Pledge Night (1990) - 2/4

The slasher genre has a strange fixation on fraternities and sororities. I'm not sure why that is. They are a standard location to find a bunch of young adults and kill them. So there's that. Also, many slasher directors were using the AV room equipment at their college in between liberal arts courses. On the other hand, most of these slashers were made in the '80s. The '80s itself was kinda obsessed with the idea--whether being treated seriously or subverted--of fraternities and sororities as the building blocks of social success. In some way, these slashers were undermining the value of fraternities and sororities, presenting them as an extention of the poisonous teat upon which socially successful children must suck until they become full-blow sheep themselves. Rich, powerful sheep. Or maybe it's just because lots of douchebags, tits, and sex is likely to be there.

Pledge Night is even more fixated on the operations of the fraternity life than most slashers of the kind. The first half (yes, half) of the film follows the pledges through the process of initiation into Phi Upsilon Nu (That spells PhUN!). The way the 'officers' play with the pledges is scrutinized and the values they attempt to instill is presented clearly. The fraternity is all about loyalty and brotherhood. And the best way to make loyal brothers out of young men is to make them carry cherries with their perspiration-drenched buttocks for hours and then eat them. Straight out of Plato's Republic.

One pledge is a particular focus, as his mother is an old hippie who distrusts frats. Maybe she distrusts them less out of social protest and more out of, well, her ex-boyfriend was killed in a bad hazing incident in that very house. He was a well-meaning hippie named Joey Belladonna. I mean, Sid. Never saw it coming. But the pledge also got in with one of the officer's girls enough to know that the supposedly crazy frat member is all an act. Or is it?

Finally, just when you're starting to feel like you're being hazed by this movie, the frat exposition reaches climax during an exhausting monologue about the ancient history of PhUN. These frat guys really take themselves too seriously. Fortunately, the fake maniac becomes a real maniac and begins killing his 'brothers' while cackling with haemorrhoidal glee. But he's not just gone psychotic. He's been possessed by that hippie ghost, Acid Sid. Sid no longer believes in free love. He believes in asking people who they are, then killing them in gruesome ways. After crawling out of the frat brother's caved-in body, he strangles a pledge's with his own spinal column, melts another pledge's head in his vaginal gutwound, and chases the final guy and gal around the confusing frat house. They meanwhile hide in a secret room behind an American flag.

Yes, Pledge Night is a movie all about freedom and what America is really built on: rich, powerful families and the connections made in fraternities? or the human spirit that will never be satisfied as long as someone's oppressed? Neither. It's based on heavy metal, cheesy movies, and tittays. As Joey Belladonna sings in his epic ballad Efilnikcufecin, "Just one too many cookies/From the batch no one should taste." Or in Caught in a Mosh, "Your mother made a monster, now get the hell out of my house." Words to live by.

American Horror: Studying Argento's Trauma (1993)

All of Argento’s films are deceptive. I don’t refer only to the narrative techniques he uses to mislead the viewer like a street magician, though they offer an interesting parallel. I refer rather to the appearance of simplicity or even superficiality that masks the often ambitious complexity of his films. Trauma may be one of Argento’s most complex and ambitious. Trauma appears on first viewing to be a convoluted narrative littered with a mess of characters and saved only by the obvious efforts at the elabAurate stylistic techniques for which Argento is known; on repeat viewings it reveals itself to be a very deliberate homage to America.

‘Homage,’ however, may not be the right word. Trauma was, or at least was intended to be, an important step in Argento’s career. Had it been successful, Trauma would have moved Argento into Hollywood. Difficult though it might be for Argento fans to imagine him as an American filmmaker, there is ample evidence that going to America is just the career trajectory Argento had been planning for some time. He had four years prior produced Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Argento’s previous film, made just two years before Trauma, is Two Evil Eyes, an anthology film made with Romero. Trauma at last was Argento’s own American horror movie. What Argento does with Trauma is not just pay tribute to his favourite American horror filmmakers, or even the history of the Amrican horror film—though he does that—but uses the opportunity to engage the very idea of America, or at least his idea of American, perhaps one formed primarily from viewing American horror films. Trauma is not just an American horror film, then, but in its self-conscious American-ness is an American horror film about American horror films.

What we want to do in analyzing Trauma is understand what Argento has to say about America. And to do so we have to begin by interrogating the film’s self-consciousness. The best starting point, then, is the very surface, the film’s cast and crew. Given Argento’s admiration for Romero, it’s no surprise that for his first American film he acquires Tom Savini’s services for make-up effects. Piper Laurie is cast in the role of the psychotic mother, an unmistakable and intentional parallel to her role in Brian De Palma’s Carrie. Brad Dourif, of horror and cult film fame, also plays a small role. With this casting Argento makes a deliberate effort to provide audiences with cues to the film’s American-ness and with these cues he places Trauma within the history of the American horror film.

This casting has deeper significance, furthermore, by paying tribute to particular and influential—and to Argento, it seems, thematically important—American horror filmmakers. Savini, of course, provides Trauma a link to the quintessentially American horror films of Romero, whose films are perhaps second only to Hitchcock’s in establishing the modern horror film. De Palma for his highly-stylized, Hitchcockian horror thrillers is often seen as the closest American correlate to Argento, albeit even more Hitchcockian and, I think, more talented. Dourif calls to mind both One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for the electroshock therapy motif it shares with Trauma and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, a film Argento admires enough to reference favAurably over Eraserhead in Do You Like Hitchcock? So Argento is not just placing his film in the history of the American horror film, but of the very best, most important American horror films, ones that scrutinize aspects of American life.

That Argento’s perception of American and what characterizes it is largely mediated by American films, particularly the films of a few key filmmakers, would therefore be a fair statement. Trauma is a comment then on the idea of America that itself is a comment upon the American cinematic perception of America. The films in American horror history to which Argento draws attention are therefore necessary ciphers for decoding the vision Argento expresses in Trauma. How plot and Argento’s personal style and ideas interact with these influences provide the means whereby Trauma is understandable in its complexity.

The plot of Trauma concerns a young girl, Aura, who is rescued from suicide by David, a graphic designer for a news station. When Aura believes both her father and medium mother suffer a double murder at a maniac’s hands, she flees to her hero, David. While he gives the teen a place to stay and tries to help her overcome her anorexia, they become sexually involved. This infuriates David’s girlfriend, who turns Aura in to her psychiatrist, Dr. Judd. Soon the killer is trying to get at Aura in the mental hospital. David rescues her before the maniac can get to her and they begin trying to solve the murders. By looking into a victim’s storage locker they find a clue that all the victims were doctors or nurses at the same hospital. Each potential victim they try to talk to refuses to communicate and is murdered. Finally, Dr. Judd and the killer invade the David’s house at the same time. While he pursues Judd, the killer escapes with Aura, leaving a bogus suicide note behind. The trunk of Judd’s car is found to be full of heads, so he is presumed to be the killer. David is plunged into despair and drug addiction, believing Aura dead, until he notices by pure chance a woman wearing Aura’s bracelet. He follows her to the house of the killer where the little boy has been snooping throughout the film. There David discovers Aura is being held. While investigating the house, he is incapacitated in a nursery dedicated to ‘Nicholas.’ He awakes in chains. The killer is revealed to be Aura’s mother, Adriana, who was traumatized when her son, Nicholas, was accidentally decapitated during labor. Though the trauma was repressed by electroshock therapy, it spontaneously erupts, sending her on a decapitation spree. Aura’s memory is clarified now. She realizes she saw not her parents’ heads in two hands, but her mother holding her father’s head. Adriana readies to kill Aura and David, but is prevented by the neighbor boy, who lowers the decapitation device from a hole in the ceiling and turns it on, decapitating her. The police arrive to question David and Aura. The movie ends as a girl dances to reggae on a balcony.

Beginning with the general, what generic structures and tropes can we identify in this plot summary? I think what we find is a fusion of the slasher with film noir. The complex and extensive plotting, though uneven in execution, derives particularly from the noir tradition of films like The Big Sleep and especially The Seventh Victim. In many noirs, including those mentioned, innocent, young girls with psychological issues draw men into the roles of hero and detective, and into a world of perversion and murder. This is just what Aura does for David. One of the elementary events that begin the plot is David rescuing Aura from suicide. His efforts to rescue her bring him into the mystery of her mother’s decapitation murders.

The American genres of horror and film noir were both born from the import of German Expressionist filmmakers to America. Noir was really crystallized in the horror-crime films of Val Lewton, however. These films begin with Cat People and reach perfection in The Seventh Victim. Both of these films are important, not just for the horror and American cinema, but for Argento in making Trauma. Indeed, Argento names the film’s psychiatrist “Judd” after the only re-used character in the Lewton films, Dr. Louis Judd, psychiatrist of both the ‘cat person’ of Cat People and the titular character of The Seventh Victim.

In Lewton’s films, Judd is a particularly interesting character for his moral complexity. He has a tendency to take the cases of strange and alluring females. Once he takes them as patients, they tend to go ‘out of circulation,’ as it’s put. He himself is highly intelligent, emotionally detached, perhaps diagnosable as a narcissist. He strives to genuinely help his patients, however, despite his unorthodox methods. He is ultimately a good person with amoralistic and libertine values; a person who casts himself too prominently in the lives of his patients with the best of intentions. At war with his narcissism is his tragic hero complex that leads him to his doom.

The Judd of Argento’s film, who could conceivably be a descendent of Louis Judd (and without a doubt is his cinematic descendent), similarly takes on the cases of the alluring women, Aura and her mother Adriana, with unorthodox techniques and strange behavior. And he, as his forbear had done, casts himself too prominently in their lives. This Judd, we realize from his introduction wearing a neck brace in the film’s early séance scene, knows all along that Adriana is a murderer. Throughout the film he wears the neck brace only when Adriana is near and functions fine without it so long as she’s not present. He is ensuring his head remains where it belongs, at least physically. He also very likely knows she faked her own death. For this reason Judd subjects Aura to a psychotropic berry. In his effort to sharpen Aura’s hazy memory of her parents’ murders, we realize, he’s trying to discover what has become of Adriana. He doesn’t have to wait long, because Adriana breaks into the clinic to kill the nurse and get Aura. Judd presumably finds her and, in order to help her, keeps her murders a secret. He even puts the decapitated heads in his car truck when he drives her to get Aura from David’s lakeside cabin. He dies for his trouble, however, just like his grandfather, the great Louis Judd dies in Cat People for getting too close to his patient.

I have digressed at such length on the subject of the two Judds because I believe the connection between Cat People, the first and greatest horror-noir, and Trauma is intentional and an important element in Argento’s conception for Trauma. Both films, Trauma more explicitly, attribute the sudden burst of violence from a non-violent person to the awakening of something repressed, a trauma. For Irena, in Cat People, the trauma is her belief in her cursed genetic lineage, which entails becoming a vicious cat whenever she is in a sexual relationship. For Adriana, it is the much more real trauma of her son’s gruesome death during birth and the electroshock treatment designed to repress the memory of this event. Irena’s trauma is excited by her new husband, who has convinced her to marry him and to consummate the relationship. Adriana’s trauma is excited by an unknown event, though the first scene of the film, a short and seemingly out-of-place shoebox theatre vignette of the French Revolution with historically-accurate decapitations, may have been the innocent spark.

In both films, moreover, there is a sexual component to the trauma. Irena is afraid of sex and of how it may transform her into a monster. Adriana’s trauma occurs at a much later stage of the reproductive process, namely birth, but is nevertheless sexual. Argento’s homage to De Palma, all of whose horror films are predicated upon sexual confusion in some form, is not so trivial in this light. Nor is Piper Laurie’s casting, for, in De Palma’s Carrie, her role is a mother whose religious fanaticism psychosexually retards her daughter until the repressed energy is released in psychokinetic mayhem. Her character in Trauma is similarly repressive to both herself and her daughter.

But the real significance of the link to Cat People is Argento’s view that all of American horror and noir is predicated upon the notion of trauma, a first, repressed trauma, the escape from which is violence and death. From the early, great, and truly American horror that is Cat People on through Romero and De Palma and Lynch, psychosexual repression and trauma appear, Argento seems to suggest, as the essential characteristics of American cinematic violence.

Perhaps it is for this reason that Argento begins the film with the French Revolution vignette. The vignette links the idea of decapitation with that of revolution. And America, unlike, say, Canada, begins with revolution, the Revolutionary War in particular. America achieved its freedom with revolutionary violence. Argento could be suggesting America’s revolutionary beginning was a historically traumatic event that continues to motivate America’s sexual ills, drugs, anorexia, and violence. More likely, however, Argento is suggesting decapitation as a revolutionary act. Adriana’s decapitations are her revolution against her own trauma and externally-enforced repression. The scene in which the boy next door sees the first victim’s head supports this view. He sees the African-American woman’s head in a pan, her dreadlocks getting snipped by the hands of the killer. The shot of the head, with its particularly ordered dreadlocks, intentionally resembles paintings of Medusa’s head--particularly Rubens's, which contains the salamander motif Argento employs in Trauma--a motif Argento would return to in The Stendhal Syndrome. The decapitation is thus linked to the triumph of Perseus over Medusa. And Medusa’s petrifying stare, which the boy notes, isn’t unconceivably intended to be the electroshock therapy designed to repress but not destroy traumatic memory. This is not, however, to be confused as a pro-violence statement from Argento, but a representation of the mindset of Adriana, who does believe that in violence there is liberation.

 What we see, then, is that there is some complexity to what Argento is saying about America. He is not merely noting the importance of trauma or of violence, but using the idea of trauma to express his view of America. And he seems to see America, or rather the American people, as being generally traumatized. David admits to having been a heroine addict and returns to drug abuse when Aura goes missing. This is to say nothing of his sexual relationship with a troubled and vulnerable sixteen-year-old girl. We discover no further background regarding this character, but he is clearly ‘troubled,’ which, for Argento—and Freud, for that matter—suggests some past trauma.

Aura’s trauma, however, is of much greater concern to Argento. While anorexia afflicts males and females in many parts of the world, it does represent a particularly American sort of disorder, a reaction to the conflict between American abundances and American vanity/perfectionism. Anorexia is really a reaction against a parent, however, particularly, as Argento has one of the film’s minor characters explain, a domineering mother. Aura’s mother, Adriana, certainly runs the household, ultimately not just castrating but decapitating Aura’s father. When Judd administers the psychotropic berries to Aura, a major and traumatic event she recalls is walking in on her mother and Judd mid-coitus. If Adriana represents Aura’s dark side, as Argento claims she does in a DVD featurette, she also represents America’s dark side. Let’s see how.

Adriana, as discussed above, is herself not free of trauma. Indeed her trauma is the main force moving the whole plot. Adriana’s trauma is the loss of her son in birth. The trauma can only fester because it has been repressed by shock therapy. When it is reawakened—we don’t know for sure how, but as stated above I suspect it is the revolutionary shoebox play and I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to suspect Judd intentionally set that play up—then she reacts to the trauma with violence and vengeance. Where Aura’s response to trauma is violence against herself, an excessive self-criticism, Adriana’s violence is toward others. She struggles to cope with the trauma by destroying those who participated in its cause, for only in these terms does she see the possibility of liberation from her trauma. Both reactions to trauma are doomed to failure. The difference is only that one results in the death of oneself and the other in the death of others.

This is why I think we can say Argento sees Adriana as America’s dark side. As Argento seems to see America as a traumatized nation, Adriana represents its violent, aggressive, domineering aspects as a reaction to its own revolutionary trauma. The alternative reaction to that represented by Adriana, however, cannot be Aura, for that reaction is no healthier. It must be the other influence in Aura’s life, David. His approach to trauma, while originally as self-devastating as Aura’s, is ultimately balanced between reaching out to help others and artistic expression as a graphic designer. 

What we find, then, is that David represents the bright side of America, the side of America that deals with its own, peculiar traumas in Dawn of the Dead, Carrie, and Blue Velvet as much as in its global relief efforts. Violence can be liberating for Argento, but it must be used correctly. In American cinema, through fantastical violence, horror purges and purifies, and so helps the nation deal with its own trauma and the individual traumas of its citizens.

Similarly, by the conclusion of Trauma, Aura has been liberated of her ‘dark side.’ The voyeur boy living next to Adriana finally comes into action and rescues the protagonists. A message to the audience is sent that it is the voyeurs, the filmgoers, who save the day, who conquer the dark side and trauma. By viewing horror films like Dawn of the Dead, Carrie, Trauma, and especially the American films of Hitchcock, by enduring the horror, we emerge as Aura and David purged.

In this way, therefore, Argento places Trauma within the lineage of American horror films while simultaneously commenting upon the nature of that lineage. A great deal of complexity is required to work out these ideas in a horror film, bound as it is by generic conventions. Thus is Trauma so convoluted for a film of its type. This complexity does sometimes interfere with the momentum of the pace and obscures the narrative moves, requiring from the viewers more effort to comprehend. Nevertheless, for these same reasons, Trauma rewards multiple viewings and reminds viewers that Argento’s films ought not to be taken superficially or trivially.

Short Reviews for Nov. 29, 2010: Wynorski and Misc.

Three Jim Wynorski Films
Sorority House Massacre II (1990) - 2.5/4

Jim Wynorski to the rescue. If you weren't already confused, in the stunning sequel, Wynorski gives you flashbacks to SLUMBER PARTY Massacre instead of SORORITY HOUSE Massacre, which this is supposed to be the sequel to. So even the director can't keep 'em straight. No matter, 'cause Wynorski takes all that was right about Slumber Party Massacre--great titties--and gives us more, more, more. Wynorski contrives every event and every angle to show us more T&A, bless 'im.

Five bodacious babes who wear only underwear. Greatest thighs in a motion picture, Robyn Harris. Stacia Zhivago, who looks like Laura Dern as a pin-up girl--later became a doctor. Melissa Moore, a bit of a butterface, but what an amazon. Michelle Verran, the sweetest rack in the film. Dana Bentley, a raven-haired cutey with big nostrils, now surgeried herself into Pete Burns territory. Low-angle panties. High-angle cleavage. On her knees. Out in the rain just to get wet. Orville Ketchum, the man who never dies. Bridget Carney as Candy, the stripper with a booty so fine you'll cry tears of semen. Random racism from Abdul and Schmabdul. Satana the remarkably unsatanic stripper. Jealous lady cop. Random showers. Ouija board seance. Drunk titties. Angry titties. Betrayed titties. Afraid titties. Squeakin' titties. "Let's work together" titties. And of course, ass-kicking titties. And a little romance for the lady viewers.

Nekkid: 3/4
Gore: 2/4
Tequila-swillin' sluts: 5
Humour: 3/4

Sorority House Massacre III (1990) - 3.5/4

AKA Hard to Die (a much more appropriate title)

Read my review of Sorority House Massacre II? Well this is the same film cranked up to 11. Really, some scenes are lifted almost exactly from SHM2. Except this one's set in a upscale lingerie shop and not a sorority house at all. The temps are in for inventory and what kinda temps do they hire? College kids? Mike and Joel? Nope, they hire lingerie models! who wear lingerie and high heels almost the whole movie--except for when they take turns having a shower scene.

But that's not the essence of the film. No, this is an epic battle between good and evil, the great demon-hunter Orville Ketchum versus the diabolical spirit of Hokstatter, brought to its final chapter. Both are HARD TO DIE--the question is, who is HARDEST? Me, after watching these sexy babes romping around in their upscale panties with big guns.

Babes in lingerie. Titties squeak when you wash 'em. Orville still eats raw meat. Scared tits. Bloody tits. Soapy tits. Possessed tits. Gun-wielding tits. Bouncing tits. Naked tits. Wet tits. A few dead tits. Stabbing, shooting, stapling, paper-pick stabbing, ball-kicking, head-pounding, and choking. Weirdest Chinese food delivery costume ever. Burning weirdest Chinese food delivery costume ever. Babes with guns. Babes running. Babes bouncing. Babes climbing stairs. Babes moving boxes. Babes moving filing cabinets. Gratuitous porn shoot. Several gratuitous showers. Gratuitous dirty feet. And a little romance for the lady viewers.

Nekkid: 3/4
Gore: 1/4
Babes with guns: 3
Humour: 4/4

976-Evil II (1990) - 2/4

That wacky, Satanic calling service returns, this time without Sam Ritter (No? Google Image Search, safe search off, enjoy.), and unleashes more nonsensical terror. The film gives no further explanation, so why should I?

Hotline to Satan. Creepy old man. Evil creepy old man. Lecherous creepy old man. Waste of good POA. Bad Vincent Price impression. Good Vincent Price moustache. Great set piece: It's a Wonderful Life...with ZOMBIES! Death by television. Death by phantom car. Death by prop stalactite. Pizza attack. Oven attack. Daddy's little girl: nice tits and slutty, cut-off jeans. Half-wit cop. Exploding drunk. Tough guy on a bike--named Spike. Puttin' the move on Daddy's girl. Eatin' fries. Drinkin' beer. Ridin' the hog. Warnin' about the number. Breakin' n' enterin'. Scrutinizin' phone bills. Astral projectin'. Turnin' down Brigitte Nielsen circa 1990--he's gay. And a little romance for the lady viewers.

Nekkid: 0/4 - Really? In a Wynorski flick?
Gore: 1/4
Times you think, "That's not what a phone sounds like": 14
Humour: 2/4

Bikini Girls on Ice (2009) - 1/4

Bikini car wash meets random killer at a rundown gas station--the title tells the rest.

Lots of girls in bikinis. Cinematographer couldn't light his way out of a paper bag. Smart girl with deep voice, reluctant to wear bikini: obviously the Final Girl. Her peppy, cute friend with a touch-o-the-slut: obviously destined to be killed in a harrowing moment. Car washing montage. Prostitution. Pointless sex scene with a bonus, "Don't touch me!" Slutty girls. Bitchy girls. Lezzy girls. Nerds with a bus. Old man with a warning. French tourists with a gas can. Killer can move faster the light--screw you, Einstein. Killer makes no sound--obviously a ninja. Obsession with ice baths--definitely a ninja. Girls keep wandering off alone--guess what happens? Dead dog. Dead slut. Dead tourists. Dead bitch. Absence of girls with their bikinis OFF. Absence of interesting kills--unless black-outs interest you. Absence of interesting gore. Stupid, stubborn victims. Stupid, unimpressive killer. Deus ex machina--we saw that coming. And a little romance for the lady viewers.

Nekkid: 0/4!
Gore: 1/4
Times a victim asks the killer, "Why are you doing this?": 6
Humour: 1/4

As a Quebecer myself, I apologize for my fellow provincemen's lack of ambition and for such a disappointing waste of a good title and several good pieces of ass.

Hack-o-Lantern (1988) - 2/4

Produced and directed by Bollywood rejects Raj Mehrotra and Jag Mundhra respectively, Hack-o-Lantern is a preposterous satanic cult/slasher hybrid about a young man groomed by his grandpa to take over his cult.

Dad wants grandpa to leave the boy alone, so he's gonna head on out there. Turns out 'out there' is just next door, where a satanic cult is practicing a ritual no-one seemed to know about--just next door!

The boy grows into a moody, muscular loser who listens to metal and works out all day. One day he listens to metal and fantasizes a random '80s music video, in which a black girl struts down stairs, sticks out her tongue, and shoots '80s lasers at the band until only the boy is left.

Meanwhile, his sister is getting ready for a Halloween party and sets her best friend up with her normal brother. Normal enough. Then her brother screws her best friend in the cemetery on the first date. The best friend tells the sister about it and, rather than be disturbed, they go back to the cemetery together to look at the spot. Don't all sisters do that? Stare at their brothers' fresh hump-spots.

It's almost at the climactic showdown when a comedian (the great Bill Tucker, remember him? He's famous for being the comedian in Hack-o-Lantern!) steps out and begins doing a lengthy impression of a one-eyed turkey. What? I don't know.

Sexual harassment. Lecherous grandpa. Very campy grandpa. Incest. Truck full of pumpkins. Graveyard sex. Sex on top of a dead body. Satanic cult. Gee, grandpa's evil, whodathunkit? Random '80s metal video. Random awful comedian. Random snake lady. Geisha. Cowboy. Scary cult of... uh, about four people. '80s lazers. Satanist vs Satanist showdown, with pitchforks. Patricide. Matricide. Infanticide. Turkey impressions. Bald beaver. A few titties. Bad jokes. And a little romance for the lady viewers.

Nekkid: 2/4
Gore: 2/4
Awful puns: 5
Humour: 3/4 - kinda in Troll 2 territory here

Short Reviews for Nov. 22, 2010: Yuzna and Russo

This is a new feature on Lair of the Boyg. Because my reviews are usually so long and in-depth, I find I don't get to write about even a tenth of the films I'd like to write about. With a Short Reviews feature, I can provide lighter, free-form, more playful reviews that cover films I either can't or don't feel inclined to write about in depth.

Three Brian Yuzna Films:

Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 (1990) - 3.5/4

Sometimes you really do find a brilliant film buried in a sequel. Brian Yuzna's SNDN 4, for instance, subtitled 'The Initiation' is a Cronenbergian attempt to deal with the man-hating popular feminism of the '80s from a reasonable man's point of view. Borrowing ideas from the history of horror cinema, the film tells the story of an underappreciated but ambitious woman who takes a news story against her boss's wishes and finds herself sucked into the trap of a coven of witches. The film poses a lot of interesting questions about guilt, resentment, bigotry, religion, and oppression; and, gratefully, it doesn't really give answers.

Clint Howard. Inadequate, half-eaten hamburger. Giant, freaky centipede thing. Cockroaches everywhere. Abrasive, ambitious overachieving chick--everyone thinks she's a bitch and they're right. Her boyfriend thinks she's a fine piece of ass, and he's right. Giant cockroaches. Vomiting in the toilet. Spontaneous combustion. Lezzy, witchy bookstore owner--I've known a few of those. Rosemary's Baby-style coven. Fat naked guy with a nose-boner. Gratuitous violence to Clint Howard. Abdominal insect penetration. Insect-vomiting. Insect-crushing. Hideous adult birth scene. Resentful, man-hating women. Women who say, "But he's a man, what does his life matter?" Men who say, "Women belong in the kitchen!" Girls who say, "Get off of me! You're like a dog in heat!" Bad beer jokes. Lots of gooey stuff. Human sacrifice. The secretary from Moonlighting playing basically the same character. Body-morphing a la Videodrome. Flame-shooting arms. Combusting legs. Gratuitous violence to a bigot. They're burning Christmas. Judaism vs Christianity. Christianity vs Paganism. Apatheism wins. How quickly children forgive. And a little romance for the lady viewers.

Nekkid: 1/4
Gore: 2/4
Icky, gooey stuff: 4/4
Humour: 2.5/4 - come on, it's got Clint Howard.

Rottweiler (2004) - 2.5/4

Yuzna's killer dog film about an American in a European country who escapes prison and is pursued by the prison's cyborg dog. Probably the most ambitious killer dog film ever made. Not that the competition is fierce.

- Hero and dog are linked on some level, destined to destroy one another.
- The loss of the hero's girl and the robotic mechanism of the dog occurred together.
- The hero hallucinates the dog, making it a spectral sort of conscience, like Francis Thompson's Hound of Heaven. Jealousy, guilt, and guilt for jealousy.
- The chase itself is really just an excuse for a dark, even morbid picaresque romp involving thieves, drug dealers, whores, female rapists, flower-picking little girls, crazy industrialists, bounty hunters, and more.
- Symbolism of the fog as our fumbling toward a destiny we can't escape.
- Symbolism of the scorpion, the cruel sting of death we can't escape.
- Dystopian world with countries run by a crazy industrialist Paul Naschy.
- Privileged thrill-seekers trying to escape ennui by infiltrating forbidden nations, getting in over their heads. At least the ennui is gone.
- The game of infiltration: infiltrating the mind and soul.
- The progress of self-realization, as the hero flees the prison of ignorance and arrives on the open shores of understanding.
- The supernatural visions, omens, hallucinations that pervade the story like fog make the film more expressionistic than realistic.

Despite some of the silliness, cliche moments, stupid writing, and sometimes-CGI, sometimes-puppet, sometimes-real dog, Rottweiler is far better than any made-in-Spain evil-robot-dog-movie has any right to be.

Nekkid: 0/4 for dudes, 1.5/4 for the ladies
Gore: 2.5/4
People the dog kills for no good reason whatsoever: 8
Humour: 1.5/4

Beneath Still Waters (2005) - 2.5/4

Yuzna ever seems to be in Stuart Gordon's wake. First with the Re-Animator series, now with heading over to Spain and shooting a Lovecraftian evil town flick. Gordon made Dagon (2001) and Yuzna gives us Beneath Still Waters (2005). How does it stack up?

Screenwriting 101: deepen characters with tragic backstories; have the male and female confide their tragedies to one another in a moment that ends in a kiss; the tragic backstory must come back to haunt the hero in the climax. Monster left over from The Resurrected or Castle Freak. Very '90s feel here. Effeminate evil sorceror. Kid-killing. Kid-eating. Jaw-breaking. Tongue-eating (is that what he's doing?!). Evil book. Evil fire. Evil seaweed. Spooky flooded town. Chained up satanists. A-hole cop. Cute Spanish girl in bikini--is she legal or isn't she? is it right to wanna plough her or isn't it? Oh, her bimbo friend looks old enough, must be okay. But her mom is young and bangable too--what a conundrum. Botoxed-out reporter. Wet-suits a-plenty. Annoying kids a-plenty. Awkward melodramatic exits a-plenty. Awkward character exposition a-plenty. Frog. Two-headed deformity. Self-mutilation. Magic mutilation. Characters who sit around watching murders. Orgy time! Titties on cake! Cake on titties ("Frosted flakes")! Man-on-man dry humping! Spanking! Whipping! Attempted screwing! Riding! Stripping! Impromptu bondage! Pretty tame stuff from the guy who gave us Society. And a little romance for the lady viewers.

Nekkid: 1/4
Gore: 2.5/4
Number of times Marcia is pronounced Mar-SEE-uh: 8
Humour: 0.5/4

Three John A. Russo films:

John A. Russo, the other Night of the Living Dead guy--kind of the 'loser brother' to George A. Romero--has had an interesting and uneven film career. Let's have a look.

Midnight (1982) - 3/4

A girl runs away from home, hitchhikes with some dudes in a van, and becomes the captive of some backwoods Satanists. Will daddy come to the rescue in time?

Religious fanaticism. Drunken stepfather. Rapey stepfather. Rendered unconscious stepfather. Takin' to the road, 1960s roughie style--with one bag n' a gee-tar. Random sexual proposition. Nice guys in a van. Sensible black guy. Fun with shoplifting. Rejected chips!!!! Preacher with a long, boring story and a cute daughter. Good samaritanism. Campin' under the stars. Random racism. "White boy!" galore--that's more racism, isn't it? Yes, black racist. Fat, cackling hick--didn't Russo steal that from Just Before Dawn? Guy with tight, stuffed pants. Gratuitous frisbee game. Satanic rituals. Talkin' to dead mother. Girls in little dog cages--is it wrong I was turned on? Head removin'. Hippie shootin'. Girl slicin'. Preacher killin'. Hick shootin'. Body disposin'. Grocery stealin'. Christian prayin'. Hick burnin'. Hick clobberin'. Blood drinkin'. And a little romance for the lady viewers.

Kind of a summary of 1970s exploitation genres: Summa Exploitica.

Nekkid: Nein!
Gore: 2.5/4
Racists: 9
Humour: 1/4

Dark Craving (1991) - 3/4

A soft-spoken physician is burned as a vampire/witch for his experiments in curing diseases, helping people, not sleeping with his brother's slutty wife and similarly sinister activities. Centuries later he emerges from a landfill alive, well, naked, and a vampire with venomous saliva. He finds friends, enemies, romance, and despair in our strange, modern world.

Accusations of sorcery, like puss-drinkin'. Genteel vampire. Evil antique dealer. Naked guy emerges from a landfill. Not only is he a vampire, he's a no-good dirty Tory! Chat with a priest about fluid exchanges. Tom Savini weightlifting. Tom Savini shooting things. 1980s American thrash soundtrack. One of the most interesting explanations for vampirism I've ever heard: superstition and the accusations themselves have transformed an innocent, victimized man into the feared monster. Antique dealin'. Museum visitin'. Accidental little girl killin'. Bikini girl assaultin'. Saliva secretin'. Street thug killin'. Catholic confessin'. Inept vampirin'. Girl stalkin'. Vampire macin'. Vampire shootin'. Priest killin'. Needless backstory for police officer. Moon Unit. And a lot of romance for the lady viewers.

Nekkid: Just that vampire guy's ass.
Gore: 3/4 - Tom Savini
Useless information about minor characters: Lots.
Humour: 0.5/4

Santa Claws (1996) - 0.5/4

A boy murders his mother and her santa-suit-wearing fat boyfriend. The detective calls this "piss-poor behaviour", but the boy is allowed to roam free to become an adult and die-hard fan of scream queen Debbie Rochon (playing Brinke Stevens, basically). But who's gonna die hard? The men who are using, abusing, and trying to take away the lovely scream queen.

Debbie Rochon's titties. Camcorder cinematography a-plenty. Lots of hot girls showing titties and pussywillow. Milf titties. Hairy, old fat guy gropin' milf. Crazy scream queen fan. Lengthy discussion about what pathetic losers scream queen fans are. The glamorous life of a tittie photographer. Creepy neighbour no-one seems able to notice is extremely sketchy. Murder with tiny gardening hook that could barely pierce a half-inch of flesh. There is a santa costume at some point. Bitchy mother-in-law. Bitchy sister-in-law. Did you contact the divorce lawyer yet? Scream queens just get no respect. Makin' out with a mannequin. Nerd dream sequence. How many times are they gonna say Scream Queens' Naked Christmas? And a little romance for the lady viewers.

Nekkid: 2.5/4
Gore: 0.5/4
Times you think, "Russo should have known better": at least 50.
Humour: 0.5/4

The Reflecting Skin (1990)

The Reflecting Skin is a grotesque picture on childhood horror, the terror of being innocent. This is especially the case when one's father is incinerated before one's eyes, one's closest friends are murdered by a gang of bored teens in a shiny car, and the mysterious foreign woman might be a vampire with a taste for one's older brother (a young Viggo Mortensen). The film is told entirely from the point of view of Seth Dove, a fairly typical boy with a strong imagination trapped in a lifeless rural area and surrounded by creepy and/or disturbed adults.

Renowned playwright Philip Ridley wrote and directed with a fine touch for the visual. The hanging jaws decorating the whaler's widow's home threaten to devour the meek Seth as he apologizes for a cruel prank. A dessicated fetus he finds buried and begins speaking to, an exploded frog, a sheriff missing multiple bodyparts (a reference to Lionel Atwill's character in The Son of Frankenstein, I wonder?), amongst other things contribute to the grotesque texture. Visual motifs of contrasting green and yellow grasses, some smooth and some jarring transitions comprise Ridley's visual style.

While Ridley's background as a playwright lends the films many strengths, it also detracts in some ways. Even had I not known Ridley wrote and directed, I would have guessed a playwright wrote the screenplay, simply because it reeks of the modern dramatic style. If you've ever read or seen performed Beckett, Pinter, or Shepard, the mother's muttering about gasoline, the economy of objects (heaven forbid that whaling spear not be used as a weapon!), and the sometimes too-evident linguistic motifs will seem familiar and artificial. And if you haven't read or seen any of those performed, think of the play with which Barton Fink opens.

Overall, The Reflecting Skin is not so heavy on narrative as it is on experience. Ridley's strength is really in recreating for the audience the genuine experience of childhood encountering, even creating, horror with innocence and gradually losing that innocence. A series of interrelated experiences over a single, awful summer in Seth Dove's life serve to steal Seth's innocence away as he ultimately makes a decision that costs someone their life. I could feel Seth's bewilderment and dread at many points, whereas at other points his psychology was alien to me. He's not a normal kid; but with parents like his, how could he be? At times one sympathizes with him and at other times he's a terrible puzzle. I think that's true of most innocent things, particularly children. We've all done odd things as children and experienced things of which we couldn't quite grasp the ramifications.

It's notoriously difficult to direct children, probably even more difficult to capture childhood in a film, let alone a horror film. The Reflecting Skin is second only to Night of the Hunter in accomplishing this. On the one hand, it's much more honest about children and childhood than Night of the Hunter. Lilian Gish's insipid comment that children "abide" is frankly embarrassing. On the other hand, The Reflecting Skin manages to set that childhood in a drastically more perverse landscape.

Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997)

Guy Maddin was apparently immersed in French decadent writers during the preparation for Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, and writer George Toles was immersed in austere Nordic literature, Knut Hamsun in particular. Ice Nymphs, as such, is a clash of two radically opposed attitudes toward art and existence. Visually, it is morbidly indulgent in the cheerful artifice of decadence, whereas the characters and their impressionistic dialogue reveal the inhabitants of the pleasant world to be remarkably displeased, dreary, in agony. Such a gorgeous world and not a soul to enjoy it.

That is the real tragedy of Ice Nymphs and its major theme: imprisonment. These are self-involved, unfulfilled people in a world that promises boundless fulfillment. Mandragora is a mid-summer night's paradise, but hell is other people. I'm reminded of Alain de Botton's thoughts on travel. He argues that while people travel far from their familiar land in the hope for release and renewal, as if it was their location that prevented them from relaxing and freeing themselves, they can never travel away from themselves. Maddin and Toles' characters are imprisoned within themselves. The motif of imprisonment is repeated often, but it is no external prison that holds these characters: they are free in the lush land of Mandragora, but trapped within themselves.

Ice Nymphs is about a man, Peter, returning to the underground island of Mandragora, where the sun never sets, after a long stay in prison that left scars on his wrists. While on ship he meets a beautiful girl. She disappears, but he can't get her out of his mind. Arriving on Mandragora, he finds his spinster sister Amelia in a bitter conflict with her old servant. He wants to buy her ostrich farm and his patience is wearing thin. Amelia wants to get married first and has her eye set on a Dr. Solti, who is more a magician in the spirit of The Tempest's Prospero than a mad scientist, though there's more than a hint of Bride of Frankenstein's Dr. Pretorius in him. Solti, however, has fallen for the beautiful assistant who nursed him after his statue crushed his leg. And wouldn't you know it, the assistant is the girl from the boat. Complicating the matter is the fisherman's wife Zephyr, with whom Peter has already struck up a sexual relationship. Thus is the complicated love pentangle.

I suppose it was a brave decision for Maddin to leave Toles' very stylized dialogue as it was written. Not only that, but for a Maddin picture, Ice Nymphs is dialogue heavy indeed. Sounding not unlike the elementary English of a children's program with a broader vocabulary (including 'fuck'), it can be distracting, even if the artificiality is right at home with Maddin's decadence. Along with the purple colours, boats, and the style of dialogue, I was reminded immediately of Fassbinder's Querelle, though Maddin claims not to have seen a single Fassbinder picture at that point. Like Querelle, an effort on the part of the audience is required to get into the world at hand and even then the conceptual rather than real emotional lives of these characters tends to be rather boring.

As far as being a work of decadence goes, I think Maddin may have missed his mark. Ice Nymphs looks and feels much more symbolist than decadent. The movements were very closely linked, but not the same. Maddin claims his visual guide was Gustav Moreau (a symbolist) and that the bright colours are a result of printer brightening. While I'm sure Maddin wouldn't lie, the surface articulation that is such a prominent feature in Moreau is mostly lacking in Ice Nymphs, with the exception of Solti's lab, and that can't be explained by printer errors. I was reminded much more of Odilon Redon's late colour pastels. Maddin had just done a short two years prior to Ice Nymphs in the visual style of Redon's early black and white works; Ice Nymphs feels like a visual sequel, as it were.

Maddin said in an interview or commentary somewhere--I forget where--that nothing worked in Ice Nymphs. I think he's being too harsh on himself. It's as visually beautiful a fantasy as one could ask for, due to the aesthetic, yes, but also to the lovely women, Pascale Bussieres, Alice Krige, and Shelley Duvall. Toles, moreover, comes up with some wonderful speeches for his characters, with Solti and Amelia getting the best of them. Nevertheless, Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, while certainly worth watching and even worthy of its comparison to what I believe to be the superior Querelle, is far from a complete success. A lesser Guy Maddin picture is like a lesser Rembrandt painting: far better than these eyes deserve. I'm grateful Maddin made Ice Nymphs and you should be, too.

Demonia (1990)

Demonia is about as confusing and esoteric as anything Fulci's done, with the possible exception of Manhattan Baby. Any real narrative coherence is localized in the dull characters; but it is essentially a series of odd happenings that aren't odd enough to be interesting.

At the heart of the story is Liza (played by the very beautiful Meg Register). She's an archaeology student who goes to seances to gain knowledge the easy way: directly from the inhabitants of the past. Before going to a dig in Sicily she has a seance that affects her in profound ways. Although she's supposed to be investigating an Ancient Greek settlement, she now finds herself supernaturally drawn to an old Catholic monastery where a group of nuns had been crucified. The more interest she shows in this monastery, the more the surly Sicilian townsfolk become hostile. And then strange deaths begin to occur.

Demonia is Fulci's approach to the Battle of the Sexes. The head of the dig, Paul, keeps ordering Liza to forget the monastery and she keeps disobeying. The Sicilian townsfolk are all men, with one exception; they are all obsessed with keeping the secret of what happened in that monastery, except, of course, the one woman, who reveals all. The nuns, as it turns out, had turned to Satan. At least, that's what this woman says; inside the convent, 'Azathoth' is seen carved into a doorway, giving the story some Lovecraftian tones. The nuns have been conducting orgies and then murdering the men. So a group of men murder the nuns. Now a woman has brought back the spirit of the nuns, or the prioress anyway, and men are being murdered again--and the woman who blabbed. One murder is particularly shocking, involving a boy forced to witness his father torn in half like a wishbone. So it's really all about these tensions between men and women; not that it matters much.

The film's problems begin with the dull characters. All these events are happening, but the characters aren't very interesting, so who cares? The mystery of the convent is spelled out in the opening scene, so the story doesn't draw one in. The supernatural goings-on are themselves not particularly inspired, either, so there's not even the setpieces to recommend. The nunsploitation angle is covered in one flashback to nun-humping action. The few gore scenes are well-done, however, and the sets/locations are very nicely photographed, with some atmosphere, though not much.

Demonia, in my view, is Fulci's weakest film. It is a failure, albeit an interesting failure for those who like Fulci's nearly-plotless late works as I do. To sum up: the story just isn't good enough, the setting has a bland feel, Fulci's inspiration stylistically and visually is lacking, and the setpieces aren't very creative.

Bonus points:
Ghost boobies
Warning: cat puppets may result in injury to the eyes
Tongue-stab
Worst Irish accent ever

A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1990)

How much should I write about a film with almost no dialogue? I pondered writing the review exclusively in screen captures and emoticons, but the spell of Dinosaur Hell has worn off and I find myself quite literate again.

A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell begins with a very goofy and poorly read introduction that you'll never have to think about during the movie. It explains that dinosaurs mutated from housepets and humans became either mutants or barbarians. The film would have been better off not explaining it; the visuals speak loud and clear and it really requires no explanation. There are dinosaurs and mutants in a hellish, post-apocalyptic landscape populated by sexy barbarians: good enough.

The plot, as it were, arises when an evil barbarian named Glon takes a shine to the female half of a sexy barbarian couple. She's hardly 'nymphoid,' except for being young and beautiful. She's actually very faithful to her man Marn--and not a wonder, as he may be even better-looking than she is. Glon, like anyone who read the title, is convinced she's a nymphoid and is keen on getting it on with her. So he beats up Marn and runs off with girl. Marn sets out to save her. In the meantime, she manages to escape and tries to find Marn with the help of a Masked Stranger. Along the way she encounters cool-looking dinosaurs, lizard people, dragons, and, of course, Glon, who keeps showing up and attempting to rape her. He's a crap rapist; he has to take some lessons from David Hess.

The lack of dialogue doesn't hurt this film at all; if you try to imagine what sort of dialogue would be found in a film called A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell, I think you'll agree. It also adds to the feel of primitivism and allowed me to focus on the pure visual storytelling. I had hoped the visuals would be fascinating and fun or that there would be some moments of quiet wonder, given that the film is set in dinosaur hell and all. As it happens, most of the shots are of fights or of walking across rocky or grassy terrains. The only moment that's really fantastic is when the girl is shown a picture book by the Masked Stranger. It's a children's book, teaching the alphabet. It's a sweet moment, in which the large, innocent eyes of our nymphoid pays off. There's also a funny punchline that I'd rather not ruin for you.

So, on the one hand, A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell is much better than a film called A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell has any right to be; on the other hand, it's also much worse than a film called A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell should be. With that title, it should be wilder, cheesier, crazier. It's a very mellow film that takes its time and passes through the dinosaur hell vistas matter-of-factly. A few striking compositions, the costumes, sets, the Harryhausen-esque creature designs, and general inventiveness recommends it for those who think they can handle barbarian storytelling: this is just what a barbarian story should be.

Talisman (1998)

The plot of Talisman is culled from a few sources, the most evident of which are Narciso Serrador's La Residencia and the Prophecy movies. The setting is La Residencia, but with all the genders swapped. It takes place in a strict boarding school for older boys/young men, where the obviously lesbian headmistress keeps her daughter from having contact with any of the boys. Enter new boy Elias Storm, who begins to notice strange things happening. As he investigates, he learns more about a mysterious talisman and it's role in opening the gateway to hell that will cause the end of the world.

If you've seen La Residencia, you can already guess who the villain is. It's just got a supernatural twist this time. Also if you've seen La Residencia, you can already smell the gender-related themes. I sometimes take cheap shots at subtextual criticism, but this is a case where it applies very well. The sexual tensions amongst the boys are just bubbling and the only girl in the school is dangled before them and, yep, killing them. (That's not a spoiler.) One of the boys, the most homoerotic of them all, is so vocal and obsessive about his desire to have sex with her that he becomes the least believable, like he has to constantly remind himself he wants her. Only the hero doesn't show any interest in her.

You often hear of a great idea with poor execution. Well this is a pretty wretched and typical late-90s supernatural horror idea given execution far better than it deserves. The interests and personality of Elias Storm are built up sufficiently for the climax to pay off and have a certain fluidity. The worldview of the villain, which she expresses at that point, is rather fascinating and totally amoral. I also liked the character of the head mistress, who says things like, "You're the worthless son of a wealthy family; and if one is going to be worthless, it is always a good idea to be wealthy." That is one well-phrased barb and Oana Stefanescu, whoever that is, delivers the line perfectly.

(I do have one complaint, and that's with the arithmetic of the scriptwriter. One character is supposed to be about two years older than another, who is 18. But the age of the older character is given as 16. So there's a mistake of four years there. It's not important, it just bugged me and I'm sort of proud of myself for catching it.)

Overall, this is a fairly mediocre late-90s supernatural horror and pretty much what you'd expect coming from Full Moon. I think of Full Moon as not unlike Hammer: you're assured a certain level of production quality when you watch their films, even if the ideas are often vapid. As to DeCoteau, he does give some of what he's become famous for: boys in their underwear. I wouldn't mind if the young men were better-looking--it's always nice to see beautiful things--but these men are callow and unappealing, save for one or two. So it's an average but decent b-movie.

Sorority House Vampires from Hell (1998)

Hey! It's the '90s again! If you didn't like the '90s, not a chance you'll like Sorority House Vampires from Hell, because it's steeped in '90s. Bimbos, 90210 references, Keanu Reeves references, surfer-speak. The filmmaker, Geoffrey de Vallois, much like his name, draws upon European influences to craft a catalogue of the phenomena of his age, showing the social awareness of the French New Wave.

So, as you might guess, this is a Buffy cash-in, except in this film the blond, ditzy heroine is named--oh no, wait, she's named "Buffy" too. The plot is that there's this demon in a UFO. I didn't know he was a demon until I read the back of the box. But he's a demon. In a bold move, the filmmaker only shows us the inside of the UFO, showing his film is all about what's beyond the surface. Wanna see the inside of the ship? http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2658/4085492994_1babc0c33f.jpg Those CGI tentacles are the demon, I guess. And I forgot to mention the UFO is full of busty, naked chicks who sometimes dance and sometimes get penetrated by the CGI tentacles. It's good to be a UFO demon.

And this demon's plan for world domination is to awake the only two vampires on earth, Vlad and Natalia. Vlad is the comic relief and mostly does accident-prone slapstick in a single room. Natalia is a scrawny, pale broad who makes zombies by biting people on the neck. She has to make nine zombies before some comet passes, she tells us.
Here's Natalia: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2548/4085493036_ce66c3dbbd.jpg

So Natalia begins gradually turning the busty, fit sorority girls into zombies one-by-one while inside the sorority house some lame hazing commences. The hazing sequences parallel the efforts of Natalia in cinematic rhymes making one wonder, "Who are the vampires in this world really? Do we not suck self-esteem from one another to build up ourselves?"

The runtime is a full 90 minutes, so it's padded out with a lot of wacky comedy. Like rednecks with laser guns trying to shoot a man wearing antlers.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2731/4084733973_d7cf7795a5.jpg
An impromptu fashion show.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2681/4085492906_3e89ed0b88.jpg
An impromptu infomercial. An impromptu music video. Subtitles, self-conscious references to subtitles, surfer dudes who speak so righteously jargon-heavy they require said bogus subtitles, an over-the-top New Ager who, naturally, is also a vegetarian and environmentalist and who gets in a lengthy conversation about the value of religion with Natalia. And, strangest of all, many references to the current economic state of the US in 1998. de Vallois's social consciousness is clearly doing for American cinema what Godard was doing for French cinema with his Dziga-Vertov Group films of the '60s; he is calling for revolutionary action, by comparing his vampire queen to the profiteering oil companies sucking our earth dry.

There are also lots of penguin plushes:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2696/4084734029_0793f9e0ba.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2557/4084734045_6049633722.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2596/4085492974_03bd9e5aab.jpg - Me too.

The film culminates with Buffy, whose total lack of expressive powers reveal her to be the doom-filled personification of this generation's indifference, attacks the vampire queen who has already killed Vlad herself and become human again and the UFO demon turning to his back-up plan of Y2K.

You know what the problem is with a lot of these ZANY shot-on-video releases? It's not the production values or the amateur actors and directors. It's that it's generally a bunch of people together amusing themselves by making a movie, but not worrying at all about amusing the audience.

Sorority House Vampires from Hell looks like it was a lot of fun to make, but it's not really all that fun to watch. It made me laugh in a few places, only twice with well-earned jokes (one involving a Monty Python reference, oddly enough). This is toward the end of the film, when they've built up some steam and in-jokes. But mostly the zany, anything-goes approach is tedious. I have to admit they found some pretty cute girls with nice tits, though. Not that it helps much. This film is way too tongue-in-cheek for its own good.

And I leave you with this:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2441/4084733997_8ab33b0145.jpg - Here the director has symbolically removed the tops of his actresses' heads, making a point about the mindlessness of youth. His care to keep the soft, be-pantied rump and purple-bra-cupped breasts in shot reveal much about his cinematic style.

The Unnamable I & II

The Unnamable (1988)
In an interview with Jonathan Ross, Sam Raimi explained that although there are two schools of horror that he respects--the show and the don't-show--he likes to mix them up. Why? Because people have pretty good imaginations, but then again, he can think up some pretty awful stuff too. What I like about Lovecraftian movies is that the writers and/or directors do have to think of some pretty awful creatures. I like seeing monsters; they're fun. The Unnamable thrives on withholding its nasty creature from you until the end (unless you were unfortunate enough to look at the stupid fucking box cover before watching!); the biggest shock is seeing the monster's tits.

The plot has a very constrained quality that struck me as uncomfortable at first. Nearly everything takes place in one abandoned house in the town of Arkham, where Miskatonic University students go and get murdered by a three-hundred year old creature summoned into being by a puttering sorceror. That is basically the whole plot. One of the students just happens to be a folklore scholar who knows what to do. A lot of mysteries occured to me at first: why is the creature staying in this house all this time? why hasn't a real estate agent gotten to this house? why hasn't anyone looted the place? how are doors closing and locking on their own? I was well-surprised when everything is efficiently explained without feeling forced. Basically, it's magic. As for the feeling of being constrained, that remains, but they manage to have enough interesting things happening on the small set that it is a negligible problem.

The biggest strength of The Unnamable, however, is the characters, and the screenwriter/director seems to get that. His protagonists have instantly recognizably distinct personalities that remains consistent to the end--at the expense of some psychological realism, I suppose. The pairing of Carter and Howard is actually strong enough that I think they could have easily held up a series of unrelated films where they go around Arkham dealing with its monster problems, kind of like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby crossed with Ghostbusters. The actors (Charles Klausmeyer and Mark Kinsey Stephenson) are just so perfect in these roles. I guess their agents weren't as smart as me, though--but, hey, who is?--because all they did after The Unnamable was The Unnamable II. So let's waste no time getting to that.

The Unnamable II (1993)
The sequel picks up right where the first left off, with the police arriving. Right away I know that feeling of constraint is thankfully going to be absent in the sequel, but it's replaced by a fear: this film isn't going to be as hermetic; it'll just be arbitrarily constrained to a few characters when it should be affecting many people. Just as the first film surprised me, so does this one. It manages to give a very plausible explanation for keeping relatively localized action that manages to be much more expansive than a single old house.

Another enjoyable feature is that the writer allows himself to indulge in Lovecraft mythos. The seeds had all been planted in the first film, the second just explores them in much more depth and observes how they grow. It even tries to offer some scientific grounds for the mythos, with quantum physics and molecular biology being thrown in. So, on a side note, if you've ever wanted to know what a demon from another dimension's blood cells look like, I can tell you they're black and gray.

This doesn't hold the film back from action. It is largely an extended chase sequence. The monster, it is found, has been overlapping a human body. Once separated, we're left with a young woman and a monster who desperately wants to get that body back. A chase ensues and many kill scenes. Strangely, it's not a very suspenseful movie; I think the first was more of a scare-based film. This is more of a monster movie. Yes, there's some gore and some suspense, but it wasn't as scary as the first.

There are some flaws. While the strength of the first film was the pairing of Carter and Howard, this film, subtitled "The Statement of Randolph Carter" suffers from separating Carter and Howard. Carter and the young woman run and try to find a needed spell, whereas Howard is left with precious little to do. The screenwriter had no idea what to do with him and it shows. Another problem is, as in the first, a lack of psychological realism, only much worse this time. Not only largely unphased by the ordeal of the first film, they return to the house and start messing around with the captured monster after diving gungho into the tunnels under the graveyard. Why? It's servicable to the plot and there's no time for psychologically plausible delays.

On the plus side, the young woman is, as you might have guessed, a hottie and she's naked the entire movie. And yet there's not one nude scene. You never see her breasts or her vulva, just her butt; she has very long hair. I liked this. It makes her more innocent and made me feel the film was respecting her. She goes a long way to making the film. She really feels like an innocent wood nymph, new in the world of Man. She looks like an innocent wood nymph, with magically plucked eyebrows and magically shaved legs. She is magically beautiful. She's overwhelmingly attractive, so very beautiful and shapely. A scene where she discovers how nice a bed sheet feels on her skin should have just about every warm-blooded male wide-eyed. It is one of the cutest and sexiest things I've ever seen. She's played by Maria Ford, incidentally.

We also get both John Rhys Davies and David Warner in this film. I have a feeling Warner had other scenes that were cut, because we only see him once. But there you go.

So, in summary, both very fun creature features with some cool characters--both the leads and supporting cast. I don't see any reason not to like these films. They're made with pure joy, they're made well, and they're deep enough in the Lovecraft mythos.

Lurking Fear (1994)

I actually saw the poster for Lurking Fear in a video store back in '94 and was desperately curious. I never did get a chance to see it. I wish it had remained that way. Lurking Fear is a bad movie. It's not an amusingly bad movie. It's a frustratingly bad movie. It insults your intelligence and doesn't deliver much on the fun.

A handsome, muscular man gets out of prison and goes looking for his criminal father's stash of money. It's in a cemetery in some town where, we learn, the population has been steadily shrinking due to some monster's living underground. Why don't the people just evacuate the stupid town? The only people who seem to be left are Jeffrey Combs, Kirsty from Hellraiser (Ashley Laurence), a priest, and a pregnant woman. Enter Mr. Beefcake, trailed by some caricature mob goons who want the money. All of these thoroughly unpleasant characters bicker, play tough-guy, mouth-off to each other, point guns at each other, take guns from each other, while the monsters occasionally reach a hand up from below.

One hopes and prays the monsters will consume these miserable pieces of human refuse. Only Jeffrey Combs is really likeable--because he's Jeffrey Combs. The rest are just annoying. Ashley Laurence is the most annoying of them all. The tough guy act just never stops with her. If you thought Wolverine from X-Men was annoying, hoo boy, she's got him beat. Speaking of which, Beefcake resembles Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. He also finds an excuse to go shirtless, which had me thinking, "Ah, so this is how women must feel when there is gratuitous T&A."

Long story short: the characters are heinous and poorly written, the monsters are boring and largely ineffectual, the plot is incoherent to put it lightly, and at 76 minutes it still runs too long. Most people here know I like nearly everything I watch. Lurking Fear beat me. It is bad and insulting. Stuart Gordon had actually been set to direct this. I think had Charles Band let Gordon write and direct, Lurking Fear may have been good. Perhaps what makes me hate the movie so much is just that the raw material is good; it's the execution that is repugnantly bad.

Castle Freak (1995)

Stuart Gordon doesn't get his due. Sure, the Re-Animator is a classic of sorts, but what about Gordon the director? Gordon the horror auteur who is always trying for something really new? With each horror film, he departs more from formula and invents his own way, a new way, of delving into the macabre and frightening the audience. He's not as intellectual as Romero, but he's formally a more innovative director.

With Castle Freak, Gordon reveals a particularly mature approach to horror that sort of works and sort of doesn't. It is has the salacious and scandalous seriousness of the more sordid works of gothic literature. Also like gothic novels, the film is predicated on the theme of family, particularly dark family secrets. It also takes place in a castle. Yes, indeed, Castle Freak is a salacious and sensationalist piece of gothic storytelling.

The plot concerns a husband (Jeffrey Combs), his wife (Barbara Crampton), and his blind daughter coming to the castle he has just inherited from his aunt, the duchess. They get more than they bargained for when the chronically abused, mutilated son in the cellar breaks free and wants sex, lots of sex--like Shakespeare's Caliban. In the meanwhile, Combs and Crampton are constantly in emotional conflict because his drunk driving took the life of their son.

The term 'mean-spirited' is often used as a dismissive term. Castle Freak is mature--there's no funny stuff, the themes are serious, the emotions of the characters are given room to be expressed and explored in earnest--but as I noted, also salacious. The combination gives the film a mean-spirited edge. One particular scene gives a whole new meaning to the expression 'eating a girl out.' It is unpleasant, but not unnecessary.

The film deals very much with the theme of sexual frustration. Just as Combs is forever denied by his wife, the freak from the cellar lacks a sexual organ to do anything with the women he captures. Where Combs takes out his frustration in more peaceful ways--or by going to prostitutes--the monster becomes violent.

Castle Freak is actually a very good, thoughtful movie. There are a few stupid moments. For instance, one wonders how a mutilated man kept in a cellar for decades is suddenly strong enough to break down doors and overpower a rather hefty police officer. One also must endure seeing the freak's ballsack a lot, because it's naked during the entire latter half of the film--I suppose that's a touch of realism I should be applauding, but I could have done without monster balls in my face. However, all that aside, one is left really with a mature approach to horror that has largely been neglected due to the general immaturity of the times. Had it been more playful like The Reanimator, it might have satisfied our juvenile tastes better. As it stands, it may be appreciated in times to come. But I myself found it a bit mean-spirited and the drama between Crampton and Combs annoying.

The Resurrected (1992)

Lovecraftian horror, an elaborate mythology of the unseen and the incomprehensible forces of ancient, eldritch terrors that lurk in unspeakable nooks of forgotten time, hidden space, and unimaginable dimensions. It also involves a lot of adjectives. This is all notoriously difficult to represent in the cinematic medium, and those few that have been successful are worth clinging to with religious fervor.

I present to you, then, The Resurrected (AKA Shatterbrain) (1994), an all-too-neglected masterpiece of Lovecraftian horror and generally a very good horror film. It succeeds where many have failed. It brings The Case of Charles Dexter Ward to the screen with a fair number of alterations, but they all work; it shows as much as it can, but it all scares and leaves one thinking that this was only the tip of the iceberg.

Director Dan O'Bannon also happens to be the screenwriter behind Alien, The Return of the Living Dead (which is also his only other directing credit), and Total Recall, amongst others. As a screenwriter, his talent has been established a strongly coherent fusion of grotesque, all-too-visible horror, action, intelligent characters, and excellent suspense. Although not the obvious choice to adapt Lovecraft, this was clearly a personal project for O'Bannon.

O'Bannon's technique in The Resurrected is to fuse Lovecraft with his contemporary pulp writer Dashiell Hammett, bringing together the weird tradition with the hardboiled tradition.

Naturally, then we begin the story--after a gripping, gory frame segment--in the office of a private detective being visited by a gorgeous, classy dame. She informs him that her husband might be in trouble. It seems he's looking rather ill and has been holed up in an old house he inherited with an Asian heavy guarding the door.

The private detective's investigation takes the role of the reader in any Lovecraft story. One digs deeper into information that seems at the surface almost innocuous, if a little creepy, until its full horror detonates in one's mind. So does our detective dig himself down deeper until he finds himself in the midst of alchemical experiments and a long-dead necromancer's sinister designs.

As stated before, O'Bannon's modus operandi is to show rather than suggest. The horrible mutations are brought to life in full-bodied latex creations. These may seem a little hokey to some, to others, who still have a place in their heart for traditional horror special effects, they will be truly unsettling.

A testament to how deft the direction is, there is one scene in nearly pitch black, lit only with a match, that is so frightening it had this reviewer with his head against his knees in the middle of the day. It shows just enough and hides just enough to immerse one in the full primordial fear of the dark.

While The Resurrected has gradually been undergoing a favourable critical reevaluation since released on DVD, it still doesn't get the attention of many lesser horrors of the '90s, or indeed of many lesser Lovecraftian horrors. As a uniquely successful fusion of two diametrically opposed trends--suggest-don't-show from Lovecraft and the show-it-all from O'Bannon--this is film is particularly worthy of a wider audience and greater scrutiny.

The Ninth Gate (1999)

Old books have a destiny of their own and a life of their own.
Some books are dangerous, not to be opened with impunity.

It’s a very particular sort of person who is into rare books. The sort of person who would know that Shakespeare invented the word ‘assassinate,’ and might still say ‘perchance’ without a hint of irony. Antiquarian, unusual, and probably rich, it is into the midst of such people Roman Polanski takes us in The Ninth Gate.

Polanski is a director I’ve always admired for his exploration of unique themes. In Rosemary’s Baby, he explores the state of the couple, the family in an urban environment: has it lost or gained something by its independence from traditional solidarity? In The Tenant, he explores the nature of modern apartment dwelling. In The Ninth Gate, he explores the power and mystique of the book. Films about films are innumerable, but films about books are perchance fewer than a dozen.

Of note is also Polanski’s approach to horror. He does not deliver shocks. He is decidedly unhitchcockian. Polanski’s method is to create an unsettled mood; a sense that something is wrong, disordered in the world. In Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant, for instance, it is paranoia about neighbours. In Chinatown, though a noir, there is a horrific sense of awful things hidden in plain sight. With The Ninth Gate, that feeling of unsettlement is created early on and builds to the climax: there is just something not right with these book people, with their unhealthy interest in old, forgotten tomes; neither is there with the book at the center of the film.

The film begins with an introductory vignette of a man hanging himself. After the camera pans about his lovely study, a gap is revealed in his bookcase. The camera zooms into the gap, which takes us down CGI courtyards through a series of gates (nine, not surprisingly) while the credits roll. From this first moment, we’re being pulled forward by the book to an uncertain end: when we hit the ninth gate, we see only bright light, opening onto a pan of the city that backs into the apartment where we meet Dean Corso, our anti-hero, at work.

The character of Dean Corso is quickly revealed to be a cynical, amoral figure. He is frequently referred to as a mercenary, someone whose loyalty can be bought. Polanski has Depp deliberately speak Corso’s lines with a tinge of Jack Nicholson, reminding one of Chinatown’s Giddes. One also gets hints of Philip Marlowe, especially as portrayed by Bogart in The Big Sleep. Adding to this is the way Corso smokes everywhere, around even the rarest books, and only one of the book collectors ever suggests this isn’t such a good idea—Polanski knows you can’t smoke around antique books; he doesn’t care about facts, but about a mood. Corso creates a noir mood about him as he carries out the investigation he’s been hired to investigate; a true cynic, it means nothing to him, but it pays well. A rare book dealer is accustomed to weirdoes.

As Corso (a name with overtones of running to an end) proceeds in the investigation into the book, people wind up getting murdered. A sense of destiny is added to this, as each murder is prefaced by Corso looking at an engraving in the book, where the people in the engravings look remarkably like each of the victims. Added to this are mysterious forces that seem to be forcing Corso along the path, aiding him to accomplish his task: A black-gloved killer, his own employer, the mysterious girl with mismatched socks (who may be Satan).

One catches Polanski paying homage to several masters of horror, including Hitchcock, Argento, and himself. There is a black-gloved killer following Corso, murdering many of those he comes into contact with—not unlike in Deep Red. However, there will be no grand unmasking in this film: try as I might, I can find no simple answer for who the black-gloved killer is, after seeing the film many times. A devil cult make an appearance, but perhaps with a hint of self-deprecation, Polanski has Frank Langella strangle the cult’s leader in front of the members, while they watch, and later flee, in terror.

The end of The Ninth Gate is perhaps given away in its credit sequence. It can leave the viewer disappointed and annoyed; it can also leave the viewer with something to think about. Can Corso’s cynicism be moved to outright evil? Does he realize the forces he’s gotten himself mixed up in? What is Polanski, one of the greatest horror filmmakers of all time, really up to? What is he trying to say about horror, reflecting on his past career in the genre?

For a film I find so intriguing, a film that yields some new discovery every time I watch it, while always entertaining me, it is startling how neglected it is in discussions of Polanski and in discussions of horror films of the last decade. Made in only ’99, The Ninth Gate is still fresh and has a lot to offer.

_
*Note that I purposely chose not to mention Polanski's life, which is usually brought up in discussion of his work. But for any Polanski scholars out there, there's doubtless a fair share of 'personal' material to be found in The Ninth Gate.

L'assassin jouait du trombone (1991)

REVIEW
Canada does not have a great number of thrillers under its belt. Quebec has even fewer. However, when they do make thrillers, they have an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach.

Thus is it with Roger Cantin's L'assassin jouait du trombone, possibly Quebec's only giallo-style thriller and possibly the weirdest giallo-style thriller ever made.

Augustin Merleau is a wannabe actor-comedian. He has finally accepted defeat, however, and taken a job as night security guard at a movie studio. One night, when his teenage daughter drops by, they witness a series of murders in the studio, performed by a mysterious trombone-playing assassin, seen only in silhouette. (In homage to Fritz Lang's M, the assassin plays "In the Hall of the Mountain King.")

In an effort to clear his name, Merleau sets out to solve the mystery, in the meantime getting hooked up with a gang of thugs and their sexy leader, The Countess.

It is hard to describe this film's oddness without spoilers; but suffice to say this is probably the only thriller containing a trombone-playing assassin, an evil robot, a wheelchair-bound mad scientist, and a secret underground lair beneath a movie studio.

Bizarre, sometimes farcical, pushing the envelope on 'suspension of disbelief,' this film is recommended to anyone with a taste for off-beat thrillers and gialli and unusual genre-mixing.


FACTS
Writer-Director - Roger Cantin
Starring - Germain Houde, Anaïs Goulet-Robitaille, Gildor Roy
1991
96 min.

WHERE TO GET IT:
While it is quite hard to find, it is available on DVD in Quebec, and can be found at Quebec video stores (www.archambault.ca, e.g.). If you're interested, please send a Title Request to Netflix. If they receive a few requests, they'll certainly pick it up.

TIDBITS:
Briefly run on English Canadian television as Four Stiffs and a Trombone.

The cinematographer, Rodney Gibbons, was also cinematographer for My Bloody Valentine and Screamers.