The Book of Horror (May Contain Spoilers)

[nopersonality]

Chapter 47: We've Gaaaah-ta Get Out of This Place...


Cemetery Man
(1994 / director: Michele Soavi)

★★½

As evidenced by 1989's abysmal The Church and its' follow-up, 1991's The Sect (the only one of the director's horror films not to be given a decent region-1 DVD release), it's obvious that Mr. Soavi likes it freaky. Freaker than his mentor- Italian Cinema God, Dario Argento, who co-wrote all Soavi's films until this project came along. Why they sorta broke off from each other creatively, I don't know. But as Dario was beginning to slip, it would seem Soavi was starting to finally realize his own talents. Cemetery Man is a wildly uneven film in every way. It can't decide whether it wants to be a sex-comedy, a silly gross-out film (ala- Peter Jackson's vastly superior Dead Alive, the two share several parallels), or a poetic existential commentary on the bizarre otherworldliness of small town life. This takes place in one incredibly bizarre small town. The mayor is a total baffoon, the police commissioner doesn't care about investigating murder sprees which happen with shocking frequency (he lets a confessed killer go on more than one occasion without even arresting him), and then there's the town cemetery where all the action is. The man in charge, Francesco Dellamorte, is an obsessive telephone-book reader with a chubby 30-something assistant who can only say one word (a slang term "gna" which he uses for everything, comprised of the first 3 letters of his name- Gnaghi) and is madly in love with the teenage daughter of the mayor (and she likes him too, although more as a novelty than as a boyfriend... or so it would seem before he vomits on her and cuts her head off, then things really get weird). Being a telephone-book fan, you get the feeling Dellamorte knows the townspeople pretty well. Then, one day, a goddess-like young woman floats into his cemetery- the grieving widow of an elderly man whom she claims was a tireless lover (you get the picture). He becomes infatuated with her and learns far too late that love is not worth dying for.

At heart, I'm a very romantic guy. And really, the only hope this had of besting Dead Alive in any way would have been to make its' own couple's romance more important to this film than the subplot in that film was. Alas, this movie just tries too hard to be sly and clever. It's an adaptation of the popular Dylan Dog comic books about a slick detective slaying undead monsters (Italy's answer to Kolchak: The Night Stalker?) and from what I can tell, the two have little if anything in common other than perhaps the unique sense of humor and a cynical attitude toward true love. Which I can accept, if it's compelling. Is it compelling here? Yes. In fact, it may be the film's strong suit (along with a jaw-droppingly amazing visual style and a few cool pieces of score music... and the ending, but I'll get to that later) despite its inconsistency with freaky ideas that are just there for the sake of being freaky. The movie's flaws aren't intense or glaring as much as they just always mar the consistency. It would appear that the movie is about a man's struggle to find love and depth as he's lived his whole life in a town he doesn't like and is trapped working at the cemetery, where he is in charge of killing the re-animated corpses of the buried townspeople who won't stop coming back to life. He becomes tired and casually apathetic to the suffering, sadness, or anything else of all the people around him until he meets the mystery woman. Now, he's tired and casually apathetic to the people around him- but he has a girlfriend! Later, he gets another. And then, another. This time I think it would be a spoiler to tell you what's up with that, so I won't. I'll just say that, of the trio, the 2nd one (Freudian fear of penises? Lame) is the most pathetic. But leads to a charmingly vague sight gag involving a chemical castration. Seriously, I'm fine with the movie's decision to be episodic without going the extra mile and calling itself an anthology (which it closely resembles). But to stick both Freud-worship and an ironic twist in the same episode? Ug!

The most annoying thing about the movie is probably the gross-out. But there's also the Dellamorte character's utterly pretentious musings on life... which are all purple-prose prominently featuring the word "death." This guy can just talk your ear off (the most groan-worthy: "at a certain point you realize you know more dead people than living" - get it?). And none of it has any meaning at all. Assuredly, that's the point. But... why? I can appreciate this film's intention if it's to mock literature and characters in fiction who are so "the meaning of life and love" about everything. I've never found those sorts of costume and period dramas to be very moving at all. But at best, they're just repeating the same mistakes with the sole exception of having the guy also be a dashing, modern action-hero type wielding a gun and blowing away zombies. And so... is this the beginning of a battle between Dellamorte and Army of Darkness's Ash for most amusing, handsome, romantic horror monster-slayer? If it is, Cemetery Man has the edge over the Evil Dead sequels for originality, that's 1 point. Dellamorte is a better, more devoted lover (2 points) and Ash is a more heroic, reliable fighter (1 point). I guess the last category comes down to... skin. Ash bares most of his chest in either sequel but Dellamorte bares all (full chest, butt, and most of his lower frontal region). That's 3 to 1, Cemetery Man wins. The ending (= the last 6 minutes prior to the end credits) is an absolute masterpiece of both visual and music, as well as character and dialogue elements- which (the latter two) previously were lacking. It's really it's own film apart from almost everything leading up to it. Prior to this scene, the movie had maybe a dozen really beautiful short detours from the silliness. But this is the only moment where the existential quality to the movie really works as existentialism. It immediately strikes a chord of originality. Other than just being different from the last detail in Romero's Dawn and Day of the Dead's stories, it affirms (within a fantasy film context) that there is no end or beginning. Make of that what you will, but it's stunning to watch.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 159: Oh, the Subhumanity!


Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II:
Subhumanoid Meltdown
(1991 / directors: Eric Louzil and Donald G. Jackson)

★

Probably the only good thing that can be said about Subhumanoid Meltdown (one of those in-name-only kinda sequels) is that it's so free-spirited, it's not really offensive. But... ooooooo, does it try to be. Other than the fact that it is one of the most low-brow, goopily gross sci-fi action sex-comedy horror throw-everything-in-a-blender-and-pretend-what-comes-out-is-tasty movies I've ever been exposed to, it has a kind of hypocrisy about it. Though, most Troma-originals do (big difference between these and the movies they pick up for distribution made by directors who may never have even heard of them until they're looking for a distributer). In their (still continuing) efforts to make their own Airplane! (high-brow jokes lampooning various people in a slew of political name-dropping and social issue references), they ripoff "ZAZ" only for their inspiration to fester in the sewer of painfully ultra-juvenile (we're talking the z-grade returns from the bottom of the barrell- the concentrate underneath the lowest point) sight gags and auditory garbage (cliched high-pitched voices, farts, Three Stooges impressions). And yet, as previously mentioned above, it's so full of its' own spirit (gas?) that it's truly not a malicious flick. They're just doing all they can to get a laugh. No matter how low they have to sink. I did not laugh. But because there is no pressure to walk away from the movie with a mission to soil the good names of all involved in the making of it (I think they did a perfect job of that themselves)... all of the stupid stuff on display here can easily be brushed off.

I dare even say I enjoyed some of it. The acting isn't at all bad for what the movie is- the most annoying thing about that is the dubbing they do on so many characters... Oh, and the fact that there are probably a million characters in the movie (it takes place at a college and for every location they go to, there are dozens of people with speaking parts- mostly overlapping each other). I have never been able to pinpoint where the hell I've seen the lusty blonde journalism professor (decked out in feather boa and shiny, cleavage-friendly green dress) but for a movie like this, she's pure class. As is the surfer-accented brunette vixen goddess playing the film's ambitious sexy scientist, Dr. Holt. Lastly, there is the inclusion of a misfit nerdy "Ace Reporter" (some kind of reference to Troma's successful 1983 sci-fi horror spoof Monster in the Closet which featured 2 dueling hottie reporters) played by a gay bodybuilder. He's the main character and though you may expect jokes about his effeminate voice or outdated 1987 gym attrire- which is his whole look (no other man in the film dresses like him, a tipoff right there), but instead everyone tells him "you stink!" and there are endless jokes about him not getting laid. At one point, they do a mother-calls joke only they play the "have you found a nice girl yet?" line as foreshadowing for the mutant girl he would meet later instead of a joke on the fact that the guy really doesn't want a girl. Real hip, Troma. Oh well, at least he's smoking hot!

Whatever true joys you may be expecting to get from this film, the original - or the much crazier Toxic Avenger sequels - already gave us.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 111: Never Alone


Fright
(1971 / director: Peter Collinson)

★★

The opening credits sequence in Fright is one of the absolute most chilling, creepy things I've ever experienced in a film. Ever. It is pretty much guaranteed to make the hair on anyone's arms stand up and then do The Skeleton Dance. It has all the elements: pitch black night, a cold (almost foggy) forest, one single pretty girl walking all alone, imagery surrounding her that suggests danger or bodily harm (iron gates with sharp spires pointing right in the center of the screen), a terrifying sound (high-pitched, drawn-out whistling), a beautifully moody piece of music (here sung by a woman who sounds as though she's in a lot of pain, with lyrics suggesting that the character in the song is lost or in need of help), and a font for the film's title that looks frightening or twisted. Sometimes with a film, you have one scene that is like a film all by itself... And is better than the rest of the movie. Tragically, Fright starts off at its best and is all downhill from there. As it progresses, you realize the story is actually busier than it should be and not very interesting. What could have been an incredibly spooky, unpredictable horror film shortly becomes half family drama and half amateur psychological thriller.

After the wonderfully chilly opening and some well-placed cliches lead you to believe this is going to be more of a Black Christmas (a creepy stalker movie) than one of those explorations-of-a-twisted-mind movies (which are just never quite as fun as they should be). This film is mostly a victim of someone deciding a character being watched while they're alone (although she has several people distracting her all through the early hours of the night), and hysterically overreacting to everything, isn't scary enough and they need to raise the stakes. But let me tell you, there's no way to ruin your horror film faster than with a hostage situation leading to police cars swarming, people negotiating with kidnappers over bullhorns, and scenes involving tear gas and consulting the professional opinion of a psychiatrist. As early as 45 minutes in, you'll start to wonder what you signed up for. And I don't think good acting will be enough to keep that feeling at bay when the boring part of the movie sets in. Maybe if they had tried to explore what dark things might be lurking in her head (maybe even kept her alone) instead of the film's impotent, muttering killer- whose identity is revealed to us far too early, making it largely irrelevant.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 92: Eye See You


Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II
(1987 / director: Bruce Pittman)

★★½

It's fascinating what religion has done to people. You can tell by how many extremely fucked-up movies there are about it. The 60's and the 70's exorcised most of the demons out of American cinema, so by the late 80's, it was Canada's turn for the confessional. And... I don't know if you've noticed, but they've got some real weird ideas up there. Other than the dogma on display in films such as this and 1988's The Kiss, there is a refreshing complexity to the monsters of Canadian horror. As well as the typical theme of bodily invasion. Here, the fear of losing control and identity corruption by way of spiritual possession lead to a free-for-all circus of A Nightmare on Elm Street-esque surreal supernatural horror in a series of complete departings with reality. The ideas are good, the effects are convincing enough, the twists are usually rewarding. The best part really is that, unlike most of the Nightmare sequels, the structure of the film is looser, scenes swirl around you at a disorienting pace so there is always something going on, and truly anything can happen at any time (and almost everything does). This is what Christine should have been. That's the good news.

The not-so-good news is that this film also takes part of its' inspiration from Carrie. And there are reasons why this film could never be Carrie 2, especially that the main character has a way too normal life, a room full of modern material possessions like any other girl's, a fine boyfriend, and is actually popular enough in her school to be a candidate for Prom Queen without someone cheating to help her out. Yet, they hired an actress for the role who when out of makeup really looks homely and plain. As for the rest of the movie, some of the actors are pretty boring (none more than the middle-aged priest who performs an equally dull exorcism and actually says, "Let the power of Christ compell you!" which you'll recall from The Exorcist) but there are a lot of damn freaky things going on (the rocking horse scene in particular will definitely send a shiver or two down your spine). I'd tell you about them but I have to recommend you rent this on your next 80's-themed Night. I want your jaw to drop like mine did (especially during the shower / locker room scene- can't say you see that everyday).

One other thing is worth mentioning... This was released the same year as Dario Argento's Opera and has a scene remarkably similar to the beginning of the dress fixing scene. The atmospheric elements, threat of a blade, the girls' hair colors and some of their facial features, and more. It's uncanny. Is this movie psychic or what?

[nopersonality]

Chapter 1: Afraid of the Dark


Halloween
(1978 / director: John Carpenter)

★★★½

The title of John Carpenter's immortal 1978 classic has practically nothing to do with the holiday, much like 1974's Black Christmas - one of Halloween's biggest influences (along with, according to co-writer Debra Hill, Argento's Deep Red) - had really nothing to do with that holiday. What it really was was just an attempt to come up with a great title no one had ever used before. So, was it some kind of kismet that both Argento's and Carpenter's signature slasher epics were so closely linked with their scripts originally titled The Hatchet Murders and The Babysitter Murders? The trend of films dealing with murder in the 1970's was to treat them more like true-crime dramas. Ultra-serious explorations of pathology and psychology inside the mind. It even reached a point where John Waters was satirizing it in every one of his films (especially 1974's Female Trouble, where Divine the underground club performer character becomes a tabloid superstar for trying to actually execute the audience, shooting at them with a handgun, at one of her shows leading to her own grand execution). This is important to mention because... are you ready for this(?) - when Halloween was first being screened for colleges and critics, the reaction across the board was bad. At its' very first showing to a class at a college, students were allowed to ask questions afterward and all of them were assuming the film was a failure. The standout question Carpenter recalls in interviews is: "how could you make something like this?" The student's further comments suggested the film was pandering and meaningless. So, is anyone else getting the image of Carpenter as Enid from Ghost World in a class full of closed-minded dorks expecting another Tampon in a Teacup?

I guess that was all a big set-up to say there are 2 great schools-of-thought on cinema as art. One is much more focused on seeing the meaning in everything. The other understands that the meaning will come to you if you're ready to receive it. The meaning in Halloween is very simply: the fear of impending fate. That sure is a biggie for a movie about a pack of teen girls being hacked up by an escaped mental patient in a William Shatner mask. To elaborate, and reduce the tree to an apple, it is about the audience's fear for the impending fate of a pack of teenage girls having fun in the dark. But there is something more broad going on here apart from the sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll (though here, the music never gets louder than what's overheard from a 70's car radio). It's that- the film's killer is lacking any kind of motive for dispatching his victims, there is nothing present anywhere in his visible psychology that explains his behavior at any time, the choice for the suburbs as the location for the murders is deliberate, the one person alive who has observed his behavior considers him inhuman, and despite having a human character name, the killer is identified by Carpenter and Hill's script as "The Shape." Sam Loomis says Michael Myers has "the devil's eyes." And the adult Michael Myers is seen as having black holes where his eyes should be through the mask he wears. To the characters in the movie who have any sense of awareness of the danger they face, he is "The Boogeyman." Pure darkness. A force of some unnamed evil with no truly human characteristics. Through a series of scary coincidences, Laurie Strode just knows that she has to run from something trying to kill her. There's no time to identify that as a man. And so, Michael Myers becomes the unkillable "Boogeyman" of horror. Or, at least the first of many to come in later years.

Carpenter's idea of the boogeyman in all of his horror films - his common, running theme throughout - is... Us. Most of his films involve something that changes shape and was once like the humans it stalks, coming back in another form (possessed, mutated, re-animated after death, or deranged) to attack. Any one of us could be a victim, but also, any one of us could be what the thing we fear most. This theme seems to have its' roots in Italian cinema (a lot of films where the protagonist themself was the one wielding the knife) and, though it certainly pops up in a few of Argento's films, it seems to really be Mario Bava's calling card. John Carpenter is America's Italian-minded director. Of all his horror films, this one has the most implications of true substance among his intentionally stocked pile of movie cliches / elements. Carpenter is the ultimate movie fan director, with scores of followers to prove it. And that's most likely why meaning-is-art people didn't find Halloween to at least be a stylistic achievement. Hell, the music score alone proved that. But what is art to this film is in updating a classic genre formula of fear, death, and unease to the 70's - the most groundbreaking era in the 2nd half of horror's legacy. It is essentially genre-aware (perhaps one of the reasons the acting is, on the whole, bad- the film's sole flaw, though that certainly didn't warrant the 2007 remake), with several references to the genre as well as showing actual scenes from 1951's The Thing from Another World as well as a plot recalling again Bob Clark's Black Christmas, where your cast of characters are comprised by girls who do and those who don't. Here, you see a lot more do-ing. And that unfortunately (like the acting?) set a bad precedent for the next at least 6 years of mostly unaware genre returns.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 136: Wheel of Misfortune


Evil Clutch
(1988 / director: Andreas Marfori)

★★★

I think the best low budget horror films from the 70's and 80's thrive on lethargic pacing. And in that arena, there is nothing more lethargic on Earth than this 1988 Troma acquisition. An utter freakfest (and I do mean, fest, you'll get so much bizarreness and ugliness here, you may even need a week off from horror afterward to recuperate!) of sexual insanity, the unfortunately-titled Evil Clutch is like the Fulci film that never was. So dirty and dingy that it would make the Saw films cower in the corner of this film's outhouse-like farmhouse. So dark and utterly hysterical, The Blair Witch Project would snap out of its own idiotic trance, pack up its bags and clear out. The fact that it's meant to be viewed as a kind of Evil Dead rip-off (when in reality, Evil Dead is just one of several films - Demons, The Shining, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - this rips off) couldn't be more beside the point. There are so many fascinating implications of every plot device and structure element borrowed here from other films either melting down (not unlike the film's lead zombie in the impressive final farmhouse slaughter) or coming unglued, that the film itself becomes pure insanity. Truly- I lost all sense of how shoddy the pieces of this film are (and they can be pretty damn shoddy; like the miserable English dubbing that has most everyone talking ultra-slow, half of the gore / goop FX, or the agonizing sound of hearing the filmmakers trying to avoid copyright infringement on Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by humming "Whistle While You Work" without it sounding like "Whistle While You Work" - a European specialty) because of the way they're put together. There were several moments where the film became brilliant (or just extremely effective) ugly art. And that's just visually.

There is enough sick and mystic stuff going on here to write a book about. The movie begins with an introduction to our 4 main characters in 2 key scenes. Both are couples. First, naturally, is the Couple of Good - Tony and Cindy (Italian horror superstar, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni of Argento's Opera and Lamberto Bava's Demons 2). They share and narrate captions for cutesy polaroids taken from their romantic meeting in Europe in closeup dissolves while a creepy chorus of male Gregorian chanting (which always suggests something religious, in this case that the lovers are about to go to hell) takes us into the opening credits, green-fonted words with a red bloody claw-mark slash through the main title. Ominous. That may be foreshadowing for what will happen about an hour later, but you won't have to wait to see something nasty enough to write home about. Because couples in Evil Clutch don't stay together very long. Next we meet the Couple of Evil; Arva and Fango. She's a vampiric seductress and he's a shy, blue-collar punk who's spirited-away to the horrid farmhouse where so much of the horror takes place by her siren song. He's under a sexual spell that even keeps him silent. She rips off his genitals with a very large claw which is located... somewhere between her legs. But not before she unloads an interesting mouthful about searching for something your whole life and being found after having been lost. This is merely to indicate that, although she leaves him bleeding to death, he like her will not die as other people do. He'll be undead. Her powers and ambitions as a witch range from the cartoon villain intent on ruling the world by the force of destruction and a kind of devious psychic who has seen the future and already knows the fates of her victims.

The two couples meet up several times later on. Arva shifts her designs onto hunky Tony and fixes up a cocaine-like mind control drug he unwittingly helps her mix in her nasty tar-filled cauldron. He uses and later-on, he becomes sick with a fever that makes him paranoid and blindly horny. He would screw anyone. And this is after she has conveniently disappeared. In the time between Cindy running her away from the farmhouse and her luring Tony to have sex with her in the appendages of a huge white root / weed plant that either wants to devour him or brush its' teeth with him (and you'd be surprised how much the latter is a possibility), we see what has become of undead Fango. He's still very much kicking, tied at the neck like a dog in the farmhouse's extended backyard, receiving telepathic signals that the woman keeping him for a slave is about to take another man. Filled with jealousy and rage, he breaks free (while spewing wet-cemetent from inside his mouth all over his jumpsuit) and goes on the warpath- attacking anyone in sight. Not with the untamed ferocity of an animal, but rather with the sadistic playfulness of the evil dead. It's almost creepy how much his attacks on Tony especially feel more like he's just wrestling with him. He may cut off his hands by bashing a rock over them and rip off his head, but the whole time he's laughing like a retard who doesn't know his own strength. Lastly, there's a 5th character. A creepy old man on a motorcycle who tells stories about Tony and Cindy in another place and time going crazy (spiritual possession), killing each other, and coming back from the dead. When Arva reveals her true form (long, sharp nails, jagged teeth, and deformed eyes), we learn she is his daughter. Now we know where he gets the inspiration for his stories.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 128: Deja Vu


Wishmaster
(1997 / director: Robert Kurtzman)

★

This movie had such a great idea: a monster genie. After something like Aladdin, who wouldn't want to see a horror movie about the dark side to instant gratification? Plus, the theme of greed as bad karma is classic in horror as well as in scary stories like The Monkey's Paw. Also, the 1990's were the premiere decade for wish-granting killers. First there was Leprechaun. And that became a franchise. And it was fun while it lasted... until they went to outer space. After that, Leprechaun in the Hood was a minor cult hit (paving the way later for things as rancid as Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror). Then comes Demon Knight. But it was too goofy. Both of these films knew they were novelty ideas and lacked a real dark side. Neither were scary. Right out of the box, Wishmaster intends to be more serious. Which is a good thing. But did it deliver what the 1990's really needed? Less of an emphasis on special effects, and more emphasis on writing, character, on some kind of point? Unfortunately, no. It just aims for more of the same Hellraiser-lite malice that became the genre standard with 1989's far superior (though again, admittedly light in the intensity department) Warlock and continuing into the 90's with things like Waxwork II: Lost in Time and the further Amitvyille Horror sequels. Directed by Bob (Robert) Kurtzman (the 'K' in KNB Effects, who've famously worked on Evil Dead 2 and Scream). So, instead of less of the sloppy kind of low budget gore we'd been wallowing in- there's more of it. So much more, that the movie embarrasses itself more than the disastrous Jason Goes to Hell. Which, not surprisingly, loans Wishmaster their score composer Harry Manfredini.

The plot involves a woman who has an unknown link to the monster genie, the genie escapes his prison inside a ruby and starts attacking people- most of whom he forces to wish for something. So he starts to track the woman down to make her his next victim. Or something. That's it, pretty much. Except the genie in human form keeps running into big, tall, angry, physically imposing guys and trying to play mind games with them. Trying is the operative word here. They yell and swear at him, he keeps his cool, they get angrier and then... he gets them all to wish for something. You might have instead expected them to have less patience with him, and following their ultra-aggressive threats actually, I'dunno... hit him or something, instead of going "yeah, I wish!" like they're biting their bottom lip to the point of bleeding. The movie is too visually ugly to be cheesy, but the biggest problem with what we do get for story is how this "Djinn" (the real word for Genie I gather) has to lure in his 'customers'. He has both a monster form and a supposedly alluring human form (although I think he's quite ugly- actor, Andrew Divoff smokes like a chimney and has a face more besieged by craters than Tommy Lee Jones; sorry, pal) is able to swindle about 7 or 8 people with just 3 lines; "Hate your job? Fear your beauty will fade? Is your party a little boring?" Are we supposed to believe that with one sentence, he's chipped away a person's entire resistance to becoming vulnerable? If you actually swallow that scene with Tony Todd, you are the most gullible person on the planet.

Then we've got our carnage: sequences of 15-20 people having their faces ripped off or twisted around or things jumping out of their throats. And trust me, the FX really suck in this movie. The most popular one is the skin on people's faces being ripped, skinned, or just plain knocked off by the tiniest thing. At the party sequence, a girl turns into glass and explodes, and a tiny piece of her hits a guy on the side of his face and in less than a second, half of the skin on it is gone. And it looks stupid; like the wind blowing a bandaid off. And when the skin comes off, of course what you see immediately are very detailed muscles / tendons. In other words, an over-prepared special effect. This movie is so slap-happy to do a mass-murder scene that it can't settle for one- it has two. But by 1997, it'd already been done before (and better) in Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest and Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth. Another FX sequence in the film rips off the famous "tequila worm" scene from Poltergeist II: The Other Side. Robert Englund pukes up what looks like an undigested (and un-chewed up) crab covered in oil. Everything in Wishmaster is directly ripped off from some other movie. Let's go over the Check List: (1) nasty, malevolent magical creature (Leprechaun, check), (2) with sinister but elegant mannerisms (Warlock, check), (3) brooding, almost seductive voice (Candyman, check), (4) tentacles coming out of its' head/face (Predator, check), (5) collecting victim's souls (Demon Knight, Nightmare on Elm Street 3/4/5 - double check), (6) also a world-traveled ancient-explorer demon matching wits with the film's heroine (Hellraiser, check).

And then... I have to bring up the music again (although, I'd much rather pretend there was none). Harry Manfredini's score at first is kind of sweeping and romantic (in the sense that it supports the scenes with a Persian-feel to them), but farts out and just goes into those extremely annoying Jason Goes to Hell track-stopping da-na's. If you saw that movie, you'll know only too well what I mean. It's grating beyond the ability to describe. And feels really cheap and stupid. Perhaps the only truly redeeming quality are all the cameos from horror icons. They don't add anything substantial to the movie but it probably gets some kind of brownie points for having the largest number. Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Buck Flower (The Fog, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, 976-Evil II) - who is funny for about 90 or so seconds, Angus Scrimm and Reggie Bannister (Phantasm), Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th parts VII and VIII), Tony Todd (Candyman). The acting is TV-quality good (with Jenny O'Hara, the spitting image of Shirley MacLaine, being the only one trying to up the class level of the film). But everything else is awful. There is no suspense in the film at all and the story is not interesting. You won't care about any of the characters, you won't be impressed by any of the "horror" in the movie. All there is to marvel at here are the horror celebrity cameos.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 37: Prettyboys of the Night


The Lost Boys
(1987 / director: Joel Schumacher)

★★½

With a tagline that caps itself off with, "It's fun to be a vampire," you have to wonder why the production team didn't go all the way on this Goonies-esque teen horror film. The Lost Boys was conflicted in the creative stages, another classic Gremlins story of Warner Bros. executives being timid about moving ahead with something they weren't sure of. Originally, it was supposed to be a replay of Goonies with a group of boys in a dangerous situation involving vampires and lots of adventure. There were no older brothers or sex scenes with lost girls or allusions to getting drunk and drug addiction. Enter Joel Schumacher, a director considered after Richard Donner (The Omen, Superman) passed to go do Lethal Weapon instead, but he told Donner and Warner Bros. he would only do the movie if he could change it. What did they have to lose? Suddenly, the movie became a shallow mix of Corey Feldman and Haim Stand by Me-ish young teen antics and The Outsiders prettyboy old-teen drama infused with Schumacher's extravagant sense of style. And so, that's exactly what it is. Beautiful but shallow. Striving to be mature and adult with themes of introspection, self-isolation, and coming to grips with the wild side of being young. It pretty much fails to do so because there is always an irritating Two-Coreys' one-liner waiting nearby to cut through the drama or tension before it can even amount. Then, most of the scenes without the children in the room are further affected by the action-film pacing. It's basically a roller coaster on the outside instead of on the inside. And that's understandable, since this is a Hollywood film and they feel they have to work the whole audience somehow. They may very well have played to what the larger portion of that audience found to be entertaining. But doing that, they failed to tap into anything below the surface.

However, there is one more age group added to the film's mix that tips the scales to its' favor: the adults. No matter how silly anything the children are doing may be, they are actually grounded by 3 amazing supporting performances by Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann, and Barnard Hughes. The romantic leads, Jason Patric and Jamie Gertz, are marvelous as well. But the film is mostly dominated by the humor and for that, the adult actors are a real dream team who are even almost able to offset the empty quality to the film's "dark and dangerous" attitude posing. Thanks to Schumacher, the film looks like a dream; also worth mentioning are Greg Cannom's A+ makeup and melting FX work). But it also sounds like one as well. Everything from sound effects, to the almost non-existent music score, to a diverse collection of 80's pop songs from easy listening to synth stuff to hard rock. Then of course, there's Gerard McMahon's piercingly hypnotic theme to the movie, "Cry Little Sister." Though the hair-band look to the vampire gang's uniformly long locks is tacky as all get-out, the cinematography (lots of colored lights, both in the frame of and above pouring onto the screen-space) and camerawork (especially the flying aerial shots through clouds and along the horizon of the setting sun with the tall rides of the beach's amusement park in the foreground) are insanely gorgeous. If the movie's mission was to just be an entertaining piece of pop culture, this "something for everyone" flick actually does have a few things for an obscure guy like me.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 86: The Love Bug


Masters of Horror:
Sick Girl
(2005 / director: Lucky McKee)

★★★½

Director Lucky McKee may not have been a "Master" of horror when he agreed to join the series' slate at the last minute (replacing B-movie god Roger Corman to do this same entry), but when the series hit Showtime and the 12 installments that made it on (the 13th, Takashi Miike's Imprint was - for lack of a better word - banned due to Showtime's extreme discomfort with the subject matter) had aired and this was clearly the best of the bunch, there was no longer any question that he always was a master. Though the next year's DVD release of his final horror film, The Woods, was plagued with problems (not the least of which being that the version which made it onto the disc was terrible), Sick Girl was a step-up from and a perfection-of his already outstanding formula from his 2002 film, May. He also managed to do what no other director (other than perhaps Mick Garris, who had been floundering around in made-for-TV films for years while his pre-The Stand talent basically was squandered on subpar though great looking work like Riding the Bullet) was able to do with their entry- make it something completely their own. The original story for Sick Girl had none of McKee's trademark humor, quirky characters, or two women as the protagonists. Yet he took it and transformed it into yet another showpiece for actress Angela Bettis's (the patient with the weight problem in Girl, Interrupted) underrated and undervalued skills being fully able to become a character, porn star Misty Mundae's ultra-wide-eyed endearingly icy stare (the only woman I can think of who could give Felissa Rose a run for her money), unbelievable soberly-stoned line delivery and hippie-like hair (she has the most awesome straight long hair I've seen since Carolyn Jones and Ali MacGraw), as well as a host of other eccentricities housed by the many guest stars of McKee's stock company of friends and co-horts he had gathered between May and Woods.

Under the surface of being a horror film about a bug that attacks a lovey-dovey couple and makes one of them act strange then begin to transform into a bug-human hybrid eventually lashing out at and killing people is a story about homophobia and the challenges of making a domestic living situation work despite the differences between two people. But attempts at substance mean nothing in horror without something compelling on the outside to makes viewers interested in the characters and what they're going through. In the end, none of the underneath matters very much. Not because it's weak but because McKee usually pushes for a way to appeal to the audience's emotions. Character likability is essential to him as a director. Yet despite that, which usually turns me off (it takes a lot to make me like characters unless I already think the actor playing them has an inherent likability), he finds a way to imply some pretty intriguing psychology - in the form of showstopping moments of quiet creepiness - instead of sappiness. It's no good bothering to try to challenge anti-gay stereotypes unless we have some kind of happy ending. And happy endings in horror are hard to pull off; some fans are outright against them, always- no exceptions. But May proved that this director can craft happy endings from very bad circumstances. So, the dark reality never changes, but yet, there is a high note to close the film out on. Other than his fondness for lesbian makeout scenes and quirky characters, McKee's love of indie music and girl-rock infect Sick Girl with an interesting energy. At one point, a laidback Pink Floyd-esque band's bluesy tune physically blurs the imagery. Things are pretty light until the last 18 minutes when you know some bodies will accrue and that's not the best part of the masterpiece final scene. Instead, it's how the tension level rises to boiling point without loud banging audio or ultra-quick action cuts. Instead it's with simple acting, killer dialogue, subtle music notes, and a little moody lighting.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 117:
Diary of the Day of the Survival of the Land of the Living Dead


The Dead Next Door
(1989 / director: J.R. Bookwalter)

★★½

The background behind this little-movie-that-could no-budget wonder (of the type you may have also seen or heard me discuss previously with the inferior Psychos in Love and the superior There's Nothing Out There) is more engaging than any story these guys could have cooked up for this thing. But, to its' credit, this movie does remain a more charming and likable attempt at a last-days-of-the-living makeshift-militia kind of thing than Romero's overrated Day of the Dead. When put together, Day is the serious one and this is the goofball. Which is understandable when you learn that Evil Dead's Sam Raimi put up money for this to be made, Evil Dead 2's co-writer Scott Spiegel acts in it, and Bruce Campbell (Ash) does ADR (by the way, the whole film is dubbed for whatever reason). Then, there are characters named after genre figures like John Carpenter, Stephen King, George A. Romero, and Tom Savini (special effects makeup & gore pioneer behind most of Romero's biggest cult hits). If everyone involved were taking this more seriously... it might have been a scary film (the mass zombie attack scenes during the opening credits are just laughable). But as it stands, it is able to muster up some fun artsy stuff in the very soap opera-y final 3rd (especially in the very bizarre dialogue-showdown between Maria Markovic and Jolie Jackunas with Fulci-esque closeups of their lips as they yack away and blue lightning flashes bouncing off their faces). What it does have in the meantime is some fun jittery camerawork, which does add a little tension- though never in more than short bursts.

The main attraction is the blood and gore, and there is a lot of it. The look to the zombie face makeup isn't great but there are some fake heads that do look great and the blood quality ranges from good to serviceable. I've always found that there is nothing entertaining about gore unless there is something either special, interesting, or fun about the rest of the movie. And I've always found a lot to like about this movie. The writing is smart enough, the acting fits very well to the film's loose structure, and... the film's structure is refreshingly loose. To make up for how pathetically hammy the sequences of hoardes of zombies on the streets are (oh- and really bad jokes on things like abortion clinics with a group of zombie-killing protestors = people protesting the "government's killing of zombies"), the movie's music keeps you from taking them seriously (great damn music score and unknown-bands on the soundtrack) and the first 3rd of the movie is full of energetically mundane scenes that get the routine Romero social-science out of the way in record time (right away a zombie is given the ability to talk, whereas in Romero's Day it took over an hour and who was really impressed with "Aunt Alicia" anyway?). As boring as most people are sure to think this movie is, it always has something new to throw at us. And rather than being the usual cheap gross-outs and agonizingly stupid one-liners you might find in Troma's original productions, most of it is trying to be smart. It doesn't always succeed, but it is easy to sit through and I walked away very much liking the main characters. Biggest flaw: the entire middle's cult subplot.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 11: The Never Ending Movie


The Shining
(1980 / director: Stanley Kubrick)

★★★

It's not really fair for me to criticize this film that so many horror fans and critics from all over the world think is an unquestionable masterpiece and one of the finest horror films ever made. It is not the former, not by a long shot. But... it is certainly one of the most unique horror films ever made. A Hollywood film directed by one of cinema's most acclaimed directors- The Shining is utterly unpredictable, full of surprises (both good and bad), and so damn eerie that you will feel it on the back of your neck after it's over for quite some time. You might expect it to be full of drama and scenes it doesn't need, and instead it couldn't be more blunt and to-the-point. It has what so many horror films lack, both an atmosphere so thick and tangible you can feel it, and a sense of style so original that filmmakers have been trying to match it for years. Most have failed. This film is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre of the 1980's; completely inexplicable by standard methods of film making and judgment.

But here's the thing... I've never dug it much as a finished film. First off, it's interminably long (2 and a half hours). When you have a slow, atmosphere driven movie that stretches every single thing out... it loses its power to be scary pretty quickly. So you have to really love every thing the movie is serving you. And this brings me to the famous bathtub scene, which is utter garbage (and I can smell its' stench sitting several feet away from a television screen). Jack Nicholson ogles over a naked woman standing in the middle of a room. Clearly the intention is to trick certain viewers into thinking she's hot so that they'll be horrified when you see in the mirror that she's actually a rotting, dead old woman's corpse. What kind of viewers would think this woman is hot? Necrophiliacs! Because she looks like a corpse before we see her in the mirror- with flabby ass, bony arms and legs, non-existent breasts, and a fully on-display ribcage where you can count the bones. Only the most polite of people could even manage to continue looking at her. She is every bit as repulsive as the naked old woman in sausage-skin we see shortly after. Usually, the film is very smart and skilled with its' imagery. Not in this case. (I also didn't care very much for the scene in the cook's, Mr. Halloran's, hotel room with pictures of naked women on his wall. What is the point, exactly? It comes completely out of nowhere.)

Next is the acting. Almost everyone gives a stellar performance, especially (the ones who resonated with me the most) supporting actors Barry Nelson (as the ultra-smiley manager of the hotel who gives the most incredible dry reading of a truly scary mouthful of exposition - and to credit the film's decision to draw everything out beyond breaking point, it really works in the beginning) and Anne Jackson (as the doctor who checks up on comatose Danny, and though the scene she has talking alone with the Mrs. Torrance character is a masterwork on its' own, she becomes the communicator for the movie's oncoming tone of heavy dread with just her silence and a single amazingly powerful reaction shot). The real standout is Shelley Duvall as the mousy housewife who gives one of horror's ultimate terrified-woman performances for all-time. I felt both genuinely uncomfortable at the prospect of her being killed (or I knew I would be upset were she to die, after the stalking and screaming scenes were over) and immensely compelled by her twisted expressions of pure fright, stress, grief, and confusion. While Jack Nicholson is destroying the film's considerable tension with his silly, lame, over-the-top "psycho" mannerisms (cartoony tongue hanging out and wiggling, childish mimickery, fly-like nervy reflex-gestures with his fists and hands), the film rests solely on her shoulders (as I mentioned, Danny is in a coma-state throughout the entire middle of the movie).

And that finally brings us to Jack. I've already begun, so allow me to continue. The plot of the movie involves Jack Torrance being slowly transformed by the dark spirits in the Overlook hotel into a cold-blooded killer. The film's ability to be scary depends on this, he must transition into the creepy killer role gradually. Well, that goes right out the window in the first half-hour. The second the Torrance family drive up into the mountains, there is a dialogue sequence where Jack's eyes go insane and his eyebrows go into maximum overdrive. It's at this moment that you realize: it's gonna be a loooooooooooooong movie... To be fair, Jack's overacting only comes in fits and spurts until the big "All Work and No Play" scene. And it wasn't his idea either; Stanley Kubrick's exaggeration of everything, including the notion of what qualifies as scary in a person's behavior, is obviously to blame. It's as though he didn't care about audience reaction (although, they've mostly reacted in favor of Nicholson's performance- this is the rare exception to the rule of when this approach will work, usually it doesn't, and I'm still far from won-over), but instead cared about satisfying himself more than the kind of person who would want to see the movie. At any rate, I can't criticize Kubrick for the great sense of balance he brings to the movie. Most of the time, Jack's absurd performance is in fact evened out by all the other insanity going on. And thankfully, Shelley's performance is allowed to come through loud and clear.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 134: Heaven for Guys Who Like Big...


Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers
(1988 / director: Fred Olen Ray)

★★

In the realm of late 80's direct-to-video horror (a thriving industry back then, and believe it or not- fans didn't have such a low opinion of it at that time), Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers is considered an endearing classic. It's even used all over the DVD release to publicize: "Maxim Magazine says" it's "the 4th coolest B-movie of all-time!" Is it really that cool? No. But it's easy to see why so many people like it. It's a hard movie to hate. Unless you're even weirder than I am. It features a pretty bad clone of narrating noir Detective cliches (already parodied beautifully by The Firesign Theatre with their Nick Danger character) in the form of Jay Richardson's Jack Chandler (insanely handsome, poor man's Tim Allen - wanting to be the C-movie Bruce Campbell - who'd previously appeared in Troma's The Newlydeads), although there are a lot of charming references to how big a Dick he is. Private-Dick, that is. Just without the "Private" added (it's half-implied). I'm not kidding- the variety of jokes about that on display are impressive. As are the women playing the chainsaw-ing hookers. The first one (Mercedes- jokes about that are abound as well) gets the most screentime, direct-to-video B-movie dynamo Michelle Bauer (sometimes McClellen), the poor-man's brunette Kim Cattrall. She saws construction workers while grooving to bad Elvis cover songs but has a real flair with obvious dialogue (the "Screaming Orgasm" sequence is a hoot). Then there's the throaty Esther Elise (get this... she was actually in an episode of the ultra-wholesome PBS show, Reading Rainbow!) as Lisa the model who seduces the unbelievably strange (is he really as old as he looks with those glasses on, young with them off? What character is this a send-up of?) Jerry Fox Harris as he pays her to shoot for (I just had to share this one) "Nude Calendars for Baseball Bats." Naturally, it's just rife with phallic references as well as corny jokes about the sport too.

Finally the movie looks to the past for help in selling it to a wider horror audience with the one-two of Gunnar Hansen (the original Leatherface in Tobe Hooper's 1974 masterpiece the gimmick of the movie is clearly stolen from) and 80's premiere scream queen, Linnea Quigley (1985's The Return of the Living Dead being the #1 standout in a resume maybe more impressive than any other actress in the history of the genre, in terms of volume). He's always been one of the most fascinating actors in the genre as an offscreen personality. Larger than life physically but, in behavior, the single most gentle, articulate, intelligent, and verbal guy you'll ever come across in an interview. So it's a bit of a novelty to see the most famous cross-dressing, human-skin wearing, mammoth-sized savage killer in horror as a mild-mannered cult leader. Though he is the guy this movie owes its' existence to (for no other reason than popularity of the image of him as the guy in the bloody white shirt, yellow apron with chainsaw, chasing teenagers and 20-somethings through Texas), this is the perfect example of casting against-type. She on the other hand is cast as a combination Nancy Drew girl-detective and Camille Keaton revenge-seeker. And she gets to deliver the only truly scary scene in the film, as she describes what the chainsaw cult did to her friend (a quite Suspiria touch, that she subjects herself to danger because the murdered girl was her friend) while Jack squeals like a woman for her to stop. This movie walks the line between charming and groan-inducing with about a 50% success rate. It may be the Re-Animator of direct-to-video busty-babe slasher flicks to folks who've seen more of these kinds of films than I have but it's no poor man's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Though it is refreshing that if this is another B-movie trying to tap into some ZAZ, it remembers that The Naked Gun was just as brilliant as Airplane!

[nopersonality]

Chapter 126: Father May I?


Voodoo Academy
[Director's Cut]
(1999 / director: David DeCoteau)

★★

There is no one you'll find in the world who enjoys (and is perpetually used to) being teased as much as I do (a healthier form of self-abuse than overeating or voting). For guys like me, there is no satisfaction. I mean, even if you did "get it," you would still be missing something. That's why my goal is to find meaning behind the object of desire rather than pretend to be content with thoughtless, empty climaxes. To know myself better every time (and never lie to myself about what I want to see). There is a power in being teased. A thrill in a chase. It's a way to always be thinking about what you're feeling. If you don't understand what you're playing with, it'll control you. Some movies are about sex and flaunt it. This is one of them. But some of these movies build suspense and then deliver a pay-off, because the movie knew that the people watching knew what it was and so it would say, "okay, I admit it." This movie can't admit what it's about. Yet another gay horror movie afraid to come out of the closet, like the equally, shockingly obvious Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. This is the 90's, so it's freer to show as much skin as it wants to- and it does. You see everything on a guy (or in this case, 7 guys) an R-rated movie can show you. But unlike in the 80's, where Nightmare's 'fraidy-boy Jesse was basically allowed to frolic in the realm of the unknown without being forcibly seduced by a woman (the tongue scene wasn't a seduction scene, she was actually trying to get him to open up and let out what was inside of him instead of use him up with her needs-list and demands), the closest a guy gets here to experimentation is over a bottle of spilt wine which sadly puts an end to a much-needed man-to-man body rub (the receiver being naked in a bathtub... from chest-up, of course).

The movie is so afraid of being called gay that it adds in some female eye-candy. Being a director of 80's skin-horror flicks, DeCoteau (who has, since this film, actually become a huge gay icon as companies now consider this film a success and want more of his brand of "homoerotic" (in the straight world, meaning: guys showing off their bodies and touching themselves, though in the real world there is a little more to it) horror flicks to sell to clueless video chains) is eager to break the rules yet is more comfortable with the old formula (at least having a sexy woman present, and wearing lingerie, so people can't call the film a gay porn). Although, if this is another The Thing scenario (an all-boys' club), she is clearly the odd-creature-out (ala- Joan in Naked Lunch). So uninvolved in the theme of faith-questioning leading to sexual confusion that even when she's as fully dressed as she gets, she's showing way too much leg under her skirt so she'll be noticed. If she weren't here, these private Bible School boys would have no choice but to admit they're tempted by something they've seen since enrolling even though they don't know what it is. We would, and that would be enough. Since this movie was designed by the director to (as he puts it) "push buttons," there's no reason he couldn't have gone further and tried a little psychology to give the over-the-top meat-market imagery a leg to stand on. We could consider this a victim of less understanding times but the fact is that things were more liberal then than they are now. The next year's Psycho Beach Party (on a larger budget and with infinitely better production values, actors, special effects- etc) basically figured out the problem and corrected it. The previous year's Bride of Chucky was also more forward-thinking on the subject of gay characters.

So, along comes the chance for DeCoteau to put out the film in its' full, uncut (can't really say glory, can I? The best shots are marred by significant grain, as you can tell by looking above) form on DVD in his 23-minute extended Director's Cut and... well... now we know what the movie was gunning for. Not any kind of subversive satirizing of religion or comforting attempt at self-discovery. Over 80 of the movie's 92 minutes are occupied by copious amounts of boy posing. From suited-up, pouty-lipped pretty-faced dialogue exchanges (though never is the word "gay" uttered in the movie, so the guys are not hostile at the others for being in ridiculously-close quarters at all times beyond criticizing someone else for being stereotypical: the muscle-brained jock, the foul-mouthed prankster, the brown-nosed tattletaler, the "can't we all just get along?" guy, the quiet, skinny, internally brooding guy, and the outgoing leader with a heart of gold) to tanktopped WB-show / boy-band dance-troop hunkboy clothing ad modeling (though here's where you have to almost long for Zoolander as an alternative), to underwear-clad (especially tight in the rear end, and that dear friends is where the glory part comes in) body groping (though, never on the verge of masturbation or even overt touching of their penises) as the lads writhe in their bed in a dream state. I guess the interesting part of the movie is what the guys are experiencing in those dreams. In their waking life, they may be just open-minded (or naive) enough to think nothing of bathing and being half-naked in front of each other. But what little of their actual sexual experiences we see are controlled by the movie's confused portrait of a perverted molesting witch who's completely satisfied with a little suggestive sweet-talking and torso rubbing. For a villainess who answers to the charge of seducing the boys with, "I take pride in my work" ... well, there sure isn't much pleasure in it.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 116: Return to Sender


Child's Play 2
(1990 / director: John Lafia)

★½

The painful irony between Child's Play and Child's Play 2 is that these films are only scary to children, yet their R-rating obviously means they're more off-limits to that crowd than they are for adults. For adults like me, they're not even able to drum up adequate tension. That's because they're victims of the post-John Carpenter's The Thing 80's slogan: show everything. So, we see way too much at all times. That approach worked for Gremlins (because the writing was so damn good and director Joe Dante was a genius) but lightning did not strike twice with the debut of Chucky. More than anything what makes Child's Play and this sequel laughable today is that neither one gets the formula right. The original had likable characters but a bad industrial, no-luster music score (channeling 70's Canadian horror films, especially Bob Clark's Black Christmas) and an unattractively gritty, hard-edged visual look that an after-school special would kill for but does nothing to enhance the atmosphere of a movie about a killer toy. Part 2 corrects this problem. Now the music is freaky as all get-out (sounds like it was played by a demented Dr. T from a circus in hell!) and the visual look is actually creepy (very much so, from the tight camerawork, pacing and editing, and the Problem Child primary color wheel, both made for Universal so it's no surprise), but the tradeoff is that the writing is stupid, the supporting characters (everyone but the kid and his friend, Kyle) are aggressively irritating cliches (most of them being outright assholes), and Chucky moves and talks so much by himself onscreen that it's impossible to take him seriously or be scared of him. And that's where the original film stands superior, because Chucky was in fact scary (for awhile).

Basically, the film is made by its excellent 15-minute doll factory ending, which with its exquisite hand-ripping gore effect (despite it happening to a villain, it's still painful to watch) and novelty of a hand-less Chucky walking around with a blade where his fingers should be (kind of a one-two-three rip-off of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Evil Dead 2, and Friday the 13th Part IV) is like a film unto itself (it does rip off The Shining with its maze of toys, but did anyone else catch the joke? They can't escape Chucky's grasp because they're completely surrounded by Chucky's - get it?). Though by then, it's already far too late to be saved. The flaws are so numerous in fact, that I don't know where to begin. To say the least, between Chucky overdoing it and the awful writing and characters, every last scene prior to the finale is rendered ineffective. To add further injury, the death scenes are some of the dumbest I have ever seen in my life. A woman's throat is slit but it looks faker than the cop in Halloween II (you may be wondering- how could anything possibly look faker than that? Well, this does). A man is killed in a freak electrical explosion, flies through a glass window with full cartoon character "gaah!" screaming sound effect (was Bobcat Goldthwait doing ADR on this movie?) and lands on the floor in closeup looking like this. As Rowdy J over at The Horror Debate would say, this thing's been hit one too many times with "the stupid stick" (and in this case, I couldn't agree more). I could go on about that (since there's more: the dreadful mechanical arm eye-gouging, death by meter stick, and 3 jump-rope bondage scenes) but, man have I got my hands full with just the plot of the movie.

The plot is a juvenile version of Friday the 13th Part V (nice to know someone respects the schlock classics) where wayward traumatized kids are given shelter in a boarding half-way house by a barren couple having some marital difficulties with the arrival of survivor Andy from the first movie. She's the good cop and he's the bad cop; what a shocker. As is the fact that every other adult woman Andy knows is a raging PMS-er; Beth Grant, who plays the nasty teacher, went on to reprise this role in the much better oppressed student film Donnie Darko, and Grace Zabriskie (who looks like a bitch anyway, and I mean that as a compliment) was a much better icy matron in Tales from the Crypt's season 2 episode, "The Secret." She's Brit-legend Jenny Agutter from John Landis's horror calling-card, An American Werewolf in London (and clearly the suits behind this movie know that, because otherwise she has almost no American base in any way) and he's the lawyer from Larry Cohen's Island of the Alive sequel to It's Alive, Gerrit Graham (he's good but as a kid I always mixed him up with the much more charismatic Robert Vaughn, who could play an Uncle better than this guy does a Father). One especially agonizing moment involves him having to tell Andy not to run in the house. He grabs him hard by the arm, sternly reprimands him, and then insults him by basically saying- what's wrong with you, normal kids aren't afraid of dolls. The kid is traumatized- you numbskull! He didn't even run 10 feet and you think this is an appropriate time to scold him? Again, I could go on (I'll sum the rest up in one blow; "get lost- microchip!" / these are some damn cynical tykes). But I'd rather link up a hopefully-impending Child's Play 3 review by mentioning the white-haired executive who is in the movie for 3 minutes (and gets a slightly longer scene in the following sequel). Seemingly only to say the line, "stick it up your ass!" No, sir, stick it up your ass. I'm sure it would fit!

[nopersonality]

Chapter 71: Mind Painting


The Stendhal Syndrome
(1996 / director: Dario Argento)

★★★

Dario Argento says that after Opera (his last great classic horror film), he fell into a deep depression brought on by a world in dispair. He's referring of course to the AIDS crisis of the 80's. And that he needed to re-examine himself before coming back to filmmaking. He literally disappeared (he was traveling at the time- sort of like a long vacation, though he did come back to co-write Michele Soavi's rancid The Church) and returned a new man. The first thing he did was deliver his darkest, most brutal piece of work to-date with half of the nasty 1990 anthology film, Two Evil Eyes. Then, some would say he softened up for 1993's Hitchcock-ian Trauma, a film about his niece's eating disorder. This began a bizarre working-relationship with his daughter, Asia, who was featured in several disturbing states of undress and physical debasement throughout the trilogy of films they did together. Dario treated her like he would any other actress. And for this film, she had her breasts fondled (the footage is cut from all versions of the finished film but can be seen in the trailers) and portrays a victim of violent rape- although, thankfully Argento's focus on the act of being raped is not for shock value but for psychological purposes. And that's Argento for you. The surface is never quite good enough. He always digs deeper.

There are a couple of glaring major flaws in Stendhal Syndrome. One of them sets an unfortunate precent in Argento's films- bad special effecs. You barely even noticed them before (when you did see the bright red blood in Suspiria, it was done intentionally- the vibrancy in the color was the point) but here, the CGI isn't even music video quality. It's bad, real bad (at least, the scenes involving the inside of the body). So it's a good thing that it's contained within the first 22 minutes of the 2-hour film. In Argento's efforts to always try and top the technical marvels of his past, it's sad that he can't quite compete with the Robert Rodriguez's and Zemeckis's of the 90's. The other thing is that Argento has never before (perhaps not since Phenomena, at least) been so obvious with his dialogue. His horror films thrive on mystery. The level of that wavers here. It's mostly too crude ("Ring! Ring! Ring! I like making phone calls," "If only I could forget it... Stendhal couldn't!", the father's eye-bulging dinner table outburst, every word out of Luigi Diberti's character's mouth). It doesn't help that Asia's character is a police detective, so now we begin to go inside the things best kept on the outside of Argento's films- the cop cliches and investigation details. The type of person, professionally, that Asia is portraying were some of the least interesting characters in Deep Red, Cat o' Nine Tails, and Bird with the Crystal Plumage. That's why the main characters were typically swanky, chauvinistic, arrogant upper-middle class jerks. You enjoyed seeing them being tortured because they acted out of no sense of moral obligation.

But this is probably Argento's best post-80's film, and for every minus there are at least two plusses. Not counting the rape sequences, the film is marvelously on the cutting edge in terms of sexuality. Having tackled all the gay issues he could, he goes deeper inside and starts dealing with gender conflicts. Following the first rape, Asia's Anna cuts her hair off and starts dressing like a man, then she kicks some serious boy ass, pounding an old childhood crush's face in and literally forcing her megahunk boyfriend to bottom for her. And that's nothing compared to what she does to the killer. The theme is both physical transformation and loss of identity. Following the second rape, she becomes a completely different person (she named her Louise). Sort of reverting back past the person she was before she acquired the title syndrome just walking through Italy's famous Uffizi Gallery, she dawns a blonde wig, chic sunglasses and cigarette, and has an affair with a romantic Frenchman (whether he dubbed or not, his accent is great and in one of the film's best scenes they ride on his motorscooter while he reads off a kind of Italian Cultural History for Dummies in convincing Italian accent while she throws her arms out in Kate Winslet mode... the year before that ho was showing off in Titanic) whom she meets in an art store. In the film, art always leads to murder (almost supernaturally compelling someone to premeditate killing or attacking someone else). So, it's disappointing to see the ending descend into shock reveals that aren't so shocking after all. But the sexual confusion aspects to the movie (along with Asia's fascinating "boat" monologue scene) and the glorification of Thomas Kretschmann's drop dead beautiful bod more than any of the women makes this an outstanding film in Argento's post-Opera career.