Death Warmed Up (1984)

(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.

The October Ordeal Day 29: Skinner

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

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 23: Lifespan

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 19: Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly

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 11: Thirst

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 5: Chasing Sleep

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 3: The Shrieking

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.