PINNLAND EMIRE isn’t exactly a horror site but two of my favorite films do happen to fall under that genre. I’ve said everything I have to say about Trouble Every Day & Parents (on this site, the pink smoke and various podcasts) so I reached out to PINNLAND EMPIRE-favorite Patrick Horvath to illustrate my love for these films just in time for Halloween (in addition to being a talented filmmaker, Horvath is also a talented artist that you should all be following on twitter at @PatrickHorvath).
It only makes sense that I share more thoughts on Claire Denis' misunderstood masterpiece for the Pink Smoke's auteur horror series considering it's my second home.
Click the image below to read my updated thoughts on Denis' quietly influence "horror" film Trouble Every Day
This Visit is one of the more peculiar films of 2015. While I'm not a fan of it, the film has gained quite a bit of critical praise. Actually, it seems like I'm in the minority with my views on Shayamalan's recent found footage horror tale. PINNLAND EMPIRE contributor Ian Loffill is no stranger to misunderstood horror movies so it only makes sense that he shares his thoughts on this.
Enjoy...
I only recently became properly acquainted with the work of writer/director/producer M. Night Shyamalan but for years his filmography has had a major influence on my approach to writing about films. The Sixth Sense was one of the “must see” films of 1999 and I would have watched it during its initial release but a lot of the early hype surrounding the film was down to the twist ending that, apparently, few people saw coming. Unfortunately a poorly written review of the film I stumbled across at the time gave the ending away (without warning) in the first paragraph and so it seemed like the one major reason people were saying you should watch the film (“did you see the twist coming?”) was no longer valid. I still feel pretty strongly about the whole subject of spoilers. I’m the kind of person who never sees “the twist” coming. My mind just doesn’t work that way when absorbing a story so a film has to be extremely predictable for me to be able to see where it’s all going. To make matters worse, I inadvertently found out about the endings of two of his subsequent films (Signs and The Village) in everyday conversations with friends and co-workers who assumed I’d already seen them. Each of his subsequent efforts got progressively worse notices and it felt like I was destined to never be able to see the work of one of the most talked about names in modern American cinema without someone ruining the element of surprise. It’s for this reason (and other spoiler ridden reviews I’ve come across over the years) that, wherever possible, I try not to allude to plot details too much in my write-ups.
At the urging of a Shyamalan enthusiast/apologist I recently went to the see The Visit, knowing almost nothing about it, and also set about catching up on all of his prior work that I’d missed in the last 15 years or so. He’s had the sort of career arc that I’d imagine most filmmakers hope to avoid. In less than a decade he went from being an Oscar nominated critical darling with The Sixth Sense to being seen as a genre hack and laughing stock with The Happening in 2008. At a certain point (probably not long after 2004’s misleadingly promoted The Village) mainstream audiences began to resent Shyamalan for getting caught up in the hype of his increasingly ambitious and farfetched releases, none of which seemed to achieve the same payoff as The SixthSense or Signs. While not quite reaching Uwe Boll levels of hate, he remains an auteur in the most unfashionable sense of the term and it’s got to a stage where bad reviews for his work are almost redundant. He’s been on the ropes for a while now but it can sometimes take an awful lot to finish off the career of a well established director.
It’s possible Shyamalan saw a glimmer of hope with 2010’s relatively well received Horror/Mystery flick Devil – which he produced and got a story credit for, although his overall involvement in the film may have been somewhat exaggerated in its advertising. For Shyamalan the director The Visit could be seen as a humbling retreat to the genre that made his name and one last throw of the dice for a man who was once touted as a modern day Hitchcock. For Shyamalan the producer and bankable entity The Visit was a smart move. Working with Blumhouse productions, who specialise in low budget, gimmicky Horror films like Paranormal Activity, Insidious and Sinister, the gamble seems to have paid off. If marketed well and released at the right time of year films of this ilk are already hugely profitable before anyone notices whether or not they are any good. The box office figures for The Visit (made for roughly $5 million, to date it has grossed over $80 million) seem to have bought him a reprieve after a string of films that either flopped or underperformed dating back to Lady in the Water in 2006. This may be a means of pressing the reset button on his career, signalling a somewhat different approach and hoping to start all over again with a clean slate.
His declining fortunes with mainstream audiences can possibly be attributed to his inability to resolve dramatic and narrative issues in a satisfactory manner. His problems as a storyteller are how he often gets tangled up in his own plot devices and exposition. After the baffling pseudo-scientific explanations and mythological aspects in his work over the last 10 years the relatively simple and clear outline for The Visit was a way of making a more straightforward and accessible offering to audiences. To give a very basic summary of the plot: 2 children visit their grandparents at an isolated farmhouse for the first time and make a documentary about the experience over the course of a week while their mother holidays with her partner. Things get increasingly weird. Well, let’s just say I found it easier to follow than Lady in the Water or The Last Airbender.
If I had any scepticism going in to the film it’s because I generally dislike the found footage format. Even in films of that ilk that I have enjoyed, like Cloverfield, the whole framework seems unnecessary and forced. Few filmmakers have managed to employ it in a way that doesn’t’ feel horribly contrived. A lot of scenes require an explanation as to why the camera is switched on in the first place, especially at points where the characters are in such grave danger. More than anything else it has a distracting effect that makes the audience even more aware of the story’s inherent triteness and implausible details. If there are advantages to be found in this filmmaking style in The Visit it’s that it gives the rather pedestrian story a playful quality and eccentricity that it would have lacked if it had been done in a more conventional form.
Having read various responses to the film, there’s been a good deal of bemusement and debate over certain aspects of the film – whether the depictions of mental illness and the experiences of the elderly were in poor taste for instance. Did we really need so many scenes of Tyler demonstrating his rapping skills? Typically, some have asked if the film’s late “revelation” was even meant to be a surprise. Perhaps aware of the unintended laughs that some of his more recent work has provoked, Shyamalan wanted to keep audiences off balance on this one. The awkward mixture of solemn and silly is perhaps the best way to describe the mood of The Visit. In this context the one performance that feels perfectly judged is that of Deanna Dunagan as Nana, who creates the right amount of unease, malice, vulnerability and surface gentleness in her character while being fully attuned to the film’s black humour and cynicism. I feel like I got a reasonably satisfactory explanation for the film’s tone from Shyamalan himself when he stated in an interview that he actually shot 2 versions of the film. One was a serious, moody Horror film and the other was a broadly comic offering. The resulting film was apparently a mixture of the two versions that was put together in the editing room.
In its own peculiar way The Visit illustrates better than any other film I know the dilemmas facing 21st century Horror films. Now there is such a lucrative market in generating empty jump scares in formulaic offerings why bother trying something original or more substantial? Do you play it straight or tongue in cheek? This seems to try both ways at different points. How do you turn timeworn storylines and imagery in to something that is fresh and appeals to contemporary sensibilities? Modern technology and postmodern attitudes present enormous challenges to a genre with gothic roots and folklore origins. The Visit takes on certain knowingness in its allusions to fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel and Red Riding Hood. It makes time to detail the protagonists’ ability to phone for help or go online as well as letting us know how they are employing filmmaking techniques in Rebecca’s documentary. The film hasn’t done much to challenge my reservations about contemporary Horror films, many of which seems to aim low and succeed on their own very limited terms, but its confounding nature just about held my interest.
Within a mainstream context it’s refreshing to see a big release that was nothing like what I expected. There’s something reassuring in knowing that I wasn’t the only one who was perplexed by The Visit. Any originality it possesses comes largely as a result of the sometimes uncomfortable humour, which doesn’t quite enter spoof territory, and what I considered to be ill-judged moments. The Visit is one of the strangest and most unfathomable genre exercises I’ve encountered in a long time but, just to be clear on the matter, I won’t be making a case for it as a “misunderstood masterpiece” any time soon.
I didn't have time to do a film for Halloween this year (I wrote something Halloween-themed for The Pink Smoke) so I reached out to a few contributors to take care of that for me. This year Nathaniel Drake Carlson tackles Matthew Chapman's Heart Of Midnight. It's always a pleasure to have Mr. Carlson visit the empire (this is his third contribution this year). If you haven't read his thoughts on Blackhat& Some Call It Loving, do yourself a favor and give those a read after this.
Enjoy...
Much of the success of Matthew Chapman's Heart of Midnight lies in its aesthetic, hermetic self-enclosure, its building of a whole world for itself within those boundaries. This extends beyond the look and feel of the picture and into its thematic substance as well. A harbinger of what Lynch would do later with Twin Peaks, Heart of Midnight attempts a blend between a Grand Guignol operaticism of hyper heightened style and a brute psychological realism, suggesting that one extends from the other and that each is the other's appropriate complement. The psychological trauma goes very deep here and Chapman understands that the horror tropes are not a cheap trivialization of the subject matter at all but rather a fitting expression. Certainly it is often lurid in the extreme but that B-movie exploitation gloss is made suddenly substantive and relevant for us by association with the bracing content. We're challenged to take it seriously as the stuff of modern myths.
The film is really a showcase too for Jennifer Jason Leigh, whose performance as Carol is among the finest of the 80's and among her own personal best. It's a refined and carefully crafted performance, all the more remarkable in the midst of the hysterical excess surrounding it but inextricable from all that hysteria, shaped in response to it. What Leigh does so powerfully and with such understated resolve is to fashion a portrait of a frayed woman at the edge, trying to keep her psyche together but gradually falling apart in the face of traumas both inexplicable and all too clearly real. Leigh must then navigate this terrain with care and she does, her every reaction, even when in rooms alone (which is often), a mix of fragility and determination but also always indicative of a deeper and barely managed permanent state of distress. Her scenes with Peter Coyote's character are a welcome relief as the two of them have a comfortable rapport, at ease with one another even when they are suspicious or uncertain of each other's motives. Mention must also be made of Yanni's extraordinary musical score, a mix of the dissonant and the sweepingly romantic, matching the film's own distinctive range of expression.
Heart of Midnight recalls certain forerunners while foreshadowing others. While the thematic aspects remind me of Lynch, aesthetically the film bears a resemblance too, especially in terms of use of sound (the sound design during the sequence in which Carol examines the upstairs rooms in The Midnight is reminiscent of Jeffrey's initial inspection of the Deep River apartments in Blue Velvet--a deeply buried industrial ambiance suggestive of an unsettling unspecifiable form of life). There are also elements here which we get later in Egoyan's Exotica: the club as character unto itself, place as psychic space with all the implied labyrinthine passageways accompanying it, but also the unique conciliatory ending in which established opposing characters are brought together in an embrace which acknowledges the need for healing rather than rote confrontation or trite victory and infers in doing so what lay at the heart of the antagonism all along. And, of course, any "horror" picture of this sort will recall The Shining and Chapman indulges too in ghosts made real and a continuity of underlying perversity over time with all its effects made pronounced and undeniable. But I also especially like Chapman's final scene which mirrors the out-of-time final image in the Kubrick film but is more subtle as it only suggests its fantastical nature and the way that may guise a continued lingering trauma.
Heart of Midnight is also exceptionally well structured. The aforementioned tour through the upstairs rooms at the club builds slowly in unsettling detail with intimations of abuse never far away. This culminates in the scene of the assault upon Carol by intruders from outside, significantly outside forces. Once again the expressive style detailing one specific thing is paralleled with the separate incidents of a more prosaic and blunt reality. In this way Chapman makes his point about the confluence of the two. Also appreciated is the fact that the real arch-villain of the piece is displaced or removed from the start. There is in fact then no way to reach a satisfying kind of conventional resolution. All that can be done is deal with the results of his actions. In that way the movie is surprisingly moralistic but it works because it's not just some mere scold or hysterical reactionism (despite the pitch throughout) but builds instead a careful and convincing case.
One other thing worth noting. The UK DVD version of this film is significantly longer than the US cut (which is the sole cut available on the new Kino Blu). Not sure what to make of this as the longer cut has more sustained impact as it's built better, slower and steadier and is just generally richer. Maybe US distributors didn't like that pacing but cutting it down to get to the "horror" misses the point that the horror is suffused into the entire thing and an increased bluntness doesn't benefit or do justice to what Chapman is doing. Having said that there are some trims to the blatant horror stuff at the end too so who knows what the motivation was. Also, Brenda Vaccaro's part (as Jennifer Jason Leigh's mother) is reduced to almost nothing in the US cut which has makes Carol seem more isolated and disconnected. That eliminates much of the psychological realism complicated later by the sheer, almost surreal hysteria, but it also enhances that sense of desperate solitude and uncertainty so in those particular respects then I guess it is a more effective cut. Still, I wish the longer version would get a wider release and an eventual Blu treatment of its own.
I wrote about Human Centipede 2 back in late 2012 but I could never find a place for it on here so the piece just sat for almost two years to the point where I forgot about it. But with the upcoming release of Kevin Smith’s Tusk, the Human Centipede movies have popped back up on the radar as Tusk is clearly paying homage to that style of body modification horror and almost every critic is citing HC2 as a direct influence.
It’s also Halloween so now is the perfect to post this, otherwise it’ll sit on the shelf for another two years (side note – I have no immediate plans to see Tusk, but I was assured by my friend Chris Funderburg of the Pink Smoke that it was pretty good, so we’ll see…)
I know there's that curiosity to seek out totally messed up shit sometimes just because. This is why most people sought out the first Human Centipede movie. It’s a story about a crazy doctor who sews people together from their ass to their mouth. Its sounds stupid (and it is), but there’s something that just pulls you in. I had an interesting introduction to Human Centipede - The first time I saw the trailer was before a screening of Birdemic (one of those new-age cult movies that’s so bad it’s good) and like everyone else in the theater with me, I honestly thought it was a fake trailer at first. Upon learning that the trailer was in fact real, I knew Human Centipede would become a cult hit based on the subject matter alone. But I genuinely didn't think there would be a demand for a sequel (there’s actually a plan for a third one). Like...there's actually a legitimate demand for more Human Centipede movies and there’s a decent amount of non-kickstarter/indiegogo money behind it. And what’s extra perplexing & disheartening about it all is that even though there's an audience/demand for these stupid-ass movies, NO ONE takes them seriously even though I think director Tom Six wants us to. C'mon now, you know ANY time Human Centipede comes up in conversation people always have some kind of a sideways smirk on their face while discussing it. This ironic appreciation for Human Centipede has gotten out of hand. Why fuel a director to make more movies you know damn well are silly. Wasn’t the first one enough?
Human Centipede 2, which is kind of told in that "movie inside of a movie" style where some of the actors from the first film play themselves in the sequel (like in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare), is about a demented parking lot attendant ("Martin") who has an unhealthy fascination with the first Human Centipede movie. In true Norman Bates fashion, Martin lives with his crazy mother, was molested by his father, gets picked on & beaten up by his upstairs neighbor and is the butt of every joke. But as it turns out, Martin is quietly planning to make his very own 12-person human centipede (influenced by the move he watches nonstop) as a way to get revenge on everyone & everything that’s been so cruel to him. I'm not gonna get in to any other interesting plot points or plot twists because there really are none. It’s basically about some lonely weirdo who takes a movie way too seriously and goes too far (...or does he?).
The tone of this Human Centipede film is drastically different from the first one. While the first Human Centipede was somewhat polarizing & colorful (I actually liked the look of the first one), Human Centipede 2 is black & white, darkly lit and “gritty” looking, which you would think should add to the twisted tone of the film, but it just makes it seem even more forced & clichéd.
Martin embodies what I imagine a genuine Human Centipede fan looks like (not someone who likes it ironically, but the kind of person that would describe Human Centipede as “Totally Awesome” and actually mean it). I mean, just look at him...
It’s almost like director Tom Six is making fun of his fanbase with the Martin character. At this point he has to know the kind of people that like his movies. I’m sure he's been to plenty of comic-con/slasher/gorefest conventions to know the type of people that make up a large portion of his fanbase .
If Human Centipede 2 was made by some angry spoiled violent teenager with a skewed sense of reality, then I'd kinda understand. But Tom Six is 40 years old. There’s no excuse for that. There was a period between the release of Inglorious Basterds & Django Unchained where it seemed like all the problems concerning violence on film was unfairly placed on the shoulders of Quentin Tarantino by folks who take cinema way too seriously (like me). I kinda understand as Tarantino is probably the most influential American director of the last 20 years. That’s not necessarily a good thing (I certainly don’t like it) but it is what it is. His excessive & sometimes childlike use of violence can be seen in so many other knock-off movies. People look up to and emulate Tarantino which means unnecessary violence will be copied & emulated as well. But why was it just Tarantino getting all this heat? I’m certainly not someone who thinks we should blame violent movies for the problems going on in the world, but…if you do approach violence in an immature or childlike manner, you should kinda be called out on it at some point (this even applies to filmmakers that I love like Nicholas Winding Refn). Tarantino is catching all this flack while Tom Six is walking around planning a third Human Centipede movie. I think what’s in Human Centipede 2 is almost as bad as what's in Django & Inglorious Basterds. And you can’t say Six’s work isn’t relevant. In the last couple of years The Human Centipede has been referenced in pop culture through shows like South Park, Family Guy & The Simpson. Yes it’s true that Tarantino's films will be seen by a bigger audience but with Netflix instant & Internet buzz, it’s pretty easy to come across Human Centipede 2.
Like I said, I'm not really a fan of his anymore (which is putting it lightly) but if I was Tarantino I'd take the same "fuck you" attitude as he did in that video above. Part of me thinks that more & more some critics & journalists don’t like him anymore either (and there are plenty of reasons not too) but they don’t know exactly how to fully express their dislike so they throw him under the bus for reasons that are either out of his control or shouldn’t be laid all on him. It’s like when uneducated people didn’t like George W. Bush and they make that Hitler/Nazi comparison. There were plenty of legitimate factual reasons to hate Bush Jr. before calling him Hitler yet people didn’t do any basic research on him. Although Django has plenty of problems in the realm of violence, it really shouldn’t take so much heat with shit like Human Centipede 2 floating around virtually uncriticized.
I don’t wanna end this off on a totally negative note, so for those of you who are staying in on Halloween (sounds like an awesome idea to me) and are looking for something appropriate to watch, here’s a few suggestions that are either up on youtube (in multiple parts) or streaming online…
Ginger Snaps (Hulu+)
I avoided this movie for quite some time because the cover box art looked awful...
But at the advice of my former video store co-worker Patrick, I finally gave it a chance and it was surprisingly good.
Pontypool (Netflix Instant)
Although the story does borrow a few elements from The Thing (right down to the idea of a small group of people trapped inside a small space during a snow storm with the threat of an unknown virus-like threat taking over), this is still very entertaining and strangely surreal (towards the end) in a way that The Thing could never be.
Society (Youtube)
I’ve been pushing this movie on my friends over at the Schlock Treatment podcast because it really does fit their criteria in almost every way – schlocky (of course), tons of continuity errors, awful clothes, bad/awesome 80’s hair, tons of gore and it’s entertaining on multiple levels (there are some legitimately good parts in the movie but it’s also cheesy beyond belief). I truly believe this is the perfect Halloween get-together movie. There’s just the right amount of humor (some unintentional) mixed with blood & guts. Imagine early Cronenberg meets Polanski meets Baywatch…
It's crazy to think but we're only MONTHS away from Michael Mann's next film (January 2015)! Stylistically, Blackhat looks as if it takes place in that post-Heat universe that most people associate Mann with these days. That style of filmmaking has become so common for Mann that a lot of folks forget about or downplay the first 15 years of his filmography.
Only in the last few years has there been a major Thief resurgence (courtesy of The Film Forum, Refn's Drive and The Criterion Collection); Manhunter will always play 2nd fiddle within the Hannibal Lector universe to The Silence Of The Lambs; I rarely hear anyone mention The Last Of The Mohicans, and The Keep might be Mann's least talked about movie (...and when it does come up in conversation it's usually made fun of).
This is where Nathaniel Drake Carlson comes in. He's an excellent voice of reason when it comes to misunderstood and/or underrated films.
Below is his latest contribution that'll hopefully get you to look at Mann's early effort in a different light and possibly even give it another chance.
Happy Halloween. Enjoy...
Michael Mann's 1983 film The Keep is often regarded, if it is much regarded at all, as a kind of tragic misfire. And certainly this reputation makes some sense given the film's extremely troubled production as well as its apparently anomalous position within Mann's overall body of work. It is perhaps taken less seriously than his sophisticated urban crime pictures and seen purely for its surface genre it is often derided as an overwrought, rather tacky seeming sci-fi fantasy. But this easy assessment is indeed far too easy and dismissive as in its concise, potent form The Keep distills Mann's mythic interests to an essence writ very large. Thankfully a cult fan based movement has facilitated a reassessment and a closer scrutiny that is long overdue.
Based on F. Paul Wilson's far more elaborately detailed and explained novel, the film is set toward the end of World War II as a cadre of German soldiers quite literally descend upon a small Romanian community; ostensibly there to secure and guard a pass within the mountains, they settle into the town's ancient fortress which inevitably proves to be the source of their undoing as they haplessly release a demonic pestilence upon themselves and the community.
The source of the film's own undoing at the time of its release was in much dispute and continues to be now. It's clearly whittled down, one might even say savagely hacked down, from a purportedly far longer original cut. Some of this had to do with unfortunate circumstances during production (e.g. the death of special effects supervisor Wally Veevers meant a last minute radical restructuring of the film's finale) while post-production studio interference is likely largely responsible for much of the rest. Author Wilson himself evidently found the resultant adaptation of his book to be "incomprehensible". But this is not exactly fair and may speak more to what was expected than what was received. While indicators of severe cutting abound (William Morgan Sheppard's caretaker of the keep is introduced memorably, for instance, but then utterly dropped) the film can be said to benefit from its paring down and brisk pacing as that mode complements the central focus upon elemental mythology. It also provides the cast of a certain inevitability to the proceedings, an inexorable or fated end.
Superficially there's no denying that this is Mann's strangest film and it is truly strange. While the visual template seems initially drawn from Tarkovsky's windswept dreamy stateliness, it then goes on to forecast pop fantasy extravaganzas of the decade to come like Highlander and Masters of the Universe, a form that could be charitably described as garish and gauche. This broad, almost even parodic, stylistic palette applies to the actors as well. Ian McKellan, though admittedly playing the grizzled Dr. Cuza, comes off at times as channeling Ted Levine while his character's daughter Eva, played by Alberta Watson, often recalls a slightly less forbidding Sandra Bernhard in appearance. The presence of a veteran Mann performer like Robert Prosky, meanwhile, as the village's priest, calls up the possibility of a unique absurdity all its own. There is very little intentional humor too, which is risky as such a dearth can and will easily give rise to the risible in many audiences. But this is no mistake. It fits Mann's general, consistent sober tone but it also speaks to the democratic way in which he looks at his subject here, as having relevance that extends past assumed boundaries of taste or cultural acceptability, making such boundaries incidental and ultimately irrelevant. In that sense, all these disparate elements, all so seemingly disjointed or dissonant, actually are proper and germane to what Mann is doing.
But Mann's eye is just as acute here as it is everywhere else in his oeuvre. And what's most impressive about that is the way in which his eye for images goes beyond obvious powerhouse visuals such as the bravura opening sequence or Cuza's grand procession with the talisman toward the end (specific shades of Tarkovsky again, this time the candle walk in Nostalgia). Indeed, Mann's understanding of the vast power of images and sound is seen just as well in subtler scenes such as Cuza's examination of his hands after his healing via the power of Molasar, the entity heretofore imprisoned within the walls of the keep. Of course in all of this Mann is crucially abetted by the Tangerine Dream score, another element singled out for either praise or scorn depending on the audience. Its synthetic electronic ambient is an anachronistic presence to be sure as is the prevalence of billowing smoke machine mist and harsh backlighting which often makes the set indistinguishable from that of music videos of the era. But the presence of such stuff works to emphasize the heightened reality of the situation--this is a fantasy after all, not a newsreel documentary, and these elements complement the tone and themes while providing a dislocating, almost even alien quality.
It may very well have been the blunt approach to addressing mythic concepts which turned off audiences of the era and produced the chilly reception with which The Keep was originally met. A similar fate was waiting to meet Ridley Scott's Legend, another film blatant about its conceptions of a good/evil binary conflict/interdependence. Star Wars dressed up the subject more in the tropes of its specific pop mythmaking, partly as diversion but also partly as evidence that its real interest in this subject as subject was comparatively shallow. Meanwhile, in Carpenter's Halloween, only Donald Pleasence's Dr. Loomis cared about the way in which Michael Myers incarnated an abstraction (the Shape as Evil equation); beyond that the horror was direct and immediate, less mediated by an intellectual engagement with its central concepts and ideas. In The Keep that engagement is unavoidable and yet the pop fantasy elements may have worked to dissuade those who might have otherwise made the effort. But Mann's own engagement with his subject is profoundly serious and earns a commensurate effort on our part.
The Keep blends a wide variety of mythic models from the more easily respectable to the all too easily disrespectable and in so doing illustrates what is common to them all and how each form brings out different aspects of that commonality. Scott Glenn's mysterious drifter character Glaeken evokes familiar vampire motifs, especially in a scene in which his reflection is absent from a mirror in his room; later we see (in a very nice, subtle, almost missed moment) that the mirror has been taken down and turned to face the wall. He is also presented as a figure of romantic fantasy, capable of the immediate seduction of Eva. This is rendered in what amounts here to a quickie montage sequence but again that's fitting as what's important is the romantic essence of that relationship and especially Glaeken's instruction to Eva to dream. We have already been told that the keep produces nightmares in those exposed to it. The dream like atmosphere of the film itself counters and accommodates both poles or states of being. But the mythic aspects of the events and characters are actually more aligned with a metaphysical pitch than that of any one specific familiar mythic or religious model. Specifics of Christianity and pre-Christian paganism are evoked but there's also a pronounced emphasis upon something else, other or alien, unspecifiable as it remains an unknown. The laser light show finale in the emptied out landscape of smoke and light which signals Molasar's end is shot very much like the defeat of Darkness in Legend (Scott's film shared DP Alex Thomson); on one hand, it may be read critically as a tired trope of 80's pop cinema staging but it may also be understood as a proper aesthetic staging as in either instance it is about a confrontation that results in an exiling or repression/suppression of a prominent threat. The abrupt end to Mann's film in which the threat is subdued and the village suddenly comes back to life may be another victim of cutting but here too the outcome is appropriate as it serves simply (in fairy tale elemental fashion) to depict the reversal response to Glaeken's warning about the threat from the keep spreading out into the village (this is matched nicely during the end credits by the reverse movement back up and out of the pass into which the opening sequence descended). And though Molasar as embodiment of evil may seem obvious it is deceptively so as the clearest definition of what Molasar is we only get from his pledged antagonist Glaeken who describes him as "what was repressed within the keep". However, given that, the emphasis upon repression can't be overstated. And it's misunderstood by the majority of the character's themselves who are always only looking at the situation via their very small, limited perspectives and yet then assuming their read is thoroughly definitive and inviolate. Even a character as sympathetic as Cuza does this when he justifies to Glaeken his willingness to aid Molasar by saying, "What's happening in the world is worse than anything he'll do", to which Glaeken simply responds, "He is the same".
The nuance exists in the detail work. There is a flux to the definition of what constitutes evil. This provides an irony that inflects and gives dimension to what otherwise might seem like solid unassailable absolutes, ideas made too familiar and drained of their resonance, their power. Evil as a concept is broad, containing much, understood differently and its presentation is therefore effectively unclear. Both Glaeken and Molasar exist as recognizable spiritual composites; in part this is due to a strategic conspiring on their part which plays to other characters' existing attitudes and assumptions but it's also a fitting analogue for their actions and behavior, for what they do and are. Ideas of corruption, power and the fantasy of salvation, of harnessing an evil and ostensibly transforming it into a good, exist here in rotation. While Molasar on occasion fits the form of a purely and obviously demonic evil, he is also a possible Golem figure, bringing the promise of destruction upon the Nazis. He is also deeply suggestive of the Old Testament God, traveling in a pillar of smoke and clouds (foreshadowing the equally diffuse mythology of TV's Lost) as depicted in Exodus. He is, in this form, pure power and force. It is as this manifestation that he carries Eva to safety and away from the threat of the German rapists whom he decimates. This may be a ruse to secure Cuza's gratitude and allegiance but it is still accomplished with a tenderness redolent of love--this, in turn, is reminiscent of the inverse scene in Dennis Potter's Brimstone and Treacle in which the malevolent central figure brings a comatose girl back to consciousness via his raping of her (the rain falls upon the just and upon the unjust...). As this unyielding pure force, one more defined by its remote and absolute inaccessibility to finite knowledge, a chance is provided to address and alter the Abraham-Issac narrative by turning upon and directly confronting the divine like guiding presence. When Molasar demands that Cuza sacrifice his daughter, Cuza responds in heroic fashion: "Who are you that I have to prove myself by killing my child?" This mobilizes the strength and fortitude that Cuza had previously sought purely from Molasar.
All this thematic richness cascades over the embankment of religious or even self-evidently mythic discourse and into the realm of the more clearly secular, demonstrating its applicability there. The friendship between Prosky's Father Fonescu and McKellan's secular Jewish doctor is presented as a model of camaraderie and gracious mutual exchange, yet Molasar's influence finally is seen to enflame a religious antagonism between them where none existed before. It is significant though just how much of an emphasis there is in terms of defining the specifics of comprehension and intellectual orientation. Cuza tells Fonescu right from the beginning, "You believe in gods, I believe in men," while Jürgen Prochnow's Woermann states equally early on, "The real nightmares men have made upon other men in this war." An intensive conflict also develops between German army officer Woermann and Gabriel Byrne's Kaempffer, an SS representative. Kaempffer translates the source of the evil as something particular and "real", in this case the threat of disloyal partisans killing his soldiers and creating a practical, observable effect. But Woermann finds a parallel when he accuses him of having "released the foulness that dwells in all men's minds." The evident historical analogue is thus clearly established, whether it be the evils of fascism or that of the SS (who, not insignificantly, have their own associations with the occult). In this examination of perspectives and perception it is telling that both these characters accuse each other of being subject to fantasies or sentimentality. The suggestion implicit within the film, however, is that such accusations, while not entirely inaccurate, are similarly inadequate to address what they are referencing even while they are all inextricably wrapped together. Mann's greatest accomplishment with this presentation of heightened horror and absolute Evil may actually be its hidden sophistication and adeptness at taking and treating its subject seriously.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! You didnt think a Hurricane would stop the empire, did you? There was no way in HELL I wasnt gonna have Pink Smoke contributor; Ian Loffill as a guest writer for this Halloween-themed special. Dont get me wrong, the horror genre isnt the only thing Ian knows about (just read his recent write-ups on Henry Fool & Out For Justice on the pink smoke). But thanks to his old myspace page and his current blog (Notes & Scribblings) I've been put on to quite a few forgotten about/underrated and/or misunderstood horror films over these last few years.
Enjoy...
By the early 1970s things were looking bleak for Hammer. Besides the British film industry going through one of its routine crisis periods, Hammer were facing competition in their own Horror market in the form of Amicus and later Tyburn and Tigon. Cinemas were closing across Britain and US distribution money had dried up. Hammer’s style was unfashionable at this stage and other Horror films of this era were moving away from castles, cobwebs and cemeteries to present day settings in films like The Exorcist and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hammer were trying to keep up with trends and a sign of how clueless they were in this respect manifested itself in the unintentionally funny Dracula A.D. 1972. Their biggest grossing efforts by this stage were appalling sex comedies like On the Buses. It was a desperate time and yet during this period some truly excellent films emerged under difficult circumstances, notably Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Vampire Circus, Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter and Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell. Sadly a lot of this good work went unheralded as the studio drew closer to its eventual demise.
Initially Monster from Hell was regarded as a failure. Finished in 1972 but released in 1974, it’s never been entirely clear why it sat on the shelf for so long. It was granted an X certificate and opened to dismal box office and got generally dismissive reviews which cited it as too grim. For me it’s a case of a great film that came along at the wrong time, being released in the same year as the Mel Brooks spoof Young Frankenstein amongst other things. Of all the Hammer Frankenstein pictures it’s the hardest to get hold of and is quite often seen in a cut version with certain gore scenes trimmed. A frequent criticism is that the Victorian mental asylum setting is too restrictive and confined for the action taking place, obviously a budgetary factor. Peter Cushing even joked that his wig made him look like Helen Hayes. Most agree it’s “the one with the crappy looking monster” and the film’s major defect is indeed the Neolithic monster itself. The monster was quite often an afterthought in these films, as it was the doctor himself who was the real focus of the films. David Prowse had already played the monster in The Horror of Frankenstein and only fares slightly better in the role here. This is no Monster From Hell but a pitiful, suffering and hideous creation. No one goes to see Hammer films for high quality monster make-up effects but Prowse does look particularly feeble next to the iconic performances of Christopher Lee, Michael Gwynn and Freddie Jones as the Baron’s creations in previous films in the series. Depending on whom you ask the film is either a nice low key finale (my view) or a tired, overdue farewell from a studio at the end of its tether. Hammer scholars are divided on the films merits. David Pirie in his book ‘A New Heritage of Horror’ and Sinclair McKay in ‘A Thing of Unspeakable Horror’ both give damming assessments of the film, seeing it as unfortunate failure and the “dying croak” of the series. More favourable opinions are expressed in Jonathan Rigby’s ‘English Gothic’ and Barnes and Hearn’s ‘The Hammer Story’.
Although he was the central focus of the series, it wasn’t just about the Baron and the series would have memorable additions over the years. The old Hammer crew weren’t all there in Monster From Hell but there were some mainstays returning. The script was a dusted off effort by Anthony Hinds (aka John Elder), who had left the studio a few years earlier. The script is full of humorous touches and certain ironies. Hammer stalwart James Bernard provides an effectively dour score. There are some surprisingly sensitive portrayals of the mental patients, played by the likes of Charles Lloyd Pack and Lucy Griffiths. Among the new faces, Madeline Smith as mute patient Sarah effectively becomes the conscience of the film while Shane Briant as Simon Helder is a very effective protégé. His confidence and disregard for conventional society is reminiscent of Cushing’s performance in the original Curse of Frankenstein and as the film goes on you get the sense that the Baron sees something of his younger self in Helder; his boundless curiosity and recklessness. Even Helder though begins to question Frankenstein’s methods as the story progresses.
The Hammer Frankenstein series evolved in interesting ways, although I prefer to think of the other two Hammer Frankensteins which didn’t involve director Terence Fisher (1964’s The Evil of Frankenstein and 1970’s atrocious prequel Horror of Frankenstein) as misguided detours. The 5 films by Fisher with Peter Cushing starring are all excellent but their stature is far from equal in filmdom and even amongst Hammer fans. The Curse of Frankenstein has rightfully attained classic status and along with 1958’s Dracula, established Hammer’s identity and brand name. Frankenstein Created Woman won the wholesome praise of Martin Scorsese at an NFT season. The Revenge of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed also have their admirers and are regarded as fine continuations of the series but Monster from Hell clearly stands apart from the other 4 in reputation. As good as they are individually the Cushing/Fisher films have a cumulative value that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Memories of earlier films in the series add texture. The films now seem to play off each other, add layers and distinction and by this final chapter achieve a poignancy that is remarkable. A wonderful understated scene has the Baron admitting to not having felt so elated since the events of the first film but admits “that was a long time ago.” Like all great macabre entertainment it’s riveting but at the same time hard to watch, seeing the all too human error that brings about these ruined efforts. Peter Cushing’s performance as Baron Frankenstein is one of cinema’s greatest extended character studies. Callous, witty and amoral, he’s one of the most compelling antiheroes to ever grace a Horror film. The subtle touches he added to the character over the course of the series are remarkable. Thanks to Cushing’s performances we are compelled by what drives the doctor but are repulsed by the consequences of his actions. The Baron is almost a mythical figure at this stage, many daren’t speak his name. In this film he has faked his death and is conducting his experiments in a Victorian State asylum for the criminally insane. The doctor chastises the director of the asylum for maltreatment of patients, showing the contradictory nature of the character. His introduction is certainly striking; clad in black he is almost synonymous with death by this time. Known as the “gentle man of Horror”, Freddie Francis felt that Cushing was the best thing that ever happened to Hammer. The early 1970s was a period of grievance for the actor, having lost his wife to emphysema. Trying to cope with the loss he took on an increasingly prolific workload. Cushing looks shockingly gaunt here, tired and overworked like his character. This stage of his career contains some of his finest work, including his performance in Monster from Hell, his obsessive puritan witch-hunter in Twins of Evil, the malevolent shopkeeper in From Beyond the Grave and perhaps best of all, his unforgettable turn as Arthur Grimsdyke in the “Poetic Justice” segment of Tales from the Crypt. There’s an unmistakable melancholic quality to Cushing’s performances at this point (and his performance in Tales from the Crypt is downright heartbreaking) but also a very dark humour creeps through. His obsessive Baron has become an outcast, coming to terms with past failures and trying to salvage something from the wreckage of his life’s work. He remarks, “If I succeed this time then every sacrifice will have been worthwhile”.
Director Terence Fisher was nearing 70 when he made the film. Low on confidence, allegedly prone to heavy drinking and in poor health, it would prove to be his final picture. Fisher and Cushing both contested with Hammer on certain issues – specifically the title, aspects of the script and the appearance of the monster (which Fisher had wanted to be more human but clearly he lost the argument) but their objections went largely unheeded. The ending hints at further adventures for the Baron and Helder but from the tone of the film Fisher and Cushing surely knew that this would be their last in the series. One of the last lines “It’s all over now. All over.” speaks volumes as does Cushing’s mournful expression. It perhaps was meant to signify Frankenstein’s tireless, obsessive nature that he is already planning his next experiment.
When the horror genre’s practitioners decided in the 1970s to largely reject the past the effect was sadly a lasting one. I still find contemporary genre films are too rooted in the present to be wholly effective - many already seem dated within a couple of years. There’s no shortage of contemporary anxieties to examine but by ignoring the genre’s gothic roots they tend to lose the timeless appeal of horror tales, something that you can still find in Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. It never got the recognition it deserved and while some of the shortcomings detractors point to are valid, they all too often ignore its strengths. Considering the circumstances – an anachronistic picture made with Cushing grieving, Fisher ailing and Hammer itself in terminal decline - it’s the unlikeliest of triumphs and somehow fits the themes of the film itself. The history of the series on and off screen is part of its identity, making it a dignified and relatively subdued farewell. For me it provides perfect closure to a classic series, and how often does that happen? The disdain that some have for this film is slightly baffling, given that it seems to be a classic case of Hammer doing what it so often did best: Gothic Horror with a Home Counties flavour, made with meagre resources but also a tireless spirit, ingenuity and enthusiasm.
Terminator 2, Godfather 2, Rocky 2, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, the list goes on. The second part of any trilogy/saga/franchise is key. It’s the glue that holds everything together. The bridge between the beginning and the end of the story where all the crucial & memorable stuff happens. It’s the big rematch (Rocky 2), the shocking discovery (Darth Vader reveals he's Luke's father), the loss or death of a major character (Fredo in The Godfather) and more action (Terminator 2). The Exorcist should have honestly just been left to stand alone as one iconic movie. I mean, I understand - it was such a huge hit movie studios wanted to milk it as much as they could. But if you're gonna make a sequel to a classic the least you could do is not make it a total disaster...which is what the Exorcist sequel was. We all know the first Exorcist wasn’t your typical horror film about some monster or supernatural serial killer out to get someone. It was about religion, faith, the loss of innocence, hidden inside of the kinda horror film that no one had really seen yet. Every Exorcist film besides parts 1 & 3 have been cursed or doomed in some way. Part 2 was so awful that we didn’t get the often forgotten about third part until almost 13 years later. Now, the Exorcist part 3 isn’t the MOST forgotten about film in the world, however on more than one occasion I've honestly heard people say; "There's a third Exorcist movie?" And the prequels that came out in 2004 were cursed with post production and editing issues. Exorcist 3 is part of a special group of underrated "Part 3's" that got overlooked or unfairly treated because the film before it was either too bad, disappointing or too good (Alien 3, Exorcist 3, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest). I've mentioned this before but I'll say it again - late night cable TV programming between the late 80's and early 90's was the best. We never got anything like the Z Channel on the east coast but HBO, Cinemax and The Movie Channel after 10pm on the weekdays featured everything from French art house to Don The Dragon Wilson's best work and everything else in between. The Exorcist 3 was one of the best late night discoveries from my childhood. Instead of trying to make things bigger, better and more shocking (like part 2 tried to do), this one was a scaled back smaller film that takes us back to the very beginning - Georgetown, Catholicism, Father Karras, the famous staircase he killed himself on, etc. Exorcist part 2 was so off the wall with all the voodoo nonsense that William Peter Blatty (author of the first Exorcist and director of another underrated film: The Ninth Configuration) had to come back, take control and bring some legitimacy back to the franchise he started by directing part 3.
This Exorcist, which takes place 15 years after the events of the first one, centers around Detective Kinderman from the first film (played by George C. Scott in a role originally played by Lee Cobb in the first film). Hes working a case of a series of killings that mimic the style of a dead serial killer known as "The Gemini Killer" which eventually leads him to a nursing home of possessed old people and a few old friends from the past (Pazuzu and Father Karras). The gruesome killings mimic everything right down to the details that were kept a secret by the police back in the 70's when The Gemini was on his rampage. As the investigation continues on and Kinderman digs further, things get personal when his friend; father Dyer (another supporting character from the original Exorcist also played by a different actor) is murdered with a personal "note" left behind that only Kinderman would get. Things get even creepier and more supernatural when Pazuzu, the demon that possessed Reagan in the first film, takes over the bodies of old people in a nursing home and gets them to commit copycat crimes of the Gemini killer (Pazuzu also returns in the form of father Karras). With all the connections to the first film, this feels more like the real sequel than the actual sequel (and the fact that Blatty had nothing to do with the part 2 makes part 3 feel more connected to the first too).
Atmosphere and pacing where two major strengths in this film that pretty much went unnoticed. Exorcist 3 managed to capture that cold/grey/windy fall D.C./mid-atlantic vibe that we saw in the first Exorcist. This may not have been directed by William Friedken but his style is everywhere. This exorcist is more of a supernatural neo-noir or a psychological thriller than it is a traditional horror film. That's kinda what I love so much about part 3 is that the first half of this film feels like a detective film with this looming presence of creepiness or a thin layer of horror. The more the film goes on you know something supernatural or frightening is on the horizon. But its still not without its share of creepy moments - in one quick scene we see one of the elderly women from the nursing home possessed and crawling around on the ceiling (a movie moment that's always stayed with me since I was 10) There's another scene that always bugged me out as a kid - early on in the film when Detective Kinderman is home late at night his dauthter comes downstairs in the dark for a brief moment and I swear she looks exactly like Reagan (Linda Blair) from the first film for a split second. These Exorcist films are no stranger to subliminal or hidden messages so I wouldn't put it past Blatty for placing that scene in the film to yet again remind us of the first one (you'll have to excuse me, I recently watched Room 237, a documentary about far fetched subliminal messages in The Shining, so ive been looking at horror films differently ever since). This one may not have turning heads, projectile vomit, defiled crosses or classic lines like: "Do you know what she did? Your cunting daughter?" But it still features great performances from great actors like George C. Scott, Brad Douriff & Jason Miller, along with some pretty random cameos (Patrick Ewing, Fabio and Larry King). Lets also not forget The Exorcist 3 has one of the greatest startle scenes in a horror film in quite some time...
Is The Exorcist Part 3 a classic? Did it have the same impact or spawn a million bad knock-off films where some little girl gets possessed like the first Exorcist did? No, of course not. But it got an unfair shake no-thanks to the stigma left behind by its predecessor; The (awful) Exorcist Part 2: The Heretic. But thanks to the small cult following (and movie blogs like PINNLAND EMPIRE) it’s been slowly getting the recognition it deserves.
Had anyone else even suggested writing about Bones & Demon Knight on PINNLAND EMPIRE I woulda immedietlly dismissed the idea but John Cribbs (1/2 of the pink smoke) gets a pass. I mean after all, he did let me write about Drawing Restraint 9 (a movie he hates) on his site so its only fair. And besides, Ernest Dickerson is responsible for the movie that made me want to become a DJ (Juice), so why not give his two ventures in to the horror genre a second chance? Plus I'd be lying if I said Demon Knight wasnt on heavy rotation in my VHS player back in the day...
Demon Knight
I was going to take this opportunity to once again defend Ghosts of Mars, a movie so unjustly reviled it waylaid John Carpenter's career for almost a decade. But since Carpenter himself is anything but underrated, I decided instead to write about Ernest Roscoe Dickerson, whose approach in the two horror films he directed could be positively defined as "Carpenter-esque" (his style is a little more raucous, but I'd say he managed to get closer to the spirit of Carpenter than, say, Robby Rodriguez with Planet Terror or Neil Marshall with Doomsday.)
Most people know Dickerson best for shooting Spike Lee's first six
movies and John Sayles' Brother from Another Planet, or for his
directorial debut Juice. Not as many realize that, seemingly inspired
by working camera on George Romero's anthology series Tales from the
Darkside, Dickerson went on to direct some pretty decent horror movies
that didn't really catch on at the time and haven't had any kind of
resurgence since. Just recently up in Toronto, I was telling Marcus
about how you never hear Dickerson's name brought up in conversations
about legitimate horror directors. This discussion was based on my
recommendation of Def by Temptation, which I inaccurately claimed
Dickerson directed (he was the DP, the director was James Bond III,
who played Monroe in School Daze) but I also freely endorse his 1995
effort Demon Knight and 2001's Bones. Neither of them are classics,
but considering their time and place (the 90's was an awful decade for
popular horror movies) they deserve more respect their the bare-bones,
unbought bargain bin dvd releases can bring them.
Demon Knight
Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight was the first of two in an
as-of-yet-incomplete trilogy of spin-off movies from the popular HBO
show, and while it's got sex and comedy and mutilation etc., it's not
really of the same "snarky EC comic-influenced/macabre parable with
twist ending" formula that the show followed (although there is a
clever sequence where a Tales from the Crypt comic mirrors what's
going on in the movie frame for frame.) As I said, it's much more like
a Carpenter movie with a lone badass (Bill Sadler, appearing in what
must be his only theatrically-released lead role) holed up in a single
location that's under siege by a bunch of monsters, led by slick,
chrome-domed demon Billy Zane (this marking the middle of his
"villanious role" career between Dead Calm and Titanic.) Sadler (the
"knight" of the title?) is some kind of Connor MacLeod-like ragged
hermit who happens to be immortal, tasked with carrying Jesus' blood
around in a crucifix-shaped flask so that Zane and his clawed
companions can't use it to take over the world somehow. It's the flask
itself they need for some reason, the blood inside actually hurts them
- Sadler uses the liquid to create membranes across door and window
frames that seal out Zane's gang and protect the unfortunate folk in
the church-turned-hotel he happens to stumble into on this particular
demon night. Trapped along with Sadler are a pre-Willy Jada Pinkett,
Lowell-era Thomas Haden Church and the always delightful Dick Miller:
the group fight amongst themselves, turn on each other and try to find
a way to escape as Zane exploits their weaknesses to his advantage in
an attempt to gain entrance and obtain the all-important flask.
Demon Knight
When I saw this in the theater - jesus - 17 years ago, I was instantly
sold the minute Sadler is introduced mixing himself some ketchup and
mustard soup and scarfing it down. Not as weird and amazing as Marion
Cobretti cutting himself a piece of pizza with a pair of scissors, but
still enjoyable. Zane seems to be having a blast ripping people's guts
out while lamenting the loss of his designer sunglasses, shooting fire
from his penis at one point and using his demon powers to tease the
desperate survivors. These are the scenes that make Demon Knight so
enjoyable, even though they are clearly derived from the Nightmare on
Elm Street model of victims being transported to a surreal dreamscape
in which they are seduced by whatever's been established as their
characteristic vice; even the aforementioned "comic book/live action"
sequence had already been done in Nightmare 4 or 5 (Billy's older
sister Lisa Zane was the one who killed Krueger in Freddy's Dead, a
family connection which may have very well netted him the part of the
nameless "Collector"). The best one by far is dipsomaniac Dick Miller
tempted by demon booze and nude Hooters girls in a simulated tropical
bar setting - fuck Jack Torrance! Not so easily enticed is CCH
Pounder, who runs around most of the movie with one arm - when Zane
offers her the arm back, she extends her stump: "Is that a yes?" "No,
that's me giving you the finger!" Pounder has another nice moment when
she barks "Get that pussy off the table!" and the resident floozie
instantly hops off her perch. After a beat, Pounder clarifies: "I
meant the cat." That's what you get for letting the Pounder loose!
With Demon Knight, Dickerson delivers a brisk 90 minutes of action,
gross-out set pieces and comedy; it makes up for being derivative by
never being dull. The real challenge came with Bones, for which he was
tasked with taking goofy pothead/urban linguist Calvin Broadus and
turning him into a believable badass monster.
Bones
Now try as they might,
rappers-turned-actors haven't made much headway into Hollywood horror
films. Ice T got to pull a bat out of his afro in Leprechaun 4:
Leprechaun in the Hood, but other than that he didn't have much to do.
Busta Rhymes embarrassed himself by appearing in the awful Halloween:
Resurrection; Redman got killed by a doll in Seed Of Chucky; Rah Digga
was the sassy nanny in the 13 Ghosts remake...based on these examples,
there's no question that Snoop Dogg's role as pimpin' numbers
runner/neighborhood favorite Jimmy Bones is by far the most
prestigious. It may have seemed like funny stunt casting, but Snoop is
actually perfect as the soft-spoken mack in a polyester pimp coat and
Lincoln Continental who's murdered by his crew after rejecting a
corrupt cop's plan to peddle crack 'round the neighborhood, his bones
buried in the basement of the gothic brownstone where he was killed.
20 years later, some kids hoping to turn the building into a club to
launch their positive message music group* disturb the bones of Jimmy
Bones, thus freeing his soul from hell so he can seek his vengeance.
Snoop - who had already been fake-killed and resurrected by the devil
in the Murder Was the Case short film - is a surprisingly intimidating
boogeyman, his performance no doubt enhanced by the direction of
Dickerson, who guided Tupac to his most memorable role in Juice** and
turned Ice T into a sympathetic hero in Surviving the Game. It was
also a smart move by the director to have Snoop's character be played
by a literal dog for half the movie, a doberman that projectile vomits
maggots into the hero's face before announcing that "the gangsta of
love don't eat no fried chicken!"
Bones
How can you not love a horror movie with the title card appearing in
graffiti? Dickerson returns to Demon Knight's workable formula - one
central location (in this case, a cool skull-shaped brownstone), a
playful yet unrelenting demon who picks off the characters one at a
time - and strikes a similarly dexterous balance of laughs and gore to
turn what could have been a silly rehash into a pleasure, solid
B-minus horror movie. The supporting cast includes Khalil Kain (Raheem
from Juice), the beautiful Bianca Lawson, Deezer D from Fear of a
Black Hat and Pam Grier, who kind of awesomely plays herself in
flashbacks wearing a giant afro (I don't remember her looking like
that in the 70's.) A'la Demon Knight, Bones is a bastard son of the
Elm Street series: like Freddy, Bones has a creepy nursery rhyme theme
song and a cache of bad puns, including one about being on "a high - a
supernatural high" that rival Freddy's worst (thankfully the painful
"soul food" pun was already taken.) In its defense, Bones (and Demon
Knight) is better than half the actual Nightmare films and has enough
of its own personality to make it stand out. One nice touch is Ricky
Harris' severed head that stays alive after being separated from its
body by Bones to argue with him: "I killed you, you kill me - we even!
Damn, why you gotta get all meta-fuckin-physical, shit!" Severed heads
are Dickerson's visual motif: there's a whole "trophy room" full of
them in his Hard Target-like Surviving the Game and Demon Knight has a
memorable Dick Miller decapitation. Another great visual is
Dickerson's representation of hell as an H.R. Giger-like wall of
writhing pitch black bodies that Bones' victims are sucked into:
again, kind of a throwback to the squirmy souls caught inside Freddy's
chest in the Elm Streets, but still a neat-looking and well-executed
idea.
Bones
Sadly Bones was not the launching pad for Snoop to become the next
modern horror icon, but he's believable as the smug pimp who's got all
the stats while all anyone else gots is "quo," transformed into a
vengeful hellspawn. Following this and dramatic roles in Baby Boy and
Training Day from the same year, his film career was reduced to cameos
in a predictable stream of stoner comedies and playing Huggie Bear in
the big screen Starsky & Hutch.*** For his part, Dickerson went on to
direct episodes of such beloved shows as The Wire and Dexter; I never
saw his Masters of Horror because, well, those are mostly unwatchable.
I guess I should check it out (if it's on Netflix Instant.) Anyway,
I'm glad he's working on The Walking Dead now because he's a
super-competent and underutilized horror director.
THE STATS:
Demon Knight
BOX OFFICE: $21,088,568 from $21 million budget
RED TOMATOES: 29%
imdb RATING: 6.5/10 (not bad actually)
Bones
BOX OFFICE: $7,316,658 from $16 million budget
RED TOMATOES: 22%
imdb RATING: 3.9/10
* Leprechaun in the Hood also features a well-meaning positive message
rap group who inadvertently ressurect the monster while trying to get
their act off the ground. (That one's for certain; I haven't seen
Bones in 10 years so I'm not 100% sure they're a positive message rap
group...but they're definitely an unsigned music act who bring the
monster to life.)
** Juice also featured a number of rapper cameos including Doctor Dre,
Fab Five Freddy and Treach. *** He did make another horror movie in 2006: Hood of Horror, in which
he again plays a demonic dog.
Librarian, film enthusiast & hardcore soccer fanatic (and not one of those American soccer fans who suddenly loves the sport only when its world cup time) - Jersey native Leanne Kubicz picked the perfect film that pretty much embodies what this Halloween series is about this year on PINNLAND EMPIRE. Decades before Toy Story 3 had us going "Wait a minute, this is a kids movie??", Disney blessed us all with this strange nightmare. I give Leanne props for tackling such a creepy, flawed and forgotten about film.
Enjoy...
There are films that I loved as a child that I still find excellent. E.T. continues to make me cry and the Anne of Green Gables miniseries is better now than when I was a kid (the dry Canadian humor completely went over my head the first time around). Yet there are films that I remember from childhood that do not hold up to my former memory. One such film is Return to Oz starring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy Gale taking another adventure through Oz.
Return to Oz is a forgotten fantasy movie for a reason; it’s an arduous slog that leaves you disappointed. This film debuted when I was six and I watched it about a year or two later on VHS. I recalled this film being really exciting but I find with adult eyes this falls far from what it could have been and left me annoyed. Though The Wizard of Oz is respected due to a nostalgia aspect, not for being an outstanding example of musical theatre, it handles Baum’s source material* better than the latter work. By holding too faithfully to the book illustrations and not simplifying the narrative, Return to Oz misses the mark that it ambitiously tried to reach. The main problem with Return to Oz is that it expects the audience to have prior knowledge of The Wizard of Oz but does not deliver the narrative in any way that resembles the classic. Everyone has imprinted the colorfully corny Garland Dorothy and the merry old Land of Oz and the 1985 version completely flips the standpoint to grim realism. We first meet Dorothy (six months after the tornado) in the middle of the night, unable to sleep as Auntie Em checks in on her. This time around Dorothy’s Aunt and Uncle are clearly anxious due to Dorothy’s constant chatter about Oz and her insomnia. Instead of chalking Dorothy’s imaginative tales and sleeping problems up to simply being a growth phase, they turn to a drastic measure - A clearly depressed Uncle Henry, unable to complete construction on his tornado-damaged home and with a too-fanciful niece to raise, decides to send Dorothy to have electroshock therapy. Yes, it has come to this; Dorothy is going to get her brain fried…
Dorothy is transported to the Land of Oz via a near-drowning in a raging river after escaping the ECT treatment with the help of a mysterious blond girl. The jarring aspect of Dorothy’s escape from an asylum into Oz renders the fantasy with a wash of unease and sadness that never lets one enjoy the kooky characters and magic fully. And so the film proceeds as a series of dark episodes with seemingly delightful characters sprinkled about that do not succeed in lightening the suffocating tone. Did I mention that Dorothy also has a chicken named Billina as a sidekick on this journey? Yes, a Jar Jar Binks-style comedic chicken whose jokes fail completely in every way. Toto gets scant screen time in this version and it is unfortunate that a wise-cracking chicken takes his place. Return to Oz is a gorgeous film, truth be told. The art direction is impeccable and lush. The villains’ costumes blend intricacy and terrifying details that have stuck in my mind for years. The Wheelers, this film’s substitute for Flying Monkeys, first appear with a flash of terror but ultimately show to be embarrassingly lame at battle. It is a shame that such well-crafted boogie-men did not deliver on my childhood memories. The Princess Mombi does deliver in her role as the many-headed pursuer of Dorothy thankfully. Princess Mombi is a particularly upsetting villain as she turns maidens into stone, steals their heads and wears them to suit her mood. Mombi captures Dorothy and intends in adding her head to her wardrobe. “What a happy story this is!” I thought as I was simultaneously creeped-out and bored. A headless evil princess imprisoning a young girl and her goofy mish-mash of found-friends should be highly suspenseful and stir emotional attachment, yet it never does.
No fault should be heaped upon Fairuza Balk who as a small child fills the role of this Dororthy. She did a very serviceable job with a script that is mostly implausible. Balk’s performance does not grate and plays well against the large cast of fanciful creatures (including a sofa) that populate Oz.
The overstuffed story and constant exposition serve to distance Dorothy from emotional connection with the audience. When I speak of constant exposition, I am not exaggerating. The amount of information that the audience has to process about the now-dilapidated Land of Oz and the new characters is introduced by random bits of dialogue. I became increasingly incredulous to this plot device as more implausible situations occurred and were not explained with anything more than a passing comment. The musical version employed songs to explain the various characters’ motivations; this film does nothing but state blunt facts and leaves you to deal with them with no warning. It’s an approach which separates the audience from the fantasy and leaves you perturbed. I was not invested in Dorothy’s journey; I just wanted this improbable film to end.
* I am cautious to compare films that are adapted from novels to their origin, for these are two wildly different mediums. Comparisons can lead to problems, as the mediums are processed differently. For example, when was the last time you heard someone complain, “Blade Runner sucks. Where are the empathy boxes?” Even the exclusion of a huge plot point from the source does not render the adaptation incorrect; it is how well the story is told, simply that.
