The October Ordeal II 02: Cutting Class (1989)

(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 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 27: Warlock Moon

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 21: Body Bags

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

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 4: The First Power

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 1: Video Violence

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.