The Book of Horror (May Contain Spoilers)

[nopersonality]

Chapter 99: One of These Days, These Boots Are Gonna...


Tremors
(1990 / director: Ron Underwood)

★★★

Can you believe horror movies used to be a lot like this? I actually don't mean damn smart, I mean old-fashioned. 1990 was the year of the Hollywood throwback. Although 1986's Little Shop of Horrors came first and low budget films of all shapes and sizes (Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Strange Invaders, The Stuff, Near Dark, Fright Night, Critters, Slugs) populated the 80's, it was 1990's Arachnophobia and the almost Spielbergian Tremors that signaled the end of the trend's theatrical marketability but intended to ride it as far as it would go in the meantime. Arachnophobia may definitely be scarier and darker, but Tremors, knowing exactly what it is and every last move it's making- and then trying to strut its' sharpness (as well as the masculinity of no fewer than 3 straw-chewing toughguy studs, with butch country megastar Reba McEntire and city-slick brainy but barely shy Finn Carter matching them cliche-for-cliche), has the edge on pure smarts.

To start with, it's a monster movie with nary a damsel in distress to be found. There's a minute amount of skin (for leg-men) just so we don't forget it's still a monster movie. But no nubile teens distracted by each others' bodies to make obvious targets (though we do get the requisite Honey, I Shrunk the Kids obnoxious younger brother type). Then, it mixes in the survivalist angle with McEntire and Family Ties dad, Michael Gross (who also makes an appearence in Arachnophobia as well; trust me, look for him) as gun-toting country-folk with every weapon and precaution under the sun (they just forgot to think of killer subterranean snake-slugs). And finally, they cap it off with a challenge of the "early bird catches the worm" (no pun intended) philosophy; pitting the smarts of characters who make plans in advance against those who make them up as they go along.

There's no denying this is Hollywood's idea of a horror movie and that it has little ambition other than to fly the audience by the seat of their pants, but this is a very good final blend of the elements. And it has just enough intensity (especially the wife trapped in the car sequence, which traumatized me as a kid and still leaves me gasping for breath) to at least make it worthy of staring into the eyes of bigger beasts. It wants to thrill and chill, and it excells on the first promise.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 130: The Great Pumpkin Finally Cometh?


Halloween III:
Season of the Witch
(1982 / director: Tommy Lee Wallace)

★★

Wow... you really have to wonder what kind of strange shape the world was in in 1981 when 2 films were being made about the evil supernatural global domination of the world through television by frightfully sane madmen. However, the difference between this and David Cronenberg's seminal masterpiece Videodrome is that that film had real world significance, felt like it could really happen, and from front to back, covered the gaping holes in its' concept by at least placing the characters in one person's hallucinations. This movie's Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets The Stepford Wives has a Westworld-like sense of showmanship (take for example, a scene where the main character breaks into a warehouse that's filled with old animatronic contraptions Disney designed for their parks but at the last minute decided to scrap because they looked too creepy). There are lots of cool things going on; the Dean Cundey cinematgraphy and Alan Howarth and John Carpenter music score to tie the feel of the movie in with the previous sequel. But despite the lofty influences, and the awesomely Italian style of shooting and Fulci-esque death scenes (though this really lacks their gory overkill to complete the picture), the film is all conspiracy theory and no practice. The gears are in place and the film moves coldly but efficiently (it's real easy to get into the mood and even the odd action scene - running, punching, tumbling - doesn't feel particularly unexciting), starting to build toward something. But instead of getting to where we're almost shocked at the horrific revelation, the film's pinnacle moment (the one that sent critics like Leonard Maltin into convulsions of anger) where we finally see what Season's Evil-TV can do is a cheesy wash-out. Not that before this point the story was making any sense anyway. Or that the film didn't have its' moments where you're so distracted by the generally subpar, and in some cases- painfully bad, acting that you stopped paying attention to it. But for this much talent going into your buck, it needs to deliver more bang. Perhaps the subtle route would have been better. Not to mention, re-casting. If you haven't seen the movie, the plot involves some of the characters being turned into robots. You won't be able to tell which are humans and which aren't because everyone acts like a robot. I doubt this is intentional.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 56: My Bloody Valentine


May
(2002 / director: Lucky McKee)

★★★

The new millennium has been an almost-complete bust for the horror genre. Whatever cred and true value it had leftover from the bank of the 90's has been depleted in the last 4 years of remakes, survival / torture thrillers, and worthless, boring action-drama hybrids masquerading as psychological terror. Tension has been sacrificed for gratuity. Creepiness has been lost in fast pacing. And wit has been whitewashed over by 9 shades of frat humor (most of which are just different tones of brown, if you catch my meaning). And personality is so hard to come by, you would lose yourself in the search for interesting, cutting edge filmmakers. The crowd is so overflowing with the same boring college hotshots, wannabe hipsters, and lame nice-guy types with no sense of depth. I don't mean to be mean but they should be the first to know their material isn't cutting it. But no one has the guts to tell them because they're so self-effacing. It's easier to dump on someone like Eli Roth because he actually considers himself special and doesn't mind being the posterboy for the new class of horror directors. When in reality, there are only 2 I can see who have the real talent to pull horror out of its' current (and major) slump. One of them is Lucky McKee. A somewhat shy, and very internally brooding, guy from California who made a shot-on-video zombie flick in the 90's with friends, the type with no chance of ever getting a serious DVD release (which is probably for the best because had that gotten internet buzz, it would have tainted McKee's ability right away). But after that, he proved he could move on from Sam Raimi-styled silliness to much more potent indie fare in 2002 with his breakout film, May.

What's best about May is that it's pretty hard to categorize. It's not a slasher film, a serial killer movie, or an erotic thriller. It may borrow elements from all but what it is in final is wholly original; a deeply personal film about an aching kind of loneliness driven by an unaware sadness. Along the way, tension is achieved in small doses by brutal observational bits all about realizing that you are in the footsteps of a character who is disturbed. But also attracting the attention of negligent, selfish people that she shouldn't be forming a bond with. People so phony, she can be them better than they can be themselves. May is lead into bad behaviors by the only people who are willing to notice her until she assumes pieces of their identities and is ready to pay them back with a much stronger dose of their own medicine. So, it's almost a revenge film but even that's an elusive label because May as a character is so complex. It's not even about the darkness inside her mind because it's truly not a psychological film. It's almost a great return to the creeper subgenre of the 70's. McKee also has a real fondness for the splatter era as well (which is obvious just by the title of his '99 flick, All Cheerleaders Die, as well as the Adam character's short-film, which May's reaction to is absolutely priceless), but unlike his peers he knows how to keep it roped in. Otherwise, it would just take over. Another area where the director treads surprisingly lightly is the inclusion of a lesbian fling that should give cause to divide critics as well as reason to doubt McKee's intentions are purely artistic and not typical straight-guy horniness. The answer is obvious when you see his next lesbian epic, Masters of Horrors' first season masterpiece, Sick Girl. Proving again that this guy's got the talent.

In the end, what May's about can best be summed up in the landmark exchange: "I thought you liked weird," to which the other replies, with calmly-jittery disappointment- "not that weird." This is how drama in horror is supposed to be handled. Not through manipulation and cliche; through direct internal observation made external. It changes everything and feels a little like being cut in the face. The film has maybe a couple flaws. One of which, clearly done so it can display "indie film" on its' tag underneath the name, is a series of silly made-up words to give the movie's girls an almost cute, winking, Japanese cartoon-like quality (amusingly, the only match for this film's superior brand of nervy energy are Japanese horror films, especially Takashi Miike's Audition). But that's truly up for debate because it's presented almost as a distraction while May looks stone-faced, never flinching from her facial expressions no matter what ridiculous thing passes from her lips. The other is a nearly pointless animal murder that is also the only moment that really reeks of cliche. It's almost a milestone in itself that the director transmits a deeply-felt sensitivity either in spite of or through the quirkier, out-of-place in a horror film moments. McKee shows us that this is his movie and overwhelms it with his personality. And his vulnerability. We don't even know who he is (this is his debut feature in a way) and he's making an incredible impression. Because he's done it before. At least he has one. There are hints (and not subtle ones) of an interest in Dario Argento (a scene in Opera is replicated here just in the image of a woman trapped in a box) and McKee has talked in interviews about Wes Craven being his introduction to the genre. May is a devious little treat with a lot of trick to it. Or, is that the treat?

[nopersonality]

Chapter 87:


Urban Legend
(1998 / director: Jamie Blanks)

★★½

The Scream-era of horror gets a lot of flack. And I was a good sport about that when I was a teenager loving it, bitching about The Blair Witch Project when the Scream haters were loving that... thing (hard to even call it a proper film). I actually get why people would hate on it. It's quite possible that most of the young girls who may have swooned over Ryan Phillipe, Skeet Ulrich, and Jared Leto during this time grew up to be avid watchers of lame new millennium TV-fare such as The Ghost Whisperer. In a way, the trend of teen slashers to proliferate after Scream were watered down 'whodunit' thrillers (with the obvious exception of the hard-rockin' Bride of Chucky). But after at least 7 years of today's awful wannabe-70's survival-horror... well, there's no question that this 90's era had a lot more to offer than hardcore horror fans (the same kind of posers who praise garbage like The Descent?) are willing to admit. The point at first was to come up with a novel new concept. Kevin Williamson was clearly an opportunist (he admits it in interviews), but his writing was not insulting to the audience. In fact, when you strip away the gimmick of genre self-awareness, you see that he was trying to offer a group of intelligent new characters for modern audiences (there's a bit more to this and I'll tell you about it when I get to Scream later). Other writers picked up on this and Williamson himself tried to repeat the formula for other movies, never as successfully as with the original. In fact, almost every film to follow in the same vein was a failure. Mostly because they didn't understand Scream's wicked sense of dark humor. So you got weepy stuff like I Know What You Did Last Summer which thought the key to its' success was drama and downright insulting trash like Disturbing Behavior and The Rage: Carrie 2 thinking good-looking teens with problems in school were the secret.

Well, after you sort through the pile of copycats, you'll see without question that Urban Legend is the one film that caught what the others missed. Teens aren't always in-touch with their darker side, but damn it, they sure love to watch people being killed in clever ways. This film actually tries to go further than Scream did, adding an almost ironic touch to every murder. A twist to each set-up. Not only does each murder basically follow some pattern in the urban legend mythology, but for example- in the opening scene, the writer tries to trick the audience into believing the character in danger is right about where they think the killer is and takes the focus completely off the part of the set-up that applies to the urban legend. At that point, we don't really know what urban legend the movie's referring to because we haven't gotten to the scene where the characters sit and talk, pooling their ideas and theories together. Most of the attempts to trick the audience don't work but the movie's humor does progress from hammy TV-quality jokes about Dawson's Creek to ultra-dark (bordering on potentially sick Pet Sematary Two type stuff, which I can't exactly knock because edge is really hard to come by in this subgenre) and howlingly funny. As the ending draws nearer the movie just gives up on trying to be mysterious and spooky, and goes wacky in a climax that feels like it's gone crazier than the killer has. Points for bravery if nothing else- the ending is so silly, there's no other way to take it than as a parody of killer explanation scenes. With not a shred of seriousness (other than a few tears from both killer and tied-up / tortured victim - another piece of evidence that proves the new millennium stole from the 90's), it becomes an over-the-top game of ring around the rosie where every minute a new character enters the room and the killer can't possibly shoot them all in time to be victorious and still make an escape.

The movie really hopes that it will scare and shock the audience through clever devices but most people looking for brilliant twists will probably walk away disappointed. Instead, its' best hope is to be as outrageous and quirky as it can be. And on that level, it succeeds. Consider for example, how ahead of its time it was as you watch famous party-girl Tara Reid frantically running from an ax-toting maniac. This is 7 years before Paris Hilton in the House of Wax remake (granted, at this time no one knew who Tara Reid was, let alone the drunken mess of a young hag-let she would become in years to follow) but she still looks the part- you know exactly what kind of girl this is as she whorily dispenses sex advice at the college radio station while laughing and silently criticising others. Or how the creepy janitor character (mentioned not once-but twice in Scream), an obvious red herring, Julian Richings is a dead ringer for Disney's Ichabod Crane in their awesomely spooky Legend of Sleepy Hollow animated short feature. Then, there are the against-type casting choices. Both the movie's killer and Sidney Prescott clone are not at all typical of the trend. Alicia Witt plays a genuinely sophisticated, brassily self-reliant redhead- not at all the broken little girl Jennifer Love Hewitt portrayed in Summer (or for that matter, the Sarah Michelle Gellar prissy model type). She doesn't need to be comforted (although the filmmakers still give us those scenes because they are cliche, still somehow the final results feel close to parody) by cookie-cutter female friends. Comic relief is a mixed bag; the movie's credit goes into the red with Jamie Kennedy knockoff Michael Rosenbaum (who blows it, especially in the frat party scene where for the first time they try to make him look suspicious for red-herring's sake). That eventually evens out with the always entertaining Loretta Devine playing a security guard (ouch) who fantasizes about being a blaxploitation movie heroine.

Look for cameos by Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street), Brad Dourif (Chucky in Child's Play), and a reference to a famous death scene from Heathers.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 63:
It Isn't Very Pretty What a Town Without Pity Can Do


City of the Living Dead
(1980 / director: Lucio Fulci)

★★

I welcome you back to FulciLand, Italy's very own amusement park of the absurd with many a grotesque sideshow attraction and nauseating freak-ride designed to make you hurl your guts out. In this film, a character does that very thing. In the face of films like this (which do have their charms), it's difficult to regard Lucio Fulci as a serious artist. For the most part, he wasn't. He was, among many unsavory things (behind the scenes, the guy was almost as disgusting as his movies), a clueless schlockmeister who ripped off the plots of better movies and took the formulas into some strange otherworld where one of the 7 gateways to hell would open causing evil forces to invade the world, and that would explain away any pieces of the story that don't make sense or are just plain stupid. For instance, the film devotes an entire subplot to the town's witchhunt for a local pervert who an angry father claims tried to rape his loose pothead of a daughter. I can't tell who Fulci has the beef with but if the guy had a brain, it was with the chorus of drunken idiots who start a gossip-chain building up Bob as the most evil guy in exploitation film history. Is he? No. He's just a homeless punk with a blow-up doll fetish. The whole thing comes out of nowhere, has no relevance to anything in real life (unless it's some kind of commentary on people calling Fulci a pervert), and does nothing to push the story (a psychic and a reporter try to track down the town where the gateway was opened so they can plug it up again) forward.

If Zombie was a rip-off of Dawn of the Dead, City is an ultra-crude rip-off of Tobe Hooper's made-for-TV Salem's Lot. An odd source for Fulci to base a zombie movie on but nonetheless, the parallels are striking. Small, quaint town. Everyone knows everyone. Little boy with curly-hair in danger. Takes place mostly at night. Man and woman team up to find answers to mystery, consult a clergy-man. Victims transform into monsters. Living dead victim visits sibling's bedroom window to terrorize them. There is a sequence copied right out of the movie where the parent of a missing kid calls someone to complain that they're not home yet. And even the scene where the angry father finally gets his hands on Bob disturbingly recalls a scene in Lot of a psycho husband who catches his wife in bed with another man. In this case, people have already theorized that the father was jealous that his daughter was having sex and he couldn't. Or, that he had some kind of subconscious desire to pork his own daughter. Knowing Fulci, I wouldn't put it past him. I was more than willing to overlook the superficial similarities between Zombie and Dawn because that film was just so much fun for being such a nasty display of Fulci's skank-o-vision view of the genre (sometimes it was hard to see the forest for the bush closeups and shower scenes), but - though I don't personally have a problem with Fulci's rip-off habit, I just think it points to a blatant lack of originality - I'm calling him out on Salem's Lot. Actually, I appreciate that he sees that underrated film as worthy of ripping off.

City would be a complete waste were it not for 2 very big things. One is that it has Fulci's best gore. This is almost a mistake because Fulci's legendary status as "The Godfather of Gore" is misleading (not to mention Hershell Gordon Lewis is the true Godfather of Gore) if you think that means the quality of his gore is what gave him the title. With Fulci, it was all about quantity. This film benefits however from an infamous scene where a girl drops real animal intestines from her mouth (don't ask me how she could open it so wide, it's a gift). The effect is almost ruined by obvious cuts to a fake head (the teeth give it away) spewing even more animal parts. Then, there is the impressive drill scene. Itself a rip-off of the splinter scene from Fulci's own previous film. The zombie makeup is terrible but the blood looks fine and Fulci shows more patience shooting the gore (which doesn't look nearly as fake as the epic throat-tearing sequence in Zombie). The other thing this has going for it is the dark gothic atmosphere, generated partly from the smokey-fog that rolls from the cool-dusty black Earthy ground of the Georgia location where they shot it. I always want to give the movie a higher rating and this is why. This film is much more effective than The Beyond at the down and dirty surrealism that makes you feel the fever pitch of Fulci's nightmare. Also, Fulci's insane ideas run wild in spite of making sense: glass walls cut themselves and bleed, windows spontaneously explode, a priest hanging from a noose stalks people all over the place. And the previously underwhelming music score gets ultra-funky at the end with deep, male voices chanting and a creepy, almost-Thriller beat you can dance to. If you're a weirdo like me.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 94: Watch Out, He Spits


Patrick
(1978 / director: Richard Franklin)

★★½

Inside of Patrick, a flat thriller-styled psychological horror film, there is a real classic, tense scarefest itching to get out. Practically clawing at bloat bubbles in the often cheesy surface of its skin. Its' worst crime is not that it's cheesy; although it's true, any time it tries to up the stakes by having people run around with axes and Carrie-like stunts involving flying medical instruments and (I kid you not) flower pots turned violent- it's too late, you won't care enough to be shocked or scared. That's not to say the movie doesn't have one killer trick up its' sleeve; it does. But the theme of this entire movie is too little, too late. The movie's start, for instance, is very slow. Like a Hitchcock movie, there is a godawful backstory for the killer involving a mama's boy who is jealous of the mother having a boyfriend. Past trauma informs the current state of events for all the characters: there are a bunch of people surrounding this one institution for crippled and insane folk where all the attention focuses on said killer who is catatonic, lying unconscious in a hospital bed for years with eyes wide open, glaring menacingly at all times, and seemingly remains completely unresponsive until he gets a crush on a new nurse. That's not even the slow part. It begins with a tour of the main character Kathy's home environment and soon we're playing Freud when her drunken estranged husband breaks into her new apartment (one of the 2-hour film's only genuinely hair-raising moments) to rape her because he thinks women want to act out assumed fantasies of this nature. This is lame enough, but he has to actually reference it in the dialogue when we could have figured it out on our own and allowed the people who like this movie to sit and think they're so clever for guessing it themselves.

I have to continue working through the plot a bit so you'll understand why I've always had a big problem with this movie. Even if it makes sense, there's no real reward for getting it all. In fact, the more you'd miss (the more bored you'll likely be, truth be told) the better off you are. Next is a fascinating scene where we meet the Matron (head nurse - also a religious woman, dressed in blue scrub-dress but capped in a nun's habid head-wear), a truly nasty, judgmental woman who equates lesbians with people who paint themselves in shit. A lovely image to be sure but does the movie no favors in winning anyone over. She also gets to deliver most of the movie's big tour-de-force acting moments, including an impressive "there isn't any God" speech that sadly conflicts with both the main character's personal beliefs and the Matron character's unlikability in her first scene. No, I don't consider this side-switching charming- it's manipulative. All the movie has going for it for the first half-hour are the personalities of the maybe/maybe-not frigid Kathy and the friendly nurse Paula while Kathy is versus the antagonistic Matron in some rather embarrassing moments that, at best, serve to allow the movie to pretend to be adult (look- Kathy gives Patrick a hard-on and he may want it exercised). But if the movie has any actual psychological cred, it dissipates in a horrible mime scene of horror where, in front of a small crowd, a man almost drowns because... the power of Patrick's mind (the guy paralyzed in bed in a hospital miles away) is forcing him to bounce around in all manner of acrobatics. Even I would criticize someone for reacting to this sequence in terror. Awe-inspiringly bad.

The major problem here is in our ability to take the Patrick character seriously, in any capacity. When the movie is almost over, a confrontation takes place that should have happened at the start. If this guy is nothing more than a bratty child as this final scene suggests, why is he given so much power to do harm, even killing people? We are definitely supposed to be scared at several points throughout. So either the movie ruins the integrity of its' own boogeyman or is laughing in the face of its' protagonist's natural desire to be kind and loving to someone she sees as suffering. Patrick is a crude man, there is no doubt about that. The end adds further "WtF?!" to the proceedings by having him suddenly break out in poetry. It's way too late to bring this guy back from the gutter. There is a constant conflict in the movie between trying for emotional involvement and abusing feelings for psychological coldness. To be fair, the movie usually works when it aims for the former. Although having the film's killer type out "I Love You" twice is a stretch, there is a real sweetness to the relationship between Kathy and her husband, Ed. This could have been a good made-for-TV romantic thiller. The middle section of the movie really cooks. After you get used to the melodrama of Kathy's mission to find someone to help her save Patrick (again, a killer) from the devious Mad Doctor and Mean Matron, we actually get a chance to explore the characters' areas of expertise as they present intelligent arguments to prove their points, their reasons for existing in the story. Things get a bit scientific but it makes the movie more interesting. The movie's doing well until the ending slows it down until it almost totally halts. The final advantage is a horror classic: a telephone call containing a shock revelation. Good acting, highly flawed material.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 61: No Love for the Lesbian-Dead


The Hunger
(1983 / director: Tony Scott)

★★★

The Hunger is a film full of passion, fantasy, and darkness, but like nearly every character in the story, it was doomed. Not only do the people involved years later pretty much go speechless and get flabbergasted when they're told it's a cult film, but it's a film critics love to hate. Their criticisms are valid; it is shallow. It is slow. It is overly-stylish (but what a gorgeous view!!). It does use eroticism and sensuality to get our attention (but you have to give it credit for all being shot in such an understated, un-sleazy way). And it does milk tension for so long in a scene of horror that you almost can't tell at what point blood has been shed. This pads any shock value the murders might have on their own. No, this isn't a shocking horror movie. Yes, Cat People could tear it to shreds. But the film remains a visual masterpiece of cinematography, editing, and special effects. The story lacks hard edge to the drama but the film is nonetheless profoundly effective as a piece of pure art, with beautiful ethereal settings and almost disturbing violent bursts (it finds its' groove shortly after the hypnotic but lethargic opening dance scenes), as well as a theme with the horror of aging (the waiting room scene is a legendary transformation sequence and a spectacular show of a filmmaking midas touch). The film never loses its methodical footing (a couple of scenes play pre-Return of the Living Dead punk songs), Susan Sarandon (Rocky Horror Picture Show) is a powerhouse as usual, rockstar David Bowie easily matches Repulsion's Catherine Deneuve ice-coolness until his character breaks down, and the ending is an absolute monster movie explosion- giving the film a whole other level of horror it might previously have been lacking. For what it is, it covers every base and looks damn good while doing it! Director Scott is brother of Alien's Ridley.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 34: The Best Worst Movie Ever Made


Troll 2
(1990 / director: Claudio Fragasso)

★★★½

You could search for years, go to the ends of the Earth and back again, but you will never find a film as fucked-up as Troll 2. Oh, there are other low budget bizarro-horror films that are as uniquely amateur (Sleepaway Camp), cheap (Squirm), trippy (Motel Hell), shockingly episodic in their "okay, what else can they throw at us if we've seen this much?" (Street Trash)... and then, of course there's Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (two words say it all: "GARBAGE DAY!"), but only one of the pack can be mistaken for outright awful brilliance. Let's start with the fact that if someone tried to describe this plot to you, you would start with scratching your head and by the time they were finished- you would look like a dazed cartoon character with baby birds circling your head. To try and process this through calculative dialogue might actually be the conversational equivalent to getting drunk. But that's only the beginning. For; to see it is to know of its' dazzling power. Which you know it has- (other than the fact that it is a YouTube phenomenon, with as many dedication videos as there are Scrubs quote clips) a few weeks ago, a documentary on the making-of premiered. Not on DVD, but in actual theaters of the type that show documentaries. The film about this film also covers the celebrity status this thing has achieved (there was even news last year of a new-millennium movie people were calling the new Troll 2 as their way of selling tickets to see it / even then, people knew that this film had finally arrived in the hip-public's consciousness). This little cult-film, by way of the sheer scope of the reactions it has provoked in viewers, has actually burrowed a place for itself (against all expectations) into the ground of pop culture.

Me and this movie go back to my Cinemax days (trust me, they offered an alternative to the sea of softcore porn cheapies that gave them their infamous nickname; "Skin-a-max"). Troma played a big part in forming my horror education, so I've seen the worst and lived to tell you that this movie isn't that shocking to someone like me. What is probably most significant about the symphony of indescribable scenes of hysterical badness is that, unlike Troma's marketing ploy of picking out movies that were designed by the filmmakers to be intentionally bad, the makers of Troll 2 were as clueless as their cast to what they were doing wrong. This is where I mention the magic word: Filmirage. A production company in Italy which had been producing the cheapest, gnarliest bargain-basement foreign horror flicks (many if not most actually filmed in the U.S.) you'll ever see. One spin of the trailer reel on Shriek Show's Witchery disc will inspire reactions much akin to the ones you will have if you've never seen Troll 2 before and decide later to correct that mistake. I would bet money that even the makers of those films weren't the slightest bit aware of how outside-the-norm that stuff was. The quality of the visual filmmaking alone bringing low-brow no-budget to a brand new low of no's. And man, I gotta say it... That's probably the same camper / R.V. in those swampy kidnap slasher exploitation crappies (think Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer meets Alligator, so Florida was a possible shooting location). Fragasso was a visionary working with one of the most eyebrow-raising plots in Italian horror history and in the employ of Italy's answer to Troma. So, naturally, we're talking watered-down edge (bored, Z-grade sequels to / knockoffs of Fulci's Zombie and Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust flooded the post-Tenebre horror market) and zero personality to start with.

So, why not try to liven-up the dead end of Italian horror with something new: a fairy-tale(ish) fantasy flick for kids? That is the first and perhaps the only true tie-in with 1986's Troll; Empire Pictures' attempt to capitalize on the success of the previous year's Ghoulies with another possession / little creatures fantasy-monster film, and it's no accident they hired the kid from The Never-Ending Story to be the hero again. Fragasso's vision might include a biting social commentary angle on the creepiness of self-righteous vegetarians (the green milkshake substance we see throughout the film at times almost bares a resemblance to the popular V8 drink), but there's no doubting this is one of the most fascinatingly underdeveloped ideas in a horror story since A Nightmare on Elm Street's (which like this film, uses the vagueness to try and make the material creepier) dream stalker. The film is about both vegetarians that kill people and monsters that eat people. In the meantime, there is also a family crisis half-plot so poorly dramatized (yet like all things in the movie, not without its fascinating slant) that it's fodder for parody (<-- and that doesn't even scratch the surface). Which brings me to daughter Holly and the suggestion that her boyfriend's group of tag-along guys are into orgies with each other. Reverse-march, private Brady; it's not what you're thinking. It's their way of pooling action with girls. If one of them gets it, they're all supposed to get it (now that's brotherhood). So as you can imagine, they don't get it very often. Leading them to not think twice about sleeping with each other (the creative thinking here obviously being: there's only one or two beds and who the hell would agree to sleep on the floor?).

The rest of the movie is the most twisted, morning-after effect on an Alice in Wonderland trip you're ever likely to see. Replete with strange foods that wreak havoc on the eater's body, strange forests of the unknown, dwarf creepers, and... the horror loonypsychobitch Queen of Hearts herself, lusty witch, Credence Leonore Gielgud. Played by silent-acting megastar-in-training Deborah Reed with facial expressions that shame Gloria Swanson and out-camp Faye Dunaway's take on Joan Crawford in every manner imaginable. With a knowing-"I'm coming to get you!" look super-glued to her face, she even easily out-does Betsy Palmer's Mrs. Voorhees and Veronica Lazar's Mater Tenebrarum for goddess boogeywoman supreme and out-freaks Cloris Leachman and Carol Kane for best kids-movie witch. 1-part Religious Extremist, 4-parts Leering Pervert Stalker, and 10-parts Demented Goth-Mom Concert Circuit 80's-Rock Groupie with Designs on Yoko-Ono-ing the Band, she lives in a church (appropriate, since she's so Horror Diva that no one can touch her- she's on sacred ground), lures in prey with live music videos where she seductively dangles corn cobs in the viewer's face, and has a magic open-door stone closet of smoke and light that gives her the power to control time and space, and even orchestrate mild-grade atmospheric disturbances in a moment that perhaps is a nod to Ghostbusters and Sigourney Weaver's generator demoness (and this is the only reference which I have to say bests Reed and her Goblin Queen, walk-on-water though she may- Sigourney is always Head Bitch in Charge). In her kingdom, it's sage advise to never consume anything. And that is the moral of the story. The moral of the movie: badness is excellence. That is something it certainly has a flair for. One of the few films that is truly so bad that it's good. Real bad! Major fun.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 9: Game Boy


Phantasm
(1979 / director: Don Coscarelli)

★★★

Atmosphere is so essential to horror that it can go a long way in covering a film's flaws. The atmosphere in Phantasm is perfect. The special effects are quite spectacular and the ideas for devices and other dimensions and concepts used to elicit spooks are all pretty great. You've got shadows everywhere and things hidden in them, hazy dreams and nightmares, an end-of-the-Earth feel to the actual locations they shot the film at, mysterious luscious women, a theme of abandonment, a wonderfully creepy "haunted" setting (the mausoleum / funeral parlor), great horror imagery running wild (blood, blades, grave markers, cemeteries), and all manner of things that generate intrigue (one of my personal favorites is the ice cream truck scene where The Tall Man stops to feed off the frozen ice smoking out of the back of Reggie's truck). These are all classic elements and no doubt a big part of the reason Phantasm is such a cult favorite among horror fans. It's even in my favorites list. It's a dazzling movie in so many ways.

However, its' flaws are also many as well. If there's one thing that takes me out of a movie's world, it's childish sleaze. Women taking off their tops is one thing- we all know the human body is among other things, an art. But, as Jennifer Love Hewitt's character said so appropriately in I Know What You Did Last Summer (one of the only things about that movie worth remembering); "Kill the commentary." If the director wants us to rate the Lady in Lavender's boobs, alright (I guess, "yeah baby" translates to: she's good in the sack, but I don't think the viewers who might want her have a chance in hell with her). Don't give me an insultingly-stupid double reaction shot of 2 guys going, "Wow." If this were a John Waters movie and this was Chesty Morgan, I'd have a different attitude toward it, but it's not. Phantasm is not a good horror-comedy, surprisingly it's at its best when it's dreamy. Speaking of the Lady in Lavender, the opening also kills the big shock-reveal that goes with her character. Every time I see it now, I have to go; "WtF was he thinking?!?!"

There is also some unwelcomed melodrama. To, of course, try to give something concrete to anchor the characters and make the audience care about them. For my money, this works best when the actors are capable of pulling it off. This is pure Friday the 13th-quality acting here. Which is to say; abysmal. And the dialogue is full of odes to sex-comedy hijinks, and the kind of beer and cars loving fascinations of the straight-guy crowd. That limits my ability to say I enjoy the film fully as a piece of art. Because it panders to a kind of mainstream audience I don't belong to. On that level, the themes I was speaking about earlier of abandonment and brotherhood, the things that connect them to the plot, are underdeveloped. This doesn't really hurt the film but it's sort of evidence that it doesn't work at all beyond the imagery and atmosphere, making it a triumph of style over substance. The kind of thing that only worked in the 1970's to the 1990's. With that in mind, this is still a much better functioning horror film than over 99% of the new-millennium's back-end sold at the front table (= everything) product.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 7: The Master and the Juice


Re-Animator
(1985 / director: Stuart Gordon)

★★

Horror and comedy are very hard to put together. Some fans hate every film that combines the two and need their horror completely pure. Me- I can appreciate a good mix or horror with anything else, if it is indeed good. What is most essential for a horror-comedy is energy. It doesn't matter if the jokes fail, it's the concept that needs to work. Or the filmmaker needs the pace to run smoothly, to keep the viewer entertained. Within reason, I think the undisputed master of the horror-comedy is Peter Jackson. He knows better than any filmmaker how to make the most disgusting things ever put on screen amusing. Even pushing them as far as they can go, until the film's excesses become pure art. Stuart Gordon is no Peter Jackson. His real inspiration is obviously H.P. Lovecraft, the writer Gordon gets most of his movie ideas from. But that said, how funny were the man's stories intended to be? I hear many Lovecraft fans are appalled at what Gordon - and writer, wacky gothic fiction lover Dennis Paoli - did with his work, using it as a framework to try in some ways to "push the boundaries" of the genre. Though, I can't tell in what way they accomplished this. The film has no balance. So, perhaps they re-defined the boundaries, to give them an excuse to gross-out and make frat guys laugh instead of achieve fear, tension, or creepiness on any level. The movie really does aspire to play the freakshow card where excess is used to stop the film dead in its' tracks over and over again. The effect of this is like a series of childish gags to make the horror story (and things like cat mutilation, rape, and implications of incestual voyeurism) easier to swallow for mass audiences. After a short while, the gross-out becomes its' own story. And all the attempts at drama, which are strangely abundant, become intensely awkward and out of place.

Which makes me wonder. Not about where the movie went wrong. I know what's wrong- Dennis Paoli is so busy trying to be clever with puns and West's quirky behavior that he's not working at the same pace Gordon is. Though both of them do eventually sync up on the Frankenstein / maternal vibes running throughout. Gordon even talks about the Meg character's existence in the story being about the women's role in creating life. So, the creation of life is the point of this movie? I thought the movie's point was about reanimation of a person's body after they're dead. A medical exploration of what motivates zombies to exist. I don't need to see the characters in this movie searching through rows of cadavers, and discussing theories in a laboratory before they turn a corpse into a zombie. And for all the talk, the most fascinating thing here is West's re-agent chemical serum. We see quite a bit of it, but it gets less attention than the human brain. And if the brain is what's interesting about post-70's zombie movies, this movie also can't hope to beat out The Return of the Living Dead - the movie that popularized brain-eating as the motivation for zombies attacking people - for energy and fun. No brains are eaten here. But they are lobotomized and removed in endless surgical scenes. All of which are presented with straight-forward matter-of-factness (much like an exploitation movie handles its' subject matter). To be blunt- I can see that kind of thing on The Learning Channel. A horror film is about escapism and fantasy, something strong and unique, or just cheap and fun. Disgusting is very seldom fun. Morbid can be. But again, Return beats this movie out on morbid. Even going so far as to shock and sicken without boring. It has occasional pacing lulls but it's mostly a very lively film. With this one, you have to constantly check the pulse of it to make sure it's not dead or over yet.

The film has no dark ambiance or creepy atmosphere- another horror essential in my book. Just a few set-ups where a zombie will go after someone and a lot of gore, almost always generated from an already dead cadaver. A truly wasted opportunity, almost no living human victims are torn apart or eaten in any way. Since it takes place mostly in a medical hospital with a very busy morgue, there are a ton of corpses lying around. Thereby supplying the film with lots of bodies to spew gore from. And then the film shows you people taking those corpses apart. It's disgusting all right, but not at all scary. However, I've seen the deleted scenes from this movie. There used to be a truly, deeply creepy scene involving the Dr. Hill character hypnotizing Meg's father, Dean Halsey. Now there's a novelty that could have added something to this movie! Of course though, Gordon thought it didn't work. Next on the chopping block: the score by Richard Band, which rips off the theme from Psycho. I like the music from Psycho, but don't think me a rabid fan of the movie or Herrmann or Hitchcock or anything. I just have always been very strongly against filmmakers outright ripping off other movies. Like a scene shot for shot or a piece of music note for note. Band copies Bernard Herrmann note for note. Only, adding an 80's tech beat to it. Not only is it wholly unnecessary to copy another composer's piece (especially since this movie has no real ties to Psycho apart from this stolen music- which plays in several different scenes), but Herrmann's original was just so much better. The music throughout the film as well is very underwhelming. But I will give Band one credit. The piece that plays during the sequence where Meg walks down the hall into Herbert West's room is basically effective.

I would have forgiven any number of scenes that moved too slowly- I think slowness is crucial to horror (if the right music and atmospheric elements are in place). This movie's nauseating blandness could have balanced out somewhat had the characters been less lame and boring and the dialogue so melodramatic. It's like watching a very bland soap opera. Another idea that could have been rewarding- if this to some extent satirized those drippy, sappy hospital dramas and soaps they plastered all over TV in the 80's. Alas, this movie takes itself too seriously for that. I was able to forgive Dan for his cute hounddog routine but Meg is extremely irritating. With her always high-pitched voice and constant whining, she is the definitive Female Victim. I know Gordon and company see her as a stronger figure but she drove me up the wall. I used to think David Gale as the evil Dr. Hill easily walked away with the movie's Best Actor Award. He's the only thing creepy about this movie. Mainly because Jeffrey Combs as West is a bit of a heartless sexist and has become a real hero character in cult circles with horror fans. Why cheer any sexist? I personally find most of them worthy of castration but his interplay with Dr. Hill actually makes his character slightly interesting. Two "mad scientists" in one movie? Dueling mad-scientists none the less. That's a gold idea. And I would say it's great watching Gale lose his head. Anything to shake the movie up, right? It definitely marks the movie as the darkest, least dull scene. The pacing is languorous and flat. Things never ascend to the showstopper level, not like many fans and the huge hype machine behind the movie have claimed. The score keeps dropping pennies in a bucket instead of pumping blood throughout this cold dead whale of a movie. And though there's one truly cool montage of terrifyingly ghastly zombie face closeups, we also have to see them naked. You ever seen a naked zombie? It's just plain gross. Not entertaining. Gross!

The debut films by many horror masters often turn out to be this underwhelming. Skip this and move directly to Gordon's next feature, From Beyond.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 42: I See the Secrets That You Keep


Tenebre
(1982 / director: Dario Argento)

★★★½

Like most Argento films, a first tango with the ultra-mysterious, ultra-sexual, gloriously ultra-bloody Tenebre will leave you with so many questions that you'll wonder why you tried to figure it out in the first place. Run with that. Many critics will feel the need to point out that the film is part answer to the criticism Argento was getting over the years of ultra-violent imagery in his previous films; from panty-ripping home invasion in Bird with the Crystal Plumage to face-scalding in Deep Red to hanging-girl wire-slicing in Suspiria to window pane decapitations in Inferno... Argento never had any kind of defense ready when people would mention that his movies featured a lot of blatant violence against women. He was an innocent artist whose chosen style was murder itself. So, with no defense whatsoever, he just told journalists that he prefered the look of female victims to male victims. That might sound shocking, but you have to admire his honesty. Most of all because the formula of American slasher films (especially of the Reagan 80's) was always more shockingly conservative than Argento's Italian giallos with their swingingly wild liberal characters, cutting edge attitudes toward gay men, and general mistrust of authority. In American slasher films, when you have a male main character, there is an immediate backlash. I suspect that has very little to do with people expecting a woman to be the last survivor and more to do with the fact that "the final girl" is the one who runs the most, screams the most, and gets the dirtiest before the end credits roll. And since she was most likely the virginal stereotype... you follow me? When you hear stories of original 80's crowds cheering rape in films like I Spit on Your Grave, it's too easy to hear a mental chorus of unspoken; "she's a tease, she's getting what she deserves."

When the writer character in Tenebre is accosted by an aggressive feminist (you go girl, but FYI; I'm not sure falling in love with an ungrateful prostitute helps further the women's movement) journalist, his answers are stupid and glib. That's not Argento- despite stories of cruelty to actresses on set, his work speaks for itself. He has a bigger heart than that (and he more than makes up for the lousy homelife of the lesbians here with the mature loving couple in 1993's Trauma). This film is looked at as perhaps his most autobiographical (though Opera actually has a horror director for the main male character) but this smug jerk of a writer in no way resembles Argento. Tenebre also evens out any lingering suspicions of there being an unfair balance in his films. The male-to-female victim ratio is the closest to being a tie here than in any of his other films. One of the most brutally murdered women, who also takes off their top, is actually a transexual- born a man. The only police characters we meet are strongly suspicious and made to be red herrings, just like the media-savvy characters they're trying to protect. And any character who adopts a self-righteous attitude, no matter how justified, is dispatched before too long. Eventually however, and in the spirit of horrific fun, the movie's rulebook is thrown out the already shattered window and murder begins running completely wild- offing anyone it feels like until you literally have to fear that inanimate objects will almost come to life with a vengeance of their own. After awhile, you'll simply lose count of the bodies as they pile up. Either because they become more numerous that you could have imagined or because of the transfixing quality of the film's ultra-white, ultra-bright daylight glow in every single place (outdoor and indoor) and time of day (and night).

"Tenebrae" means shadow or darkness in Italian. But the movie's use of it in the title is ironic. All the shadows in the film are white. Though, to be accurate, what Argento means is: you can't hide anything. Everything is exposed. And so... everything is. Except the killer's identity. But we do get flashes inside the world of the killer (like almost all of Argento's films) as they try to sleep against a whitish-gray stone wall with eyeballs open as blazing hot light shoots into them. They are self-tortured and in typical Argento fashion, always listening and looking hard at curious people to make sure they aren't getting too close to finding out their identity. As mentioned previously, there are some big similarities between Tenebre and 1970's Cat o' Nine Tails. One being that the victims almost never fear for their own safety but do become aware that there is something suspicious invading their atmosphere. To heighten this element of fear and tension, Argento designed for Tenebre to take place in a strange, unspecified era in the future. And with a smaller population, to be stripped largely bare of people in outdoor areas. The wider the space, the fewer people are around. And they quietly clear out until there are none (I believe the dialogue here mentions Agatha Christie - famous author of thriller / mystery stories like And Then There Were None - by name) and the character onscreen is left to run from a threatening sound in the distance or after we receive a hint of the presence of danger from something the killer has left behind (keys, glove, photographs, bloody weapon). Especially futuristic about the film is the music score. Though dated by 80's standards, the highly techno Goblin score (performed with all but one of the original members), very much guessing Duran Duran's Rio and Cocteau Twin's Garlands albums before they hit, is very piercing and dreamlike mixed with an organ to boost the chillingness of it.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 59: Night of the Parasite


They Came from Within
[aka- Shivers]
(1975 / director: David Cronenberg)

★

Credit David Cronenberg for having the guts to go to places other directors would not. And for always coming up with ideas that are so complex, most people consider them pure genius (like Einstein, only with plots instead of equations) rather than science fiction (simple entertainment). I don't think he would ever do a movie that didn't challenge people in some way. Unfortunately, his first and by far his nastiest horror film is more a test of patience to endure than anything else. It would seem the point of all this utter insanity is to question sexual hang-ups somehow. How does he translate this into a horror movie? By having people running around like football players (oh yeah, it's so completely ridiculous that it should be comic yet it isn't) trying to rape each other. Anyone in sight, as a matter of fact. And that apparently includes both children and animals. No- Cronenberg isn't the type of guy to pull a punch and for the most part, he doesn't here. But, to put it mildly, he would improve his manner of pacing and the delivery of violence in later films such as Videodrome. I don't want to say Shivers is a victim of its' budget but the way Cronenberg handles the movie, he doesn't seem to realize this way of showing violence (almost from a remarkably obscure high, low, or pushed-back camera angle) mostly dissolves the tension, making the attack scenes pretty darn goofy. The only point where I became tense was having to watch the really gross body mutation FX and waiting for the movie to be over. There is a definite toe-tapping effect that happens when watching all throughout. If you need it to be, the acting is serviceable. But really, the film's only saving grace is the look and feel. There isn't much music but the opening 2 minutes is almost creepier aesthetically than scenes in better hypno-daze 70's horror films such as The Stepford Wives and Dawn of the Dead. The opening credits are set to a promotional slideshow for us to get a feel of the Starliner Tower- the place where the victims are basically trapped. And it's total 70's sunshine-y daydream bliss.

And sadly, that's pretty much the single highpoint of the movie. Other than some seriously called-for Barbara Steele (the ultra-seductive, luscious star of such 60's horror classics as Mario Bava's Black Sunday and Roger Corman's The Pit and the Pendulum) vampery, playing the overly friendly neighbor to a distraught housewife. And, I won't knock the movie for an ending that is able to bring back the feel of the opening. It's one of the most terrifying concepts used for an ending in horror history but shot and scored to feel very calming. And after at least 80 minutes of the rotten, putrid garbage stuffed inbetween... this is much-needed. In case my clues didn't give it away, here's a quick cap of the plot: everyone in the Starliner Tower are attacking each other after a couple people are infected with a disease spread through sexual intercourse (although, it can actually pass from one person to another from just a kiss) that makes them rape people and talk in possessed-mode about erotic dreams. This also brings me to one of the only things I can't stand in Cronenberg films as an unfortunate habit he has: monologues about pieces of the human body having a strong significance to things they're not normally connected to. Usually, this takes the form of some John Waters-ish scene where a character spouts out nonsense like a crazy person (one of the only flaws in his best-known film, the 1986 remake of The Fly) in full crazy-person mode. Either with rolled-up, arms-folded, crouched-in-a-corner brooding (Jeremy Irons in 88's Dead Ringers) or leaping, bounding rant-'n-rave (Jeff Goldblum- The Fly). Until eventually, they're making claims akin to a maniac villain in some cartoonish superhero movie where they think what they're going through will change the world. I gather this counts as exposition and in horror, directors need an interesting way to communicate that to the audience. Most try visual stimulation. Not Cronenberg. He's too smart to try and dazzle you with style. Pity.

It should probably be some great thrill to tired people looking for a shakeup that the typical movie storytelling format is shredded here- it's mostly a bunch of scenes of people moving about in all sections of the movie's apartment building (when they're not lying in bed sick or sitting around on couches and cushioned chairs- smoking). And after the boiling point in the late middle, there are only a few attacks and a somewhat infamous orgy scene. This leads to imagery like a hallway where one uninfected guy has to pass down a corridor of wooden boards like a jail where people stick out arms and legs through holes trying to get to him (done better in Roman Polanski's 60's psycho-horror classic, Repulsion). Though that scene has a good enough set-up, by the time the infected swarm and the slow-motion kicks in, we're back in non-serious mode. The whole thing is done in such a wooden way (this is probably intentional), it's more likely to inspire laughing than screaming. I admit that I am naturally prone to reject a concept like this because I don't find sexual attacks (though these have, of course, a more aggressive front than simple flirting and creepy come-ons... and come to think of it, that might have been a scarier approach) to be on the same level as attacks by, say, zombies. But the idea of being stalked by people who see you as an object or even by a slithering slug creature can be very creepy. This movie just aspires to get a stronger reaction. So, very much like in George Romero's easily superior The Crazies, Cronenberg shoots attack scenes like an action film or a made-for-TV thriller (something flat, more along the lines of Satan's School for Girls rather than Trilogy of Terror). And then, of course your star character of this movie - the Bub or Tarman of Shivers' mass of living-braindead - has likely now become the scuzziest guy in horror history (next to Frank Zito in Maniac). The guy who really passes this around is so disturbing onscreen, you may want to puke just when he speaks. Does that count as a plus in the movie's favor?

[nopersonality]

Chapter 80: Doll Me


Bride of Chucky
(1998 / director: Ronny Yu)

★★★

Of how many franchises, especially in the horror genre, can it be said that they hit their peak of excellence with and found genius in Part 4? Only one. The secret to the success of Bride of Chucky over the good but lackluster Child's Play and its two rather awful sequels is that, writer of all 4, Don Mancini was finally allowed to do whatever he wanted. Somewhere in the creative stages of the 1988 original, the people behind the scenes decided his original story wasn't going to work and they changed it. Radically. Then, it was a success and Mancini was hired to write the next 2. Something tells me he knew he was being paid to do filler for bad movies, so he didn't bother trying to make them his own. Well, 7 years later, one guesses the pressure to do the same-old was off. A new era of self-aware attitude in horror was in power and suddenly, Mancini found himself in his element. Turns out it wasn't hard for him to not only deliver the best post-Scream black-comedy horror film but to do it with even more edge than that seminal film. While the clones were concentrating on a new gimmick for the title and a new setting to make cinematographers happy, Bride was - in addition to putting on the leather jacket of fashionably quirky, entertainingly weird supporting characters and a killer soundtrack of indie-metal and funky alternative pop - actually in the kitchen and cooking up something unique. Literally; adding a fresh new domestic challenge / "the honeymoon's over" plot to the typical stalk-and-kill formula of the previous films.

It's also of huge benefit having a Japanese fantasy-horror pro take over the directing. His enthusiasm for American horror, mastery of technical style (something that was fun in the 90's but became so freaking overused around 2002-2003, that it lost all virtue and has been one of the things to kill the new millennium's overall credit in the genre), and boundless energy would give this at least the easy edge over the previous films. Not only does it become the quintessential action-horror film (I know what you're thinking, but Aliens is sci-fi horror and the numbness you feel watching that is surprisingly not due to the action scenes), leaving all others in the dust (especially Wes Craven's ultra-stupid Shocker, which made a cult hero out of foul-mouthed dickhead Horace Pinker), but was so good that later entries held in higher regard (Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects) ripped off scenes and whole aspects from it. Speaking of, there's no denying Bride is taking something from modern-gangster flicks like Bonnie & Clyde (the whole 60's decade was modern) and Natural Born Killers (hell, the lovers-on-the-run theme was just hot in the 90's- The Doom Generation, Normal Life, Teenage Bonnie and Klepto Clyde, Habitat). But in the context of the Summer / Legend / Faculty trend (including the return of the direct-to-video monster movie boom where the older characters eventually were replaced by younger ones with more teen appeal: Wishmaster, sequels to Children of the Corn and Hellraiser), Bride still finishes with more cleverness.

Actually, forget clever- it's downright brilliant. For all the classic examples of exploitation-themed horror and serial killer films meant to gain an audience sympathy for the killers / play them for likability, Bride's Bride Tiffany is smart, sensible, physically attractive, and owns her sly toughness without posing like a bimbo or a hip chick (paging: Baby Firefly). She doesn't care who's impressed. She's not always on the ball (she is a villain in a mainstream American slasher film, after all; that's a requirement or else the protagonists wouldn't be able to escape) but usually that's the moment where the movie passes the baton of wit to someone else so they can shine. Chucky was the star for 3 whole movies, got plenty of one-liners, audiences loved him, and some were even scared by him. It's more than time for new blood. Tiffany is like Mancini's startover with the series (not to mention this is the first Chucky film without a number attached to it). The story doesn't just throw a couple cliches in a blender to be able to wink at the audience. The whole thing adopts Tiffany's personal philosophies (it takes two to make dishes dirty, there is an actual tact to common thievery, Martha Stewart's home improvement tips are also applicable to setting deadly traps) and even though there are several moments where she criticizes Chucky for being too old-fashioned (80's, in other words), her game is really to bring the old ways into the 90's (probably the last time anyone could even mention "the 90's" that way in a movie and get away with it).

[nopersonality]

Chapter 2: Don't Sit Too Close to Me


Poltergeist
(1982 / director: Tobe Hooper)

★★★

So, it's 1982 again and you know what that means... TV is bad! In Halloween III, TV could kill you (and did). In Videodrome, it was a weapon used by political extremists to give people mind-controlling tumors. And in this film, you could become trapped inside a television set. If, that is, you're a little girl. I don't like doing this, but there's no way to avoid it: I have almost nothing to say about Poltergeist. So, let's just run down the facts. The acting is perfect. The special effects are excellent (except for a pretty fake-looking head in the film's famous bathroom mirror scene). The music is fantastic. It's more of a "BOO!" jump movie than a deeply disturbing or creepy film. Everyone says Steven Spielberg directed this instead of Tobe Hooper and I care very little about the work of Spielberg (my favorite by far of his films happens to be the 1985 racial drama, The Color Purple). There is a history of tragedy involving the deaths of probably 3 or 4 major members of the cast. That only leaves us with the story... which is rather interesting. But perhaps not for the reasons you're thinking. Politically, a few people have mused that it's annoyingly left-leaning. The husband reads a book about Ronald Reagan while the wife smokes pot, then later she pleads for him to have an open mind like he used to before they had children. But mainly because there is a rather asshole-y land buyer who likes to build houses over cemeteries. Although, the complaint lodged against him when a character finds out is, "but that's sacrilegious, isn't it?" So, exactly how left-leaning is this film's pro-religious bend? Not very, if you ask me. In fact, the teenage daughter scoffs at the younger sister's prayer and later on she's shaken by the over-the-top haunted house hijinks so much that she puts her hands together and seems to be praying too. Oh, brother! That's just plain cheesy. But overall, the fact that most of the religious stuff is coming from a woman as warm-hearted as Beatrice Straight means at least it doesn't feel condescending. It's a highly effective mainstream film with a lot of damn good shots. But for me, it's more fun to watch alone. Some people get really emotional when they watch it and I'm not one of them.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 52: Lifestyles of the Drugged and Desperate


Brain Damage
(1988 / director: Frank Henenlotter)

★★★

Frank Henenlotter is one of the most unique directors to ever work in the horror genre. Very John Carpenter-esque in his "I don't give a fuck what other people think" attitude, he basically dropped by and then decided to stay in the subgenre most horror fans think Carpenter mastered; body-horror. Both also have the distinction of twice directing competing films finished the same years. And though I expect a great deal of flack for this, I think Henenlotter won both times- with 1982's Basket Case over Carpenter's hugely overrated The Thing and in 1987 with this film over Carpenter's awful Prince of Darkness. I can say this retrospectively, with the advent of DVD they've all been released, though the theatrical releases of Henenlotter's first 2 films suffered due to bad distribution deals. Those small movie companies of the 80's just didn't know what to do with his freaky stuff. Analysis actually chopped all the horror scenes out of Basket Case and originally marketed it as a comedy. Later, when they corrected this mistake and released it uncut (this, like a very small handful of other original horror films released uncut - The Evil Dead, Re-Animator, Dawn of the Dead, The Last House on the Left - was never approved for an R-rating by the MPAA), word-of-mouth spread and the film became a huge 42nd-Street hit as well as it was as a VHS rental and the first film to be sold new on videocasette by Media for $20. Guaranteeing Henenlotter a chance for a 2nd movie and later a 3rd (for which he was forced to get MPAA approval and... listen to the audio commentary on Brain Damage for a very amusing story about that).

But things didn't get any easier the 2nd time around as the company who funded the movie, Cinema Group Pictures (who also cut the trailer), was sold when the film was finished to Palisades Entertainment, who were very... not happy about owning this property, to say the least, and seemingly went out of their way to ensure it would flop. Basket Case had Joe Bob Briggs' support behind it to help get the word out but Brain Damage didn't even get far enough for him to notice. The reason for that is probably that the film is even more experimental than Basket Case was and the market of low-budget film was becoming a real larger-company deal. The branding of a name like Empire Pictures over a movie was a safer bet to getting your horror film seen than any of the tiny companies who were going out of business (George Romero talks about having problems with this himself after Day of the Dead in 1985). But being experimental is what has made Brain Damage something of a considerable blip in the world of cult horror. It doesn't just pay the toll to get in with strange ideas, but Henenlotter has a magnificent flair for expressing them. From dreamy, hallucinatory imagery to ugly waking-nightmare stuff, the film is part trip, part dream-horror (the kind Wes Craven could only tap back into for a few fleeting minutes in 1989's Shocker, in another dream movie involving water), and part shocking return to the real world for grotesque reminders that this is essentially a monster movie about a little worm who burrows into people's foreheads and eats their brains.

The film also has a sometimes uncomfortable balance between the visually stimulating sequences and crude humor running throughout. Though for crude humor, this is about as refined as you're likely to get (presenting a nice break from the Troma routine). There's a Re-Animator-esque visual pun about oral sex, several references to Basket Case- mostly with the rundown crackhouse (I mean... "hotel") and people wandering the halls talking agitated gibberish, a strange would-be but-not homoerotic scene in a bathroom shower followed directly by the film's hardest-to-defend scene of a person killed on a toilet (and let's face it, Ghoulies 2 mastered the toilet scene, didn't it?), and... an unexplainable scene involving bodily mutation (the next step in the Alymer's biological evolution? We'll never know, there was no sequel) and a semi-incestuous ménage-à-trois. To balance things out further, there's another trademark-Henenlotter doomed romance thrown in between lead guy Brian and the very kid-sister-ish Barbara. Though she doesn't have anywhere near the charisma of Basket Case's Terri Susan Smith, the movie keeps the pacing up so the scenes move along tightly. There is certainly never a moment where you can't figure out what's going on (though the junkyard security officer fiddling with his gun comes close), a rarity for low-budget late 80's horror; Night of the Creeps, Scarecrows... I shudder to say it, Blood Diner. Especially when you consider that those were the films Brain Damage was really competing with, this is exactly what the genre needed at that moment in time. It's a shame it never got the exposure A Nightmare on Elm Street or Hellraiser did because it's every bit as good as both.