The October Ordeal Day 2: Video Violence 2

October 2nd: Video Violence 2 (1987)

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

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

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

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

The October Ordeal Day 1: Video Violence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The October Ordeal

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

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

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

Ghost Story (1981)

(Spoilers ahoy)

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

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

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

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

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

















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

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

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

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

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

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

God Save the Village Green

(Hot Fuzz spoilers ahoy)

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

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

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












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

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

Blood Sisters (1987)

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

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

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

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

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

End Credits

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

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

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

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

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

Expect a proper eulogy in the next Samurai Dreams

The Kiss (1988)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blood Link (1983)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Incredible Ride (1994)

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

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

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

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

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

Visiting Hours (1981)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Final Terror (1984)

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

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

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

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

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

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