this Masters of Horror episode is as different from his role here in Blood Link as this film is from Q: The Winged Serpent or The Stuff.

The crystals spied in the opening shot, paid close attention to, come to represent the fractured twin psyches of Craig and Keith, bound together and reflexive. In one contemplative scene, Craig stares at himself in the mirror, imagining Keith, and trying to reconcile the murderer envisioned in his mind with the image before him. Were he to look into a large multi-faceted crystal, he would see a more appropriately disjointed picture of his psychotic brother. Keith’s character, thinly characterized, only makes sense as contrasted with his brother. Unfortunately, his sociopathy remains largely unexplained and unexplored. Advantageous then, that Moriarty is able to fill out the angles of Keith, even if the script is not. There is never a moment where Moriarty is onscreen that we are unsure of which brother we are looking at.

Blood Link looks fantastic: sumptuous during Craig’s visions, raw and washed-out elsewhere. Two experience of each twin is unique—filmicly—in several ways. While Craig lies nude and comfortable with Julie, her exposed breasts seem neither titillating nor particularly erotic, merely naturalistic. Keith’s intimate moments, however, are wholly different. Keith leans in over a nude prostitute, in one scene, dominant and aggressive. The scene feels incredibly elicit and pornographic, as the woman begins to undue Keith’s belt and exposes his pubic hair. As the film progresses and Keith and Craig close in on each other, the two motifs blend together, such as a night-time scene in a shopping center, all bright, high-contrast colors and shadows. The lighting and décor augment each brother so much that even scenes where the two are present seem carefully constructed to suit each half of the “link.”

Blood Link’s major misstep is its conclusion. Craig’s character is imprisoned for one of Keith’s murders, and Julie’s character is called to carry the remainder of the film. This is problematic, as her role in the film at times appears merely functionary. For instance, she does not mind when Craig sleeps with another woman, seemingly only because this would create an obstacle for the story’s progression. Julie’s character is also degraded for reasons unknown, as she is constantly disrobing (or having her clothes ripped off), and uses her body to get close to Keith at the film’s climax. No apparent point about the characters or the external psycho-sexual relationships between men and women appears to be made here. The weakness of Julie’s character is compounded by the amateurish acting of Milford, whose degradation is almost palpable, beyond that of her character. Also, here we see yet another film suffer from a pointlessly ambiguous ending. It is a shame that Blood Link loses steam in the final reel, as it is, in many ways, an interesting film, especially in the technical sense.

This international picture (an American/Italian production, filmed in Germany and Canada), benefits hugely from the studied restraint of cinematographer Romano Albani (who has worked with Argento), and from Morricone, who demonstrates similar restraint, working primarily with several simple themes. Morricone’s touch is so slight that the final half of the film is nearly devoid of soundtrack. These elements, coupled with an interesting (yet still somewhat flawed in execution, and certainly not particularly original) set of themes, and Moriarty’s fine performance, elevate Blood Link, despite a few stumbles, above other “B” psycho-thrillers and Argento knock-offs.

The Incredible Ride (1994)

2007-04-10T23:15:00.000-04:00

My mother is a dental hygienist, and when I was a kid, every now and then she would bring home weird cartoons about good dental health from the office where she worked. These tapes were mini-movies, where some kid usually learns about why he should brush his teeth three times a day, while gross toothpaste monsters with red sunglasses jam on tooth-brush guitars and fly around. I specifically remember four of these tapes, but alas, only this one survives.

The Incredible Ride begins with a live action segment filmed at a carnival. Various rides-in-motion are cut intro shots of our kids: Dana (Black), Steve (Asian), Tony (Latino) David (WASP) and our clumsy narrator, Sylvia, a nerdy girl with huge glasses. Each kid finds a way to awkwardly smile wide enough so that we can notice their perfect teeth (this is the part where the Dentist pauses the tape and tells the kid, “This is what healthy teeth look like.”). As soon as our characters are established, the story kicks in, as Sylvia notices a giant animated rabbit dentist (“Dr. Rabbit”) sneaking around. The kids aren’t a bit surprised, and run after the rabbit into a weird circus tent. As they enter, each kid turns into a cartoon character, and falls into some weird alternate dental universe, where Dr. Rabbit hangs out. The kids ride for a few seconds on a weird trolley (the “incredible” ride?) The Doc immediately sings a song about himself, and lets the kids chime in when they feel like it. David—in a ridiculous falsetto—contributes this: “I brush once a weeeeeek, is that okaaaaaaay?” About four seconds later, David gets kidnapped by plaque monsters, who appear out of the very fabric of space to nab him behind Dr. Rabbit’s back. No one seems to mind too much, however, and Doc Rabbit breaks out into a wonderful song called “Brush, Brush, Brush” (the chorus is “brush, brush, brush”). They then sing the song a second time.

At this point the tape malfunctioned, and my VCR nearly ate it. So there’s a part about floss and “acid monsters” I missed. When I got the tape working again, Dr. Rabbit had left the kids to their own devices, presumably to check up on some other interesting things, Gandalf-style. Suddenly the kids fall out of cartoon reality and back into the carnival, as an echo-drenched voice-from-nowhere calls out: “Visit a dentist… every yeeeeeeeear!” And David is back, I guess. A teacher shows up, who apparently didn’t worry too much when half her class disappeared for who-knows-how-long. Cue shots of teeth (including the mugs of some kids we haven’t seen before). Sylvia: “And that’s what happened the day we went to the amusement park. Was it real or a dream? Who knows? All I know is that David’s smile has never been so beautiful [ooooh!]. In fact, we all smile a lot more, because our teeth are clean and healthy! Oh, and whatever happened to Dr. Rabbit? We never saw him again [cut to a shot of Doc Rabbit waving goodbye from the weird circus tent], but his words are still very much in our heads [apparently not in their hearts however].” Closing The Incredible Ride is the moving ballad, “Protect Your Teeth.” The chorus: “Protect your teeth, because it’s true.” What? Best line: a kid flatly emoting “Make sure your toothpaste has flouriiiiiiiide.”

Well, I guess this flick was financed by Colgate, but isn’t as much of a commercial as the other tapes I remember, which specifically emphasize the superior quality of Crest’s products and attempt to create brand loyalty with their rockin’ and rollin’ toothpaste mascots. The weirdest tape I remember is about a Giraffe, and features hilariously bad animation, especially when characters have to run or jump. I also remember disgusting shots of hippos with gingivitis. I think the doctor in that one is an Alligator, who might try to eat some of the characters as he educates them about good dental practice. Both this movie and the Crest tapes are relatively long too, running about one half hour, usually with supplemental material (“for parents”). The Incredible Ride clocks in at a trim fifteen minutes, perfect for a waiting room viewing.

It may be unfair to judge the artistic merits of a tape made specifically to encourage kids to brush their teeth, but I’ll try anyway. The animation is actually pretty consistent and interesting, certainly compared to the other tapes I’ve mentioned. The voice-over is terrible, but I guess getting real kids to voice cartoons is always preferable to the kind of overly-emotive voice-acting you hear on Cartoon Network all the time. The songs are pretty lame and inconsequential, but they never last for more than 30 seconds, so they’re pretty painless. Honestly, I have no idea how to rate this. But I’m in a good mood and watching The Incredible Ride made me feel nostalgic. Also, I’m having fun writing this review. Three alternate reality stars.

Visiting Hours (1981)

2007-04-10T17:18:00.000-04:00

Visiting Hours opens with simple titles on a neutral blue background, while a piano theme runs on the soundtrack. The melody is simple, but the weight and repetition of the notes recall the sound of an EKG monitor: the neatness of the visuals and the quality of the score appropriately suggest the clinical horror of Visiting Hours, a film which, like Cronenberg or Coma, is concerned with the alienating and intimidating nature of the hospital and of health-care. In fact, the perception of an anti-somatic, body-fearing quality in industrial medicine and treatment (a micro for Capitalism’s macro perhaps) is emphasized repeatedly throughout the film, so often as to risk becoming a theme which feels clumsy and overstated.

Yet Visiting Hours, a horror film first and foremost, does not let the hospital alone be the predator, and that’s where Michael Ironside comes in. Ironside, as I’m sure Samurai Dreams readers know, is a fantastic character actor and a formidable presence in films such as Scanners, Total Recall and The Machinist. Ironside is a gift to this film, exuding heavy menace in every scene. Ironside’s prominence seems to offset the film, for better or worse; the supposed protagonist of the film, TV host Deborah Ballin (Lee Grant), competes with Ironside for dominance throughout.

Ironside is here a loner who decides to murder Ballin, after her commentary affects the outcome of a high-profile murder case in which a woman has killed her abusive husband in self defense. Initially, the audience is provided no details about Ironside’s character, or his motives. Ironside emerges into the film both figuratively and literally from parts unknown, attacking Ballin from behind her shower curtain with a knife, nude and wearing her jewelry. This nightmare image establishes Ironside’s thus-far-unnamed character as an almost supernatural presence, completely relentless and single-minded. Ironside’s assailant is able to critically wound Ballin, but she survives the attack. The remainder of the film concerns his attempts to silence Ballin for good, as he stalks her in her hospital bed.

Yet, an interesting thing happens (and this is why I maintain Ironside competes with Grant for the film’s focus): the film begins to follow Ironside’s character from the hospital back to his apartment; he is allowed to exist outside of the hospital, outside the context of typical slasher anonymity. As the audience follows Ironside’s character’s life “outside,” more is revealed about his life (including, eventually, his name: Colt Hawker), and an interesting dichotomy develops: the anti-somatism Ballin observes in the hospital (macro), and the anti-somatism of the character of Colt (micro). The complexity of Colt’s psyche is slowly revealed, subtly: Ironside understands the importance here of understatement.

Among Colt’s hobbies: writing angry white-supremacist editorials, visiting his ill father in a rest home, and picking up underage girls at greasy spoons to bring back to his apartment. Colt doesn’t rape his victims—he batters and photographs them. Colt’s anti-somatism is so great that his attraction to female flesh must be mediated; he even wears his camera on a belt at crotch level. Colt’s ownership of and mastery over women is achieved not through sex, but through violence and its preservation via his camera. In Colt we find a man of intense hatred, hatred for both himself and others (on this point the feeling of the filmmakers are made explicit: when a young woman Colt has battered asks a nurse if she works at the Free Clinic to “see how the other half lives,” the nurse responds: “There is no Other half.”). Colt’s reasons for hating Ballin are essentially ideological; his obsession with Ballin comes from emotions which run much deeper. Colt’s anti-somatism is so intense as to ensure he values death over life. While this assumption is usually explicit in the mind of most film killers, not often is the assumption given any thematic weight. The micro of Colt, one person struggling to live up to gender stereotypes within a sexist culture, and the macro of a hospital’s beauracratic, mechanized anti-somatism, merge in the film’s final reel, as Colt, wearing scrubs and a lab coat, wields a jack-knife like a syringe over Ballin’s helpless drugged body in her hospital bed.

Despite what Visiting Hours does right, the film is in many ways flawed. Specifically, the film suffers from uneven pacing and underdeveloped supporting characters, including Ballin’s nurse Sheila Munroe (Linda Purl), whom Colt is also obsessed with, and William Shatner (in an atypical even-handed performance) as Ballin’s boss Baylor. Yet while the structure of the film suffers in some ways from the demands of the complex relationship developed between Colt and Ballin, this central element is substance enough to warrant a raw, intelligent, interesting and overlooked film.

While often films of the “body-horror” genre reach the same conclusion about the nature of western cultural assumptions, rarely does the body-horror film provide a counterpoint. In Visiting Hours, the counterpoint is clear: Colt’s ideology of misogyny, hatred and death (engendered, the audience comes to learn, by his own idealized vision of his abusive father)—as apposed to Ballin’s progressive, holistic ideology—is poison. While Visiting Hours is imperfect, its message of acceptance of the flesh triumphing over the fear of the flesh—the dichotomy embodied by Ballin and Colt—is loud and clear.

The Final Terror (1984)

2007-04-10T15:23:00.000-04:00

The drive-in horror film usually comes in one of four variants: bizarre experimentations in vague government buildings; ghosts, demons or a slasher in a haunted house or cabin in the woods; a slasher on a college campus; a slasher in the woods. The Final Terror is a woodland slasher, one with a premise so simple and so commonplace that exposition is barely required. Our gang may be campers, or they may be camp counselors killing time before the kids arrive; this is unclear, and this is unimportant. The ripped-off music cues from Friday the 13th should be enough to let any genre fan know exactly what they’re getting into here.

Rachel Ward and Daryl Hannah get their names on the marquee, but there aren’t any main protagonists to speak of here, only about ten underdeveloped campers in their early 20’s, all equally worthy of stepping into a trip-wire rigged to slice necks with a string of tin-can lids. The point is not to know these characters (or even their names), because certain signifiers alert one instantly to whatever one-dimensional stereotype each actor has been instructed by director Andrew Davis to embody (Black, British, yokel, hippie-chick). The only character with a back-story is Eggar (played by a scrawny Joe Pantoliano), our high-strung hillbilly tour guide, who doesn’t tolerate it when the male campers stay up too late reading Playboy and Conan comics, and warns our gang not to go into the “bad” part of the woods (which of course only makes them venture further). Eggar’s been in a psychiatric hospital; and he likes to wear women’s clothing. This appears to be all the evidence the campers, and the audience, need to rightfully identify Eggar as suspect number one once the killing starts.

No doubt due to a limited effects budget, almost nothing happens in the first forty minutes of The Final Terror. That’s a long time to spend watching badly-lit stereotypes smoke weed and tell ghost stories. This is the interesting thing about most drive-in flicks: they aren’t exciting. But, I suppose the culture of the drive-in requires a certain disposability; if the movies were too good, how could audiences slug brews and make fun of the dialogue? How could couples find time to fool around without long boring stretches? It’s almost more rewarding to find yourself disoriented at the drive-in, staring at a mason jar with a severed hand floating in blood, with no frame of reference. The story and characters in drive-in movies are entirely rote; it’s the strange and grisly images genre fans dig.

Yet, when a horror film is nearly two-thirds over and the audience still hasn’t seen the killer, or any interesting kills, even the most ardent genre fans are likely to become impatient. Luckily, at about the one hour mark, things get interesting. Fleeing blindly, the campers push an old raft down the river, about half of them in the raft, and half in the water. The natural lighting in The Final Terror is often frustrating; here it’s perfect. In a film with a tight schedule, you need to save each day’s “golden hour” for exactly the right moments; while this film is plain-lazy in many respects, Davis at least understands this. The desperation of the actors may in fact be real: the water must have been cold, and the ancient raft must have been cumbersome to maneuver. The tension is perfect by the time the unseen slasher hoists a dead body off a cliff and into the boat. After the body is thrown, the audience knows conclusively that Eggar is, in fact, either the “Final Terror” or the man responsible for inspiring it. This scene serves as a reminder that even sleaze can be art (one is reminded of the strange beauty found in the forest-chase scene from I Spit on Your Grave, or the burial in the final scene of Thriller: A Cruel Picture).

Unfortunately, after this strong sequence, the sun goes down, and much of the rest of the film takes place in impenetrable darkness; no atmosphere is created, you just can’t see anything. And I’m pretty sure that it isn’t just the deteriorated print transfer on my VHS (or wear on the tape itself); somebody made an executive decision that lighting simply wasn’t important. Now, the shots described earlier—and one incredibly beautiful washed-out scene later in the film—benefit from this naturalistic approach, this works for The Hills Have Eyes, certainly, but if you want to rip-off Friday the 13th, a more formalistic method is recommended.

The other scene in which natural light benefits The Final Terror (the washed-out scene I mentioned earlier) is the final scene, which was most likely a definite crowd-pleaser for the drive-in audience. Before the final showdown between the remaining campers and Eggar, the hillbilly tracker character “Zorch” climbs up away from the group and starts babbling about the beauty of the forest, and the horrors of Vietnam, in the same breath. When the campers ask what’s up, Zorch’s pal Hines says: “We found some magic mushrooms in the shack… he’s stoned out of his mind.” No doubt some of the kids in darkened drive-in lots across the Midwest could relate.

New Review

2007-02-15T15:16:00.000-05:00

From Zine World:

Samurai Dreams: Fringe Film Reviews & VHS Culture #3
A crack team of movie reviewers has scoured the cheapest cut-rate bins, garage sales, and thrift stores around to bring you this collection of cult and classic (and classic cult) videos. Each review gives a brief synopsis and the highlights of the movie. Some of the choices are dubious: interspersed among the lesser-known finds are major-studio releases (Batman, Harry and the Hendersons) and wide-release indies (Dancer in the Dark, Lost Highway). Makes for great browsing, but don’t expect to find many of these at your local Blockbuster. SDZ, 60 Fairgrounds Rd, Cummington MA 01026, samuraidreamszine@yahoo.com [small “donations,” or trade for rare movie dubs 58S :35]—Andrew

Crest Acquired

2006-12-11T18:28:00.000-05:00

Today I got into my parents' old car (which only I drive) and noticed a scrap of paper on the floor of the driver's seat. I assume it fell out of a folder after doing cut-ups or collages at IG's. I lifted the tiny bit of text out of the dry leaves and shiny dirt (from my sneakers) and held it to the light of the cd player. It read, "deep and newly surfaced minerals allowed to live."

Bad Situation

2006-12-09T14:31:00.000-05:00

Last night I dreamt of a shadow version of my apartment. My room in the dream was only faintly illuminated, and I slept on a ratty mattress on the floor. There were two shelves in my room of bizarre dolls and toys, whose eyes followed me as I walked across the room. The hallways was long and dark, with dozens of very old computers the only light source, while mysterious kids played ancient floppy-disk dungeon crawlers and Wolfenstein 3D-type FPS games.

2006-12-06T23:27:00.000-05:00

8-bit Noir

2006-10-05T17:31:00.000-04:00

too bad the game itself sucks.

Farewell

2006-08-24T20:50:00.000-04:00

Astro Video is going out of business. I urge anyone in the Western Mass area to visit before they close their doors for good (in December most likely). The store is located just into Holyoke by way of Northampton. The prices on are reduced: all VHS tapes are two dollars, all DVDs are discounted according to original price. I'm going to write a proper obituary for the next issue of Samurai Dreams, this is just a notification. I've already been two times since the sale began. I bought the critereon of ...And God Created Women for very cheap, as well as a lot of VHS tapes that were originally priced as high as forty dollars, files like Neon Maniacs, The Point, Steppenwolf, Deadly Impulse and Infra-Man. If you want to check out some slashers, spaghetti westerns, weird 70's thrillers, kung fu flicks, italian post-apoalypse films, Euro-fantasy, old school porn or weird animation, now's yer chance. Also, the rental half of the store, which I had never really looked at, has a lot of great DVDs and tapes, all marked way down. The owner did not want to close to store, but he can't pay the lease any longer. The business will go on, but only as an eBay seller. There's a real melancholy among employees and customers; it's almost like a funeral. There aren't many places like Astro left. The customers I've talked to and overheard all express the same disappointment about the store's demise. I've seen more than a dozen video stores go under in my short life time, and it's always a shame. Astro Video isn't run by cineasts, but the sheer diversity of selection is amazing. I've never seen a place like it. Half the inventory has already been sold, but there are still many gems in VHS and DVD(even if Kevin did clear out most of the Critereons). Go and empty your wallet. Twenty or thirty bux and you'll have months worth of movies to watch.

Vietnam, Ratspit, Silver Guys, Nintendo

2006-06-26T19:04:00.000-04:00

Andy's buddy Gunther wrote a nice review of Samurai Dreams for his zine. I should have a link to its website soon. Here's the review:

SAMURAI DREAMS ISSUE THREE ZINE
"To highbrow intellectual film snobs, this movie is the antichrist, but to seekers of lost celluloid garbage, this movie is the lost Holy Grail floating flamboyantly in an ocean of raw sewage." The quotation accurately sums up Samurai Dreams' general purpose of spotlighting fringe films on the tossed-off VHS format. Five college buds from Massachusetts wax cinematic about their finds from thrift stores, trash cans, and public libraries. Forrest Gump decoding Da Vinci? Off the shrimp boat with that shit. These best actors include real-life enlistees getting ready for Vietnam, a demon named Ratspit, and silver guys who hide in Nintendo cartridges. Selected stills accompany the well-written blurbs. Most bizarre is the shot of Nukie -- an E.T.-like creature with a mucous moustache resembling elephant tusks. Reviews are brush-stroked with stars, but don't miss out on comments like "Killing Machine is a really shitty movie. Seriously. Willie Aames is in it." However, if Buddy and Charles are in charge of you, don't hesitate on giving any of these films a private screening. Despite the "No Stars" rating (or maybe because of it), I'd step on GAS-S-S-S for the sole reason of FF-ing to "an onstage cameo by Country Joe and the Fish where the singer is interrupted by God and told that he left his car lights on."
-Gunther 8544

Living on Tokyo Time

2006-05-14T02:16:00.000-04:00

Living on Tokyo Time
(1987) Directed by Steven Okazaki

The box for Living on Tokyo Time (another great NA Library find) tries to sell this film as typical fish-out-of-water-and-into-zany-adventures 80's flick, which, while I wouldnt have minded that, I was pleasantly suprised to find Living on Tokyo Time to be a rich and charming film; truly this is a lost gem. The film is constructed around an arranged marriage between Kyoko (Minako Ohashi), a Japanese immigrant working in a Japanese restaurant and struggling with English (supposedly; Kyoko's vocabulary and pronunciation throughout seem fine to me), and Ken Nakagawa, who actually plays himself, at least in name. "Like Takagura Ken, the actor," Kyoko says to her mother in a letter to Tokyo, a cross-cultural method of identification used frequently; here it's Japanese film, but throughout it's often American music and food from both countries. Ken is a third generation American-born Japanese rocker who wears a different punk shirt every day (The Cramps, Black Flag) and has Johnny Thunders and Velvet Underground posters on his wall. The film begins with lenghty filmic passages devoted to each character, before they actually meet. Kyoto, who speaks through her letters to her mother (which are written in Japanese but spoken in English, which, despite the obvious practical translation for the benefit of the American audience, works as a kind of process of translation, shortening some of the distance between Kyoko and the Western hemisphere) is homesick, working in a Japanese retaurant, but is determined to have an authentic American experience, and earn citizenship. Her drag American co-worker (who insists on wearing a Kimono in the restaurant) has the bright idea of marrying her to one of the restaurant's regular customers (this actress' performance is actually one of the low-points of the film). Enter the consistently bored Ken, who eats donuts, obsesses over music, has unfulfilling relationships with American women, and doesn't do much else. Being passive and complicit in most areas of his life, Ken agrees to wed with little enthusiasm. The plan is that once her green card comes through they split up, meanwhile living in the same house, but sleeping in seperate beds, living as roommates and not lovers.

Ken plays in a band and hangs out with white and asian punk rockers and hippies, which must be a pretty diverse crowd, as the guitarist in the band is wearing a Ramones shirt in one scene, the drummer a Metallica shirt, and the bassist is dressed like a member of Genesis. A woman who owns their practice space is decked out in a Fabians shirt; in fact, everyone in Living on Tokyo Time is either wearing a band shirt or talking about music and dropping group names (Kyoko herself even wears a Cream shirt in one scene). I appreciate that the rock music obsessions of the characters is confined to the film itself. The actual score is composed by five Japanese musicians, along with several obscure bands, who all sound like a peppier Durutti Column. An essential bonding mechanism between the film's newlyweds is Kyoko's introduction to rock music, as Ken teaches Kyoko that Lou Reed wrote more songs than just "Walk on the Wild Side," and listens as she reads him Talking Heads and Red Hot Chili Peppers reviews out of music magazines.

A film like Living on Tokyo Time will probably never be released on DVD, which is a shame. Yet, Living on Tokyo Time is another in the long list of raw, forgotten 80's dramas, which somehow morph into carbon-dated artifacts as they rot on VHS shelves-- unfortunately panned and scanned-- but accumulating a kind of endearing tangible age. The tape is as old as the celluloid itself, essentially. While I find myself lately disinterested in melodramas and narrative storytelling in contemporary film, I can usually find something I like in older, dated films that, above all, tell a story. It may just be the aesthetics of older film that's drawing me in, but I don't think that's it. In the case of Living on Tokyo Time, I think that the director, Okazaki, actually cared about the story he was telling, and it shows. Steven Okazaki is a mystery to me; he's directed several films even more obscure than this one, and operated a camera for Terry Zwigoff in Crumb. His last few credits are TV documentaries.

While this film is an American production, with a primarily Japanese cast and crew, it reminds one of experimental HK cinema of the time, especially early Wong Kar-Wai. Like Wong, Okazaki's script is disjointed, languid, meditative and idiosyncratic. The acting is often amateurish yes, but the naturalistic presence of non-professional actors (both Ken and Minako Ohashi had never acted in a film before, and appently haven't acted since either) somehow works to Okazaki's advantage, as the characters seem as awakward and unsure as real people; especially Ken, who doesn't appear to act at all. Shots are bizaarely juxtaposed, the story take big leaps throughout, leaving gaps which become the audience's responsibility to fill in. The wedding for instance, is completely left out of the film. Okazaki also makes some odd choices as far as where his camera goes; sometimes the camera moves in opposition to the direction of narrative action. For example, when Mimi, Ken's sister, invites Ken to eat dinner at their father's house, there is a scene where Ken and Mimi exit the house for a serious conversation. Instead of immediately cutting to an exterior or following them out the door, the camera stays in the dining room, as Ken and Mimi's father and Mimi's white husband (Carl) sit awkwardly together, before cutting to Ken and Mimi.

The camera spends time studying the posters on Ken's wall, the expressions of his bandmates during practice, food, and random objects: toys, flowers, a lamp, cigarettes. The experience of 's alienation, which Kyoko cannot express in perfect English, is tangible given these scenes; the close up attention to detail of Okazaki's lens is comparable to an emigre 's experience in a big new country, full of strange objects and new people. The details are not only important, but trans-lingual. The dialog in the film is often an exercise in restraint, as Kyoko does not perfectly speak the English language, and Ken barely speaks at all. In a letter to her mother, Kyoto writes (ironically, in Japanese but English in the voice-over), "I cannot speak my feeling in English; He cannot speak his feelings in Japanese." Music and food become substitutes for frank conversation. Ken and Kyoko do profess their real feelings however, as something like affection begins to develop; with Ken's coffe-shop visits and Kyoko's letters to her mother in Tokyo. Initially, Ken thinks he may have strong emotions for Kyoko, but can not act on them, practically, and is not prepared for a relationship that he can not walk away from at any moment (which of course is why he accepted the marriage in the first place). Kyoko reads Ken's confusion, and it worries her, as falling in love is the last thing she wants, especially with an Americanized Japanese punk rocker in a ripped Misfits shirt.

The disconnect between Ken and Kyoko-- an Americanized Japanese man and a Japanese woman in America-- is only the explicit text of the film; the implicit subtext is the simple idea that people can't, or won't, always say what they mean. In Living on Tokyo Time, characters use music, food, pop culture, sex, and magazine articles to fill their conversations; no one says what they feel directly. The film does not seem to lament this fact however, it merely presents it, and seems to have faith in the ultimate good of its characters, even if they are all flawed. Miranda July's recent film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, actually reminds me quite a bit of this film, despite the fact that the mediating agents here are personal, wheras in July's film they are impersonal, electronic. The basic idea of both films is the same.

The catalyzing agent that convinces Ken is one simple scene which is so slight it may not leave it's impression without a careful viewing. In his friend Lane's diner, Ken listens to Lane as he pines for a woman he always "had a crush on," but whom he never asked out. Ken shows Lane a photo of Kyoto, to which he says "Wow.. she is really Japanese. She looks fine though. Don't screw it up." Lane leaves the shot, and Ken takes a bite of his hot dog, and slowly chews as the camera stays with him. His expression doesn't change, but the silence and stillness of the shot explain not only Ken's ambivalence towards Kyoto, but the ambivalence of his entire life.

The following scene is especially shocking, as Kyoko writes a letter to her mother, elaborating a lie that Ken has died in a tragic accident, and that she needs to return home to Tokyo. She hides the letter from Ken, who is sitting on the bed, eating a traditional Japanese meal she's prepared for him. This is not necessary however; she writes the letter in Japanese. This scene may be the most telling of the entire film. In the next shot she packs up and leaves the apartment, trading in Ken's t-shirts for a traditional Japanese dress, leaving behind a new letter (in English), as she leaves. As Ken finds the letter, Kyoko reads the text into the camera. It's a short, polite letter explaining nothing in any detail. When he finishes reading (and Kyoko finishes speaking), Ken absentmindedly strums at the guitar in his hands for a few seconds, and smashes the instrument. The music in the scene is a few sustained notes, subtly adding to the tension of the scene and allowing Ken's uncharacteristic release. The film ends with Kyoko reading her final letter, this time to Ken from Tokyo. The tone is distant but warm, as she invites Ken to one day visit her. While the film can't claim a happy ending in the traditional sense, it has at least allowed its characters self-realization, and has allowed Ken especially to reevaluate his life. The film ends with a text-on-black quote from the patron saint of outsider rock geeks, Captain Beefheart: "You can't escape gravity."