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.

Prometheus (2012) - 3.5/4

Ridley Scott, like James Cameron, is a director I usually approach with low expectations. I am a shameless consumer of narrative; I enjoy a good story. Visuals must be of a highly spectacular nature to make me forget a terrible narrative. Scott and Cameron, however, care very little about narrative. Gladiator is all visual spectacle with a potboiler narrative matched by your average wrestling event. Yet, Scott spent $1,000,000 just to visually recreate the dead Oliver Reed for a 30-second scene. This is not quite a representation of Scott's style, however. Cameron is the meticulous obsessive. Scott is a visionary. He will sacrifice any element of his film to create enormous, visual impressions. Scott is about the cyclopean, the limits of imagination. He's not about the details, but the overwhelming, the truly awe-some.

So when Scott returned to his sci-fi roots in a supposed prequel to Alien (1979), I was for once very interested. He is peculiarly suited to sci-fi and Alien still impresses today. With Prometheus, Mr. Scott does not disappoint. The level of imagination and the visionary power displayed in this film are extremely rare, superseding even the previous Alien films in the sheer enormity and consistency of the vision. You could mute Prometheus and just look at it.

The story of Prometheus, to be fair to Scott, is actually decent. A nebulous corporation sends a team of thugs and scientists to investigate a planet fingered out in Irish archaeological digs. The world is desolate and the mysterious alien compound is filled with malevolent life. Our heroine is plucky and likeable, albeit no Ripley. The story's characters and trajectory seem almost intentionally cobbled together from sci-fi predecessors like Galaxy of Terror (1981) and Inseminoid (1981), and TV series Earth: Final Conflict (1997-2002). Stealing from the best isn't a bad strategy and these are very good films. Scott's laziness toward narrative is still showing, but this time he gets a pass.

The connection to the previous films in the Alien series is also intriguing. Any author or filmmaker takes a risk explaining their old work with a prequel. Alien was marked by the mysteriousness of its alien creature. Where it comes from, how such a creature thrives, is never really explained. Prometheus does explain its source, somewhat tenuously, and to its credit leaves more questions than answers. Even more to its credit, I find the new questions even more interesting than the old questions. Motif connections to previous Alien films also pleased me. It just isn't a real alien film without talking dismembered robot.

That said, the plot of Prometheus could have been abysmal and it wouldn't have mattered that much. Prometheus's visuals are awe-inspiring, even to the point of being mystical: One's self dissolves before them and is absorbed in their grandeur. Scott does not just create an amazing fictional planet or a cool-looking spaceship in this film. He does that, but he also creates layers of dream, technological projection, and past that superimpose over reality. He creates intense planetary storms, immense movements of structures the weight of which can be felt, new and strange alien creatures. He creates, using almost exclusively these visuals, that Lovecraftian emotion of human insignificance. That is a profound achievement. Ridley Scott at his best and sci-fi at its best.

Grabbers (2012) - 3/4

Making an independent, quirky horror-comedy that 'hits the right spot' is hard to do. More and more filmmakers try to do it, leaving more and more failures to wash onto our shores. Grabbers is another independent, quirky horror-comedy, this time from Ireland, and it's mostly a success.

The plot starts typically enough. A meteor, an island, a small town, and a hideous, tentacle monster from another planet, bake at 350 until golden brown. The fun quirk is that the locals--a charmingly grumpy alcoholic policeman, an uptight rookie from off-island, the village drunk, and a marine biologist--discover that the blood-sucking tentacle-beasts just can't hold their liquor. In fact, it kills them. So the village has to remain drunk while they take on the molusc menace.

The idea is great on its own. But it works especially well with its cast of characters. Each one, however insignificant to the overall plot, seems to have a fully fleshed-out personality. You almost imagine you could visit to island and see these people living there, unaware their encounter with space monsters was ever filmed. In fact, it's the characterizations of the supporting locals that are the most endearing.

As with many movies of this sort, the need to 'have a heart' and give us a coy romance has both advantages and disadvantages. Because--and only because--the characters are likeable, the romance is mildly charming and will put a smile on your mother's face. As a subplot in an already-packed, relatively short film, it is necessarily rushed, with little dramatic satisfaction as a consequence. I also think the need to include a romantic subplot when there isn't really time to develop it may come across as syrupy and ingratiating, which it is.

Also rushed is the pressure to reach a conclusion. The creatures are destroyed too easily as soon as the protagonists really have to get killing and have their big kiss. There is never any serious suspense, nor any serious monster mayhem--a shame given how well-designed the monsters are.

However, with such likeable characters, what screenwriter would want to do serious killing? The real fun with Grabbers is hanging out with these locals as they drunkenly struggle with tentacle monsters and their own personal issues. They're hilarious folk inhabiting a film with plenty of well-written jokes. No-one could go wrong visiting them once or twice and having a pint.

The Bay (2012) - 2.5/4

Directed by Barry Levinson of Rain Man fame, propagandizing an ecological message, and presented as a found-footage horror, The Bay is a very strange film however you look at it. The experience it provides is perhaps equally as strange and mismatched as you`d would expect. That`s not necessarily a bad thing.

The plot concerns an unexplained illness that suddenly and ubiquitously breaks out on July 4th in a small, coastal town. Local doctors struggle with the CDC to figure out what`s going on. Individuals enjoying a boating trip come home to find the town a blood mess. And an amateur public access reporter covering the July 4th festivities becomes, with the aid of her diligent cameraman, the world`s eyes and ears for the horrific event. Some time after the incident and the ensuing cover-up, she`s cobbled together her own material and some locals` amateur footage to make the film we see.

What The Bay really had going for it is that it`s probably the purest `mockumentary` horror made thus far. Nearly all found-footage horror films come across as either a few dolts with a camcorder or an overprocessed narrative movie masquerading as found footage. The Bay is, in a sense, an actual documentary of a fictitious event in a fictitious town. The movie plays and evolves like a documentary, following the development of the event, trying to explain it, and in doing so building toward a point.

Because The Bay does play out as a documentary, a lot of the conventional narrative benefits are lost. The closest The Bay gives to a protagonist is the reporter, but she`s no more a protagonist than Michael Moore is in his documentaries. We never feel for her as a character, except perhaps amusement over her ridiculously tight pants. There is, then, a degree of emotional detachment from what`s happening and our emotions can only engage with responding to the events themselves.

Fortunately, The Bay provides quite a few good events to engage with. There are some excellently revolting gore effects. There are some moments that are genuinely intense. Some that are shocking. There are even a number of effective scares. Taking tally, that`s more than a lot of recent narrative horror films offer.

Where The Bay does suffer somewhat is in finally explaining the mysterious disease. The explanation comes as a mild let-down because it`s slightly silly and a bit short on imagination. But, the disease must be explained to make the ecological point and the explanation given serves that well. Chicken feces, water treatment, the CDC--who knows what the point really is, but these are some vague targets. The explanation also ties the film in with 1950s nature-amok movies and could really be seen as parodical of ecological scaremongering.

Ultimately, the experience of watching The Bay is uneven, but strangely satisfying in many ways. I have no idea what Levinson was really going for with this movie, whether it`s an eco-horror message-movie or big, mockumentary joke, I just know that once I got into The Bay, after the first thirty minutes or so of wondering what I was watching, I enjoyed it.

Priest (2011) - 2/4

About halfway through Priest it struck me that I was watching The Searchers with alien vampires instead of Comanches and ninja priests instead of cowboys. That's not to say it's as good, interesting, or morally complex as The Searchers--or even as a wrinkle in John Wayne's left one; it's just to say that the writer looked to the most moving western ever made for his narrative structure and then filled it with a lot of sci-fi cliches, like a dogmatically-ruled futuristic city, some specially-trained warriors, a rebellious antihero, slick CGI and slow-motion fight sequences.

Priest is about an old warrior teaming up with a young warrior, a sheriff, to recover his niece, held captive by a pack of vampires. If she's been infected, the old warrior will kill her. The young warrior is in love with her, however, and wants to prevent this turn of events.

So that's The Searchers part of it. Here's the scifi part. Vampires are these alien-like creatures, all teeth and no eyes, and priests are like superhuman ninjas trained to fight them--they kick ass for the lord, yes. Vampires are supposed to have been wiped out. That's what the cardinals are telling everyone. The 'old warrior', a middle-aged priest, wants to kill some vampires, but the cardinals have a problem with him heading out to kill things they claim don't exist.

(There's something curiously insightful about how religion works in that, reflecting somewhat how the Catholic Church--the obviously caricatured institution in Priest--dealt with figures like Galileo. The film's representation of a personal religion apart from an institutional one also shows a level of intellectual maturity not usually welcome in Hollywood. So often the hero in these films must divorce himself from all spirituality. In this film, a few tyrannical men have seized power in the Church; otherwise, religion can be a source of personal strength.)

Meanwhile, the vampires are using this opportunity to launch an attack on the city. Karl Urban plays his villain character very Disney-like throughout this sequence, reeking mayhem and taunting the protagonist whilst striking silhouette poses and flailing his arms to no less than a symphony.

The whole film is, in fact, like second-rate Disney, as morally flat and cartoonish as Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar. It entertains while it hastens past areas needing more development, insults your intelligence, and leaves you with no concern for the destiny of its characters: you'd hardly believe the writers have seen The Searchers were it not for the obvious borrowing. Priest sadly contains a good many missed opportunities for something more; but sometimes you just have to enjoy your priest-on-alien action in a post-apocalyptic western setting for what it is.

Dr. Renault's Secret (1942)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gog (1954) - 2.5/4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Salvage (2009) - 3.5/4

During and just after the Second World War we had nearly infinite confidence in our governments. Well, those who weren't living in Germany did, at any rate. Victory inspired optimism. That optimism quickly soured, however. In America HUAC, the Cold War, the assassination of Kennedy, the Vietnam War, and amongst other things, inspired a lack of confidence in their own government to administer justly. Conspiracy theories began to arise. Curiously, those elected to office began to decrease in quality, almost as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Programs like The X-Files and similarly-themed films were possible in an atmosphere of accepted distrust. It had become more acceptible to believe one's own government as the enemy, to believe it had nothing of its own people's interests in its agenda, but was operating on a purely exploitational schema; it had become obliviously conservative to genuinely believe one's government is honest and working for the greater good. Then 9/11 happened and President Obama was elected. America setting the lead, it has once again become acceptible to hold the view that the enemy is on the outside.

There are still many who don't subscribe to that discourse and Lawrence Gough, who wrote and directed Salvage, is apparently one of them. Salvage is not necessarily a political film; but it uses a horror structure that is essentially political. It's a hysteria-enforce movie. A dad drops off his reluctant teenage daughter at her estranged mother's home on Christmas Eve. Enraged by her finding her mother mid-coitus, she hides at the neighbour's home. Before her mother, Beth (Neve McIntosh), can do anything about it, soldiers swarm the neighbourhood, shoot a knife-wielding neighbour, and force everyone to stay in their homes. While the neighbourhood is being torn apart, Beth struggles against the military forces and the anomalous Threat to get to her daughter and protect her

The first glimpse of a hysteria-enforce movie is the finale of The Night of the Living Dead, when the zombie panic is settled by mindless enforcement, in the guise of militia, of the standard order. Warning Sign (1985), Rabid (1977), Shivers (1975), and The Happening (2008) are all roughly hysteria-enforce movies. And the recently remade Romero film The Crazies (1973) is perhaps the ultimate hysteria-enforce movie. The structure of the hysteria-enforce movie begins with mass-panic and violence. Some virus or supernatural force is making normal people in a normal community dangerous to one another. The military, or some form of official security force, storms in to take control and ends up doing more harm than good. Usually the point of view for the story is a few chosen protagonists who become victims of both the Threat and the enforcement. Hysteria-enforce movies rarely have happy endings. It's a structure that derives from and perverts that of '50s science fiction monster movies like 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957), where a monster causes terror and must be destroyed by the military. Of course, this structure goes back to King Kong (1933) and even the peasants-with-pitchforks trope found in Frankenstein (1931). In those '50s movies, the monster is from outside the (human) community and the military is always justified, if callous, in their actions. They're optimistic movies. Hysteria-enforce movies are not optimistic. They're profoundly cynical. The Threat is now not from outside the community, but from inside. We ourselves can become the Threat and by the same token the enforcers who were once our heroes become our enemies and thus also the Threat. These films thus naturally critique official operations, such as the military, law enforcement, and the political institutions that govern them. They are sceptical of both the competence and integrity of those who are supposed to protect and govern us.

Gough is clearly aware of the political implications in the structure of Salvage and uses them to great effect. The film plays with the expectations of the audience and the characters. The military presence in Salvage is without doubt a dubious one. They're there to protect in some sense, but somewhat as an afterthought; their real purpose is control, not just of the threat but of civilians as well. They are clearly very willing to kill civilians to maintain their control, making them as much if not more of a threat than the Threat. A neat microcosm of political distrust occurs when a soldier tries to convince the hysterical civilians that he's protecting them from Al Qaeda. The use of a moment of hysteria to misrepresent one's intentions positively is just how governments operate. Salvage thus seems to be both a '50s monster movie and a modern hysteria-panic movie at once. It took me to midway through the film before I figured out whether Salvage is more The Crazies or more 20 Million Miles to Earth. I won't tell you which it is or if it's a clever hybrid. Gough works hard to manipulate the tropes of the structure and create ambiguity. Either way, Salvage exhibits the cynicism of hysteria-enforce movies.

The strongest and most powerful aspect to Salvage, however, is how Gough tapers the cynicism. He offers an antidote to the military intervention and cynicism: love. In total contrast to the harsh paternalism of the military is the love a mother feels for her child. Once the Threat asserts itself and the military arrives, we are with Beth from beginning to end. We see her struggles to get to her daughter, her unrelenting courage in the face of danger. She and the man she was found in bed with, Kieran (Shaun Dooley) are both parents and are both carved out as emotionally real beings. As Kieran's children aren't in danger, his main goal is to survive. Beth's goal is to reach her daughter and protect her at all costs. By presenting the film entirely from Beth's perspective, Salvage mounts a powerful indictment against ungrateful children. Parents, especially mothers, sacrifice so much of their lives, energy, and being for their children and only ask for a little love in return. When we're teens we recognize this so little, enrapt in a sinister ecstasy of egocentrism that permits no perspective outside our own chemical self-importance. And when we're adults and the chemicals have receded, has the egocentrism? Time is short and lives fleeting. The light of clear perception rarely shines through the clouds of hardened self-love. Take the time to tell your mother you love her; let her know those sacrifices have been appreciated before it's too late. Why not do it now? Happy Mother's Day, Mom: I appreciate it all, what I know and what I don't. Happy Mother's Day to all mothers.

To return to the review, Beth is nevertheless not presented in an entirely flattering light. She was screwing some guy when her daughter arrived on Christmas Eve. She moreover seems to exhibit no maternal extinct for a distressed girl who isn't her daughter, leaving her behind to die. Beth's moral complexity is one of the most interesting aspects of the film. She is at once admirable and contemptible, a hero and a very selfish woman. Some of her vices can perhaps be attributed to Patriarchal expectations of how women, especially mothers, should be. She's a woman who has chosen a career over family life, casual sex over a husband. But some of her vices are pure moral failings. Neve McIntosh, well-known to UK horror fans from her performance as Fuschia in the Gormenghast miniseries, is able to carry those ambiguities extraordinarily well.

With Salvage, Gough has achieved with Romero couldn't in The Crazies. Romero is a director of ideas and his characters enact his satirical ideas as well can be expected. But Romero has difficulty humanizing, reaching the emotional. Gough clearly does not share this difficulty. His satire isn't as relentless or as clever as Romero's, but Salvage is still a clever film and, most of all, an emotionally powerful film.

Assignment Terror (1970)

(AKA Los monstruos del terror)

Paul Naschy is one of the worst writers of dialogue in cinematic history, but he has the craziest ideas. In this film, Michael Rennie (in his final role) is an alien bodysnatcher with scientific powers of necromancy, who, with his cohorts, has taken control of some bodies that they might put into motion their plan to destroy all humans on earth and claim it for themselves. Klaatu's turned really nasty! But he has no choice; his own sun is dying and he hasn't yet discovered how to build an artificial sun. Nobody's perfect, eh?

So, what's his diabolical scheme? To use human superstition and passions against them by sending Universal monsters after them. But how is that superstition if the monsters really exist? No matter! He gets the Wolf Man, of course, Waldemar Daninsky. Frankenst... wait, wait, what? Franksalan's Monster. And a vampire and a mummy (with a 'stache). He controls all of them with his brain controlling SCIENCE. But science fails again, because the brain control isn't perfect and the human bodies begin exerting passions on the normally passionless aliens. "I feel this curious sensation," is alien for "love." Will human passions prove a stronger weapon than alien science? If every single episode of Star Trek: The Original Series is to be believed, of course it will.

DANINSKY: "Why are you helping me?"
BLONDIE: "I think...it's because... I'm a woman!"

Meanwhile the police department has its top detective on the job of bumbling around trying to figure out what's going on, going to bars and downing lots of vodka, and sleeping with pretty girls. Why does Naschy insist on having the police in his movies? They never do anything but show up at the very end.

Most of the time I have no idea what's going on in this movie. It's pretty confusing, with what seem to be important shots cut out. The monsters are not well-used. It's really only the alien villains who are interesting, and fortunately they are the focus of the film. It has a nice, poetic ending about human emotions and Rennie's defeat. It's not very significant, but it's charming. The film also gives Michael Rennie lots of screentime in his final role; by far he has the most screentime and he plays his heartless alien doctor to the evil hilt, torturing blond babes and sicking monsters on anyone who interferes with him, including his own people. Klaatu went out with a bang! (That's what she said.)

I must admit I was alternately bored and stupefied by the odd things put on screen. It's dopey, campy, European, jam-packed with zany ideas and monsters, nonsensical character decisions and emotions--women especially fall deeply in love at the drop of a hat in Naschy's mind--and dreadful dialogue; it's thoroughly Naschy, I guess.

Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970)

Ground control, which consists entirely of a middle-aged married couple, is having FutureSex using their OrgasmoTron computer: "Sometimes I miss making love the old way," says hubby. Meanwhile, John Carradine is in a spaceship in another solar system that had to land on an Earth-like planet to make repairs. He can't leave the spaceship because he has heart problems (i.e. because Al Adamson couldn't afford him for another day of shooting). His crew, in the meantime, are outside of the spaceship running from dinosaurs, lobstermen, bat-ape hybrids and a tribe of vampiric snakepeople who are waging war with a tribe of primitive humans.

How can a movie so utterly jam-packed with stuff be so boring? I thought it was my fault. I thought, "I must just not be in the mood, because there are lobstermen, dinosaurs, sexy tribal girls, and an orgasm-computer and that all should equal a really entertaining movie." It should. But it doesn't. I'm at a loss to explain it, but I think it has something to do with Al Adamson's 'cut-and-paste' approach. He doesn't stick with any characters. It's as if he made four different movies and just fused them into one by shooting some linking exposition with John Carradine for a day.

For one, there are the tribesmen. We never really get to know any of them. We hear some names, but they're so indistinct. So when they're doing things, like facing off with lobstermen, bat-monkeys, and snake vampires, it's very difficult to care or figure out what's even going on. I don't know why most of what's going on is going on or who most of these people are.

It doesn't help that Adamson gives multiple explanations for what's going on. At first we're told, by a vampire on earth who is never seen or heard from again, that vampires exist to those who believe in vampires, but if you don't believe, they might get you anyway. Then we're told the vampires are created by something called 'chromatic radiation.' Why chromatic? Because it tints the black-and-white filmstock Adamson had to resort to when he ran out of colour one of red, blue, green, or yellow. Then we're told by John Carradine that actually it's a virus that's turned the atmosphere colours and that this virus has caused there to be mutant vampires.

I find myself strangely, perhaps inexplicably, charmed by the movie, even though I must say it's boring. Shall I go through the litany again? Dinosaurs, lobstermen, snake vampires, bat-monkeys, sexy tribal girls, and futuresex. Oh, and John Carradine, giving a good performance as the ornery, egomaniacal doctor who discovered the new solar system.

The Serpent's Egg (1977)

Ingmar Bergman’s work, especially of his middle-period in the sixties and seventies, is characterized by a deep psychological focus, a fixation, filtering the rest of the world through a series of close-ups on his characters’ faces (usually Liv Ullman and Max von Sydow). Dark and brooding, it is as if the camera wants to read the very thoughts of the characters, and perhaps even of the actors who play them.

One wouldn’t expect, then, to find Bergman, in this middle-period, to try to tell a sprawling sci-fi horror epic; but that is just what he does in The Serpent’s Egg. A lesser filmmaker might adapt his style to fit the content, but not Bergman. He filters the nightmare world he creates through his sharp, penetrating close-ups and narrow fixation upon a character or two.

In this case, the fixation is almost entirely upon Abel Rosenberg, played by a young, puppyish David Carradine. Rosenberg, a Jewish trapeze artist, is unemployed in 1920s Berlin and spends most of his time drunk. In the midst of this stupor, he witnesses surreal horrors on the street—people being beaten to clean sidewalks, dead horses being stripped of meat—and oddities in cabaret bars, while those near him keep inexplicably dying, usually by suicide.

Entering his life at this time are his deceased brother’s ex-wife, Manuela (Liv Ullman), and a sinister childhood companion, Hans Vergerus, whom Rosenberg despises for reasons he tries to articulate but fails. While Vergerus seems intent on helping Rosenberg and Manuela with housing and employment, Manuela suffers from guilt and a mysterious illness and Rosenberg is drunkenly stumbling ever closer to discovering a conspiracy at work in his life.

The beauty of the film is that, while Bergman focuses, throughout most of the film, solely on the emotional and psychological crises of its Rosenberg and Manuela, and their struggles in the hardships of Berlin, he gradually builds up through inconspicuously delivered information, implication, and subtle alterations in mood a sense of something larger and malevolent in the world around them. Watching it the first time, one could be forgiven for thinking it is a dismal, slightly surreal period drama, with noir influences, until the ending delivers its stunning blow and a re-evaluation of everything that came prior is in order, revealing the horror beneath the surface.

Bergman scholar Marc Gervais argues—I think successfully—that Bergman was trying to create a film about 1920s Berlin by using the very cinematic style of 1920s Germany, to wit, expressionism.

Expressionism, in American cinema, had profound influence over two genres: film-noir and horror. In Germany, it was the default mode for sci-fi and horror. Not surprisingly, The Serpent’s Egg plays in part like a noir, like a sci-fi, and like a horror, always with that form of surrealism unique to expressionism. Although Bergman’s intense study of his characters is dominant, just under the surface of every close-up, two-person conference, or shot of Rosenberg going down an empty street is Scarlet Street (Lang), Metropolis (Lang), and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (originally intended for Lang).*

Each time I watch this film, I’m struck by what a remarkable achievement in storytelling and style this is. However, upon first watching, one may well be bored, underwhelmed. With good films, watching is the most important; with great films, re-watching is the most important. The Serpent's Egg is a great film. If you pick this one up on my recommendation, give it a second chance, a third chance, and then it’ll work its magic on you—it’ll shock and chill you.


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*I wanted to write more about the nature and use of expressionism, noir, and horror in this film, but I can't do so without spoiling the film. So, you'll have to figure that out on your own, I guess.

The Devil-Doll (1936)

REVIEW
Every now and then, maybe once a decade, a film comes along that is so inspired in its goofiness, so courageous in its preposterousness, so earnest in its madness, that it navigates past seemingly impossible obstacles to a sort of perfection. The Devil-Doll is one of those rarities.

Directed by none other than Tod Browning, we are given a tale that involves a mad scientist with frightening ambitions, a jail-break, a truly touching father-daughter reconciliation, a crime-committing shrunken woman, a conspiracy by a triad of bankers, a revenge plot, a dashing taxi-driver, the Eiffel tower, and Lionel Barrymore in drag.

I try to keep these reviews serious, but The Devil-Doll defies me. I shall try my best. We begin with Lionel Barrymore--who is fantastic in this film--breaking out of jail. He stumbles into a cabin that just happens to be filled with mad scientists. Fortunately for Barrymore, he hits it off with the scientists and they soon want to enlist his aid in their diabolical plans to shrink the world!

In fact, the plan is not diabolical at all. The scientist wishes to solve the problem of world hunger. So, if he shrinks everything in the world, there'll be plenty... no, wait, that doesn't work. Barrymore knows it doesn't work. The scientist, however, is really a madman. In this film anything can happen, and it does: the scientist suddenly has a stroke and dies. Barrymore is thus left with the marvelous new technology and the scientist's even madder scientist of a wife.

Barrymore now has everything he needs to exact revenge on those who had him wrongfully placed in prison: a shrink ray, a mad scientist, and drag. He sets up shop as an old granny toymaker and sets about his revenge while he tries to strike up a friendship with the daughter he never got to see grow up.

That covers the first fifteen minutes. The film is densely-plotted. The writers squeezed everything they could into this already-wild story, and Browning somehow pulls it off. It is a great film, the equal of anything Browning's ever done.

The relationship Barrymore has with his daughter is genuinely affecting. The love he feels for her, the anguish he feels in a situation that prevents him from reaching out to her, and her bitterness over never knowing her father are all deeply felt.

The revenge plot brings various moral questions to the fore. How can a man who loves his daughter be using a shrunken woman--the titular devil-doll--to commit horrible crimes, when he knows it will prevent him from seeing her? Does he really plan to give the mad scientist what she wants in exchange for her help?

With some neat special effects obviously inspired by Raoul Walsh's The Thief of Baghdad, some excellent writing, outstanding acting, and Browning's masterful direction, this goofy film is guaranteed to entertain and move.

FACTS
Director - Tod Browning
Writers - Garrett Fort, Guy Endore
Starring - Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan
1936
78min

WHERE TO GET IT
This film is not so rare or unknown as the others in this series. It is available on MGM's Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection.

TIDBITS
Guy Maddin highly praises this film. He even selected it for screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Screenwriter Guy Endore also wrote the novel that was adapted into Hammer's The Curse of the Werewolf.