The Wynorski Project - Part Two "Chopping Mall"

The Wynorski Project

Part Two

 Chopping Mall

(1986)

 

Midway through my revisiting Chopping Mall specifically for this review I found myself slightly annoyed by how much I was enjoying it. Having started this project with the hope that it would go on to justify my prejudices against Wynorski, it didn’t seem right that I would end up liking his first two films as much as I did. Like The Lost Empire, Chopping Mall is a flawed film, but also a good example of what Wynorski could do before he seemingly stopped caring. Even better, it’s one of his few films where the humour is used to good affect, rather than to excuse the production’s obvious limitations. What I like most about it is that it’s a sincere film, making it one of the few he’s directed thus far,

It’s also the film that introduces many of the actors who would go on to become members of Wynorski’s unofficial repertory company, including Kelli Maroney, John Terlesky, Ace Mask, Lenny Juliano and—in an eye blink silent cameo as a bikini clad beauty queen—Toni Naples (see video below), all of whom would appear in many of his movies over the next decade.

Co-written by Steve Mitchell, Chopping Mall (originally released to theaters as Killbots) largely eschews the terrible puns and slapstick humour that defined The Lost Empire and instead replaces it with slightly more sophisticated in-jokes designed specifically to appeal to movie geeks.

For example, in the film’s first scene Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov appear as Paul and Mary Bland, the characters they played previously in Bartel’s Eating Raoul. Also in that same scene we see brief appearances by Lost Empire’s Angela Aames, Paul Coufos (who looks a lot better without the cheesy mustache) and Angus Scrimm (whose appearance is so brief I would have missed it if Wynorski hadn’t pointed it out in his commentary). Dick Miller also appears—once again—as an older version of Walter Paisley, the murderous beatnik artist from Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood, who apparently survived his original fate and went on to become a shopping mall janitor, Perhaps the funniest of all the film’s references comes when the embattled characters decide to head to Peckinpah Sporting Goods to load up on firearms and ammunition.

Shot in the same Californian shopping mall made famous by Fast Times at Ridgemont High (which also featured Kelli Maroney in a supporting role), Chopping Mall is a fast-paced variation on the Spam-In-A-Cabin subgenre (in which a group of people find themselves trapped in a building with a murderous threat of some sort) in which the killers turn out to be malfunctioning security robots armed with unsuitably powerful laser weapons (see video below).

Coming in at just 73 minutes, minus the credits, the film succeeds largely because Wynorski doesn’t give us enough time to become bored and populates the film with characters who manage to avoid being the usual obnoxious assholes normally found in this kind of movie. That said, the film’s brevity and lack of complexity also work against it since we’re never given enough time or any reason to come to care about the poor folks trapped in the shopping mall with the killer robots, robbing the film of any potential emotional impact. There are at least three deaths in the film that in theory should affect us, but Wynorski isn’t capable of exploiting the drama inherent in these moments and as a result elicits shrugs rather than gasps or tears.

To its credit, the film shows no signs of the potential misogyny I expressed concern about in my previous review. Kelli Maroney’s character is given the typical final girl character arch, which I appreciate since that happens to be my favourite horror movie cliché. My only problem with her character’s significance in the film comes from Maroney herself. With her teased 80s blonde hairdo and chubby cheeks, its hard not to think of her as a human version of a certain popular Muppet character who was famously prone to violent rages and deeply in love with a lovable, if slightly milquetoast frog emcee. Perhaps I would feel differently if the film didn’t also feature Karrie Emerson, an extremely attractive brunette (see video below), who retired from acting not long after appearing in Chopping Mall and another film in which her character should have lived to the end, but didn’t—the astonishingly terrible Evils of the Night.

If it seems like I’m not saying a lot here, it’s because there’s really not enough meat on Chopping Mall’s bones to deconstruct. It is what it is and by that standard it’s quite fun and a definite check in Jim Wynorski’s win column, which is good, because I don’t think it will be very long before the other column starts filling right up.

Next Week

Big Bad Mama II

The Wynorski Project - Part One "Introduction and The Lost Empire"

Sometimes a little just isn’t enough.

Near the end of last year the one-two punch of my watching the excellent documentary Popatopolis and the less-than-excellent slasher-spoof Sorority House Massacre II inspired me to begin composing a long essay on filmmaker Jim Wynorski that would serve as the introduction for an even longer deconstruction of the latter film. But about 2000 words into the first essay I began to worry that my negative conclusions were too self-righteous, considering I had only actually seen 8 of his 87 films in their entirety.

How could I seriously argue that Wynorski’s films almost always disappointed me for specific reasons, if I’d only actually been disappointed by less than 10% of his output? If I were an honest essayist I would have no choice but to sit through as many of his films as I could get my hands on. And so far, via the miracle of the Internet, that number is hovering around 40.

With the prospect of so much potential misery (and boobs!) ahead of me, it only made sense to turn this into the weekly blog project I had been looking for ever since I had to move The House of Glib to a new location and sacrifice 99% of its former content to the temple of my laziness. This is why, until my supply finally runs dry, I shall endeavor to review one Wynorski film each week in the order of their release. Based on what I know, this means some minor fun in the beginning, a whole lot of “meh” in the middle and some real pain at the end.

Sure does sounds like fun to me!

But first a brief primer on our subject for those of you unaware of his prodigious career:

Jim Wynorski is a director who is famous for making movies with large-breasted women in them. Having always worked in the world of low-budget B-movies, the majority of his films have been made with very small budgets in very short amounts of time. As a means to protect himself from the pitfalls inherent in these kind of productions, he often relies on either one of two strategies—turn the movie into a spoof that isn’t meant to be taken seriously (ie. Deathstalker II, Sorority House Massacre II) or direct it under a pseudonym (a meaningless gesture in an age where the IMDb reveals all). Because of this, films that should be simple, albeit guilty, pleasures, instead take on an air of defensiveness that negatively effect the finished product. At least that’s the case with the 8 I’ve seen thus far. Perhaps the other 30+ I have yet to see will prove my thesis wrong.

 That said, let’s officially begin:

 THE WYNORSKI PROJECT

 PART ONE

THE LOST EMPIRE

I get the very real and very terrifying sense that the first Wynorski film I’m reviewing for this project may very well be the best one of them all. While it displays all of the hallmarks that have come to define much of Wynorski’s oeuvre (at least that which he’s been willing to put his own name on), The Lost Empire still feels like a real movie rather than a quickly produced facsimile of one.

Watching it you get the very real sense that it represents what he might have done had fortune allowed him to continue following his own muse, rather than force him to equip the tools of self-parody and denial in order to pay the bills. While nowhere near perfect, or even all that good, one can still feel a sense of playful effort in The Lost Empire normally absent from his later movies. Not only was Wynorski actually trying when he made his directorial debut, but he also appeared to be having fun doing it.

Right from the very first shot, it’s clear we’re in Wynorski territory as a floating optical spotlight moves across the screen before settling on the generous cleavage of Anita Merritt, who you all remember covered in mud, wrestling John Candy in Stripes. The comedic tone of the film is also quickly established by the horny befuddlement of the Asian jewelry shop owner, who is so transfixed by her endowments he runs her cash through one of those old-fashioned credit card machines.

It’s actually these silent moments of comedy that work best in the film. Unlike the jokes found in the dialogue, which are often too deliberately punny and referential to raise anything other than a groan, the film’s physical comedy does a good job of setting the mood required to get the viewer through a plot that is highly dubious even before you have a chance to start thinking about it.

After his busty patron has left, the Asian shop owner (played by an actor named Peter Pan, which I prefer to assume isn’t a stage name) is killed by a trio of mystical warriors whose throwing stars apparently have to do a weird spinning thing for about 10 minutes before they can do any damage. The warriors are in search of The Eyes of Avatar, a pair of ancient Lemurian glowing jewels their master requires for his plans of world domination and, which, the shop owner has been using as the eyes in a really cheap looking statue of a demon/dragon/whatever. The owner is killed in the melee, as are two of three police officers, whose appearance on the scene forces the last living warrior to flee with only one of the two “eyes”.

It just so happens that the lone surviving police officer is the rookie brother of Lieutenant Wolfe, a super bad ass Dirty Harry type who we first see blowing away a roomful of junkie thugs before they can make good on their promise to kill a bunch of school kids.

In a reveal familiar to anyone who played Metroid when they grew up, it turns out that the bad ass lieutenant is actually a smoking hot blond named Angel (Melanie Vincz, who spent the majority of her decade long career working in television) with a mustachioed FBI agent boyfriend (Paul Coufos, who resembles a poor man’s Lee Horsley, which I suppose would make him a poor, poor man’s Tom Sellick) and a preference for skintight outfits.

Her injured brother lives just long enough to give Angel one of the mystical throwing stars, which her boyfriend immediately identifies as belonging to a follower of Dr. Sin Do (Phantasm's Angus Scrimm), a cult leader devoted to worshiping Lee Chuck, a maniac who sold his soul to the devil for immortality, but avoided payment by killing an innocent person every day and giving away their soul instead.

Wanting revenge (I’m guessing, the script is kinda fuzzy on her motivations), Angel decides she has to travel to Sin Do’s hidden island fortress (which may or may not be the titular lost empire, again the script fails to illuminate) and take part in his potentially fatal games, which are only open to beautiful, athletic young women. The catch is that the games only accept participants in groups of three, forcing Angel to find three worthy partners to join her on her quest.

To that end she goes to the local reservation and calls forth the extremely busty spirit of Whitestar (Russ Meyer vet Raven De La Croix, who was dating Wynorski at the time and also appeared as a stripper in Screwballs, which he co-wrote, but did not direct), who appears out of nowhere and then goes on to show absolutely no signs of supernatural empowerment.

After getting a little Thelma & Louise action in a honky tonk parking lot, they travel over to a nearby women’s prison, where all of the convicts are busty centerfolds who settle their problems in courtyard mud fights. Along with the thrilled guards Angel and Whitestar watch as the buxom blond Heather (the late Angela Aames, whose cleavage you’ll recognize from the beginning of Bachelor Party) manages to take down the equally buxom, leather-clad Whiplash (former green-haired Star Trek vixen turned porn star, Angelique Pettyjohn), earning herself a spot on the team.

Together they descend upon the recruitment center and force their way onto the already-full list in what is probably the best scene in the movie:

Strangely, The Lost Empire actually noticeably deflates once the trio makes it to the island. Typically this is where the film would really begin, but the film’s low budget isn’t prepared to deliver on the promise of an island fortress or exciting sexy woman-on-sexy woman games and instead delivers scenes of the actresses running around the grounds of a local L.A. mansion and practicing their archery.

In fact, the only “game” we see is a poorly choreographed gladiatorial fight scene between Angel and a masked behemoth that won’t rank high on anyone’s action scale. Wynorski tries to make up for this by having Sin Do fall madly in lust with Whitestar, giving him the excuse to drug her and thus expose her abundant attributes onscreen.

But beyond this what bothers me the most about the island portion of the movie is the reappearance of Angel’s FBI boyfriend, who comes to the island because he found the missing “Eye of Avatar” hidden in her forgotten purse. Why he would think coming to the island with the one object Sin Do needs for his plan to take over the world is a good idea is never explained, but this is trivial compared to what his sudden appearance does to Angel’s character.

Despite introducing her as a Dirty Harry-esque bad ass, who has no problem kicking the butts of rednecks, cult guards and giant gladiators alike, Wynorski chooses to cut her honorary balls off by turning her into a standard damsel-in-distress during the climax, so her boyfriend can rescue her and save the day. For all her apparent strength and superiority, Angel apparently isn’t able to stop the madman using her own devices. And even when she has a chance to go against an odious minion, he's dispatched by his own incompetence rather than her intervention.

This, I’m afraid, is the first possible sign of a misogynist streak I suspect I may uncover as this project continues. I hope I’m wrong, but based on the other films of Wynorski’s I have already seen, I strongly suspect it is there.

Still, there is fun to be had in the end, most notably the moment where Whitestar preempts a gorilla attack by kicking the guy in the suit in the nuts.

Despite the protestations of no less than two different villains, there never was a sequel to The Lost Empire, which is a shame because even though the film stumbles in terms of plot, it does a good job of establishing an interesting compelling bouncy cast of characters who could have easily been put to good use in further adventures.

I think what sets The Lost Empire apart from what I’ve seen of the rest of Wynorski’s oeuvre is its refreshing lack of cynicism. While it contains the same large-breasted actresses, terrible jokes and references to old movies that define his later work, it features them less out of desperation than with genuine affection and joy. It’s the kind of film a young movie maniac would make after finally getting the keys to the kingdom, simple enthusiasm making up for all the deficiencies of pacing, budget and plot.

It is, for all of its flaws, a genuine movie made by a man who stopped making genuine movies a long time ago.

NEXT WEEK

Chopping Mall

There's Yellow Snow in Hell Tonight!

Because I'm more than 2000 words into my first actual non-video New House of Glib post! It's not going as quickly as I would like it, but I wanted to let the couple of you who do visit frequently to know it is coming sometime soon. As to the subject I shall say nothing, letting this brief 12 second film clip do all of my talking for me.

Christmas Repost! My Favourite Moment of Holiday Horror!

A few years ago I decided to take a look at the movies I considered to be my all-time favourites and try to figure out what they had in common--what exactly it was about them that I responded to the most.  Eventually I concluded that the kinds of films I love are ones that aren't afraid to acknowledge the dreamlike nature of the medium without sacrificing emotional verisimilitude in the process.  That's why, for example, I love the films of Wes Anderson, but have never felt much affection for the work of David Lynch.  Both are talented auteurs who strive to bring their unique visions to the screen, but for all of Anderson's whimiscal touches, his films are still grounded in an emotional reality I can understand and connect with, while the characters in Lynch's films are completely alien to me and--as a result--much more obviously artificial.  All of my favourite filmmakers (Bob Fosse, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, David Fincher, David Cronenberg, Robert Altman, Milos Forman, P.T. Anderson, Peter Weir to name nine of them off of the top of my head) implicitly understand that great art should invoke empathy and that as long as that is accomplished, they are then free to do whatever the hell they like.

 

I bring this up because the scene I have chosen to name the #1 most memorable moment in Christmas holiday horror history impresses me as much as it does because it is a dreamy, sweet ending to what has otherwise been a very dark and discomfiting picture.  After spending the entire movie watching the gradual mental disintegration of a hopeless individual, we are at the very end allowed to escape from the darkness in an instant of pure fantasy.  It doesn't matter that the moment makes no sense and isn't explained (is it a dream or did it really happen?), it simply is and it is wonderful.

 

The film is 1980s You Better Watch Out (or, as it is better known, Christmas Evil) and though the film bears a superficial resemblence to the more infamous Silent Night, Deadly Night, they are actually as different as two films about homicidal maniacs in Santa suits could be.  You Better Watch Out is actually closer in spirit to films like Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Roman Polanski's Repulsion than it is to a traditional slasher movie.  Rather than being a movie about a madman's killing spree, it is instead about what has led that madman to go on that spree in the first place.  Stylistically it is the kind of raw and dirty movie that defined the cinema of the 70s.  It's one of those movies where its obvious low budget and grainy cinematography adds to rather than subtracts from its sense of realism, which only makes its surreal ending that much more thrilling to watch.

 

The only film written and directed by Lewis Jackson, the movie tells the story of Harry Stadling (Brandon Maggert, a familiar character actor best known these days for his having sired the pale white songstress Fiona Apple) a middle-aged man who works as a low-level manager in a low-rent toy factory.  Its the perfect job for the quiet, lonely bachelor, since--unbeknowst to the rest of the world--he harbors a unique fixation for all things Clausian.  The roots of his obsession go back to when he was young and he saw his parents engage in some mildly fetishistic foreplay in front of the fireplace while his dad wore the Santa suit he had donned to surprise his two sons earlier that night.  Beyond filling his apartment with every Santa artifact he can find, Harry also indulges his passion by sleeping in Santa Claus pajamas, listening to Christmas carols and--more disturbingly--keeping track of the activities of the neighborhood children in books labeled "Naughty" and "Nice".

 

It comes as no surprise that Harry's strange hobby wrecks havoc on his social life.  He has no friends and is mocked as a loser by his co-workers.  The neighborhood kids are charmed by his own childlike demeanor, but he wisely keeps his distance from them.  His only real contact with the world comes from his brother's family, but as the film begins Harry has already started the inexorable journey from eccentricity to madness and he starts avoiding them as well.  At work he becomes angry when he discovers that the owner's pledge to donate toys to a local hospital for disable children is purely a publicty stunt and very few toys are actually going to make it into the children's hands.  Having already started to design his own ornate Santa Claus costume, Harry decides to correct his company's fraud by stealing toys from the factory floor and giving them to the hospital himself.  To add authenticity to his delivery, he takes the time to paint the image of a sled on the side of his van.

 

Having taken care of the nice part of his list, Harry decides it's now time to address the issue of the naughty.  To that end he stands outside of a local church after the end of a Christmas Eve mass.  There he is ridiculed by a quartet of obnoxious yuppies.  He quickly shuts them up when he stabs three of them to death with one of the toy soldiers he made himself.  After he escapes from the murder scene, he finds himself the center of attention at a private Christmas party, where he gets to truly enjoy the status that comes from being Father Christmas.  After this brief ego-boost, he goes back to his Naughty-punishing mission and goes to the house of a co-worker who has previously taken advantage of him.  There he gets a uncomfortable glimpse at reality when he briefly becomes stuck inside the house's chimney and is forced to get inside using a window instead.  When he finally gets into the house, he uses the same toy soldier as before to kill his co-worker.

 

The news quickly spreads that a homicidal Santa is rampaging through the streets of the unnamed city.  The police organize a lineup of suspects, but Harry is not among them.  Armed with a sackful of toys he returns to his neighborhood and starts handing out presents to the kids, which immediately arouses the suspicions of his neighbors.  One of them threatens Harry with bodily harm, but he is stopped when the kids intervene and allow their benefactor to escape in his van.  As he drives to his brother's house, a mob (complete with torches!) forms and begins to search the streets for him.  His brother is horrified to discover that Harry is the madman responsible for all of the mayhem being reported on TV.  They end up coming to blows and his brother strangles Harry until he is unconscious.  Afraid that he has killed him, he puts Harry back into the van, only to discover that Santa still has some life in him yet.

 

It is at this point, as Harry escapes from his brother while being pursued by the (torch-wielding!) mob that the jaw-dropping moment that ends the film unspools before the audience's disbelieving eyes.

 

That, my friends, is pure genius.

And thus endeth the House of Glib's countdown of the most memorable moments in Christmas holiday horror history.   While I doubt it was at all enlightening, I know I had a good time, which is all that matters to a selfish bastard like me.

Felix Navidad!

The House of Glib Video Review - Hellgate (BRAND NEW!!!!!!!!)

The House of Glib Video Review - The Wraith (BRAND NEW!!!!!!!!)

Repost - The Apple

I went to an elementary school whose student population included kids with severe mental and physical disabilities, and though they were kept segregated—for the most part—from us in separate classrooms, every effort was always made to include them in all the regular school events and projects.  This meant that they always got the chance to perform at the annual Christmas concerts—both the one that was held for the parents at night and the one held for the students during the day—and though I cannot say how people reacted during the night concert, I do know that their performances always elicited two different reactions from the students during the day show.  The first reaction was the one chosen by the crueler, more cold-hearted kids—snide mockery.  They would laugh and make fun of how badly those retards sang their songs and scoff with disbelief whenever one of the kids forgot the words to their solo or just plain froze with stage fright.  They could not believe that anyone would have anything kind to say about such a pathetic display. 

Thankfully the other reaction was much more kind.  The more empathetic souls amongst us were willing to ignore the obvious faults in the “special” kids’ performance, because a) we knew they were trying their hardest and b) they were obviously having a lot of fun, so when we applauded them we did so with genuine enthusiasm and not with the sarcastic rhythm of our unenlightened peers.

This brings us to the subject at hand—What Were They Thinking Movies (to be referred to here and in the rest of these posts as WWTTM from henceforth).  Like the special needs kids at those Christmas concerts you can choose to watch them with a sense of arrogant superiority and derision or you can instead decide to watch them with a more gentle and forgiving eye and allow yourself to be entertained by the misbegotten spectacle of it all. 

You should know by now which of these two options I prefer.

The paradox of being a fan of movies like these is that often you find yourself in the weird position of knowing they are awful but unable to bear it when someone actually criticizes them for their faults.  The problem usually is the tone of these criticisms, which is invariably the same one the mean kids used when making fun of the disabled kids’ botched rendition of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”.  By pointing out all of the obvious flaws of these films, these unkind critics fail to appreciate their sincerity and joie de vive.   Of course they suck, but they suck in fun, original ways that make them a blast to watch over and over again.  To not get that means that either you take the world far too seriously for your own good or you’re just a major asshole.

The subject of this post’s discussion is a bad movie—I don’t deny it.  Like all WWTTM I can’t believe its producers actually thought it could ever be successful, but having said that, when I tell you that I love this movie I don’t mean it in any sort of hip ironic way.  I genuinely love this movie not despite its faults, but because of them—because it is completely true to itself and utterly sincere, even during those moments that are so ridiculous they flirt with unintended self-parody.

I am, of course, talking about:

Our humble little movie starts at the WorldVision Song Festival in the year 1994, where the audience is being thrilled to the unheard of degree of 150 heartbeats (don’t ask me to explain what that means, the movie never bothers to tell us) by the biracial duo of Dandi and Pandi, who are on stage performing their hit song “Bim”. 


Dandi's the dude and Pandi's not.

It’s an anthemic number that includes such memorable lyrics as:

There ain’t no good!
There ain’t no bad!

There ain’t no happiness!
There ain’t no tears!

There ain’t no love!
There ain’t no hate!

There’s only power!
Bim is the power!

Hey, hey, hey!
Bim’s on the way!

(Repeat)


"Hey, hey, hey, Bim's on the way!"

The crowd loves it and who can blame them?  Clearly Dandi and Pandi are evil, but damn if the song isn’t one catchy number!  As it continues we are introduced to their manager, a thin European-accented gentleman named Mr. Boogalow:


No fair guessing who he really turns out to be!

 As well as his number two man, Shake:


"Hi there!  I'm flamboyantly homosexual henchman number one!"

Mr. Boogalow informs his posse that Dandi and Pandi are “magnifique” and that he is going “to turn them into the two biggest stars of the decade”—a statement he makes with such confidence that it suggests it really is only a matter of his desire to do so and not any kind of wishful thinking.  But as he and his crew celebrate his belief that the “Bim” song is going to “Take this competition by storm—a-woo-woo-woo!” (No really, he actually says “a-woo-woo-woo“), another duo is introduced onto the stage.


A duo so wholesome they make The Carpenters look like an anorexic nutjob and a self-hating closet-case.

Their names are Alphie and Bibi and they are—as Shake disbelievingly informs his boss—“a couple of kids from Moose Jaw.” 

“Moose where?” asks Boogalow.

“I think it’s in Canada,” answers the flunky.

The song these two plucky kids from Saskatchewan choose to perform is a number Alphie wrote entitled “Love Is the Universal Melody”.  This surprises the “Bim” folks because everyone knows that love songs are old news.  At first it would seem that they are right, as the crowd of teenagers proves initially hostile to the song, but as the wholesome looking duo soldier on the crowd is quieted by lyrics such as:

Alphie:

We belong to one another
We share each other’s destiny
United by our love
We are all children of
The Universal Family

Bibi:

And we are everybody’s brother
And we share the birthright to be free
And deep within your heart
There beats the song of the ages

Both:

The song is the universal melody!

It’s all so beautiful that some in the audience are moved to tears.


"I guess it is better than the crap you hear on American Idol."

Despite their inexplicably winning over the crowd (inexplicable being the only way to describe it considering a) how bad the song is and b) how unconvincing the crowd’s sudden change of heart really is) Shake insists to his boss that there is no way they can reach Dandi and Pandi’s record of 150 heartbeats, but as he says it, they hit 151.  Mr. Boogalow realizes that “Bim” is in danger of losing the competition so he tells Shake to use the red tape.  Shake hands the tape over to the engineer and tells him that if anyone sees him use it then he’s “dead, very dead.”  The engineer takes the tape and plays it over Alphie and Bibi’s performance.  The sounds the tape produces causes the once happy crowd to boo and jeer at the young duo, causing Bibi to break into tears and run off of the stage before the song is over.


Let's start tallying her faults right now.  First, she's a crybaby.

The contest now sewn up and in the bag, Mr. Boogalow is interviewed by reporters from all around the world, whose questions he answers fluently in their native languages.  When he finally gets to the reporter from America, a man named Joe Pittman, he is displeased to hear the reporter suggest that the contest was rigged and that it was almost won by another song.  Mr. Boogalow takes Pittman aside and tells him that if he reports what he just said, he’ll find himself in the unemployment line.  “Joe Pittman,” he tells Shake, “remember that name.”


Playing the part of Joe Pittman is the movie's co-lyricist George S. Clinton, who shouldn't be confused with this guy.

Now that the media has been dealt with, everyone returns to Mr. Boogalow’s mansion to celebrate the “Bim” song’s victory.


No seriously, it will totally ruin it if you guess who he really is.

And as Boogalow toasts Dandi and Pandi’s achievement, Alphie and Bibi are shown leaving the concert hall, where she is attempting to convince him to accept Boogalow’s invitation to the party now in progress.  Alphie doesn’t want to have anything to do with the man, but Bibi—whose dreams of stardom are much more ambitious than her partner’s—insists he could help make them famous and get their songs heard by millions. 


You can now add whiny and craven for stardom to the list. 

Meanwhile at the party, Ashley—Boogalow’s merchandising mastermind—introduces his latest invention, the “Bim” mark—a blue triangular sticker that can be worn anywhere on a person’s body.


"Hi there!  I'm flamboyantly homosexual henchman number two!"

Boogalow is so impressed with this invention he stops the party and tells everyone that—from that moment on—they all have to wear the sticker all of the time to show their devotion to “Bim”.


You're guessing right now, aren't you?

Not long after this announcement, Bibi and a very reluctant Alphie arrive at the party.  Boogalow quickly separates them, handing Bibi over to Dandi and Alphie over to Pandi.  Boogalow offers Alphie a drink, but the young singer refuses it, amusing the guests with the news that he does not drink alcohol.  Bibi, however, is more than willing to accept any intoxicant handed her way.  This is made clear when Dandi takes her upstairs and offers her a pill, which she—after some coaxing—takes and swallows down.


Write down 'easily corrupted' under 'craven for stardom'.

They then talk for a couple of minutes before Dandi kisses her:


I think that would qualify as 'skanky ho'.

And then informs her in song:
 

You were made for me
Created for me
And I am your man
You were made for me
It’s fated to be
And you’ll be my woooooo-man!

And though Bibi has known Dandi for less than five minutes and in that time he’s been nothing but an incredible jerk, she finds herself singing back:

How do you do this to me?
Tell me why
The touch of your hand
Has me trembling inside

I don’t understand
This magic I feel
Are you a fantasy
Or are you for real?


"Explain to me again why I'm singing this song to someone I just met?"

By the time they are finished singing, they are kissing once again, but this time Alphie sees them and puts a stop to this betrayal.


Dude, let her go.  She's a--let's check what we have so far--crybaby, whiny, craven for stardom, easily corrupted, skanky ho.  Now, aren't you glad we made that list?

Despite having his girl almost stolen from him at the party, Alphie joins Bibi the next day as she goes to meet with Boogalow at his business headquarters.  Instead of suggesting that she stop being such a whiny, pill-popping skanky ho, the only thing he says is that they need a lawyer if they are going to consider signing a deal with Boogalow. 

“He’s just an agent—he doesn’t own us," Bibi disagrees, before adding, "he’s only taking fifty percent.” 

Even when faced with this remarkable logic, Alphie remains unconvinced and the Canadian in him comes out.

“Have you ever seen an American contract?” he asks her.  “It’s filled with hundreds of pages of doubletalk—he’ll destroy us!”

“Or make us,” Bibi answers back defiantly.

Since Boogalow is the biggest and most important agent in the world, his lobby is filled with acts desperate to be signed by him.  Not limited to musical acts, Boogalow apparently is more than willing to consider taking on clowns, magicians and really cheesy dance acts if the people waiting to see him are any indication.


Don't worry.  He's smiling on the inside.

Eventually the man everyone is waiting for arrives, just in time to sing a song about his own personal philosophy:


No, he's not really an alien.  Now stop guessing!

Like a puppet on a string
Like a monkey on a swing
Man is clinging to the ropes
Of the fantasies and hopes
We are dang-a-ling

He’s so eager to believe
And so easily deceived
Like a baby watching magic
He’s so gullible it is tragic
In a word—naïve


I'm beginning to think he chooses henchmen on their ability to make him look butch in comparison.

He then goes on, with the help of sequined dancers, a clown, a midget, his bodyguards and Shake (all of whom are bedecked with feathered boas) to tell us that:
 

Life is nothing but show business in 1994!


Ha!  Fooled Ya!  He's definitely not Jesus.  Oh shit, that may be a hint.  Stop guessing!

While some would hear these lyrics and assume that Boogalow is not exactly someone you would be smart to trust, Alphie (who is still very suspicious) and Bibi (who is pretty much willing to give hand jobs to lepers for a record deal at this point) meet with the man in his office, where he offers them both separate contracts to sign.


"I may just be a smalltown Canadian boy, but I'm not much impressed with your big city American ways."

Alphie is brazen enough to ask that they be allowed to read the documents before they sign them, only to learn that—even though they haven’t actually recorded it yet—Boogalow has already started selling their first album.  “First you sell it,” Shake tells them.  “Then you make it,” continues Ashley.  “That’s marketing,” the young duo is informed.


I swear she would willingly blow every guy in that room if they told her to do it.  Luckily for her these guys aren't interested in that sort of thing--If you know what I mean.  (Hint: they're all gay)

Bibi doesn’t have to hear anymore and eagerly signs the contract.  As she does, Alphie watches her and imagines the building starting to shake due to a powerful earthquake.  With everyone looking at him like he’s crazy, he reluctantly starts signing the contract, but then he imagines the lights in the room going on and off plunging them into darkness.  Someone is sending him a sign and soon Alphie finds himself dreaming that he is in hell, where he and Bibi are dressed as Adam and Eve, while Boogalow is dressed like the Devil and Shake is now a snake.


Dude, that's a pretty impressive fig leaf you got there.

Bibi/Eve (rather typically) loves the place, but Alphie/Adam hates it.  Boogalow/Devil ignores A/A and focuses all of his attention on the much more receptive B/E.  He transforms her fig leaves into a seductive red dress and introduces her to his son Dandi/Anti-Christ.  B/D then calls out to Shake/Snake to bring out his “special hors d’oeuvre—the Apple!” 


Remember this is only a dream sequence, so anything you see here isn't a clue!

Given the Apple (which appears to be half Red Macintosh and half Granny Delicious) Boogalow then offers it to B/E.  “Don’t be afraid,” he tells her in a hushed voice, “taste it.”  A/A tries to stop her, but Pandi/Pandi (they apparently couldn’t figure out an analogous biblical character for her) calls out to him and he cannot resist her temptations (Delilah maybe?)  The denizens of hell call out to B/E to taste the Apple and are then inspired to break out into another musical number as D/A sings to her:

Magic apple
Mystery apple
Take a little ride
Let me be your guide
Through the Apple paradise!


It's both a cheap metaphor and a big piece of fruit!

True to his word he then takes her on a tour of Hell (aka “the Apple paradise”), where he tells her that wanting to try the Apple is:

A natural, natural desire

and then he introduces her to:


Because vampire rhymes with desire!

An actual, actual vampire!

before urging her to:

Let the Apple set your soul on fire, fire, fire!

because:

You’ll be hypnotized
And you’ll be demonized
And you’ll be paralyzed
So you’ll be victimized

And while Bibi is either too ambitious or stupid (I’m guessing the later) to actually get the message of the song (good things don’t happen to people who taste the Apple), Alphie hears it loud and clear and the dream sequence ends, returning him back to Boogalow’s office where he refuses to sign the contract. 


"I may be a smalltown Canadian boy with a vaguely European accent, but I know a bad deal when I see one!"

Mr. Boogalow allows Alphie to leave, but when Bibi tries to follow him, she is stopped by Dandi and Pandi who tell her that Alphie is not her master and that she is free to pursue stardom with them.

Guess who she goes with?

SHE IS SUCH A SKANK!  (Sorry, I had to get that out of my system)

But if she has freed herself from Alphie, the song Mr. Boogalow sings over the course of her “stardom-makeover” montage makes it clear that all she has done is turned herself over to another master:


Here Bibi is breaking Allan's First Commandment of Cosmotology--Thou Shalt Not Get Thy Hair Styled By Someone With A Bad Haircut.


Reaching the top
Is such a long hard climb
Millions of people stand and wait in line
Do you think I got there
Being patient and kind?
Yes, I know how to be a master

One really does get the sense that Bibi would have saved everyone a lot of trouble if she just bothered to listen to the lyrics of these songs, but instead she just enjoys the pretty melodies and ignores all the stuff about lying, cheating and stealing to get ahead, not to mention the line about Mr.Boogalow buying souls (could this be a hint towards her agent's true identity?  She doesn’t know, because she was too busy getting her hair done to listen!).


My memories of 1994 are hazy, but I'm pretty certain this wasn't very fashionable.

Her transformation complete, she is introduced to the press who ask her what it’s like for “A girl from nowhere to become America’s number one “Bim” star?”  She answers them by saying “It’s frightening, but I put all of my faith in Mr. Boogalow.” 

Faith?  What a peculiar and highly specific word to use in that sentence.

Finally, after 39 minutes of whining and being altogether skanky, Bibi gets to perform for the whole world, singing a new “Bim” song called “Speed”, which is an upbeat rockin’ ode to America’s devotion to amphetamines:


This particular frame has nothing to do with the plot, but it does feature back-up dancer Finola Hughes, who would go on to co-star in an even worse WWTTM musical.

America the land of the free
Is shooting up with pure energy!
And everyday she has to take more
Speeeeeeeeeeeeee-eeeeeeeeeeeedddddddd!

America the home of the brave
Is popping pills to keep up the pace!
And everyday she cries out for more
Speeeeeeeeeeeeee-eeeeeeeeeeeedddddddd!

From New York out to L.A.
Everybody does it her way!
Poppin’ power
By the hour
Speeeeeeeeeeeeee-eeeeeeeeeeeedddddddd!


I won't lie to you.  This outfit works for me.

We then cut six months later to a middle-aged Jewish woman who is stopped by a policeman and fined for not wearing a visible “Bim” mark.  Apparently in the time that has passed Mr. Boogalow and his “Bim” brand has become so powerful that he now controls the government and is able to enact laws that force everyone in the country to show devotion to him.  If you were a suspicious person you might conclude that this “Bim” mark might be more than a tacky fashion accessory but something much more sinister!  It turns out that this walking stereotype of all things Semitic is Alphie’s landlady who is constantly reminding him how behind he is in paying his rent, even though—despite her constant nagging—it is clear that she really cares about him and wants him to succeed in show business on his own terms.


"I may just be a smalltown boy from up north, but I know how to give an older woman a cheap thrill."

Unfortunately, the kinds of songs he writes (sucky love songs) just aren’t what the record companies want, which is all “Bim” all of the time.”  Frustrated by his inability to break into the business without selling his soul, he takes time to sit and reflect in a public park, where he is fined for not wearing a “Bim” mark.  He tears the ticket up, just as the public address system announces that it is four o’clock, which means—as part of the government’s national fitness program—all citizens are required to stop whatever they are doing and perform the “Bim” dance, an
edict that includes both doctors and patients:


That's what I call a hardcore exercise ethic.

As well as firefighters, the elderly and even--most dastardly of all--nuns:


Is it wrong that this really turns me on?

And in the end we discover it is Bibi herself who is singing the song everyone is legally required to dance to.


"We are so evil!  So evil, evil, evil!"

Alphie happens to be close to the concert hall where Bibi performed the song for the masses, so he is able to watch as his former partner is swarmed by her fans when she leaves to get into her car.  Alphie calls out to her and—recognizing his voice--she calls out his name, but before they can reunite, Alphie is grabbed by her bodyguards, who then proceed to smack him around like a little bitch. 


"I may just be a smalltown boy from up beyond the 49^th parallel but I still bleed like everyone else."

Seeing Alphie seemingly does something to both Bibi and Pandi.  Pandi, now out of the spotlight, seems to have grown tired of the “Bim” lifestyle and Bibi wonders in song just what she gave up when she chose Mr. Boogalow over her hometown boyfriend:


Even skanks have feelings.  Who knew?

Allll-phie
Where are you now?
Will I ever see your face again?
You tried to set me free
Knowing all along that your love
Was no match for their evil
You came after me

And because their souls are connected (or something like that) Alphie hears her musical lament and joins her in song as he walks, bruised and battered through the rainy streets on his way back home:

Beeeee-beee
Can you hear me now?
They got me with my back against the wall
There’s no place left to turn
Should I go on living for the memory of your love
Or should I end it all?


"I may be just a stupid hick from another country, but I know enough about clever choreography to put my back to a wall when I sing 'They got me with my back against the wall'.

He continues:

Cry for me
If there are really angels to hear
Cry for me
Let the heavens rain down
With your tears
Where has all the pity gone?
I sing my song
To deafened ears

Severely weakened by his injuries, Alphie loses consciousness and only awakes several days later to the sight of his worried landlady, who serves him her homemade chicken soup.  As she spoon feeds him, she convinces him that if he still loves Bibi he has to try and find her and win her back.  He’s reluctant at first, but finally he decides to go to Mr. Boogalow’s mansion and fight for his love.  But the “Bim” folks are wily beasts, so instead of beating him up again, they welcome him into the house where Shake hooks him up with Pandi, who—for the moment at least—seems to be back on track with her peeps.


"I may just be an asshole from Moose Jaw, but I likes that hot chocolate flavour!"

The former teetotaler accepts a drink this time, shocked to see that his waiter is Joe Pittman, the reporter who once asked Mr. Boogalow an uncomfortable question—“Bim” now apparently controls the media as well!


"This is my punishment for writing the words you keep singing."

It turns out that this is the wrong time for non-drinker Alphie to get on the alcohol train, since his beverage is apparently laced with some sort of drug that first causes him to see his host as the Devil:


Fuck it.  If you haven't guessed who he is by now, you're better off watching less complicated movies starring Pauly Shore.

And then to see the rest of the guests distorted into a cheap camera effect:


"I may just be a guy who never appeared in another movie, but this is some funky trip!"

Having gotten Alphie into this disoriented state Pandi seduces him with a song:

I’m coming
Coming for you
Now, I’m coming
Coming for you

Let me tempt you
And tease you
And hold you
And squeeze you
And feel every inch of your love
Let me show you
Things you have never dreamed of

Oooooh-ohhhhhhhhh


"I may just be--mmmphmphmmmmmmmphhhhhhhhh."

Not even aware of where he is, Alphie does the nasty-nasty with Pandi as he hallucinates a dance sequence featuring couples performing choreographed routines of coitus:


I should have gone into dance instead of doing this stupid writing thing.

Pandi is still tumescent as Alphie finally figures out what is happening to him.  He escapes from his bed and looks into another bedroom only to find Bibi in bed with Dandi. 


Skanka-skanka-wah-wah!

“Who are you?” she asks him coldly. 

“Bibi!” he cries out to her. 

“What do you want?” she asks disdainfully before telling him to “Go away.” 

Dandi is so delighted by the spectacle that he gets out of bed to watch as Alphie flees the mansion, his heart broken.


Hey Carmen, am I crazy or does this guy kinda look like Mark if Mark had a bad 80s haircut?

Apparently some time before he could get home, Alphie passed out in the middle of the park, where he is awakened by a guy who looks an awfully lot like god:


Charleton Heston can go fuck himself.

But who is really just the leader of a group of hippies (and by hippies I don’t mean a bunch of folks who believe in peace and love, grow beards and listen to the Grateful Dead, but actual flower children who somehow managed to survive unchanged over the past two decades).  Hippie Leader (as he is named in the credits) offers to adopt Alphie into his fold and Alphie, being only a beard and change of outfit from being a hippie himself, accepts.


If hippies who looked like this were extinct in 1980--when this movie was made--where did they come from in 1994?

Meanwhile back at “Bim” Manor, Bibi wakes up and is horrified to find out that her vision of Alphie from the night before had not been a dream.  Pandi, once again back to her rebellious ways, convinces Bibi that if she really loves Alphie, she should leave her “Bim” stardom behind and find him.


"Girl, I totally scammed your man last night.  Holler!"

At first Shake tries to stop her, but he relents and allows her to leave, arrogantly assuming that the power of “Bim” is so strong she will not be able to escape its grasp no matter where she goes.

As Bibi leaves, Pandi goes upstairs and explains to us through song the reason for her sudden change of heart:


"I swear this sudden turn of character makes sense and it isn't just an awkard plot device!"

Something’s happened to me
Suddenly I’m not the same
I was caught in a maze
So blinded and dazed
I couldn’t remember my name

It’s Pandi.  Rhymes with Dandi.  She continues:

I was so empty
And numb inside
Now I’m full of feeling again!
I’m laughin’
I’m cryin’
I’m finally alive
I see the light
I feel it all around me
Healing me
Revealing me
I thought that I had died

Looking for Alphie, Bibi first tries his apartment, but his landlady tells her that he doesn’t live there anymore and is now hanging out under a bridge with “all those old bums.”

“Go find him,” the landlady urges her, “he needs ya.”

As she makes her way to the bridge the old bums live under, Bibi joins Pandi in a chorus of the I’m-not-the-skanky-ho-I-used-to-be song, and comes across a guy who looks an awful lot like god, but who is really just one of the old bums the landlady was talking about.


"You're Bibi?  Wow, I guess I wasn't expecting such a skank."

The man knows who she is and takes her to meet the man she is searching for.  He takes her to the caves where all of the hippies live and there—at long last—Alphie and Bibi, those two crazy kids from Moose Jaw, are reunited.  As they stare into each other’s eyes, Alphie removes her “Bim” mark, symbolically freeing her from Boogalow, and they hold each other lovingly as the Hippie Leader sings:

Child of love
Child of laaa-haya-ove!


This scene did not make me cry!  Something just got into my eye and made it water.

Cut to a year later and the Hippie Leader is still singing, but he is now joined by everyone else, including a bearded Alphie, a flower-powered Bibi and their small child, but before it can even really begin their sing-a-long is interrupted by the po-po.


"I may just be an unconvincing actor in a bad musical, but even I deserve a more realistic looking fake beard than this!"

It has taken a year, but Mr. Boogalow has finally found Bibi and wants her arrested for owing him the $10 million he lost in potential earnings when she walked out on her contract.  As the police arrest all of the dirty hippies and start taking them away, both Alphie and the Hippie Leader look up to the sky, as if they are expecting someone to arrive.

“It’s going to be all right,” Alphie assures Bibi, “I know he’s coming.”

“Who’s coming?” she asks him.

“Mr. Topps,” he answers cryptically.

“Who’s Mr. Topps?”

“Don’t worry, just trust me.  I know he’s coming,” Alphie insists.

And his faith proves warranted when everyone turns to see a golden Cadillac flying in the sky:


You know what?  Even in 1980 this would have been considered a crappy special effect.

The car stops in mid-air and out walks a man with long blond hair dressed in a white tuxedo:


I think the white suit pretty much gives it away.

“Who the hell are you?” shouts out a belligerent police officer.

“They call me Mr. Topps,” the man answers him confidently. 

The officer orders another officer to arrest the man, but before the guy can make his move he finds himself frozen in place and paralyzed from the waist down.  Mr. Topps then tells Alphie and Bibi to come with him:


"I'll tell you how I knew about this Mr. Topps guy--who I weirdly never mentioned before--when the movie is over."

But before he starts walking. Mr. Topps is interrupted by Mr. Boogalow.

“Hey, Topps, what do you think you are doing?” asks the sinister agent.

“I’ve had enough of you,” Topps answers him.  Boogalow’s lawyers then insist that they have a warrant for Bibi's arrest, but Topps makes it vanish with a snap of his fingers.  He then invites all of the hippies to join him and en masse they start following Alphie and Bibi on the invisible stairway to the great gold Cadillac in the sky as a heavenly choir sings “Love is the Universal Melody”. 

Despite the fact that she apparently has stayed with the “Bim” folks for the past year, Pandi is sufficiently reformed enough to be allowed to join the hippies, while the rest of her wicked compatriots can only watch with disbelief.


Shouldn't she at least take off that "Bim" thing first?"

“…Where do you think you’re taking them?” Boogalow asks his golden-haired counterpart.


I want to get a wig that looks like that.  I think I could really pull it off quite nicely.

“I don’t know yet,” Topps admits.  “I’m looking for a new place.”

“A new planet?” wonders Boogalow.

“If I can find one free from your pollution,” answers Topps.


I have no snark left that would properly match the cheesiness of this image.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to start all over again,” Boogalow says snidely.

“Yes,” Topps answers sincerely, “but this time without you.”


The battle of good and evil, ladies and gentlemen.  Thank you and good night.

“Without me?”  Boogalow can’t believe his ears.  “But my dear Topps you know that is impossible.  The world simply cannot exist without me.”

The world can’t exist without another sleazy music agent?  Oh wait, I get it!  Mr. Boogalow's the devil! 

I never saw that one coming!

“Let’s give it a try,” says Topps before he joins the others on their journey to a place without sin.

And, in case you forgot, this has been:



Well that was The Apple.  Since this post turned out to be far longer than I thought it was going to be, I’m going to end it here for today and go into my analysis of the film tomorrow.  So, until then:


God


Not God

Getting to the Core of The Apple

Why It Sucks As Hard As It Does

Like most WWTTM, The Apple fails largely because it attempts to combine two elements that wiser folks would have determined worked to each other’s detriment.  It wants to be a cult midnight movie in the same vein as The Rocky Horror Picture Show and to that end features a tale full of sex, drugs and rock & roll, along with a large dollop of gay camp aesthetic, but it also wants to be a moralistic allegory about the Biblical event known as the Rapture, in which only those who reject the path of sin know the glory of eternal righteousness. 

It’s a lethal combination since it is precisely this kind of condescending moralizing that kept midnight movie audiences away from the work of mainstream Hollywood.  It also hurts the film since it ultimately suggests that there is something sinful about the camp sensibility the film embraces to tell its story.  Even though Rocky Horror’s chief sexual transgressor, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, is killed at the end of the film, it is obvious that he is not dying for any crimes of sexuality, especially when you consider that at least one of his executors is just as much a transvestite as he is. But in The Apple the characters whose behavior implies that they are homosexual (the film is actually too tame to make these implications explicit) are clearly on the side of evil—allied as they are to Mr. Boogalow, who is supposed to represent mankind at its evil and most decadent.  The result of this is an extremely schizophrenic film in which the audience is expected to be entertained by musical sequences that the film itself denounces as corrupt and sinful.

That’s not to say that this approach could not work in more talented hands.  Bob Fosse’s Cabaret for example skillfully played with the audience’s emotions by presenting us with musical sequences that were—on their face—quite charming, but that were, beneath their surface, full of unpleasant subtext about human greed, jealousy, nationalism and bigotry.  But in the case of The Apple writer/director Menahem Golan and lyricists George S. Clinton and Iris Recht seemingly lack the talent or sophistication required to make this approach work.  

Another factor in the film's failure is its running time, which at 86 minutes is extremely short for a musical that features 12 songs.  The result is a structure similar to many operettas, where the major narrative thrust of the film is told in song.  In the hands of a Gilbert and Sullivan this can work marvelously, but here the structure only succeeds in highlighting the film’s complete lack of character development and logical motivation.  Rather than present a situation where Bibi is seduced by Dandi and finds herself attracted to him, the film merely puts them together for two minutes and has Bibi wondering in song how the touch of his hand can make her tremble.  And were it not for the song Pandi sings after she helps Bibi escape from Boogalow, we would have no idea why she suddenly decided to rebel against her manager, and even then the song never actually explains her change of heart, it only tells us that it happened.

In that same vein, we are presented with a villain who is supposed to represent the Devil and, as such, the personification of evil, but whose actions never rise to the level of malevolence most would associate with the Prince of Darkness.  In his songs Boogalow comes across more cynical than evil and we never actually see him do anything that we wouldn’t expect a music mogul at his level of success to do.  Though the film implies that he has taken over the government, the only evidence we see of him taking advantage of this power is through his forcing everyone to wear bim marks and requiring that they dance in the street everyday at 4 PM.  This first act is obviously nothing more than a clumsy analogy to the Bible’s “Mark of the Beast” and the second is just an excuse to work in another musical number.  It doesn’t help that Vladek Sheybal’s performance in the role exudes far more charm than menace.  Even in the end, when he is talking to Mr. Topps, his eternal antagonist, he comes across more like an old friend who can’t believe his pal is taking such a tiny slight so seriously than someone confronting his greatest enemy in the universe.

But, as mentioned before, the film’s chief flaw is the way it embraces the camp aesthetic for its musical numbers in order to facilitate a story whose moral is a direct repudiation of that very same aesthetic.  What really makes this hurt the film is that the few numbers specifically designed to reject this aesthetic are easily the worst and least entertaining in the movie.  By far the worst song in the film is “Love is the Universal Melody”, which in any other movie would serve as a parody of the worst lyrical excesses of self-satisfied new age poseurs, but here is meant to prove the purity of Alphie’s heart and his connection to Mr. Topps.  Alphie is presented as trying to fight to get his songs heard in a cruel, corrupt world that no longer considers the values of love and devotion to be marketable, but the problem with attempting to make this struggle seem heroic is that his songs suck so badly in comparison to such cheesily entertaining numbers as “Bim”, “Life is Nothing But Show Business” and “Speed”.  That’s not to say that those songs could accurately be described as good, but they at least have the benefit of not being meant to be taken seriously.  

One must assume that Golan knew that the film's supposedly “evil” characters were much more compelling than his “good” ones due to the scant amount of screen time these “good” characters receive.  Even in 1980 the idea of presenting Hippies as a symbol of purity and freedom was a laughable one and it is easy to suspect that Golan chose them more because it would be easier to costume a bunch of extras as flower children than to come up with an original alternative.  Still, as lame as they are, it is surprising that they are not given the benefit of a single genuine musical number.  Beyond enjoying a quickly interrupted sing-along near the end of the film, the entire group remains mute in the picture, with only the Hippie Leader being given anything to say.  We are meant to accept that theirs is a purer, better way of life not because of anything we are shown, but simply because it is not connected to the outside world, which—beyond the lame 4 PM dancing thing—appears to be far more fun and interesting than living with a bunch of dirty folks in a cave.

And then there’s Mr. Topps or, as I like to think of him, Mr. Deus Ex Machina.  Truly this is a case of God out of the machine at its most literal and clumsiest.  I would have to watch the movie again to be 100% sure, but I’m fairly certain that there is not one reference to this character before Alphie starts looking for him up in the sky, expecting him to appear.  Perhaps Golan wanted us to be surprised by this ending, but the only result this sudden appearance by God to give the movie a happy conclusion inspires is embarrassed disbelief.  Again it doesn’t help the film that Topps is so intent on finding a world without Boogalow’s “pollution” when that pollution doesn’t look that unbearable.  In The Apple Golan has produced a film about the coming of Armageddon (which is the event that follows directly after the Rapture) in which neither the End of Days or its eventual aftermath seem all that bad or—at the very least—seems infinitely preferable to the alternative.

Uh and did I mention that the movie is really tacky?

Okay, so that’s why The Apple sucks. Before we consider why it's awesome, let us once again remember what it's all about:


Good


Evil

Which one would you choose?

 
Why The Apple Is Awesome

In my last post on The Apple I discussed why it has to be considered an artistic failure and I didn’t even bother to mention such noticeable flaws as the fact that Alphie speaks with an obviously European accent, despite the fact that he is supposed to be from Moose Jaw or that the supposedly futuristic limo that shuffles Mr. Boogalow around the city is a dead ringer for Homer Simpson’s dream car. 


The Apple (1980)


The Simpsons "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" (1990)

There is no doubt that it is a bad movie, so why then do I have enough genuine affection for it that it has inspired me to spend this much time discussing it on my blog?

Because it Rocks! 

Not just musically, but spiritually as well.  And what do I mean when I say it Rocks?  Let’s just say that you’ll not find my definition of the term in your standard Oxford Dictionary.  No, it is an entirely personal definition.  One that is best explained by example rather than words.

Rocks


Alice Cooper

Does Not Rock


The Eagles

Rocks


Pat Benatar

Does Not Rock


Olivia Newton-John

Rocks


Rock 'n' Roll High School

Does Not Rock


Roller Boogie

While these examples obviously speak for themselves, I feel dutybound to explain myself further--the old fashioned way.  Y'know...With words....

What all of these examples in both catagories have in common is an essential cheesiness that is evident throughout their achievements, but what makes some of them Rock, while the others Do Not Rock, is a willingness to embrace that cheesiness with an enormous deathgrip bearhug so powerful that it actually becomes what makes them cool.  By accepting their own cheesiness, they transcend it, while those that Do Not Rock try to pretend that their innate cheesiness does not exist, which only serves to highlight how truly lame they are.  The Apple Rocks because it is never--not for one moment--ashamed of what it is.  Rather than let itself be brought down by its absurd tackiness, it defines itself by it.  Despite the mixed signals of its ultimate theme, it is a movie that takes the rebel stance required to so brazenly choose an aesthetic that ultimately dooms it to failure.  It is the spiritual equivalent of a drag queen who goes to a straight Country & Western Bar; it knows it is going to get its assed kick, but it goes anyway--with its knee length boots on.  And so, like Alice Cooper, Pat Benatar and Rock 'n' Roll High School, The Apple Rocks because it understands this fundamental truth; you can only feel shame if you think you have something to be ashamed about.

And though this is the major reason I love this movie, I would be remiss if I didn't point out a few of the smaller things that I enjoy about this film.

1) Catherine Mary Stewart

Though in my very long breakdown of the movie I made it extremely explicit that I did not have fond feelings for the character of Bibi, that antipathy does not transcend over to the actress who played her.  Out of all the young actors for whom The Apple was their big break, only she managed to have anything that approached a career (in fact the film marked George Gilmour's--aka Alphie--sole screen credit) and it is easy to see why, as she is absolutely adorable in a way you seldom see in movies in today (maybe Amanda Bynes, but that's pretty much it).  Sure it helps that I'm automatically pulling for her since she's a hometown girl (she's from Edmonton), but she undeniably exudes a quality of likability without which Bibi would have been truly unbearable.  Her career following The Apple wasn't hugely impressive, but it did feature some memorable roles in some under-rated films, most notably The Last Starfighter and a film that should be a much bigger cult classic than it currently is, Night of the Comet (in which she plays a valley girl who, with her friend, takes the apocalypse in stride and uses it as an excuse to go to the mall and take all of the free clothes she wants).

2) Mr. Boogalow and Mr. Topps

Vladek Shebal and Joss Ackland were both character actors who had long, well-established careers before The Apple and it is easy to see why.  Though Shebal exudes no real menace as Boogalow, he is constantly fun to watch and plays his role with a droll charm that never wavers no matter how absurd the circumstance.  While I have little good to say about Ackland's role as Hippie Leader (a fact which has more to do with my dislike for the character than his perfomance itself), his take on Mr. Topps manages to add a genuine sense of pathos and victory to an absurdly stupid ending.  He even manages to make the blond wig work (which, despite 'Mato's comment to the contrary, I still insist I could pull off with aplomb).

3) I Love Musicals with Singers Who Can't Sing

As someone who grew up loving singers like Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed, I have long believed that a voice that exhibits genuine character and emotion is always more interesting than anything that comes out of the vocal chords of the classically trained.  That's why I've always had a fondness for musicals that feature songs performed by actors with non-traditional singing voices.  When I read James Robert Parish's book Fiasco the moment he truly lost me was when he insisted that the reason Lee Marvin's rendition of "Wandrin' Star" from Paint Your Wagon became a minor hit on the charts was because of its "hilarious awfulness".  This annoyed me, because I find Marvin's performance of the song, as it appears in the film, genuinely moving.  I also adore the moment in Everyone Says I Love You when Woody Allen sings "I'm Through With Love" in his thin, Woody Allen voice and I consider the moment when he and Goldie Hawn dance together besides the Seine to be one of the most magical scenes in film history.  This is why I love "Life is Nothing But Show Business in 1994" and "I Know How to be a Master" as they are performed by Shebal.  Though he is clearly not a singer (as neither was Catherine Mary Stewart, whose songs were performed by a singer named Mary Hylan) he still manages to make his numbers work as well as their relative quality would allow.

4) Colour!

Damn if this isn't a big bright rainbow of a movie!

5) Most Other People Hate It

Which is a virtue to a natural contrarian like myself.

So that, in and out and around a nutshell is why The Apple Rocks and why it is a WWTTM I am going to keep watching and enjoying for the rest of my life.

'Nuff said.

Repost - The Demon and Mary Marvel, A House of Glib Fumetti

A Tale of Love Found and Love Lost

There once was a very sad demon

 

Who was a touch overdramatic

 

 

One day he came upon a statue

of a beautiful young woman

 

 

And found what he had

always been looking for

 

There was just one problem

 

 

But it wasn't insurmountable....

 

Believing that there might

be a magical solution to his problem

the lovesick demon went to visit

a famous (and leggy) sorceress

 

 

But the sorceress wasn't convinced

and needed to hear more

 

 

This is what the sorceress

needed to hear

 

 

It took quite a long time,

but eventually the demon did everything

that the sorceress asked him to

and she gave him the spell he desired

 

 

Which (roughly) translated into English meant

 

 

His spell now cast

the demon waited anxiously

for it to take effect

 

 

Having recited the magical spell

he had sacrificed so much to learn,

the demon waited to see

if all his effort had been worth it

 

 

Minutes passed

and the statue did not move

 

 

And the demon feared

all his toil had been for naught....

 

That is until....

 

 

She began to stir!

 

 

The demon was overjoyed!

 

 

But....

 

 

The statue....

 

 

 

Seemed to have

something else in mind....

 

 

Actually, make that

someone else....

 

 

The demon took it

as well as he could

 

 

Moral:

 

No matter how pure

your love may be,

the hot girl is

ALWAYS

going to pick

the taller douchebag

 

THE END

Repost - My Bloody Valentine

The indexing continues with a look at the only movie to ever combine the celebration of Valentine's Day with the gritty world of mining.

 

Awhile back a friend from my old job mentioned to me that she had recently rented the 1981 holiday slasher flick My Bloody Valentine and remarked that she had been surprised to find out that it was Canadian.  Being the obnoxious geek that I am, I explained to her that it must have been one of the infamous "Tax-Shelter Films" from that period.

In the 70s and 80s, in an attempt to boost the Canadian film industry, the federal government decided that anyone who invested a certain amount of money into the production of a feature film could write off the amount from their taxes.  This did in fact result in the bankrolling of many Canadian movies, but the problem was that rather than put their money into serious and important films, these tax-shelter investors preferred to produce movies that actually had a chance of turning a profit and allow them to make some money out of their tax dodge.  As a result of this a majority of the Tax-Shelter Films ended up being low-budget genre films just like the one currently up for discussion.  

But unlike most of the films from this strange period in Canadian cinema, My Bloody Valentine stands out because rather than deny its Northern origins, it embraces them almost to the point of unintended self-parody.  Fearful of alienating American audiences, the majority of films shot in Canada (even to this day) are either set in specific American locales or in nameless, unidentified places where all hints of Canadiana are carefully kept away from the camera.  This is definitely not the case with this film, though, as it could very well be THE MOST EXPLICITLY CANADIAN MOVIE EVER MADE.  Seriously, the only way the movie could be more Canadian would be if the killer turned out to be a beaver in a hockey mask who killed his victims by stuffing Timbits down their throats.  And in case any movie producers are reading this, THAT is a movie I would very much like to see.

 

From the general hoser behaviour of its characters, the maple syrup thick Canadian accents (I swear I actually heard several examples of the fabled "a-boot"), the constant references to Moosehead Beer and a cast filled with familar Canadian actors (including Don "The Voice of Mok" Francks and Cynthia "Not Quite As Hot As Her Sister Jennifer" Dale) My Bloody Valentine isn't afraid to wear its country of origin on its sleeve, even though it does avoid mentioning it specifically.  In fact this aspect of the movie is so strong, it's difficult for me to judge it in terms of a general audience.  Frequently I found myself so enthralled by the blatent Canuckness of it all, that it never occurred to me whether or not a non-Canadian might find it as amusing as I did.  I admit that to the eyes of a foreigner, My Bloody Valentine could be just another lame slasher movie with some odd accents and a cast of smalltown characters who strangely never talk about football.  I, however, loved every minute of it.

Though I have in the past admitted that I love many of the more obvious slasher movie cliches, I also enjoy it when a movie attempts to subvert them, even if just a little.  To that end, the movie changes things up a bit by featuring a cast of 20-something actors who are actually playing 20-something characters, rather than the usual overaged teenagers.  And rather than taking place at a college/private school/summer camp the film is set in a small mining town, which gives the picture a distinctly blue collar tone not normally seen in the genre.  In fact the film's setting is so unusual, that one cannot help but assume that it was chosen only to credibly provide an excuse for its maniac killer to don his effectively unsettling miner costume of dark overalls, gasmask, flashlight helmet and pick-ax.  That said, the killer's obsession with a particular date--in this case February 14^th aka Valentine's Day--is straight out of the slasher handbook, so all is not completely out of whack.

 

As the film's requisite Creepy Old Man tells the skeptical young miners who hang out in his bar, there's a reason why the town hasn't held a Valentine's Day dance in 20 years.  It all began when two foreman--eager to leave work so they could get cleaned up and go to the dance--left six miners alone in the mine, all of whom were trapped when a methane leak caused an explosion.  It took six weeks to clean up the rubble and only one of the six miners was found alive.  Harry Warden, having lost his mind during the ordeal, resorted to cannibalism to survive and was more than a little pissed at the two foreman who left him and his friends alone in the mine that Valentine's Day.  Wearing his workclothes, he killed the two men with a pick-ax befor being caught and sent to the nearby mental hospital.  Since then all of the town's Valentine's festivities had been canceled, out of fear Harry might escape and return to mete out further vengeance against the town.  But after two decades the story of the killer miner has become the stuff of boogeyman legend and everyone assumes it is safe to start celebrating the holiday of love once again.  It goes without saying that they are mistaken.

 Given the nature of the holiday the movie is centered around, it's only natural that a part of its plot is devoted to a love triangle.  T.J., the film's nominal hero (if only because he manages to survive all the way to the end) is the mayor's son who has returned to the town after failing to make it on his own "out west."  During his absence he left behind Sarah (who also survives, but can't accurately be described as a proper Final Girl) who--never knowing if or when T.J. was going to return--started dating Axel.  Sarah is clearly torn between the man who left her and now wants her back and the man who's been with her ever since T.J. went away, while the audience has trouble figuring out why she's attracted to either of them.  I suspect many folks will find these more dramatic sequences difficult to sit through, but I found myself much taken by the low-rent CBC-ness of it all.  It doesn't hurt that in the final scenes T.J. wears an open shirt, neck-bandana ensemble that is hilariously mesmerizing to behold.

 

Beyond that the film features the standard authority figures trying to keep the return of the murdering maniac a secret, the young adults defying the authority figures and throwing the party anyway and the shocking discovery that the killer isn't who everyone thinks it is.  The gore is kept to a minimum and the filmmakers show an unfortunate restraint in their presentation of sex and nudity.  Unlike most slasher movie victims, who at least get to enjoy penetration and/or a climax before they are killed, all of the amorous folks in this movie get whacked before they can even get past second base.  And those folks who actually expect a movie like this to be frightening (which I've never really understood, but anyway...) will likely be disappointed as director George Milhalka keeps the action as predictable and suspense-free as possible.  Despite this, anyone interested in seeing a completely straight-faced version of Strange Brew should definitely make every attempt to check out My Bloody Valentine.Now before I tally up the official Slasher Statistics, I thought I'd give you a chance to enjoy the song that plays over the closing credits.  I could probably read the credits and find out what it's actually called, but I prefer to just call it "The Ballad of My Bloody Valentine".  Whatever it's called, it's pretty awesome:

 

Slasher Statistics

Body Count: 17 (Onscreen: 5 women and 6 men/Offscreen: 6 miners)

Shower Scenes: 2 (but neither count since the first features a bunch of dudes and in the other the female is fully clothed)

Instances of Nakedity:0 (Booooooo!!!!  Hisssssssss!!!!!)

Obligatory Has Beens: Anyone who calls Don Francks a has been is looking for a mess of fists in their face!

Instruments of Death: Pick-Ax, Explosion, Boiling Weenie Water, Shower Nozzle, Large Drill Bit, Nail Gun, Rope

Moments of Inexplicable Female Jealousy: o

Creepy (and therefore suspicious ) Old Guys: 1 (but he dies too early to probably count)

References to Moosehead: Too many to humanly count.

Amount of Time Required to Correctly Identify Killer: The film fails to provide a crucial clue until the moment of revelation, so you might actually be surprised.  I guessed correctly about an hour in.

Exploding Heads: o

Cheesy References to Other Horror Movies: 1 (Since Valentine's Day in the movie falls on a Saturday, then that means all of the events on the day proceeding it take place on Friday the 13^th)

Utterly Pointless Trivia: The movie's ending was deliberately left open for a sequel and director George Milhalka did actually try to convince Paramount to produce a second film in 2001.  They decided to pursue different projects.

Final Girl Rating: 6 out of 10

Repost - The Prowler

I've mentioned before in previous posts that I've been going through a real horror movie dvd collecting phase--to the point that I have a stockpile of dozens (maybe even as much as a hundred) of movies I've yet to actually sit down and watch.  To do something about this, and make it so I don't have to wonder what I'll post about on Sunday's, I've decided to do an online index of my collection, in which I'll write a post about one of these movies each week.  To keep things easy for me, I've broken them up into different sub-genres, which I will focus on individually until I run out of movies and have to move on to the next one.  I am going to start off with the Slasher genre, which will probably take me all the way to September or October to complete.

And for the premiere edition of this regular feature (and I mean it this time, damn it!) I've decided to take a short look at an occasionally-entertaining and frequently gory movie that was made in 1981 during the peak of the sub-genre's popularity.

 

Also released as Rosemary's Killer in Europe, The Prowler is best remembered today for featuring some of Tom Savini's more memorable slasher movie make-up effects and for being the film that got director Joseph Zito the job of putting together the fourth (and some believe best) film in the immortal Friday the 13^th franchise.

Shot for $1,000,000 in New Jersey (which comes as a surprise, since it so clearly resembles many of the Canadian-made tax shelter films from that same period) The Prowler, like many other early slashers, attempts to be as much a mystery as a straight-ahead body count picture.  To this end the film begins with stock news reel footage of soldiers returning home from WWII, during which a narrator informs us that:

 

For some--the psychological victims of war--it will be a long road back.  These men will need time to rebuild the lives they set aside when Uncle Sam called.  For others--the G.I.s of the "Dear John" letters--it means starting over, replacing what they have lost.  They faced one challange and won!  They can win this one too!

At this the movie then begins to pan down one of these "Dear John" letters as we hear the voice of a young woman, Rosemary, read it aloud, explaining to her overseas beau that she can no longer wait for him and needs to move on with her life.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the recipient of this letter is probably going to prove to be a little less than understanding.

With this set up, we are taken to a town called Avalon Bay and informed that it is June 28^th 1945, 'The Night of the Graduation Dance."  Given the movie's low budget, The Prowler deserves some credit for bringing some authenticity to this period sequence.  Though Zito admits in his commentary that the costumes were all eight years out of date, having been found in a warehouse with tags labeled "1953" still sewn inside them, these scenes manage to avoid being as overtly anachronistic as others found in similar movies from the height of the slasher era.  It helps that it's a short sequence that ends when the unnamed soldier her letter was addressed to arrives to impale Rosemary and her new boyfriend with a pitchfork, indicating that he didn't take the rejection as well as she had hoped.
 
We then jump ahead exactly 35 years later and are introduced to our heroes and future victims, learning in the process that they are about to hold the first Graduation Dance since the two kids were murdered all those years ago.  It soon becomes clear that our two main protagonists are an amazingly bland blonde named Pam (Vicky Dawson) and Mark, the deputy sheriff with the embarassing 70s haircut she's been known to flirt with on occasion (Christopher Goutman, who later forged a career as a director of afternoon soap operas).  Turns out that the dance coincides with the Sheriff's (Strangers on a Train's Farley Granger) annual fishing trip, which means that Mark will be on his own if any trouble occurs. 

In an attempt to keep the mystery going, the filmmakers fill the town with as many creepy old men as their budget could afford, hoping to keep the audience from guessing the true identity of the killer.  Personally it took me 20 minutes to figure it out, but I can be a bit slow about these things.

 

For reasons that are left to the audience's imaginations rather than actually explained, the never-caught psycho ex-soldier responsible for the murders that night 35 years earlier decides to suit up once again and arm himself with a bayonet, a sawed-off shotgun and his trusty pitchfork.  He then proceeds to make his way to the almost-vacant dorm rooms and finds a young couple who are just about to get squishy with it.  The young man gets a bayonet in the head and his naked girlfriend gets pitchforked in the shower. 

 

Thanks to the efforts of noted make-up guru Tom Savini, The Prowler is probably one of the gorier examples of the sub-genre.  Not only are we allowed to see the murderer's weapons fully penetrate the bodies of his victims, but the camera is left to linger as they cut and stab their way through the foam and latex flesh.  Despite their reputation for bloody excess, the majority of slasher films (if only for reasons of budget) left much of this violence to the viewer's imagination, but The Prowler is completely content to show us everything it can. 

 

Returning to the dorm to change out of her punch-splattered dress, Pam manages to avoid discovering the bodies of her murdered friends, but does suffer a run in with the man who killed them.  She manages to escape from him (largely because, like most slasher villains, he seems unwilling to catch his victims if it means running after them) and finds Deputy Mark, who is just shitty enough at his job to not only not find the killer, but also completely miss out on finding his first two victims as well.

 

From that point on the movie does what its supposed to do and intercuts scenes of The Prowler killing folks with Pam and Mark trying to figure out what is going on.  The script does try to be a bit different by ignoring some of the more blatent cliches.  For example one couple (who ultimately serve absolutely no purpose to the film's narrative) are allowed to have sex without dying and the male protagonist is allowed to remain alive.  But even here the picture is a bit clumsy, since we are lead to believe The Prowler has killed Mark, but he is shown to be alive and unharmed after Pam finally manages to kill the murderer in typical Final Girl fashion.  This could have been cleared up with a single line of dialogue, but the filmmakers seem too eager to get to the film's last shocking surprise (which ends up being neither shocking or surprising) to bother tying up such an obvious loose end.
 
On the whole The Prowler is a film that slasher enthusiasts can easily enjoy, but whose appeal will be lost on more casual genre fans.  While it does not transcend its limitations, it manages to make for an entertainingly gory 90 minutes and is easy to sit through since its characters are more bland than outright hateful.

Slasher Statistics

Body Count: 8 (4 men and 4 women)

Shower Scenes: 1

Instances of Nakedity: 1

Obligatory Has Beens: Farley Granger, Lawrence Tierney

Instruments of Death: Bayonet,Pitchfork, Sawed-Off Shotgun, Regular Shotgun

Moments of Inexplicable Female Jealousy: 1

Creepy (and therefore suspicious ) Old Guys: 4 

References to Pot: 1 ("Do you have any rolling papers?")

Amount of Time Required to Correctly Identify Killer: 20 minutes

Exploding Heads: 1

Cheesy References to Other Horror Movies: 0

Utterly Pointless Trivia: The movie was co-written by Neil F. Barbera, son of the recently-deceased c0-creator of The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and Tom & Jerry, Joseph Barbera.

Final Girl Rating: 5 out of 10

Repost - Slumber Party Massacre II

There is a theory in Hollywood that the last 10 minutes of a movie are by far the most important for its overall success.  The argument goes that a mediocre film can be saved by a memorable conclusion, while a disappointing ending can easily derail an audience’s appreciation of an otherwise great film.  The reason for this is simple—many people are linear thinkers who base their judgments solely on their most recent experiential data.  Ask them what they thought of a film and they’ll base that judgment on how they felt when they walked out at the end.  Even if they sat bored for the first 80 or so minutes, it’s the rush of excitement they remember from the last 10 that will cause them to praise the picture and—vice versa—cause them to denounce a film with an unsatisfactory climax that they otherwise enjoyed.

It is for this reason that any filmmaker who employs the infamous “It was only a dream!” device, no matter how cleverly or innovatively they do so, ultimately dooms their work to popular failure.  Over the years audiences have come to think of this ending as a hackneyed rip off and as a result are inclined to revolt against it and any film it appears in—no matter what the context or how it is employed.

 

The best example of this is the vehement reaction Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky engendered during its 2001/2002 holiday release.  As documented by Chuck Klosterman in his essay “The Awe-Inspiring Beauty of Tom Cruise’s Shattered, Troll-like Face” (from his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs), audience members walked out of the movie visibly hostile in a way that bore no relation to the quality of the film they just sat through.  “…[I]n the parking lot outside the theater, I overheard one guy tell his girlfriend he was going to beat her for making him watch this picture,” he writes in stunned amazement.  A well-made film filled with excellent performances (I personally have never found Penelope Cruz more enchanting) that features at least one truly amazing sequence (Cruise’s desperate jog through a deserted Times Square), the reaction the film received ultimately had everything to do with its final few minutes, in which we learn that everything we have seen has been the computer-programmed dream of a man in cryogenic stasis in preparation for his rebirth in an unknown future.  Having primed viewers to expect a more complex explanation for its events, the film’s creative variation of “It was only a dream”—alongside its refusal to show the future world it alluded to—alienated viewers to an extreme degree.  I strongly suspect that if the Brothers Medved had conducted a poll that year, the movie would have easily made the list of the worst films of all time, even though it wasn’t even the worst film released that particular weekend.

I mention this as a way to explain why the utterly harmless and fitfully amusing sequel to the subject of my previous DVD Horror Movie Index was only until very recently ranked as one of the IMDb’s Bottom 100 rated movies.  Rather than enjoy it as an entertaining—if also occasionally cheesy—comedy nightmare, most people upon seeing it choose to dismiss it as nothing more than a weird/stupid slasher movie with the lamest of all possible endings.

I am, of course, talking about:

 

Roger Corman is not the kind of dude to fuck up a good thing.  Having made enough of a profit from video and cable revenues to produce a sequel to 1982's The Slumber Party Massacre, it must have occurred to him that the fact that the film had been made by women might have had a hand in its success, so when it came time to assign the sequel to the sort of starving and desperately ambitious film school graduate upon which he built his low-budget movie empire, it only made sense that in this case this person would also be a female-woman type.  After what I'm sure was an exhaustive search, he settled on UCLA grad Deborah Brock, who had been making no-budget 8mm films since she was a teenager, but had yet to helm an actual feature at that point.  But although she shared the same chromosomal makeup and genitalia as Amy Holden Jones and Rita Mae Brown, she came to the project with a different attitude than her predecessors.  Her intention in making the film wasn't to--as Brown wanted--to mock the genre or--as Jones successfully did--simply create a highly-effective representation of it, but rather to instead do what they could not and create the first slasher film that effectively represented an entirely female point of view. 

 

(Click any image to enlarge)

To that end she wrote a screenplay that attempted to include all of the necessary slasher movie cliches, but that also explained them away as the nightmarish imaginings of a severely traumatized mind--in this case, Courtney, the 17 year-old version of the 12 year-old girl who survived the events of the first film.  Right from the very first shot of our sleeping main character it is clear that what we are going to be seeing isn't a literal representation of a horrific event, but rather the extended dream of a disturbed young woman whose traumatic experiences have left her incapable of willingly making the transition into female adulthood.

 

In Courtney's dream she imagines herself as an attractive woman (future Wings star Crystal Bernard) who is at least 8 years visibly older than her actual age.  The same is true for all of her friends (one of whom looks just like 1982's January Playmate of the Month) and the handsome boy she has a crush on, who looks far more like a 30-something teacher than one of her peers.  She and her friends are in a band and though their songs really, really suck, it is clear that music means something important to her--something deep and intimate that is innately connected to her own nascent sexuality.

 

(Click any image to enlarge)

 

We know this because whenever her dream turns nightmarish she is tormented by glimpses of a leather clad psychopath, whose look, cadence and demeanor is that of a 50s era rockabilly performer.  And though the identity of this dark, evil Elvis Presley manque is forged by Courtney's love of music,  he actually represents her inner sexual conflict.  Now a young woman dealing with natural carnal desire, she cannot help but associate the loss of her virginity with the massacre she survived five years earlier, due to the overtly phallic nature of the murderer's weapon of choice.  That is why she imagines Val, her now-insane older sister (who also became a lot less attractive in the intervening half-a-decade), urging her from underneath her mental hospital bed to "Don't...go...all...the...way...."

 

But despite these strong inner fears, Courtney's attraction to the handsome Matt is too powerful to be denied, which is why she invites him to join her at the slumber party being held at her friend Sheila's father's condo. 

 

(Click any image to enlarge)

 

Now, If there is any validity to the idea that every person you dream of doesn't represent that actual person, but rather an element of yourself that they best exemplify, then Courtney's three friends (and bandmates) can be viewed like this: Sally (Heidi Kozak) is the self-loathing Courtney feels for not being able to overcome her minor imperfections (ie. the shallow bimbo), Amy (Kimberly McArthur) is the voluptuous symbol of the impossible physical ideal that plagues many women's psyches (ie. the busty centerfold), Sheila (Juliette Cummins) is the overt expression of Courtney's sexual desire (ie. the exhibitionist slut), while she imagines herself as a near-perfect symbol of purity and innocence, struggling to retain her virtue in a dangerous world (ie. the final girl).  Beyond her love of music, she imagines herself and her friends as a band because it allows her to better appreciate them as the cohesive aspects of her own identity and the music they create together allows her to more creatively ponder such ideas as her own personal dissatisfaction and desire for new experiences, which she addresses in a song that asks "Why do you want more?":    

  

It's only a matter of time, though, before Courtney is unable to keep the two separate halves of her dream--the one based in a normal reality and the overt nightmare--from colliding together.   

 

(Click any image to enlarge)

 

First she dreams of a dead chicken coming back to life in her hands--an incident whose symbolic relevance is lost to me, but could be dismissed as merely one of the random elements that naturally pop up in these unconscious inner narratives.  Next she images her bathtub filling up with blood--an obvious allusion to menstruation and the inevitable loss of her girlhood.  Most disturbingly she imagines Sally's face transforming into a pus-spewing monstrosity--an image that works to confirm her terror that at the end of the journey through adolescence (Sally spends much of the movie fretting about the kind of nearly invisible facial blemishes that is the bane of many teenagers life experience) there is only disease, ugliness and death.

 

When the Sally aspect of her identity disappears following the projectile-pus incident, Courtney dreams that she and the others contact the local police (one of whom she--in a nod to her narrative's subconscious state--names Officer Krueger after the famous villain of the similarly dream-inspired Nightmare on Elm Street series).  Rather than take her concerns seriously, they question her sanity and berate her for wasting their time--especially when Sally eventually reappears unharmed and without a care in the world.  It's clear that there's no help or comfort to be found from the adult world.

 

(Click any image to enlarge)

 

It would seem that her only comfort from the terror of her nightmare comes in the arms of Matt (Patrick Lowe), the symbol of romantic perfection, but as the two of them finally attempt to "Go all the way"--Valerie's dire warning proves entirely wise.  With a weapon that grafts a guitar with the electric drill of her previous tormentor, The "Driller Killer" (Atanas Ilich) penetrates Matt before Matt can do the same to Courtney.  The rockabilly killer then proceeds to lay waste to the rest of Courtney's subconscious identities, with superficial Sally being the first to go.  Throughout the ordeal it is clear that the killer--and therefore also the young woman responsible for manifesting him--takes a special joy in seeing these less-ideal aspects of her personality die at his hands.  This is most obvious when he turns the death of Sheila into a musical number:   

 

 

Soon only Amy (arguably the least objectionable of her three female aspects) and Courtney remain.

 

 

The police express only indifference to Courtney's pleas on the phone for help, so she and Amy have no choice but to escape from the condo and attempt to outrun the mysterious guitar-drill wielding psychopath.  Unfortunately, he easily catches up to them and quickly dispatches Amy, leaving Courtney only with the most idealized version of herself to battle against her own fear of personal corruption.  For a time it seems as though she is victorious, when she is able to set the Driller Killer ablaze with a blow torch, but her victory is short-lived.  No matter how much she wants them to be gone, her aspects cannot be so easily disposed of.

 

Witness the resurrection of Amy:   

 

(Move pointer over image for full nightmare effect)

 

(Click any image to enlarge)

 

Of course this also means the resurrection of Matt, but her fear of sex is too strong to allow him to remain for long and she quickly replaces him with the killer.

(Click any image to enlarge)

 

The film then ends with the implication that Courtney, not Valerie, was the person driven insane by the experience of the first film, as we see her screaming and tormented on a hospital cot in a dingy unfurnished room, but even this is called into question as it becomes clear that her nightmare hasn't ended as the credits being to roll.  This is no "It was all a dream" happy ending, but rather the discomfiting suggestion of a torment without end--a perpetual state of insanity from which its victim, whoever it may be, cannot ever escape.

 

Viewed this way, Brock's Slumber Party Massacre II is a much more interesting film than it's low IMDb rating and negligible reputation would suggest.  The problem, no doubt, is that most viewers come to it expecting another straight-ahead slasher tale in the same mold as its predecessor--thus they are alienated by deliberate choices Brock made that make no sense in that context, but that fit in perfectly with the nightmare narrative  she instead chose to pursue.  That's not to say the film isn't without its faults (bad acting, low production values, truly terrible music and the utterly inexcusable failure to get Kimberly McArthur naked, considering that her famously copious breasts remained explicitly visible throughout the entirety of her previous three screen credits), but when viewed as a whole and with the right mindset, many of these faults actually work to the film's advantage--making it seem that much more like the dream of young woman (if that is indeed the person who is doing the dreaming) who is familiar with the genre only through its most obvious weaknesses and cliches.  It's precisely the kind of narrative tomfoolery that has made David Lynch a cult icon, but without the self-congratulatory pretentiousness that I personally find so alienating in much of his work.  For that reason I was surprised and impressed by the film, although I suspect that my admiration for it is definitely going to remain the minority position.

 

Slasher Movie Statistics

 

Body Count: 6 (three men and three women) 

Instances of Nakedity: 1 (Sadly, not from the playmate)

Instruments of Death: Guitar drill

References to Pot: o (Courtney apparently isn't a subconscious toker)

Amusingly Dated References to 1980s Culture:  At their band rehearsal, Sally requests a can of Slice, while Sheila gets pretentious with some Perrier.

Cinematic Girl Band Comparison: Not as good as: The Carrie Nations or Josie and the Pussycats/Better than: Mystery (from  Satisfaction)

Cheesy References to Other Horror Movies: I already mentioned Officer Krueger, but I didn't mention that his partner is Officer Voorhies.

Utterly Pointless Trivia: Bernard and McArthur both had roles in Garry Marshall's feature film directing debut Young Doctors in Love.  As mentioned above, nearly all of McArthur's screen time is spent without a top. 

Final Girl Rating: 7 (out of 10)

Repost - Slumber Party Massacre

One of the nice things about this internet of ours is how quickly and easily it can solve those little mysteries you’ve always wondered about, but were never before able to answer with any real satisfaction.

Case in point, the subject of today’s Sunday Thursday Horror Movie DVD Index—a film whose significance comes largely from its lack of significance.  One of the few original early 80s slasher movies to have been written and directed by women, the film begs knowledgeable viewers to engage it as a work of feminist comment, but stymies such commentary by presenting the genre’s clichés without any significant irony or insight.

I always wondered why the film’s screenwriter, Rita Mae Brown, and its director, Amy Holden Jones, decided to take no advantage of their unique-for-the-genre perspective and instead chose to make a by-the-numbers reproduction of the slasher template.  What I did not know and only learned as I started to do a little bit of research for this post, was that though Brown received sole credit for the film’s screenplay, the draft she wrote was completely different in tone from the script that was eventually filmed.  Brown originally wrote the film as a satire of slasher movies, but as the script was revised by a handful of uncredited writers the satire was (mostly) lost and the film ceased to be an ironic commentary on the genre and instead became a typical representation of it.

To which I say:

 

WHEW!
 

Thank Yahweh we dodged that bullet, because if there’s anything worse than a bad slasher movie, it’s a bad slasher movie parody and—based on the few satiric elements that managed to survive the various rewrites—I suspect that’s exactly what the film would have been if Brown’s draft had been made.  As directed by Jones the film is a taut, well made slasher classic that is smart enough to realize that sympathetic characters equals effective tension and benefits greatly as a result.

I am, of course, talking about:

 

 

In truth it is a bit disingenuous of me to claim that there are no examples of potential feminist commentary in the film, but those moments that do make it into the movie bear little distinction from similar scenes in other films made by (if the popular feminist critique of the genre is to be believed) supposedly misogynistic male filmmakers.  A good example of this is the brief sequence that opens the film in which Trish (Michele Michaels), the first of the film's two potential Final Girls, goes through her room and disposes of the items that represent her childhood, including a Barbie doll, a slinky and various other toys.  Having become what she considers to be a woman, she no longer wishes to cling to these reminders of the girl she once was.  But her conviction is not an absolute one, as she does decide to hold onto at least one stuffed animal she cannot bear to include with the other items destined for the garbage can.  Watching this brief scene one gets the sense it's supposed to be at least a little bit important, but--apart from being a nice character moment--it ultimately adds nothing to the picture and is not further developed into any kind of notable theme.

 

Actually I lied, the scene does add something to the film, since it is as Trish is gathering up her old toys that we hear a newscaster on the radio announce that police are on the lookout for an escaped killer named Russ Thorn.  Apparently Russ is eager to reclaim his old ways, as he appears in the next scene, where he pulls an unusually shapely phone company employee into her van and kills her with a very large (and very unsubtle) electric drill.  In this way TSPM represents the purest kind of slasher movie, in that it makes no attempt to disguise itself as a mystery and is only too happy to identify its killer right from the very beginning of the movie.  Following the linewoman's shocking demise, the movie cuts to a girl's basketball sequence that can only be described as--WAIT!--why should I bother wasting valuable brain cells attempting to describe it, when I can just let you watch the scene yourself?  (God bless you internet--truly you are the greatest boon we lazy-ass writers could ever hope to have been given!)

 

 

One Word:

Jiggletastic!

  

Now in a normal slasher movie, this basketball sequence and the lengthy group shower scene that immediately follows it, wouldn't seem the slightest bit odd or out of the ordinary, but when viewed with the knowledge that they were directed by a female filmmaker, they seem just a tad off-kilter.  The tightness of the uniforms takes on the air of almost-satirical exaggeration, while the slow-panning of the camera as it moves across the sloping curves of the actresses' naked, soapy buttocks gives the impression that Jones is attempting to supply her own withering deconstruction of the Predatory Male Gaze of the Camera's Eye.  The problem with this analysis, however, is that it is impossible to tell how much (or if any) of this is intended and how much comes from our desire as an enlightened viewer to assume that a female director would not be so crass as to fill her film with the requisite T&A without at least trying to meet her obligation with some form of deliberate spin. 

 

 

In terms of the actual plot, the sequence does a good job of setting up the dynamics of its main female characters.  Trish, who we met earlier, is the kind, sympathetic girl who is planning on throwing a slumber party that night.  Valerie (Robin Stille --an extremely attractive actress of admittedly limited talent whose 1996 suicide serves as further proof of my thesis that the IMDb is the most depressing website on the planet) is the beautiful new girl, whose perfection has alienated her from her new classmates, especially Diane (Gina Simka), the snob with the perpetually turned up nose who is far too self-centered to be alive at the end of the movie.  And joining Diane on the doomed list is Kim (Debra Deliso), the vaguely tomboyish blond, Jackie (Andree Honore), the black girl and Linda (Brinke Stevens) the skinny brunette whose butt gets the most attention in the shower scene, but who doesn't even make it out of the school--much less to the slumber party. 

 

 

After Linda's drill-induced decision to shuffle off this mortal coil, the movie spends the next few minutes introducing the rest of the victims/characters, before it gets to the sweet slumber party action that one assumes is its raison d'etre.  Most important of these is Val's 12 year-old sister Courtney (Jennifer Myers), who spends most of her screen time ogling a copy of Playgirl, providing far too many false-scares to keep track of and inspiring the future writer/director of the film's 1987 sequel to place her at the center of that movie's memorably wacky dreamscape.

 

Naturally, once the party gets underway (during which beer is imbibed, cannabis is inhaled and nighties are slipped into) Russ decides to join the fun and quickly (literally given the movie's abbreviated 75 min running time) drills his way through the relevant cast members.  With the exception of the scenes where a hungry Jackie lifts and eats a piece pizza off of the back of the murdered delivery boy and the one where Val's first attempt at an offensive attack is stymied by the shortness of her extension cord, the film resists any signs of obvious comedy or satire.  Considering how short the film is, Jones actually does a commendable job establishing a sense of suspense and tension, largely because she has managed to make us like some of these characters and thus makes their situation horrifying and tragic, rather than karmically just.  That said, she is unable to resist the temptation to provide the kind of obvious symbolic imagery the murderer's weapon of choice (perhaps too) easily provides:

 

 

Despite playing mostly by all of the rules, TSPM does deviate slightly from the formula in that it presents two of its characters as possible Final Girls and waits until the film's final moments both deciding who is going to earn this important honorific.  Though both characters survive the night, Trish remains more a victim, while Val clearly establishes herself as the capable heroine who gets the job done.

 

 

In the final analysis, I believe one could argue that the reason Jones elected to not make her debut movie a work of overt feminism is because she was smart enough to understand that despite its unjust reputation for misogyny the slasher formula is one that openly embraces the concepts of female empowerment.  One need only look at the most important of the genre's archetypes and appreciate that there is a very good reason that it is virtually never referred to as the "Final Boy".

 

Slasher Movie Statistics

 

Body Count: 11 (six women and five men, which--interestingly--makes it one of the rare slasher movies in which female victims outnumber the males)

Shower Scenes: 1 (and it's a long one)

Instances of Nakedity: 8 (7 and 1/2 if I wanted to get all pissy and deduct half a point for use of an obvious body double) 

Obligatory Has Beens: N/A

Instruments of Death: Electric Drill, Butcher Knife and Machete.

Creepy (and therefore suspicious ) Old Guys: 0

References to Pot:  It's a slumber party in a movie from the 80s!  You expect me to keep count?

Amount of Time Required to Correctly Identify Killer: N/A

Cheesy References to Other Horror Movies: Val spends some time watching a horror movie I couldn't identify on TV.

Number of Seriously Awesome All-Girl Basketball Scenes That the Folks Who Run the WNBA Would Be Wise to Watch: 1

Utterly Pointless Trivia: Amy Holden Jones is married to the guy who shot Raging Bull and also--more importantly--directed Clan of the Cave Bear.  

Final Girl Rating: 7 (out of 10)

Repost - The Big Hurt

Once upon a time a person could reasonably expect that whenever they went to see a movie one of the last things they would ever have to watch was the sight of a man’s penis being forcibly removed from his body.

Those times are over.

 
In the past few years a handful of filmmakers have taken it upon themselves to break what could be consider one of the last remaining cinematic taboos and deliver unto their audiences startlingly graphic depictions of castration.  Now that’s not to say they were the first to do this, as the history of exploitation cinema is peppered with titles that were willing to take aim straight at the area responsible for their male audiences’ most common and immediate fears.

For example, there’s the famous scene in Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S., in which the title character (memorably played by the unforgettable Dyanne Thorne) informs her now-former lover that it is her habit to neuter a man once he is no longer able to satisfy her insatiable sexual demands and then goes on to prove it with a very sharp surgical implement (an act that allows for the irony of her eventually being undone by his replacement, a Polish soldier whose priapism leads to her finally meeting her match).  Although the scene is nowhere near as graphic as the ones about to be discussed, it is interesting insofar as it’s the one significant act of violence against a male character in a film whose central theme is literally built upon the presentation of violence against women (Ilsa’s pet theory being that women are naturally capable of absorbing more pain than men, which she attempts to prove by inflicting a series of graphic tortures against every busty soft-core actress who was working in 1975).  One gets the sense that by presenting us with what most would consider the ultimate form of brutality that can be committed against a man, the filmmakers were hoping to offset the blatant misogyny of the rest of the film. 

 

It doesn’t, but at least they made the effort.

 

A much, much, much more extreme historic example of cinematic castration came courtesy of Doris Wishman, the infamous Floridian filmmaker whose oeuvre of soft-core sex flicks rank among the most ostentatiously repellent films ever made.  For her 1978 “documentary” (note: the term documentary generally implies a level of professionalism Wishman was never capable of at any time during her career, thus the use of quotation marks in this instance) Let Me Die A Woman, Wishman went so far as to film an actual sexual reassignment surgery, thus giving the world the most graphic depiction of male genital mutilation ever shown in an actual movie theater.  One can only assume that there was a dramatic drop in popcorn sales wherever the movie was shown.  Suffice it to say, I myself know this film only by its reputation and will happily spend the rest of my life never having seen it.  And lest you think me a lightweight for this admission, I have sat through her 1974 “classic” Double Agent 73--in which the supremely unattractive Chesty Morgan plays a spy with a special camera surgically implanted in one of her enormously floppy breasts--and in so doing suffered more than many of you can possibly imagine.

And, of course, there’s the scene I discussed in Day of the Woman where Camille Keaton gets revenge for her vicious, extended gang-rape by cutting off the junk of the guy who made it happen, as well as several more examples I’m too lazy to mention because if I did I’d have to link to their IMDb pages and that takes more time and effort than you’d ever think it would.  So, yes, there is a precedent of cinematic castration throughout the history of the art, but it’s only in the past few years that filmmakers have been so increasingly happy to take it to the furthest possible cringe-inducing level.

 

 

The most successful of these new castration films, both financially and critically, has to be Robert Rodriguez’s highly stylized adaptation of Frank Miller’s classic noir comic book, Sin City.  In that film, Bruce Willis, playing Hartigan—a cop who has spent years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit—finally gets his revenge against the deformed pedophilic senator’s son whose depraved acts sent him there.  After rescuing the young stripper whose jailhouse letters kept him alive, Hartigan vents his rage against that yellow bastard by grabbing his yellow cock and pulling it right off of his yellow body.  It’s a startling scene, especially since it features such an iconic performer in Willis doing the deed (and, yes, we have reached an age where Willis can justifiably be considered iconic), but this is the only time I’m going to mention it in this post because it doesn’t fit in with the previously unmentioned sub-theme I want to discuss, insofar that it involves a dude ripping off another dude’s dick, while all of the others involve much less craggy and more attractive usurpers of male penile domination.

 

The reality is that my interest in this recent phenomenon has less to do with any natural fascination with castration (I am, after all, a man and I happen to revere my phallus as much as any other Tom, Dick or Harry), but rather with the characters shown to be doing the castrating.  One is a wealthy young woman who is driven to commit her violent act as a desperate means of survival.  Another is a girl whose motives and identity are so clouded in mystery it’s possible to assume she’s not even human, but instead a divine angel of vengeance sent forth to avenge a terrible crime.  And the last is a true innocent whose strange “adaptation” turns her into the living embodiment of one of the world’s oldest and most universal of myths.  All three of them begin their stories as victims, but end them stronger than they were before—proving that the most extreme feminists were right, female empowerment really is just a matter of slicing off some dick's dick.

 

When I say that I am stunned and perplexed by the reaction Eli Roth’s Hostel: Part II received when it was released, I am speaking just as much as the serious cineste who can spend hours talking about the films of the usual gang of European arthouse auteurs as I am the genre enthusiast who’s devoted hours of his life deconstructing the thematic intricacies of Slumber Party Massacre II.  While my low-opinion of mainstream critics allowed me to expect that they would lack the insight to look beyond its premise and controversially graphic torture set pieces, I was shocked when many genre fans equally failed to grasp how successfully it worked as a sophisticated piece of Swiftian style satire.  Rather than acknowledge the interesting themes Roth chose to explore in this second film, both groups focused solely on its scenes of violence and dubbed the film a mere gender-reversed replica of the original.
    
But I would argue that by simply reversing the genders of his protagonists, Roth created what was both an inherently more interesting and thematically insightful film.  Whereas the first film focused on the irony of foreign tourists who use their wealth to exploit people in other countries, only to themselves become much more heinously exploited by far wealthier tourists with much more depraved tastes, the second takes a broader look at the global society in which such an underground industry could actively flourish.  In Hostel it is easy to imagine that had he not been lured into the enterprise as a victim, Jay Hernandez’s character, Paxton, would eventually grow up to become one of its customers, if only because of his stereotypical alpha-male tendencies and willingness to use the misfortune of others as a means to satisfy his own carnal pleasures.  The same cannot be said for Beth (Laura Germain) the second film’s protagonist, who—largely by virtue of her femininity—is infinitely more sympathetic and vulnerable than her predecessor, which makes her final transformation that much more dramatic and interesting.

For those of you who have yet to see either film, both are about a small town in Slovakia whose local economy revolves around luring young tourists into their quaint hostel, where they are subsequently kidnapped and sent to an abandoned Soviet-era concrete monstrosity.  There they are sold to wealthy businessmen who travel from across the world for the opportunity to enjoy the experience of torturing and killing another person without consequence.  While for most viewers the horror in both films lies in their graphic depictions of torture, I personally feel this is strongly superseded by the both the existence of the enterprise that allows this torture to happen and its apparent popularity.  As far as I’m concerned the most chilling sequence of the two films occurs in Part II, just after Beth and her two friends, Lorna and Whitney, have arrived at the titular hostel and—without their knowing it—have become the objects of desire in an international bidding war over the right to maim and kill them.

 

Just as Jonathan Swift satirized the heartless apathy of the ruling class by soberly suggesting that the solution to ending poverty was to eat the children of the poor, so too does Roth take aim at a culture of wealth that has become so bored with its own idle banality that the only way its members can feel something is by killing another human being.  In the second film he pursues this theme far further than in the original by including a B-plot involving the two men who have won the right to kill Beth and Whitney (Lorna having been sold to a Bathory-esque older woman who enjoys bathing in the blood of virgins).  Through them we are given a glimpse into the inner-workings of the business and the rules by which it is operated.

Watching the two friends interact it’s hard not to think of the two similar characters in Neil LaBute’s directorial debut In the Company of Men who decide to avenge their frustrations towards women by deliberately humiliating the most innocent woman they can find.  Todd (Richard Burgi) is the ringleader and alpha-male, while Stuart (Roger Bart) is the follower, who reluctantly goes along on the trip despite his grave moral concerns about what they are doing.  In that way they also resemble the two main protagonists from the first film, Paxton and Josh (Derek Richardson).  The clear subtext in the first Hostel was that Josh allowed himself to be ordered around by his more dominant friend because their manly adventures allowed him to avoid confronting his own closeted homosexuality, while in Part II Stuart follows Todd because their adventures together (all of which the far-wealthier Todd pays for) represent the only times in his life where he is able to escape the stifling bonds of his career and familial obligations.

 

But as their stories continue and the two friends at last find themselves in their leather butcher aprons and alone with the women they are now contractually obligated to murder (the organization’s secrecy is maintained by a kind of mutually assured destruction in which everyone who takes part is as guilty as everyone else) the true nature of their personalities come out.  Todd, the pure hedonist, who has dressed Whitney in the costume of a low-rent prostitute, at first seems to enjoy the experience, teasing his victim with a circular saw.  But when he slips and the weapon connects with her face and does actual damage, the seriousness and horror of the situation finally dawns on him.  Suddenly aware that this is not a game and that he is in a room with a real human being who screams and bleeds when she is injured, he panics and runs out of the room.  Informed that he must finish her off in order to meet his obligation, he refuses and is then mauled to death by a group of dogs kept around for just such occasions.

Stuart’s first instincts, on the other hand, are to attempt to rescue Beth—who he has dressed in the casual business attire worn by the women in his day-to-day life—but as the reality of the situation becomes more apparent to him he realizes he really does want to kill her.  Finally given a true outlet for all of the frustrations and humiliations he has swallowed down over the years, he realizes he actually relishes the chance to take it.  Given the opportunity to finish off Whitney for a reasonable discount, he happily decapitates her with a machete before returning to Beth, who has come to represent in his mind all of the women who have embarrassed and "castrated" him throughout his life.

But Beth is a very resourceful young woman.

More than anything it is her journey that I feel elevates Hostel: Part II to a far greater level than its detractors allow.  A very wealthy young woman following the death of her father, Beth has not only the will but also the resources required to be a kind and generous person.  Far more sensible than her party-girl friend Whitney, but also more cautious than the naïve Lorna, Beth is the most grounded and centered character in the film (her one quirk being her very strong and visceral reaction to anyone who calls her the dreaded c-word).  For this reason she is able to keep her head and figure out a way out of the torture chamber fate has thrown her into.  When Stuart returns to kill her, she is able to reverse their situations and attempts to bargain her way out with the man in charge.  The fate of his manhood (and life) literally in her hands, Stuart is unable to contain his rage and says the one thing guaranteed to ensure his emasculation.

 

  

Beth's transformation from pure victim to tattooed member of the exclusive Hostel club suggests that the truly unequal dynamic in Western culture isn't Male/Female, but instead Rich/Poor.  Paxton's luck and resourcefulness allowed him a small modicum of revenge against his tormentors, but ultimately his relative poverty doomed him to an inevitably violent death (the second film begins with his being decapitated in the one place where he feels safe and, later on in the film, his severed head is shown as the centerpiece in the Chairman's grotesque trophy room), whereas Beth is able to ensure her continued survival thanks to her inherited wealth.  For this reason there is a tremendous amount of sadness in her victory.  Despite her tremendous courage and intelligence, she escapes only because Stuart lacks the financial resources of his dead friend.  In the twisted logic of the world in which they live, she emasculates Stuart before she cuts off his dick simply by having a larger net worth than he does.

 

It is, in fact, this feeling of being less than--which he blames on his wife--that causes Stuart to forget his heroic instincts and embrace the worst impulses of his wounded masculinity.  Thus fate ensures that his symbolic castration becomes a literal one at the hands of a woman who he has subconsciously dressed in the attire of his metaphorical emasculater.

 

If one truly wanted to criticize Roth's film, you could argue that it lacks subtlety and his conclusions are fairly obvious.  I would disagree insofar as I believe that subtle satire is an oxymoron and that those filmmakers who attempt it inevitably create trite works of little to no impact.  And being obvious is usually only considered a fault by those viewers whose own detachment leads them to believe that "truth" is a  fantasy of the bourgeoisie (ie. most professional critics).  The problem is that either through deliberate obtuseness or inadvertent obliviousness many commentators, both mainstream and genre, refuse to acknowledge that the Hostel films exist on any other level than the showcasing of graphic violence--neglecting to criticize their themes not because they disagree with them but because they cannot bring themselves to admit that they exist.  However, even as shallow a deconstruction as the one provided above proves this to be demonstrably not the case.  As far as I'm concerned it's perfectly acceptable to dismiss Roth's work because you find his conclusions shallow or abhorrent, but it's an act of pure intellectual laziness to blithely ignore those conclusions and glibly negate the films by classifying them as "Torture Porn" or "Gorno".  And by "pure intellectual laziness" I, of course, mean utter stupidity.

 

 

Compared to the Hostel films, Hard Candy fared a lot better with critics, but not quite as well with several men I happen to know personally—some of who saw the film purely based on my recommendation of it.  Considering how much it affected me, I found their reticence towards it somewhat surprising.  Whenever I probed them to find out what it was they didn’t like about the film I found they were reluctant to say anything specific, but in each case it eventually became clear that their major problem was with the film’s young, female protagonist.

 

A two-handed character piece, the film is a psychological thriller about the dangers of online sexual predation, but not quite in the way most people would expect.  While Jeff Kohlver (Patrick Wilson) completely matches the profile of one of those idiots regularly caught on camera on Dateline NBC’s now infamous “To Catch a Predator” segments (if only a bit smoother, stylish and less obviously creepy) his young prey, Hayley Stark (Ellen Page), is not what you would call a typical 14 year old girl.  Not only is she the one who suggests that they meet together after flirting online, but it also soon becomes clear that she is nowhere near as innocent or defenseless as Jeff (and us viewers) assume.

It turns out that Hayley believes Jeff is guilty of a terrible crime and is willing to take dramatic action to ensure he is punished and doesn’t do it again.

 

Though they were loath to admit it, the reason my male friends refused to praise the film was because it forced them to make a choice they did not want to make—to either sympathize with a man who at best was a sleazy pedophile and at worst a rapist/murderer or the possibly delusional young woman who wanted to cut his balls off.  As loathsome as they found Jeff to be, they still could not bring themselves to endorse Hayley’s mission, because—as much as they didn’t want to—they identified with his plight and imagined themselves in his situation. 

The more I thought about it, the more it became clear to me that the castration sequence in Hard Candy is the male equivalent of Camille Keaton’s extended rape in Day of the Woman (aka I Spit On Your Grave), not only in terms of length (Jeff spends 34 of the film’s 100 minutes strapped to the table where the “operation” is performed) but also in its ability to shock and divide its audience.  As I noted in my way-too-long discussion of Meir Zarchi’s classic, film critic Roger Ebert denounced Day of the Woman as the worst film ever made because of his belief that the filmmaker had intended the audience to cheer on the brutal rape of its female protagonist, while it is my belief that Zarchi clearly wanted the audience to be disgusted by what they saw.  In much the same way, a person’s appreciation of Hard Candy depends on whether or not they believe that Hayley is acting rationally and that her actions are just.

There is much evidence to suggest that Jeff is guilty of the crime he is accused of, but it is all circumstantial at best.  It also doesn’t help Hayley’s cause that she cruelly toys with him as she makes her surgical preparations.  Justice should not be a game and sometimes it seems as though she is having too much fun playing vigilante.

 

Interestingly, though, one way this sequence differs from Day of the Woman’s rape sequence is that Meir Zarchi leaves nothing to the imagination, while Hard Candy’s David Slade is very careful to obscure what is going on.  Of course it later turns out that this is as much for narrative reasons as anything else, but his reticence does little to dull the impact of the sequence, which is the very definition of cringe inducing.  Due largely to its length and distressing ambivalence (Slade never allows us to assume that he sympathizes with either character) it is easily the hardest of the sequences discussed in this post for a person to sit through.

 

 

That said, I can admit now that unlike my peers who found themselves so troubled by Hayley’s actions they could not enjoy the film, I found myself unwaveringly with her 100% of the time.  Part of this is due to the strength of Ellen Page’s performance, which elevated her in my personal pantheon long before everyone caught up with Juno and part of it is due to my natural instinct to side with fictional female vigilantes, even when they do things I would never advocate a real person (female or otherwise) doing.

Some people find it impossible to separate their personal politics from their enjoyment of a film.  For the most part, these are people I try hard to avoid.  For me part of the fun of a film like this is that it allows me to embrace a dark side of my own personality I prefer to sublimate in my actual life.  Whereas in the world actual I believe there is no room for revenge in the pursuit of justice and therefore abhor capital or physical punishment of any kind (believing that the ultimate form of hypocrisy is for a government to claim that the only way the worst possible crime can be punished is by committing that crime itself), in the cinematic world I am allowed the freedom to embrace my inner redneck and cheer on Hayley as she cuts that pervert’s nuts off.

For this reason I found watching this sequence filled me with both revulsion and exhilaration—I squirmed in sympathy with Jeff, while cheering on Hayley’s act of so-called “preventative maintenance.”  As a result for me the truest moment of ambivalence came at the end of the sequence when Jeff, finally left alone, escapes from his bonds and discovers that Hayley has been fucking with him (and, in turn, Slade and screenwriter Brian Nelson, have been fucking with us).

 

 

Thus one of the most anxiety provoking castration sequences

in cinematic history is one in which no actual castration occurs at all.

 

In the final moments of the film, Hayley is able to get Jeff to finally confess his involvement in the crime she has accused him of.  He insists that all he did was watch and tells her the name of the real murderer, a man named Aaron.  Hayley tells him she's already visited Aaron and that he said the same thing about Jeff.  Confronted by his monstrosity and Hayley's (false) assurances that she will keep the one woman he's always loved from discovering his secret, Jeff commits suicide by hanging himself from his roof--a fate that seems almost anti-climatic following his pseudo-castration.

 

At the end of his extremely well-written and perceptive review of the film, online genre critic El Santo, points out that another reason--beyond her mere actions--that some people are put off by Hayley's character is her unnatural precocity and near-superhuman abilities, but the reason I didn't find this troubling was because I believed Slade and Nelson inserted subtle clues into the film that suggested that Hayley is not what she appears but rather something supernatural or possibly divine. 

 

When it comes to "accepting" a film, viewers have two options.  They can either compare it to the everyday reality they themselves know or they can judge what they see based on the world presented in the film.  You can either dismiss Hard Candy out of hand for never explaining how an 80 lb girl can so easily manhandle a man literally twice her size or you can use your imagination and come to your own conclusions on how she is able to do everything she does.

 

I made my decision in the film's final shot.  Though the red hood she wears is an obviously iconic reference to Little Red Riding Hood and her encounter with the Big Bad Wolf (an encounter whose final conclusion differs from telling to telling), I focused more on the look on her face.  She had done this before and would do this again, her focus and determination so ineffable that I couldn't help but assume that she was on a mission directly given to her by a vengeful and angry god.  It definitely helped when I heard the first word of the song that plays as the screen fades to black and goes to the final credits.

 

 

 

When I say that the last film in this post’s trilogy of modern castration classics surprised me, that is something of an understatement.  Not so much for its content—I knew going in what to expect on that end—but by rather how much I enjoyed it.  With all apologies to Christopher Nolan, Teeth remains my pick for best movie I’ve seen this year, although it does seem strange to compare this low-budget combination of horror and comedy to a project as monolithic as The Dark Knight.  

The film’s most immediate cinematic peer is the justly heralded cult classic Ginger Snaps, which remains one of my favourite films from this decade.  Both are horror tales about young female outcasts whose ascent into womanhood turns deadly due to forces within their own bodies they cannot control.  In Ginger Snaps, that force is the lycanthropy that causes young Ginger to embrace her carnal side as she descends into a state of permanent beastliness, while in Teeth it is the virginal Dawn’s discovery that she is the flesh and blood incarnation of one of the Earth’s oldest and most widespread myths.

One of the things I loved most about Mitchell Lichtenstein’s script is the risk he takes in making his protagonist a character most horror movies fans by nature would abhor—an abstinence-preaching goodie-goodie who wears her virginity on her sleeve and hangs out with friends so pious they refuse to see an R-rated movie.  In less deft hands Dawn (Jess Wexler) could have turned out to be as obnoxious a character as Mandy Moore’s in the supremely tiresome A Walk to Remember (not to be confused with her deliberately obnoxious character in the brilliant Saved!), but in one short sequence he gains her our sympathy by showing us that she is just as much an outcast as any black-shirted malcontent.

 

As audacious as Lichtenstein’s choice is, it does make perfect narrative sense, insofar as Dawn’s veneration of her own virtue explains away the story's potential biggest plot hole.  By making her essentially afraid of her own sexuality (as exemplified by her horrified reactions to her intensely erotic dreams) it becomes possible to appreciate how she has been able to avoid any potential physical examination that would expose her strange mutation.

Though the cause of this mutation is most likely linked to the presence of the enormous nuclear cooling tower visible just a few miles from her house (as is the cancer slowing killing her mother) Lichtenstein’s script also suggests that it is a natural evolutionary step—one that is necessary if women are ever to wrest themselves from the physical dominance of brutal, sex-obsessed males.

If ever there was a subject begging to be exploited in a horror movie setting, Vagina dentata has to take first prize.  While it has been used as a subtext (both consciously and accidentally) in many films, Teeth is one of the first to chuck metaphor out the window in favour of a direct representation of man’s biggest unspoken fear.  It’s genius, though, comes in the way it allows us to subvert that fear and compels us to cheer on the young woman who is the unwitting symbol of primal emasculation.  Rather than terrify us with a horrific descent into Dawn’s monstrosity, Lichtenstein chooses to create a story of empowerment in which Dawn’s mutation makes the slow transformation from inexplicable curse to exploitable gift.

 

Like Roth, Lichtenstein’s intentions are clearly satirical, which means its characters have been drawn to serve his thematic purposes rather than serve as three-dimensional representations of people found in our own non-cinematic reality.  That said it does seem only fair that in a film where its female protagonist is partially defined by the devastating power of her vagina, all of the male characters are shown to be incapable of making any decision not immediately linked to the desires of their penises.  In the world of Teeth, every male is a potential sexual predator, especially the nice ones who say all the right things.

This is a completely accurate depiction of the world as it really is.

I don’t mean to propagate the hoary old feminist cliché that every man is a wannabe rapist, but rather that the biological impulse to procreate remains strong enough that few men possess the inner-strength to ever completely disregard it.  In Teeth this is best represented by the character Tobey (Hale Appleman), a fellow “abstainer” whose chaste flirtations with Dawn quickly escalates into violence as a result of his own pent-up sexual frustration (“I haven’t even jerked off since Easter,” he shouts at her in an attempted mitigation of his assault).  During this, her first experience with intercourse, Dawn and Tobey both discover her hidden secret and following his entirely unexpected castration, he falls into the water they had been swimming in and does not come back up to the surface.

With this Dawn is not only forced to contemplate her mutation, but also her own sexuality for the first time in her life.  This leads to her first ever visit to a gynecologist in a scene that best exemplifies the film’s darkly humourous  tone.  Perhaps it says something about my own twisted sense of humour, but I laughed longer and harder the first time I watched this moment than during any other scene I’ve seen this year.

 

With this second incident a clear pattern begins to emerge.  Sensing Dawn’s unusual innocence, the men around her seek to exploit her sexual naiveté only to find out too late that they do so at their peril.  Though she lacks the experience to immediately recognize the inappropriateness of the doctor’s actions (his gloveless probing clearly treading past the line from routine examination into outright molestation), subconsciously she identifies the violation for what it is and her body takes action against it.  As will become clear with her next sexual experience, her strange “adaptation” does not act in opposition to her impulses, but directly with them.  Though she does not know it yet, she is in complete control of her sexuality—it is merely a matter of accepting and embracing it.

Overcome by her role in Tobey’s death, the doctor’s mutilation and her mother’s collapse and subsequent hospitalization, Dawn finds herself drawn to Ryan (Ashley Springer), a boy from school whose crush on her has always been flagrantly apparent.  He does his best to comfort her anxiety (including giving her some pills purloined from his mother), while also exploiting her duress for his benefit.  He decorates his room with candles and gives her wine, having correctly identified the romantic tropes she associates with the abdication of her virginity.  Touched by his gentleness and attention, Dawn engages with him in her first act of consensual intercourse and is shocked to find that when it ends he is none the worse for it.  Afterwards she examines her topless body in the mirror and already a new self-confidence is apparent in her bearing and demeanor.  In that moment she makes the visible transition from being a girl to becoming a woman, which makes what happens next all the more powerful.

About to leave, she is drawn back to Ryan’s bed for one more round of coitus, only to find out—via a phone call from his friend—that he has just successfully won a bet in which he would be the first to claim the pretty virgin’s maidenhood.  In that moment the last vestige of her innocence is extinguished for good and Ryan promptly meets the same painful fate of Tobey and the bad doctor.  Her reaction here is telling.  No longer terrified of what she can do, all she can muster in way of a response is a comic “Oh shit,” as she dismounts Ryan and leaves him screaming in his bed.  “Some hero,” she mutters to herself, having learned the truth behind her girlish romantic fantasies.

 

It’s interesting to note the degree to which the film allows its male "victims" to suffer.  As a full-on rapist, Tobey’s punishment is death.  The doctor, whose assault—while creepy—was not as violent or as obvious as Tobey’s is shown having his fingers reattached, but is also dramatically traumatized by the incident (“Vagina dentata,” he keeps repeating, “it’s real….”).  Ryan’s initial tenderness is “rewarded” in that he survives the encounter and is—like the doctor—shown having his severed organ reattached to his body, although he too will doubtlessly be traumatized for life.  Of them all it is her final “victim”—her stepbrother, Brad—who is punished with the worst of all the possible fates (at least from a decidedly male viewpoint).  

Dawn’s opposite in every way, Brad’s callousness is the direct result of his resentment over the marriage of his father to Dawn’s mother.  Not because of any lingering devotion to his own mother, but rather because of his feelings for Dawn.  By making her his sister, the marriage prevented him from ever being able to act upon his sexual desire for her in a socially acceptable manner.  For this reason when he hears his cancer-ridden stepmother collapse in the hallway, he ignores her cries and leaves her to be found by Dawn, who goes on to blame him for her subsequent death.

With this Dawn comes to realize that her “adaptation” is not a deformity, but rather an aspect of herself with which she can extract karmic justice.  She goes on to visit Brad in his room, dressed for seduction (albeit in a manner that reflects her goodie-goodie instincts) and proceeds to deliberately do to him what she unintentionally did to the others.  His suffering continues when Dawn defiantly drops his severed member onto his floor, only to watch as his pit bull escapes from its cage and proceeds to eat it in a couple of quick bites.  Unlike Tobey, who didn’t live long enough to appreciate what had happened to him, or Ryan, whose mutilation was only temporary, Brad is shown being completely robbed of his manhood without any chance for recovery.

The film then ends with Dawn leaving her small town by hitchhiking out on the highway,  And as much as I enjoyed everything that came before it, it is the film’s last scene that truly won me over.  Trapped in the car with an obnoxious old pervert, Dawn is first annoyed by the situation, but that annoyance visibly dissipates when she realizes that she, not he, is the one who is truly in control of what is going on.  Her smile at this awareness made me doing something I never do when I watch a movie—applaud.  It was the only response I could think of to justify how good it made me feel.

Of all the films, Teeth is the most graphic in its depiction of its castrations.  Though, unlike Hostel: Part II, we never actually see Dawn sever the penises from her “victims” bodies, we are exposed to much longer takes of the various aftermaths.  Yet it remains the least discomfiting of the three films, largely because rather than acts of overt hostility, its castrations are presented either as an unconscious reaction to an assault or emotional betrayal or—in the last case—a just act of revenge committed against an utter douchebag.  This is interesting in that it suggests that the power of onscreen violence has little to do with what we are actually shown onscreen but instead by how what we are being shown makes us feel.  Though some would suggest this serves as a good argument in defense of restraint, one could easily argue with just as much validity that the degree to which graphic violence is acceptable depends on how the filmmaker intends their audience to react when they see it.  In other words, it is foolish to suggest that one approach is better than the other when it all depends on the context in which they are used.

And that folks is my way-too-long look at a recent cinematic phenomenon only a freak like me would ever think to document.  It only took me two months to throw it all together and I'm already fairly certain it wasn't worth the wait....

Repost - Let Me Take You Down, Cuz I'm Going To....

I have a confession to make....

 

I

FUCKING

LOVE

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

 

 

But then who doesn't, right?  It's widely considered to be one of the most revolutionary and important musical works of all time, so professing your love for it is hardly controversial.  Except, of course, I'm NOT talking about the record album.

 

No, I'm talking about

THIS

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band:

 

 

And this DEFINITELY puts me in the minority, as the general consensus seems to be that this 1978 musical is a) a terrible sacrilege to the musical legacy of the men who composed the songs that define its existence, b) a tacky example of the worst show business excesses of its era and c) just an enormous piece of shit altogether.  I'll admit that this response does not strike me as being terribly unreasonable.  This is not a movie for the literal minded or for those who take ANYTHING at all seriously.  In order to appreciate this Robert Stigwood production, one must be possessed of a special, whimsical soul that is capable of being delighted by that which most others will invariably dismiss as "stupid" or "silly".  Now, I'm not saying that the grand majority who lack the ability to enjoy the odd pleasures of this film are cold, gray, soulless automatons who go through life never knowing what the sensation of joy feels like, but I am willing to suggest it.  Does my liking this film make me a better person than those who don't?  Probably, but it does seem a tad arrogant to say so with complete certainty.

 

Chances are many of you reading this have never seen the film and thus do not know on which side of this uneven divide you fall.  Here then is the quickest test to find out for sure, a brief clip of George Burns (as Mr. Kite) singing his own version of Fixing A Hole:

 

Personally, I find this clip to be incredibly sweet and charming--a perfect example of a form of pure showmanship that is largely extinct in today's cultural arena.  So used are we to charmless celebrities whose fame has nothing to do with any discernible talent, but rather their ability to sell tabloids to nosy womenfolk, that we forget there was a time when performers like Mr. Burns were expected to be able to do it all--sing, dance and act.  True, they weren't expected to be good at all three, but in most cases their natural charisma allowed you to ignore the kind of defects that might take down a less affable entertainer.  That said, I suspect that there are many people who will view this clip, roll their eyes and dismiss it as the apotheosis of lameness, largely because it features a performer who was considered old-fashioned before their parents were born.  Now, I'm not saying these snide folks are guilty of the kind of disturbing ageism that some of us had hoped had gone the way of the Dodo, but it is an accusation I find hard to resist.  Does not liking this clip mean that you hate old people?  Probably, but chances are your grandmother knows better than I do.

 

But then the presence of Mr. Burns as the film's narrator (an important role in a film otherwise completely devoid of dialogue--Sgt. Pepper being that most 70s of all projects, a rock opera) is not the major reason so many people seem to dislike it.  No, that burden is placed squarely on three hairy brothers from down under:

 

By the time the movie was made the Brothers Gibb were already well on their way to becoming the Celine Dions of their day.  That is to say, the more popular they became with the masses the more the cultural commentators of this world lamented their existence, essentially insisting that no one who took their music even the slightest bit seriously could enjoy listening to Staying Alive if only because it was so successful there was no way it could be any good.  Hip people hew closely to the principle that a project is only worthy of their attention if no one else in the world has noticed it, which makes them pretentious bastards.  Now, I'm not saying that an inability to appreciate the musical stylings of the Bee-Gees automatically makes you a pretentious bastard.  Does not liking them indicate that you're an elitest snob who clearly deserves a major beating?  Probably, but I'd leave that up to Barry and Robin to decide (Maurice, unfortunately, being far too dead at this point to offer up a relevant opinion).

 

But more than their essential uncoolness, what irked many people about the appearance of the Bee-Gees in the film was the genre of music for which the trio had become most famous.  Despite their being around since the mid-sixties, it was their disco soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever that catapulted them into superstar status and even at the ultimate height of its heyday, many people dismissed disco out of hand as a genre unworthy of their attention.  Though they would claim that it was the essential frivolity of the music that they disdained, the truth was that the major reason so many music fans adamantly insisted that "Disco Suck[ed]!" was because of its popularity with gay men.  The Village People serve as the clearest example of disco as a gay phenomenon, but the rise of divas such as Donna Summer and Gloria Gaynor, as well as the overt glam of such otherwise hetero acts as Earth, Wind & Fire (who also appear in Sgt. Pepper) and the images of clearly homosexual men dancing to the music in popular nightclubs such as "Studio 54", were more than enough to frighten uptight rocker dudes into thinking that approving of anything related to the genre would put an automatic question mark on their masculinity.  Now, I'm not saying that disapproving of the Bee-Gees meant that a person was a rabid homophobe.  Does not liking joyful dance music always indicate that a person is more likely to commit a violent hate crime?  Probably, but I'll leave it to your gay cousin to decide (and if you don't have a gay cousin, then that either means you're someone else's gay cousin or have some serious soul-searching to do sometime in your future).

 

Some of you cleverer folks, however, will have noticed that there is a fourth, non-Gibb member of the group shown in the above clip.  He, of course, is Peter Frampton.  Watch this to get a better look at him:

 

It is entirely acceptable to hate Peter Frampton.  I don't, but in this case at least, I can forgive those who do.

 

Moving on, some people apparently take issue with the performance of Miss Sandy Farina as Strawberry Fields--arguing that since it marked both her first and last significant film role that she clearly did not deserve to be showcased in an effort of this magnitude.  I'll let you decide for yourself by offering up this clip of her performing the song from which her character received her exotic name:

 

I don't see what these folks are talking about.  Miss Farina was clearly a talented singer and an attractive young woman and it wasn't like the film demanded strong thespic skills from her.  No, my guess is that the antipathy she received was the result of Beatles' fans automatic distrust of any women who came close to the music of their idols.  In much the same way many of them took to thinking of Yoko Ono as the devil, while they also demonized Linda McCartney for being in Wings, so too did they curse this lovely young woman for having the nerve to perform music she should know was above her station.  Now, I'm not saying that people who don't like her performance are all evil misogynists.  Does not liking Sandy Farina serve as proof of an unconscious hatred towards the entire female gender?  Probably, but I'll leave it to Gloria Steinem to tell you why.

 

Another reason so many people seem to hate the film is that in order to reach a happy conclusion it resorts to that oldest of all possible theatrical cliches--the deus ex machina:

 

 

Call me overly PC if you want, but I cannot help but worry that the reason so many folks are disturbed by this conclusion is because in this case the "God in the Machine" is a black man (Billy Preston to be exact).  Compound this with the fact that the film was directed by Michael Schultz, whose previous hits Cooley High, Car Wash and Which Way Is Up? had made him the most successful African-American filmmaker to make his mark in Hollywood up to that time and it is hard not to suspect that an undercurrent of bigotry informs many people's dislike of the film.  Now, I'm not saying hating Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band means you're a despicable racist.  Actually, I am.  Deal with it.

 

Finally the film ends, some would say infamously, with a lip-syncing chorus of late 70s era c-list celebrities, including: Peter Allen, Keith Allison, George Benson, Elvin Bishop, Stephen Bishop, Jack Bruce, Keith Carradine, Carol Channing, Charlotte Crossley, Sharon Redd, Ula Hedwig, Jim Dandy, Sarah Dash, Rick Derringer, Barbara Dickson, Donovon, Randy Edelman, Yvonne Elliman, Jose Feliciano, Leif Garrett, Geraldine Granger, Adrian Gurvitz, Billy Harper, Eddie Harris, Heart (aka Ann and Nancy Wilson), Nona Hendryx, Barry Humphries, Etta James, Dr. John, Bruce Jonston, D.C. LaRue, Jo Leb, Marcella Detroit, Mark Lindsay, Nils Lofgren, Jackie Lomax, John Mayall, Curtis Mayfield, 'Cousin Brucie' Morrow, Peter Noone, Alan O'Day, Lee Oskar, The Paley Brothers, Robert Palmer, Wilson Pickett, Anita Pointer, Bonnie Raitt, Helen Reddy, Minnie Riperton, Chita Rivera, Johnny Rivers, Monti Rock III, Danielle Rowe, Sha-Na-Na, Del Shannon, Joe Simon, Jim Seals, Dash Croft, Connie Stevens, Al Stewart, John Stewart (presumably a different John Stewart), Tina Turner, Frankie Valli, Gwen Verdon, Diane Vincent, Grover Washington Jr, Hank Williams Jr, Johnny Winter, Wolfman Jack, Bobby Womack, Alan White, Lenny White and Margaret Whiting (note: those in bold indicate people I've actually heard of):

 

This, I am willing to concede, is every bit as terrible as most people think it is, but I would argue that it is the single flaw that otherwise highlights the perfection of everything that has preceded it.

 

Now, I'm sure that those of you who keep up on your recent films are aware that just last year another film, Across the Universe, attempted to turn the Beatles' songbook into a full-fledged musical and I suspect you're assuming this is where I tear that effort apart as a cheap imitator and pathetic also-ran, but I simply cannot do it.  As imagined and directed by Julie Taymor, the film is a flat-out, no-bullshit, jump-for-joy artistic triumph.  As much as I love Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (and I DO love it, even more so every time I see it), Across the Universe is clearly in a different league altogether.  Whereas the first film is a silly little piece of fluff you have to be a serious asshole to hate, the latter film dances on the edge of being something wholly profound, so much so that a person's decision not to embrace it indicates as much a failure of the intellect as well as the soul.  It is a film I will never forget, if only for how it transformed "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" from a simple declaration of love into a moving lament of forbidden longing:

 

Repost - Jason Goes to Hell

 

Having just recently dipped my toes into the murky, deadly waters of Camp Crystal Lake, I thought I’d wait awhile until I indexed another installment in the Friday the 13^th series (which, for reasons I myself cannot decipher, is the only major horror franchise I own in its entirety) but then it occurred to me that having pinpointed A New Beginning’s lack of any genuine Jason Voorhees action as its fatal flaw, it could be enlightening to talk about the film for which that exact same narrative attribute is its chief virtue.  

In truth, many fans would disagree with this assessment, insisting that today’s film is just as misbegotten as A New Beginning, both for its heresies against the Crystal Lake mythology and general crappiness.  One only has to look at their respective IMDb pages to appreciate this—4,745 registered users have given A New Beginning an average rating of 3.6/10, while 4,365 voters have given our present subject an average rating of 3.9/10.  

 

This is fucked up.  A New Beginning deserves a much, much, much lower score than 3.6 and today’s movie definitely deserves better than a measly 3.9, but their .3 difference in public regard serves as ample proof that often people’s expectations blind them to what they are actually seeing.

Fanboys are a fickle, impossible-to-please group of malcontents.  Obsessed with re-experiencing the simple pleasures of their childhoods, they are forever doomed to disappointment as their loss of innocence and ascent into adulthood makes finding those experiences virtually impossible.  In part this because on the one hand they demand that they be surprised and delighted by things they have never seen before, while also insisting that filmmakers do not deviate even one iota from their frequently-ridiculous narrow realm of expectation. 

 

This leads to such amusingly paradoxical situations as people online spending years and years demanding that a studio commit hundreds of millions of dollars to make a live-action version of an adored cartoon from their childhood, only to react with terrible fury when a studio finally takes the bait but—CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE IT?—doesn’t make it EXACTLY like they imagined it should be.  I’ve never actually seen the first live-action version of Scooby-Doo, but I did find it hilarious that when it was released so many online commentators were outraged that a movie based on a TV show they had watched as children was <GASP!> turned into a movie actually intended for children!  

This is why today’s film, which is a perfectly enjoyable and adeptly made example of the slasher movie, is held in such low regard—not because of what it actually is—a fun rip-off of The Hidden—but because of what it isn’t—all Jason, all of the time.

Of course, I’m talking about:

 

 

For a time it appeared that Jason Goes to Hell was actually going to be true to its words and in fact be The Final Friday--unlike Part IV, whose status as The Final Chapter didn't even last a year before we saw the nigh-craptaculer A New Beginning.  That this is the case seems especially odd given the history of the film.  Unlike the previous 8 films in the franchise, JGTH wasn't produced by Paramount Studios, which had finally decided after the lacklustre b.o. of Jason Takes Manhattan that they finally had the opporunity to do what they had always wanted and get out of the Friday the 13^th business for good.  But rather than just bury the series, they decided to make a quick buck and sell the rights to it to New Line, the little studio that could, which at that time was best know for its A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, but would later become a far-more major Hollywood player as the studio behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy. 

 

This wouldn't be the first time New Line purchased the rights to an apparently moribund horror movie franchise.  In 1990 the studio had attempted to restart the inert Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise with Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, but the film seemed to be cursed from its conception and failed to make an impact with horror fans, many of whom resented the changes the movie made to the previous film's characters and back story. 

 

Since it's impossible to believe that the studio would buy the rights to the franchise simply to bury it, one has to assume that they dubbed it The Final Friday not because they actually believed they wouldn't continue the series if the film proved to be a hit, but because a) they figured that they might trick sentimental fans who were disappointed by the last few Paramount films into seeing it and b) they were going to rejigger the formula to such a noticeable degree that the next film in the series could reasonable be released as The New Friday.  For proof of this one only has to take a look at a film they released a year after JGTH, 1994's New Nightmare, which attempted to take the apparently-concluded A Nightmare on Elm Street series into an entirely new direction.

 

But unlike A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 6: Freddy’s Dead, which earned enough money to justify the making of New Nightmare, JGTH proved to be as much of a flop as Leatherface had been three years earlier.  Rather than reinvent the franchise, which had been it’s obvious intended purpose, the ninth Friday the 13^th instead did what it had advertised and stopped the series cold, forcing fans to wait 8 years before Jason Voorhees finally returned to the screen in 2001’s Jason X, which—like Jason Lives—solved the continuity problems created by its predecessor simply by ignoring them and taking the series in an entirely new direction.

However the story of JGTH doesn’t end there.  Despite all of the antipathy it earned upon its release, the film was notable for including a final shot that teased a confrontation that fanboys everywhere spent a decade demanding they be able to see, only to vehemently decry the result once it was given to them and wasn’t exactly what they wanted or expected.

 

But enough with the backstory, let's talk about the actual movie.

In attempting to reinvent the franchise, the makers of JGTH, decided to do something at the beginning of the film all of their predecessors insisted on leaving to the end—they killed Jason (in so far as Jason can be killed).  And not only did they kill him—in the words of the exalted critics of SCTV’s fabled “Prairie Film Report”—“They blew him up real good!”

For it’s opening sequence alone the 9^th Friday the 13^th deserves to be held in much higher regard than it’s spiritual peer A New Beginning.  Unlike the fifth film, which is so inept that it plays like a self-parody when it clearly isn’t, JGTH immediately establishes a sly self-mocking tone that it carries with it throughout its entirety. 

 

The film begins with a beautiful young brunette driving to a cabin out at the infamous Crystal Lake.  Although she first appears in the overtly tomboyish clothes of a final girl, she wastes no time stepping out of them and revealing an amazingly toned body as she takes her requisite shower.  But no sooner does she get out of the bathtub and cover herself with a towel then she is attacked by a machete wielding Voorhees.

 

Clad only in the towel (which she apparently stapled onto her body, such is its determination not to come off) she runs from the cabin and is chased by the zombified murderer throughout the forest.  Despite her obvious athleticism (she easily hurdles the hood of her own car) she somehow manages to trip and fall several times before she arrives at a large clearing where Jason catches up to her and goes in for the kill.  But this isn’t no ordinary clearing and no ordinary uber-hottie in a towel.  As he steps towards her, a series of bright spotlights turn on and illuminate the area.  A squadron of soldiers appear from behind camouflage and begin to attack the confused maniac.  True to his nature, Jason is able to absorb hundreds of bullets without any seeming affect, but even he proves no match for the missile that is fired at him from a helicopter up above.  Our favourite anti-hero explodes into a hundred little pieces, including his dark, black heart, which is ordered to be bagged up by the officer in charge, who also takes the time to congratulate the still-towel-clad Agent Marcus.

 

Not Safe For Work!

 

With this, director Adam Marcus (who was only 24 when the movie was made) and his screenwriters manage to both honour, mock and seperate themselves from the cliches and necessary contrivances of the series and the genre it helped to spawn before the film's opening credits have even appeared onscreen, which then allows them to move on to what amounts to an admittedly cheesy, but still entertaining riff on a classic sci-fi/horror movie New Line released 6 years earlier.

 

In Jack Sholder's The Hidden, two police officers--one human, one alien--join forces to track down a psychopathic parasite that is able to fulfill its voracious physical and monetary desires by jumping into different human hosts (including--most memorably --a pre-Babylon 5 Claudia Christian).  In JGTH, the evil spirit of Jason Voorhees remains alive in his evil black heart, which--after his decimation--is taken to the medical examiner who has been tasked to perform the autopsy on Jason's various remains.  Unfortunately for the examiner Jason's evil is too great to be defeated for long and it compells the poor man to eat the pulsating organ, causing his body to be taken over by Voorhees' murderous psyche, which--like the parasite in the earlier movie--is able to jump into another person's body whenever the one it's currently in proves to be no longer desirable.

 

And this time our anti-hero actually has a mission.

 

Did you know that Jason Voorhees had a sister?  Turns out he did and she's a dead ringer for Wilma Deering, which suggests that the genetic material swirling around the Voorhees clan was capable of very high highs and very low lows.  Strangely, no one around her seems to know this except for the mysterious bounty hunter who's offered to catch Jason for the princely sum of $250,000, which is odd since she still lives in the area around Crystal Lake and you'd think it would eventually come up in conversation:

 

Small Town Yokel #1: Hey, there's that Diana Kimble.  She was the prettiest girl in our class.

Small Town Yokel #2: Wasn't there some fuss awhile ago involving her family?

Small Town Yokel #1: Well, there was the time everyone thought her retarded brother drowned at the lake down the road, because some teenagers were too busy fooling around to look out for him.  That bothered her mother some, so she killed a bunch of kids, before she got her head chopped off, which was a shame because it turned out that the boy hadn't died, but had instead raised himself alone in the woods.  He hadn't seen his mother for awhile, but he got mighty annoyed when he heard what had happened to her, so he decided to kill some kids on his own.  They eventually killed him, but he rose out of the grave like one those whatchamacallits--

Small Town Yokel #2: --Zombies--

Small Town Yokel #1: --That's right.  Since then he's been an unstoppable monster leaving nothing but misery and terror in his horrible wake.

Small Town Yokel #2: I guess that's why she changed her name.

Small Town Yokel #1: Actually no.  She just married some fellow named Kimble.  It lasted long enough for them to have a kid, who's all grown up now.  Lately she's been dating the sheriff and working as a waitress at the restaurant that serves hamburgers shaped like the mask her evil zombie brother wears.

Small Town Yokel #2: The sheriff, huh?  What does he think about her family?

Small Town Yokel #1: Y'know, I've never heard him bring it up.

 

But before this becomes too big of a plot-hole, the possessed M.E. arrives at the lake to kill some campers Jason-style, including one unlucky young woman who I think earns the title of goriest death in the series. 

 

Judge for yourself (warning--even censored this probably ain't safe for work): 

 

(Note: Once again use your mouse pointer to create some truly gory misogynistic mayhem) 

 

It turns out that Jason requires the body of a fellow Voorhees to return to his full NHL ready form, which leaves him with just Diana, her grown up daughter Jessica and Jessica's newborn baby as his only options for salvation.  But, luckily for the world at large, these three also have the ability--while wielding a magical dagger--to stop the black sheep of their family once and for all.  Thus the majority of the movie is composed of Jason's spirit jumping around in different people's bodies doing that voodoo he do so well, the frantic attempts by the father of Jessica's baby to prove that he isn't responsible for the murders and save the woman he still loves and Jessica learning about the extreme nature of her family tree. 

 

In short, JGTH actually has a plot, which is probably the major reason so many fans of the series have seen fit to reject it.  In truth, most average viewers will finally little praiseworthy in the film, but I found it just so darn goofy and energetic that I couldn't help but like the lil' fella.  It helps that I took the time to listen to the commentary by director Marcus and co-screenwriter Dean Lorey, which is one of the more honest and entertaining audio track discussions I've had the pleasure of hearing.  Both men were in their mid-twenties when they made the film and are only too happy to admit to its flaws while also pointing out many of its less-noticeable strengths.  They describe how the film released to theaters with an R-rating was admittedly much more confusing than the unrated video version, which may also account for its dire reputation.  They neither defend nor seem ashamed of the film they made, enjoying it purely for what it is, which makes them far more enjoyable to listen to than someone defending the indefensible or apologizing for something they don't need to feel sorry for.

 

And, make no mistake, neither Marcus nor Lorey have anything to feel sorry about.  They made an amusing film on a low-budget that is disliked by many only because it wasn't exactly what they had expected when they purchased their ticket or rented the video.  They would do well to ignore what the film isn't and instead enjoy it for what it is.

  

And, of course, I can't talk about Jason Goes to Hell without mentioning its immortal final shot, which caused so many fanboys to ruin a perfectly good pair of pants.  But since words don't do it justice, I shall allow images to say it for me instead:

 

 

(Note: You really should know what you have to do right now)

 

Slasher Statistics

 

Body Count: 21 (15 male/6 female)

Shower Scenes: 2

Instances of Nakedity: 3 

Obligatory Has Beens: I'm sorry Erin, but it had been a long time since Silver Spoons....

Instruments of Death: Mesh Table, Car Door, Crow Bar, Knife Sharpener, Brute Force, Boiling Oil, Machete, Magical Dagger and Evil Spirit Possession

Creepy (and therefore suspicious ) Old Guys: 0

References to Pot: 1 (some folks talk about smoking pot, but we don't actually see them do it)

Amount of Time Required to Correctly Identify Killer: N/A 

Cheesy References to Other Horror Movies: Beyond the ending's obvious nod to Wes Craven's most famous work, the movie also features an officially approved Sam Raimi shout out in the appearance of The Evil Dead's Necronomicon Ex Mortis, which our hero finds on a shelf in the old Voorhees homestead.

Utterly Pointless Trivia:  John D. Lemay who plays Steven, the film's male lead, also starred in the Paramount produced Friday the 13^th tv series, which--beyond it's title--had nothing to do with the films. 

Final Girl Rating: 6 out of 10