This Halloween season carries nothing but sadness.
For the past seven years, I’ve attended the Exhumed Films 24-Hour Horror Thon; an annual tradition whose cinematic pleasures are rivaled only by Fantastic Fest a mere month before. The second to last Saturday of the Samhain Season sees a bevy of Philadelphia film geeks descend upon the iHouse on UPenn’s campus, all destined to take in twelve to thirteen horror, cult and exploitation movies. Some of my favorite first-time viewings have occurred at this mini-fest (Night Warning!, Raw Force!) and the thought of missing it for the first time in the better part of a decade leaves a great big hollow space in my soul. While living in Texas has been an absolute blast, my heart is broken this holiday weekend.
I scrambled to find something down south to fill this rift, but none of the events felt adequate when compared to my trash cinema mecca (no offense, Dismember the Alamo — your brand of weirdness was definitely the most tempting). So, instead of forcing the issue, I turned to the one constant in life known to cheer me up whenever I’m feeling insanely blue. Because that’s the best part about cinema: it can act as a friend when you don’t seem to have any in sight. It’s the lamp you keep nearby when the nights get too cold. It can make you forget your troubles and elevate you above whatever’s been tugging at your spirit from below, even if for a brief ninety minutes. In short, it’s infinite, both in the possibilities it contains and the ability it owns to grant comfort.
Ten motion pictures; that’s what I picked to keep me company this past weekend. While the rest of the world was seemingly out enjoying a darkened theater house, I turned my living room into a private sanctuary, inside of which I paid tribute to the best damn time of the year. All of the films I sat down with were first viewings; some recommendations, others — blind pick ups. Seeing that exploration was one of the most rewarding facets of past fests, it only felt right to keep the practice alive and replicate that sense of discovery.
Now come and join me as I recap this solitary journey in search of distraction from melancholy, as though I may have experienced them alone, what good is any jaunt if you don’t share it with others later…
Film #1: DOLLS [1987] (d. Stuart Gordon, w. Ed Naha)
God bless you, Stuart Gordon.
There are few directors whose filmographies are infused with same sense of “fuck it, let’s have some fun.” Dolls is Gordon’s ode to childhood’s passing; before divorce or the death of parents and loss of toys robs us all of youthful days. But it’s all packaged in Gordon’s signature spook house style, where slimy monsters are hidden beneath the veneer of teddy bears and ancient, haunted homes sit atop forest flanked hills. As auteurist as his works are, Gordon’s body of work is rooted in scare film history. While Re-Animator and From Beyond were horror comedy riffs on mad scientist archetypes, Dolls feels like Gordon making his own William Castle movie (only here Guy Rolfe is playing the Vincent Price role, infused with a bit of David Lynch for good measure).
The director’s collaborations with Brian Yuzna came to represent a unique brand of 80s horror, dedicated to those who loved both Fangoria and the Universal Monsters. They’re blood-splattered party confections, complete with a cast of day players committed to turning in the hammiest of performances. While Jeffrey Combs is absent from Dolls, Stephen Lee and Carolyn Purdy-Gordon (looking like Gerrit Graham in drag) more than make up for his rubber-faced campiness. Big ups to Scream Factory for bestowing upon horror fans definitive editions of his work, as the new blu for Dolls looks ALMOST as good as their disc for From Beyond. A perfect way to begin a horror movie marathon, whether its curated for your living room couch or in a dark, packed theater.
Film #2: Trouble Every Day [2001] (d. Claire Denis, w. Claire Denis & Jean-Pol Fargeau)
The New French Extremity is as transgressive a movement as there ever was in horror, as the French began to mine new depths of depravity in the early 2000s. Filled with savage violence and sexual ugliness, many are an endurance test for even the most hardened horror film fans. After seeing most during festival or small art house theatrical runs during high school and college, I always kicked myself for never having seen the picture that feasibly started it all.
Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day laid the groundwork for filmmakers like Marina de Van (In My Skin), Alexandre Aja (Haute Tension) and Maury & Bustillo (À l’intérieur). But before the Extremity fell completely into the genre trappings, they carried a jazzy, lyrical feel that blended with the grounded gristle quite nicely. There’s a floating, naturalistic pace to Trouble Every Day that represents a filmmaker fascinated by horror as merely a vessel through which to channel her own fluid cinematic fingerprint. Tindersticks’ score plays like a record, occasionally skipping as punctuations of graphic violence rattle the viewer. Vincent Gallo is arguably the genre’s most depressed protagonist; a human experiment drifting through life. He’s a walking atrocity in a world filled with them, ready to self-destruct in the midst of his beautiful new wife (Tricia Vessey).
In hindsight, a movie marathon was possibly not the best place to first experience the languid rhythms of Claire Denis’ gloomy, textural Eurohorror. But the rewards of Agnès Godard’s cold, moody cinematography are many, and it’s possibly going to be the film that sticks in my brain the hardest far after this run of horror pictures closes out. Denis’ work begs to be better known, as its aversion to traditional storytelling and gender dynamics places it in a subcategory all its own.
Film #3: THE DOCTOR AND THE DEVILS [1985] (d. Freddie Francis, w. Dylan Thomas & Ronald Harwood)
It took The Elephant Man becoming a critical darling for Brooksfilm to become interested in making Amicus-inspired scare pictures. And who better to direct their one and only delve into Victorian horror than Freddie Francis, who not only shot The Elephant Man for David Lynch, but also helmed Tales From the Crypt, Tales That Witness Madness and The Creeping Flesh. Francis eschews the technicolor cartoonishness of Amicus’ Hammer counterparts in favor of a muted, brownish tone for his tale of a driven anatomist (Timothy Dalton) and the grave robbers who bring him fresh specimens for study (Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Rea). Dalton’s Doctor Thomas Rock feels like a darker timeline counterpoint to Anthony Hopkins’ humanist Frederick Treves. Fueled by nothing more than the want for a medical breakthrough, he pays well, especially if the robbers are willing to commit murder. Hot on his tail — a young understudy (Julian Sands) and a rival (Patrick Stewart), toiling away to take him down. The rumors are circling, you see, and it’s time someone puts an end to all of this murderous madness.
Part of the pleasure of The Doctor and the Devils is listening to Dylan Thomas’ dialogue (the movie was adapted by Ronald Hardwood from a long-dormant screenplay by the dead poet). While there are certainly scenes where the glorious cast simply stands and shouts at one another, some of the best quips seem as if they sprung entirely from Thomas’ brain (“I don’t need any friends, I prefer enemies. They’re better company and their feelings towards you are always genuine.”) However, besides the baroque, bawdy randiness that was somehow smuggled into theaters in 1985 (whose archaic nature probably accounted for the movie’s disastrous box office bow of $143,000), the movie is something of a slog. It’s beautiful and often audibly lovely, but it lacks the pop of Amicus and Hammer’s better work, becoming dingy, ugly, and lacking the stark texture of Francis’ actual work from the period. The good news (for those still curious) is that Scream Factory is releasing a rather lovely looking blu come November, finally allowing the movie to find an audience.
Film #4: NEKROMANTIK [1988] (d. Jörg Buttgereit, w. Jörg Buttgereit & Franz Rodenkirchen)
I’ve always been fascinated by the cinematic extreme; the want to push the audience’s buttons and boundaries. When I was a kid, I practically stole the only copy of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer from my local video store, not because I wanted to watch it again and again, but because I hid it in my closet for weeks, terrified of anything that could mess with my brain so bad. As an adult, the Italian Cannibal and Mondo Movies are two of my favorite sub-genres, and I’ve even sought out 35mm prints of Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox and Farewell Uncle Tom. The New French Extremity became required viewing. A marathon of the Guinea Pig pictures — not to be missed. It’s a wonder that I’ve never seen Nekromantik, a movie whose ability to gross any audience out is legendary, until now.
Nekromantik is most reminiscent of The Burning Moon, not simply because of its German heritage, but rather due to the movie’s central philosophy of wanton nihilism. As the title may suggest, this is a film absolutely in love with death. Yet that isn’t simply a reference to its character’s fucking corpses. No — Nekromantik is in love with the urbane details of each and every individual’s demise. Your car may have crashed and you may have been decapitated, but your remains will be treated no differently than a raccoon’s; scooped into a black trash bag and then properly disposed of. After that, the man who shuffled the remains into a hefty will take a piss, shaking the urine from his dick like it was just a another day. Because it is. You don’t matter.
There’s an argument that this movie should’ve never been upgraded to blu ray (via a lovely release from Cult Epics), its grungy, scratched film asthetic augmented by generations old bootlegs. But the remastered sound design is just killer. Much like Eraserhead, this is a movie that begs to be played loud. From the synth and accordion score, to the buzzing feedback that unsettles you as a young couple fondles a cadaver, it’s as sonically clever as it is fucked up. And while it’s not straight up porn like FX Pope’s Nightdreams, Nekromantik ranks in terms of some of the most unsettling sexual activity ever filmed.
Film #5: HITCH-HIKE (a/k/a DEATH DRIVE) [1977] (d.Pasquale Festa Campanile, w. Ottavio Jemma, Aldo Crudo & Pasquale Festa Campanile)
Trigger Warning: David Hess.
A “modern” (by comparison) exploitation Western (complete with Ennio Morricone score) that finds Franco Nero squaring off against the aforementioned Last on the Left and House on the Edge of the Park serial-rapist madman, with all the trimmings. Uncomfortable forced sex scenes? Check. Gratuitous graphic violence? Check. An unaplogetically misogynistic view of women? Double check. Hitch-Hike is certainly great, but it’s a certain kind of great — sub-genre specific with an asterisk to announce “proceed with caution.” Campanile’s sparse road trip-gone-to-hell picture is full of incredible scenes…and also ones that will make your skin crawl. Basically, it’s the best kind of exploitation. It actually feels dirty. Of its time. Authentic.
Saving the entire picture is Franco Nero, who goes from sniveling beta male dishrag to flannel-donning badass in the business of potential matricide, delivering an out of character reinvention of his Django image. Much like Enzo Castellari’s Street Law, Nero’s masculinity gets dressed down here, only to have him don a new sort of psychotic armor. It’s quite the spectacle, and watching him try to out-scumbag David Hess (who yet again proves he’s way too comfortable playing one specific sort of scumbag) is a gas. Recommended to only those who know what they’re getting themselves into, Hitch-Hike is that “cannot be replicated in the modern age” grindhouse goodness.
Film #6: PIN [1988] (d. & w. Sandor Stern)
The beauty of Pin is that it plays its ludicrous premise with a completely straight face. A boy and his sister are raised by their private practice father (Terry O’Quinn), who uses an anatomical doll to teach them about the birds and the bees. After they grow up and the parents die, the son (a very “Canadian Zach Morris” David Hewlett) takes the tool on and becomes friends with it, utilizing it to run the household. As it becomes clear his “friendship” is really out and out murderous psychosis, his sister (Cynthia Preston) must find a way to stop him…or die trying. It’s basically Step Brothers with a straight face and no Andrea Savage to look around at everyone and say “you know this is totally fucked up, right?”
Canada is very Cronenbergian. Everything seems cold and the kids wear turtlenecks all the time. The stilted TV Movie framing gives each scene a still life quality that hides some very sinister motives underneath its sedated plasticity. Pin is genuinely upsetting, as the hints at incest and shared madness between the siblings just adds to the constant air of unease. This is one of the great under-seen horror films of the 80s; a piece of Canuxsploitation that never really lets up until the very Psycho final frames. Hewlett is Norman Bates in a cardigan a Wiliamsburg scenester would kill for, carrying what must be the most politely scary film I’ve ever seen.
Film #7: THE NINTH CONFIGURATION [1980] (w. & d. William Peter Blatty)
The Ninth Configuration is basically William Peter Blatty’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, for the better or worse. Quite literally set in a Pacific Northwest castle, a group of deeply disturbed Vietnam vets lean on each other while living out their separate delusions; a kind of inmates have taken over the asylum scenario but somehow overseen by the US Government. Blatty’s trying to go completely counterculture, and for the most part it works, thanks in no small part to the cast of lumpy character actors (led by Stacy Keach) who give each patient a distinct personality (again, not too unlike Milos Forman’s masterpiece). Unfortunately, this train-wreck of repetitive scenes and over-baked performances stretches on for far too long, though never becomes completely unlikable, due to all involved’s zany charisma.
From the opening lick of Denny Brooks’ “San Anton”, The Ninth Configuration spiritually connects itself to John Flynn’s Rolling Thunder, another picture concerned with the mental well-being of our returning Vietnam vets. Only where Rolling Thunder morphs into an apocalyptic revenge thriller, Blatty’s ornate stage-play is blocked for a black box. Men deliver monologues with fury and even the nature of Shakespeare is dissected by these mad geniuses (Jason Miller steals the entire movie in this one scene alone). Yet no matter how much of a ball the actors are having bellowing at one another, the movie never seems to join suit, its self-seriousness becoming a real drag. All the while, Blatty uses surrealism as window dressing and a distraction from the fact that, despite how incredible the castle looks, none of this really makes for great cinema.
Film #8: RUNAWAY NIGHTMARE [1982] (d. & w. Mike Cartel)
As my recent love affair with the recently rediscovered AGFA print, The Astrologer, might suggest, I am in complete love with DIY bits of crazy from the 70s and 80s. There’s just a purity to the vision that’s impossible to deny, no matter how shoddy the filmmaking on display may actually be. With Runaway Nightmare, I was hoping to add another lost classic to the ranks of Craig Denney’s WTF masterwork and Duke Mitchell’s profane Catholic battiness (Dear Grindhouse Releasing — can we get a home video drop for Gone With the Pope?). Sadly, this is not the case. Runaway Nightmare is a movie whose charms are outnumbered by the truly mundane “grindhouse” moments of folks sitting around and doing fuck all while the camera just rolls.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty of crazy on display in writer/director/editor/star/best boy Mike Cartel’s self-funded descent into a Death Valley hell filled with Satanic Charlie’s Angels gun runners and Podunk worm farmers. But the gaps in-between these fleeting punctuations of goofiness are so interminable that you’re thankful for the fast forward button (not that I would ever do that on a first viewing, mind you). This is the movie you throw on when a couple of friends come over for some beers and you just want to laugh at the intermittent hilarity.
Though the whole picture feels like a set up for its truly bizarre “alternate Incredible Hulk origin” final frames, as Cartel’s character (who I dubbed “Poor Man’s Jimmy Stewart meets Poor Man’s Nic Cage”) is transformed into…something by radioactive waste. And maybe that’s the most frustrating aspect of the entire viewing — this movie showed signs of life and the ability to wantonly fly off the rails at any moment, it just seemed to actively not want to (which is understandable in terms of assessing Cartel’s want for competency). Still — it’s an opportunity lost, as you can’t imagine anybody watched the dailies for this movie and didn’t go “fuck it all…we might as just go apeshit.”
Film #9: TO ALL A GOODNIGHT [1980] (d. David Hess, w. Alex Rebar)
It’s fun to watch what themes emerge inadvertently when you’re marathoning movies. During this run, there’ve been two “creepy doll movies” in the bunch. Now David Hess returns to show that not only does he know his way around playing a sleaze, he’s quite adept at crafting a work in his own wheelhouse. To All a Goodnight is a fairly standard slasher, but Hess is a natural at recognizing what fans of the sub-genre respond to viscerally.
Playing like a Christmas-set companion piece to House on Sorority Row, the perfunctory plot hits all of the beats in the correct order. A girl was killed during a prank pulled by her sisters and, years later, someone sneaks back onto campus, dresses in a Santa suit, and begins proving that pretty girls make graves. Blood flows and the beauties prance, all while a dime store synth score rattles windows. But with some properly placed shock moments, a “New Yawk” attitude and a double-twist end that’s out of left field, there’s more than a little bit to admire here.
In all honesty, much of my loves for this movie is derived from the fact that Linda Gentile may have surpassed Olivia Hussey in Black Christmas as my all-time “slasher film heroine crush.” Unlike most other “final girl” types, Gentile is allowed to be both incredibly sexy and vulnerable, while also knowing just when to get the absolute fuck out of Dodge. At first, her character is presented as a bubbly ditz, revved up to sex anything in sight. But as the movie goes on, she evolves into possibly the most underrated slasher icon in the best movie you’ve never seen. To All a Goodnight may be playing paint by stalk n’ slash numbers, but it’s also well aware of its trappings and navigates genre terrain with complete earnestly.
Film #10: CAT IN THE BRAIN (a/k/a NIGHTMARE CONCERT) [1990] (d. Lucio Fulci, w. Lucio Fulci, Giovanni Simonelli & Antonio Tentori)
Until now, Cat in the Brain was my Lucio Fulci White Whale — the only readily available title in his body of work that, for one reason or another, I just hadn’t gotten to. And boy did I miss out for all those years, as Cat in the Brain might be Fulci’s weirdest piece of transgressive art. Starring in his picture for the first (and only) time, Fulci plays a bumbling, murderous caricature of himself; an Italian Mr. Magoo who has cats literally wrestling in his brain and clawing at his nervous center. At first — it all seems like some kind of metatextual comment on how the creation of horror in itself creates a horrific madman. But Fulci being Fulci, that kind of complication is just that: too fucking complicated. In reality, some other madman has hypnotized Fulci and, when a certain signal is played on a certain wavelength, he can be driven to murder most foul. Chainsaws sever arms, blood sprays in bright red fountains and Fulci just kind of stumbles about his impressively staged frame, adjusting his trademark oversized glasses and just generally appearing confused for the entirety of the picture’s runtime.
Cat in the Brain was the best possible way to close out this marathon, as its so completely ridiculous and over-the-top it puts everything that came before it to shame. The Italian horror cinema of the 70s might’ve been cheesy and pieced together with duct tape and gum, but it contains a special sort of bugnuts charm all its own. It helps that many of the directors (Argento, Bava, Fulci) were master craftsmen when they were operating in top form. Cat in the Brain may not be the best movie the schlock master ever made (that honor will always go to The Beyond), but its certainly the most bizarre. With a body of work like Lucio’s, that’s saying something.