Skinned Deep (2004) - 2.5/4

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one helluva movie. Like the Hamlet of horror movies, if a movie goes anywhere near its subject matter, it does seem to be imitating it. Imitating The Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn't such a bad thing; just that its tones are so delicately balanced and ambiguous it'll be very easy to mess up. There's something darkly comedic about TCM, and yet it's never stupid or goofy. It's vicious and violent, yet strangely reticent to show you its ugliness. It's meaningful and satirical, a caricature and a portrait, but never self-consciously so, never blaring a message.

I could go on, but why bother? TCM is alive and making money still. Skinned Deep is an obscure and undeservedly neglected slasher in the TCM vein. Other films that tread the TCM territory, like Kevin Connor's Motel Hell and Hooper's own TCM2 both tried to play up the comedy and over-the-top feeling of TCM. Both films are excellent in their own right, if not as perfect as their template. Skinned Deep goes a country mile farther. This move is probably for the worse, but it sure results in a unique film.

Skinned Deep, much like TCM, concerns an odd 'family' that dwell together in a fiendishly eccentric house that is a small triumph of set design. This family similarly preys on stupid, American passers-by who happen into its traps. In this case, the Americans are ten times stupider, a family of fat fools who all but place their heads on the chopping block. This leaves the barely attractive teenaged daughter in the position of taking on the whole family herself. Fortunately she's under the protection of 'Brain' AKA 'Brian,' the family's childish but well-meaning sweetheart, with an enormous, skull-less brain and a single set of overalls.

The girl is dragged through one horrible situation after another as the family tries desperately--due to Brain's pleadings--to socialize her into the family. This involves some bizarre hijinks like a battle with a gang of decrepit bikers and the random murder of some joyriding rednecks. The film culminates in meeting 'The Creator,' a headless 1960s Sean Connery, flexing compulsively and speaking in riddles out of the ether.

I don't think there's any sense to Skinned Deep's absurdism. It's crazy for the sake of it. If you can't enjoy Warwick Davis as a plate-throwing midget that spews philosophy and does jinjitsu dances after every murder, a headless Sean Connery, a metal-jawed slasher called 'The Surgeon General,' and intentionally terrible dubbing, you've already missed the boat. It's strange and silly and you're supposed to like it for what it is.

As it happens, I liked it very much. But it's nevertheless a deeply flawed film. There is no seamless blending of tones like in TCM or even Motel Hell. The Surgeon General is a pure horror movie creature and as cool-looking as any slasher villain ever created, maybe cooler. The scenes involving him are often moments of pure horror, intended, it seems, with some seriousness. Then we see Brain prancing naked through crowded streets. There's no consistency, no clean segueing from tone to tone, just abrupt shifts from episode to episode or sometimes mid-episode.

All of this is lovingly filmed in a muddy 16mm that reminds of a good ol' HG Lewis movie. And the comedy in this movie probably comes closer to Lewis's sense of humor, incidentally. Skinned Deep has more in common with the insanity of The Gore Gore Girls and The Gruesome Twosome than Hooper's or Connor's subtlety. The shooting, however, is much better than anything Lewis ever did. There is a real sense for the tones of 16mm, particularly in the night shots, and an often brilliant use of abstraction rarely seen outside of Hitchcock.

Writer-director Gabriel Bartalos's next creation is Saint Bernard, another surreal, horror epic set for release sometime in 2014. I'm very eager.

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 Cauldron: Baptism of Blood (2004) - 1.5/4

The sequel to Blood Orgy of the She-Devils is twice as boring, twice as redundant and nearly twice as long! I liked Blood Orgy of the She-Devils, despite the false advertising (no blood, no orgy, and the shes were scarcely devils). It had a certain primal force, what with its saturated, dark colours, castle setting, and bongo music. Cauldron is brighter, more pristine, lacking the primitivism that endeared me to the original.

Cauldron is to She Devils what Corpse Grinders II is to Corpse Grinders: it's a partial retread with some variations. Again, the coven of witches is introduced mid-ritual, killing an innocent man. Again, some utterly pointless subplots occur and are wrapped up in the first 30 minutes never to be referenced again, involving the killing of a man by magic. And again, a man and woman find themselves caught up in a ritual sacrifice.

The variation is that this time, the woman caught in the ritual is the winner of a talent competition. Seems one of the coven was in the competition as well and sang a soulful, but not very people-pleasing song. Whoops. So she uses a magical amulet to get revenge. And her boyfriend investigates her eventual disappearance.

I try to be generous to Ted Mikels' films, but Cauldron is the worst of his I've seen yet. It's not that it's lacking in ideas--Ted's always got lots of ideas--but that they're not well implemented. The runtime is well over minimum feature length, and yet it's still full of redundant shots. Every time someone drives somewhere, we have to see the person walk to the door, leave the house, walk to their car, get in and drive away. Sometimes we even get shots of them in the car for no good reason.

I mentioned the subplots at the beginning that are of no value to the main story. I believe the point of this is to show Mikels' research and fascination with the subject matter, just as in Bloody Orgy of the She Devils. I don't doubt Mikels did research. In that spirit, it's interesting. In fact, to be honest, I found these subplots the best part of the film. There's another moment in which two guests (one of whom is Mikels himself) on a talk show discuss the difference between 'paranormal' and 'psychic phenomena'; it's not useful, it just shows Mikels' research. It's actually my favourite part of the film.

The talent competition, which we actually get to watch on TV in-movie is quite remarkable. It's not hard to see why the character who wins does, because she's up against a witch who sings boring ballads, a ventriloquist who tells blond jokes (he's the male lead of the film!), and a female comedian who makes Kathy Griffin seem hilarious. Like watching The Office, you're torn between amusement and embarrassment. That's another fun moment.

The fun moments, alas, are too few and far between. The ritual scenes, which must take up a good twenty minutes of runtime alone, are interesting, albeit monotonous and lacking in the force of the original. They're also just as chaste as in She-Devils. Plus there's one blond girl whose skirt is on wrong and is showing only a single on of her butt cheeks. It looks silly and is very distracting, especially since the camera zooms in on it.

Another thing that really annoys me with this film is that almost no-one uses contractions. It's harsh to listen to and just makes already too-long scenes even longer.

So there you have it. Cauldron: Baptism of Blood is for Mikels fans alone--and I consider myself a fan. Mikels' attempt to fuse a damsel-in-distress plot with Haxan just doesn't work; I would have preferred something more like Haxan, in fact, since the plotless beginning of this film, with the coven performing tasks for random people, is certainly the strongest part--which isn't saying much. The padding, redundancies, and ugly dialogue just made Cauldron a very dulling experience, despite the many potentially fun ideas.

Bonus points for:
Pig demon with antlers shooting flames from its eyes!
A dummy in a horror movie that doesn't come to life
A museum full of men in Wal*Mart masks
The worst blond joke ever

The Thing Below (2004)

The government's been up to some shenanigans out on the ocean and accidentally set free an ancient, extraterrestrial being from fifty miles beneath the earth's surface. This being says things like, "On the contrary, you are the bastard, for I have been on this planet for two million years, before your species even evolved." Unfortunately for this tentacled critter, a black ops ship captain (Billy Warlock) has just arrived on the oil rig and he says things like, "You bastard, you killed my friends!" Seeing the carnage in the derelict lab, he decides it's time to get the heck out of there before they all become tentaclefood.

Taking a hint from Sphere, I suppose, the tentacle beast can also read minds. Not just your surface thoughts, like in Scanners. No, this thing can scan your entire brain in seconds and figure out exactly what's the best illusion to lure you into its slimy grasp. It doesn't make much sense why some of these people fall into the traps, but, hey... do you smell that? That's the smell of setpieces!

The illusions allow Wynorski to do things that really have nothing to do with the plot. Like an Old West shootout and a sudden striptease moment. I accused Wynorski of not knowing how to make erotic scenes out of beautiful women when I reviewed Cheerleader Massacre. Now I have to eat my words. He shoots an incredible striptease sequence with a babe named Glori-Anne Gilbert. I also applauded Wynorski for only using all-natural ladies in Cheerleader Massacre. Gilbert's breasts are silicon torpedoes; ah well, can't have everything. One has to admire the sheer ingenuity with which T&A was brought into a plot and setting that doesn't really leave any room for disrobing.

Along with the illusions, there is also a subplot involving a general whose "ass is on the line here!" and loads of flashbacks. Wynorski went flashback crazy. Together, this leaves the plain narrative fractured, or like a clothesline to hang all these disconnected moments on, making the film feel a little Al Adamson-esque.

The CGI tentacles didn't bother me; I don't mind CGI. In this case, the CGI yields some creepy tentacle-coming-out-of-human imagery in the first ten minutes of the film; the rest of the film, however, gives up on this altogether.

The Thing Below is a pretty decent sea monster picture. I liked the setpieces, especially the striptease sequence. One wonders why the monster doesn't just kill these people once they're isolated, instead of providing a sexy, three-minute striptease. But I'm not complaining. It's supposed to be fun, and it succeeds in being so well-enough.

DinoCroc (2004)

I really had a hankering to watch a schlock 2000s horror film with CGI monsters. I know this is a perverse desire, but I couldn't help it. I had had my heart set on The Curse of the Komodo, but alas I couldn't find it. So I settled for DinoCroc. DinoCroc: Part dinosaur and part crocodile. Di-No-Croc. The name itself fascinates me. So elemental, primal; I could imagine one of our primitive ancestors, while drawing some stupid animals on the wall of their crummy caves, pointing to a drawing of a monster and saying DI! NO! CROC! and the other cavemen would be frightened for a moment, until it was time to rape their wives again.

DinoCroc concerns a CGI creature, raised in a genetic engineering lab, that escapes due to human stupidity. A family who lost their three-legged dog, the local animal control officer, her father the sheriff, and the lab's hired Australian croc-hunter (wonder who he could be based on?) take it upon themselves teach the DinoCroc a lesson in caring.

This leads up to a heart-pumping climax of frantic puppy-saving whilst fleeing the jaws of death. I'll explain better: there are several dogs, chained in a row for a good many yards, that are all in risk of getting eaten. Our animal-loving heroes, while being chased by the DINOCROC! must use a blowtorch to free the dogs before the DINOCROC! can eat them.

In between these two points, the film is surprisingly downbeat. A child is graphically eaten by the DINOCROC! Is the DINOCROC! the ferocious personification of our environmental destruction? Or is it just a hungry reptile? The harrowing emotions are explored in great detail with alarming sincerity and, some might say, incompetence, making for a draggy midsection. Fortunately, getting really drunk, kicking furniture and killing DINOCROCS! instantly cures everyone of their grief.

DinoCroc is competently made, under the watchful eye, no doubt, of producer Roger Corman. It begins with some good shooting and editing, if somewhat lacking in attention and while the inspiration dries up, the competence, at least, remains. The film speaks volumes with its irrational use of pans and crane shots, its jumpcuts symbolic of our inattentiveness to the environment. This is bolstered by the rare use of an all-choral score in a monster movie.

It had a few suspenseful moments that did the trick and I, as much as I'm ashamed to admit this, I found Costas Mandylor charming as the aussie croc-hunter. Mediocre entertainment, but much better than I expected; it made me laugh a few times and, I have to say, it does everything a film called DinoCroc should do. And it was worth watching for the puppy-saving and child-eating.