It's been a while since I sang the praises of Mill Creek's 50 Chilling Classics set, but the time has come to do so once more. I've said it before and I'll say it again--the best $20 I've ever spent for which I got a receipt.
Of course whenever you're buying your movies in bulk you're going to end up with a high crap-to-gold ratio, but the 50CC set keeps that ratio admirably close to the 1:1 mark. Not only that, but the goldiness of the gold is so much greater than the crappiness of the crap, it ends up as much more than a net win--it's a treasure.
Really, I'm not kidding. Go buy one now.
But even if the ratio were more like 5:1 on the crap side, the set would have still been worth double the price for introducing me to this wonderfully creepy and astonishingly overlooked fright flick from 1973, Willard Huyck's Messiah of Evil (aka Dead People). A movie that for my money does almost everything right, Messiah of Evil combines slow-build suspense, Lovecraftian story elements, and go-for-the-throat set pieces to deliver a tale that always leaves the Vicar smiling, satisfied, and more than a little creeped-out.
I'll be the first to admit the movie stumbles coming out of the gates: a blandly handsome young man runs down a shadowy street, from who or what we can't see. As he stops to catch his breath, a young girl beckons to him from a hidden courtyard. He goes in and drinks from a fountain before collapsing on the ground. The girl kneels over him, offers her hand to kiss--and then pulls out a straight razor and slits his throat!
Which by itself is not a bad scene...except that it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the movie it introduces. Neither character is spoken of again, the girl's method of killing is unlike that of the film's baddies--hell, even the location looks completely unlike anything else in the film. It really serves no purpose except to open with a shock, which it gains by sacrificing storytelling integrity.
(Still, the wonderfully overblown theme song that plays over the scene almost redeems it: "I gave my message to the wind,/ I told my story to the sea--/ NObody else...is listening...to meeee..../ HOLD OOOOOOON TO LOOOOOOOOVE!")
While you're waiting for the REAL film to start, how about a nice game of solitaire?
"They say that nightmares are dreams perverted. I told them here it wasn't a nightmare--but they don't believe me. They nod, and make little notes in my file...But there's so little time left! You've GOT to listen!
See? A woman everyone thinks is crazy, who's gone through some horrific experience, and the fate of the world depends on her convincing the viewer to believe her incredible tale? THAT'S the way you should have opened the movie! (Though admittedly, following that awesome speech with "HOOOLD OOOON TO LOOOOVE!" might have undercut the effect.)
"Not far from here there's a small town on the coast--they used to call it New Bethlehem, but they changed the name to Point Dune, after the moon turned blood red...Point Dune doesn't look any different than a thousand other neon-stucco towns--but what they did to me...what they're doing now...
They're coming here...they're waiting to pierce the city. They're peering around buildings at night, and they're waiting...They're waiting for you. And they'll take you...one by one, and no one will hear you scream! NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU SCREAM!"
That's More Like It
Huyck wastes no time piling on the creepiness, even before Arletty gets into Point Dune proper. She stops at a gas station on the outskirts of town and finds the attendant emptying his revolver into the dark field behind the garage. He explains that he's shooting at stray dogs, a claim immediately undercut by unidentifiable but still scary animal noises echoing through the darkness. "Doesn't sound like dogs," Arletty observes. "HAS to be," the attendant replies. "Has to be dogs! I've hunted out in them woods--nothing but rabbits and quail. Rabbits don't make that sound!" When their transaction is interrupted by the appearance of the SCARIEST ALBINO EVAR in a pickup truck with a strange cargo, the attendant advises her to leave, even without paying. "Just GET OUT!" he whispers...and soon enough, we find out why.
I don't think it's racist to admit I'm terrified of this guy.
"The visions are coming from areas of my mind that I don't understand...these grotesque images keep crowding in on me...At night I find myself wandering through the town...catching glimpses of horrid animals I know can't be real...Women with pale faces and shadowy figures, staring out at the black water..."
Students of literature will immediately recognize this as a classic Lovecraftian story set-up, in more the "uncanny happenings and unimaginable creatures revealing unendurable truths" way than the "OMG AN OCTOPUS-FACED MONSTER" way. It's very well done, and the writing for the old man and Arletty's speeches will give you the campfire-story chills if you're not made of stone.
The next day Arletty goes to an art gallery in Point Dune, run by an art dealer who just happens to be blind! Through her smarmy/creepy interpreter-son, the old woman does her best to make Arletty unwelcome, denigrating her father's work and advising her to leave town. But when the son lets slip that some other strangers had come in that morning asking about her dad, Arletty heads to the Seven Seas Hotel to follow up her only lead.
At the hotel, Arletty finds the strangers--dapper folklore hobbyist Thom (Michael Greer) and his two traveling companions, exotic dark-haired beauty Laura (Invasion of the Bee Girls' Anitra Ford) and petulant, childlike blonde Toni (played by the all-time "I can't believe you didn't take a stage name" winner, JOY BANG). The groovy trio invite Arletty in to listen to an homeless wino Thom has befriended in order to learn more about the history of the town, Old Charlie--portrayed by the legendary God of Character Actors, Elisha Cook Jr.! He's only in the movie for around five minutes, but Elisha makes all of them count, laying out the terrifying legend of the Blood Moon, a supernatural occurence that had strange, horrifying effects on the populace:
"My daddy called it the Blood Moon...he said that was the night he lost religion. Folks started bleedin', out of control...they found babies, little children eating raw meat! It was like the redder the moon got up there...the more people were bein' jerked toward Hell!"
LEGEND.
Thom pays Charlie in booze for his story, and explains to Arletty that they saw her dad's paintings in the gallery that morning--"In fact, it was a portrait of you!"--and asked about him, after which the dealer must have removed them, since Arletty saw no such painting. Unsatisfied, Arletty leaves only to be stopped by Old Charlie in the alley. Elisha Cook Jr. shows why he had nearly 200 films to his credit by the time he checked out, out-crazying even Crazy Ralph with his warning:
"If you love your daddy...you have to kill him! You have to! You...you can't bury him--don't put him in the ground! You've got to burn him! You gotta put fire to his body!"
Later that night Thom and the girls show up at Arletty's dad's pad, having been thrown out by the manager after Old Charlie turned up dead in the alley. Inviting themselves to stay, the oddly-mannered menage a trois moves in, and before long all four of them are suffering the strange effects of the Point Dune air, not to mention the unwelcome attentions of its nocturnal residents...
Thom's aristocratic suavery makes the detective hang his head in shame.
What I would like to talk about a little are a few of those artful touches that really enhanced my enjoyment of the film, one of them being the use of sound. This was made in the days before surround sound, obviously, but that doesn't stop Huyck from making the most of the aural as well as the visual. The score is minimalist and synth-based, largely eschewing songs and recurrent musical themes for discordant, disconcerting swells and vaguely sci-fi ambient noise that are much more effective than an orchestral score probably could be. More than that, though, the near-constant sound of wind and waves in the background gives the whole film a mournful, lonely sonic backdrop, against which scenes of Arletty wandering through her father's abandoned studio or Thom walking the deserted streets of Point Dune after dark play out with spooky, ghost-town gloom. In the few scenes where the wind-and-wave track ins not present--as in the standout Grocery Store Scene where the hapless Laura is introduced to Point Dune's nocturnal residents--the silence becomes uncanny, with a thematic and emotional weight it would otherwise lack.
The visuals Huyck is able to achieve are often striking as well, despite the sometimes garish lighting and unfortunate beat-up condition of every print I've ever seen of the film. Several times in the film we get long, wide-angle crane shots showing one of our protagonists as a tiny figure in an ominously empty landscape, which emphasizes both the strange emptiness of the town and the character's vulnerability, out in the open with no place to hide. And again, the incessant sound of the wind and waves amplifies this effect by a full factor.
Anitra Ford: Messiah of Hawtness
Because much of the film focuses on slow discovery and events unfolding in uncanny relative silence, when that hush is disturbed by scenes of horrifying action, once again it packs an amplified wallop. The exits of Thom's two traveling companions are definitely the standout scenes here, the aforementioned grocery store discovery trumped by Toni's ill-fated visit to the local cinema. It's really an awesomely built-up scene, as the initially empty rows behind Toni slowly fill up with Point Dune's strangely silent residents, turning the tension screws until finally it all breaks loose in a truly frightening way.
The performances here are mostly good--Mariana Hill is effective as Arletty, particularly when the strange effects of the approaching Blood Moon start to show. Michael Greer as Thom is coolly deadpan and weirdly appealing; Anitra Ford adds some nice depth to her sultry, spurned lover character, and Joy Bang as Toni is also good at portraying her character's wild-child naivete. Memorable cameos by Elisha Cook Jr. and his fellow character-actor veteran Royal Dano lend a certain gravitas, and whoever played the Ominous Albino--my friend, welcome to my nightmares. You've earned your place.
For some reason, Joy didn't find her bubble bath all that relaxing.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Messiah of Evil (1973): or, He'll Be Comin' From the Ocean When He Comes
Monday, November 17, 2008
Vicar-ious Verse: Le Mort du Whitey
Sometimes Mad Movies do more than inspire joy, horror, and reflection--especially for a viewer with the poetic soul of your ever-lovin' Vicar. Sometimes the only way to express the wonder of a particularly meaningful scene is through the medium of poetry. Therefore I present the first in what I hope will be a continuing series of sonnets inspired by the films we celebrate here on Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies. Enjoy.
Le Morte du Whitey
(inspired by Private Parts (1972))
He felt it just before it was too late--
the ozone crackle running up his wrist,
hair rising on his spine--then like a Fate
his tiny rodent brain could not resist
the keys called out to him. Bare copper wire
curled its snake's tongue around the iron ring
and venomed it with lightning, its entire
circumference a trap ready to spring.
And who's to say that something in his head
(approaching Reason) did not see the Grim
Reaper couched there, and knowingly reach up
to take his hand? What future life for him--
the cage of this hotel, Aunt Martha's cup
of tea?
No matter now.
Poor Whitey's dead.
Perchance to dreamRead about the film that inspired this poem: Private Parts (1972).
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Teenage Catgirls in Heat (1997)
Greetings dearest friends, it is I, The Duke, having returned from a long trip abroad to bring to you once again the cinematic brilliance found in the nether regions of the world (specifically, the anus, or as some like to call it, Germany). It was bitterly cold as I stepped out of my rented calash, the snow crunching under my leather boots. My first steps into the lower Alemannia region were met with some resistance, as if the snow drifts themselves wished to stop my journey.
I had come at the behest of a descendent of the great Bavaria duke Garibald II, a tyrant whose foul deeds were still spoken about in hushed tones before roaring fires in the dead nights of the Bavarian winter. The missive revealed little, only that I should make all haste and tell no one, save my normal cortege of servants, luggage bearers, and Roman bodyguards, their rippling muscles and mute stares more than enough to keep safe my personage.
I was met in short order by a hunched man who refused any questions, simply beckoning for me to follow. The town we were in, if it could be termed that, consisted of a few earthen hovels and one towering keep, its portcullis raised. We walked across the drawbridge, pikes adorned with heads running the length of the approach, their faces obscured by tar, the eyes long since plucked out by the Great Ravens circling overhead.
Once inside, the master of the keep, and sender of the letter, entered the courtyard via a small side door. He was dressed handsomely: a crimson scale tunic, oiled bearskin cloak, and ermine breeches. A helmet constructed of wyvern skull and elk antler adorned his head. A giant of a man, he approached and bent knee, as was my due. I raised an eyebrow at the giant claymore scabbarded on his back, but said nothing. Most don’t enter my presence armed and continue to live, but I chose to ignore the slight. This was his keep, after all.
He began rambling in High Chant, a forgotten language employed by scholars, and one that I was fluent in. I learned that he had commissioned a dig some ways to the south, near the Swiss border. Digging deeper than was advisable given this region’s history, he stumbled upon a cavern containing the corpse of a Deepwurm. The skeleton, long since fossilized, reeked of ancient magic. Where the stomach once was sat a treasure long since thought lost in antiquity.
He continued to babble in his excitement, so I raised a finger, bringing him to instant silence. I motioned for him to bring the treasure forth. He barked a command, which brought a servant forward. He was carrying a blackened ossuary, its sides covered in harshly carved glyphs not wrought by human hands. Trying to hide my excitement, I now realized why I had been asked to come here. This man didn’t know how to open the container and wished to gain favor in my eyes by presenting me with it as a gift, even though he didn’t know what it held.
I knew, however. I also knew how to open it. Spreading my hands over the lid, careful not to touch it, I began reciting an ancient cantrip not uttered by human tongue for over 3 millennia. There issued forth a loud hissing, and the lid popped open with such force that it cleanly severed the head of the servant. I deftly scooped up the contents of the chest before he went crashing to the ground. In my hands I beheld a prize thought lost…
Teenage Catgirls in Heat is one of those movies that you either love or hate, much like every single film ever released by Troma. It is silly, poorly acted, poorly shot, and terribly directed while at the same time utterly hilarious, off-the-charts crazy, and insane. The movie fits perfectly inside our Doctrine, for it is a glorious failure indeed. We have to look no further than the movie’s intro to see this, which features Lloyd Kaufman, Troma’s intrepid president, sharing his thoughts on the movie. Using a ton of cat-related puns, he gets us in the mood, and after he dropped this bombshell, I knew I was in for a treat:
Kaufman: “Notice I’ve made no ‘pussy’ jokes. That’s because, here at Troma, we say ‘cunt’”.
This man is a visionary and a genius. Kaufman for President, 2016.
Our movie opens with a cat, shockingly enough. I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss the only awesome camera shot in the film, and it just so happens to be the first one. The sun glares down on what appears to be the Great Pyramids in Egypt, but then the camera pans down, it is revealed we are looking at the trunk of a rusted out car in a junkyard. Very clever, and it got my hopes up, but alas this is the only clever camera use in the whole movie.
Anyhoo, the aforementioned cat takes off through the countryside before finally arriving home, climbing up on the roof. Meanwhile, an old grandmother type heads outside to feed it, eating some of the food herself at the same time. Realizing the cat is on the roof, she heads back in and goes upstairs to the attic. A dusty trunk she has stored up there begins to rattle and, um, purr, which causes her to investigate. Inside the trunk she finds a statue of a cat, which she begins praying to. Further searching the trunk, she finds a dagger, which she uses to off herself by breast stabbing!
Ok, at this point, I’m wondering WTF is going on, but the movie isn’t done yet, no! Apparently the statue (or icon, as it is referred to) is possessed by some Egyptian cat goddess. We aren’t too sure what her goal is, but her first deed upon being freed from the old lady’s trunk is to set off a wave of cat suicide! To say I had tears of laughter streaming down my face at the next few scenes is a gross understatement. We are treated to several scenes of fake cats being tossed off roofs and bridges and being run over by cars. Friends, if I were to ever make a movie, I am going to totally rip this scene off, it was beyond awesome.
Apparently the suicidal cats aren’t totally crazy after all, because once they shed their mortal coil they are reborn, as Teenage Catgirls, IN HEAT! Soon we have 5 or 6 naked catgirls running around, who immediately head for the old lady’s house. Here we are treated to a few nude scenes that were obviously shot to provide nudity to the film, a decision I totally respect.
While nekkid catgirls are running amok through the countryside, we are introduced to our two heroes of the film. One is a hapless backpacker, a hitchhiker who is getting a ride in the back of a pickup from an old couple. After running over a cat, the hitchhiker is thrown from the truck into a ditch while the old folks speed off (note to self: avoid hitchhiking). Our young hero, who looks like a member of Haircut 100, ends up running into our other protagonist, The Cat Catcher.
Apparently this guy is employed to find lost kitties, through the use of high tech equipment resembling something The Ghostbusters would use. This lead me to refer to him as The Cat Buster in my notes, and now in this review. The Cat Buster knows something is up, something cat-related is in the offing and he’s going to get to the bottom of it. Through a series of expository scenes, we learn about Egyptian cat worship and various other plot devices, but the important thing is that he hooks up with the hitchhiker and both of them begin trying to get to the bottom of the new catgirl menace.
Meanwhile, back at catgirl central, all of the felines are dressing up using the old lady’s clothes, which results in them resembling Cyndi Lauper on crank, and watching daytime television, through which they learn rudimentary English in short order. One of the catgirls stands out from the rest in that she doesn’t randomly murder dudes for sex. More on her later. In the meantime, we are treated to a scene of a catgirl running off into the woods, stumbling upon a man sleeping alone in a tent, and then sexing him up before clawing him to death.
The Cat Buster and the hitchhiker find his body, which hilariously has a face frozen in ecstasy. Realizing they are close, they renew their hunt. Eventually the hitchhiker runs into the non-murderous catgirl and of course falls in love. This leads to them making date plans, which leads to a hilarious scene in which the Cat Buster helps the hitchhiker dress for success, which results in him wearing clothes that Carlton from Fresh Prince would be embarrassed to be caught out in.
The day of the date comes, and off they go to have a picnic by a stream. Meanwhile, the Cat Buster breaks into the old lady’s house, suspecting the source of Egyptian cat terror can be found within. Meanwhile, our couple in love come back and begin sexing each other up, which works fine, until the catgirl looses control of herself and starts clawing up the hitchhiker, who panics and runs… straight into the Cat Buster, who has grabbed the cat icon and is trying to escape the wrath of the other catgirls.
What happens next will go down in MMMMovie history as one of the most cringe-worthy and simultaneously awesome scenes ever. The Cat Buster pulls out a banana peel, drops it on the floor, and we watch as the catgirls come running, one by one, through the door only to slip and fall into a heap! At this point, I thought it couldn’t get any better. Oh boy was I wrong! Very quickly, the hitchhiker and the rest of the catgirls are out in the yard, while the Cat Buster is caught up in the mystical Egyptian magic of the cat icon inside the house.
The door opens, and out walks the Cat Buster, who is now apparently the avatar of the cat goddess. Words fail me, so just look at the following screenshot instead:
See! See the awesome! He then goes into explaining that the goddess never meant any harm or some such. At this point I was quite drunk, but basically he does some magic and resurrects every one of the clawed-to-death guys that we’ve seen throughout the movie. Crazy, crazy stuff. He then goes on to say that all the catgirls must return to their previous cat form. This upsets the hitchhiker, who wants to continue to bone his cat girlfriend. The cat goddess solves this problem by giving him the ability to transform into a cat during the nighttime, thus allowing him to continue his cat-fucking fetish.
So, basically, this movie is awful and awesome. I’d give it .5 thumbs up for people who don’t like Troma movies, and 2 solid thumbs up for people who do. It isn’t the best Troma offering, but it is hilarious and entertaining. I was sad to find that the nudity in the film is less than it should be for a film called Teenage Catgirls in Heat, but what’s there is nice I suppose. Glorious failure it is, and I must recommend it to all of my more discriminating readers.
In honor of The Cat Buster and his awesome equipment, I’m awarding Teenage Catgirls in Heat the prestigious (and just now invented) Duke of DVD Award for Busting Excellence:
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Mad Mad Mad Mad Nativity
Wow, what a day it is for birthdays. Not only is today the anniversary of the birth of such historical notables as King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden, General George s. Patton, and author Kurt Vonnegut, but also that of b-movie favorite Bill Moseley and less-mad movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Calista Flockhart, and Demi Moore (whose boobs, it must be pointed out, are much younger). Further, this date in 1984 saw the release of both A Nightmare on Elm Street and Silent Night, Deadly Night. Truly a red letter day.
And even if not for those reasons, also on this day at some indeterminate distance in the past, the earth saw the unholy spawning of your favorite Nunsploitation-obsessed adventurous aristocrat and mine, his corpulence The Duke of DVD!*
*Strangely, today is also the birthday of an alarming number of adult film stars, including but not limited to Erin Moore, Gwenn, Cage, Olivia Saint, Alexxx Knight, Cassandra Wilde, Tyler Knight, Talon, and Hyapatia Lee. Coincidence? THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES ON THE INTERNET!
So let's all wish the Duke many happy returns, and hope for many more decades of delight, depravity, and unidentifiable odors. Happy birthday, Duke!
Don't Deliver Us from Evil (1971): or, Satan Gets All the Chicks
Don't Deliver Us from Evil starts out with a bang. After a moody opening with the camera slowly zooming in on a lone candle in a somber cathedral, we cut to the dorm in a Catholic girls' school, where a young nun checks on the children in her care and then ducks behind a back-lit curtain to get out of the habit, stripping down porn theater-style to a nubile nude silhouette. From one of the beds, dark-haired pupil Anne (Jeanne Goupil) watches, chewing gum most significantly. Already I feel the need for confession.
Anne does too, as once the show's over she hides under the covers to write her wicked thoughts in her journal. However, rather than addressing the entry to "Dear Diary," she dedicates it to Lord Satan! It seems that Anne and her blonde BFF Lore (Catherine Wagener) have decided being good is for the birds, and naughtiness is much more fun. In the confines of the school, the girls avail themselves of such opportunities for evil as reading erotica together under their bedclothes (zang), outraging the priest with made-up sins at confession, putting on lipstick when no one's looking--and, of course, pledging themselves to Satan in their diaries. "We get such pleasure from doing bad," Anne scribbles to Old Scratch, "to sin has become our chief aim." Well, it's important to have goals in life.
This being a modern Catholic Girls' School, the pupils are allowed to go home on the weekend, though they're expected to spend one of their days off attending Mass. Anne and Lore are neighbors in beautiful rural France, where Anne's parents have a large estate, complete with herds of cattle, dirty uneducated farm hands, a house full of servants, and ruined buildings on the grounds for the girls to play in. Alone with her nice but not-very-attentive parents, Anne is obviously bored and pining for time with her evil blonde companion. She spends her time riding her bike, smoking, and kissing herself in her bedroom mirror, practicing wantonness for future use.
Rub it like you mean it.
Most germane to the plot, when the girls go up for communion at the end of the service, we see them both palm and pocket their Holy wafers. Shortly we learn that Anne and Lore are planning to perform a ceremony at the abandoned chapel on Anne's family's estate, and have collected "almost 100 Hosts" for the purpose. Back at school the following week, they also steal some holy robes, an old chalice, and a few sips of sacramental wine. cue the blasphemous music...
While returning to their bunks, they spy two twittering nuns--"Sister Martha and the novice!"--going into a locked room. Looking through the keyhole Anne sees the women doffing their wimples and exchanging a giddy kiss! Later she rats out the sapphic sisters to her priest, who gets very hot and bothered hearing about it, wanting to know "how it made [Anne] feel." She plays along, imagining the priest undressing and coming toward her...
You know she wants it.
The first step up occurs when Anne and Lore are out biking and run into one of the cowherds in the process of taking a leak against a fence. After teasing him about that, they join him watching his cows and proceed to tease him in a more general way, Lore stretching out on the grass and flashing her panties while Anne asks suggestive questions like "Have you ever made love to a woman?" Driven to distraction, the farm hand finally makes a grab at Lore, who takes off running across the field laughing in a girlish, innocent way. She stops laughing when he gives chase and catches her, throwing her to the ground and proceeding to get very rapey in an extended, progressively harder-to-watch molestation scene. Finally Lore is able to dislodge him with a well-placed knee to the groin, and while he writhes in pain she and Anne, laughing again, open the gate and let all the cattle out before getting back on their bikes and zooming away.
Having tasted the sweet fruits of harassing the uneducated labor force, Anne and Lore next go to the hovel of LĂ©on, a mentally challenged farmhand whose only companions are his half-dozen caged songbirds. Coldly, methodically, the girls poison the birds--"One at a time...so he'll suffer more." SĂ©ria lingers on one unfortunate creature writhing in its death throes (one suspects, despite assurances to the contrary, that animals WERE harmed in the making of this film) and later on the sadistic smiles of the girls as they watch poor LĂ©on discovering his deceased pet. Later that night they go to the rapey cowherd's shack and set it and the surrounding haystacks of FIRE! (Shots of the girls riding their bikes through the fiery cataclysm, laughing all the way, are actually quite chilling.) Yes, things are DEFINITELY getting serious.
Deciding that the time has come to go all the way with their planned "ceremony," the girls recruit the unwitting and witless LĂ©on to help. At the abandoned chapel in the woods they dress LĂ©on in the stolen holy robes and have him swing a censer and administer the Eucharist as they both swear fealty to Satan! This blasphemeriffic scene, with the girls kneeling in white and spouting their devilish oaths before the idiot priest, is quite affecting in a strange way.
Afterward they row out to the middle of a lake with LĂ©on and cast their collected Holy Wafers into the water as a final act of evil effrontery to God. Finally tumbling to what's going on, LĂ©on freaks, at which point the girls push HIM overboard! Things go from slapstick to gradually more serious as the viewer starts to worry for the farmhand's safety--but finally he makes shore along with the girls, at which point they lead him through the woods, once again flashing their legs at him and trying to whip him into a lustful frenzy--it works, and LĂ©on gets rapey too, Lore once again the object of his attentions. This time Anne must rescue her friend by kicking the poor tard in the nose, leaving him bloody and beat as they fly off, their laughter not nearly so pure and innocent now.
There follows a strange interlude where Lore goes away for a few days, once again leaving Anne lonely and bored--trying to amuse herself, she goes to LĂ©on's room again, ripping up his nightclothes and burning holes in his underwear before taking another canary out of its cage and crushing it with her bare hands! Without Lore it's just not fun, though--in fact, perhaps realizing a bit of the enormity of her fall, Anne rushes to the abandoned chapel in tears and falls on her knees at the altar, sobbing--it's a quiet moment that implies Anne's loss of innocence is complete and sadly irreversible.
Backlit Brides of Beelzebub
This movie was apparently inspired by the same source material as Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, which was also about two young girls whose friendship and fantasies led to murder (though in that case their imagination took the form of a magical fairyland rather than hardcore Satanism). However, while I watched it I was reminded more than once of MMMMMovies favorite Alucarda. The girls' extremely close friendship--bordering on but never quite crossing over into a sexual union--is similar, as are the scenes of the girls pledging themselves to Satan as a rebellion against their restrictive upbringing; though in Don't Deliver Us from Evil, the rebellion seems to spring more out of boredom and parental laxity than strictness. (Also, Alucarda has 100% more goat-headed gypsies, and 300% less rapey Frenchmen.)
The acting is very good throughout, particularly by Goupil, who was an art student SĂ©ria recruited because she was NOT a known actress. (She later went on to appear in several more films.) The cinematography is also quite beautiful, and some of the images SĂ©ria gives us will really stick in the viewer's mind, particularly the girls reciting Baudelaire in a concluding talent show that really brings down the house.
"Actually, I don't think they are made for walkin'."
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Halloween III (1982): or, Tricks Just Ain't What They Used to Be
It's easy to get entrenched in a specific point of view, to an extent beyond the weightiness or even usefulness of the original argument that occasioned it. I'd wager we can all think of times-- whether we were discussing politics, religion, or the whether the responsibility for one party's having nearly dipped her ass in the toilet water is more appropriately assigned to the party who left the seat up than to the party who couldn't be bothered to even take a freaking LOOK at the thing before plopping right down*--where the question itself takes a back seat to the emotional investment both sides have in their stated, taken positions. Heels get dug in, battle lines get drawn, and the war rages independent of the larger considerations of right and wrong.
*Hypothetically
In such cases one runs the risk of becoming intractable, locked into not only a point of view but a moment in time, so that even when circumstances, tastes, or experiences bring new interpretations to the old data, one feels he cannot, MUST not abandon the argument into which he's poured so much time and energy. It takes an epiphany, a special kind of leap to climb out of the trench and reconsider things with a fresh, open mind. And, as it is often said, it takes a big man to admit he was wrong.
I am, if nothing else, a big man.
Also, hairy.
I decided shortly after my first viewing of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, more years ago than I'd care to admit (so long it might actually pre-date the film's production in a weird Dr. Who kinda way), that I just didn't like it. It wasn't because of the lack of Michael Meyers--while I do like the big guy, I'm not as emotionally invested in him as many around the horror blogosphere seem to be. It just failed to click for me, failed to coalesce into anything that stuck in my brain and said, "Hey, check me out--I'm awesome." Apart from a few clips on the requisite Halloween retrospectives and the occasional internet paean to the third flick's undiscovered genius, I thereafter avoided giving Halloween III much thought at all. When it did pop up, my thoughts usually ran, "Oh yeah, that's the one I don't like," and promptly dismissed it.
Well now I'm older, hopefully wiser, and definitely more understanding and forgiving of cinematic craziness than I was in my younger, overly serious days. So after listening to the Duke wax poetic on Tom Atkins's moustache for the umpteenth time, receiving a sealed command to the effect from the Administrative Offices of the Tenebrous Empire, and generally failing to find anything else appropriately holiday-themed and MAD sounding for my Halloween viewing this year, I decided to put the past behind me, swallow my pride, and give Halloween III another chance.
Internets: I was wrong.
Tom Atkins does more drinking and smoking before 10 am than most people do all day.
It's actually a very sound plan--a sort of "movie series as extended anthology" of the kind attempted by the HBO Tales from the Crypt movies.* But while we can safely blame Dennis Miller for the failure of that latter day series, John Carpenter's scheme was doomed by its progenitor's massive success. The Halloween brand was already locked in moviegoers' minds as "The One with Michael Meyers," and audiences proved unwilling to go along with any plan that did not involve his unsmiling, paleface-Shatner mug. The plan was abandoned and other writers and directors brought back The Shape in a series of profitable but largely bad sequels, leaving John Carpenter to pursue other projects while not sitting home smoking or cashing his steady royalty checks. Therefore Halloween III: Season of the Witch now stands as the only cinematic evidence of what might have been.
*The similarity of these movie-making schemes has led some conspiracy theorists to suggest that The Crypt Keeper is in fact an aged, tobacco-withered John Carpenter himself, trying to give the plot another go. Extensive investigations in comparative photography have not yet ruled out the possibility that the two entities are one and the same.
"Power Rangers? Iron Man? Don't be gauche."
And there's no Michael Meyers. Get over it.
Revisiting H3 after all these years, I can see where it lost the younger me. It starts off silly and just gets progressively more insane until energetically leaping over the line into gleeful batshittery at the end. It does not operate by the same rules that apply to real life, or even cinematic life. It works instead by what La Belle Dame Tenebrous has called "kid logic." For instance, the villain's motivations are never quite clear--basically he's doing this because he's eeeevil, and that's good enough. The logistics of stealing a massive slab of granite from one of the best-known archeological tourist attractions in the world (and somehow smuggling it to a small rural town in California completely under the radar) are brushed aside with a throwaway line of dialog. ("We had a time getting it here--you wouldn't believe how we did it!") And the automatons--entirely gearwork and oil, they somehow have the power to crush skulls and rip heads off spines--that's one tightly wound mainspring! And with a single anonymous phone call, an unknown doctor is able to change the nationwide programming of 2 out of 3 major television networks. To the younger me, it's all just too many pills to swallow.
Of course the older me is ADDICTED to those pills.
Stick out your tongue and say AAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!
Because the thing about Kid Logic is, while it's not heavy on explanation or logistics, it excels at the spooky, stick-with-you idea or image. Why would anyone give a known killer--in an asylum--a razor-sharp hook for a hand? I dunno, but think of that thing hanging on your door handle. It WORKS. Same thing here--only turned up to eleven and set on FIRE.
It helps that the kids themselves are the targets of the wicked, deadly scheme. Baddie Conal Cochran (an excellently elegant and creepy Dan O'Herlihy) is not screwing around here. HE'S COME FOR YOUR CHILDREN. I mean, clockwork guys ripping the heads off hobos and battle-axe women with blowed-up faces are creepy enough, but GRAPHIC CHILD MURDER? That's above and beyond. I would posit that Lil' Buddy Kupfer's icky demise in Testing Room A (why are they testing on the DAY of the event? It doesn't matter) is directly responsible for the continued dismal sales of Jack-O-Lantern masks in the United States to this day.
In lieu of plot summary, I offer you this catalog of awesomenesses, taken chronologically from my viewing notes. Please feel free to add your own geekery over favorite moments in the comments:
YEE-OWCH.
Geezer Geyser
That'll never come out of the shag."You don't really know much about Halloween... you thought no further than the strange custom of having your children wear masks and go out begging for candy... It was the start of the year in our old Celtic lands, and we'd be waiting... in our houses of wattles and clay. The barriers would be down, you see, between the real and the unreal, and the dead might be looking in... to sit by our fires of turf. Halloween... the festival of Samhain! The last great one took place three thousand years ago, when the hills ran red... with the blood of animals and children."
Conal Cochran: "Suck it, Mike."
358 days till Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Danger: Diabolik (1968): or, "Groovy" Begins with a "D"
I flatter myself that, by this point in my film-reviewing career, I've seen more than my share of groovy movies. From the off-the-hook soundtrack of Naschy's Vengeance of the Zombies to the Bond-parody sex-rompiness of the unassailable Zeta One, from the psychedelic kaleidoscope of All the Colors of the Dark to the booty-shakin' credits of Die Screaming, Marianne, on through the brain-melting bananary of the Russ Meyer ouvere, I feel that by now I should know from Da Groovy. I've put in the time, and I've reaped more than ample rewards.
But leave it to a maestro like Mario Bava to show me how barely I have scratched the surface when it comes to cinematic grooviness, what worlds of psychedelic wonder still wait to be explored. My novice-stature in this arena became embarrassingly clear to me earlier this week when I sat down to view Bava's masterpiece of comic book-y, super-villainy goodness, 1968's Danger: Diabolik.
What we have here is basically a master class in Doing It Right, late-60s version. Bava's impeccable visual style, applied to a source material to which it is perfectly, uniquely suited? Check. Hip-wigglin' score by the man who invented Soundtrack Cool, Ennio "Fookin'" Morricone? Check. John Philip Law in the role he was BORN to play? Check. Marisa Mell as one of the most gorgeous femme fatales EVAR, not to mention prototypical James Bond villain Adolfo "Thunderball" Celi? IT'S ALMOST TOO MUCH GROOVY!
Based on the wildly popular (and still going strong) fumetti created by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani in 1962, Danger: Diabolik recounts the adventures of the master criminal and mystery man known only as Diabolik (John Philip Law). Leaving the origin story for those with the resources and inclination to track them down (or else trusting his audience to know already), Bava presents Diabolik's exploits as a series of distinct capers, each one more incredible and dangerous than the last. With apparently unlimited financial and technological resources, a ruthless, cunning, amoral intelligence, and the assistance of his equally capable lover Eva (the completely stunning Marisa Mell), Diabolik steals millions from the private sector and the government alike, always several steps ahead of his hopelessly outmatched adversary, Inspector Ginko (Michel Piccoli).
The opening episode finds Ginko charged with protecting the transfer of $10 million in hard cash from one bank to--well, somewhere else. Since it's "The largest single shipment of dollars ever made...at six in the morning!" Ginko is worried that Diabolik will jump up to make an impromptu withdrawal. Thinking to outwit the Master Criminal, Ginko sends a heavily armed motorcade complete with motorcycle escort and rooftop sniper protection out the front door, carrying sacks and sacks of BLANK PAPER! The real shipment is stashed in a fake diplomat's car--a Rolls Royce, natch--which will take an alternate route to the harbor where the cash will be loaded on a ship, for some reason. The old bait-and-switch--that NEVER FAILS!
Eyes on the Road
And when I say roll, I mean ROLL. The credit sequence here really sets the tone for the whole flick, with a whirling psychedelic kaleidoscope spiraling out of control under comic sans serif lettering, all to the strains of radio hit and unofficial Diabolik theme song "Deep Deep Down." (Check it out here [youtube, audio only]: you'll be glad you did.) Once the names have been called we join Diabolik in mid-getaway, dodging machinegun fire in his trademark black Jaguar before ducking into a tunnel to evade the cops. Inside he meets Eva in her trademark WHITE Jaguar, switches cars, and sends the untenanted black Jag outside and over the cliff. While Ginko and the cops investigate the wreckage, Diabolik and Eva double back and head toward the supervillain's AMAZING underground lair.
You should see the basement!
Diabolik parks the white Jag in a garage-cum-elevator, and having nothing better to do, he and Eva make out most sensuously while the car descends to the lower levels. Yes, they're making out in a JAG, which in turn is IN AN ELEVATOR--why settle for one makeout fantasy when you can have two? Then, after a truly groovy "duelling showers" scene shot through psychedelic glass, we find out why someone as rich as Diabolik REALLY wanted all that cash: to spread it over a gigantic, circular, rotating bed so that he and his amazing blonde girlfriend can have SEX on it, of course! As though there could be any OTHER reason...
Back in London, the Powers that Be are not enjoying being made fools of, least of all the Minister of Finance, played to stuffy British broad-comedic perfection by Terry-Thomas, the lovable gap-toothed comic of Dr. Phibes fame. At a press conference the Minister announces that in view of Diabolik's wanton disregard of decency and the law, Parliament has reinstated the Death Penalty in hopes of deterring further embarrassment. Of course what neither the minister nor Ginko realize is that Diabolik and Eva are in attendance at that very press conference--Eva especially keeping it very low key in a BANANA YELLOW overcoat and UH-MAZING EUROTRASH SUNGLASSES. To show their disdain for the government's attempts to reign them in, Diabolik and Eva release "EXHILARATING GAS" on the Minister, police, and attendant press, and the resulting exhilaration is enough to get poor Terry fired and Ginko in hot water with his boss once again.
Since it was Italy in the 1960s, they actually blended right in.
For me this scene really established the character of Diabolik in the film--not only is he a brilliant criminal, but he also has a playful streak that plays in to everything he does. There's no reason for him to pump the party full of laughing gas other than as a sort of "Nyah-nyah" prank, for which the potential downsides--i.e., getting caught and HANGED--are nowhere near the provisional gain. And yet he does it anyway, because that's just how he rolls. (Also, I think, to make his beloved Eva smile; again, WHAT BETTER REASON?) Though he later racks up quite the body count with his trademark throwing knives and terroristic explosives work, I could never see him hereafter as anything more than a mischievous, playful, very horny kid.
Next, in my favorite totally extraneous scene in the film, we get to see a psychedelic nightclub party in full swing--complete with a Hippie playing a Xylophone Stairway, a Nature Nymph in repose, Go-Go Girls with Bilo-Tatts, Mamas and Papas-style music, rampant drug use, and some of the most athletic fruuging you'll ever see outside an Olympic venue. The police raid the party and we never see it or hear it referenced again, but some things are so awesome that they need no justification. They just ARE.
Taking a different tack, in the next episode Ginko decides to bring down the hammer on organized crime, in hopes that the added pressure will lead the gangsters to join in the hunt for Diabolik in order to get the fuzz off their tips. (Oooer.) An awesome spinning headline montage and some groovy animated map raids attract the attention of crime lord Ralph Valmont, played with wonderful oily menace by Adolpho "Thunderball" Celi. Valmont wastes no time establishing his awesomeness, dropping an uppity underling out the trapdoor of his in-flight aircraft and hosting a party at his pad with a priceless emerald necklace as the guest of honor. Watching the announcement of the party on television in between makeout sessions, Eva asks Diabolik for the necklace as a birthday present. And we're off!
A horrified Valmont realizes he left his Viagra on shore.
Enough cannot be said about the visual style of the entire flick, and that's all Bava, baby. A recurring mirror motif becomes more noticeable and awesome as the movie goes on, and the brilliant, absolutely clear blue skies in every single exterior daytime shot just open up the frame like all outdoors. The mise-en-scene is never less than painterly (no wonder, since Bava *was* an artist), and the groovy colors and creative compositions mean there's always something wonderful to look at.
The actors are fantastic as well. John Philip Law is an imposing blank slate for much of the film--in fact he has no dialogue at all for nearly 35 minutes, and afterwards his deadpan delivery is less wooden than it is cool and collected--Diabolik never loses control, is never flustered, and seldom needs to raise his voice. Piccoli as Ginko is also good, conveying the capable, intelligent inspector who's nonetheless out of his league, doing particularly well when he's forced to admit his grudging respect for his adversary. Celi owns every scene he's in. Marisa Mell would be hypnotic if she never said a word--therefore, her wonderful portrayal of the playful, completely devoted partner to Diabolik's strong silent-type is an added bonus, and their chemistry is fantastic. (And, according to Law's commentary, very very real.) And even though the most flesh Mell shows is a long, luxurious shot of her smooth, bare back (zang), the sexuality she exudes along with the implication that for Diabolik and Eva EVERYTHING IS SEXY (the capers could be interpreted as complex, dangerous sessions of extremely satisfying foreplay) make this movie seem a lot dirtier than its retro-conned PG-13 rating.
You know, when you wear a mask that EXACTLY conforms to your facial features, it's pretty obvious you're just fucking with people.
The commentary track with Law and Lucas is informative and worth a listen, if for nothing else than Law's obvious and contagious joy about the whole thing. They have some interesting observations about the problems with bringing Diabolik back today (he is, after all, basically a terrorist), and how even in '68 Bava dialed back some of the character's cruelty from the comics. Also interesting is the stated fact that Dino de Laurentiis apparently gave Bava $3 million to make the flick, and Mario brought it in for an amazing $400K--when you see the finished result, you'll wonder how even $3 mil could cover it. It's no wonder that the movie has been called one of the greatest comic book adaptations ever, and is still considered so by some, if their purview stretches beyond Spider-Man and The Dark Knight.
So for beautiful camera work all the way through, amazing low-tech special effects, inventive plotting, a spectacular score by Morricone, and no shortage of gorgeous groovy-girls, I give Danger: Diabolik 3 thumbs. Deep, deep down, I think you'll dig it.
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