The Book of Horror (May Contain Spoilers)

[nopersonality]

Chapter 39: If Looks Could Kill


Sleepaway Camp
(1983 / director: Robert Hiltzik)

★★★

How many times is a rip-off able to surpass the thing it owes its' existence to? Only two films come to mind (Piranha is the other). Friday the 13th had great pieces but really didn't come together to be the best it could be. Sleepaway Camp aims lower but nontheless passes with sleaze honors. In the arena of so-bad-it's-good horror movies - bad acting, character stereotypes or costumes that garner a reputation of their own, expository lines of dialogue that inspire riotous laughter ("Meet me at the waterfront after the social" has become this movie's "Nilbog! It's Goblin spelled backwards!") - this is the only film that comes close to giving 1990's epic Troll 2 a run for its money. It isn't nearly as outrageous but it actually tries to incorporate more taboo subjects into its peculiar, eyebrow-raise inspiring framework. Gay parents, kids swearing like sailors, having sex, and doing drugs, a creepy fat pedophile (a character born to outshine that freak in Alice, Sweet Alice), full-frontal onscreen nudity with clear view of penis, a romance between a minor and a 50-something adult (not the fat guy), black and Latino characters portrayed as cooks and janitors, a transvestite, kids murdering other kids, and pre-Clownhouse tween nudity (both male and female). Despite what's inherently over-the-top about that list of atrocities, it really is quite brilliant. Taking its gender-bending concept to the absolute height of both entertaining absurdity and genuine shock-ability. Part psychological thriller, part camp comedy (and I mean that in every sense), part grotesque slasher film, and part satire. It stages its confrontation scenes of Carrie-esque bickering and tween call-out sessions like an actual soap opera (as well as the inevitable image of two people lovingly petting each other in bed- and to my personal delight... it's two shirtless guys; how'd they ever get away with that in 1983?!).

In fact... you might think Sleepaway Camp has Friday the 13th on the brain. But instead, it takes most of what it's got from Carrie. Including a scene-stealing "Crazy Bitch" performance to end them all (eat your heart out, Faye Dunaway!) from Desiree Gould as the amazing Aunt Martha. With a name that matches the over-the-top stuff she's doing with her swimmy eyes, she alone makes this worth a rental. In terms of "WtF?", she even puts Piper Laurie to shame. Her character has no control over her insanity and so she doesn't quite surpass Margaret White but she easily outcreeps her (since she went way over-the-top in the "devil has come home!" sequence, hiding behind doorways like a mad slasher waiting to strike). Gould however manages to allow her the ability to emote (especially in the "you never can be too careful... oh" moment). It's actually unfair to accuse this movie of bad acting, since unlike Troll 2 (which the director took seriously), that's actually the point. Hiltzik would have had to've been crazy to think he could match Carrie. So, he didn't try. He and the rest of the movie's characters find a lot of humor in this subject matter and so, nothing is treated very seriously unless it's a stereotype used for satirical purposes. Like the camp's vein-popping owner, Mel (B-actor extraordinaire and supporting actor in quality low-budget horror fare like Just Before Dawn and God Told Me To, Mike Kellin), who is trying to keep the murders a secret to protect his career (the "I'm finished! Wiped out!" sequence is a good example of how funny the character is) instead of caring about the campers- which he clearly doesn't. And, the reason to really watch the movie, you have your batch of annoying, foul-mouthed kids acting like grown ups you just want to smack (treated seriously in such dramatic / realistc exposé flicks as The Bad News Bears and Little Darlings) who all get exactly what's coming to them.

The movie's greatest feature is that, for a nasty and mean-spirited slasher film, there is no sense of tragedy like there was in Carrie. In that film, you were meant to feel sorry for both the killer and the victims. So, what happened in that film when the shit hit the fan wasn't revenge (as so many fans and mainstream critics have claimed)- it was free-flowing wrath-of-God massacre-horror, where the bullets didn't have names on them and no one was spared (and by the way, that totally worked for that film). This film knows that true Movie Revenge must be sweet to be savored. And by golly, it sure is here!! The deaths are clever, original, and wholly amusing (only one gives in to cliche, the Psycho styled shower murder, and that not only has the benefit of great-looking blood but it's in color too; I'm not a big Hitchcock fan anyway). Eventually, everyone who says or does anything morally bad or questionable gets at least beaten up (the most obvious red herring character) for having a pottymouth. So no matter who gets on your nerves, they're going to pay for it (pretty much everyone does anyway). This is also something unique to this one film- I've never found another slasher flick this willing to punish people for being annoying. Even when you like a character and they bite the dust, it's a blast. Which is easily the case for the movie's Mega Bitch- Judy (a girl so full of herself, she actually wears T-shirts with her name, in bold print, up front and center), whose "she's a real carpenter's dream" line is a freaking scream and one of horror's greatest quotes. Bar none. Then, with a theme like Frank Vinci's "Angela (You're Just What I've Been Looking For)," as hauntingly beautiful as it is prime 80's ice-pop, Sleepaway Camp is an underrated guilty pleasure. Miles ahead of its' competition (all the way from Prom Night to A Nightmare on Elm Street's many rip-offs).

[nopersonality]

Chapter 110: The Mutant Dead


Nightmare City
(1980 / director: Umberto Lenzi)

★★

Of the (surprisingly) many after-effects (aka: rip-offs) of Romero's immortal Dawn of the Dead, none are stranger than this half-Spanish, half-Italian survival / disaster epic of utter cheese. A mob of half suit-wearing, half sweater-wearing psychos with burnt-pizza faces (the makeup effects in this movie are beyond awful, some of the worst you will ever see) run around with bulging eyes, carrying hatchets and hunting knives and all manner of blades and bludgeoning tools, hacking up crowds of people and then drinking their blood. The infected corpses then get up (though, that's kept offscreen- don't ask me why) and the mob gets larger. All the while, a very select group of characters (kept in pairs, until even those numbers get smaller) are trying to gather supplies or get the hell away from the areas where they can see the mobs are hunting. Since there is a strong military presence here and pollution (to an unknown degree) is the cause of all the movie's problems, this movie doesn't seem to be in love with Dawn but rather to be trying to mix Spain's The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (aka, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, a better title) with Romero's The Crazies (nice to know that movie was this influencial). On the positive side, there are almost no human villains. Just a bastard TV station manager and "the government," which the military leaders seem to be at odds with as much as the civilians would be if they knew how they had no plans to inform the public that there are psycho mutant zombie murderers running around killing everyone in sight. Most military themed horror films show the army and/or soldiers as the bad guys. Here, the civilians don't exactly trust them but it's not their fault that they didn't have a plan to deal with this disaster. In fact, they eventually go against the government's order and declare a State of Emergency (which means... everyone's fucked).

What makes the movie so damn strange is that it's walking a thin line between stupid and sleazy, and genuinely creepy and intelligent. On the negative side, you've got the long stretches of repetitive attack scenes. They just go on and on and on. Even the filmmakers get bored, so their idea of livening things up is to start making the zombies go after women's breasts. They stab women in the boobs, cut off women's boobs, and even just rip their shirts open and push the women around on the screen - making sure the camera gets a good shot of their boobs - before stabbing them. I'll bet even Fulci was going, "why didn't I think of that?!" That's not where the film's attack on women ends either, they throw a slapping scene in just for the hell of it (probably ripping off Fulci's slap from the superior Zombie). Then there are the actors. Mel Ferrer is their big name and he (along with the people playing his daughter and son-in-law) is about the only one giving a quality performance (through all the lousy English dubbing). And there is scene of a dance television program being filmed in a studio that is also painfully repetitive, so damn terrible- it has to be seen to be believed (here's just the second half of it, there's actually twice as much of this!). However, there is a really good movie trying to get out of this. Things get a lot better in the second half of the movie. It even lays the groundwork for some scary philosophical discussion of what factors might have brought this on. Industrialisation, pollution and materialism, and the creation / destruction instinct of humanity. The movie has a killer music score as well. Equally repetitious as everything else but never lacking oomph or dread. The amusement park ending is to die for, there is also a great theme about psychic dreams which pops up occasionally, and all the scenes with Maria Rosaria Omaggio walking around her house are amazing.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 44: Other People's Windows


Children of the Corn
(1984 / director: Fritz Kiersch)

★★

Of the many subgenres of horror, there are a few you can usually count on to turn out a crappy final product every time. One is religious horror. Another is horror involving children (usually killer dolls and toys, but sometimes you get actual killer children). When one movie combines the two, it's a bad sign. Children of the Corn also has the distinction of being a post-Creepshow Stephen King film. Right when the world was starting to get tired of Stephen King mania. For every one Cujo, there were 7 Christine's. Corn isn't quite as painful as that film but maybe that's because nobody had heard before (or has since) of Fritz Kiersch. And there's a reason for that; Corn blows. To start with, the scenes with the congregation of children who are meant to be acting zombified by their stupid new religion. Well, if ever a movie needed a wrangler to control something, it's this one. The kids aren't synchronizing any of their actions. Nor are half of them even committing to the idea of it. Especially in the outdoor scenes. It looks like they all want to be somewhere else. They're getting bored. And the camera actually captures this. In several different angles. None of them achieving what they're trying to, tilting up and down and shifting from sideways to rightside up. They're trying to capture a hysteria of anarchy but it's more like that scene in Kindergarten Cop when Mr. Kimble asks the kids to raise their hands to tell him where they were born. They just can't get it together. Oh, some of the kids are trying harder than others. That comes through loud and clear, mostly in the scenes at the church and when the group swarms the town square area trying to capture Peter Horton. But the ones who deserve the merit badge for effort are the older ones who don't really fit in.

There is just no way for this movie to deliver on the concept of making kids scary. These kids aren't even close to being scary. They act aggressive, but that's all. In fact, some scenes are having so much the opposite of the desired effect- they probably inspire laughter or snide comments from the viewers. This moment in particular is a good example of how ridiculous this movie gets; he must have been pissed when Home Alone rolled around and the casting people told him he was too old for the part of Kevin. And we all know how the character of Malachai is received today, hammed up beyond belief by actor Courtney Gains. His angry, violent wailings of "Outlander!" are closer to camp (maybe it's that fiery red hair and the freckles that make him comical somehow) than the hard exploitational-realism the movie is going for. Then you have Horton launching into speeches, taking these lame twirps seriously (I had a harder time myself), challenging (or sorta challenging) them on the logic of their belief system. Which doesn't make any sense nor is it elaborated on in the film so that the audience really understands or is given the chance to take a side. Instead, he just tries to lay a major guilt trip on them for killing their parents and does a miserable job of it too. He fails. And yet... we get closeups of a few of the kids either looking confused or nodding along with him as blankly and dumbly as they had previously done for Isaac and Malachai during their idiotic sermons. Then when the Weather Monster (aka; He Who Walks Behind the Rows) shows up, they all start crying and wailing things like, "this is all Malachai's fault." Basically, they change their minds about things real easily! Today, killing your parents is good. Tomorrow... maybe not.

The acting could have at least turned this around to where it was almost believable. John Franklin is downright creepy as Isaac... at first. Then, like most horror icons, he is overexposed (which really only works if you want the movie to be partly funny). Everyone else may try but it's for nothing. What little works in the movie is propelled by an excellent music score (think Amityville Horror, only louder / best moment: Horton exploring the town by himself), whatever atmosphere you get from a rural small town with a huge-ass cornfield (lots of whipping grass blades and - of course - corn stalks looking ominous, beautiful blue cloudy skies, gentle breezes, fresh nature all around), and some truly strange moments that are ripped-off from other movies. Friday the 13th? Well, since both films are connected by slasher roots, that's not as strange as the fact that this movie mostly copies The Evil Dead. Both in a scene where Horton is tied up by the leaf-vines of the corn stalks (the living cornfield - very much reminiscent of the living forest in Raimi's film, as is the film's pale yellow car - is the only thing here that can be mistaken for being scary) and in a scene where Horton has an audio flashback to something Linda Hamilton said (always more welcome than visual- has more resonance). It's not a surprise that this film spawned a sequel (though an entire franchise is sorta pushing it). What is surprising is that most of the sequels hold an equal amount of entertainment value for the novelty of their jaw-dropping, over-the-top death scenes alone. Those films also tried harder to explain what was controlling the children and why. Well, at least the intentionally funky Part II: The Final Sacrifice.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 62: Don't Say a Word


The Hills Have Eyes
(1977 / director: Wes Craven)

★★★

The 70's are the undisputed king decade when it comes to survival horror. Because, unlike the new millennium's glut of brainless chase, hide, and torture films, there was an actual intelligence behind them. It wasn't some stupid style done to inflate the egos of poser directors making tired, recycled garbage for jaded audiences (clearly the 1981 release of the scum-sucking I Spit on Your Grave marked the end of audience innocence with these movies, as did the Friday the 13th franchise's popularity with teenage boys who weren't getting any and demanded skin with their horror). Though today cult jerkoffs consider Wes Craven only a few notches above Tobe Hooper in terms of ever having achieved anything worthwhile in the genre (aka, deserving his reputation as a Master of Horror), he was certainly the innovator of survival horror back in the 70's. Between his masterful, uncompromising debut, The Last House on the Left and follow-up The Hills Have Eyes (both of which have now been completely eclipsed by the remakes- which only an idiot would have wanted or asked for), Craven made a unique and powerful statement using the genre that today's survival horror films don't have. That, when pushed to our limits, we discover we all have a killer inside us. The endings aren't exactly happy but the remaining protagonists always lived and disposed of the killers themselves. In Hills specifically, Craven portrays his gang of killers as savage animals. Truly unevolved mongoloid-esque deformed, dirty, and ignorant beasts. They're scavengers who spend their days attacking anyone who comes anywhere near their desert cave home. The protagonists here are a family traveling in a motorhome, the father and mother in their 60's, looking for a silver mine they were given as an obviously crappy present by some either desperate or dumb relatives.

Craven was a professor / teacher of psychology in college with several degrees and is one of the smartest horror directors out there. The characters are portrayed as knowing, as their car breaks down after an accident, that they are not equipped to survive based on their wits. So they feel they have to rely on their weapons (two guns) and their modern conveniences (radio, walkie talkies, food, batteries, generator, etc). Before the ending of the movie begins, they have all of these things taken away from them or rendered ineffective. In the meantime, there is less social commentary than in Last House. But Craven still has a minor ax to grind with old-fashioned father characters. This movie's so-called civilized father actually says, "niggers shoot arrows at me." That's pretty disgusting. Unfortunately, not much has changed socially since. Other than that and the fact that the good family here is a bit too sheltered, the characters are either very likable or blank enough so that we empathize with them. We get to see more of them interacting with each other and being themselves before the intensity takes over than in House. So there are several scenes of the characters in awkward positions. Such as the married eldest daughter and her husband (who bares a strong resemblance to Sonny Bono) having sex in a car in plain view of anyone who isn't in the RV. The family own a pair of German Shepherd dogs and when one runs off and youngest son finds it having been gutted by a human being, he can't bring himself to tell anyone else until he thinks the person responsible is almost knocking at their door. He might feel guilty for the dog as though he's responsible but what he should feel bad about is waiting too late to have told anyone. He may be partly responsible for the carnage that unfolds just minutes after he finally speaks up.

The themes between House and Hills are mostly different in that in House, the final protagonists made a conscious decision to take matters into their own hands and murder those who had destroyed their family where they could have easily just called the cops instead. In Hills, the remaining family members become savages to defend themselves (because they know the killers are coming back) and to get their stolen baby back. It's not nearly as strong a statement nor as horrifying as in House where you are genuinely shocked at what the parents are doing. But it's nonetheless effective and thrilling. The villain family are mostly crude cave-dwellers with bad English who live off of any thing with meat on their bones that they kill and cook- including humans. However, their background (informed by a story Craven dug up at the library of a legendary army in Scotland called the Sawney Bean) makes it a little suspicious that they are able to speak as well as they do. In one scene, "Papa" Jupiter (the cannibal family are mostly named after Planets) gives an angry but poetic speech to a burnt corpse. In another, "Pluto" (played by the great, and actually deformed, Michael Berryman) shows off his acting skills trying to fool the family into thinking he's with the military. Yet it sort of evens out in the end since Craven uses this to up the stakes. And if it wasn't working, there are other distractions. For example, I've always admired how Craven seeks to show how tough women can be. Cannibal Ruby actually kills her brother "Mars" (also name of the mythological God of War) to save the good-family's baby's father, risking her own life to capture a poisonous snake. Also, the good family's daughter who had previously been balling and shrieking like a baby grabs a hatchet and hacks into Jupiter to save her brother. More impressive than that, she even comes up with the idea to use her mother's corpse as bait.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 70: Ill Na Na


Def by Temptation
(1990 / director: James Bond III)

★★★

Right off the bat, it's important to note... I have absolutely no idea what is going on in this movie. So, it's legitimately possible that this director thinks like the character he's playing (Joel, who is a rigid son of a preacher and seeks to go into the priesthood himself) and that this movie is actually a morality tale that tries to prove that everything it shows us is wrong. In the end, it does seem as though it could be trying to send the message that "fornication" leads to disease, experimentation and non-missionary sex leads to death, all black men are horny dogs, homosexuality is evil, and that drinking alcohol will send you to hell. Although I personally think there's something to his alcohol theory (nothing as extreme as you'll go to hell for it or that, if there is a God, he/she/it would even frown on that behavior), I know there's a lot of hot air with no substance to most of the other claims this movie could be making and would like to believe that black men who live in a city are better than most of the characters in this movie. Everyone is a stereotype; too slick and smooth for their own good- except for the gay guys who are petty and cheap. Most likely, the movie's Sex in the City perspective is a simple call for responsibility among blacks to be better than the group of Worst Case Scenario's we're shown in the movie's singles bar. Snobby, snooty women who act high to cover up their indescretions. Sweet-talking players bargaining their way into a Fatal Attraction situation. Catty, finger-snapping princesses (this guy's not quite big enough to be a queen) and a genuine Duchess (ultra-lusty Steven Van Cleef). And the classic Come-On Guy, who is only there to strike out and yet develops an attitude about it. It's easy to interpret the movie's message as sex is bad because the main protagonist says it is and all the people having it end up either dead or as victims of someone else's affair. But on the other hand, the movie is very politically minded and highly intelligent. So, after Kadeem Hardison (star of the groundbreaking TV series, A Different World) lays the groundwork for a discussion of Reaganomics and says the city is full of "knuckleheads" who have been effected by it, things actually seem to make more sense.

The director is probably saying things have gotten out of control because of the irresponsible political climate of America at the time. And it was his choice to then make the movie's interests sexual rather than the film being another parable about drug addiction (which Brain Damage already did admirably, anyway). It's not a fully-formed social commentary by any means but Kadeem's hip character is shown to be a little smarter than preacher-to-be Joel. In the end, things are further complicated by the ultra-religious turn and the implication that understanding politics doesn't save the city folk from the movie's vampire. But the movie has a host of other tricks up its' sleeve. Though the special effects are quite terrible, the movie's Temptation is much more than a simple slutty Vampire. She isn't even merely a she. She's a fully-fledged monster (with deep-throat capabilities) who seems to be able to shape-shift at will, go out in the daylight with no trouble, and doesn't kill men to drink their blood. She basically kills them for the pure sport. She represents a kind of demoness or succubus, who uses her sexuality to feed off of men's souls. Though physically, she doesn't consume souls. She saves that for one special victim, which the movie deems as a pure innocent and the last of his family's line. That's Joel, who has no brothers or sisters. Beyond the scenes of her feeding off of a range of different types of jerk guys from the bar, this very overinvolved theme of Temptation-seeks-to-conquer-us-all is one of the movie's few silly spots. And it has a few. Mostly the dated fashion, non-dialogue jokes about Hardison being a black Steven Seagall action flick hero, and the old school hip hop. Everything more than evens out, though. Furthermore, the roughness to both the effects and the movie's slow opening (with several shots lasting a few seconds longer than they need to) is offset by a great deal of skilled artiness. From the beautifully haunting dream sequences of the then-unseen Temptation floating around graveyards and watching Joel's family from outside his bedroom window while dressed in flowing black funeral dress, scarf, and veil as they blow in the wind of dark days with overcast skies to the shots of houses and apartment buildings from extreme low angles from their corners, making them look distorted and jagged like a blade.

If the movie isn't outright scary, it's definitely freaky. Nowhere really feels safe, which is reinforced by Hardison's jumpiness whenever anyone comes at him when he isn't expecting them to (he blames it on the city but he does this everywhere, and makes sure to tell the person nearest to him that he nearly "fucked them up" as a result of being startled). People could be killed during sex, before, or afterward. And Temptation's evil capabilities aren't limited to her physical body. Like Freddy Krueger, she can attack people through any object she wants to- but, unlike Freddy, she doesn't have to wait until they're asleep. This results in one of the freakiest things I've ever seen in all my years watching horror (you'll know it when you see it- best discovered on your own). The movie's portrayal of sex may be rusty in the writing department, but the sex scenes (including fantasies) are all shot with a surprising flair. You can't quite take your eyes off. The film is very erotic. Even dialogue driven scenes at the bar are at times hypnotic. Mostly because of ultra-sophisticated goddess beauty Cynthia Bond as well as the gorgeous, sexy, or well-muscled men she picks up and the movie's celebrity black actor, Bill Nunn (Do the Right Thing, Sister Act), standing in for the amount of Samuel L. Jackson promised by the film's VHS / DVD covers and not delivered (he only has 3 short scenes, all flashbacks). It's Nunn's job to make sure the comedy works. And his scenes do, with Kadeem being a good supporting actor. Though the movie remains confusing, multiple viewings help clarify a few things. At first when her 2nd victim is ready to walk away from their one night stand, he notices after looking in the mirror that she cut him up while his eyes were closed. While he worries his wife will see what look like scratch marks, she makes very veiled references to giving him a disease. Again, we assume she's a vampire but later when we realize he's dead, he says she gave him AIDS. This only explains the rapidly appearing lesions after he looks back into the mirror. How can a vampire give him a disease she doesn't suffer from? Or a demon host a human disease? Clearly the theme here is: his worst nightmare. And the actress is gorgeous enough to be a believable temptress. So, somehow it works.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 109:
Bubble Bubble, Toil and Trouble, Fire Burn


Street Trash
(1986 / director: Jim Muro)

★½

Extreme movies are usually too big for their britches, indicating an actual contempt for the audience (Pasolini's Salò is a testament to this, naturally). This applies to the horror genre as well. The filmmakers want to do something they think no one's ever done before. So here, director Muro and writer Roy Frumkes (the guy behind the famous George Romero documentary, Document of the Dead) try to take The Loved One's tagline, "something to offend everyone," and apply it to a horror film. Well, they're too late. Clearly, exploitation fodder such as Cannibal Holocaust, The House on the Edge of the Park, I Spit on Your Grave, Maniac, The New York Ripper, and The Last House on Dead End Street got there first. But thanks to Troma's The Toxic Avenger and Class of Nuke 'Em High, other filmmakers decided to try and hop the same bandwagon. So again, like with Evil Dead II, we have ourselves a dilemma. Can any other schlocky, sloppy extreme, splatter horror-comedy possibly compete with Peter Jackson's Bad Taste? Probably not. In the case of the unbelievably sloppy Street Trash- most definitely not. Here's why: the comedy doesn't work. And the reason the comedy doesn't work is because the dialogue doesn't work. There is something incredibly wrong with this movie. Aside from the obvious low-brow jokes (just expect a fart noise to accompany every closeup of a butt - unless it's a woman's - and a "homo" joke for every closeup of a crotch) and z-grade attempts at irony (the only one that really works is in the scene taking place before the credits roll), this dialogue is so fragmented- it's hard to have a clue what anyone's saying. Or what they even mean. With a movie over 10 minutes longer than it should be (there's more filler here than in a Joel Schumacher flick), the dialogue is probably important. Well, not here. The movie's actually dialogue-driven and none of it works (other than what I can only assume is James Lorinz ad-libbing like mad and carrying the movie almost single-handedly in his 3 short scenes with sexy Tony Darrow).

One of the reasons the dialogue doesn't work is because the characters are completely unlikable. Which of course, is the point of the whole movie. It takes place on the streets, in back alleys, and in a junkyard garage. All the characters are either working under tyrant assholes for slave wages or are complete bums. Then, you've got the cop. Someone could write a book on this guy (especially when you add in the stuff you get when you see him talking on the DVD bonus features); I would read it! Perhaps even on just the melting scene, where he gets in an argument with some people who have witnessed a bizarre death. He looks like he's on steroids and acts like he's getting the rage effect big time, he insults everyone he comes across except a couple cops, picks on homeless people, threatens to beat up half the people he meets, and thinks his fists are a match for a loaded gun. Thankfully, he gets his. But this movie pulls a hydra and replaces one monster with two- a jealous, psychotic, homicidal Vietnam vet and a fat, gross pervert, necrophiliac rapist (R.L. Ryan, from Troma's Nuke 'Em High). So, you've got people being stabbed in the neck, gang-rapped while screaming in classic horror woman-screaming closeup, mutilated, and chased and attacked... and you have to stop and wonder if the movie expects you to care about these characters. Even the sympathetic ones are so poorly written, you have to look at the screen and scratch your head. What could these guys have been thinking when they made this? Or Jonathan Demme (director of, none other than 1991's Oscar-winner for Best Picture, The Silence of the Lambs) when he called it a masterpiece. The Penis-Football scene alone argues these guys might be ready for the funny farm. I could go on with the negatives, but why? If you want to see a poor John Waters style-ripoff - look no further. I recommend skipping this and going for a Henenlotter film instead, since Street Trash and Brain Damage share the distinction of being filmed in the dirtier parts of New York City.

The reason it doesn't completely bomb is because, though I mentioned the comedy is a failure, the horror part of it is actually very satisfying. The music score is interesting. The camerawork is... well, there are a few shots here that even blow away Evil Dead II. If this movie's conceptual faults can be blamed on Frumkes, then I gather the shockingly high technical proficiency goes to Muro. It's an utter marvel to behold most of the time. Evil Dead's influence has traveled far and wide (I know- the director of Belgium's Rabid Grannies even mentions basing that film's pacing, among other things, on Raimi's masterpiece) and the camerawork here is absolutely stunning. The opening almost dizzies you as you follow a bum running for nearly 5 straight minutes and the camera really runs with him. Zagging around truck-trailers, leaping up ladders, nearly being crushed in a garbage truck, being chased by almost a half dozen people at different points in the scene, and then leaping down ladders. The angles during the first "meltdown" scene are genius and turn a plain grotesque sight (although the colorful plasmas make it a lot more attractive than it should be) into an almost scary one. Then, there is a full 360 degree vertical spin that, were this shown in big theaters, would definitely have Blair Witch Project'd up someone's last meal. Without a doubt- the single coolest camera move I've ever seen in all my days. To compliment the camerawork, the special makeup and gore effects are top notch (except for the really fake-looking and way too thick severed penis, but that's more of a prop). Decapitated heads, stabbings, and show-stopping bloody hemhorrhages and beautiful, rainbow-colored plasma-shooting meltdown scenes. This is more than enough to get a person through the movie (it's easier the 2nd time around). But it will be a rough experience. Mostly because that dialogue again... They might as well be speaking a foreign language with no subtitles for all the sense it makes or meaning you'll be able to discern from it.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 48: Lost and Unwanted


Open Water
(2003 / director: Chris Kentis)

★★½

For years now, I've been saying Open Water has gotten a raw deal with horror fans- who basically despise the movie. The reason for both of these truths is that the film is a cross between Jaws and The Blair Witch Project, two films I have never liked. But I liked this film. And in a way, I still do. The first thing I like about it is that, uncharacteristic to Jaws, there is no adventure-thriller movie vibe here. Clearly, this is a million miles away from Spielberg-land. We know this is a horror movie and there is very little attempt to make this movie an ultra-realitistic experience (apart from the long scene aboard the diving boat). For a survival movie, it feels much more like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper's original masterpiece, naturally) than it does a Wrong Turn. And that's a very welcome change for the subgenre. The second thing I like (and still can't possibly express how much I appreciate it) is that it realizes we're smart enough to know the characters are scared without making every 3rd word that comes out of their mouths a variation on "fuck." For once in a survival horror film (or, once following the obviously superior 28 Days Later), we're not being treated like juvenile idiots. This change, however, could have something to do with the fact that the characters are yuppie types. And this calls direct attention to the political bitterness in America; some viewers are simply never going to give a damn about these people just because they're fairly well-off and don't have much to complain about other than being stuck in the middle of the ocean with no sign of being rescued, surrounded by barracudas, jellyfish, and sharks- all of which pose a threat. I grew up in an upscale version of what New Hampshire would call a trailer park. My parents voted Republican and tried to pretend we were better than everyone else around us (while inside, we were so white-trash and dysfunctional, even Roseanne would be shocked). My personal belief is not to look down on anyone until you know them. Daniel and Susan are a little annoying at times, but good people.

But, however unkind the years have been to this movie and how much I've felt like I'm the only one who ever defended it (which I know isn't true), I'm ready to let it all go now. Is it scary? Not really. And its' best attribute is not that it wants to be smart or that it doesn't pretend to be dirty and dingy with a group of skanky, foul-mouthed potheads we want to see die in the most excrutiating way possible. It's that the film is a true experience rather than a story. There are a lot of cutaways in the film to beautiful shots of flowing water (from so many different angles- you don't know where it's coming from), sunsets, the beach, lounging areas at their hotel, animals hanging from trees, the moon, and local hot spots where other people are partying- enjoying the vacation Daniel and Susan are being denied. All of these shots have an effect on the viewer. For me, I never want to feel too tied-down by a new-millennium horror movie. None of them are likely to be as intense as the films from the decades to come before. So, I'm very happy to get a break from the endless shots of the two floating around in the water. There isn't a lot of blood or gore here, but there is certainly more than Blair Witch. And though many people complain about the DV shooting style, I love it. It has a wonderful, intoxicating surreality about it. Which may not help the scenes of terror to be more in-the-moment (the same can't be said for 28 Days Later, which implied the same technique to greater effect) but the slow burn of the movie couldn't be more uncomfortable. Which is all the movie needs. But as an experience movie, I can't overlook how many people were bored by it (the same way I find Blair Witch to be the most inconsequential, worthless pre-Saw horror-thriller ever made). And it only becomes more unglued upon re-viewings (like how hard it is to ignore the character Saul Stein plays, the obnoxious passenger on the boat who forgot to bring his masks; aka- the guy whose head you want to smash repeatedly with a hammer). While not exactly part of the survival horror crap-out that has killed the genre, it suffers from the same setback: that it draws in the audience based on the promise of realistic intensity. Reality is in the eye of the beholder.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 78: Dances with Tale-Chasers


Wolfen
(1981 / director: Michael Wadleigh)

★★½

When filthy-rich cokeheads are being brutally butchered in gloriously arty ways... it's the revenge of the Native American on those who continue to abuse the land they stole from the American-Indians. Okay. Makes sense. Now what? Blacks, who were forced to this country as slaves. Cops- just doing their job. And innocent, good-natured professors trying to understand the shape-shifting phenomenon of descendents to the Native Americans who turn into wolves to avenge wrongs done to them by killing people they feel are trespassing. All of these people are on the chopping block. And apparently, being in any area of the city is considered trespassing. Anyone can die at any time. A good ideal for a truly scary horror story. Not so good for the plot of a self-righteous movie. With this movie's poor ability to adequately discriminate between victims, it's hard to buy what it's trying to get us to swallow. Especially since the entire thing is processed through the senses of one distinguished Brit actor living in New York City- a cliched straight-talker type. The only plus with this guy is that he doesn't pretend to be tougher. We know he's not going to die. He's almost being considered the exception to the rule by the movie's wolf gang. They let him live to teach modern man a lesson. But the coroner and the professor are probably seen as being too jaded- so, they have to go. But Albert Finney is the drinking man so, because the wolf people drink too- they have something in common. And so, of course they have their heart-to-heart talk where we learn all the movie wants us to know about mythology and philosophy... in a bar. They will strike a deal over the course of the movie. He will let them teach him and they will let him live. Some major conflict-of-interests stuff going on here. Is there any morality in this movie? Perhaps. Do we need it? No. But consistency is important.

It would seem that this movie is trying to lash out on those who have ignored history. Yes, the history of American patriotism is a lot like the plot of The Fog; we honor the memory of a pack of vicious murderers who stole this land from the Native Americans- the Indians. The ones who were here first. That was wrong and we shouldn't forget it. All we do instead is whine about Britain's imperialists who wanted to challenge our freedoms. So we massacred a group of peace-loving people to take what they had. Therefore, it's highly hypocritical to me that these Wolfen adopt the 'we see all' attitude and then make a real effort to seek out black victims. How is a black person surviving the only way they know how (again, after being brought to America as slaves) comparable to what "The White Man" has done to their land? If these wolf-people saw anything, they would have some more compassion when trying to make a statement. Instead, they just rip people to shreds. One scene seems to suggest the movie has an underlying theme of "survival of the fittest" and a reminder of the food chain superiority of one species over another. So, the Wolfen would probably be superior to everyone else because they can attack faster than any victim could possibly defend themselves. In that case, morality isn't an issue. A huge weight off? Hardly. Because the ending is complete morality play. Suddenly, one of their victims is given a choice to submit to the Wolfen power by lowering their weapon. Funny how almost none of the other victims had weapons... Or were given the chance to do anything in their defense. Upon realizing that the rich guy's condomimium project seems to be the catalyst for the wolf murders, Finney destroys the guy's model in an over-the-top dramatic gesture. The day is saved; the wolfen retreat back into the wild and the cops now think some radical trust-fund liberal terrorist group are to blame.

The story really is about as stupid as a movie gets. But the movie does get by on some great arty stuff, good performances from the entire cast, and wicked camerawork. Surprisingly right about now how much those things are really worth. The music score on the other hand is a major snooze. Total cliche.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 125: Frames with Frames


A Nightmare on Elm Street 5:
The Dream Child
(1989 / director: Stephen Hopkins)

★½

As I mentioned at the top of the page, horror involving children is a trouble spot in the genre. There are any number of reasons why that is. I'm guessing because of the emotional aspect. Emotion is often served up to film-goers as pandering, sappy drivel. Lacking true rawness, which it needs to be effective. And with the Nightmare on Elm Street series, 1988's The Dream Master had already reduced dysfunctional suburban families, alcoholism, and high school teen angst to about as low as they could get them to go. 1989's 5th film in the series doesn't intend to rock the boat by hiring higher caliber actors or tossing out the melodrama or trying to write strong scenes about complex issues (though it seeks to tackle teenage pregnancy, parental pressure, women's reproductive rights, depression, and mental illness) in order to attract great talent to the project. All the real work here is put into the film's dense gothic atmosphere, awe-inspiring sets, and freakishly ugly, over-the-top nightmare-death scenes. Not only has the wise-cracking routine finally hit its' peak point of irritation, but these nightmare scenes are just plain stupid. A girl is fed the innards of her doll, causing her to bloat grotesquely like Audrey in National Lampoon's European Vacation- though the room is decorated perfectly for an 80's high society dinner party, the adults visually are beyond repellant to look at, and the camera lens makes everything shimmer like our eyes are watering. How? What? Forget it- it makes no sense anyway. A guy becomes part of his motorcycle in the most Cronenbergian manner possible and, though Freddy looks great and there's some nice gore when he rips off his arm, when his skin is stripped down to his skull- suddenly the skull appears to be larger than his original head with skin and hair on it. And in the movie's dumbest scene, a victim is trapped inside a real-life comic book and turned into a paper cut-out which Freddy bleeds of its' color and then shreds to little pieces...of paper. Though, not before both transform into oversized walking football players (they're supposed to be superheroes but, it's black and white- so you won't really notice a difference).

The story ventures into Lifetime-TV territory with Alice becoming an annoying cliche. This might as well be called Nightmare on Elm Street 5: Portrait of a Pregnant Teen. No, not because it handles the subject matter with an adult ambiguity or sense of shocked reality. Rather, it's just so callow and melodramatic. Which is no surprise, since this and the previous movie are populated by TV-quality actors. With these people, they know aesthetic is more important than a compelling story. This movie uses Alice's pregnancy as nothing more than a gimmick to get Freddy into his victims' dreams. And if that's the reason for this movie's existence- shouldn't it lead to more? What's sadder is that the movie just gets more and more and more ridiculous beyond the half-way point. The second Jacob shows up, you might gasp in horror for the wrong reasons. This is one ugly kid! With downright creepy eyes. A poor choice for the movie's psychic baby. Plus, he actually knows that Alice is his mother and they have conversations together. Does anyone else find it a bit wrong for a fetus to be this smart? Like they couldn't wait for him to grow up but they wanted to use an older child character thinking he would be more sympathetic. Not with this kid. Why is he being portrayed as an entire person like this? And not only that- but he is judging her, too. Giving her guilt. And he actually recognizes his father when he appears to him in one of his dreams. The movie doesn't tell us that he's just a figment of Alice's imagination. He isn't. He's a real person, even though he's only a few weeks old. In the production of the Nightmare films, the budgets were increased for each new sequel. Yet, it's really hard to tell where all the extra money here was spent. I'd hate to think it was for their recreation of Labyrinth's staircase maze. I mean... they forget that that movie had David Bowie singing a creepy song to give their scene that surreality that made you dizzy. This movie goes with the classical, should-be psychological silly-string. Basically, every few minutes there's a shot that lasts fewer than 10 seconds which is enough to make you go, "wow!" The rest of the movie will just leave you finding weird new things to do with your face- since its' awful acting and absurd transformations will have it contorting in ways it never has before. "Check, please."

[nopersonality]

Chapter 154: The Grateful Dead


Masters of Horror:
Family
(2006 / director: John Landis)

★★

The first season of Masters of Horror did not deliver as most people felt it could have. Expectations were high. The project was ground-breaking. The list of directors was the finest ever assembled. And finally they were going to be able to make their kind of horror their way- no compromises. What went wrong? Well... Creatively they made no compromises with the written material, but the process of shooting was unusual at best. They were given 10 days only to shoot, forced to shoot in Canada, forced to hire a Canadian cast (other than 2 single roles), creator Mick Garris made a deal to get them distributed on Showtime- so now they were working on a TV schedule, and the budgets were a very strict 1-something million. That actually results in a quite staggering number of limitations. The biggest one was a problem for the first season but it absolutely killed season 2. Though it wasn't perfect, the first season was an extraordinary escape from the routine theatrical shit of the new-millennium. Rich in concept. Uneven in execution, but clearly distanced itself from most modern trends- from visual look to music score. And especially story ideas. Together, the episodes formed a decent fantasy-horror piece. Not strong, but a good starting point for the series. Season 2 was a disaster. Practically everything wrong with new-millennium horror that most of the directors had managed to avoid came creeping in to every episode. Industrial music scores, pathetic psychology, half-assed social commentary, survival-horror themes... Okay, the first season had some of that too. But without season 1's gorgeous style and strikingly attractive visual design, almost everything comes off flat and incredibly boring. Most of the flaws of season 1 were easy to ignore because the damn things looked so good (especially Don Coscarelli's Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, Mick Garris's Chocolate, John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns, and William Malone's The Fair Haired Child). Season 2 does not get away so easily.

John Landis is one director who could always use some boasting of his many talents in horror, since he'd previously only made 2 (excellent) horror features over his nearly 30-year career, part of an anthology (1983's Twilight Zone: The Movie), and an experimental comedy about a monster gorilla tearing up the town (a parody of the Joan Crawford B-film, Trog). As many people noted about his first season offering, Deer Woman, he didn't seem to take the gig very seriously. This second time around, he very much seeks to prove that he can. So he goes all out- working with the writer of one of the new decade's most successful, disturbing, and critically-beloved independent horror films, Frailty, and together they aim to deliver the series' most uncomfortable entry yet. A story about the kidnapping and murdering of little girls and old women by a lonely, wacked stalker with a hobby of melting corpses down to bone with acid and dressing the skeletons up as his new family members. However, it would take a lot to out-sick Takashi Miike's banned season 1 effort, Imprint, and CGI isn't going to do the trick. Alas, that is Season 2's biggest problem. And from Landis to Argento, Carpenter to Hooper, and Stuart Gordon's improvement over season 1's wretched Dreams in the Witch House to the season's only truly great episode, Rob (the overrated Wrong Turn) Schmidt's Right to Die - they all caught the CGI bug. None of his actors here (though try as Cheers' George Wendt does, and Meredith Monroe of Dawson's Creek - who slays this role, proving that she's no little girl sidekick character anymore) are likable and their characters are dull. The plot's dark side take on suburbia isn't nearly dark enough (and too late to join the ranks of John Carpenter, Joe Dante, and Wes Craven's finest suburban horror films). The humor isn't funny or smart. The stalker part of the story is too light. The film mostly relies on the awkwardness within conversations held in overly calm atmospheres. There, the film has a few good jarring jumps (again, thanks to Meredith Monroe's all-the-way committment to this character). The writing's okay, but will you care if it's this dull?

[nopersonality]

Chapter 73: You Are What Eats You


C.H.U.D.
(1984 / director: Douglas Cheek)

★★½

Paranoia of the many underhanded misdeeds and secret evils of the U.S. government wasn't handled anymore seriously in the 80's than it was in the 70's. And why bother to try? Because if you did, then you'd as clueless as 1988's remake of The Blob. That one remains a small thorn in my side today as (beside the fact that it's not a good movie) I know that film ripped off 3 far better ones to come before it. 2 from the 70's (Piranha and Alien) and this little gem of very maligned reptutation from 1984. There's no reason why this should be considered a bad movie. Sure most of the cast aren't trying very hard but they're all good performers under any other circumstances. And acting isn't the most important thing in horror anyway. Whether the focus of this movie is on social relevance (New York is a very dirty place and city pollution was a hot topic for many, just ask anyone working at Troma in the 80's- it's what they built their company upon, both literally and figuratively), misguided character development, or just making a good modern monster movie with great effects and a grimy, creepy feel to it - C.H.U.D. is a success. How much it succeeds is naturally up for debate. But I refuse to accept criticism on this film from some moron who would brand Daniel Stern's character a hippie (this guy is a true "fuck you if you don't agree" New Yorker- plain and simple), or the same crowd who just can't accept that Squirm is a great movie (because they're so hip- they think Mystery Science Theater 3000 are actual critics). Sci-fi horror hybrids are typically doomed to negative reviews right from the getgo unless they're manufactured by 20th Century Fox on a mega-million dollar budget. However, though many of the ideas here may cause "WtF?!" reactions from people who care more about technical details (who cares what the monsters can do? Let's see what the movie does with them!) than mood or character, this subgenre of horror typically attracts highly intelligent writers. No matter if it was Parnell Hall's screenplay or the cast's alterations to it that make the opening hour of this movie so whip-lashingly clever, surprising, and entertaining - the fact remains, it's good.

The 80's saw a trend of various sci-fi themed horror films populating the marketplace. Beginning with the success of late 70's films such as Alien, Phantasm, and the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers- the throwback horror film was born. Where old-fashioned movie cliches were satirized or outright parodied in modern movies (according to their severity level). Creepshow's "Jordy Verrill" segment, Swamp Thing, Strange Behavior, Strange Invaders, Twilight Zone: The Movie, the remake of Invaders from Mars, Night of the Creeps, Monster in the Closet, Critters, Larry Cohen's The Stuff, Class of Nuke 'Em High, Slugs, hitting its' peak with Killer Klowns from Outer Space, but it didn't even stop there- it continued to as late as 1990 when Hollywood got into the act with Tremors and Arachnophobia. Fans quickly forget how many films like this there were. It was a trend in full-bloom and among that many films, something as deeply scary, atmospheric, well-scored, and well-shot as C.H.U.D. is should not be overlooked. And the film has had legs. While the name seems to have spawned a cult all its' own, consider the film is a favorite of Donnie Darko director- Richard Kelly. Or that a sequence identical to one here (the giraffing neck of one of the creatures) winds up in Evil Dead II, released 3 years after this. If the acting is lacking, the characters are smart enough to make up for that (how this movie's "your man has a camera, mine has a flame-thrower" falls behind They Live's lame "kick ass and chew bubblegum" is a mystery to me). The frequent ring-around-the-rosie of the confrontations between the movie's police captain and the city's government hush commissioners might leave people who came for pure carnage a little cold, but we have to place the film in context of its' ilk. It still gets down to business like a pro. And the high quantity of chat doesn't hurt the attack scenes. If anything, it's quality misdirection. Instead of beating you over the head with too many scenes of pieces of the monsters being seen from over windows and just out of the corner of your eye to tide you over until they kill someone- the moment you sense them, they're there.

Dictated by the fact that this may be a throwback to 50's movies, C.H.U.D. would only be as good as its' inspiration. It covers its bases very well in all matters dealing with the conspiracy theory theme. If the movies to come before it were heavy-handed, this one tries to borrow New York City realism. It must have failed because I often find that kind of thing irritating and pretentious. When, for example, John Heard goes to the police station to bail out the old lady and he's getting sassed by a cop on the beat- rather than going for hardcore toughtalk, it feels like the arresting officer is amusing himself by being sarcastic instead of trying to prove he's tough. The boys in blue here are definitely smoother than the typical 'hardass' cliche. They just couldn't care less about their own job. I found this refreshing. Another bizarre scene is the one were Stern's Reverend character is being 'tailed' by some kind of weird kinky secret agent guy in his version of street-clothes (he couldn't possibly stick out more) and instead of trying to hide the fact that he's following Stern, he stands right next to him at a phone booth, takes Stern's coin away from him, sticks it in his mouth, and (in sunglasses) stares him down with a half-smile on his face like he's daring Stern to cry or something. If the movie were realistic- wouldn't they just cut out all the music and stitch together a bunch of random attack scenes and say- screw story? A lot of liberties are taken with the story and the idea of realism. It's just a look to make you feel sort-of grossed out. And it works- this movie's vision of New York City is about the filthiest I've ever seen. And to spike what could be seen repetitious, the movie throws new attitudes at us. The main character duties are split 4-ways, and every one has something to bring to the table. If Stern begins to get out of hand, we cut to a fun Heard rant about the nastiness of the fashion industry. Though they don't go all-out at the height of New York supermodel chic, the words still ring true. And I thought the attempt to link the whoring of Kim Greist's professon with the pollution of the movie's dirty city nods to a consistent movie with a sense of focus.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 98: I, Santa


You Better Watch Out
(aka- Christmas Evil)
(1980 / director: Lewis Jackson)

★★½

There may not be one other film in horror history more torn between the cheers and jeers than 1980's punching bag film, Christmas Evil. Theatrically, it played barely anywhere and for an extremely brief period of time. So, it was born to be direct-to-video before the market existed. It basically sat on a shelf until the video boom. When the video industry exploded, people were just watching horror films for the diversion. To pass time. This may be where the idea of artistry in the genre died and empty satisfaction, "bang for your buck" began. Because, lost in a sea of tawdry (and in some cases, shitty) slashers (each with a higher bodycount), the highly intelligent stalker creeper Christmas Evil, which isn't concerned with cheap thrills and doesn't work without the viewer paying strict attention, looks schlockier than its' competition. Why? Because, though it's very art-film minded and all about getting inside the killer's head (ala- something like William Lustig's awful Maniac)... it's low-budget. People are very unforgiving of this for some reason. Some people won't even watch it and others expect it will be funnier. There are certainly a lot of things in the movie that are comical but it's not playing for huge laughs. Instead, it works very well on a balance between good psychological and freak-arty tension. Which is why the movie does not deserve the high amount of booing it gets. Beside that, it's also very smart and anyone can understand it.

The story follows a toy company executive named Harry who is tired of putting business before his own pleasure. He's also a royal nutbag, who as a child experienced a strange trauma when one Christmas he actually saw Santa Claus having sex with his mother. This destroyed his belief in the icon... but not in what the jolly red-man represented. Instead of forever assocating Christmas with disappointment and unhappiness, Harry is determined to become Santa. Where did this start? It's not important. Do you want this guy's whole life story? What is important is that, from minute one in adult-life mode, this guy is so psycho- he puts Norman Bates to shame. He lives his obsession with being Santa Claus so completely that to him it's not at all weird that he keeps a framed picture of a Good neighborhood child on his desk (don't ask me how he got it). Or that he spies into the windows of the houses nearby with binoculars (and actually goes up onto the roof when necessary to get a better view) to see what the children are up to and literally begins to shake with rage when he sees someone else's son looking at a nudie magazine. And that's not all! Obviously, this is research for when he drops by their houses and has to decide whether to leave them a present or... something else. For the Bad nudie magazine kid- Harry leaves a bag of something with a creepy card on it, paints the outside of his house with mud finger and lip-prints, and... then waits for him in the bushes. To do what, we'll never know; he's saved by his mother being with him when he finally does come outside. This Santa's sick. And he's about to get even sicker.

Christmas Evil's personal conflict between success and failure lies in the balance between the worlds of adult and child. Harry's relationship with children is fodder for all the best stuff in the movie. We know Harry is severely disturbed but it's the children who keep reminding us just how much. When we see the adult corruption Harry has to deal with at work, on the factory assembly line, and again peeping in other people's windows- Harry almost looks better than others by comparison. But does he want to be Santa or God? One could argue his interest in spying on adults as well is because of the promises they make to children, so he has to make sure they don't break them. Is his obsession with children an attempt to fix his troubled childhood or a substitution for the family of his own he can't have? You really won't care because the characterization of adults is bland and straight-forward like a lame thriller. This movie's portrayal of corporate back-stabbing is almost like a sitcom with poor, put-upon Joe-Nobody being outsmarted by buffoonish, balding, chubby, middle-aged neighbors who dress like they spend every weekend fishing. Not a lot about the adults to find worthy of being interested in enough to like or hate. And yet, the murder victims are all adults. The movie is not able to create a truly ugly atmosphere where you want to see Harry get revenge because we think the other adults are so shady. But you will think Harry is a total douchebag.

For awhile, that is. Somewhere around the time he begins to kill people, he gets less threatening and more pathetic. He actually becomes a moral martyr and a Frankenstein monster figure (complete with actual scene of townspeople chasing him with torches- yikes!). Which leads to some surprisingly genuine moment-of-truth scenes. This is important to note because of the somewhat controversial ending, which no doubt will inspire as many "WtF?!" reactions as the ever unpopular "It was all a dream." It's fairly flawed, like the movie's entire buildup to its' quasi-dramatic confrontation. But the implications of it are every bit as creepy as the scenes of voyeurism and the music score can be at times. Though some people would have the movie culturally thrown away, it's just the victim of bad exposure. The history of its release on DVD is as rocky as its theatrical run, most people have decided not to bother with the 2006 Director's Cut release which looks and sounds amazing because they saw some cheapo shitty dollar disc transfer. On the Synapse DVD, you can finally appreciate the movie's better stylistic moments for how good they really are. Fuzzy white lights shining out of the dark, cold nights. A blinding display of light-up plastic decorations line a road Harry (in full Santa getup) walks upward with dead-quiet houses on either side, and then later slides downward. The twinklingly distorted, swirlingly pretty synthesizer score with a few great moments of low-register brooding. Makes it a bit of a shame that story is lacking with Harry both the only credible villain and child we get to know at all. But his sense of commitment to what he's doing is shared by the film. Though it doesn't always play well, it's made well.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 8: Powerful Displays of Vulgarity


The Exorcist
[Original Theatrical Version]
(1973 / director: William Friedkin)

★★★

A lot of people will tell you The Exorcist is the best horror film ever made and then... not exactly know why. Which is the reason it's gotten so much TV coverage in the new-millennium on shows about the best scary movies and scariest scenes in film history, etc, where people try to describe all these over-the-top moments from horror movies past and present. As though the scope of the mania or the severity of the imagery were the reason the movie gained the reputation it did- going down in history as a disturbing film because of its ability to shock the masses. So, does that make Exorcist the Saw of the 70's? I think you'll find many people would have you believe just that. This opens the door to the notion that shock value alone equals quality filmmaking in horror, which cheapens the entire genre and portrays its' fans and defenders as easy-to-please thrill-seekers with low standards. As do films that function as simple morality plays. The Exorcist's primary goal is split between its writer and director. The writer is trying to do a crisis of faith story where after some struggle, a wiseman comes in and battles the demon, and when it's over- there'll be a happy ending. Conflict, meet Resolution. The director is trying to do a drama about how the demonic possession of a sweet little girl brings together the stories of a woman, a man, and a traveler who don't know each other but are trying to cope with family tragedies and the demons inside themselves. Both want to convince us that it's possible for God and The Devil to exist. One of them is more concerned than the other that when it's over, we be filled with a sense of validation. But, no amount of cool-looking parlor tricks in a movie can prove that spiritual evil exists. So at its' baddest, this one is merely getting a rise out of gullible people (is that really so hard to do? Just look at The Blair Witch Project... and, yes, this is the first time I ever noticed the actress's last name in the title). Which is one of the things brought up in discussion of the film to further sensationalize it; how audiences literally lost their heads over this film.

But just how larger-than-life is the film? Not very. It mostly intends to document a nonchalant series of day-in-the-life scenarios. Some of them good for atmosphere (actress Chris walking home from the movie shoot on a cool autumn day as nuns and trick-or-treaters pass her by, scored to the hugely famous - following the movie's blockbuster theatrical run - "Tubular Bells"). Others that go on way too long (Merrin in Iraq) or are absurdly unimportant to anything going on (Burke's harrassment of Chris's German handyman, Carl, whom the movie humiliates on top of already treating him like a butler). And then, it's some kind of coincidence that this completely innocent, completely sweet little girl was the one chosen for the The Devil (or whatever rebel punk demon is trying to pose as "Him") to possess and make do all sorts of nasty tricks to make the eyes of whomever is in the room with her bulge to the point of falling out of their sockets. Whenever we're not in the room with her, however, it's all talk. And not that much of it being very important to the concept of a child possessed by pure concentrated evil. We can only imagine what the mother, Chris, is going through- and that's all for the better. We get some flashes of it here and there. Though she lets it out a few times (and this is one of the founders, I believe, of New York's prestigious Actors Studio- Ellen Burstyn, so she's highly effective in the role no matter how explosive or restrained it calls for her to be), she mostly holds it all inside, even letting the annoying and irrelevant detective character (whose part in the story seems unfinished at best) walk all over her just because he's polite and these were different times when most actors didn't have to worry about being hounded by fans or the paparazzi.

Then we have the film's army of holymen. The one the film is named after; ultra-classy Bergman-favorite Max Von Sydow- whose entire prologue into the movie may actually be a Psycho-styled misdirection (in which case, the Iraq footage might be clever and not just superfluous after all). The main guy; sexy, gritty, realistic boxing-priest Jason Miller, who possessed a gift most actors who get leading-man roles today lack (honest, multi-faceted maturity). And... another sexy going-on-40-something guy playing an edgy college type, William O'Malley... only this man is an actual real-world priest. And a songwriter (his few movie credits usually have him listed for writing a song in the movie). Interestingly, he also gets a bit overly flamboyant at Chris's party as he descends into Piano Player Storyteller mode and encourages everyone to sing along (louder, that is) with him as he indulges in his fantasy to be a taller, skinnier American version of Elton John. Also, he seems just a little too personally affected by Miller's death at the end of the movie. Good performance. Maybe a little too good (since he doesn't have almost any feature film experience apart from this movie). Which means, either he feels his own destruction at the end or he lost someone he regarded as more than a friend. A brother? If that's the case, it's another unfinished aspect of the movie. Speaking of which (before I get to back to rollin' the holies), there's a now famous version of the movie (which Warner Bros. lavished a grand re-release upon in 2000) with quite a bit of footage originally deleted from the 1973 theatrical version. I had a choice, which version to re-watch for this project. I chose the original. And if you don't own that version, you'd be surprised how naked the movie is without some of those pieces the writer wanted pompous Friedkin to re-insert. Sometimes Willy made the right decision, though.

The back and forth between the horror in the home (was making this the film's sole focus avoided so this wouldn't become a haunted house cliche? Some of the deteled scenes were surely tossed for this reason) to the drama outside of it has a bit of a dulling effect. As a result, the movie isn't as spooky or deeply affecting as it should be. Again, it's really about getting to the religious folks- all of whom (from wherever in the world they hailed from) deserved their silly pandemonium attacks. One of the films' doctor characters (also one of the main villains in 1975's somewhat superior suspense shocker, The Stepford Wives) mentions that it's a belief in possession that caused the horror, and that is what we owe for the reputation of this movie. I'd love to say that the filmmakers were doing this almost as a schlock epic on a big-budget scale. Then at least we could get some humor out of the people who take this stuff seriously. The only way this really works seriously, in my eyes, is the Priest whose mother died and the demon possessing Regan uses this to taunt him as he's trying to drive him (or It, if you prefer) out of her. Because if we have to look closely at Chris and her drama, then we start getting into how she nor Regan can fight this thing by themselves and they have to be rescued by men. If she weren't playing a divorced woman, you know she'd have as much screentime as Lee Remick in The Omen. I continue to question the drama. But there's no denying the movie remains shocking to this day. It went places most movies like it are still afraid to go (since they too feature children, they go for a PG-13 rating). Thanks to edge-master Friedkin, it's spectacularly shot. And the special effects (from the levitating monster bed to the marvelous make-up on Regan to all the other jaw-dropping moments) are still impressive to this day. Can't get that with CGI.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 36: That'll Teach Them to Be Bad


Bay of Blood
[aka- Twitch of the Death Nerve]
(1971 / director: Mario Bava)

★★½

One of the things that has ruined the horror genre over the last decade is that nearly all the movies coming out don't feel like horror. Nothing about them, not a single quality they possess reminds you of the genre (except possibly the gore quotient). You could say that this goes back into the very beginning of horror. And if you did, you'd be half-right. Horror infamously used to be more dramatic and psychological. There were just as many luscious, beautiful women screaming, only for a man to soon rush to their aid (though sometimes they were too late). There was a fair amount of peril. But, it was only equal to the amount you'd find in any given thriller. And like a thriller, horror films of the classic era were saddled with the task of over-explaining things. Take Psycho, for instance- a film without a genre (though it's truly 90% thriller and maybe 10 horror). The dialogue is forced to explain any and all creepy scenes you witness. As if to defend the film for forcing you to sit through them. That was how a filmmaker could claim to be brilliant if they wanted to make a horror film about a killer in those days. And let us not forget that 1960 was also the year of Peeping Tom, a film about a man who killed women without explanation or defenses through dialogue. Audiences were appalled and movie business folk were outraged. Shockingly, that film had even less onscreen violence (however suggestive) than Psycho did. But forget it- that's not how you did things in those days. The director's entire career was ruined, no one in the business allowed him to make a film again.

But the 60's were a time of great change in the genre. It started as a decade permeating cheap period horror films about creepy castles (Roger Corman's bread and butter, he made probably over a dozen films in 5 years with this theme), haunted houses (The Haunting), freaky children (The Innocents, Village of the Damned), travelers who would meet the creatures from classic 30's and 40's horror: vampires, mad scientists, ghosts, etc. Sci-fi invasion was out! Travel-horror was in. If you didn't belong there, beware... But by the end of the decade, studio-made horror wasn't capitolizing as well. The genre needed to become more director-oriented. And so- 3 names stepped up to the plate. The most important name of the 60's was clearly Roman Polanski who electrified the genre with a new twist on women-in peril: 1966's masterpiece Repulsion (and later the director of the seminal Rosemary's Baby which became the film to tell 70's Hollywood that satan-horror was pure bank). In America, William Castle pics were oldhat so, George A. Romero decided to take the jokiness out of horrific situations with Night of the Living Dead. This both ushered in a wave of new superstar North American horror directors and started some unfortunate trends that have little today to merit their existence (mostly advertising gall and overblown reputations as shock pictures). Then, Italy had their own Hitchcock: Mario Bava. Maker of somewhat low-budget but very artistically-minded horror films, Bava had a brainstorm of his own - murder on film that is actually bloody and visceral. Along with the cinematic father of the splatter genre (Hershell Gordon Lewis: Blood Feast, among others), Bava was 'the' guy to begin making horror violent. No film of the 60's got more attention for this than 64's supermodel fashion-slasher Blood and Black Lace. Which, eventually, turned him into a star.

But as this renaissance of new directions in horror, which completely re-invented the genre, progressed into the 70's- Bava fell behind the new wave and Argento took his place as not only master of the modern giallo, but the Italian King of Horror. He did this with 1971's now legendary, Bay of Blood, by fusing a first-rate visual horror show with the old-fashioned, cheap thriller and soap opera conventions of a group of unscrupulous schemers betraying each other for money. Which here takes the form of a large piece of property that a scummy lawyer and his blonde bimbette girlfriend have designs on snatching by making the owners (a husband and wife pair) kill each other. It's all much too complicated. But it doesn't end there! The wife has an illegitimate son who lives on the property and the husband has a legitimate daughter, both of whom have never met but will now- following the murders of their parents. Each with an ax to grind... literally. But - wait! - there's more: a creepy insect enthusiast whom we overhear threatening the scummy lawyer, his wife- a spooky fortune teller who reads bloody murder in her tarot cards, a seduction scheme to drive men to murder the people living on the bay, a freaky disembodied pair of eyes periodically peeping through windows and wicker walls, the daughter's smooth-talking boyfriend and his two strange kids, and... why not(?); a car full of horny teenagers who show up, unannounced and without permission, to drink, skinny-dip, and screw. (Quiz Time: which part of that equation do you think went on to be famously ripped-off by the Friday the 13th franchise?)

As the film starts, it's a brilliant and disturbing kill-a-thon (with a single flaw- bad gore effects) with scary editing, a bone-chilling music score by Stelvano Cipriani (this main theme is a must-listen), and an attention-grabbing duo of brutal murders. Yes, the film is a bloodbath and if you don't mind that it looks incredibly fake- you'll get a pretty good fill (for 1971- this is Evil Dead gory). And Mario Bava is a king among classic horror style masters. But, I haven't met a Bava film yet that went down smoothly. And when I say that, I mean- I haven't seen one I've wholeheartedly enjoyed. Give the man credit for being able to belong to so many eras- his career in horror started with 1960's Black Sunday, a film most consider to be in league with the Universal classics. Then, he does (basically) Polanski before he was even on the horror scene with 1963's The Girl Who Knew Too Much. The mid-to-late 60's was the guy's golden era (Kill Baby Kill, Black Sabbath, Whip and the Body- among others). He was worshipped and did his own thing. You have to respect that. And I do. There's no one else like him. But, if you're looking for horror (as I always am), it's important to note that his films are trapped in the giallo vein he opened whereas Argento broke out of the mold and conquered horror, internationally. Bava's films feel like the undertow that sank the giallo by giving it its' exploitation and grindhouse reputation.

Bay of Blood is not allowed to be the end-all-be-all terrifying film you might think it, with its' concept of an almost invisible Grim Reaper spirit possessing people at will and making them so evil- they'll kill anyone in sight. It was advertised as the film with 13 murders so grisly, that you would leave the film an emotionally disheveled wreck. But how exactly is it scary to watch people hide behind bushes while discussing with each other their plans to kill that guy or that woman we see in the house they're watching... Then that person dies? I guess that means: not only is everyone here a murderer, but everyone is a psychic as well. Bay ends up being little more than a clever crime film with flashy murders. Not to mention that, sexually, this movie couldn't be more behind-the-times. Women are portrayed as dumb or loose sluts, prudes, or cold-hearted bitches and the guys are typically condescending, loopy, misogynst assholes. But, in all fairness- it's the best Bava film I've seen yet. With a lot of interesting little pieces. And, even though I have a few big issues with the story, you have to at least see it for the ending. It's... even more attention-grabbing than the opening! And you'll wonder after seeing that how that is possible.

[nopersonality]

Chapter 77: The New Pollution


Class of Nuke 'Em High
(1985 / directors: Richard W. Haines, Michael Herz, Samuel Weil)

★★★

The Toxic Avenger was not Troma's masterpiece so much as it was their most controversial film. It was advertised as a Troll 2 type film for its' time, and had the notion to try and appeal to people with very liberal senses of humor. That approach garnered a lot of attention, but at the same time- it backfired. No amount of telling people "don't take it seriously" was going to excuse scenes such as the brutal murder of the seeing-eye dog or the surprisingly un-slapstick killing of a child in a car by desensitized, homicidal punks. And many (if not most) people were not amused. Since then, Troma has taken on a dual-personality with their marketing and film production. They go out of their way to surround themselves with classy Hollywood fixtures (they've actually over the years been linked to the likes of: Oliver Stone, Jack Palance, Kevin Costner, Marisa Tomei, Sissy Spacek, and Vincent D'Onofrio - among others) and pick up some often ambitious films for distribution... while at the same time, the films they paid to make themselves each tried to out-trash, out-gross, out-nasty, and out-shock their one mainstream breakthrough. And that's why it's quite nice to see their initial follow-up is a charmingly anarchic - yet less scatterbrained - anti-drug, anti-pollution, anti-conformity parable (of sorts). And, somewhat original when you think of how much Avenger just reeks of a teenage, exploitation version of Swamp Thing.

Most refreshing of all is how this film is just about the greatest Troma Sampler the studio could have ever put together. It's the perfect cocktail creation of all their trademarks: sex-comedy, freak horror, silly social commentary, gender-bending, monster movie, and various assaults on American values. Whereas Avenger tried to take on America's superficial gym-body cultural obsession (and I imagine was trying to pollute the image of their parade of hot and sexy youths by associating toxic waste with the exercise trends), Class aims closer away-from home: School! While they honestly forgot a few areas (gym class especially), they not only manage to get touchy with a lot of old-fashioned cliches (especially the war between the bad and "good" students, leading to a lot of mocking on the image you see of teens in so many stupid shows and afterschool specials) but they're able to do it in a way that... almost blows the popular idea that teens live traditionally clean lives off its' hinges. For years, Lloyd Kaufman bragged that Troma's films were the pre-Heathers anti-John Hughes films. Reactions to Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. That's quite unlikely since Troma weren't really paying attention to trends in teen films. They were a "Poor Man's" industry unto themselves, belonging to a group of other filmmakers / producers (Sean S. Cunningham - who went from Friday the 13th to Spring Break in just a few years - deserves a mention here) making highly retro-minded sex comedies.

Were Class simply a sex-comedy, it would be as stunted as the other dated films being released at the time (especially The Karate Kid and Just One of the Guys- look for the Columbia Pictures logo). As a horror-comedy hybrid, on the other hand, it's something much more eternal. Other than being a more adult (though equally ridiculous) version of something like Saved by the Bell, it has a far freer spirit than Avenger. And so, you as the audience are given a choice to root for the boring (yet sometimes funny) Warren and Chrissy or have more fun with the surprisingly non-threatening gang of biker punks. Yes, they bully several (annoying) nerdy characters and beat up an old lady or two. But, the portrayals of youth shenanigans here are so far from being realistic, that it's easy to just wag your finger at them. There is some honest weight, however, to the scenes of them taking over the school and trashing it. You might not enjoy any number of crotch-grabs or fart jokes on display, but a part of all of us has to smile watching that montage. And finally, the horror part really works. An over-the-top gory ending and several interludes featuring mutations, deaths, and dismemberments of gang members, hazmat suit-wearing workers at the local power plant testing for toxic spillover (which has, ala- Cabin Fever, seeped into the school's drinking water), and the occasional student are skin-crawingly creepy. Great music all-around.

Official-Troma is always stupid. But this is the kind of stupid I can live with. And as ideas go, this is heads and shoulders above Street Trash.