Night Warning

Teenager Billy Lynch has some serious problems: a ‘homophobic’ cop thinks he is a homo-cidal killer and both his hopelessly neurotic/psychotic aunt Cheryl and gay middle-aged gym coach want to fuck him. After his aunt Cheryl impulsively kills a closeted gay man (the longtime lover of coach Tom Landers) who ignores her emotional and sexual needs, Billy boi is suspected of being the prime suspect in a bizarre homo love triangle by an aggressive fag-bashing police detective named Joe Carlson. In the curiously exploitative slasher flick Night Warning (1982) directed by William Asher (who is probably best known for directing silly 'beach party' films like Beach Party and Beach Blanket Bingo), lustful murder, subconscious oedipal complexes, playful pederasty, awkward teenage sex, and virtually every other popular example of Freudian neurosis is assembled in a way that makes this underrated slasher film shine boldly in a subgenre that is well known for its mindless murder-driven mediocrity, and feeble and contrived formless formulas.  Although amateurishly directed and devoid of any sort of genuine artistic merit, Night Warning is a film that calculatedly slaughters its mostly forgettable early 1980s contemporaries.  Owing more to Alfred Hitchcock’s proto-slasher flick Psycho (1960) than an intemperate undead retard in a hockey mask, Night Warning is a schlocky psychosexual romp through the domesticated sidewalk lands of unchecked suburban perversions. Many people have an eccentric, childless and single aunt in their family, thus Night Warning hits close to home as it exaggerates this relatively common phenomenon to a most pestiferous and ambiguously politically incorrect degree. For those that fancy sexually confused and erotically deviant quasi-slasher flicks like Paul Bartel’s Private Parts (1972) and A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (a film that seems to borrow liberally from Night Warning), Night Warning makes for a pleasantly perverted family affair. 

 Apparently, Night Warning is a bastardized adaptation of the 1981 novel Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (a title that is one of many alternative names in which the film was released under) written by Joseph Burgo and Richard Natale; a somewhat obscure literary item that, unsurprisingly, features more secondary characters, subplots, and crucial character back-stories than the simply structured, but audaciously themed film. Night Warning also has the distinction and horror fiend honor of being one of the original UK Video Nasty films on the DPP 72 list. Unlike a lot of the Video Nasty flicks (e.g. Blood Feast, The Burning) , which are usually nothing more than plot-less platitudes with the occasional unwarranted murder of a scantily clad whore, Night Warning is one of the few works on this dubious, outmoded list that deserves its reputation as a veraciously coldhearted expression of vulgarity and debauchery as the film is an intransigent assault on society itself, especially the sheltered middle-class; the segment of society that is most often ideally portrayed in lighthearted, sentimentalist sitcoms. Billy, being a literal bastard and the unconscious desire of two divergently perverted minds, is an unwanted abstraction in suburbia, even if he is a nice chap. Additionally, in a traditional middle-class societies of the past, few individuals were considered more pathetic and repellant than a childless old maid past her aesthetic prime, aside from maybe a childless middle-aged homosexual. In Night Warning, all of these socially undesirable (but increasingly more common) ingredients are mingled in a slasher work that was surely prophetic of things to come in postmodern Levittown. 

Following in the grand cult cinema tradition of neurotic female murderers, criminals, and sadists prevalent throughout the wonderful works of Poe-possessed auteur Curtis Harrington (What's the Matter with Helen?, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?), Night Warning is a film were sexual repression leads to insensible and wholly cockamamie malevolence of the killing kind. Behind the translucent façade of Aunt Cheryl’s pseudo-motherly persona lies an aberrant mind fit for a lobotomy. Unlike most slasher films, Night Warning features pop-psychoanalytic reasoning as to why a seemingly normal woman of the suburbs is more fitted for being an unflinching murderer than a warm mother. One could argue that Night Warning is ultimately an early work of homo-philia with misogynistic undertones. While the killer is a man-hating suburban wench who literally prays to an altar of failed male conquests, the detective also acts as a sub-antagonist who sees all societal problems as the direct result of sadistic sodomy. Undoubtedly, the most sympathetic character in Night Warning is coach Tom; a man who acts as both Billy’s surrogate mother and father. While little Bill’s abusive aunt wants to keep him imprisoned for life in her provincial madhouse, coach Tom becomes a crucial mentor for the boy and, to the dismay of aunt Cheryl, even attempts to get the lonely lad a college scholarship. Whether Tom is an active member of NAMBLA or not remains to be seen, but what Night Warning adds up to is one gutsily outlandish and fortuitously worthwhile slasher flick that has unequivocally left a number of desensitized gorehounds in a startled stupor of perplexed emotions, and delayed and equally muddled responses.  Although nominated for the Saturn Award for the Best Horror Movie of 1982 by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, Night Warning failed to earn the prize.  Naturally, this does not surprise me as subversive works like Night Warning are bound to rub a number of people the wrong way, especially the sort of slasher fan pedigree (I have personally met a number of these people) who fantasizes about being the masked (and often mentally deficient) killer.  Of course, I doubt many people can relate to an incestuous middle-aged bird with a childlike fondness for 'playing house' in a real house, but she sure does know how to treat a guest.

 -Ty E

Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural

 The idea of a mid-1970s PG-rated vampire flick about a young girl usually seems like a less than tempting prospect, but after hearing much underground praise for the film Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1973) aka Lemora: The Lady Dracula aka The Legendary Curse of Lemora directed by Richard Blackburn, I finally decided to suck it up and give the film a fair and serious viewing after having a copy of the work in my possession for over a year. Lemora is probably one of the best reasons as to why one should not judge a film by its rating and marginality, as it proved to be one of the most truly virtuoso vampire flicks I have had the luxury to see and one of the most uniquely American ‘horror’ films ever made. Taking critical inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft (The Shadow Over Innsmouth), Arthur Machen (The White People), Mervyn Laurence Peake (Boy in Darkness), film noir, and the more unadorned aspects of 20th century American history, Lemora is a splendidly unrivaled Southern Gothic set in the depression era American south. After seeing the relative success of Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) directed by Bob Kelljan, Lemora director Richard Blackburn (rightfully) felt confident that he could direct a superior horror film due to his somewhat uncommon literate understanding of the horror story, especially those written by the likes of Lovecraft. Sticking to the southern tradition of honoring family history, Blackburn’s paternal confederate ancestry would also be a crucial inspiration on the pleasantly peculiar atmosphere and themes of country fried grit, bastardized backwoods Baptist Christianity, and downright unholy repression-based perversions that are featured throughout the film. On top of providing his ½ Yankee son with inspirational stories about real-life country yokels who don’t take kindly to strangers in their towns, Richard’s father C.V. Blackburn also acted as executive producer for Lemora and even played a small role in the film as a seemingly drunken man urinating in public. Richard Blackburn, himself, would also play the imperative role of the Reverend; a somewhat dubious religious leader who acts as a surrogate father to the child lead Lila Lee (played by the already adult age Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith). 

Despite her maturity in real-life, no better person was born to play the role of 13-year-old Lila Lee in Lemora than Cheryl Smith. Nowadays, Smiths is best known for her roles in a variety of cult films (Caged Heat, Phantom of the Paradise, Cheech and Chong’s Up In Smoke) and playing drums with alpha-dyke musician Joan Jett. Horror films are well known for their glaring lack of sufficient and believable acting, yet Cheryl Smith, with her truly sad and ‘damaged’ facial expressions, lent a certain authenticity to Lemora that is central to the driving emotional and visceral potency of the film. Lesley Gilb, who plays the nazi chic lesbian vampiress Lemora with unconventional witch attributes, also adds a exigent ingredient to the film as she acts as the perfect antithesis to the innocence of little lady Lila Lee, both in personality and physique. While Lila is a humble and thoroughly chaste girl with angelic blonde hair and a pleasantly petite body, Lemora is a domineering vamp with a tall stature and dark features (aside from her corpse-like skin) who does not take no for an answer, whether it be from a man, monster, or child.  Lemora has a collection of loyal undead children and hopes to coherence Lila into joining her ferocious foster family by using a variety of somewhat subtle erotically driven compliments such as, "what an exciting figure you have." The male characters featured in Lemora range from degenerate criminals to active scumbags to potential molesters, yet most of the women are puritanically dressed Baptist lemmings who swoon for the handsome charlatan Reverend. Lila’s father is a well dressed, pudgy gangster who did the unspeakable act of killing his wife/daughter's mother, hence why the lonely girl was adopted by the good Reverend. The Reverend himself even seems to have a hard time keeping his hands off of Lila’s little lily, but through the imagined power of the lord and misinterpreting religious texts, he seems to mostly persevere, at least for most of the film. During the beginning of Lemora, Lila is summoned by her apparently dying father (under false pretenses) to meet him in the decaying feral town of Astaroth where everyone has some degree of the degenerative Lovecraftian “Astaroth look.” On route, Lila’s bus is attacked by barbaric lycanthropic-like vampires and is intern saved and imprisoned by the beautiful yet endlessly cunning Lemora who therein throws the young girl into a phantasmagorical tribulation where the line between reality and dreams has been illustriously ripped apart at the seams. 

Lemora, not unlike Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) directed by Jaromil Jireš and The Reflecting Skin (1990) directed by Philip Ridley, is an ominous coming-of-age flick that – while too scary, sexualized, and incoherent for the typical child (and a number of prudish adults) to view – does manages to recapture the wonder and hopeless bewilderment of childhood. As a longtime cynic, skeptic, and misanthrope (even as a prepubescent child), I was even able to tap into my “inner-child” via Lemora. In fact, I was so surprised by the impact the film had on me that I re-watched Lemora two more times the day after my initial viewing just to make sure I was not in a state of random hypnotic derangement during the night before. Seeing Lemora was the closest I have come to recapturing the singularly penetrating and totally unpredictable experience I had while randomly watching Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm (1979) late one night on cable television for the first time when I was about ten years old. Lemora is one of few American horror films that has managed to combine stark surrealism, taboo religious themes, traditional horror elements, vintage Americana, and unpretentious artsy in a work that stands alone in terms of originality and sheer quality of pure entertainment. The fact that Lemora is not as well known nor as highly revered (by fans and critics alike) as films like George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) is nothing short of a testament to the peasant-like philistinic tastes of artistically-disinterested American audiences.  Although some believe the obscurity of Lemora is the result of the film being banned by the Catholic League of Decency, director Richard Blackburn has voiced (on the audio commentary of the Synapse Films release of the film) that such claims are nothing short of hearsay as he has never received any form of formal notification from the organization. Thankfully, at least the French – the people who essentially invented film theory and have consistently esteemed film as a legitimate art form – have long respected Lemora as piece of exceptionally crafted cinematic design.  After all, Erich von Stroheim did not spend his remaining days in France for nothing.

Lemora seems to be an all around cursed production of sorts as not only did the film fall into the unfortunate realm of uncertainty after a limited run of theatrical distribution, but the two lead actresses of the film would also meet grim fates. Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith, who was apparently high on painkillers throughout the production of Lemora, died in late 2002 at the age of 47 after suffering complications from liver disease and hepatitis due to a calamitous two decade addiction to heroin, which also resulted in two prison sentences and the total disintegration of her acting career. Of course, Smith was not as innocent on the real-life set of Lemora as her character seems in the movie as she apparently bragged to the film crew that she gave Dick Blackburn a bulging boner during their kissing scene; a claim the bashful director wholly denies. Lesley Gilb (aka Lesley Taplin), whose acting career unfortunately all but ended after her excellent performance as the title character in Lemora, died tragically in a car accident on highway 101 in Los Angeles, California in 2009 at the age of 62. Aside from a brief period of critical acclaim for co-writing the script for Paul Bartel’s black comedy Eating Raoul (1982) and penning a couple episodes for the George A. Romero produced anthology horror TV series Tales From the Darkside (1983-1988), Lemora director Richard Blackburn’s filmmaking career was also cut prematurely short. Still, few filmmakers can boast that they have assembled a work as gorgeously quaint, exemplar, and full of artistic integrity as Lemora, and for that alone, Mr. Blackburn deserves much praise. The film is a virtual confederate haunted house amusement ride in film form that never falls into banality and calculated clichés, nor preposterous pretensions, but provides the viewer with an incomparable time of very real predatory pedophilic monsters, as well as those of the imaginary bloodsucking sort.  By the conclusion of Lemora, the viewer will probably question whether or not Lila's experiences were the product of reality or her dreams, which is indubitably one of the greatest strengths of a fundamentally anarchic primordial film of ceaseless ambiguity where nothing is as it seems.

-Ty E

Hitch-Hike

As far as I am concerned, David Hess (no relation to Rudolf) is my favorite Jewish-American actor. This is for many reasons, but most specifically due to his totally genuine expertise at playing perverted homicidal psychopaths of the most sleazy and degrading sort. If any actor was born to play an Irgun terrorist, it is Hess, but alas, Hollywood would never produce such a film, thus his career was secluded mostly to the marginal realm of marvelous exploitation cinema.  Although Hess is best known for his infamous performance as the exceedingly deranged felon-gang leader Krug in Wes Craven's Last House on the Left (1972), his greatest and most eclectically maniacal performance is as a bank-robbing hitchhiker who escapes from a mental institution for the criminally insane in the Italian production Hitch-Hike (1977) aka Autostop rosso sangue directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile; a work that makes Robert Harmon’s subsequent film The Hitcher (1986) seem like a softcore flirting match between a mature androphile and young, shy hustler. In Hitch-Hike, an American fellow who calls himself Adam Konitz (David Hess) hitches a ride with a vacationing Italian husband and wife that are on their way to Los Angeles, California. The husband, Walter Mancini (played by the great Franco Nero), is a thoroughly debased alcoholic Italian journalist whose wife Eve (played by Corinne Clery) wears the pants firmly and indisputably in the relationship. After picking up hyperactive Herr Hess, the married couple soon realizes that their passenger enjoys more than playful mind-games (albeit of the perverted philistine sort) and that he is brandishing a weapon more deadly than his equally pesky penis. Being a jolly immoral psychopath, the hitchhiker utterly enjoys taunting his less than hysterical bourgeois hostages and, in no time, has them fighting each other. Walter, being nothing more than a glorified gossip columnist, is not match for his vivacious wife who is a wealthy heiress and all-around independent women. It is quite obvious for the beginning of Hitch-Hike that Walter has a dark underbelly in his masked soul that is rapidly reaching a boiling point. It is only his unexpected fateful meeting with a hairbrained and pussy-obsessed nut-job that finally empowers Walter with the tenacity he needs to meet his truly sinister destiny. 

Upon first glance, Hitch-Hike seems like your typical psycho hitchhiker flick, but it breaks all the conventions of theme and morality in this small, but mostly spectacular, subgenre. What makes the film especially interesting is that virtually all the characters in the film go beyond the prissy Hollywood realm of carbon-copy good and evil. In Hitch-Hike, the knight does not comes to save his princess from the dragon, nor does he fancy bedding her down and getting his dick wet. When it comes to virile male potency, the swarthy cop-killing hitchhiker is the only man who has what it takes to unload bullets and unsanctioned semen. While the frivolous hitchhiker spouts narcissistic and delusional fantasies about having his unremarkable life stories documented for the totally apathetic world to see, passive Walter dreams of a ‘progressive’ male-only world of communal buggery. It is most apparent that lady Eve is sexually repressed and almost welcoming of the hitchhiker’s assertive forced entry. Seeing as her own man is not man enough to properly provide for her, let alone protect her, Eve ultimately takes it upon herself to slay the evil dragon and the venomous lizard in his pants. For her noble and uber-miss strength, Eve is ‘rewarded’ in a way that has no rivals in the history of cinema in terms of gross betrayal and defiance of morality. In short, Hitch-Hike is not the sort of film one would want to show a prospective female mate, let alone a dictatorial girlfriend, but it is the sort of work that would be big with militant homo-supremacists, misogynistic serial killers, and maybe a couple oddball feminists. Needless to say, although I thought Hitch-Hike would be your typical Italian pseudo-Hollywood clone, it turned out to be one of the most shocking and strangely rewarding films I have seen in sometime. 

Throughout Hitch-Hike, Franco Nero proves his versatility as an actor by auspiciously playing a proto-metrosexual character who has his testicles carried around in his wife’s thousand dollar purse. Like a lot of great films, Hitch-Hike is even more relevant today than when it was first released, which is virtually unheard of for films of this sort. After all, in our increasingly office-based abstract paper-shuffling western world, women are asserting themselves in ever sector of society and homogenized political homos are demanding that society put male-on-male sodomy on a sparkling lavender pedestal. Naturally, nowadays masculine maniacs and audacious alphas are rarely needed to lead raping and pillaging conquering armies and are but a mere pestilence that has no place in society aside from prison and the imaginary and insignificant world of professional wrestling. When it comes to a modern look at the sexes, Hitch-Hike takes a vicious yet honest nihilistic approach; offering no answers but foretelling a more conflicting and unhealthy future.  Near the conclusion of the film, Walter and Eve are threatened and affronted by an unruly group of irrational and criminally-inclined youths who give evidence as to what to expect from future generations: hyper-materialism and mindless perniciousness.

Undoubtedly, the most glaring flaw of Hitch-Hike is that the film was dubbed, but I guess that is what one comes to expect from any and all Italian films. Still, it is nothing short of a tragedy that one does not get to hear the authentic dueling voices of heinous Hess and beta Nero.  For those that enjoyed Hitch-Hike, the short 17-minute documentary The Devil Thumbs a Ride (2002) directed by David Gregory (Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Shocking Truth, The Theatre Bizarre) for Blue Underground, is also a nice, if hopelessly superficial and overly sentimental, treat.  While lacking in any real intellectual depth as far as socio-political issues are concerned, the brief documentary does feature some worthwhile personal commentary from Franco Nero and his accomplice David Hess.  Unsurprisingly, Hess declares his performance in Hitch-Hike to be his finest.  Nero also discusses the little problem of breaking his arm after punching a naughty horse during the shooting of the spaghetti western Keoma (1976) right before the production of Hitch-Hike.  Seeing as his character is an emotional cripple, breaking his arm was indubitably a blessing in disguise as the visibly broke arm is symbolic of the character's emasculated impotence.  While shooting a fight scene in Hitch-Hike, Nero also accidentally broke Hess's Hebrew honker.  I think most people will agree after seeing Hitch-Hike that it was a noble sacrifice.

 David Alexander Hess (September 19, 1936 – October 8, 2011)

-Ty E

Michael (2011)

 

There are few members of the human race as worthy of contempt as the pedophile, and no I'm not going to go on a rant about the well-documented effect childhood sexual abuse has on the individual or society as a whole. Rather, I disagree with pedophilia on grounds of (a) it is arrested development taken to its most pathetic extreme and (b) why would ANYONE want to fuck a kid? Pedophilia to me is the most extreme form of social retardation, in which a delusional man-child who has not spent enough time with actual children to realize that however intermittently amusing they may be from time to time, kids are iron-willed little shits with terrible hygiene, awful taste, and precious little life experience (duh), or who has spent plenty of time with kids and finds the above qualities boner-inducing. Sure, there are plenty of why's, often pointing to abuse in the pedo's own childhood, but do we weep in sympathy when we see a thirty year old man decked out in Spiderman PJ's playing Xbox in his parent's basement? A pedophile is essentially that guy, only instead of trying to grasp onto childhood via video games or buying seasons of beloved Saturday morning Hanna-Barbera shitfests on Blu-Ray, he tries to re-live the sexual excitement of playing "house" for the first time.

You see, most of us at some point or another, have better, wetter, and altogether more satisfying sexual experiences when we "put away the childish things" and make our way through high school and into the early years of adulthood. This is when the human being of either sex is both at peak physical form AND often blissfully unaware of the power the wield over interested parties, thus enabling schlubs like us to experience the divinity of silky smooth skin, taut firm breasts, rock-hard boners and abs, and the incomparable beauty of age-appropriate braces. This is why "teen" is probably the most popular category of pornography, at least in terms of search results. Pedophiles, I'd say, tend to be those who missed out on some of those pivotal experiences and continued to fixate on the only sexual experiences they've had, be it playing house with their sister or showering with pops. Of course, I'm sure some pedophiles are such without rhyme and reason, and that wanting to fuck someone who in a year or two will be of no interest to them sexually (sounds like most relationships, though, but I digress) is an "orientation", though only in as far as a rapist could claim that donning a ski mask is a part of his "orientation", and something to take pride in. However fringe, there are groups like Nambla (Ginsberg dug 'em) and "activists" like Lindsay Ashford who attempt to put a "human face" on the affliction- a pasty, doesn't-get-out-much, relies on checks from mom, collects Star Wars memorabilia face, but a face nonetheless. Guys who take great care in stressing that somehow being a "girl lover" or someday-diddler of boys doesn't translate into being a "molester", and that often feel isolated from society at large, ostracized for their "beliefs", and as a result, are often suicidal. On the flip side are parents groups, the media, and politicians, who use the fear of these failures to rally the public into all kinds of hysterics. Just look at all of the "ritual abuse" at daycares in the eighties, in which prosecutors, law enforcement, and bewildered kids worked themselves into a frenzy and used the mere spectre of childhood sexual abuse to send countless innocent people to prison, people who no doubt could not understand what the fuck was going on. Who would want to "schtup" one of those little snotnoses anyways?

Which brings us to Michael, an Austrian film that neither weeps for the titular pedo nor works itself into hysterics over its subject matter- five months in the life of man who keeps a young boy locked in his basement as a sex slave. Michael is in many ways the textbook pedophile- a fairly immature man-child, isolated from society because of his compulsions, but still managing to shuck and jive his way through an office job, some strained "surface level" friendships, and keeping the family at bay with tales of a long-distance girlfriend. Michael Fuith, with his shy, nerdy countenance, male pattern hair loss, and pale "doesn't get out much" complexion, is dead-on in the title role. Where Michael differs from many pedophiles is that, rather than simply beating off to Tiger Beats in view of playgrounds or offering to babysit his sister's kids, Michael has himself his very own Wolfgang (a heartbreaking performance by David Rauchenberger), a ten-year old boy kept locked in the basement of his state-of-the-art flat. The film is an extreme exercise, not in terms of the specifics of what is shown onscreen (in fact, there is not a single scene of molestation in the entire film, and the only questionable moment- of Michael exposing a non-plussed Wolfgang to his flaccid penis- was achieved via split screen), but in restraint, giving us only enough details to figure out what Michael is foisting on the young boy (seeing Michael, in an earlier scene, wash said cock in the sink after leaving Wolfgang's lodgings is the first overt reference to what precisely is going on). Director Markus Schleinzer, a long-time casting director for Michael Haneke, takes the cold, clinical ambiance of his mentor's best films to new heights, refusing to cut the audience any slack through lazy moralizing. Nor does he attempt to instill outrage by assaulting our senses with any over-the-top imagery whatsoever, instead cultivating a thick blanket of unease via static camera non-movement and letting subtly unsettling moments linger uncomfortably throughout and letting our own imaginations add the necessary pathos and horror to Wolfgang's situation.

As the film wears on, a surprising amount of jet-black humor enters the fray. Rather than view Michael as an 'stache-twiddling super villain, we are treated to the site of a pathetic sociopath whose life outside of his fuck slave is one sad encounter after another, whether it be painful attempts to connect with other men on a ski trip, a particularly humiliating go at having sex with an adult woman, or having to dodge the advances of a smitten co-worker. As his exterior life continues to be awkward and ungratifying, Wolfgang begins to fight back, first by attacking Michael's idealized view of their relationship (such as giving Michael a crayon drawing of a mommy and daddy for Christmas), and then by physically attempting to put up a resistance to Michael's advances and planning his escape. Michael, with no idea of how to treat a child aside from as a sexual object, meets these road-bumps with physical aggression, condescension, and eventually, in a scene that rides the creepy/comedy divide expertly, by attempting to kidnap Wolfgang a companion to assuage the boy's loneliness (and no doubt replace Wolfgang, as in one chilling scene of misdirection we see Michael clearing a spot in the woods when Wolfgang exhibits a high fever that Michael, understandably, can't seek medical attention for). The film also skirts the thin line between tragedy and hilarity in a scene resulting from Wolfgang's fever, when Michael, walking to a pharmacy, is struck by a vehicle. The absurdity of the situation is drawn to almost painful suspense as we witness Michael's extended hospital stay, all the while wondering what is becoming of the ill Wolfgang, hanging on to life in the basement.

Michael is as bold an achievement as I've seen in the cinemas all year. The effect it has on the viewer is not unlike that of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer in the way it respects us, the audience, enough to show the realities of a resolutely unsympathetic, destructive main character without having to beat us over the head with how evil and disgusting he is. And unlike a comparatively "Hollywood" flick like The Woodsman, there isn't some underlying message about "kidfuckers are people, too." What we're given is a reality that is experienced by unlucky nephews, altar boys, and Thai pre-teen "sex workers" on a daily basis, from a purely objective standpoint. Sure, we see the terrible effect this has on the defeated Wolfgang, whose tears mean next-to-nothing to his bulge-stroking captor, but Schleinzer trusts us to draw our own revulsion from his plight without having to rely on any showy speeches or risque imagery, and when the boy does strike out and become insolent, I for the only time in my adult life found myself rooting for a kid to be as annoying and "difficult" as possible. As the film nears its end, unexpected occurrences foreshadowed earlier on ratchet up the tension considerably, creating a true-to-life horror film with none of the familiar trappings of the genre. Watching it with an audience was definitely an experience, as groans and often showy "need to convince others around me of how horrible I find this" gasps gave way to nervous chuckles, then outright laughter, then further groans, and in the ending scenes, a tension-enhancing hush that made it all the harder to bear. All in all, a masterpiece that I won't be revisiting any time soon, and one of the only films to examine this particular subject manner with honesty and candor.

-Jon-Christian

Queen of Blood

 

    

Queen of Blood is a result of Roger Corman, at his resourceful best, purchasing special effects footage from some big-budget Ruskie space opera and then hiring Night Tide director and Kenneth Anger chum Curtis Harrington to shoot a film around it (in about a week, no less). What could very well have been as slipshod and haphazard as something like The Terror, however, is instead a transcendent piece of pulp entertainment; the cinematic analogue of an EC comic like Weird Science with the dreamlike atmosphere of Night Tide and the color scheme of Bava's Planet of the Vampires.

The year is 1990. At the International Institute of Space Technology, while keeping an eye out for space signals, Laura James receives a transmission that the project's head, Dr. Farraday, recognizes as an attempt by an extraterrestrial race's attempt at communication. After Farraday announces the exciting news, Laura receives a video from the aliens, showing that they've crash landed on Mars. With this, Farraday sends Laura and two other astronauts aboard the spaceship Oceano to Mars to investigate, where they discover one humanoid corpse and evidence that it's companion took an escape ship to one of the moons of Mars. Laura's love interest, Allan, and his pal Tony convince Farraday to allow them to make the trips to one of Mars moons, where they can launch a satellite in order to locate the stranded alien ship, which they soon find. On board? An unconscious, green-skinned woman. The astronauts board the Oceano (save Tony, who stays behind to wait for the arrival of the Oceano II) with their inhuman cargo, who regains consciousness and wields an off-putting, strange countenance and refuses to touch the food they offer. Before you can say "space vampire", crew members begin dropping off like flies, seemingly by their own hands, and all but Laura seem susceptible to the space woman's otherworldly "charms." 

Why this flick works where myriad of its ilk fail is Harrington's sure-handed direction, the expert utilization of the Russian footage, and a winning cast. Harrington, responsible for both the direction and the script, manages to infuse the film with both the "gee whiz!" matinee attitude of sci-fi of the time and the haunting lyricism of his debut feature, beginning with a credits sequence of three minutes or so of unsettling, Lovecraftian avant-garde paintings by John Cline (if anyone has any info on the guy, feel free to share- some really stellar work I've been able to dig up next to nothing on) set to dependably foreboding music. When "The Queen" shows her true colors, stalking and killing members of the expedition, the cinematography shows ITS colors, which are vivid and assuredly dream-like, at times suggesting what Ken Anger himself might have done if he'd taken a very different route of independent film. The drawn-out special effects sequences from Mechte Navstrechu and Nebo Zovyot, respectively, actually add to the trippy vibe by being singularly odd (it's difficult to tell what precisely the aliens are doing in these sequences, but adds to their alien nature considerably) and dubbed over with the eerie music that makes sci-fi-horror of this time period such a joy to listen to (some I recognized as the Barron's score from Forbidden Planet). The costumes and set-direction take Bava's Planet of the Vampires to an even kitschier level of retro-futurist fashions and garish color filters, making this eye-candy of the first order.

And speaking of Planet of the Vampires, a double-feature of Queen and that masterpiece would account for a big chunk of the plot of Dan O' Bannon's Alien script (what with the space eggs and distress beacons, but save the whole stalk-and-slash by phallic Giger-grotesque element), and I for one definitely see just as much Queen of Blood in Tobe Hooper's genius Lifeforce, also scripted by O'Bannon, as I do Colin Wilson's Space Vampires, on which Lifeforce is ostensibly based (especially in the scenes within THAT film in which a hot alien chick systematically makes her way through all the men aboard a spaceship). What pushes this one out of the ranks of "fun time waster" into near-classic is the solid cast. John Saxon takes the lead as Allan, delivering dialogue in that slightly-off, wooden fashion that Saxon somehow manages to make inherently affable. Dennis Hopper, a Harrington pal and holdover from Night Tide, isn't yet the raving loon we'd come to love from a distance, but does manage some eye-bugging as The Queen grabs him by the nuts every bit that that mermaid chick did in his other Harrington outing, while Basil Rathbone collects his check as the head-up-his-ass Dr. Farraday (he reportedly filmed his scenes for this one concurrently- and on the same sets- with his scenes in Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet). Of particular note are the two female stars: Judi Meredith's protagonist Laura is all kinds of a mid-sixties Sci-fi babe, managing to keep her bouncy blonde bob whether rocking a stylish space helmet or cowering in terror from the Queen. As for the Queen herself, Florence Marly, with the aide of make-up artist William Condos, creates a uniquely inhuman humanoid, communicating through confused and confusing facial expressions, a ceaseless malevolent smile, strangely lit eyes (that glow once the stalk-and-killing gets underway), and rocking a beehive wig and eventual green skin that effectively invokes the praying mantis she ultimately is. While I'm not familiar with much of Curtis Harrington's work beyond Night Tide and this fun flick, on the strength of Queen, I definitely look forward to delving into his oeuvre.

-Jon-Christian

The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell

When I heard about the film The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell (2011) directed by Ron Atkins, an exceedingly trashy apocalyptic work featuring lunatic-leads of truly obscure cult cinema, Terry Hawkins (the anti-hero of Roger Watkins’ 1977 cult masterpiece Last House on Dead End Street that was played by Watkins himself) played by Jim Van Bebber (director of Deadbeat at Dawn and The Mansion Family) and Harry Russo (the anti-hero of Ron Atkins’ Schizophreniac: The Whore Mangler and Necromaniac: Schizophreniac 2) played by John Giancaspro, I was a tad bit skeptical of such an ambitious movie scenario, especially considering the film was shot in digital video; a medium in stark contrast to the gritty 16mm film used for its extremely influential predecessor Last House on Dead End Street. I initially watched The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell at 4am on a Thursday night, which turned out to be a wholly surreal and hypnotic (if thoroughly mentally deranging), but strangely pleasurable, sort of scenario, which proved to be just as power on subsequent (and more mentally cognizant) viewings. After all, hearing Jim Van Bebber incessantly yelling, “NIGGER” whilst giggling like the maniacal midget ‘Hombre’ from Werner Herzog’s classic Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970) is even a delightfully idiosyncratic experience for such a fundamentally contra politically correct individual like myself. While The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell is unsurprisingly a tribute to the Schizophreniac films and, most specifically, the late Roger Watkin’s sole masterpiece Last House on Dead End Street, the film is also an unhinged libertine homage to the iconic American film The Wizard of Oz (1939), featuring apish white-men in monkey masks and a wicked bitch witch with suave neo-psychedelic style.  Although featuring a plot, the individual segments of The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell, which range from frenzied quasi-vaudevillian comedy acts to mock-snuff footage, are ultimately more significant than the whole. After a brief lover’s spat upon initially meeting in Las Vegas, Terry Hawkins and Harry Russo, a virtual Beavis and Butthead from Hell, become unwaveringly loyal comrades of carnage and search for the mysterious “Nigger of Cause” whilst following the magnificent “Nigger Brick” road. On their magical mystery tour for the unholy desert grail, the two playful psychopaths rape Jewish bitches, humorously hail Uncle Adolf, malevolently murder negro-like monkey-men, and share plenty of laughs, among many other splendid activities. 

Aesthetically and thematically, The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell is easily Ron Atkins’ greatest and most ambitious accomplishment as a filmmaker. While the film does feature a number of realist home-video-style scenes that Atkins is well known for, The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell also features a storm of potent picturesque outdoor scenes as Hawkins and Russo cruise the Nigger Brick Road, as well as a number of colorful skits of Giancaspro performing as a variety of quotable personas, ranging from a stereotypical china-man to an abortion-venerating pseudo-Dracula. If Atkins goal was to infuse The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell with the aura and atmosphere of a truly trashy post-apocalyptic scenario, he indubitably succeeded, as I felt like I was watching a film discovered in a trailer park time-capsule left from some imaginary second American Civil War. Undoubtedly, the vigorously violent (yet hilarious) racial hatred that permeates throughout The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell would be a major catalyst for such a scenario. During The Cuckoos Clocks of Hell, Watkins candidly describes his transformation from being racially apathetic to a staunch and unrepentant racist. In such fanatically politically-correct times, the mainstream proclivity towards ‘racial sensitivity’ seems to have only fanned the flames of race-hate in a country that now has its first mulatto president. In my most humble opinion, the greatest achievement of The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell is providing a therapeutic outlet for those individuals that find themselves increasingly intolerant of so called tolerance and repelled by the putrid stench of pc-swill. While featuring a wealth of brutal rape and kindred-spirit killings, The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell is ultimately an unconventional “post-modern” comedy that is highly conscious of both obscure cult cinema and America's most critical (and unspoken) domestic issues. 

 

 

While filming Last House on Dead End Street, director Roger Watkins was consistently high on amphetamine. Although he spent about $3000.00 on the drugs that would fuel his film direction and infamous performance as Terry Hawkins, Watkins only spent around $800.00 on the actual production of Last House on Dead End Street, which is undoubtedly a great achievement on his part. Jim Van Bebber has also admitted that he had partaken in mind-altering substances during the production of The Manson Family (2003), so it is only befitting that he would later play the role of Terry Hawkins in The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell. I can only hypothesize that the same, somewhat reckless, recreational activity went on during the making of The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell as such subversive behavior is merely part of a long and grand tradition of cult filmmaking. I must commend Ron Atkins for The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell considering that not only is it his movie Magnum opus, but it is also a worthy and canonized tribute to Last House on Dead End Street and the filmmaker’s late friend Roger Watkins. Not merely parroting the legacy of its predecessor, The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell is Last House on Dead End Street seen through the lens of Ron Atkin’s own distinct and pleasantly peculiar universe.  In short, The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell is mandatory-viewing for any true fan of cult films, especially those individuals that don't get yeast infections from hearing wonderful words like "chink" and "spick."

Roger Michael Watkins (September 17, 1948 – March 6, 2007)

Throughout The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell, the character of Terry Hawkins continuously looks on with a smirk at the loony antics of Harry Russo in gleeful approval. I believe that is how Roger Watkins would have responded to The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell had he lived long enough to see it.

-Ty E

I Melt with You

As far as I am concerned, one of the most repugnant contemporary trends in Hollywood is the so called “bromance” film, especially of the lowbrow pseudo-libertine comedic variety. The portmanteau term ‘bromance’ itself was apparently coined by Dave Carnie; the former editor-in-chief of the now-defunct and onetime-Larry Flynt publications-owned risque skateboarding magazine Big Brother. Unsurprisingly, many of the quasi-carny Jackasses from the MTV show Jackass, including alpha-Jackass Johnny Knoxville himself, got their start exposing their genitals to live electrical currents via Big Brother. Like Johnny Knoxville and his erratic, angel-dust-fueled untermensch entourage, the seemingly homoerotic undertones of mock-male bromance, in the form of low-camp Hollywood party propaganda films, would eventually occupy the mostly vapid minds of the mainstream and further contribute to the full-fledging senseless and nihilistic hedonism that has now become a pronounced and never-ending rite-of-passage for desperate and horny teenage boys and middle-aged man-children alike. Indeed, bromance films seem to reflect and pathetically glorify a totally degenerate ‘eternal coming-of-age’ that is now undoubtedly typical of modern cosmopolitan Western (and especially American) man where traditional male ideals like physical and mental strength, stoicism, and spirituality are seen as a joy-killing ‘bummer’ and where an endless buffet of nugatory sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll are the highest of ideals. Thankfully, I have only viewed a handful of these maniacally-conceived movie monstrosities, yet they have unfortunately left a deep enough impression on me to the degree where I unconsciously cringe in literal physical disgust at hearing the mere word ‘bromance.’ Last week, I had the opportunity to watch the film I Melt with Yout (2011) directed by Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies); an anti-bromance film of sorts that ultimately delightfully demystifies, marvelously mutilates, and befittingly murders the retarded romance of the dreaded bromance. 

In I Melt with You, a middle-aged foursome (played by Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, Christian McKay, and Jeremy Piven) of former college friends/party boys reunite at a mansion in Big Sur, California and hopelessly attempt to relive their misspent youthful lifestyle of forgotten sex, numbing drugs, and redundant Rock 'n' Roll. From the beginning of the film, it is most apparent that these four men have become totally disenchanted with their youthful ideals and that their lifelong bromance has significantly soured as a result. Most of these men also have a hard time relating to their former pals and can only seem to find collective solidarity in their commitment to rampant intoxication-based escapism, and overall bitterness and disappointment with life. To evade the glaring reality of their age, the miserable four even go as far as partying with a group of 20-somethings (one of which is played by porn-whore-turned-legit-hollywood-whore Sasha Grey) in a pathetic attempt to rekindle the spirit of their youth. Instead of forgetting about their undesirable physical maturity and failed lives, their disillusionment with their miserable existences is all the more highlighted and disastrously confirmed. The night after their unexpectedly insightful inter-age orgy, the ugliest member of fab four commits suicide not long after passively engaging in a bisexual threesome with two menacing youths, thus forcing the three remaining self-loathing neo-yuppies to weigh in the pros and cons of suicide. As you find out I Melt with You, the fabulous four made a suicide pact during their college years stating that if they failed in their idealistic, unrealistic life ambitions, they would all settle for mortal sin of suicide instead. After languishing through deplorable bromance fantasy-comedies like Todd Phillips’ The Hangover (2008) and Steve Pink’s Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), I came to the blatant conclusion that men who act so hedonistically as the characters featured in these films could only be as miserable as a homeless orthodox Jew accepting food charity from a Mormon temple. As far as I know, I Melt with You is the only film that realistically portrays the emasculated void that is the totally shallow, infinitely worthless, and intrinsically self-destructive, faux-male-comradrie bromance. On top of honestly portraying the banal brotherly pseudo-love of bromance in loathing detail, I Melt with You is totally free of a typically compromised, happy holy-wood ending. To say anything more about the film would be an injustice to prospective viewers.

In one particularly telling scene early on in I Melt with You, an old interview with Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols is voiced over images of domestic mundanity. Mr. Rotten quite matter-of-factly and unsentimentally admits that his goal with The Sex Pistols was to destroy Rock 'n' Roll, as he essentially feels that it has worn out its welcome and is nothing more than a repulsive anachronism. Of course, the formerly idealistic man-children of I Melt with You are indubitably Rock 'n' Roll casualties who fell prey to the golden calf of distorted electric guitars, free love and STDs, and the pseudo-transcendence of mind-altering controlled substances. The real tragedy of the four protagonists in I Melt with You is that it took them their entire adulthood to realize the utter bankruptcy and worthlessness of their fundamentally deleterious, self-obsessed ideals. Of course, mind-numbingly moronic, potty humor movies like The Hangover portray such barren lifestyles as something akin to magical mystery tours, but I guess that it is one such should expect from an era that likens redundant rock lyrics to the holy writ. Artistically, I Melt with You is far from exceptional, but it is a rare Hollywood film with a legitimate moral message that is not too preachy nor horribly contrived, but is told with a somewhat unique, therapeutic flair. I Melt with You also features a sometimes enjoyable, complimentary soundtrack with songs from Bauhaus, Adam & The Ants, The Sex Pistols, Pixies, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and, unsurprisingly, Modern English (doing a bastardized 2011 re-working of the hit 1982 song the film was named after) among others.  If you're looking for a film that is a true "party crasher" and that is guaranteed to ruin everyone's buzz, pop I Melt with You into your dvd player and grin as you watch the smiles melt.

-Ty E

Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever

 

On a recommendation, from my mom of all people, I put aside the negative hype and decided to check out Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, the sequel to Eli Roth's masterful debut, helmed but disavowed by indie-horror darling Ti West (House of the Devil, The Innkeepers). While I've only recently been compelled to investigate what precisely went wrong with the production, from the word go West seemed an odd choice to turn out a sequel to Cabin Fever. Cabin Fever played as a particularly well-done homage to the grindhouse films of old, mixing in humor at appropriate intervals and featuring a fairly strong cast, the best being Soiled Sinema posterboy Giuseppe Andrews as the horndog, party hearty Officer Winston. Evil Dead setting, Cronenbergian body horror, soundtrack featuring re-recordings of David Hess' songs from Last House on the Left, all served up with Roth's expert touch; Tarantino with far more subtlety and less obnoxious dialogue wouldn't be far off. Ti West on the other hand couldn't be further from the fanboy former Gorezone-subscriber. At his best (House of the Devil, The Innkeepers), West works with the kind of restraint that drives most teenage death metal fans up the wall, using a slow, slow burn effect that unnerves subtly. He still manages to pay homage to influences (note the aesthetic in the eighties-set House of the Devil), but stylistically, there couldn't be someone further from Eli Roth. Contrast their beginnings- Roth wrote Cabin Fever while working on Howard Stern's Private Parts, whereas West began his career under the guiding hand of subtle-horror stalwart Larry Fesserden. What the producers saw in a film like Trigger Man that made them think West would be a perfect fit for a Cabin Fever sequel is beyond me, but what makes it on-screen (West shot the majority of the film but left during the editing process when asked to do re-shoots) is surprisingly good, goofy, GORY fun that proves that West can do big, dumb horror with the best of 'em. This could have been one of the best gonzo eighties-style horror flicks in years, right up there with the original and Piranha 3D in terms of pure horror geek nirvana, but unfortunately the director bailing definitely shows up on-screen, with tacky flash animation book-ending the action and a rushed denouement and tacked-on "sting in the tail" that effectively undercuts all of the goodwill that has accumulated throughout. That said, the footage directed by West looks great, it features another stellar comedic turn from Giuseppe Andrews, and has wall-to-wall honest-to-goodness PROSTHETIC gore to spare.

 

As the film opens, Paul, the sole survivor of the original film, a bloated, unrecognizable mess from the water-born pathogens that killed his friends, escapes from the forest only to be mowed down by a school bus. Deputy Winston in first on the scene, dismissing the remains as those of a moose, but in time through a series of incidents (including West mentor Fesserden going to goop in a diner) realizes what is really going on- a local bottled water company has packaged the pathogen and shipped it out, the first stop being the local high school, which is gearing up for prom. John (Deadgirl's Noah Segan) is our protagonist, hopelessly in love with the pretty, smart girl with the douchey boyfriend, Cassie (Alexi Wasser) and best buds with some fat comic relief, Alex (Rusty Kelley), who manages to be a lot less annoying that most characters of his ilk. The plot sets up some decent rivalries, red herrings, and makes room for some fun cameos (Mike Borchardt is always a welcome sight, especially in something with a budget over $20), but then midway through the prom, which should be the centerpiece of the film, everything speeds up and feels incredibly rushed. The shadowy disease control agents from the first film show up, put the town and school under lockdown, and it effectively feels as if we've teleported from act one to act three. 

 

That said, what keeps the film from completely derailing is the marvelous effects work and absolute pandering to its demographic. Nary a five-minute stretch goes by without vomit, soggy, distended organs sloughing off, bountiful, bouncing breasts, liberated fingernails, table-saw amputation (definite nod to Evil Dead 2, and thus, a nod to the first Cabin Fever), heads being smashed open a la Irreversible, more vomit (only bloodier), and one of the most cringe-worthy shots of penis-discomfort this side of Antichrist (seriously, if you've ever had gonorrhea, the scene in question will be particularly impossible not to squint through)(which isn't to say that I'VE suffered through gonorrhea, female readers, and if I ever had had it, antibiotics cleared it up, so fuck off). It is gloriously offensive, well-lit, and whenever Officer Winston appears for breaks from the main action, uproarious. I hope that if the proposed further sequels ever get off the ground that they manage to snag Andrews- not only is he the perfect, skeezy mascot for an imperfect, skeezy series, but the payout would enable him to make about fifteen more of his own films. Whether rhapsodizing about pussy, nodding to the first film over a plate of pancakes or sending a clueless Judah Friedlander out to meet his doom via disease control firing squad, Andrews exudes a Southern slimeball charm that betrays his Florida birthplace and adds just the right amount of continuity to tie Spring Fever in with the original (also keep an eye out for the giant bunny Paul sees in the hospital in CF, here acting as the mascot for the high school). In fact, the whole cast is pretty able, the aforementioned Rusty Kelley surprisingly likable as a porcine pussyhound and Noah Segan proving his versatility in playing a goody-two-shoes character who is a complete 180 degree turn from his sociopathic sex fiend in Deadgirl and coming across just as likable. The supporting cast plays it pretty broad, but it works, creating an eighties John Waters vibe (no surprise as long-time Waters editor Janice Hampton took over the reins upon West's exit) that makes it all the more charming.

 

But alas, all is not well, and saving the worst for last, no review of Spring Fever should pass without mentioning the abysmally animated opening and closing scene, which are about as well-animated as an e-card and serve no purpose aside from making a decent-budgeted flick look considerably tackier than it really is. West apparently wanted to open and end the film this way (perhaps a tribute to Creepshow 2?), but these eyesores definitely reflect some post-production half-assery. Even worse is the "sting in the tail" just prior to the ending animation, featuring an infected stripper high school girl passing on the disease, which is horrendously shot and acted and has none of the manic drive of the West-shot footage. This five minute scene seriously felt longer than the film that preceded it, especially when the ending, as in the ACTUAL ending, with the major players meeting their makers, is so rushed and nigh-incomprehensible that we aren't granted the knowledge of what actually happens to our male lead (whereas the female leads "rescue" makes no sense whatsoever given the priorities of her "rescuers"). The suggestion is there, but alas, this isn't the Ti West of House of the Devil, and not right for this type of loud-and-proud TRASH in ALL CAPS. As it stands, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever still manages to be an excellent time-waster, and proves that West is a pretty versatile guy, capable of yuks and yucks but opting for a more "high brow" approach, which is great- he's one of the better young horror directors out there today. One can only hope that series producer Lauren Moews will find another energetic up-and-comer for the proposed third and fourth installment; perhaps one who won't feel sullied by having made something completely unlike his other work?

-Jon-Christian Yates