Dr. Renault's Secret (1942)

Dr. Renault's Secret is one of those extremely economical 1940s b-movies that, produced with leftover sets and unused character actors, magically spins a moving tale filled with murder mysteries, mad scientists, crime plots, and romance in a mere 58 minutes. The final film of Charlie Chan director Harry Lachman, its economy is achieved through a series of interesting angles and deep focus shots. The sum creates an atypical apeman film of considerable emotional depth and compelling visuals.

Enter Larry, an American scientist come to the home of Dr. Renault in order to collect his fiancee, Mademoiselle Madelon Renault. A dangerous thing to do, as it turns out. From the moment he arrives at the hotel, where he must stay until the bridge is repaired, someone--or perhaps several people--starts trying to kill him. Could it be Noel, the melancholic, simian servant sent by Dr. Renault to bring him to the mansion? Could it be Rogell, the convict gardener Renault employs? Or could it be Renault himself? They all have motives and none of their motives explains every attempt.

1. Noel, an outsider from, he says, the island of Java, has only one friend in the world, lovely Madelon, whom he would do anything not to lose. He confesses as much to Dr. Renault. 2. Rogell cares only about money and spotted Larry's stuffed wallet. 3. Dr. Renault finds Larry's keen mind digging, question by question, dangerously close to his secret.

One particular murder attempt seems completely inexplicable. As Larry sits in the library reading a text on anthropology, a blade-wielding hand creeps toward him from a hidden panel. Rogell would be the first suspect, so it would be foolish for him to make such a brazen attempt. Noel never wields a weapon anywhere in the film, preferring his bare hands. And Renault has no reason to make an attempt on his future nephew-in-law's life over a few harmless questions. There are no answers provided in the film; it's just there to keep the mystery plot's momentum alive.

The point is that the murder mystery aspects of the film don't really matter. They're hopelessly muddled because the writers didn't care about them. They're a framework with which to explore the essential question of what distinguishes a human from an animal, or, more exactly, what makes a [i]person[/i]. Immanuel Kant was one of the first philosophers to separate the concept of personhood from humanity. For Kant, a person is a being capable of moral reason, rational thought. Any human without powers of moral reasoning isn't even a person; and should a dog be found to reason morally, that dog, Kant would have to admit, is a person. We might say, in colloquial speech, that the moral dog shows more human qualities than the brutish human.

Dr. Renault's titular secret, which isn't much of a secret from the moment we lay eyes on Noel, is Renault's efforts to make a person. Noel's clearly simian appearance, and a later reveal, lets us know he is indeed an ape. After several intensive surgeries involving the brain and nervous system, plastic surgery of the face, and extensive education by Madelon, Noel was 'born'. But it's clear from the secrecy and Noel's persistent melancholy that he is deemed a failure by his own 'father', Dr. Renault.

What makes Noel such a fascinating character, however, is just how much of a success he is. The character of Rogell is primarily in the film as a contrast to Noel. They are similar in that both of them are hampered from flourishing by their genetic and environmental backgrounds. Noel, of course, is genetically an ape. Rogell, we're told, comes from a long line of criminals. And as many children of criminals, he too turned to crime. Who knows what his upbringing was like? Of course, there's no 'criminal gene.' Rogell, despite his background, is not [i]determined[/i] to be a criminal; he can choose a righteous path. Noel, despite even more difficult handicaps, does strive to walk a righteous path. Genetically he is determined to be incapable of moral reasoning. However, the work of Dr. Renault gives him the ability to learn and adapt; and an environment of kindness and friendship provided by Madelon helps him become a person.

Despite committing murders in the film, Noel's sensitivity and humanity leaves him as much a sympathetic character as Karloff's monster in Frankenstein (doubtless an inspiration for the character). When we meet Noel, he is sullen and distant, seemingly lost in thought. He is, of course, thinking over how he is losing Madelon when Larry takes her away. And when Noel intuits the presence of a dog along the road, he sharply stops the car in order to save it. He's also very easily hurt, any ridicule or offense deeply troubling him. This, too, is a very human trait. One touching close-up, where Noel turns to Madelon and we see tears in his eyes, occurs after Dr. Renault suggests the animal mind is no different from the criminal mind. In short, Renault sees Noel as a failed person, hopelessly failed, no better than Rogell. But this is patently false.

What helps make Noel's murders a little more forgivable is what he seems to want to achieve by them. The two main murders Noel commits are against those who, through humiliations, make him feel different, Other. Many of the group scenes in which Noel participates are framed so that Noel is far in the background, emphasizing his outsider status. He feels left out of society, as though he doesn't belong. A few scenes where he's treated with dignity are touching: a lady takes him to dance, Larry and Madelon take him to the fair where he wins her a prize and takes a swan figurine for himself. Some men, jealous of being bested in the fair, say he dances like an ape. Reminded of his otherness, his difference, he murders them. As though murdering them would effectively murder the difference itself. Similarly, Noel's first kill, of a dog that bit him, is not out of revenge or anger over physical pain, but because the dog rejected him for no good reason. What he really longs for is to have friends, to be treated with respect. Unfortunately, murder, a deeply immoral act, all but confirms Dr. Renault's view that Noel is a failure, as it completely severs him from the moral community.

J. Carrol Naish's performance shares considerable credit for making Noel such a strongly sympathetic character. Like Karloff, Naish is able to express a depth of woundedness and loneliness through the make-up and general oddness of the character that is genuinely touching. His quiet manner of speaking and childlike cadence also gives him an innocent quality that makes one very much pity his circumstances. It also, on the other hand, makes his utterance to Dr. Renault, "I could kill you," all the more disturbing.

It is true that Noel is an animal and commits some awful crimes. However, he, in his anxieties, sensitivity, and sorrow, is perhaps the most human character in the film. Madelon is just too angelic, Larry too cardboard, Renault too egomaniacal; but Noel captures all the vulnerability and nobility we expect in a human person. The character of Noel is the film's greatest strength: once one meets him, one will never forget him.

Gog (1954) - 2.5/4

Oh my Gog! What we've got here is a balls-out McCarthyist sci-fi epic about a kuh-razy robot intelligence. Handsome Richard Egan is summoned to investigate some inexplicable murders at a top secret government lab in the middle of the desert. With an old flame/blonde bimbo as his guide, Egan questions the five eccentric head scientists of the lab. The inevitable conclusion, of course, is that it's not the scientists, but the mighty NOVAC, that fantastic computerized brain running the high-tech lab, and his incredible army of two robots, Gog and Magog, behind these murders. Or is it?

There are four main things one goes into a 1950s sci-fi scare movie expecting: 1. Sexist attitudes. 2. Commie terror. 3. Quaint ideas about science and the future. 4. The robots and sets, either for the awe they inspire or the laughs they elicit. This movie has all four in abundance, including a meaningful exchange about how, "In space, there is no weaker sex." But until then, ladies, keep the sandwiches coming.

Of course, what we're really looking for is a little more. Sexism and commie terror have their pleasures, but how about intellectual stimulation, deep characters, moving plot developments, and fascinating props and sets? Yeah, how about them.

Gog could have had more, but it clumsily falls short. The first act of the film introduces us to the top secret science being studied in the lab, like trying to perfect cryogenic stasis and building giant space mirrors that can burn entire (Commie) cities in one blast; that can boil whole (Commie) oceans in minutes. Those Commie fish deserve it.

Then we get the murder investigation. This section is the most enjoyable and should have been even better. Egan's role is to descend the five levels of the facility and, at each level, interview the oddball scientist in charge. This Perecian structure is strangely pleasing to the intellect; executed well, it could make great cinema. The problem is the scientists aren't really odd enough. They're not developed as people or even as bundles of quirks. The best quirk the writer could come up with is to make one scientist obsessed with watching girls in zero gravity experiments. A specific enough perversion, but one many warm-blooded males would share.

I get the feeling we were supposed to suspect a few of these scientists. However, we don't. Their possible motives just aren't developed at all. The only suspect scientist is the inventor of NOVAC himself, Zeitman. He bristles at having company and being questioned. He's a genius, dammit, leave him alone! Anyway, he does enjoy showing off his, yes, robots! Gog and Magog, named after some apocalyptic forces from the books of Ezekiel and Revelations. This is the fun part. We got close-ups of their clumsy little hands pawing at things.

Eventually the robots go haywire and, lest their unsteady, fragile, little arms choke everyone on Earth!, Egan has to fight them with flame-throwers. Meanwhile, a few more murders occur, all of which are fairly creative, making imaginative use of the environment of a top secret science lab. Will Egan and his bimbo be able to triumph over the deranged NOVAC? Who is really to blame? (The Commies, of course.)

Facetiousness aside, who is to blame? When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the Earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. Not only are the robots named Gog and Magog, but it is the secret and violent technology in the facility that leaves the victims open to Commie attack. The Commies of the film are never seen, a vague influence from outside that seem to function more like a force of nature than a real enemy: open a window and the storm comes in. The window, in this case, is the horrifyingly violent technology being studied in the lab, namely the space mirror that can boil entire oceans. The sheer inhumanity and irresponsibility of this goal almost makes one side with the Commies. So the Commies are almost karmic, punishing the American scientists for their violent intent and for their arrogance.

Unusual for a science fiction film, where technology is usually inert and positive, in Gog the technology is active and susceptible to malign influence. Yet the responsibility is not on the shoulders of the malign influence, but on the scientists for using their skills and talents in the service of War--Gog and Magog are, after all, of 'our' own creation, not of Commie creation--and on the whole socio-political system that sanctions this use of science.

Despite a bland visual design and a boring tour through such advanced science as what the sun is and what nuclear power does, there are still some good ideas that, although they never realize their potential, shine through. Gog is a curious and, for the patient, enjoyable '50s scifi picture. Also, the robots are kinda cool.

Don't Go To Sleep (1982) and 80s Domestic Horror

The essence of a subgenre is formula and the power of formula is in the control over difference. When two objects participate in the same formula, the variables that can be altered are limited otherwise the formula simply evaporates. Thus in a formulaic film difference from another formula-participant, which is to say, how the variables are set within the formulaic limits, is the source of significance.

In the '80s, a very popular formula was the Disintegrating-Family film. A nuclear family, usually moving into a new home, is besieged by a spiritual influence and often torn apart. Burnt Offerings (1976) is one of the first of these films. It's followed by Stranger in Our House (1978), The Amityville Horror (1979), Poltergeist (1980), Don't Go to Sleep (1982), Invitation to Hell (1984), Pet Sematary (1989) (the novel was written in 1983), and others, many of which are TV movies capitalizing on the success of Poltergeist. Even the Europeans got involved in the trend, with films like Fulci's The House by the Cemetery (1981).

In most of these films the spiritual influence is symbolic of, or a phenomenological manifestation of, guilt. In Poltergeist, for instance, the spirits from an Indian burial ground torment a nuclear family of privileged, White Americans. The torment even begins coming from the television, the modern family's hearth. The ghosts represent White Guilt quite plainly. This fulfills the need for (subconsciously guilty) privileged, White filmgoers of the '80s to see that privileged life attacked in fiction, where it's safe, so they can go home and comfortably continue living their privileged lives guilt-free. Pet Sematary is of the same mould, except it doesn't allow the audience to leave with the comfortable re-repression Poltergeist provides. In Invitation to Hell, the spiritual influence is a little more direct, the demon-owned country club representing instead the drive to material success at any cost--even one's soul! The film is nevertheless shaming the audience for their materialism and privileged lifestyle while allowing them to go home with this shame repressed, assured that they too have the willpower to put family first. Burnt Offerings is a little more subtle, its modus operandi being to have the house play nuclear family tensions against each other: the father attacks the child, the mother becomes obsessed with housekeeping, the father becomes a wimp, and so forth. The film shows how the American family has lost its way, becoming a sacrifice to (a burnt offering to) the comforts and luxuries that should be at its service.

Don't Go to Sleep is one of those made-for-TV Poltergeist clones. A family moves into a new house, of course, and the little girl of the family (of course) becomes convinced her dead sister is talking to her. At first she's frightened. But as the sister starts telling her to do malicious things to her family, she comes to trust the ghost. That sentence may not make much moral sense, but it's what happens. Unlike Poltergeist, however, the family doesn't escape intact, but rather, as in Burnt Offerings and Pet Sematary, succumbs to the evil influence, leaving nearly everyone either dead or mad.

Don't Go to Sleep falls into the guilt category as well. The guilt isn't in this case ideological, however. The family has lost a daughter in a car crash and now everyone in the family, grandma, dad, mom, little sister, and possibly little brother all blame themselves and each other. And why shouldn't they? Grandma pressed dad into drinking an extra martini. And mom agreed. And dad was driving. And sis and bro were playing that prank. Well, they shouldn't because it was all an accident. And because guilt is an extremely destructive emotion.

What I liked about Don't Go to Sleep is the way it deals with the issue of guilt itself rather than making it a weapon against traditional family structure and/or privileged White folks. (Being White, having money, having a happy family isn't anything to feel guilty over, anyway.) Rather than getting much-needed psychological help, which the narrative's psychologist recommends to them, they try to press on and endure the tragedy. The longer they wait, the more powerful the guilt becomes and soon the little girl begins to murder her family under the guise of avenging her dead sister.

By dealing with guilt in this way, Don't Go to Sleep actually takes the opposite approach of its fellow Family Disintegration films: the family is not being destroyed because it deserves it; it's being destroyed because of the feelings of guilt, it's own subconscious desire to be destroyed. Most importantly, the film acknowledges that this guilt should be overcome. This privileged, bourgeois, White, nuclear family is innocent, but is being destroyed because it has internalized the guilt found in films like Poltergeist, Amityville Horror, Pet Sematary, and Invitation to Hell. A film like Poltergeist implicates the affluent, White family in guilt but refrains from punishing them. The family flees to safety. Thus some critics have seen Poltergeist as vindicating the traditional family structure. Don't Go to Sleep doesn't have to vindicate the family; the family needs to stop--excuse the irony--beating itself up. And this is a much more enduring truth than the ideological messages in the other films. While it may or may not be true that the bourgeois, nuclear family is oppressive, its oppression won't last forever. But guilt will always be oppressive.

Also interesting is how the film places the responsibility for what happens upon the family. With Poltergeist and all the others mentioned, the family is assaulted from without: Satan disguised as Susan Lucci (Invitation to Hell), a parasitic house (Burnt Offerings), a poltergeist. With Don't Go to Sleep the assault is from within, the guilt-ridden madness of the girl in a family of self-absorbed (because also guilt-ridden) people. With its downbeat, creepy ending, Sleep perhaps wakes its audience to the need to forgive itself, through therapy if necessary.

While these permutations in the formula fascinate me, the way the film itself plays out is only moderately interesting and occasionally laughable. The first thirty minutes are strong, even creepy at times. But the domestic drama and the dull machinations of the little girl soon take over. Ruth Gordon, as ever, steals the show with her eccentric grandma. Unfortunately, she leaves the film halfway through and the unintentionally funny little girl becomes our lifeboat.

Deadrise (2011) - 3/4

Horror films have long been associated with nightmares, so much so that some critics analyze them as one would a dream. The ease with which horror films depart from normality and what we perceive to be our reality lends them a generally oneiric quality. Some horror films, playing off this tradition, deliberately introduce ambiguity between dream and reality. From Europe, Bergman's Hour of the Wolf and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders are prime examples. From America we have Carnival of Souls, which we discover is ultimately a nearly feature-length death dream, Mulholland Dr., and Slumber Party Massacre II.

Deadrise is a languid, almost hypnotic, horror-drama, starring Xena's Renee O'Connor as Paula and According to Jim's Larry Joe Campbell as Vigs, firmly planted in the tradition of Ambiguous Reality horrors. What there is of a plot is quickly summarized: Paula is looking into an old ship for the historical society when a piano is dropped on her car and she's forced to stay on the ship, with its caretaker Vigs, having one surreal nightmare after another. As in Slumber Party Massacre II and Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, the films Deadrise most resembles, we're rarely certain whether she's still dreaming or awake.

The film begins with Paula taking a celebratory lunch, alone, in a hotel restaurant. She gets some spicy salmon, shows the waiter a picture of her daughter, checks out his ass, then falls asleep following a report on blood-sucking eels. We never see her wake up. The film simply cuts to Paula's drive toward the ship. Perhaps all that follows the blood-sucking eels is a dream. Moreover, when the piano falls on her car, the long shot reveals no-one standing beside the car. Cut to a medium shot and suddenly Paula is there. Perhaps the continuity girl was hit by a bus or, more likely, Brauer is giving us a taste of Carnival of Horrors, by which I mean Paula could have died there and all that follows is a death dream. After meeting Vigs and being given a room, she goes to sleep and we're then treated to an arabesque of dreams-succeeding-dreams until the end of the film. Perhaps, too, everything up to this point is reality and what follows are the dreams.

Defining where reality ends and dream begins is important in such films for determining just what information, if any, we have about a character outside of what the dream reveals. If gestalt theory tells us everything in a dream is a depiction of oneself, then one needs the paten to decode the dream; and that paten is some significant knowledge of the dreamer's conscious life. All we know of Mary Henry in Carnival of Souls is that she's an organist and dies in a car crash. Of Courtney, in Slumber Party Massacre II, however, we know that she lost her sister and witnessed the murders in the first Slumber Party Massacre. And of Valerie we know that she's hitting puberty, is an orphan, and lives with her religious grandmother. In the cases of Courtney and Valerie, we can analyze the events of the films according to what we know of their consciousness: Courtney is working through the trauma of what she endured in the driller-killer murders and Valerie is working through her sexual awakening. With Mary Henry, all that we see, if it tells us anything about her soul, can only be very generalized, as we know so little about her.

All we know of Paula for sure is that she's had some success for the historical society, has a daughter who wants a puppy, ate the spicy salmon, and was disturbed by the blood-sucking eels. We could add her driving up to the ship. We could add further her meeting with Vigs and all he tells and shows her. Granted we have more information about Paula than we do about Mary Henry, the information we do have about Paula is yet not particularly salient as the cause of a psychosexual phantasmagoria. Unlike Courtney and Valerie, what we know of Paula's life does not seem sufficient to cause what we witness in the film, nor, by that token, sufficient to explain a lot of what we see.

At any rate, it's the viewer's pleasure, or not, to read the subconscious of the character of Paula on the screen. The momentum is a therapeutic one towards a sort of self-realization, the first important step of which, whether in dream or reality, occurs with the destruction of her car by a piano. The next is the loss of her cellphone in the water. Because we have so little relevant information on Paula and only minimal motivation to analyze Paula's subconscious journey to psychological or spiritual health, this aspect of the film can be mystifying, tedious, or simply uninteresting.

I made no effort at trying to understand Paula's issues, traumas, or crises, and chose to simply enjoy Paula's dreams for the quirky and amusing set pieces that they are: Paula attempts to dispose of some disgusting sausages, but finds her plate infinitely stocked; blood-sucking eels pour out of a shower; Vigs has several conspiracies going on involving the eels, poison, and sausages. These sequences are enjoyable, well-written, well-filmed, and creative within budget.

It is strongly to Brauer's credit that his style can be characterized by patience. While there are a few awkward edits and shots, particularly one in the restaurant, the shots never seem cut before their time; they're held as long as is needed for the performance to take place and sometimes held beyond what the subject requires. The camera's position is rarely obtrusive, its movements fluid and congenial to the physical surroundings. This generosity with time allows the viewer to get a feel for the space in which the characters inhabit, for the environment acting upon them. We also get a sense of depth to the characters, a feeling that they're really thinking before they speak. There's a reality and genuineness to the film that gives one a real feeling of being there.

Nevertheless, the pacing will be boring to many viewers. What keeps the film from becoming boring is a strong sense of wit in the writing, a wit expertly handled by Campbell and O'Connor, both veterans in television comedy. They have interesting screen chemistry, reacting to one another's thoughts and ideas in a very amusing way. Campbell, as the highly eccentric Vigs, is particularly funny. The character is just so odd and yet oblivious of his oddness; Campbell seems to be channeling a bit of Chris Farley here.

If one enters this film with the right temperament and expectations, ready for more mood and character than thrills, more surrealism and oddness--sometimes funny, sometimes grotesque--than horror, one should have an good time. Though certainly not as sophisticated as Valerie and Her Week of Wonders or Hour of the Wolf, Deadrise is an enjoyable hour and a half spent aboard a derelict with two interesting people--or maybe it's just one person--and, of course, their dreams.

The Unforgiving (2010) - 1.5/4

South Africa is puzzling insofar as it is a civilized, democratic, European-ized country and yet continues to partake of the barbarisms that afflict many other African nations. According to the IRIN, there are roughly 500,000 rapes committed in South Africa every year, 15% of which are under 10 years of age. A CIET survey found that 60% of school-age children, male and female, believed forcing sex on another is acceptable. The worst of all is that the authorities themselves appear to be complicit.* When I found The Unforgiving, a horror film made in South Africa, I had a hunch it would involve cycles of violence, possibly rape. And I was not disappointed.

The Unforgiving, a film by newcomer Alastair Orr, begins with a police interrogation of two victims of a serial killer. As they're being interrogated, you'd be correct in assuming they are survivors. The killer wears a gas mask and performs his work in some urban ruins in the South African roadside desert. These killings involve a degree of torture and teasing, cat-and-mouse games, before the final blow is dealt. Each survivor tells a story that isn't entirely consistent with one another's and is, in fact, seemingly full of holes. The detective probes further to find the cause of these discrepencies.

During the interrogations, we're treated to what appear to be flashbacks. However, the flashbacks aren't consonant with what is being stated in the interrogation. Nor do they seem to overlap with one another's statements. These apparent flashbacks are the film's strongest point, keeping the viewer mystified while in fact being ordered quite neatly. The closer one comes to the end of the film, the more one is able to piece together the chronology of what has been seen, some flashbacks and some, in fact, flashforwards.

The story finds its center in an incident of sexual sadomasochism and its cause that results in a cycle of brutal violence. Every character in this film gets their head smashed against the ground at least a dozen times. The statement is simple. Whatever poingnancy is gained by virtue of commenting on the South African situation is flattened and largely uninteresting by failing to have any interesting content. A comment in a work of art should say more than the wikipedia article. Consider this a rule of thumb.

Unfortunately, while the film is very well structured, and for this Mr. Orr, as writer, can pat himself on the back, it is not a particularly enjoyable film to watch. The characters are little more than abused-and-abusive husks of blood and expletives. To support a message about the violence in one's society, one owes it to that society as an artist to represent it in an emotionally potent manner, placed in characters that are real people. However decent a job the actors do--and they are quite good--these characters are not real people; and worse, they're annoying. That our glimpses of these characters are caught through unnecessary close-ups on their eyes, mouths, and possessions, wildly shakey camera-work, and very brief shots, as short as 1/5th of a second in action sequences, does not help humanize them at all.

In torture films, of course, one is free to just enjoy the brutality for its own sake. While there are some good efforts at brutality in The Unforgiving, it largely amounts to bloody snouts. No matter how many times a man's head is smashed into the ground, he gets away with blood over his nose, mouth, and chin. Other attempts at brutality we're prevented from seeing with sneaky edits.

From the title, indicating the inability to let go of abuse, onward, The Unforgiving tries hard to have significance and to be crafty. Its success is very moderate. The chief pleasure of the film is to be found in mentally putting together the chronology puzzle Orr creates in structuring. Otherwise, the same content has been portrayed elsewhere, as in Hostel (2005), Penance (2009), I Spit on Your Grave (1978/2010), Last House on the Left (1972/2009), and many other torture and rape/revenge films, much more effectively.

* - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_South_Africa