Movie Feast

Capsule Review: Way Down East (1920)

2012-05-28T00:09:00.003-04:00

Way Down East ends with Anna, our consistently abused main character played by the luminous Lillian Gish, floating helplessly on a chunk of ice while heading towards a roaring waterfall and her almost certain doom. The sequence ranks among the best D.W. Griffith ever filmed, with the cross-cutting between Anna's chilly fate and the gallant David (played by Broken Blossoms' Richard Barthelmess) desperately searching for her making for an exciting, unforgettable climax. The rest of the film is fairly standard, though well-executed, melodrama featuring Gish's Anna being tricked into a fake marriage by the dastardly Lennox Sanderson (a slimy Lowell Sherman) and being ostracized and shamed for bearing a fatherless child. It's presented as a condemnation of unfaithful men as well as a tribute to the patience of women, and was based on a popular turn of the century play by William A. Brady. The silent film was later re-made in 1935, featuring Henry Fonda as David and Rochelle Hudson in the Anna role.

Capsule Review: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

2012-05-25T20:16:00.003-04:00

As extensively analyzed and beloved as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is, it's easy to forget just how overwhelming the jagged, expressionistic visual must have been to the audiences of the early 1920s. Fueled by two great performances - Conrad Veidt as the somnambulist Cesare and Werner Krauss as Dr. Caligari - the film's erratic pace can sometimes make for a frustrating viewing experience, but the twist ending - a controversial decision at the time - still holds some surprises for those used to more tame silent fare. Friedrich Fehér's acting is wildly over the top, but perhaps the gesticulating might have been necessary to be noticed when next to a towering, ghostly sleepwalker or the bug-eyed, troll-like doctor. Notable for introducing flashbacks within flashbacks into the language of cinema, and creating a tale that was endlessly imitated by the monster movies of the following 30 years. It's also been remade several times, including as recently as 1995 (with Doug Jones as Cesare), but none can equal the impact of the German original.

Capsule Review: The Public Enemy (1931)

2012-05-08T10:47:00.005-04:00

The ambitions of the character of Tom Powers in The Public Enemy are not so far off from that of any determined young man, he just happens to have the viciousness (and occasional rage) to pull it all off. His rise through the crime world happens naturally, though starts with a (literal) bang with the murder of a police officer. James Cagney imbues the role with a wiry, searing energy that so dwarfs his co-stars - Edward Woods in particular - that he nearly overwhelms the picture. You can't take your eyes off of him. He's the whole show here, though the pre-code material still feels quite risque if you're only used to the more sedate crime pictures of the 40s. The plot holds few surprises, particularly if you've seen the thematically similar Little Caesar from the same year, but created a frame which almost all future films featuring a character rising through the criminal underworld would follow. Some amazingly memorable moments - Cagney pushing a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face, Cagney walking towards his possible doom in the pouring rain - are muted by the general predictability. Still, it remains supremely entertaining.

NO-BUDGET NIGHTMARES: INTERVIEW WITH RETARDEAD DIRECTORS RICK POPKO AND DAN WEST

2012-03-28T11:36:00.002-04:00

Rick Popko, left and Dan West, right.

Sweetback (SB): I'm embarrassed to admit that I was a bit late to the 4321 Films party. I first heard about RETARDEAD in the pages of Steven Puchalski's SHOCK CINEMA magazine (which gets a nice nod in the film), and even from their brief review I knew it was something I had to track down.

Dan West (DW): Shock Cinema is a great magazine that I have read for years and it was a pretty big thrill to get such a nice nod in that issue.

SB: At the risk of being tiresome, let's go back to the beginning. How did you - Rick and Dan - meet, and what were some of your formative influences growing up? I'm guessing H.G. Lewis and Punk Rock have to fit in there somewhere.

DW: We met in High School back in late 1984 thanks to having the same art class and a mutual love of the make-up work of Tom Savini. Rick had Savini's book on his film make-up, “Grand Illusions,” and was reading it in the class. I LOVED that book. It was love at first sight I suppose. We have been tormenting each other ever since. I'm the guilty party when it comes to the H.G. Lewis stuff. I love all of those cinematic train wrecks that he created with Dave Friedman and his other collaborators. His films are either wonderfully horrible or horribly wonderful, I can't figure out which. As far as punk rock goes, we both love the Sex Pistols and I was a big Dead Kennedy's fan. We like "that punk rock", for sure.

SB: Speaking of punk, there's very much a DIY component to your films - along with a healthy snubbing of "appropriate" subject matter. Was the freedom of low-budget film-making something that always appealed to you?

DW: Not at first. Like anyone young and inexperienced we wanted to try to work within the studio system and really tried to get a foot in the door for a while, primarily as screenwriters. We did end up writing an un-produced screenplay for Francis Coppola's Commercial Pictures way back in the late eighties. He had a sort of Roger Corman-type production company going for a while to produce a few low-budget genre films. That, to this day, is the only time that we have been paid any money as screenwriters. But after a lot of disappointment we got wise and just began to wonder why we were doing all of that work for nothing. It was just frustration after frustration. Finally we wised up. Now I watch these documentaries of screenwriters whining about how difficult it is to work in the studio system, and I just have to laugh and wonder why, if they love film so much and have such great tales to tell, why don't they just put together something low-budget and independent that they could have control over? It's a pain in the ass for sure, but if you love it, then what's the problem? Get off your ass and make something yourself instead of bitching about the goddamn studio system. In this day and age, with the technology available to anyone, you really have no excuse than to, as Lloyd Kaufman puts it, "Make your own damn movie".

SB: Now, you both began making short films and sketches with THE SOMETHING SPECIALS - videos available over at Funny or Die - back in the 90s. Even some of these older shorts show off your comedic sensibilities - as well as a healthy devotion to gore. Did these shorts provide your "film school", or did either of you have specific training?

DW: Those sketches are probably much older than that, actually. We started shooting sketch comedy and shorts almost from the moment we met. We have literally hours of that kind of material that we filmed over the last few decades. We were the types that have both had cameras in our hands since we were kids, so we learned by doing and doing and doing. Although Rick did attend film classes in College and I think he might have a degree in some area of film.

SB: How do you two trade off on directing duties? Is there a lot of arguing, or have you developed a Coen Brothers-style sixth sense after working together for so many years?

DW: We used to fight like cats and dogs, but that was usually over the writing process that we go through. Directing these days has become really laid back and telepathic. There's always the occasional flair up, but over the years they have become more and more rare. We have a telepathy these days that comes through years and years of arguing and collaborating, and sometimes it can be uncanny the way we can read each other and the problems we might have with something.

SB: Was the idea that you were always going to transition from shorts into a feature length project? Where did the idea for MONSTURD come from?

DW: We always wanted to make features. I think we were both born filmmakers, for better or worse, and for whatever reasons that motivated each of us. There was never a set pattern or plan. You film and film and film. If you aren't filming, you are thinking of things to film later and then things to film after that. We're just wired that way. We both grew up wanting to make movies and well, you've seen the results. Thankfully in our case "one man's trash is another man's treasure." I mean, I love Herschell Gordon Lewis' films, as you've mentioned, so I suppose that speaks volumes about what strange things motivate me as a "director".

What really first motivated us to make MONSTURD began with a viewing of the film, JACK FROST, the horror film with the murderous snowman. We were really bemoaning our fate as screenwriters back then, and when we saw that movie something clicked. At first it was out of frustration (now I must mention here that I quite like the movie, JACK FROST and I'm not kidding when I say this. I think it's very funny and very entertaining in a great sarcastic way, but at the time it made us slightly angry) but that frustration later served us very very well as Rick can tell you.

Rick Popko (RP): Dan and I had just spent something like three or four years of our lives writing an epic action/comedy. There were points during that writing process that almost cost us our friendship. We thought it was so good that Hollywood HAD to take notice of us. We thought it was our golden ticket into magic land. Soon, however, the realities of trying to sell a script into Hollywood set in. A studio won’t read a script unless it’s submitted by an agent. And an agent won’t read your script until they’re interested in your 1-page query letter. I sent 40 query letters to different agencies in and around Hollywood (and included a self-addressed stamped envelope so they could send us a rejection back).

After two weeks, we got three rejections back. I then started doing follow-up calls to those agencies we hadn’t heard from. I spoke to agency and asked the receptionist, “How long does it take to hear back from a query letter,” to which she responded, “About two weeks.” When I asked, “What if it’s been longer than that?” She said, “Then we’re not interested.” I then added, “But I sent you a self-addressed stamped envelope.” And she shot back, “Look, if I had to send a self-addressed stamped envelope back to everyone who sends us a query letter, it would be a fulltime job for me, and, I’m sorry, but I just don’t have time for that.” And then I snapped back, “Then what does a writer need to do to get their script read in this town?!” And she said, “You can either know someone we’re already representing or have someone attached to your project.”

We didn’t know anyone who was represented by an agent, so we tried to get attachment to the project. Dan and I cast the script and then proceeded to send copies out to those actor’s agents. In a couple of days, those scripts came right back to us with a note inside that said, “Sorry, we don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts.”

We were broken men at that point. To nurse our wounds we went to a local video store and rented JACK FROST. As I was watching it, I started to fume… “How is it Hollywood has no problem releasing a movie about a killer snowman, but won’t take the opportunity to consider our project?” I was outraged. When I left Dan’s house after the movie, I thought, “You like movies about killer snowmen, Hollywood? How about a move about a killer shit monster? Huh? Would you like that?” When I got home, I immediately penned the first 25 pages of the script, then called IT CAME FROM THE SEWER. I called Dan and pitched him the idea and added that we should write this thing as a joke and then send it to every studio in Hollywood. Dan thought I was crazy and said I needed to take a chill pill.

A few weeks later, when I was at CNET, I got my hands on a Canon GL1 miniDV camcorder for review. During my tests, I took it over to Dan’s house to do some test shots using the camera’s 30p mode. Dan saw the quality that that the camera produced and screamed, “Dude, that looks like film! We could make a movie with that thing!”

A few days later Dan called me and said, “You know that shit monster movie you were telling me about the other day?... I think we can do it.”

Long story short, I purchased the camera, we drafted a script and shot the thing over the course of a year… It took another year to edit the beast.

SB: For a low-budget film, MONSTURD is awfully ambitious. What were some of the ways you stretched the budget, and what sort of shooting schedule was there?

DW: It's wonderful whenever you hear someone call something like MONSTURD "awfully ambitious" because it is both "awful" as well as "ambitious". One of the great ways to stretch a budget is by not paying anyone but a composer and sound editor who wouldn't work for you any other way. The next is to find great locations that require little if any compensation for their production value, and the third way is to be a pair of DIY punk rock assholes and just run around stealing as many shots in as many ways that you can without getting arrested. (And yes, we did film our prison scenes at Alcatraz during a packed tour...a true feat of indie filmmaking). We had no idea how long it would take to shoot a feature film, so we weren't "restrained" by that idea. Shooting took as long as it took, and it took a long fucking time on that budget (but not as long as its sequel!). Looking back on MONSTURD, taking a year to get most of that thing shot seems like a miracle, considering how insane the storyline was, but we were much younger then. You'd hope to get quicker in your older years, but maybe we should just be less ambitious and start filming MY DINNER WITH ANDRE but with some gore, so we can just use two actors and one set and get it done in a week. (And I'm not kidding when I say this. I've certainly thought about that approach).

SB: RETARDEAD has much of the same cast as MONSTURD, and the quality of acting as a whole - including both of yourselves - is well above the usual level you see in films with such limited budgets. Did most of the cast come from the SOMETHING SPECIALS group, or did you have to cast outside of friends and family?

DW: Beth West, who played Agent Hannigan, was my wife at the time, so her casting was based on commitment as well as convenience, but Beth was always extremely punk rock and game for adventure, as was Paul Weiner who played Sheriff Duncan, who we recruited from an internet-based company we both worked at when we started the movie. We really didn't know Paul from Adam, but he ended up doing both films and was great for what we needed in that crazy sheriff role. He just seemed right for that part and so did Beth. Sure the acting is wooden or uneven or whatever you want to call it, but it's sarcastic, and no one was trying to win a fucking Oscar by playing a role in a shit monster movie or a movie about retarded zombies. We were just trying to be funny and tongue-in-cheek in a very sarcastic, dry way, as if these "bad actors" didn't know they were in such a ridiculous movie. Of course they were stiff. The dialogue was ridiculous and they were trying to keep from laughing while saying their intentionally stupid lines.

Many of the other actors, like Ken Dashner who played Professor Downing or Dan Burr who played Dr. Stern, had shot sketch comedy with us for many years prior to making the movies. Dan Ellis was a great discovery who was introduced to us by Dan Burr, and he ended up playing Dr. Waters. Ellis had aspirations to be a working actor and he was really quite good. We ended up fleshing out and expanding his part to give him more screen time. He's gone on to do a few movies in Canada and I hope he'll find his niche' as an actor because he's really quite good.

SB: Part of what makes RETARDEAD such a delightful experience is that it's packaged as a complete drive-in experience, complete with a great Concession Stand ad parody, and two terrific fake trailers for FRANKENSTEIN AND THE BLOODY BEAST OF GHASTLY TERROR and DRACULA VS JACK THE RIPPER. Talk a little about filming these shorts - and was the concept for RETARDEAD always meant to include all of this preamble?

DW: Those were sort of my babies, due to my fondness for art direction and costume design. They were afterthoughts, due to the production of RETARDEAD stretching on into infinity. We shot for years on that project. It just never seemed like it would end. We had endless changes in the script and really flew by the seats of our pants trying to put that thing together. As we were editing RETARDEAD, it became top mind that since I had collected period costumes for an aborted Dracula project that had been in the works years before

SB: I really have to ask. While MONSTURD certainly was willing to cross the line, RETARDEAD gleefully jumps over it. Was there any concern of backlash from the "special ed" content, or did you always figure that genre fans would be able to recognize and accept the humor for what it is?

DW: No, we were certainly apprehensive, if you can believe that, and at one point we did change the title of the movie to INFECDEAD, but really, RETARDEAD was a matter of committing to the bad taste factor from the start. That project became kind of an "all or nothing" commitment, if we were really going to submit ourselves to making that movie. The subject matter was always a factor in us thinking that maybe we were taking things too far and crossing a line that we shouldn't cross, but once you've invested a few years of your life into committing such stupidity and wild ideas into a feature film, then those concerns fall by the wayside. Sometimes in indie filmmaking, things really can become a case of "It's too late to turn back." That is the nature of the beast when you leap into an independent film.

RP: We had a conversation with Elite (our distributor for MONSTURD at the time). They were interested in having the first look at RETARDEAD when it was done. One day I got a call from our rep and he said, “Rick, I have to tell you, I floated your title (RETARDEAD) to a few of my sub distributors and they all told me you’re going to have a hard time moving a title with that name.” He then suggested we change the name of it.

As Dan mentioned, we toyed with the idea of changing the name to INFECDEAD, so that it wouldn’t prevent us from getting into Wal-Mart, Best Buy and other chain stores. But then it occurred to us, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and other chain stores weren’t stocking MONSTURD, what makes us think they’d ever stock INFECDED? And so we said, “Screw it,” let the movie stand on its own.

With regards to backlash, we got some blowback on a few horror film site forums (mostly from people who hadn’t even seen the film), and Daily Grindhouse refused to run this interview, but that’s about it. It could be that people offended by the title stayed really quiet for fear that any kind of negative publicity would only fuel awareness of the movie.

SB: One of the things I love about low-budget cinema is the sense of community that surrounds it. For RETARDEAD, you guys had a plethora of second unit footage from around the country - and even had Brett Kelly (who I interviewed a few months back) to contribute some up here in Canada. It sounds like organizing it would be a logistical nightmare. How did you go about getting all of these people involved, and how the heck did you keep track of it all?

RP: When we set out to make RETARDEAD, we knew we had some pretty big shoes to fill, DAWN OF THE DEAD, of course being the biggest one. Dan and I said that if we were going to make a zombie movie we had to go all out for it. No cutting corners with regards to zombies and gore. I was a member of a few indie filmmaking Websites back in the day, and one day, while I was replying to one filmmaker’s thread it struck me. Everyone here wants to make movies. What if we could crowd source all of the zombie kill scenes? If we could get 50 filmmakers contributing a few short gory shots, it could look like an all out splatterfest if they were all edited together right. So I put the word out on those sites and sent them photos of what our zombies looked like so they could make sure theirs matched. In a matter of a couple of days I had 80 people who said they were on board.

“Holy shit,” I thought, “This is going to be crazy!” Out of those 80 people who jumped in, only 8 folks bothered to send something in. When I followed up with folks, I heard every excuse in the book why they haven’t sent anything. My father just died, I just moved, I don’t have any money, my friends flaked on me… Blah, blah, blah. We’re happy to say that all but one of the submissions made it into the final movie.

SB: It's also a film that gleefully revels in violence - particularly in the final twenty minutes. Did working with such a variety of FX - from the countless head shots, to gut-eating to a HELICOPTER EXPLOSION - provide any unique challenges?

DW: The effects were probably the driving force for us to actually make that movie! It's no exaggeration to say that our motivation for making a full-blown zombie movie on that level was to try and capture and emulate some of our love for George Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, which was a seminal film for both of us and one of the reasons we chose to tackle a zombie movie in the first place. I certainly attempted to throw my hat into the ring as far as getting a gore effect on screen. Most of the really "eye-popping" effects were done by Ed Martinez, who was our "Tom Savini" on that show. He did the full-body tear in half and all of the other really stunning effects. I designed the ridiculous Monty Python-type Bum head decapitation/rip that showers the other bum in blood, and certain other silly things.

RP: One of the great things about being an independent filmmaker, is you can do anything you want in your movie. One day during production I told Dan that I felt the movie needed a car crash scene.

“Where do you want to put it in the movie,” he asked? I said, “I don’t know yet, but a car crash would add some real production value to the movie.” And Dan said, “I’ll tell you what. You figure out how you’re going to pull it off, and I’ll find a place we can insert it.” And so I set out get it done. I found an auto dismantling place in town and talked to the owner of the place. I asked if he would mind smashing a couple of junked cars together for us. In exchange we’d give his shop a credit in the movie and a copy of it when it was done. He said, “Sure thing. When do you want to do it?” It’s amazing what you can get if you just ask for it.

For the helicopter explosion, I filmed an actual helicopter taking off from a field, and then sent the footage to my friend Mark Pirro (another great, legendary independent filmmaker). Mark happened to be good friends with Glenn Campbell who was currently working at an animation house and sent the footage to him. Glenn, graciously took our footage into his computer and blew the helicopter out of the sky for us.

SB: I think my favorite FX moment is the simultaneous NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD trowel stabbing and DAWN OF THE DEAD machete head-slice, which is about as nerdily gleeful a reference to the Romero zombie films as one could hope for. Realizing that there's been a glut of low-budget zombie films in recent years, how did you hope to separate yours from the pack of Romero devotees?

DW: Goddamn! It's funny that you mention the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD trowel stab, because, until you mentioned that, it was "unintentional." The machete in the nurse’s head was purely intentional, of course, but the trowel reference/killing was not. That was a lucky coincidence. I'm thrilled that you point that out, actually. It's really iconic and was really not intentional.

SB: After the film was completed, what was the process? Did you submit to festivals, and what was the immediate response? Certainly the subject matter was an attention getter.

RP: No, we didn’t intentionally submit to a bunch of festivals. As far as I was concerned, the only reason to submit your film into a festival is to try and get someone interested in distributing it for you. We knew we were pretty much going to sign the movie with Brain Damage Films, so there was no point in submitting to festivals. Plus, we had really terrible luck submitting MONSTURD to festivals. Each festival entry cost around $40. We submitted MONSTURD to eight of them and didn’t get into any. Thanks to RETARDEAD’s word of mouth, however, we were actually approached by a few film festivals who wanted to screen it in their lineup. I told them, no problem as long as we don’t have to pay. We were invited to screen at Texas Frightmare Weekend (in Dallas, TX) and the Dead Channels Film Fest (in San Francisco). We also rented a local movie theater in San Francisco and had a 3-day world premiere there.

SB: And here's my biggest question: What's coming up next for you guys and 4321 Films? Any films or shorts in the pipeline?

RP: We’re currently in production on a new flick called CABERSLAY (pronounced like ”cabernet”). It’s about a winery in the Napa Valley that’s run by Satanists. The tagline is: You’re about to hit the bottom of the barrel. This flick’s going to be a little bit of a departure for us. Rather than doing pure exploitation off a gimmicky premise, we’re actually going to try and make a dark, weird, giallo-type horror flick with black comic undertones.

SB: If fans want to follow your current projects, or get copies of RETARDEAD or MONSTURD, what's the best way to do so?

RP: Our Website is www.4321films.com. You can also “Like” 4321 Films on Facebook. If you want to Friend either Dan or I on Facebook, please preface the request with an in-mail that mentions MONSTURD or RETARDEAD that way we know you’re not a spambot. Our movies are on Amazon and Netflix as well.

SB: Any other projects to plug?

DW: I am in the process of self-publishing three books: "I Hate You! And None of You Will Be Happy!", "Homemade Embalming Fluid (Expanded Edition), and the tentatively-titled, "And They All Died Screaming": (A horror/comedy novel). The details of which can be kept track of on my blog: Dan West Hates You! And None of You Will Be Happy!!

SB: Honestly, I love the work you guys are doing, and I could easily come up with a few dozen more questions; but for the sake of your sanity, there's just one more. If you each needed to give one piece of advice to young filmmakers looking to make a feature, what would it be?

RP: Always think about your production values. Just because you don’t have a budget doesn’t mean your movie has to look it. If your movie requires a medieval castle, go out and find a real one and then steal a bunch of shots in front of it (that’s what we did for the intro shot for the FRANKENSTEIN AND THE BLOODY BEAST OF GHASTLY TERROR trailer). Don’t just put a bunch of spray-painted cardboard up in your garage and call it done. In fact, the one thing that irks me the most about indie filmmakers today is how utterly cheap their movies look. Don’t rush your project for the sake of getting it done and having “bragging rights” that you’ve “made a movie.” Take your time to really frame your shots and work with your actors to get lines delivered right. And remember that it never hurts to ask for anything. The worst thing anyone can say to you is, “No.”

SB: Oh! And, of course, I have to ask one more question: How the heck did Jello Biafra end up in the film? And talk a little bit about how exciting having both H.G. Lewis and David Friedman be involved was for you both.

DW: We met Jello at a crazy MONSTURD screening in San Francisco. He came of his own free will, as a "fan." It was random and totally odd. I was a big Dead Kennedys Fan and knew who he was, so I was taken off guard at how much he liked the movie. Rick and Jello and I chatted for a few hours after the screening and could have blathered on forever. We got along really well and Jello implied that he'd done some acting and wouldn't be adverse to acting in some of our stuff, if we'd entertain that notion.

Well, fuck me, I was floored by that, being a fan of his, but I'm a decent actor and played it cool, but I was pretty damn thrilled by the idea. It worked out well, as you point out. I like the whole process of working with Jello Biafra because he didn't bat an eye at the crazy low-budget set we threw him in, and gleefully threw himself into saying that ridiculous dialog that we came him for the Mayor's press conference.

My association with Herschell Gordon Lewis dates back to the 1980's when I first started bugging him to collaborate on some kind of film project. Herschell was always accommodating and humored me for years in a gentlemanly manner as I pitched endless projects to him that never came to fruition. The narration he did for RetarDEAD and the David Friedman footage were the result of a project that Rick and I had in mind in which we would play them in an autobiographical comedy about their exploitation movie adventures. This never came to pass, much to my disappointment, but their narration efforts were not to be wasted. We had Herschell's narration recorded on audio tape and Dave Friedman's narration on camera that I had paid for to be used as second unit footage for the proposed project. When we came down to finalizing RETARDEAD we asked both of them for their permission to use those bits for the movie and they agreed.

NO-BUDGET NIGHTMARES: RETARDEAD (2008)

2012-03-26T16:52:00.002-04:00

It should come as little surprise to readers of this column that I love no-budget films. Yeah, I critique 'em. I tear them apart a bit. But in my heart, there's something about the creation of entertainment on limited resources that simply warms my soul. You love movies? You want to make one? Well, write a script, get your friends together, and start filming. It'll likely be terrible, but that experience will make the next one better. Which will make the one after that better. And so on and so on. But perhaps more than this "let's put on a show" attitude, I dig the freedom of self-financed, ultra low-budget film-making. If you want to make something horribly offensive, tasteless, disgusting or unwatchable.. nobody will be looking over your shoulder to try and correct you. It's a beautiful time for creativity. It's the wild west.

In 2003, Dan West and Rick Popko directed a ridiculous monster movie parody called MONSTURD about a serial killer being mutated into a giant creature made of.. shit. It was full of silly humor, off-the-wall performances (including great turns by West and Popko) and an energy rarely seen in shot-on-DV productions. It's a gleefully offensive piece of genre filmmaking, but one that sometimes has trouble sustaining interest throughout its 80 minutes. A full five years passed before we would see their followup film, which would end up being a direct sequel to MONSTURD though significantly more polished (get it?). RETARDEAD plopped in 2008, and we're all still attempting to recover. I remember reading about the film in A D Puchalski's wonderful SHOCK CINEMA magazine and knowing that I simply had to check it out, though it would unfortunately be years until I had the chance.

As you might have already gathered, RETARDEAD is a zombie film - though one with a twist. Dr. Stern (Dan Burr) has vanished after the events of MONSTURD and is presumed dead, though Sheriff Duncan (Paul Weiner) and FBI agent Hannigan (Beth West) are skeptical that he's gone for good. Their suspicions are confirmed when he pops up at a local special education school where he begins experimenting on the unwilling students with his Algernon 9 formula, which is meant to rapidly increase their intelligence. The FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON reference should be a tip-off that there might be some side-effects, and soon the mentally challenged kids turn into flesh hungry ZOMBIES. The zombie plague rapidly gets out of control, with Duncan's deputies Rick and Dan (our two directors) - who had been busy chasing the perverted Weenie Wagger - called into action, and eventually having to enlist the help of Stern to try and track down an antidote. Things just get nuttier from there, and the final gag is a howler.

West and Popko definitely take advantage of the freedoms offered on a low-budget, as they gleefully bathe themselves in bad-taste comedy and gore to the delight of discriminating genre fans. But a film can't live on gore alone, and the directors - who are comedy sketch veterans - have assembled a sharp, funny script that continually both wallows in and subverts the conventions of zombie horror. They've also amassed a cast much higher in quality than normally found in films of this budget - including the actors playing the special ed students who somehow skirt the line between hilarious (think crayons up the nose and random bunny outfits) and sympathetic. Best of all is Dan Burr as Dr. Stern whose solution to the zombie problem ends up being hilariously simple, but who carries a quiet menace - particularly when using a particularly frightening spider analogy.

Technical specs are surprisingly high, with a cavalcade of head shots, organ eating, the requisite machete to the head, and even a helicopter explosion thrown in for good measure. Once things start ramping up at the half way mark, there's a constant stream of gory set pieces, with occasional comic relief from the deputies ("What kind of cop are you?" "I dunno. A crappy one, I guess") to remind us that we're watching a comedy. The make-up effects quite good - and plentiful - and West and Popko get plenty of cooperation from droves of zombie extras, and even filmmakers (second unit footage comes from around the US and Canada). Sound is excellent, too, with a fine score by Marshall Crutcher and an excellent closing theme song that I find myself whistling on a frequent basis.

RETARDEAD is packaged as a full drive-in experience, with not only a comical pre-film concession stand advertisment parody (directed by RETARDEAD editor Ken Dashner), and TWO parody trailers (directed by West and Popko): FRANKENSTEIN AND THE BLOODY BEAST OF GHASTLY TERROR and DRACULA VS JACK THE RIPPER which poke fun at the terrible dubbing and goofy plot devices often present in foreign horror films of the 70s. RETARDEAD also has some wonderful - and surprising - cameos. Horror legend H.G. Lewis does an opening bit of narration, while fellow legend (and partner) David Friedman shows up briefly on a television as "Captain Kooky". Perhaps strangest of all, punk God (and former Dead Kennedys frontman) Jello Biafra shows up as the mayor of Butte county. Amazing!

Of course, RETARDEAD isn't for everyone. Even if you can get past the title and the obviously comical portrayal of people with disabilities, it's still an ultra low-budget film with all of the limitations that would imply. While the acting is good, it's inconsistent - with Beth West as Agent Hannigan giving an unfortunately (but appropriately) stiff performance. But these rough edges are part of the appeal for fans, and horror fans looking for something happily unrestrained will be overjoyed at Popko and West's commitment to crowd-pleasing. It's a whacked-out, unpredictable mess of a film, and when it comes to no-budget film-making, there can be no bigger compliment.

One Nightmare out of Five - No-Budget Perfection

One Nightmare - No-Budget Perfection, Two Nightmares - Shocking Success, Three Nightmares - Shows Potential, Four Nightmares - Not Much Fun, Five Nightmares - Please Kill Me

Join me this week for an interview with RETARDEAD directors Rick Popko and Dan West.

Capsule Review: The Pianist (2002)

2012-01-21T00:47:00.001-05:00

Władysław Szpilman was a Jewish-Polish Pianist who, despite all odds, managed to survive the horrific German occupation of Warsaw, Poland. Perhaps no other director was better prepared to tell his story than Roman Polanski, who escaped from the Krakow Ghetto as a child after the death of his mother. Despite devastatingly emotional material, Polanski doesn't wallow in the sadness, instead embracing moments of quiet beauty amongst one of the greatest tragedies in modern history. He rests the entire film on the pitch perfect performance of Adrien Brody, who goes from naive professional to harrowed, impossibly traumatized survivor in a world so unrecognizable, that it seems nearly post-apocalyptic. When you witness the barbaric behavior of the Nazis in the film, it might be easy to believe the end of the world wasn't far behind. The 2002 winner of the Palme D'or at Cannes, and a truly powerful film.

Capsule Review: A Very Long Engagement (2004)

2012-01-15T16:20:00.000-05:00

After Jean-Pierre Jeunet's disastrous Hollywood experience which resulted in Alien Resurrection, he returned to France and made the timeless, internationally beloved Amélie. His followup appeared at first to be a rather dramatic change of pace - a romantic drama focusing on a woman's desperate attempt to discover the fate of her fiancee, who was sent to his death during WW1 due to self-mutilation. However, Jeunet's visual gymnastics and unique storytelling devices are in full force, as the film darts around timeliness, making use of frequent cutaways, and employs a huge number of quirky, fascinating characters. But this is much more than simply Amélie goes to war - despite Audrey Tautou once again being radiant in the lead role. For one, the material is much bleaker, with scenes of intense violence and brutality that might make more sensitive viewers wince. The scope is also much wider, and feels much more grounded in reality despite Jeunet's otherworldly tendencies. Features Jodie Foster in a small role, showing off her impressive french skills.

Capsule Review: Gangs of New York (2002)

2012-01-07T00:51:00.000-05:00

One of Martin Scorsese's dream projects, in development for over 30 years, Gangs of New York ended up a glorious mess, stuck somewhere between historical epic and action film. At over two and a half hours, it still feels like a compromised experience, perhaps exemplified by its casting. While Daniel Day Lewis as Bill "the Butcher" Cutting electrifies every moment he's on screen (and ably carries the film's dead spots), both Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz are horribly miscast, and even the incredible production design and supporting performances can't hide the weaknesses of those two stars. Thankfully, the supporting performers are universally excellent, and the settings makes for a fresh environment that is beautiful to look at - it's hard to believe that the sets were constructed in Rome, Italy. It's still massively entertaining, but feels unfortunately compromised. One can't help but wonder what a lean, hungry Scorsese might have made of this material in the 1970s.

Capsule Review: The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008)

2012-01-02T17:39:00.000-05:00

A delightfully overstuffed tribute to Sergio Leone's Spaghetti westerns, director Kim Ji-woon (The Foul King, I Saw The Devil) ramps up the action and comedy with the help of some of South Korea's most recognizable actors. The first half plays like a very loose remake of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly with the multiple characters all attempting to track down a treasure map after an incredible train robbery scene. The Good (Jung Woo-sung) is a grizzled rifle-carrying bounty hunter, while the Bad (I Saw The Devil's Lee Byung-hun) is an well-coiffed maniac out for revenge. Best of all is the always wonderful Song Kang-ho as the comically weird Yoon Tae-goo. While the film misses much of the emotional weight of Leone's masterpiece, and the second half rapidly morphs into a Korean take on It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World the results are so deliriously entertaining that the final scenes will leave you breathless. While taking place in 1930s Manchuria, the film still captures the desolate locales the films it's referencing, while bringing heavier WWII style fire-power into the fray. Tons of fun.

Capsule Review: District 9 (2009)

2012-01-01T19:15:00.001-05:00

A South African-set science fiction film by a first time director and featuring almost no recognizable actors might be one of the least likely possible blockbusters, but director Neil Blomkamp (who had impressed filmmaker Peter Jackson with his short films) found worldwide acclaim for his mixture of special effects and political statement. Obviously inspired by the segregation within South Africa during the apartheid era, Blomkamp - adapting his own short film Alive in Joburg - posits the alien "prawns" as sadly helpless and despised by the people around them, and horribly mistreated as they are forced into government camps. The special effects - by Jackson's Weta Digital - are astounding, and are expertly incorporated into faux-documentary footage before the film seamlessly transitions into its narrative. While the metaphors tend to get a bit heavy handed, it's still a wonderfully entertaining and original film that promises great things from Blomkamp in the future.

Capsule Review: Fish Tank (2009)

2012-01-01T00:58:00.000-05:00

A thoroughly honest, though consistently distressing, character piece, Andrea Arnold's FISH TANK is impeccably acted by newcomer Katie Jarvis and rising superstar Michael Fassbender. Jarvis plays Mia, a 15 year old girl growing up in a council estate in East London. She's angry, violent and headed toward a life likely similar to her own hard partying, alcohol fueled mother who has just started seeing the energetic, charming Connor (Michael Fassbender). While the film refuses to paint the characters in broad strokes, every possible bright spot between Mia and Connor is snuffed out after a drunken incident, but the film refuses to easily label Connor as a villain. The performances are amazing, and the constantly hovering hand-held camera puts the audience in the middle of a life flying rapidly out of control. Some of the symbolism is a bit on the nose, and at over two hours it can feel exhausting, but it remains a remarkable achievement for all involved. Winner of the Cannes Jury Prize, and recently released as part of the Criterion Collection.

Capsule Review: Of Gods and Men (2010)

2011-12-31T00:57:00.000-05:00

Near the end of Xavier Beauvois' OF GODS AND MEN we witness the nine Monks who we've spent the entirety of the film with breaking from their usual routine of chanting, studying or working to sit together and drink wine while listening to a section from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. It's a beautiful, sad moment as emotion fills their faces, the realization that their fate may already have been sealed combining with their intense resilience. The monks have lived in peace within a remote section of Algeria for many years, existing peacefully along the nearby Muslim community, but the rise of terrorist extremists has put them at extreme risk. The film covers their decision to stay despite almost certain death, and the quiet dignity that each man maintains as their faith is tested. Whether they make the right decision isn't made totally clear, but it's filmed in such a calm, dignified way that it's hard not to admire the dedication and devotion of these men, even if misguided. Winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes, it's a deliberately pace and perfectly acted film, and one relaying an unfortunate piece of recent history.

Capsule Review: In the Loop (2009)

2011-12-29T22:03:00.000-05:00

Armando Iannucci has been creating hilarious, innovative comedy for decades now in television series' like THE DAY TODAY and I'M ALAN PARTRIDGE, but his most impressive accomplishment has been his uproarious satirical series THE THICK OF IT. The choice to make a feature film adaptation/continuation of the series could have been disastrous, but despite adding a few American names and expanding the scope to cover global tensions (as opposed to the UK-centric focus of the show) the core brilliance - exemplified by Peter Capaldi's hilariously foul-mouthed "enforcer" Malcolm Tucker - is fully intact. In fact, the increased resources make for some of the darkest political comedy this side of DR. STRANGELOVE. The screenplay was rightfully Oscar nominated, but the performers deserve plenty of credit for being able to spit out the wonderful dialogue so convincingly. Hilariously brilliant.

Capsule Review: The Social Network (2010)

2011-12-27T19:09:00.000-05:00

The rise (and rise) of a social network impresario could have made for dry and flavorless viewing, but the combination of David Fincher's flashy visuals and Aaron Sorkin's verbal pyrotechnics makes for a consistently engrossing experience. Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg is purposely difficult to digest, playing the real-life billionaire as a near autistic obsessive, pushing away even his closest confidants. The rest of the young ensemble is equally impressive, and Fincher uses special FX work (such as in the face swapping of the The Winklevoss twins) to miraculous effect - though sometimes goes a little overboard during the winter scenes. While sometimes tenuously linked to the real life events that inspired it, it plays as the sort of modern morality tale that is almost frighteningly of the moment. Ably assisted by a terrific (and Oscar winning) score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Reviews/Articles at Daily Grindhouse

2011-12-26T21:30:00.000-05:00

Reviews/Articles at Daily Grindhouse

2011-10-30T18:30:00.000-04:00

Just a brief summary of some of my most recent writing over at Daily Grindhouse.

No-Budget Nightmares - A weekly feature containing both a look at a low-budget feature, as well as interviews with those involved in their creation.

No-Budget Nightmares: Interview with The Timeslip director Jonathan Chance
No-Budget Nightmares: Hip Hop Locos (2001)
Podcast: Daily Grindhouse Presents – No-Budget Nightmares: Hip Hop Locos
No-Budget Nightmares: The Lost Realities of Hog Caller (2011)
No-Budget Nightmares: Interview with The Lost Realities of Hog Caller director Tom Richards
No-Budget Nightmares: Scarlet Fry’s Junkfood Horrorfest (2007)
Podcast: Daily Grindhouse Presents – No-Budget Nightmares: Scarlet Fry’s Junkfood Horrorfest
No-Budget Nightmares: Pirates: Quest for Snake Island (2009)
No-Budget Nightmares: Interview with Pirates: Quest for Snake Island director Brett Kelly

Enter The Fist - A weekly feature showcasing some historically important Kung-Fu films

Enter The Fist – The Victim (1980)
Enter The Fist – The One-Armed Swordsman (1967)
Enter The Fist – The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978)
Enter The Fist – Enter the Dragon (1973)

Take this Waltz (2011)

2011-09-30T13:26:00.004-04:00

The 31st Atlantic Film Festival

While I waited for Take this Waltz to begin, I was forced to listen to three quarters of the two old couples seated behind me try to convince the fourth that Sarah Polley, the film's writer and director, is, indeed, famous in some small way. They really couldn't come up with any examples; they knew that she'd done Away from Her, but they were totally blanking on her acting career, aside from mentioning that she was in that film "about the bus crash." I wanted to shout at them: "she's the kid from Road to Avonlea, for Christ's sake!" She is, essentially, the most Canadian actor in Canada. And that's something.

And, indeed, the fact that Sarah was the face of Road to Avonlea from 1990-1996--when I was ages 9 to 15--left me with a great deal of resentment toward her, which, thankfully, I've been able to brush off. For those unfamiliar with the show, it existed in the same fictional universe as Anne of Green Gables ("fictional" because it features the same characters, not because PEI is imaginary). It won four Emmys, which is impressive, since I didn't know that Canadian television qualified for that award. In any event, what seemed like the show's ubiquitous presence led me, at a young age, to the incorrect impression that Canadian entertainment was focused almost entirely on rural, conflict-free period pieces. How awful. If only I'd known David Cronenberg then...

Anyway, Take This Waltz stars the lovely and talented Michelle Williams, and the lovely and talented Sarah Silverman, and, uh, Seth Rogen. The story is nothing especially new: it focuses on Margot (Michelle Williams), a naive and spritely girl, who is married to Lou (Seth Rogen), a seemingly well-meaning fellow, who is writing a cookbook entirely on chicken. At the beginning of the film, Margot meets Daniel (Luke Kirby), to whom she has an immediately and profound attraction. This is problematic, since she loves her husband and wants to stay loyal to him, but finds herself drawn to Daniel, who lives directly across the street. And also there's Geraldine (Sarah Silverman), Lou's sister, who happens to be an alcoholic. Domestic drama ensues.

Sure, it's not an original story. So what? People are constantly cheating, or tempted to cheat, or unhappy with their life, or happy with it, but wondering if they can be happier. This shit happens. And Take This Waltz is, for lack of a better word, Canadian, and therefore worth watching.

What does it mean, for a film to be "Canadian"? It's hard to pin down. Just being made in Canada, or by Canadians, doesn't cut it. Most of David Cronenberg's films, up to and including eXistenZ, are very Canadian. The ones afterwards are not so Canadian. Most of Bruce McDonald's films qualify, but especially Highway 61 and Roadkill. Early Atom Egoyan. Norman Jewison is Canadian, but his films are not. Denis Villeneuve's films look too good to be Canadian, but one of them, Maelstrom, is narrated by a fish, and that's unbelievably Canadian. Anything featuring Don McKellar or Sook-Yin Li is Canadian, even if it isn't. Ryan Gosling is going to have to reaffirm his Canadianness soon, or I'll gladly strip him of it. Etc. I can clarify in the comments, if necessary. This list is objective.

Take This Waltz is Canadian because it assaults you with honesty. It doesn't let off anyone easy; the three main characters are all complicit in the infidelity (or the possibility of it). It doesn't make it easy on the audience, either; you can see why Margot is in a conundrum. And also, because it's so goddamn Canadian, everyone is really nice and polite while it's happening, and not in some unbelievable way, either. It also does a good job of effectively mixing dramatic and comedic modes, which can sometimes be tricky: "dramedy" is not a term that excites this particular film-goer.

A lot of the film's honesty comes from Williams. I don't know how to explain it, but Michelle Williams has the most honest face in show business. Her face is a raw nerve. That might not make sense, but that's the best way I can put it.

Based on reading the few message boards I lurk at, and speaking to a couple of people in person, I'm lead to believe that people have really soured on Seth Rogen. He gets a free pass with me. Why? Because the dude has remained unabashedly Canadian. He played a Canadian in Knocked Up and Undeclared, even though the fact of his characters' origins were totally irrelevant to those shows' plots. And here he's undoubtedly taking a pay cut to be in a Sarah Polley movie. That's unheard of. I mean, when I think of other successful Canadian comedic actors, I think of Jim Carrey, for instance, who currently seems about as Canadian as Bill Clinton.

Watching the film, I couldn't help but think about how some films, when focusing on human relationships, want you to take what happens in the two hour running time (or even an individual scene) and accept it as an encapsulation of the whole relationship; in other words, if you're shown some scenes of two people in a bad relationship, you should take it as a given that the relationship, as whole, is like this. But some directors, or artists, don't want it that way: what they're offering you is a snapshot, one that might not be representative of the whole. And it's hard to tell, sometimes, which example you're watching. Margot and Lou's relationship seems very immature--they narrate fantastic ways of murdering each other as a show of endearment--and largely sexless. But is that true of the relationship as a whole, or only the moments offered? The film leaves it up to you, and if you interpret it one way or the other, your sympathies could change.

Anyway, support Canadian films and watch this fucking movie.

Reviews/Articles at Daily Grindhouse

2011-09-28T09:58:00.001-04:00

Sleeping Beauty (2011)

2011-09-17T09:17:00.003-04:00

The 31st Atlantic Film Festival

Julia Leigh's Sleeping Beauty has been described as an erotic drama, or even as erotica. I think that description might be misleading. I suppose that any time that you have a film with lots of nudity and implied sex, you feel obligated to warn the audience, in some fashion, about the subject matter, but "erotica" seems to imply that that subject matter will be, well, erotic. The sex (all off-screen, actually) and nudity in this film is usually just kind of sad and depressing.

Lucy (an astonishingly beautiful Emily Browning) is a student who needs money. Or possibly just wants it. She works two jobs--one as an office assistant, one as a waitress (or bus boy)--and she also engages in medical experiments, which I assume she's being paid for. The medical experiment involves a long tube being inserted into her throat, and down into her chest; the doctor (or scientist) then seems to measure how much air pressure he can put into her. It's, obviously, quite weird. Lucy lives at a friend's house, and her friend's boyfriend (friend? husband? lover?) keeps pestering her for the rent. Lucy then answers an ad in the student newspaper, and finds a job doing a "silver service"; dressed up in her undergarments, she joins a group of semi-nude women as they serve rich old people decadent food.

And then it gets weirder. Lucy soon finds herself offering a rather depressing service: she allows herself to be drugged, so that old rich men may do to her whatever they want--except, for some reason, penetrate her. That, apparently, is out of the question. "Your vagina is a temple," the madam, Clara, tells Lucy. "No, it's not," replies Lucy. Certainly she doesn't feel that way; off the job, she picks up men for sex at a club.

Lucy also has a friend named Birdmann, whom she visits on occasion, usually to supply with vodka. Birdmann seems to be drinking himself to death. This makes Lucy sad, but not so sad as to really do anything about it. They have a very close, very intimate relationship, but it's never revealed if they are, or ever were, lovers.

It's hard to know what to make of Sleeping Beauty. It's disturbing, yes; the fact that these old men want to do whatever they feel like to a young, sleeping woman, is obviously unsettling, and somehow the fact that they don't allow full penetration makes it even more so. This opportunity that the men have--to be with a woman, unobserved, even by the woman--creates even more intimate, and obviously more unequal (and ultimately more pathetic) situation. But the tone seems quite uneven. The stilted dialogue of the old man--there is one who gets an extended monologue--seems almost satiric, or, if not satiric, then just actually bad.

But I think that the film does a lot of things right. It never tries to explain Lucy; we don't really know anything about her. I see her actions, but I don't get to know what motivates these actions. I don't know, for instance, why she needs money--she mentions an alcoholic mother, and she does speak to her, once, on the phone, but you only get Lucy's side of the conversation, and, in any event, you never see her sending money anyway (though she does give her mother her credit card number). Is this an important detail, or a red herring? There's no illumination into her relationship with Birdmann, either; how do they know each other? What is there history? And why does her roommate's boyfriend want her out so badly? Like I said, I think that this is the right decision; it would be difficult to explain Lucy's story, her motivations, and even if you did, you'd risk shifting the focus of the movie away from the situation she's in, and instead making it into a sort of melodrama. In any event, knowing and understanding Lucy wouldn't really get us any further in understanding the weird world she enters. It's less important to know why Lucy is doing what she's doing, than to speculate as to why her johns are doing what they're doing--and their motivation is something that you need to consider for yourself.

And I think that this is tied, in a way, to the fact that a movie about sex never actually shows any sex; sure, it shows some graphic scenes of a sexual nature, but any real sex happens off screen. What does happen on-screen would actually be fairly tame (by art house film standards), but the context tends to make it uncomfortable.

The film is beautifully shot, and I couldn't help but notice how few cuts there were in each scene. This is something that, over time, I've really come to appreciate. If the actors are performing one action, it's usually depicted in one shot. Conversations, which aren't overly verbose, but still involve some back-and-forth dialogue, are also shot without cuts. It slows the pace of the film down, a bit, but it gives you a better appreciation of the actual performances, and comes off as much more natural.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011)

2011-09-17T08:40:00.004-04:00

The 31st Atlantic Film Festival

It still seems weird that Werner Herzog shot a film in 3D. And it was weird--filing into a sold-out movie theatre with a bunch of elderly cinephiles and middle-aged hipsters, overhearing pretentious discussions about Herzog's "ecstatic truth" in Aguirre, or whatever, and donning 3D glasses to watch a documentary, of all things. But despite the 3D aspect, this was, in the end, a very Werner Herzog-like Werner Herzog film. It had everything you've come to expect from him: a remote location, difficult to shoot in; odd, eccentric characters, mugging for the camera; and Herzog's incomparable narration.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams provides the audience with a tour of the Chauvet Cave, where, in 1994, the earliest cave paintings in human history were discovered--carbon-dating shows that some of them are 35,000 years old (take that, Creationists!). While I certainly don't know much about cave paintings, the ones I remember seeing were always pretty primitive-looking; just a step above stick figures, really. These paintings, on the other hand, are quite involved, and quite graceful; the artists understood shading, for one, and they attempted, in different ways, to capture motion in their still images.

And I have to admit that the 3D format really worked, at least for the scenes in the cave. The artists used the shape of the cave when making their paintings, so it makes sense that Herzog would use a medium that allowed the audience to really see these shapes and contours. Plus, it gives you an uncanny sense of the size and depth of the place. As an added bonus, at times it also gives you the sense of being crowded-in or surrounded; if you were claustrophobic, I actually think you'd have a very hard time sitting through parts of this (the fact that I was relegated to the fourth row probably added to this effect). I couldn't help but get the idea that The Descent needs to be remade in 3D. I imagine that I'm the only one clamoring for that, though.

Like I mentioned, you also get your requisite Herzog eccentrics. The three main culprits is an Einstein-looking anthropologist (or archaeologist--I forget) who tries, unsuccessfully, to reproduce Neolithic hunting techniques; a master perfumer, who attempts to locate caves by smelling them out; and another scientist (I think) decked out head-to-toe in furs, who plays "The Star-Spangled Banner" on a bone flute.

I will say, though, that there are moments when Herzog seems to almost descend into self-parody. Near the end, we're introduced to a crocodile habitat, featuring some mutated albino crocodiles. And this part is, according to Herzog himself, entirely fictitious. Whatever the case, Herzog wonders aloud what the albino mutant crocodiles would think of the cave paintings. He asks, “Are we truly the crocodiles who look back into the abyss of time?"

That's some wild shit, Werner.

Reviews at Daily Grindhouse!

2011-08-20T21:27:00.000-04:00

Hello all!

I've recently started writing reviews and articles for the website Daily Grindhouse, and if you like any of my writing on here - particularly my reviews of no-budget films - you'll love what you'll see over there.

Here are the articles I've posted so far:

No-Budget Nightmares - A weekly feature containing both a look at a low-budget feature, as well as interviews with those involved in their creation.

1) No-Budget Nightmares - An Introduction
2) No-Budget Nightmares - So Mort It Be (2004)
3) No-Budget Nightmares: Interview with So Mort It Be director Fabian Rush

Enter The Fist - A weekly feature showcasing some historically important Kung-Fu films.

1) Enter The Fist - Introduction To The Fist
2) Enter The Fist - Come Drink With Me (1966)

Reviews - Reviews for Exploitation/Grindhouse

1) Superfly (1972)
2) Profondo Rosso/Deep Red (1975)
3) Turkey Shoot (1982)

Sha chu chong wei (aka Breakout From Oppression) (1978)

2011-08-01T19:46:00.000-04:00

Well, that was unexpected. Despite being featured in a Martial Arts 50 movie pack, Breakout From Oppression (not to be confused with the 1973 kung-fu film Breakout From Oppression starring Gordon Liu) is actually a fairly competent thriller sunk by some of the absolute worst dubbing you're likely to encounter. There is some slashing and chopping action, but the film has more in common with "seemingly normal people are actually insane" films like Psycho (which, of course, gets a tribute here) or Fatal Attraction then the action films that populate the rest of the collection.

Of course, the actual plot of this film might be a little different than what is presented in this dubbed version. Director Karen Yang has no other credits on the IMDB, and the film was credited as written by Godfrey Ho, a man notorious for editing the work of others together and calling it his own. Thankfully, there isn't a ninja to be found here, but the editing is often bizarre and characters' actions equally so. It's fully possible that this is a severely edited version of the original production, though it's equally possible that this was another half-completed film that Ho "rescued".

Fonda Chiu (Fonda Lynn) has recently been released from prison after an eight year stint for the murder of her married lover, and is looking to forget her past by taking an editor's assistant job at a newspaper in a seaside community. While she was lured by a letter from the President of the company, he's currently missing leaving the staff a bit confused by her arrival. Still, editor Simon Chang (Alan Tam) finds her a job in the office where she quickly thrives - despite the irritance of the editorial manager and the jealousy of young Sheena (Lona Chang). While she hides her background, Simon is soon making the moves on Fonda which leads to some odd behavior from Sheena - who fancies Simon herself, but spends most of her time taking care of her grandmother since the death of her parents.

But here's the twist! Sheena is actually the daughter of Fonda's supposed murder victim, and she's psychotically insane because her mother offed herself after the incident. She's actually keeping the newspaper's president in her basement (and, eventually, kills him), and soon traps poor Simon down there as well. Hints of this nuttiness should be fairly apparent to everyone around her - she cuts the brakes on Fonda's bike, she puts glass in her spring rolls, and she kills Fonda's pet monkey - but it takes a final confrontation between the two ladies (which ends with a decapitation!) to bring things to a... head. Yes, I went there.

Despite an odd premise, along with plenty of slow-building melodrama, Breakout From Oppression actually builds to a rather impressive level of weirdness. While the dubbing will continually raise eyebrows - and cuts the tension off at the knees - once Sheena reveals herself as a loony things get a lot more enjoyable. And violent. Actually, while the level of violence isn't so surprising, there are a few shots: maggots on the President's corpse, a brutal stabbing, and the climactic decapitation - which give the film a surprising kick. Acting quality is difficult to judge, but Lona Chang is properly wild-eyed once her crimes are discovered and Fonda Lynn makes for a suitably spunky protagonist.

But let's talk about that dubbing. Chinese films are notoriously difficult to dub, but here we have the lethal combination of stilted, badly translated dialogue ("Your death alone will dispel my hate!") and actors who appear to be reading their lines from cards. You get the usual mix of British and Australian accents (and actors obviously doing multiple roles), but the performances make even serious lines ("What a bitch. She's
jinxed!") laughable. Add to this some choppy editing - again I wouldn't be surprised if Godfrey Ho had a hand in chopping the final product - and you're likely to find yourself baffled by what seems like a fairly straight-forward maniac tale.

Breakout From Oppression has been altered from its original aspect ratio, and it shows. Shots are almost always much too tight, and many scenes feel like a series of close-ups of faces. Image quality is also very fuzzy and dark, though that's almost to be expected when dealing with a pan and scan transfer of an obscure film of this vintage. A lot of the film takes place in darkness, but it only occasionally lapses into being frustratingly difficult to make out.

I do want to mention the bizarre soundtrack by Stephen Tsang, who also composed music for most of Godfrey Ho's ninja epics. It's memorably weird, with soft synth mixing with strange, experimental-sounding noises. It calls attention to itself a bit too often, but certainly adds to the madness on display.

This is from a Millcreek budget collection of public domain titles, so there's certainly no special features available. On the bright side, we at least get four randomly placed chapter stops. Hooray!

Psycho Killer . Qu'est-ce que c'est. I wish this movie was fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better. While building to a properly demented climax, and with gruesome moments sprinkled throughout, a weak presentation and bad dubbing rob most of the enjoyment from Breakout From Oppression. Perhaps in its unmolested original version it would be able to rise above being an average psycho romp, but in its current (and, to my knowledge, only available) form it's simply too slow moving to recommend.

Bloody Nightmares #39: The Witching (1993)

2011-07-31T21:16:00.000-04:00

I like Todd Sheets.

There, I said it.

His movies in this collection have run from terrible (Nightmare Asylum (1992), Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City (1991)) to slightly less terrible (Zombie Rampage (1989/1991)) but he was trying something - making shot-on-video horror films and distributing them - at a time when such a thing was a baffling undertaking. Yeah, most end up being a waste of time, but there is a "let's put on a show!" energy that I can't help but find inspiring. It's not going to stop me from giving my honest opinion about these films, and warning people away when appropriate, but I try to go into each of his productions with an open mind. Now, The Witching wasn't directed by Todd Sheets - fellow genre stalwarts Matthew Jason Walsh and Eric Black do the directing and writing on this one - but Sheets' fingerprints are all over it. He produced, did the cinematography, was the assistant and second unit director and even appears as a demonic acolyte, and of course this was all filmed in Kansas City and features most of the cast from Sheets' previous productions. Whew. So, we know what to expect here.

Except.. it's not terrible. There are parts that even skirt the line of good! I know, I'm as surprised as you are. The Witching features all of the issues inherent with the format and budget - the video quality is particularly bad on this one - but the comical tone, some really fun writing and (crucially) the short sixty minute running time all help smooth over these rough moments. Black and Walsh put more time than expected into the areas which count, and it pays off.

Stewart Goodman (Auggi Alvarez) can't go to the Blacktooth concert because his parents are forcing him to watch the house (and his senile grandmother) while they go to the theater to see Bonnie Franklin's off-Broadway one-woman version of Evita. Even worse, Stewart's dad is threatening to send him to military school, and he has to spend his time with the supremely irritating Morris (a supremely irritating Mike Hellman). While bumbling around the basement ("Maybe we could run away to canada and become lumberjacks"), Stewart and Morris find a secret room containing a book written by Stewart's witch-hunting ancestor Goodman Benny (ugh) which - for some reason - contains the text to open the portal to Limbo. Limbo just happens to contain the Queen of the Witches Morgana of Oberon who Goodman had prevented from building her Pazuzu Configuration machine that is meant to enslave the world. Or, something like that.

If you're guessing that Stewart reads the text (which, of course, includes "klaatu barada nikto") and unlocks a portal to limbo through his fridge ("There is a hallway in my refrigerator!"), then you would be right. "When mom and day get back from the theater, they're going to see this and shit dead puppies!", says Stewart before the two head into the portal where they encounter Morgana (Veronica Orr, from Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City (1991)), as well as her minions Beast and Sluggo (and Scully the puppet imp). Stewart and Morris put a padlock on the fridge before Stew retreats to his room to attempt to clear his head. There he meets Morgana's step-daughter Bethany of Oberon (Dianne O'Connell, who is AWFUL) who says that in order to finish the Pazuzu Configuration, Morgana needs three items:

a meat that’s not meat
a clock that counts the beats of a heart
three drops of virgin blood

Meanwhile Morris and Grandma are joined by Vietnam Vet/UFO enthusiast/nutball Mr. Flopchek to watch Nude Mud Wrestling USA. That is, until a witch crawls out of the television ("Holy leapfrogging shit!") and terrorizes the group before being killed by a pizza delivery gal who happens to have a gun. Got that? Good. Because it only gets weirder from here on out. Scully the imp steals Mr. Flopchek's hot dog (a meat that's not meat) and Morris gets turned into a frog-creature by one of Morgana's hexes. The morphing effect is actually rather impressive for a no-budget film from 1993, but the make-up is less so.

Grandma seems blissfully unaware of what's going on, and opens the locked refrigerator - leading to her immediate kidnap by Beast. Turns out that she has a pacemaker (a clock that counts the beats of a heart), and soon the rest of the crew - including the pizza gal and Mr. Flopchek - head into the portal to retrieve her. Oh, and Stewart has a fight with Sluggo using only blow-up dolls. And frog-Morris gets kidnapped as well (three drops of virgin blood). The whole crew eventually get captured, but Grandma fights off Morgana, destroying her Pazuzu Configuration machine and saving the day. Stewart falls in love with Bethany, Morris gets a kiss from the pizza delivery woman (which turns him back into the pony-tailed geek he was before), and everyone lives happily ever after.

While owing a debt to the Troma films of the period - not to mention Joe Dante's classic The Burbs - The Witching stands fairly confidently as a wild, often ridiculous mash-up of monster movies, pop culture references and anything else the creators could throw at the screen. Unlike the efforts of Todd Sheets, this one looks rather carefully scripted, and some beautifully weird dialogue helps overcome some (really) weak performances and iffy production values. It doesn't take itself very seriously, but it comes to a lot of its humor legitimately through dialogue and character.

But the film's biggest asset is its short running time, which means that when the plot starts to pour out it doesn't let up until the final few minutes. I often decry low-budget films for stretching a minimum of plot to 60 minutes, but here there's an overdose of plot - and that means while much of what we're seeing is low rent (particularly that explosion at the end), it's very rarely boring.

But the acting is seriously bad. Auggi Alvarez is obviously doing his all to make Stewart a bit whiny and unpleasant, but he goes way overboard and his dialogue is seriously stilted. Morris is meant to be an annoying doofus, so I suppose Mike Hellman should get credit for pulling that off, but it's still a tough character to tolerate. And Veronica Orr, who was the best of a bad bunch in Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City (1991) seems to be acting in a different film entirely. But the bad-acting award goes to Dianne O'Connell as Bethany, who seems to be reading every line off of a slowly moving teleprompter. She also has memorably terrible early 90s hair.

The Witching is presented in its original full-frame, and this transfer seems to have been taken directly from a well-worn videotape. Tracking problems, fuzziness, pixelation.. you name it, this has it. It doesn't help that the final ten minutes take place in a dark cavern, which can make detail particularly difficult to make out. Many of these issues won't be new to those from the VHS generation, but it's still occasionally rather rough going. Similarly, there's an audible hiss in the background throughout the entire film, though dialogue is (mercifully) competently recorded. Aside from a couple of cheesy rock songs at the beginning and end there isn't a lot of background music, and what is here is forgettable.

Hey! It's a film in the Bloody Nightmares collection! And that means no chapter stops, and no special features. Too bad, since this looks like it was a blast to make.

An insane mish-mash of comic horror, The Witching delivers the goods in a very specific, no-budget way. Directors/Writers Eric Black and Matthew Jason Walsh obviously relished the opportunity to let loose with bizarre dialogue, weird creatures and strange set-pieces and while their budget frequently trips them up (the locations and make-up often look straight out of a high school play) there's a sense of energy that is too-often missing from these productions. It's not going to win any awards, and the transfer is consistently frustrating, but for those in the right mood there's a lot of fun here. Todd Sheets, I hardly knew ye.

Bloody Nightmares #38: Up For Rent (2006)

2011-07-30T20:37:00.001-04:00

Hooray! Another anthology! Actually despite the overwhelmingly piss-poor selection of anthologies in the Bloody Nightmares collection, I tend to welcome their arrival. For one, the short running times of the individual segments at least prevent the material from being interminably stretched (a common problem in this set as a whole), and I - being an eternal optimist - can sustain myself through an awful segment in the hopes that the next one will be an improvement. Thankfully, in the case of Up For Rent the final segment is the best by far, though considering the quality of the other two (and the surrounding story) that's not really saying much. Still, at least by having three different directors - Derek Cole, Shane Cole and Kayla Richardson - there is a minor variation on the styles on display, and unlike some other anthologies (like, ugh, Scarlet Fry's Junkfood Horrorfest (2007)) there seems to be some attempt at building to an eventual twist or resolution in the individual segments. It's still pretty bad, but there are worthwhile bits here.

As the title would imply, these three stories (with one wraparound segment) all focus on a particular apartment. The implication is that it's cursed, though we don't really learn that from the stories. In fact, the actual fates in the individual segments don't seem to connect to the apartment at all. It's simply that a lot of bad stuff has happened there We begin with a young couple being shown around the modest location by a renter obviously aware of its troubled history. Soon we're launched into the first story.

Push concerns Cynthia Caldwell, a young female film director (her friend compares her to Almodóvar. How cute!) pushed to the edge by a suspicion that her boyfriend is cheating on her with his secretary. Haunted by the memories of her own mother's abuse, her mind rapidly deteriorates until she ends up stabbing her dude to death. Of course the bulk of her mental anguish happens in the HAUNTED apartment. But the twist is that he was never really cheating at all! In fact, he was getting her flowers and the rest was all a big misunderstanding! What a nut!

This first story - directed by Kayla Richardson - might actually have been fairly effective, but is sabotaged by a lead performance that seems completely disinterested. Sharon Savene as Cynthia not only looks a bit like Shelley Duvall, a definite strike against her, but completely fails at showing any of the emotional damage that her character is supposed to be experiencing. Her mental breakdown becomes completely unbelievable, and her eventual insanity becomes laughable. I'd like to believe that the director was at least attempting to make a statement about the cycle of abuse, but by hanging the entire thing on the lead it never ends up coming together. A disappointment.

The second segment is called Eye to Eye and centers on a twisted necrophiliac serial killer (a believably unhinged Derek Plonka - who looks disturbingly like Robert Sean Leonard) who is being tracked by a pair of frustrated cops. The killer is - of course - staying in the expected apartment, murdering young women and spending his time talking to their corpses (while placing plastic bags over their heads) and just generally being a total nutball. The big reveal at the end is that there's actually a copycat killer targeting the same young ladies and using similar methods, leading to a brief skirmish that leaves one of the killers dead. Which one? Guess.

This one ends just as things are starting to get interesting, but is a definite improvement over Push. For one, it's less reliant on acting and more focused on the various scenes of murder and the investigation of the killings. There's even a bit of comic relief where the two cops accidentally stumble upon an S&M couple doing some role-playing. Shane Cole handles the direction, and it's a bit more reliant on handheld camerawork than the static camera of the first segment. It's also, unsurprisingly, a bit more grisly. There's more blood than gore in the film, but the sexual content gives this segment a bit more edge.

Wanna-Be Deadly is the third segment of the anthology, and is by far the best thanks to a healthy dose of mostly effective humor. John (Greg Ashamalla) is an office drone who spends his days fantasizing about being a memorable serial killer (these fantasy sequences take the form of a newscast where co-workers talk about how mysterious and effective he is), while his actual murders feature general disdain from the pursuing Detective Smith and being labeled as The Plastic Killer (as opposed to his preferred moniker of The Micron Murderer). This time the twist is that Detective Smith has also been killing people, and has intercepted evidence from John that suggests that some of the killings he's been accused of were committed by someone else.

Ashamalla does a terrific job as the psycho who just wants a little respect, while Ed Cole as Detective Smith brings the proper amount of smarm and dickishness to his part. Even the direction (by Derek Cole) and editing are a step above the other two entries, with small flourishes (like John's inner monologue actually being played by a second actor) working quite well. The humor skirts the line of bad taste but it works, and even the fake newscast (a thorn in my side in this collection) is a bit more palatable when presented as one of John's bizarre fantasies.

The framing story ends with the couple (having rented the apartment) fighting over possible infidelity (just like in Push!) with one contemplating a knife before the closing credits roll. Will the accursed apartment take another victim for some reason? Eh. Who cares?

As with most of the films from the mid-2000s featured in the Bloody Nightmares collection, Up For Rent looks absolutely fine in its full-screen presentation, but features the usual video glitches now common in most of the featured transfers. Much more distracting are consistent audio drop-outs throughout the entire running time of the film, which was particularly noticeable since the sound quality is otherwise quite good with most dialogue being perfectly intelligible. It doesn't kill the entire thing, but proves to be rather irritating once you start noticing their frequency. The soundtrack is all over the place, with moody ambient pieces (by Peter Stone) mixing with industrial music from the bands Bile and Exorcist.

As with all of the films in the Bloody Nightmares collection, we unfortunately are not even treated to chapter stops (which would be particularly useful in an anthology film like this), and there are no special features.

Once again the anthology format proves tough to crack as a majority of Up For Rent, despite moments of inspiration, is simply a waste of time. The creators never really sell the theme appropriately, and the first segment is so terrible it would turn away all but the most patient viewers. Wanna-Be Deadly is the gem here, but even it falls victim to sound issues despite its unique stabs (ha!) at humor and some impressive performances. Inconsistency is simply a reality of this format and while this anthology is better than some in the collection, it simply never hits the mark. Not worth your time.

Capsule Review: The Phantom Carriage (1921)

2011-07-29T15:53:00.000-04:00

Despite some shaky melodrama and some last-minute moralizing that can't help but come off as trite, Victor Sjöström's The Phantom Carriage is a beautiful and haunting film featuring a collection of unforgettable images. Utilizing a narrative that travels seamlessly into a series of flashbacks (and even flashbacks within flashbacks), the film theorizes that when a person dies at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve they are conscripted to spend the year picking up the souls of the dead and placing them in a phantom carriage. David Holm, a real drunken bastard, is killed in a fight immediately after telling this story, and is visited by his friend who died the previous year at the same moment - and has spent the year wielding the scythe. We're then treated to flashbacks of Holm's awful behavior, the dissolution of his marriage, and the Salvation Army nurse who was committed to saving him. Based on the novel Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! by Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf, The Phantom Carriage is best known for its groundbreaking special effects, which are eerily effective despite their simplistic nature. An obvious influence on the films of Ingmar Bergman, The Phantom Carriage is not only an essential piece of Swedish cinema history, with its impressive cross-cutting, flashback structure and effects, but equally important to the development of film as a whole.