I get The Vibe (AKA that Euro-horror vibe) a lot from Italian and Spanish horror where they frame the characters in certain ways or have this perfectly plain location that is rendered terrifying or haunting just by the way the filmmakers choose to light it. The composers have a lot to do with it as well. Morricone, Nicholai, Cipriani, Pisano, etc. Their music, especially the prettier melodies, juxtaposed with the promise of the upcoming horrors are also effective at giving me the same feeling. Of course, huge credit goes to the writers and directors of these films because without their stories and direction, I'd never have discovered all of this dark joy.
I often struggle to describe the feeling I get from these films. But the Vibe-y sensation is a melancholic invigoration, a creepy floating sensation, or a caffeine rush of morbidity. It's definitely a sharpening of the senses with a big dash of euphoria thrown in. Usually, I find myself creepily smiling, cackling, or just tearing up when The Vibe hits me right. There aren't any specific films where The Vibe is throughout the whole movie. However, there are a few examples where large sections of the film do the trick though. The House by the Cemetery, Phenomena, Death Smiles at Murder, Anthropophagus, Lisa and the Devil, Vampyros Lesbos, and Horror Rises from the Tomb, just to name a few, are great providers of The Vibe.
I try not to repeat myself too much on this blog. Ha ha! Yeah, right! But I was having a convo with a friend about this subject and wanted to post the above paragraphs without looking at my original post on the subject from 11 years ago. So I guess this is kind of a mission statement for what I look for when I'm going into a film from this era/these countries. I will likely come back to this topic in another decade or so.
For Halloween this year, I really wanted to get my old school horror movie mojo going by looking at as many of the Universal monster movies as I could. What better way to start then by watching a film that I haven't seen since I was in my early teens. I've spent more time reading about Dracula (1931) than I have watching it. So yeah, 25 (or more) years ago, I thought the original Dracula was boring and awkward. Kids. What can ya do? I do remember thinking that it was really important to watch this and other classics as a burgeoning horror kid.
The first thing that blows my mind are things that I definitely was never consciously aware of as a kid like the production design. Man oh man, the matte paintings are fantastic. They give everything the feel of an alien landscape especially now that everything these days is done with CGI. Will people in the future look back on our cinema and find our bad techno-trickery all charming and shit? As for the sets, wow just wow. Obviously, camera tricks were the CGI of their day and of course, filmmakers from then would have used computers to make their vision end up on the screen. But these quaint and obviously hand-crafted touches make me so happy and I don't mean that in a condescending way (at least I don't think I do).
Okay, what is with the bug? So when Dracula and his lady Draculas are getting out of their coffins, there's some crazy shit going on. First of all, there's a possum. I found this very amusing because I live in Florida and the dang things are everywhere. Then I remember that Todd Browning was from Kentucky so that means he knew that they will appear exotic to the rest of the world. Maybe. I don't know where I was going with that. Anyway, the bug. So we see everyone getting out of their coffins and then there's a shot of a bug climbing out of his/her coffin -a tiny coffin? Or was that supposed to be a human sized coffin with a giant bug in it? My pal Nafa just suggested that the bug may be one of the wives other forms. I like that idea. There's also some armadillos which made me shake my head when they were chillin' in the crypt. They're pretty friggin' adorable.
The next thing that I really adore now -more than I could have ever anticipated as a young lad- are the smoke machines pumping a metric ton of atmosphere into this bad-boy. They give all the mist, fog, smoke, smog, haze, etc. that just makes me giddy in my current state of fandom. When Renfield shows up to switch carriages, the smoke looks like it was absolutely choking everyone on the set. Even though this scene is supposed to be outdoors, it's so claustrophobic that it made me frickin' nervous.
The vampire wives skulking around in the aforementioned mist is something I remember VERY DISTINCTLY. In fact, when they leave the movie (???), I remember just checking out for the most part. I thought they were so slinky and sexy that my brain never made the connection as to how dangerous these characters are. Has that attitude changed for me? Hell no, it hasn't. I'm still like "Ladies, I know I'm not Bela but hey I'm kinda pale. What are my chances?" Come to think of it, all of the women in this movie are just stunning. The ones that are stricken with ye olde vampire syndrome are just made up and photographed so perfectly that I just can't them out of my head.
This will come as a surprise to very few people (or no one at all) but my old complaining for years at how slow and silly this film is have melted away. While it's true that a few lines of dialogue and especially some of the over-the-top delivery still make me chuckle, I adore this cast. Whenever Dwight Frye as Renfield comes cackling into frame, I just want to high five whoever is sitting closest to me (which is my wife LeEtta, naturally). If I try to imagine audiences in 1931 seeing this film for the first time, I have to assume that his scuttling across the floor to go after the exposed neck of the maid must have scared the living shit out of people.
As for the pacing, I was never bored for a second during this viewing. There's just so much going on here that I have to wonder why the hell I don't watch this more often. I thought my attention span was getting worse not better! One of the big blind-spots in my horror fandom is for the 1930s. I swear I'm getting better about this era.
The almost total lack of a music score is certainly something. I really don't know how I feel about it. The opening music is perfect and the bit at the opera house works great. I'm not saying there should have been wall to wall music but yeah, I think the minimal score might be something that alienates people from this version. I like it because it does something funny to my brain that probably wasn't intentional at all. Has anyone taken the score from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Jr. and used it on Dracula? I think that should be a thing. Did Philip Glass do the score for any of the Ace Ventura movies? Speaking of blind-spots, I absolutely have a block about the silent era of horror. I'll probably need more time for that. Don't give up on me just yet.
The darkness of the shadows and the suffocating nature of the nighttime scenes are almost too much for my tiny mind to take. So much mood is communicated with the simplest of things. When Dracula attacks the flower girl, holy crap! While I should probably be ashamed that I had such a low opinion of this film for so long, I'm very happy to have finally come around to it. Ladies and gentlemen, I love Todd Browning's Dracula! I can practically hear your eyes rolling but this is a big deal for me. Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble again. It's been a while. The shadows are where I'll be if you need me.
While I continue to mine the depths of my memory (without leaving any reliable support beams or adhere to any safety regulations as I go), it dawned on me to try and recall what my very first memories of watching movies are. The first film that I have a very tenuous memory of catching in theater is The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Since I was only four when that film was first released, it was likely during its 1981 or 1982 re-release. This sticks out for me because I remember being really confused how the empire was able to reattach Darth Vader's head after Luke cut it off. This plot confusion didn't get cleared up for many more years than I'd like to admit. I asked my mom if she remembers taking me to this film. All she recalls is something loud and scary happening. I was much too young to have seen Star Wars (1977) in the theater but my parents got me The Story of Star Wars record which I listened to constantly.
Now I can't confirm the following but I believe that my family enjoyed cable television while I was little lad in Montana. The first movies I remember watching were Popeye (1980) and Clash of the Titans (1981). I don't know if HBO (or whatever channel or channels we had) still does this but when they had a new movie, they would play it all day long. So if memory serves (unlikely), I watched Popeye and Clash of the Titans over and over again all weekend long. I also remember that they played Hardware Wars (1978) and I laughed my head off at it after my dad explained to me why it was funny.
In the vein of things cinematically tragic, I was utterly freaked out by another short film called Recorded Live (1975) which is about film reels that come to life and devour a guy. This poor bastard shows up to a movie or TV studio looking for a job and dies horribly. This could be a metaphor for my social life and how it has been utterly decimated by my love of movies. Or it's about how I feel about showing up for work.
Robert Altman's Popeye is just grotesque and weird. I tried to sit through it once many years later but I was struck by how wrongheaded it seems to be. Maybe it captures the spirit of the original cartoon too well. What is the spirit of the old cartoon, you ask? Imagine if you cut open the rotting carcass of a bull, climbed inside, and did push-ups on your knuckles while listening to the 1812 Overture on 78rpm. That's how I feel about it. So anyway, I have a feeling that if I put the 1980 film on right now, I might actually enjoy it just because it's so goddamned weird. Chances of me actually doing that are around 12%.
Leave it to something as silly as Clash of the Titans to introduce me to the magic of Ray Harryhausen. Later, I'd have my mind blown by his work on the Sinbad movies but this epic 1981 um... epic was just what the doctor (I assume a pediatrician) ordered. My fondest memory of this film is the nighttime scene where Calibos sneaks into Perseus and his crew's camp in order to kill them. This sequence haunted me in the best way and is the closest thing to that European horror vibe that I love coming from a fantasy movie. I recently bought Clash on Blu-ray and haven't revisited it as of yet. However, I have been listening to Laurence Rosenthal's score while writing this. I've seen the 2010 remake but all I remember is that it wasn't terrible. Oh and Medusa was truly lame.
When I decided to put together a list of every movie I saw in theaters during my senior year of high school, I thought it was going to be this huge list. Then I remembered that I spend many, many nights going out to see bands play. Damn you, ska music. Damn you to hell. Look at what you did to my cinematic life. I'll never get that time back. Boo hoo. Maybe I'll expand this one day to cover all of my high school movies, rentals included. Maybe. So anyway, here's what I say IN THEATERS during that wonderful 9 months. Enjoy.
1993
September:
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Believe it or not, this was a first date with a girl I was dating at the time. I was a virgin to the Rocky experience, so I got humiliated on stage for my date and her weird friends who had all been there before. Of course, I loved the whole atmosphere of the event but I still think this movie should be watched alone not with a group of people. They might see you cry when Columbia dies. More on this.
Kalifornia
This was an odd night. Believe it or not, the same girl I saw Rocky Horror with also accompanied me to see this trash. Our relationship lasted two weeks. Two glorious weeks. I re-watched this one recently and I couldn't believe how forcefully sleazy this is. Was anyone really offended by this shit? Does anyone even remember it?
October:
Demolition Man
Talk about crowd pleasers! I saw this flick probably on opening night with a theater full of people that were lovin' what Stallone and Snipes were dishing out. And surprisingly, this film has aged pretty well and is still a lot of fun unlike the hideous Judge Dredd.
Judgement Night
This movie had a brilliant marketing campaign. Let's take all these rockers and team them up with all these rappers for the soundtrack. Brilliant! Oh crap, why is the theater empty? I do remember enjoying this film (and being one of the only people in the theater) but the real draw was the soundtrack. Rap and rock... Who knew? So revolutionary.
November:
Addams Family Values
I gotta tell ya, I really love both Addams Family movies. I was horrified and wanted to crawl under my seat when MC Hammer's contribution to the soundtrack was pumping throughout the theater. The phrase "What the fuck am I doing here?" did fade thanks to the comedy. And this film is a grower, damn it. My wife and I watch this a lot.
Carlito's Way
Penelope Ann Miller? Ugh. Al Pacino? Argh. Now don't get me wrong, I thought this movie was so great when it came out. It's good shit and I'd probably enjoy it now. But honestly, Penelope Ann Miller's character in this is so infuriating. And I can never go back to liking Al Pacino. I just can't. I'd rather watch Addams Family Values again. Sorry.
December:
The Pelican Brief
I remember literally one thing about seeing this film and that's me saying: "One for Pelican Brief, please."
Philadelphia
This is complicated. I went and saw this with several friends. We were all pretty ruined by this very sad and moving film. Our gay friend was particularly freaked out and understandably so. This was the first Hollywood film (of my generation at least) to say, "Hey everybody, AIDS is real." So the funny part about seeing this movie is my friend really hated that "Streets of Philadelphia" song by Bruce Springsteen so we were heckling the song. Just the song. Not the movie. Ah whatever, I'm going to hell.
Wayne's World 2
I wanted to like this so much. I was 14 or 15 when the first Wayne's World came out and it became one of my all time favorites. This film had a couple of funny moments but was just a hideous Aerosmith commercial.
1994
February:
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
This was pretty much a total riot from beginning to end. The moment Ace Ventura -disguised as a disgruntled UPS delivery guy- steps into frame, it was magic. Looking back on it, I could say something like "Oh, I was just immature. Of course that kind of a movie would appeal to me." But you know what? If I watched this now, I'd still crack up.
Reality Bites
I hated this movie so much that I got up, walked out, and bought a ticket for...
Schindler's List
Yep, that's right. I walked out of Reality Bites and right into Schindler's List. It had been a bad night. I had a first date with a girl who told me to take her home less than an hour into the date. So at least I finished with a powerful film experience. I saw something bigger than my sheltered, suburban experience.
March:
Lightning Jack
What the fuck? Why did I go see this? Only the sheer boredom of youth could explain this bullshit. Or maybe I rented it. Dunno.
Naked Gun 33⅓
This was a major, major disappointment.
April:
Clifford
I didn't actually see this until after graduation so technically I'm cheating a little here. I was visiting relatives in Great Falls, Montana and managed to catch this at the town's only theater. Even though I never got paid to be a babysitter, I was looking after some younger distant cousins ON MY VACATION and ended up watching this damn garbage.
No Escape
Saw this at the dollar theater and loved it. Ray Liotta, what happened? Anyway, I bet this movie is still awesome.
Threesome
Here's another dollar theater viewing that was quite funny. I haven't seen this since this first viewing but holy crap, at the time, I loved this movie. I remember yelling at this judgmental bitch who flipped out during the threesome sequence. She seriously was like "Oh my God! How can they show this?!?!" and I told her to shut the hell up. It was the 90s and I considered myself a very tolerant human being. I also had a huge chip on my shoulder. I once yelled at a guy for having his kid on one of those kid leashes but that's a different story.
May:
The Crow
I saw this with my high school girlfriend. We were together for six whole months! That's marriage in high school terms. Anyway, I took my feisty lady to see this, the most emo-goth friggin' movie ever filmed, and she melted like butter. We were -I wish I was kidding- crying and declaring our undying love for each other the rest of the night. Sigh.
Nothing arouses me more than Powderpuff football games. Oh wait, that's for a different blog post. Anyway, so I watched House at the End of the Street and I don't know if I can review it. But I figured that since I haven't done one of these rambles for a long, long time, maybe -just maybe- I can like do whatever for a while or whatever. This is what we in the blog industry call "a great way to start".
I rented House at the End of the Street based solely on the VERY MISLEADING teaser trailer. I already know what you're thinking: "Wow, what a chump!" Look, I realize that I should have seen this bullshit coming a mile away. First things first, the whole rewinding back and forth like this movie has a cool nonlinear plot is false advertising. Secondly, the implied grittiness of the film is exaggerated. This shit is straight up suburban vanilla.
But you know what, I'm the kind of guy who owns Swimfan on DVD. Sure, I've never had the courage to watch it for fear of dying of embarrassment but I think that you knowing that I really want to watch it (but haven't in the last six years since I found it in a $5 bin) will help you understand. Or not. Like I really want to see Disturbia but I'm too ashamed to check it out. I'm not in touch with my secret teenage self. Or maybe I have an optimistic streak about PG-13 horror. Who knows?
Speaking of touching your secret teenage self, I guess I better talk about House at the End of the Street. This flick, more than any other film I've seen in a while, has all the pieces for a good film but none of them are where they are supposed to be. For one thing, the setting is great. I love suburban horror. Love it. Give me The Strangers any day. Those neighborhoods where the woods are nearby, looming. The forest has been beaten back for all these families to live and be happy but they are waiting for the day when they can come by. Trees hate us.
Next, HATEOTS has a mediocre, offbeat, and exploitable cast but fails -FUCKING FAILS- to put them to good use. I will say more about the writing of this film in a bit but for now, just know that these poor people could have wrecked this shit. But everyone is just totally disinterested in the script. And why would be into this? Really. This film takes some tired old ideas and puts a few too many of them into one film. This is not a successful mashup of Psycho-inspired plots and good old fashioned Last House on the Left-ish hucksterism. But then again, I rented it. So I guess that makes it successful.
Elizabeth Shue is good. I don't know what movies she's ever been good in but there's something about her that I will always like. Maybe it's her Shue-face. Apparently, this Jennifer Lawrence actress is some kind of a person. Max Theiriot is okay. Sure. My favorite character in the whole movie is a door handle. The door handle to that locked room in the basement gets a lot of screen time. This fucking screenplay doesn't have a single trace of quirky character traits. Okay, there's one: The dude with the dead parents drives around in his dad's Cadillac, still listening to the old cassette tapes. If there were just more weird details like that. Just pile on the eccentricity instead of oh, this girl is the daughter of a rock star; she writes her own songs! Wowee zowee! I hate to say this but could you have "Diablo Codied" this up a bit?
The first (major) misstep that this movie makes is the ubiquitous "teen party" scene. This one is pretty abysmal and feels so forced. It's like someone said, "This is a teen movie. If we don't have a party scene, the studio will shut us down." The best part is when there are all these "drunk" and "stoned" teens hanging out and drinking out of plastic party cups. Someone plays spin the bottle with a bottle of Jones Soda and I'm all like: dang, no wonder deez kids is so fucked up! There is the almost date rape and the cute puking girl. Somebody call an ambulance! How much Jones has this bitch had?!??!
Believe it or not, there are some suspenseful moments. There's lots of running around in the woods and lots of chases. It was enough to keep me watching until the hour mark. At the hour mark of HATEOTS, this shit comes to a complete standstill. I looked at my wife -who had given up on this film 55 minutes before I did- and I asked, "Why? Why am I doing this?" Oh and my favorite cliche ever: the old malfunctioning flashlight gag. Look here, fuckers. Either a flashlight works or it doesn't. Stop shaking and tapping it. PLEASE!
So yeah, fuck this movie. The people who made it came so close to something great. I would have been happy with either a grittier flick, or a weirder, quirky flick, or the insanely edited mindfuck that the trailer promised. Competent cast and crew, a decent setting, a ridiculous plot, and a thick layer of cheese. That's half my movie collection right there. Look, I've said this before and I'll be saying it forever: "The only thing worse than a bad movie, is one that is almost good." I will add to that with: "(or isn't terrible enough)".
I have watched Taxi Driver countless times. I don't relate to the film other than I used to work nights and I have caused a public scene over a girl before. (There was less bloodshed but more abstract humiliation. But that's another story.) One of my best cinematic memories is catching an old beat up print of Taxi Driver at a midnight screening back in 1998. Talk about revelatory. I was sitting there in a real theater with my friend Mike Fusco, watching a film from my birth year, and seeing scenes that I swear weren't on my VHS dub. Of course, there wasn't anything actually different in the print, I was just overwhelmed by the experience and noticing details that a full frame VHS copy just can't express.
One scene that struck me as odd is when Sport The Pimp AKA Matthew (played by Harvey Keitel) is convincing Iris The Underage Ho (Jodie Foster) not to leave him. He puts on some nauseating love-jazz record and sweet talks her into submission. Ew ugh blargh. Aside from being insanely disturbing, the scene feels almost unnecessary to me. Who is this scene for? Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore fans? I guess there had to be SOMETHING to show what hold he had over Iris.
If you think about it, I guess any scene that doesn't involve Travis Bickle (played by Robert De Niro) is kind of pointless. We get to see Albert Brooks and Cybil Shepherd goofing around but I'm wondering if the movie be better if we only ever saw things from Bickle's perspective. But then again, maybe we need some normalcy when the whole fucking world is totally nuts.
I guess that I'm kind of talking myself into accepting the Sport/Iris scene. We see many sides of Iris. We see the streetwalker persona which is probably one of the most freakish things ever committed to film due to Foster's young age. The fact that Sport is charging $15 for 15 minutes and $25 for half an hour is ludicrous. Maybe the economy really was that bad but come on! Those are just insultingly low prices.
Later we see her funny, relaxed side in the diner scene with Bickle. Like OMG, she's a real kid! Next, we see her "my universe is crumbling" face when Bickle confronts her about getting out of the prostitute biz in the same diner scene. Then Sport talks her down and we see something important which I'll get to in a moment. And lastly, we see the shit-scared and most human of all: the "Iris sees some scumbag's head blown off and feels bad about it" face.
So what's important about Iris and Sport's "tender" scene is seeing the pure rapture on Iris's face when she's in her pimp's arms. The guy is clearly a sophisticated manipulator who has this poor girl wrapped around his demonic finger (with Satan's Harelip #666 Nail Polish). I guess this hook could have been expressed in some other way but the scene works. We see that Iris is a human being in the ultra-wrong place at the supremely wrong time. Tell Scorsese he can leave it in there.
In remembrance of Sport The Pimp AKA Matthew. 19??-1976
I can sit here and come up with a hundred titles of films I'd wish I'd never seen. Like Sliver, Murder By Numbers, Deadly Impact, McHale's Navy, whatever. There is a subcategory here that I'm sure some of you can relate to. I'm talking about films that I wish I had never seen with my parents. The biggest offender and one of the worst films ever made... Clan of the Cave Bear.
In case you don't know, the film is about a blond cavegirl named Aaliyah (played Daryl Hannah) who gets orphaned from her family because of global warming. She gets taken in by some swarthy cavemen. When she grows up, she is all hot and stuff but of course because she's fair-skinned and blond, all the caveduders think she's a dog. Whoa! Take that, dominant Aryan paradigm! One of the cavemen named Broud (Thomas G. Waites) decides to throw Aaliyah a bone (literally) and rapes her. Yeah he rapes her a lot. And I think he does it in front of the other cavepeople. I might be imagining that part. I have been totally accurate up until this moment.
But Aaliyah is not completely alone in the bitter neanderthal world. She has some friends like Iza and Creb (Pamela Reed and James Remar), social outcasts themselves. Iza is a witch (maybe) and Creb is... um... messed up. Everything is a struggle. Everything is unfair. The meek get beaten and raped by the strong. Jeez, I'm getting depressed just thinking about this fucking movie.
Anyway, the rape scenes (don't click here for artist's concept) in this movie are disturbing (which is probably why these scenes in any film bother me so much now). But then Broud has a bout of impotency and gets all mad and stuff. Iza is all like 'what was that all about?' and Aaliyah demonstrates Broud's failing rape-member with a floppy stick demonstration and everyone gets a laugh out of it. So I'm sitting there with my mom and dad and I just wanted to die. How much I understood of what all this meant, I have no idea. I just know that I wished I had a machine gun and the ability to step inside a movie. Because I would have mowed them all down. This, I promise you.
So Aaliyah gets preggers and gets shunned from the tribe for using their stupid weaponry. Stupid woman! You no use weapons! Let Goov, Grod, Zoug, Dorv, Droog, or Crug use that slingshot thingie. Jeez, men were just the same as they are nowadays. Always opressin' the womenz. Shit! I can't believe I've seen this movie! SHIT! She finally meets a decent guy who appreciates her scuzzy blond dreads but he gets killed by a bear. That was surprising. So aside from learning how to treat the ladies, I also learned that life sucks.
(I love the Italian artwork. Title translates to Cromagnon Rape Adventure.)
I can't even describe to you the joy I felt just now finding out that this film was a financial flop. Good! I wish this movie had cost $900 million and then made NOTHING! I bet Daryl Hannah was pissed. She was all like 'man, that would have been so rad doing all the sequels.' Oh yes, dear reader, the book on which this is based has sequels. SEQUELS! Unfortunately, this film probably did well on home video. I know one family that rented it. Mine. I'm not sure if I was 11 or 12 when my folks rented Daryl Hannah's shame-film but it doesn't matter, I will always be too young to watch it with my parents or anybody else's parents.
There are other humiliating films that I watched with my parents but none so traumatically awful as this garbage. I remember being embarrased by watching Shirley Valentine with mom and pop. That was the last time I watched anything middle aged lady empowering. Jeez. And that time my mom rented Whore with Theresa Russell. We didn't get very far into that film before my mom took it out of the VCR and said something like 'we are NOT watching the rest of THAT!' Why did she rent it in the first place? Why did she think her 15 year old son wanted to watch it at all, nevermind watching it with his mom!
Daryl Hannah has a boy's name. What is up with that?
Well, look at that. We are now at the halfway mark of this Asian horror month and there is no way I’m going to get to through all the movies I want to talk about. Even sadder than that, I’m having a friggin’ blast and I don’t want this to end. October and especially November (National Novel Writing Month) are going to be busy months for me and I’ll have to get off this sick and demented Asian train. The mission is to squeeze in as much goodness as I can into the next 15 days and hope for success. Here are a bunch of things I’m not going to get to this month but I’m going to briefly mention.
Nightmare Detective Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto Released: 2006 Country of Origin: Japan
This is a jolting, scary, gruesome, and surreal shocker from the director of Tetsuo, the Iron Man. I’m still waiting for the sequel to hit DVD here in the States. Check this one out if you haven’t already.
Koma Directed by Chi-Leung Law Released: 2004 Country of Origin: Hong Kong
Organ theft has never been quite this fun or sexy! This is a strangely enjoyable flick that features two beautiful lead actresses, at least two puke takes, and a fire axe showdown. I don’t mean a flaming axe, I mean the kind of axe a fireman would use. Sorry.
Inugami Directed by Masato Jarada Released: 2001 Country of Origin: Japan
Was this the one about making paper? I think it was. A beautiful film from a legendary director. Also, a friggin’ boooooring film from a legendary director. Now that I’m a little more patient of a movie viewer, I’d like to give this one another chance.
The Eye Directed by Oxide Pang Chun, Danny Pang Released: 2002 Country of Origin: Hong Kong
This is possibly one of the most overrated films of the last decade. It is not bad by any means but I was disappointed when I finally got to see it.
Pulse Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa Released: 2001 Country of Origin: Japan
It is impossible for me not to gush about this incredibly scary and lovely film. Before it hit shelves over here in the States, I had a wonderful VCD of Pulse. I knew absolutely nothing about it other than it was a dirt cheap purchase on eBay. Needless to say, I felt like a lucky bastard. Remake is almost, ALMOST hilariously bad.
Biozombie Directed by Wilson Yip Released: 1998 Country of Origin: Hong Kong
This is definitely a strange zombie flick. The offending dead people reanimating virus is first spread by a bio-engineered sports drink (?) and our two heroes are Beavis and Butthead-like characters who, because they are good at zombie-killing videogames, rise up to save the day. Only problem with this one, the tone shifts too much from hilarious to depressing like… Oh I don’t know… Shaun of the Dead!
Junk Directed by Atsushi Muroga Released: 2000 Country of Origin: Japan
Junk is a wild and wonderful zombie/heist flick influenced by the Italian gore epics of the 1980s. Despite the action and the splatter, films runs a little too long for my tastes.
I need a moment here. Okay, where was I?
Ebola Syndrome Directed by Herman Yau Released: 1996 Country of Origin: Hong Kong
Could this be the sickest film ever made? Yeah. Prepare to be terrified, nauseous, and possibly even outraged by this Category III shocker starring the amazing Anthony Wong.
2LDK Directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi Released: 2003 Country of Origin: Japan
Two actresses living in an apartment vying for the same role devolve into murderous behavior. This over-the-top flick keeps things nice, simply, and blackly ironic. Good times.
Hiruko the Goblin Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto Released: 1991 Country of Origin: Japan
This flick is very, very weird. Director Tsukamoto doesn’t disappoint with this off kilter horror tale filled with demons and severed heads that sprout legs and run around (that doesn’t sound familiar at all). I like Hiruko the Goblin quite a bit but yeah, what the fuck?
Ab-normal Beauty Directed by Oxide Pang Chun Released: 2004 Country of Origin: Hong Kong
I take pictures of dead people. You know what? I can’t sigh loud enough. This movie rubbed me the wrong way, seriously. It’s overlong, kind of dull, and those poor chickens!
Bloody Reunion Directed by Dae-wung Lim Released: 2006 Country of Origin: South Korea
I was really impressed with this Korean slasher flick. Plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing plus some beautiful cinematography. Oh and there’s carnage too.
Shutter Directed by Banjong Pisanthanakun, Pardpoom Wongpoom Released: 2004 Country of Origin: Thailand
You got ghosts in your photos, bro. Wow! This film is scary and just plain awesome. It also has a great ending. The Eye wishes it was this good. The remake can bite the big one.
The Seventh Curse Directed by Ngai Kai Lam Released: 1986 Country of Origin: Hong Kong
I feel strangely blessed just by having seen this wacko flick starring Chow Yun Fat, Chin Siu-Hou, and Maggie Cheung. The Seventh Curse is all over the place with insane gore setpieces and a breakneck pace.
The Red Shoes Directed by Yong-gyun Kim Released: 2005 Country of Origin: South Korea
Yeah, this is one of the biggest surprises in a while. I was expecting the worst from The Red Shoes and got my brains knocked out for such foolish thoughts. Director Kim takes a formulaic cursed item/ghost story and goes ballistic with it. It contains lots of manic energy and insane visuals.
Occult Detective Club: The Doll Cemetery Directed by Kiyoshi Yamamoto Released: 2006 Country of Origin: Japan
This is awful crap belongs to the Theater of Horror set inspired by the manga of Hideshi Hino. I hope that that this interminable hour-long episode is the worst of the bunch because it fucking sucks. Any potential for silliness, fun, or creativity is totally wasted in this zero budget tripe.
#$@%#&#$#$%*#$&@&!#*#@$%
That concludes this batch of half-assed reviews. Go forth, my friends, watch some Asian horror flicks! I have many more to go this month and I hope that I can fit it all in. I want to say thanks to all my homies for their contributions so far. You guys totally rule. All right! Here is a trailer for a movie that I am trying to find. Anybody know anything about this one?
One of the first things I wanted to do before this whole INVASIAN business got started was revisit The Ring and compare it to the original Ringu. I’m sure folks have compared the two movies better than I am going to here but this is my blog and these are my rules! (The only rules I have mostly pertain to the banning of “Seinfeld” from syndication.) As I have mentioned before, The Ring scared the pants off of LeEtta and I when we saw it back in October of 2002. We find out that this evil videotape kills people in seven days and then what happens? They show us the poor audience the tape! Now everyone in the audience is going to die in seven days. Even after we were home safely, my lady and I could still see little Samara lurking in the corners of our minds’ eye(s?).
The Ring was one of the things that helped jumpstart my seriously neglected love of horror movies. That October was when I started to raid the shelves at the video store again for some horror delights. This very profitable remake also helped spark the fiery love I have for Asian horror. So it’s a big deal for me. In fact, it was such a big deal that I didn’t watch The Ring for nearly 8 years. I’ve had the DVD for a long time but I just couldn’t bring myself to watch it.
I don’t know why I did this. I know that it wasn’t because I was too scared. After consuming countless horror movies between 2002 and now, it’s safe to say that I was ready to revisit the flick. Honestly, I think I was just too excited about The Ring to watch it again. Damn, this almost feels like a bad movie confession but The Ring is not a bad movie. It’s just kind of there. I think that it and the Dark Water remake are the best of the Asian horror remakes that have come out thus far. Oh and I liked Mirrors despite its glaring problems: “Stay away from the water, it makes reflections.” I think the remake business got some of my money because when I’m in the mood to see horror in theaters and there’s nothing good playing, I’m going to go anyway and see whatever is playing.
So for the first time in 8 years, I watched The Ring and oh yes, I had some observations. The first thing I noticed is that The Ring is beautifully shot. Yugoslavian-born cinematographer Bojan Bazelli casts the film in muted greens and grays giving it an undeniable atmosphere. There is an eerie tension between the big scares and some fantastically strange imagery on display. And it’s scary. The film is aggressively terrifying and will not let up until the viewer is wrecked and shaky. One little thing that particularly impressed me was the lack of brand names in the movie. The only one I picked up on is when Rachel (played by Naomi Watts) pays for something with her American Express card.
So where does this remake falter? Before I compare this film to the original, there are a couple of little problems here. The filmmakers must have thought only morons were going to be watching this film. There are a plethora of things that could have been subtle nuances or cool little hidden things that are delivered with all the sensitivity of a pulled pin at a grenade factory retirement party. For instance, upon second viewing, the infamous tape that drastically shortens one’s life expectancy is kind of lame. It has a few really dumb little faux-scary things in it like the box of wriggling severed fingers. So spooky! And speaking of not-so-subtle moments, Naomi Watts does gets a little cheesy when, after her son views the tape, the phone rings, and she screams “Leave him alone!” It didn’t hit me the first time but my eyes rolled so hard on re-watching it that I got a little disoriented.
Unlike The Ring, I’ve watched Ringu multiple times over the years. Right away, I can tell you that it’s the better film. Boop boop boop boop boop! Did you hear that? It was an obvious revelation detector going off. First of all, Hideo Nakata’s original masterpiece is just that: A MASTERPIECE! This is a scary ass movie with a whole mess of class, really cool ideas, and beauty packed into its 96 minutes; 9 minutes shorter than its American counterpart. The American version takes longer to tell a more convoluted story while the Japanese one is simpler and all the better for it. Ringu is also quite subtle and leaves a great deal to the imagination of the viewer.
The cursed videotape is much shorter and more direct than in the American version. However, when I add up the lists of what I like about the tape in the American version and what I like about the tape in Ringu, they come out pretty much equal. These lists are secret, by the way. Not really. The tape in Ringu is more functional. It shows more clues to the story than the tape in The Ring does but the tape in The Ring has two or three little jabs in it that make it scarier. The goat with a less than standard number of limbs hopping along and the horses dying on the beach just really freaks me out. Somehow, the mixed up newspaper clipping in the Japanese version just doesn’t send chills up my spine.
While I loved Brian Cox’s short but amazing performance as Samara’s suicidal father in The Ring, the story behind Samara’s parents leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, it doesn’t make much sense. Samara’s history is alluded to and it just kind of paints her as a little girl who may or may not have been adopted and who is just plain EVIL! Nice origin story… Not! In the Japanese version, we are treated to a family of psychics who produces Sadako, a young lady more powerful (and EVIL!) than any of them can imagine. You know, it sounds ridiculous but somehow the latter just works better in my mind.
One thing that my sweet wife LeEtta pointed out during my little comparative experiment was that she now finds Sadako much scarier than Samara. I have to agree. When I look at screenshots of Samara, I’m not really affected by it. However, the longer I look at Sadako, I just feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. Jeez! The final scare is certainly more effective in the Japanese version. When Sadako climbs out of that TV, damn it, I still get freaked. When Samara goes after what’s his face, it doesn’t really do anything for me now. It seems as though The Ring is a much better film when it is doing something different. Like that horsey scene on the ferry. Oh man, that still gets to me. When it tries to imitate that last awesome moment, it just doesn’t fare well under scrutiny.
For the longest time, my biggest bone of contention against Ringu was that the corpses Sadako leaves in her wake weren’t as scary as the ones in the American version. Gore Verbinski had Rick Baker doing the makeup and he went with the severely corpselike look which is just plain hard to look at. That moment in theaters (and one that still gets me on the DVD) is when we see the first victim. So we see this putrid looking corpse and it moves. IT FUCKING MOVES! I think about the American aesthetic that Verbinski had to think about when remaking Ringu and frankly, it’s genius. Sure, it is more of a popcorn movie but it worked on American audiences and I know there are other people besides my wife and I who found The Ring to be quite traumatic, especially in the dark confines of a movie theater. When I first beheld the corpses in Ringu, I laughed out loud. They are just actors in a little bluish makeup holding very still. The funny thing is, now that I’ve watched Ringu several times, those pasty frozen faces are starting to get to me.
In the end, I have a very strong affection for both The Ring and Ringu. Hideo Nakata’s film is simply stunning and it is worth a look or ten. Gore Verbinski’s version is a superb translation with only a few flaws. Both films effectively show the horror of the curse of a little misunderstood psychic girl (or young woman in the case of Sadako). The curse’s victims lose their identities –see how their faces blur when you try to take their picture- and then seven days later, they lose their lives. Two final things I must point out: 1) the musical score for Ringu is a million times more amazing than that of The Ring and 2) how the hell did Rachel survive the tumble down the well in The Ring? She even hits her head on the way down! Come on. That is some lame shit.
Okay, I’m not quite done yet. Aidan, the little kid in The Ring, is so much creepier than his Japanese counterpart. And what the hell was Abby from "NCIS" doing in the movie? Okay, I’m trying really hard not to go into a bunch of shit about the The Ring Two. Oh yeah, Margie (my mother-in-law), who joined us for the Ring Comparison Projection 2010, said that she liked the way ending plays out in the Japanese version better. And LeEtta concurs. They both like the idea of the kid's grandfather being the one sacrificed to the tape. Okay, enough rambling.
Before I get started let me just say that I believe I have a pretty (un)healthy obsession with Asian horror films. As anyone who has noticed the path that Doomed Moviethon and Cinema Somnambulist has taken over the years, my focus has almost always been Italian horror and gialli. Running pretty much parallel to that has been Asian horror though I've always had trouble articulating what it is that makes this stuff so great. I was astounded while I was putting this little month long homage together by just how much I’ve already seen. What was even more astounding –no, mindboggling- to me was how much more I have yet to see. I have barely scratched the dang surface.
My love for Asian horror films began as generically as possible. It all started in 2002 with The Ring. And I’m not talking about the original either. I’m talking about Gore Verbinski’s version of Ringu. Mr. Pirates of the Caribbean himself and screenwriter Ehren Kruger were able to take a beautiful and frightening Japanese horror film and crank it up for American audiences. Some of the subtleties of the Japanese film were abandoned for us silly gaijin but the end result was worth it.
My girlfriend, LeEtta (now my wife), and I had just started dating and it was imperative that we go to the movies ALL THE TIME. Some couples get drunk together and some go boogie boarding, LeEtta and I went to the movies. Sure, we saw some terrible shit (Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever) but The Ring was one I did not want to miss. You see, I had no perspective on this film, other than ‘this looks interesting’. All I knew about the film was from the TV trailers. You watch a cursed videotape and then you die 7 days later. Sounded like a pretty awesome urban legend type of flick, so we went. I had no idea it was a remake until a few days after I saw the film.
The horror bug, having been dormant since the 90s, was just about to awaken within. So you see, I wasn’t hip to anything just yet. I wasn’t making my bimonthly trips to the bookstore for the newest issues of Rue Morgue, Videoscope, Shock Cinema, etc. just yet and I was only just beginning to check out some horror movie review sites (mostly for nostalgia’s sake). This is funny to me now. I had absolutely no idea that I would be focusing practically all of my energy on horror movies very soon. The idea for Doomed Moviethon was still a couple of years away.
So the wife- I mean, girlfriend- and I head to the theaters to check out The Ring. It was a packed house which is totally alien to me now. I never, ever go to the movies on a Friday or a Saturday night! Amateurs! So the movie starts and things start getting really scary really friggin’ fast. The moment that had me climbing out of my seat was the dang horse scene on the ferry. Jeez!
I recently revisited this remake for the first time in nearly 8 years and I’ll get into how it stacks up to the original as well as how I feel about it now later this month. Long story short (too late!), LeEtta and I were completely and utterly terrified while we clung to one another in the darkness of the theater. To add to the mayhem, pretty much everyone in the theater was screaming and freaking out. I don't care what anybody says, this is a scary ass movie. Verbinski took a great story, some haunting imagery, and altered what he needed to alter for American sensibilities. It worked.
But wait, wasn’t there something else? Oh yeah, I suppose horror anime did get to me first. The very first anime I ever purchased on VHS was the original Vampire Hunter D back in 1994. I had purchased Appleseed that day and after discovering how horrible it was, I begged the guy at the comic shop to let me exchange it for something else. He agreed and out of sheer desperation, I grabbed Vampire Hunter D. I've never regretted that purchase. Hans from Quiet Cool will be discussing this very film next week. I encountered many horror anime series as the years went by but never once did it ever cross my mind that there might be horror movies from Asia. In my defense, I was also not actively pursuing horror movies at this time. I was all like “Evil Dead and Hellraiser are enough for me!” Silly fool.
My first Asian horror film proper was the splatter/sex/sci-fi epic Wicked City. I had seen the anime years before but the live action version left me so gobsmacked that I didn’t even know what hit me. I thought it was just some fluke, some random Japanese freakout (yeah, I know, it’s a Hong Kong flick). I was kind of dumb back then and not nearly curious enough!
Fastforwarding back to 2002, my friend Nafa encouraged me to check out Kwaidan from the library and it was an amazing atmospheric masterpiece. Aaron of The Death Rattle is going to talk about that one later this month. I also managed to get my hands on a grubby copy of Kuroneko from the library as well. This chilling little tale is about a mother and daughter who are raped and murdered by a pack of travelling bandits. The two return from the grave to get their revenge on samurai who cross their path. Simply awesome.
While the waves of remakes (The Ring Two... ugh) were slowly starting to roll in, I was busting my hump to try and see as many Japanese horror films as possible. This was pretty frustrating and it was before Netflix; so in order to watch decent movies, I had to buy them unseen. Fun! In fact, this was just true for all fans of obscure movies for a long time. I hope all you young whippersnappers out there don’t get all spoiled and shit with the sheer brilliance of Netflix. Being able to get 90% of the awesome and weird crap that’s out there on Region 1 DVD sent to your mailbox is totally insane.
Things changed completely in such a serendipitous way that I can only call it a miracle. After work one evening, I decided to stop off a little videogame store (that used to be on over on 56th Street). They had a decent selection of games and even some anime for rent. On this particular day, I walked in and noticed that an entire section of the wall was dedicated to Asian freakin’ horror movies! I wish there had been a camera recording my reaction because I’m sure it was pretty amusing. There were titles I had never heard of before. And there were Chinese DVDs! Wait a second, other countries besides Japan make horror movies too!?!?
It was then I met Steve of Unearthed Films. He was working the counter and was very patiently explaining to some neighborhood kids how the store’s trade-in policy worked. I waited until he was done and then I exasperatedly erupted. I grilled him about how long had the store been carrying all these great titles, how long he’d been working there, etc. Thankfully, the poor guy didn’t throw me out of the store right then and there. Instead, we shot the shit about horror movies for a while and I rented some films. I think I rented Ebola Syndrome and The Cat (AKA Lao Mao) that time.
With that, I expanded my search to include Chinese horror films. Eventually, I would discover Korean, Thai, and Indonesian horror but first I got a taste of Category III (the Hong Kong equivalent to NC-17) films and the wild and dark territories that leads to. Ebola Syndrome was the first and is still one of the most disturbing films I’ve ever had the happy displeasure of viewing. Other titles like Dr. Lamb, The Untold Story, and Devil Fetus have graced my eyes with their sleaziness and splatteriness. Steve also introduced me to the disturbing Battle Royale and the Evil Dead Trap movies.
In just a few short years, I think that Asian horror became overexposed and (most annoyingly) over-remade here in the States. It was impossible for horror fans not to get burnt out. I know that I started feeling the draw of European and Italian horror even stronger after that awful Pulse remake. Don’t get me wrong, I liked The Grudge remake at first (weird I know but I just really wanted to like it for some reason) but it is nothing compared to the original. And like any genre, there’s going to be mediocre and outright terrible shit that gets big promotion and cool artwork to mislead any unsuspecting horror fan.
I think the craziest thing is that I know I could just dedicate this blog entirely to Asian horror and be done with it. Would I ever run out of films? Hell no! And just for the record, I am going to try very hard this month to just focus on places other than Japan and Hong Kong. It won’t be easy but I think I can manage to give those two monstrously prolific horror hotspots some competition this month.
So I don’t really know what my plans for this month are, really. I always just assume that the immersion process will do all the work. Of course, I could be setting the stage for a magnificent failure but who cares? It's just a blog, right? Anyway, I know I’m going to talk about Asian horror stuff; be it awesome, painfully mediocre, or just plain awful. Of course the best part: I’m going to watch a whole mess of films I’ve never seen before. I have a few amazing bloggers who have agreed to contribute so keep checking up on the old CinSom, I think you’ll have a good old time.
One lazy summer day, my plans fell through. Take my hand and mourn with me! You see, I was 16 years old and I had failed my driving test (a huge blow to my gigantic ego) so I was pretty much stuck. I might as well have been 12 years old in my worthlessness (as you’ll soon see). It feels so wrong not being able to do jack squat on a Saturday when your buds are out doing God knows what and giggling maniacally at the very mention of your name. Friend 1: “Should we call Dicky?” Friend 2: “Har har, that’s a larf. Let that loser soak in his own loser juices until Hell freezes over.” Wow, some friends! Am I right or am I right? Paranoid delusions aside, I was having a pretty lame day.
I tried but couldn’t sleep in. I called my friend who was to be my ride to whatever event was going on that day and found out about the cancellation. I called some other friends that I couldn’t reach (no cell phone in 1993, y’all). I found out there was no food in the house. I called my mom to see what she was up to and found out she wasn’t going to be home until later that night. My dad had been dead a month or two so his ghost was kind of lingering around the place but was no help whatsoever. Oh yeah, one more thing: I had stupidly dumped my girlfriend a few weeks before but don’t think I wasn’t tempted to call her to try and patch things up (at least so I could get a ride somewhere).
So I did what any lame-brained teenager would do. I poured some Ragu pasta sauce into a bowl, heated it up in the microwave, threw in some chunks of cheddar cheese, and ate it with a spoon. Sounds delicious, right? Well, I thought it was. See, there was no macaroni and cheese in the house so I didn’t really know what to do with all that pasta. To give you an idea of how dumb I was, I had no idea how to prepare pasta for myself. Macaroni and cheese? No problem! You boil the macaroni and then add the sauce. Simple. But what about pasta? How does that shit get magically transformed from its hard form into its soft form. I shit you not, dear reader, I had no clue.
So I turned on the TV and there was a movie called Repo Man about to start on TV. To this day, I can’t remember what channel was showing it. It may have been TNT or something. It was definitely a channel that edited out cursing, that’s for sure. But anyway, I had never heard of this movie before so I just left it on. Suddenly, the punk rock credits kick in and I was glued to the spot. In the desert, a cop pulls over a guy named J. Frank Parnell driving a 1964 Chevy Malibu. The man is singing to himself and is almost totally oblivious to this cop’s presence. The cop knocks on the window and asks to see what’s in the trunk. J. Frank Parnell says “Oh, you don’t want to look in there.” The cop takes the keys and walks around to the back of the car. As he opens the trunk, J. Frank Parnell’s eye, reflected in the rear view mirror, widens with anticipation. The cop is instantly vaporized. The car speeds away leaving only the cop’s smoking boots and his lonely motorcycle behind.
That is how Repo Man begins. Basically, every scene will knock your socks off. This is what I discovered, eating spaghetti sauce, and cheddar cheese. I can’t imagine a better film for a boring Saturday morning. Nearly every frame of this movie is hilarious, quotable, and just supremely awesome. Since then, I have watched this film more times than I can remember and can quote pretty much every line for you, if you’d like. No? Okay, I won’t. “You wanna be a hero or rather be a chickenman? You ever see a farmer’s wife?”
Okay, the movie is actually about a loser punk named Otto (played by Emilio Estevez) who is full angst and can’t hold a job to save his life. After his “best friend” steals his girlfriend from him at a party, Otto goes on an all night drinking binge. While walking home the next morning, he is approached by Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a repo man who tricks Otto into helping him repossess a car. At that very moment, he is hired by the “Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation”, a sleazy repo outfit. Otto quickly discovers that the life of a repo man is a dangerous one. He gets a new girlfriend, Leila (Olivia Barash), a member of UFO (United Fruitcake Outlet) who is desperately searching for some proof of life from outer space.
When word comes down that there is a Chevy Malibu worth $25,000, every repo man in the city and various government agencies goes after it. What’s with this mysterious car? Are there decomposing aliens in the trunk? Is that a crazed scientist behind the wheel? This is Repo Man and it's all you ever needed to know about the 1980s.
Obviously, Repo Man made me aware of both Harry Dean Stanton and Tracey Walter, two gentlemen who rule the Earth as brilliant character actors but the film’s other major accomplishment is introducing me to the amazing Fox Harris as J. Frank Parnell, the man with the aliens in his trunk, inventor of the neutron bomb, and victim of a (probably) botched lobotomy. I tell ya, this actor is so over the top in his scenes that you can almost feel him burning right through your fucking television. Harris made a few appearances in some pretty decent B movies and just about every one of those appearances is totally unforgettable. The guy died in 1988 and his picture can be seen next to the term ‘underutilized’ in the dictionary. He did get his chance to shine in the totally bonkers Dr. Caligari and the obscure horror anthology Dark Romances (among other things).
So what did I learn on that fateful Saturday? I learned that eating nothing but pasta sauce for an entire day can give you massive amounts of life-altering heartburn. I learned that Ecco the Dolphin gets way too difficult after a while so just give up. I learned that life is long and boring and that Repo Man will only get you through 90 minutes of it (or 2 hours if it’s on network TV). I eventually bought the movie on VHS and played it for everyone who would sit still long enough to enjoy it.
A few years later, I dated a girl whose family ran a repo lot. The first night hanging out with her and her folks, her mom asked me if I had ever seen Repo Man. I, of course, said yes and they didn’t believe me! Well, after I telegraphed the dialogue for the first 10 minutes of the film, they conceded that I did indeed have proficient knowledge of Emilio Estevez’s finest work. Somehow, that nerdy act got me the girl and even earned the respect of her family. How many times has a movie done that for you?
The first time I was aware of the existence of horror fiction was when I was around 9 years old. My sister was reading this weird paperback with a mutant deer on the cover. I have no idea what the book was called but the cover made quite an impression on me. I expressed some interest in reading it but my dad said that it was too scary for me. I was still at the age where I did whatever my parents told me (once in a while) so I never did get to read that one. The deer looked like a maniacal creature and it may have been up on two legs. If that rings a bell with anybody, drop me a line.
I loved to read when I was a kid and I remember shelling out some serious dough every time the Scholastic order forms came around my school. I was obsessed with the Bunnicula series and those Choose Your Own Adventure books for a while there. However, the first horror fiction book I ever read was Stephen King's Misery. I don't remember if it was my dad's copy or my mom's but someone left it sitting out long enough for me to pick it up. It was the summer of 1988 and I was 12 years old. Needless to say, I had never read anything quite like Misery before.
I can't really explain it but something about Misery hypnotized me. Chalk it up to my intense boredom that summer or just another broken synapse in my morbid kid-brain but a story about a writer being held hostage by an obsessed fan just did the trick. I tore through that dang book like it was going out of style and would go on to read it around 10 times over the next few years. When I got a little older, I used to have this fantasy that Annie Wilkes was really hot and I was Paul Sheldon. Way to go, Kathy Bates!
In my early teenage years, my Stephen King addiction shifted into full swing. Too bad the guy stopped writing in the 1980s. Oh wait, what? Like most of his fans, I read everything. My favorites were The Tommyknockers, 'Salem's Lot, Pet Semetary, It, The Dark Half, and The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. Of course, I loved the Bachman books, the short story collections, and The Talisman collaboration with Peter Straub. The guy could do no wrong. Well, except for The Eyes of the Dragon. Fuck that book.
I guess King didn't really start to lose me until 1992 with Gerald's Game. Now I didn't hate that book or anything but after I was done with it and I was like "um... was that the sequel to Misery or something?" I mean the whole thing was just bizarre. Was this chick upset that she'd killed her husband or missing out on that lesbian affair in college? Or both? Or neither? Am I even thinking of the right book? Then Dolores Clairborne came out and it was the first of his books I couldn't get through. The oral history bit was just not something I could handle at that time. (I didn't know jack about William Faulkner, okay?) Maybe I'll give that one another chance someday.
Okay, so the final nail in the King coffin for me was Insomnia. The book came out after I graduated high school and I was a little busy so I didn't pick it up until after it had been out for a while. I got a job as a security guard after I turned 18 so I suddenly found myself with a whole lot of time on my hands for reading. When I finally got Insomnia, I read it in two 12 hour shifts. After I was done, I threw the book in the dumpster out behind the Cadillac dealership I was guarding.
What a piece of shit. Insomnia is the story of a guy who stops sleeping. He meets a lady who has also stopped sleeping. Due to his sleepless condition, he is able to see that people have lifestrings which midgets in labcoats cut when it is time for them to die. Okay, I might not be remembering this right but holy shit, I despised and still despise this book. I kept waiting for it to not suck and it never did stop sucking. Shit! What the fuck? That was the last Stephen King book I've read to this day. That's right. I haven't picked up a new King book in 15 years. Moving on...
The other big horror guy from that fateful era is, of course, Dean R. Koontz. Hey, how come he has hair now? Anyway... I can't remember which of this guy's books I read first.I have a vague memory of someone at a bookstore saying (with enthusiasm) 'If you like Stephen King, you gotta check out Dean Koontz!' That memory could be a false one but who cares? I don't. I probably read Twilight Eyes first. This book freaked me the hell out and still does. It's about a kid who can see demons living inside of very, very bad people. So he grows up, joins the circus, acquires some weapons, and goes after the beasties. It has moments that are genuinely terrifying. Dang, I need to read that again.
Of course, I remember devouring Midnight. There's a scene where a guy ejaculates in a sensory deprivation tank. How rude! Oh yeah, the inhabitants of a seaside town turn into beasts and kill people. This is just a fantastic book. I loved Lightning (though it does have that creepy molester duder in it) and The Face of Fear (which features a creepy threesome) but what is up with Watchers? Talk about your silly, overrated books. Bleh.
Koontz would knock my ass on the floor with The Bad Place. This might be his best book. It's so friggin' strange and outrageous, I won't say a word about it. Just read it. There's something intangible about Koontz. I don't know. He was almost as big a part of my horror development as King but it's hard to get a hold on the guy. The first book of his I gave up on was Dragon Tears and I haven't picked up anything since. If anybody knows which of his 300 books he's written since 1993 are worth checking out, let me know.
The man that really amazed me and filled my brain with all kinds of crazy shit was Robert R. McCammon. I was probably 14 or so when I picked up his 1988 book Stinger and was just blown away. This was some crazy shit. Stinger is a blend of science fiction, action, and horror as I had never seen it before. An alien trying to take over the world starts with a small midwestern town and holy fuck, it is pretty damn great. This book inspired me to write my own story called "Attack of the Alien Robot Zombies" but I am NOT going into that right now.
The next McCammon book I picked up was The Wolf's Hour. This is still my favorite werewolf book of all time. Duder combines WWII and werewolves and guess who wins... We all do. I also read the very odd Mystery Walk and the even odder Gone South. And though it strayed very far from horror, Boy's Life was exceptional. But yeah, I don't know what happened after that. I think I just stopped reading horror fiction and left McCammon behind. In fact, I only read The Night Boat recently. It's totally awesome! A Nazi zombie-filled U-boat goes on a rampage! Damn fine stuff.
Oops. My iPod just died. I guess I'll pick this up later. To be continued...
I’m going to spoil some things but then again, when do I not?
If it wasn’t for the inferior sequel, I might never have checked out What’s New Pussycat? One night Turner Classic Movies played Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You and I was entranced. Of course, it was too late to tape the damn thing but at least it was a cheap ticket to Rome for the evening. But I’ll get to that later. When I finally sat down to watch the 1965 sex comedy, my mind was pretty much ripped apart and destroyed by how strangely perfect and flawed of a filmic experience I had just… experienced. Originally intended as a semi-autobiographical Warren Beatty vehicle (my mind is destroyed once again), this film is fucking owned by its stars Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers, and Woody Allen (who wrote the screenplay (and who was apparently instrumental in forcing out Warren Beatty)).
Peter O’Toole plays Michael James, a fashion magazine editor, womanizer, and drunkard who is finally ready to settle down with his girlfriend Carol, played by the effervescent Romy Schneider. The problem is, of course, Michael is irresistible to women and they seem to be everywhere he turns, throwing themselves at him. His inability to control himself has made women a real problem for him, so Michael goes to a therapist named Dr. Fritz Fassbender (Peter Sellers). Dr. Fassbender is a rampageous sex maniac who does all he can to avoid his behemoth wife (Eddra Gale) AKA “the Creature That Ate Europe” while chasing the women who are chasing Michael. To further complicate matters, Michael’s friend Victor (Woody Allen), a painter, is also in love with Carol and is making his moves on her as well.
“As a man’s life goes down the drain. You are there.”
There’s so much to love about What’s New Pussycat? and only a little to be confused or hurt by. Other than Romy Schneider’s character, women look like dumb idiot basket cases. Peter Sellers and Peter O’Toole’s rakish behavior is um… charming. No, that’s not the word. Disturbing! That’s it. Obviously, if you don’t take this junk seriously and just roll your eyes at the nonsense, there is some serious fun to be had here. Woody Allen (someone who I am not a fan of) wanted to make a Marx Brothers’ style movie and he did a pretty great job accomplishing just that. Everyone takes part in the one liners, the physical comedy, and the manic energy of it all so what’s not to love?
"What in the name of all that's gracious is a semi-virgin?"
One interesting casting choice that I can’t get over is Jess Franco regular Howard Vernon (She Killed in Ecstacy) as the doctor who is called in to repeatedly treat Liz after each of her suicide attempts. The guy is just such a great presence on camera and he is especially funny while trying to keep his hot nurse (played by Sabine Sun) away from Michael. There’s a blatantly obvious cameo in the film by Richard Burton that is sooooo cheesy but kinda fantastic (“Don’t you know me from someplace?”). Somehow, Howard Vernon is more important to me.
“When the light hits him in a certain way, he’s almost handsome.”
Sellers and O’Toole (and even (to a lesser extent) Allen) compete for the viewers’ attention and for me, O’Toole wins out big time. The guy is on fucking fire in this movie. He’s a six foot two coolness hurricane and I want to be him. Okay, maybe not with all that much drinking and maybe not quite that many women but I’m just sayin’ that I get a little choked up knowing that I’ll never be Peter O’Toole in 1965. Michael James is a childish and sex obsessed alcoholic that is my hero, damn it. Then he goes and gets sweet. Seriously! His character has redeeming qualities that’ll melt your ice cold heart. He and Carol have a strange thing between them that defies logic and reason.
“YOUR FACE IS LIKE THE PALE AUTUMN MOON! ARE YOU DEAF?!?!”
This film has so many classic bits but my favorite ones are the group therapy sessions that devolve into games of indoor cricket and/or other madness. On one of Dr. Fassbender and Michael’s drunken escapades, the two go and try to woo a woman in Cyrano De Bergerac style and hilarity ensues. There is a Fellini dream sequence with O’Toole dressed up like Marcello Mastoianni cracking a whip which is cinema nerd great and Michael’s minimalist flashbacks to his younger self and his “problems” with women that are just awesome. However, once we get to Chateau Chantal, the movie kicks into high gear.
Everything has been leading up to this moment and the finale does not disappoint. The Benny Hill-esque chaos gets even more wacky when, instead of getting in their cars to avoid the police, the guests of Chateau Chantal head for the go-karts as their means of escape. But hold on, just before that, everyone runs out the front door of the hotel and there’s a wall of policemen waiting for them. In a desperate moment, everyone is terrified and frozen in place. Dr. Fassbender orders his wife (who is dressed like a valkyrie) to lead the charge against the cops. After she belts out an operatic screech, they charge and OH MY GOD, you need to see this movie!
I'm trying to track down a copy of Pussycat Pussycat, I Love You (since it isn't on VHS or DVD here in the States) so I'll have to continue this later. But let me just say that What's New Pussycat is a kinky but classy classic that is full of roguish and kooky surprises. It's very dated but the editing, the music, and the spectacle of the whole thing (especially Liz's striptease!) is just the kind of thing that make life worth living. Well, it is for me anyway. There has to be something to sandwich between all the beheadings and exsanguinations.
I really don’t know how I can talk about Single White Female without first talking about the Playboy channel and a bunch of other bullshit. My parents went all out with the cable back in 1995 and so we had every dang movie channel and the stupid Playboy channel. Of course, this was before there were 18 HBOs and 50 Showtimes but hey, we were living the good life. I’ve always been obsessed with the bizarre shit that cable channels use to fill their late night programming and I was sometimes richly rewarded (Wicked City) or sometimes horribly destroyed (Mask of Death). I probably shouldn’t just hint at the amazing cinema of Lorenzo Lamas. The guy was in Terminal Justice, probably the best movie cable television has ever transmitted. The story involved those oh so important elements that make our lives in the future (the film takes place in 2008) tolerable: gratuitous nudity and virtual reality.
Here I am (circa 1997), remote in hand, and ready for some unwholesome entertainment.
The Playboy channel was (and probably still is) friggin’ genius IN A BAD WAY. They had a talk show about sex that was completely bogus and retarded. The most hilarious thing was when they would show porno movies and then cut out the bits that made them pornos. Apparently, the channel had some pretty strict standards and it was just surreal and strangely sad. The forbidden and magical channel of my youth turned out to be a bunch of silicone crap and a complete waste of time. And yet, I couldn’t look away. The few occasions where I actually had friends over and my folks were out late or out of town, I’d put on the Playboy channel for a laugh. I was quite the entertainer. I feel like Bob Crane all of a sudden. Why am I talking about this? Oh yeah, so I would flee from Playboy to see what was on HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime. And oh boy, there were some surprises, yessireebob.
This all begins to make more sense when you take into account the fact that I worked the night shift as a security guard back in the day. Sometimes I worked 10pm until 6am but most of the time I worked from 6:30pm ‘til 6:30am! Needless to say, on my days off I would stay up very, very late. The graveyard shift affects your mind and you don’t see the world as other people do. Things that would not normally entertain anyone suddenly become strangely fascinating. Like Doom Generation or Full Eclipse. Don't forget I'm also a dude so of course when my friend Scott and I saw they were going to play Malicious with Molly Ringwald, we were pretty psyched. You know the movie? The one where she plays a psycho and gets nekkid. Well, we just had to check it out. The only embarrassing thing about that is I actually liked the movie. Go Molly! Go Molly! It's (actually not) your birthday!
One of my favorite films from this sleazy time in my life was Poison Ivy: The New Seduction. Now I don’t mean to dis Drew Barrymore or Alyssa Milano’s efforts in the first two films but seriously, Poison Ivy III is awe-inspiringly stupid and totally genius. Obviously, Jaime Pressly is totally awesome as Violet (the sister of Ivy!) but this movie (written by the mind behind The Skateboard Kid II) is wildly entertaining and only slightly insulting. The most surprising thing is the person who steals the movie: Megan Edwards. She plays Joy, a tennis playing, uptight, and sheltered rich girl. Violet comes in and wrecks her life. Why? Because she’s a friggin’ psycho, that’s why! But Joy is such a great character. She’s kind of like this oppressed gothic heroine. And those tennis outfits! Oh my goodness. Terrible shit just keeps happening to her and finally, she’s left all alone in the world which is better than how she started. The film just stops with her running out of the house with dead bodies all over the place. Perfect. I imagined myself there, in the driveway (in my 1976 Ford Granada), just waiting to rescue her.
For little to no reason at all, skip to 1:10 right now:
Shit, I was just thinking about the films that nearly ruined dirty movies for everyone everywhere, all over the world. Of course, the most offensive (and not in a good way) is Basic Instinct. Thankfully, Stephen Chow parodied it in Fight Back to School 3. Then there’s the wretched Body of Evidence and The Temp. These movies are so darn soul-destroying. Oh no, I just remembered Jade. William Friedkin was quoted as saying “Hee hee hee hee, I made a sexy thriller!” There was a time when David Caruso was pretty awesome. No, seriously. You could take Jade and (before throwing the DVD in the garbage) make it a double feature with The Last Seduction. I think I just died a little. Poor little Linda Fiorentino wouldn’t properly recover until Kicked in the Head. Go figure. Of course, The Last Seduction has Peter Berg. I don’t trust that guy. He totally creeps me out. Plus, he directed Friday Night Lights. Lame.
Okay, so I’m talking about these corny ass adult thrillers, right? Are there any good ones? Well, yeah. More Skinemax filler comes in the form of Romeo is Bleeding (not to be confused with Romeo Must Die ) but this one blows all the bullshit out of the water. The fact that it comes from director Peter Medak (The Changeling) might have a little to do with that. And when you get a classy duder like Gary Oldman (don’t mention Lost in Space, please) and the stunning and frightening Lena Olin, you got yourself a winning combination. Throw in some neo-noir stuff, a very, very dark story, some amputee fetishism, and whammo! Instant classic!
Have I talked about Single White Female yet? No? Well, I’m going to. Right now. It is hard to imagine a trashier or more ridiculous film than this Bridget Fonda/Jennifer Jason Leigh vehicle. Have either of them ever been in a movie better than SWF? No? I didn’t think so. To illustrate how evil Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character is, they have her kill a puppy! Like, whoa dude, that’s foreshadowing. There’s a shower scene and legitimately steamy sex scenes and murders and a gay neighbor and- DAMN IT! That puppy scene is still disturbing even after all these years. Being a guy, I tried to imagine what I would do if crazy Jennifer Jason Leigh was my roommate. Like how far would I let her crazy behavior go on before I was all like “Hey look, this isn’t working out. You need to stop dressing like me.” But then again, who doesn’t want to have sex with themselves? Right? Who's a doppelganger banger? Doppelbanger? Hello? Uh oh. The important thing is that of course, I knew I was the one who could save poor old crazy Jennifer Jason Leigh from herself. Isn't that romantic? SHE KILLED A PUPPY!
Every journey, even a purple one, has to come to an end. After subjecting ourselves to the terror of Graffiti Bridge and the accidental masterpiece that is Under the Cherry Moon, my friend Nafa and I had to complete the Prince film cycle. The thing that worried us the most was that Purple Rain would just be a good movie. How the hell are we supposed to deal with Prince just being in a good film? Before we could know the answer to that, we dug on Sign 'o' the Times.
So anyway, I was fully prepared to rename this film to Sigh… No… The Times(?). But I’ll be damned if this isn’t one of the best concert films ever made. It starts off all artsy fartsy like Graffiti Bridge and then it soars into a funk explosion sensation. As I’ve stated before, I don’t like funk but I caught my foot tapping all by itself throughout nearly all of Sign ‘o’ the Times. Oh my God, that bass solo. Nafa, rewind that. Thanks to this film, I finally understand what the hell all the fuss is about.
The artsy stuff I mentioned are dramatic scenes featuring members of Prince’s band acting out some lame ass poetry/dialogue. The funniest of these is when the guy in the fuzzy hat complains about his woman to the bartender. What’s his beef? Well, his woman wants old fuzzy hat to talk to her. Oh wow, poor guy. Who talks to their women, seriously? And the weird thing is that the bartender totally understands! It’s moments like these, hidden inside this wildly entertaining concert flick, that threaten to ruin everything. But if you think about it, Prince’s overwhelming pretentiousness is part of the reason why his films are so amazing.
Since we watched Graffiti Bridge back in January, Nafa and I have developed a perfect method for viewing Prince’s films. I walk over to Nafa’s place from my apartment around 5:30 and go out to Zaxby’s. This is fine dining at its finest. Once we are stuffed with chicken and fries, we go to Wal-Mart. I’m not sure why but I think it’s to get cheap snacks and drink. For Purple Rain, I got some grape Faygo (though I really wanted Mountain Dew Distortion) in order to have something purple to drink. The only other soul joining us on our funk sojourn is Nafa’s cat, Buddha.
There are SPOILERS all up in this bitch, yo.
So Purple Rain begins and in the fabulous and infectiously energizing opening montage, we get to see Morris Day picking out his outfit. Immediately, I realize what was wrong about Sign ‘o’ the Times: NO MORRIS OR JEROME! Well, this movie fixes that. Thank Jesus. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that Prince’s world is centered in Minneapolis. Once again, the lunacy of Prince’s world is that his band is always competing against Morris Day and The Time. Yeah I know, I’ll talk more about this later. Oh yeah, Prince’s name in this movie is The Kid. Oh fuck. Not again. Hey, Jerome just threw a woman in a dumpster because she was annoying Morris.
Apollonia shows up wanting to sing in The Kid’s band. She gets introduced to the man himself and he just fucking stands there staring at the back of her head. When she finally gets the courage to speak to him, he’s gone. Unbelievable. The club owner (this morbidly obese black dude in a track suit) wants to ditch The Kid because he doesn’t draw a big enough crowd. Sigh. What the hell? So The Kid goes home and his dad is beating the crap out of him mom. His dad is played by one of the most intense black actors in film history: Clarence Williams III. Now I didn’t even spot this until IMDB pointed out this insanely obvious fact to me: The Kid’s mom is played by Olga Karlatos from Zombie. Holy crap, y’all. This is nuts. The Prince and Lucio Fulci connection is finally established. They said it could never happen.
“You have to purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka.”
This movie has a potty mouth! There can be no swearing in a Prince film. Wait, why is Apollonia riding on the back of The Kid’s motorcycle? Did I miss something? Are they dating now? The Kid convinces Apollonia to strip and jump in the lake. This caused a minor explosion of screams from me. First of all, NUDITY IN A PRINCE FILM!?!?!? Secondly, Apollonia has a superb rack. I mean, like outrageously nice. I could go on and on but I won’t. Great rack. I mean it. Even if you don’t want to see this movie, you have to check her bobbins out.
So what happened to Prince in his other films? Did he mistake aloofness for charm or something? I mean, The Kid is a total dick in Purple Rain. He smacks around Apollonia and he treats his band like shit. Especially when Wendy and Lisa want to share a song THEY WROTE. The nerve of some people! If I wrote a song and The Kid was talking to me with ventriloquism, I would be all like “Yeah, why don’t you go back to your parents’ basement, you fucking dick!?!” Yet, Prince is still charming as hell in this movie. Something that he would lose by the time he got to Graffiti Bridge. So yeah, The Kid’s home situation is pretty bad. His dad is a failed musician and he is insane. He beats his mom and then shoots himself in the head.
The Kid nearly loses his mind and even has a vision of hanging himself. Geez duder, do you have to be just like your old man? He takes the music that the girls wrote and combines it with his dad’s music to make the song “Purple Rain”. So on the night of nights at the club, he has to prove to the club owner that he has what it takes to rock the joint. Morris Day teases him about his dad shooting himself but then feels really, really bad about it. Holy shit, Morris can act! So The Kid and the band get on stage and he surprises them all by busting out “Purple Rain”. This is pretty much one of the most perfect moments in any movie ever. They play the song and practically the whole band is crying. It’s nuts. Then The Kid comes back from cooling off backstage and tears the place apart with funk. Pure brilliance.
So what’s my problem with this movie? It’s the same thing that’s wrong with Graffiti Bridge. (Okay, EVERYTHING is WRONG with Graffiti Bridge.) The fact that Prince has to compete with Morris Day for two things: 1) the headlining gig at a nightclub and 2) a woman. Give me a fucking break! How is this even remotely possible. I’m not saying Morris isn't ugly and I’m not saying that Prince isn’t short. And they’re both equally freakish in their own respective ways. But Prince is obviously a hotter duder and his music eclipses anything The Time ever did. So aside from the fact that the plot hinges on something that doesn’t make any dang sense, Purple Rain is totally great.
Okay, Nafa and I agree that it's time to watch Graffiti Bridge again. Who's with us?
(Thanks for the art, Nafa.)
