Baise-moi (2000)

Distributed under the title Rape Me in some parts, Baise-moi actually means Fuck Me. And this is precisely what it means within the narrative. The two protagonists do not wish to be raped. Actually, one of them is a rape victim gone mad, using a macho brand of violence to finally exert some control over her sexual life, making male desire a mere operative tool in her own quest for satisfaction. And so, it is not surprising that the two directors would categorically reject the erroneous title, which was probably used only to eschew the use of the word "fuck", hence pointing out to what controversy is all about in the US: vulgar language and its pervasive influence on youth. The fact that the word 'fuck' is the most precise and most logical term to describe the random sexual encounters depicted in the film has no bearing on anyone who would have the nerve to refer to it as Rape Me, a title that should be mercilessly hunted down and invalidated instead of the film itself.

Baise-moi and the art of depicting "coups de bites" (dick hits):
women need not be subtle when tackling phallocentric tastes

That said, with nary any element overstepping the boundaries of traditional exploitation cinema, save for the gender of its directors, Baise-moi should've gracefully dodged any controversy, had it not been for the uptight rating boards who have now taken the burden of moral authority in light of the dwindling influence of the Church. Yes, the film does contain some hardcore sex. So, you just need to apply the rules concerning pornographic material, slap the film a well-deserved X-rating, and get over it already! There's no need to make a big fuss about it. Even I, who rarely ever has sex, still consider it an integral part of life, finding no discomfort in its graphic depiction onscreen. Furthermore, sex is a central tenet of the film, which unfortunately plays more like a trashy genre film that any truly dramatic attempt at depicting their characters beyond the veil of flesh. And so its depiction is crucial to narrative construction. After all, the story does concern two women's quest for freedom in a phallocentric world, which constitutes but a novel angle with which to frame an otherwise sub-par serial killer road movie. Their re-appropriation of sex within the scope of their own, personal desires thus obviously warrants its onscreen depiction, and perhaps, just perhaps was controversy born out of that deconstruction of the male dictates in terms of pornography. As for the parallel between sex and violence, it should come as no surprise for genre film fans, whom are mature enough to understand that they are both intrinsic human desires, and perhaps the last visible remnants of what lies beyond the masks of normalcy which we all slavishly adorn to better thread waters in the sea of business.

Starring porn stars Karen Bach and Raffaëla Anderson, the narrative concerns two disgruntled women who commit their first murder while under the throes of passion, both during an argument about the agency of men over their respective lives. Hooker Nadine strangles her roommate after she comments on her limp attitude toward shady boyfriend Francis, while poor immigrant Manu shoots her own brother when he dubs her a slut after she was raped in an underground parking garage. Stealing some 10,000 francs from her brother's stash, Manu then kidnaps Nadine, whom she randomly meets on the subway, and forces her to drive them to Paris, where they eventually team up and engage in a lucrative killing spree involving numerous sexual pit stops. After we see the girls shoot and fuck their way through half of France, in what basically amounts to an X-rated version of a romantic teenage fantasy, the film ends on a surprisingly harmonious note, making us contemplate the void in the protagonists' lives in particularly effective fashion while opening up the dreary perspective of absence with rare emotional precision, which helps balance the nihilistic stance of the narrative a bit.

Discussing suicide as the only worthy solution to their woes, the
protagonists play along the dotted lines of outsider narrative,
which uses nihilism as self-explanatory dramatic fuel

Shot with a cheap, hand-held video camera that garners interesting results only when used subjectively (such as when it adorns the viewpoint of Nadine getting fucked or that of a young thug getting beat up), the film is devoid of all production values. With its highly unrealistic depiction of violence and ultra realistic depiction of sex (shot using all the loving close-ups of hard-core pornography), the film is bound to catch casual genre fans off guard. Mind you, Baise-moi is not pornographic in nature. As directors Despentes and Trinh Thi so rightfully put it, "if it's not made for jerking off, then it ain't pornography". And, believe me, you probably won't feel like jerking off to this film, which hardly ever dissociates sex from violence, or at least, the possibility of violence. With its wide array of operative images, including close-ups of squirming female flesh, erect penises, bloodied heads and cocaine-snorting, Baise-moi definitely falls into the larger exploitation category, cramming all the dirty stuff that midnight audiences love into one handy 77-minute film.

But while it does fiddle with the classic codes of exploitation cinema (remember Thriller, which also featured hard-core pornographic elements within a traditional revenge storyline), the film is not made to rake in the dough in the same way as traditional exploitation does, namely because it features aggressive female sexuality in its midst, dragging the focus away from the phallocentric fantasies made to cater to the average genre film fans. Hence, the Thelma and Louise parallel becomes helpful in trying to better understand the film, for insofar as Ridley Scott's road movie removes Billy and Wyatt's hairy feet from the pedal toward freedom, so too does Baise-moi manages to conjure the memory of Henry and Otis and bring about a direly needed twist on the buddy killers film. Yet, contrary to Thelma and Louise, the present film also involves a specifically feminine take on narrative discourse, if not on filmic practices per se. The end result is a film that fails to really transcend the genre traditions from whence it came, but succeeds in bringing along a novel, eminently feminine outlook on its material. But ultimately, the subversion is only skin-deep, slightly transforming our perception of what would've been dubbed a cautionary tale against sexual abuse and social stigma (had it been shot by males), but which is now called a liberating woman's cry (seeing how it was actually shot by females), while still appealing mostly to undiscriminating thrill-seekers and jaded genre fans.

Grainy, blurred and over-saturated,
Baise-moi looks absolutely dismal

All in all, it is hard for me to qualify the film as more than "Average", for it is not. Once you get past the fact that the film contains actual shots of penetration, you can switch to passive mode and slowly slide into the catatonic stupor of casual genre fans, appreciating the film only as a buffet of juicy morsels. And while Baise-moi does manage to stand out from the formless mass of genre films, if only for the quantity of hardcore sex that it contains, I won't support any attempt at locating it anywhere near the realm of high art, for it is precisely because of its belonging to a very specific brand of popular entertainment that the film manages to formulate a critique of the phallocentric codes contained therein. By dragging it upward, away from the prosaic, foul-smelling depths of exploitation theaters, that is how the film loses its raison d'être. Because only alongside other exploitation efforts will it really stand out and make a difference in our appraisal thereof. That said, while Baise-moi itself is not good at all, at least it managed to spark some inspired intellectual discussions regarding the politics of representation within the fantasy world of genre cinema. Which does elevate it above esthetic concerns and proves once again that the act of censorship necessarily provokes adverse effects: instead of making it so that a film isn't seen, censorship rather bestows instantaneous cult status upon their "targets", thus insuring their perennity and widespread recognition.


2/5 A dismal-looking film that transcends exploitation only insofar as people can find relevance in the fact that it was made by two women. Not unlike The Human Centipede (Full Sequence) recently or the video nasties of the 1970s-1980s, it is mostly a censorship-fueled success.

Motel Hell (1980)

This here wasn't the first time I attempted to watch Motel Hell. The last time I did, I was so repulsed by the dated look thereof that I simply switched off and proceeded to watch Needful Things instead (which happened to be featured in the same bargain boxed set). And while the latter actually proved to be worse, at least it boasted some kind of visual hook into the narrative. Thanks to some spotless cinematography, it was easy to feel right at home in Castle Rock, fast taking the pulse of this small coastal community with the sight of each old homestead surrounded by endless porches. The many problems plaguing the screenplay were invisible then, for at the threshold, the film looked very good. As for the former film, it opens with bland, almost monochrome shots virtually devoid of content. Rory Calhoun posing in front of a defective neon sign that reads Motel Hell(o) isn't exactly what you could call a glorious entry into any film, low-budget horror or otherwise. Seeing this once again, I now managed to resist the urge to press 'Eject'. And ultimately, I was rewarded for my patience with some juicy assets nestled at the heart of the film, making it a flawed but memorable entry in post-TCM country horror.

The film offers some juicy morsels to those
who can get past the atrocious cinematography

As you might ascertain from the tagline ("It takes all kinds of critters to make farmer Vincent's fritters") , the film is a humorous cannibal romp with soft teeth. It stars Rory Calhoun as a Southern farmer and motel owner who sells smoked bits of former tenants to unsuspecting customers, earning himself somewhat of an illustrious reputation amongst locals. But while you'd expect some systematic narrative mechanisms involving a steady flow of victims ringing the bell on the front desk, Motel rather develops as a bitter-sweet family drama that chronicles the attempts made by Vincent and his sheriff brother to woo a young woman sheltered in the titular locale. The film actually begins with the appearance of the farmer's "angel", salvaged from a crashed motor bike during one of his nightly raids for victims. Investigating the "tragic" event, brother Bruce also becomes infatuated with the blonde orphan, soon coming at odds with his brother for her heart, and threatening to destroy the family business in the process. The climax sees the two men involved in a testosterone-filled chainsaw duel that will certainly manage to conjure the fading memories left by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (actually produced six years after the present film).

To be totally frank with you, I must say that this scene is one of the two main selling points of a film that one will surely remember only anecdotally. "What's Motel Hell?", one might ask. "It's that film where they harvest people like carrots", would reply another. "Oh, you mean the one with the chainsaw duel at the end?" Yeah, that's right. This is indeed the kind of outing made memorable by tasty bit parts that barely manage to elevate the ensemble to the level of respectability. As for the rest, as for the very unconvincing romance involving aging Calhoun and twenty-something Terry (Nina Axelrod) and all the narrative weight it is supposed to possess, one will watch the spectacle thereof with the acute eye of soap opera fans, trying to artificially infuse dramatic power within.

Some chainsaw-filled fun near the end helps
elevate the film to the level of respectability

Actually, the whole thing plays out more like a soap, then an horror film per se, focusing on the petty jealousies of Vincent's siblings and the mundane goings-on of the farmer's existence, rather than on the twisted fate of their victims, whom are all as underdeveloped in terms of characterization as the common cattle. And thus, the crux of the drama lies in the lingering revelation awaiting Terry, who is seen as the rightful successor of farmer Vincent, and heir to his secret meat-smoking method. Will she refuse to humor her elderly saviors, or will she instead take on their trade? But more importantly, will she survive sister Ida and the boys' quarrels over her long enough to actually make that decision? That is what you will be poised to anticipate as one finds horror only in the disinterested attitude of the farmers in regards to their choice of livestock.

Yet, even the most mundane dramatic aspects of the narrative strangely manage to stick to the pan, if you can get past the atrocious decors, lame photography, literal acting and slow pacing best befitting TV shows. As the plot unfolds, the characters become increasingly compelling, often coming close to embodying the essence of Southern hospitality, family values and responsible farming. With the signature sequence of the film depicting how "humanely" the human livestock is slaughtered, one becomes nearly adamant to peg Vincent as a good guy who, by his own accord, is crusading to solve both the overpopulation and the hunger problem all at once. And although the film ultimately settles for a contrived finale in which his victims are freed and his production shut down, in which his sheriff brother is redeemed, after being introduced as a potential rapist, most of the drama is localized squarely in the inner sanctum of the motel, where Terry is getting acquainted with her new surroundings. Short of being the main character, it seems to be her ordeal which is delineated by the narrative and not that of the farmer's victims. But then again, the film is a tad scatter-brained in its attempts at creating a unique viewpoint from which to view the narrative, unfolding instead as a series of simple happenings systematically branching toward familiar, obligatory places.

Family picnics in the country carry more
dramatic weight than the ordeal of human cattle

As for the hardcore horror fans, which should've been considered more specifically in the elaboration of this half-baked genre parody, they are treated to a few grotesque scenes containing some rather unique imagery, all of it pertaining to the weird "culture" of human beings in soft soil. Forget the overdetermined images of metal bars and grits-filled troughs, and bask instead in the originality of this new culture, the gem of the present screenplay. Aside from that, you've got some outrageous moments of comedy peppering the story, including the apparition of a sadomasochist couple whipping their way through the contents of a motel room in a desire-fueled frenzy. You've got a metal band named "Ivan and the Terribles", thrown off the road by farmer Vincent. But witty wordplays aside, the humor doesn't come across with much success, with the crudest jokes dabbing into flat-out infantilism, making horror but a secondary element of the narrative, visible only in the mundane resort to cannibalism.

In the end, Motel Hell looks and feels like a quickly produced TV movie, with some inspired ideas thrown in the mix to better guarantee its perennity amongst adventurous horror fans. That is, if you can remain unfazed by the amateurish production values and lack of energy in the creative development of the project. Then, you will uncover secrets that will shock you. So I will recommend this film to the curious who wish to behold some unique imagery. Let it be known however, that one will need an open mind to really get into the story and care for grayish characters that cruelly lack intensity and even grayer decors that will remind one of a hillbilly's home movies shot in and around the family farm.


2/5 If it weren't for that crazy scene involving the humane slaughter of half-burrowed human carrots, the movie would've surely sunk into oblivion. Recommended only for the most curious and most undiscriminating or horror fans.

The Burning (1981)

Uninspired title, uninspired film; The Burning is a formulaic vehicle for Tom Savini's stellar FX and a slippery stepping stone for a plethora of future stars, including Seinfeld's Jason Alexander and Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Throughout the years, the film has managed to garner a mostly undeserved reputation as one of the strongest "summer camp" slashers of the early 80s, which is at best a dubious honor. Truth of the matter is, there's nothing so novel or unique here as to really stimulate the viewer, especially after ample servings of similar outings, the bulk of which thread water in a sea of moronic jump scenes and awkward teenage coupling. And at heart, The Burning is no exception, being narrowly salvaged by uncut gore scenes and the mild historical interest provided by the presence of many stars to be.

The tacky cover should tell you
precisely what's in store

A trip down Memory Lane
I remember seeing The Burning about a decade ago, during one of the horror film marathons I used to organize with a like-minded friend. We would go to La Boîte Noire (Montreal's finest home video outlet) and pick four films which appealed to our immediate desires, then dash home and indulge in the giddy thrills of our earlier years. Virtually every sub-genre and every era we covered, from classic monster movies to contemporary gore jobs and everything in between, imposing as few limits on ourselves as possible.

During our scuffles for titles, we came across this tacky-looking film cover featuring a shadowy man with outstretched arms holding a nasty-looking pair of shears. Considering the conventional backdrop composed of log cabins over shadowy woods, it wasn't hard to envision the premise: horny teenagers are chased by a slasher hiding in the woods around some summer camp on the East Coast. The teenagers are then picked off one by one by the slasher, who catches them off-guard, then proceeds to stab or cut them under various angles, impaling at least one camper to a tree in the process.

The obligatory shower scene is located way too
early to create any real sense of foreboding

At face value, the product didn't seem interesting, evoking rather boredom from redundancy than entertainment. But then, there were those immense shears, and all the different kinds of violence they could implement. The possibilities seemed endless at the time. And seeing how we weren't concerned by the promise of nudity, having outgrown our girly magazine phase, the promise of latex arteries being slashed open and rubber bodies getting penetrated by blades, all the cutting, impaling, stabbing, sawing that these weapons implied, this is what appealed to our fiendish, infantile desires.



Art and giblets
You see, there is a craft to creating realistic gore effects, a craft just as imaginative and brain-wracking as set design, and which is something that horror fans enjoy even more. Yet, it is almost universally frowned upon as something vulgar and unworthy of praise. Not unlike color photography when it first came about, and was denied any artistic potential by retrograde wise men who stroked their beard and looked at the past for inspiration. Clearly, there's a double standard at play here, and it is mostly informed by popular tastes in matters moralistic. Hence, when a master painter depicts the human body with precise accuracy, he is called great. When a cartoonist draws the face of his subject in vivid details, witnesses are in awe of his art. But when one slices the body open, even though that body is a meticulously duplicated figure, then high-strung sensibilities immediately come into play and start interfering with the appreciation of art. People will suddenly become hostile to the craftsman, whose work proves too close for comfort, an uneasy reminder of what the human form, in all its perceived glory, veils in terms of glistening viscera and dripping arteries.

The Burning is a masterpiece of gory art. Here, a young
Fisher Stevens learns of the slasher's wrath firsthand.

And that's only one of the two major downsides of creating gore FX, the other being the lack of exposition that this form of art has within the medium that is horror. Guys get to see their work onscreen for scant seconds. They spend hours designing and crafting body parts that leak in the proper way, or splatter according to script, all of that for less than three minutes of screentime in a 90-minutes film chock-full of untold filler, scenes of teenagers wandering through the forest, cheap scares, and cheap tits, usually borrowed from young actresses in need of work. But there is a reward in all this: the fact that people come to see the film precisely for those three minutes. And for the three minutes of nudity. The plot around it all is just filler, and it runs in circles, precisely not to alienate audience members, hooking them with the comforting knowledge of forecoming gore or nudity at every predictable turn.

People don't go see slashers because they enjoy the victimization of women, nor because they must comply with murderous instincts. They do so only to appreciate flesh in the most visceral, but ultimately most forbidden fashion. Just think of a roller coaster. Whether you dress it up like a dragon, a train, or a spaceship, it's appreciation will vary only in accordance with the amount of thrills that it provides. It would be naive to think that people see themselves soaring into outer space after being strapped into the Magic Mountain ride. Just like it is naive to think that people play out psychological angst while watching horror films. Horror films are mostly meant to make you react to a rapid series of stimuli, to engage you in the thrills of sexual awakening and/or murderous rage, making you probe just beyond the veil of flesh and into a world that is so real as to endanger the fragile balance of lies that constitute modern life and the comforting thought that we are somehow more than just flesh and blood.


The Scalding
Nostalgic digressions aside, The Burning constitutes a typical example of "summer camp" slashers. The formulaic storyline is punctuated by a series of twists that could be arranged in virtually any order, seeing how the characters barely evolve through the course of the narrative, except when their deaths bring about some mild emotions from their peers. Yet, there is some great gore effects to marvel at... and wait for endlessly. There is some full frontal (female) nudity. But nothing to write mom about. Moreover, the film makes quite a narrative blunder that greatly threatens the fun that one could derive from it. The fact that the killer is clearly identified from the beginning makes it impossible for the viewer to engage in any form of speculation, leaving us only to wonder why he goes on a killing spree without targeting the one character most directly responsible for his accident. What we are left with is only gore and tits, basically.

The identity of the killer is revealed
way too early for us to indulge in speculation

For those who care, the story involves an abusive caretaker who was inadvertently set afire when a group of disgruntled campers pulled a nasty prank on him several years back and left him for dead in the woods. Now, instead of fast-forwarding to the same camp in the present day, the film follows the caretaker as he is committed to the burn ward of a big city hospital (shot in near total darkness), then released after a painful recovery. Upon being let loose in the city, he quickly picks up a hooker and stabs her with a pair of scissors, establishing from the get-go that it is he, the shear-wielding slasher. Then, it's all a question of who goes first when the film cuts to the summer camp where Tommy, one of the murderous pranksters from the opening scene, now works as a counselor. With a cast of characters only slightly rounder than archetypes, whatever happens next in terms of exposition is not nearly as interesting as the minute details of the teenagers' foretold deaths.

For those who can appreciate it, I must say that the film is deliciously retro in its musical selection, respectfully paying homage to the gialli, the original slasher films, with its high-pitched, almost contrapuntal use of keyboard sounds. But most importantly, the film is of some historical interest because it contains the work of several future celebrities. Oscar winners Fisher Stevens, Holly Hunter and Harvey Weinstein all used the film as a springboard in their trip toward excellence. And so did Jason Alexander, known worldwide as Seinfeld's George Costanza. And while they are not at their best here, at least they were given that early chance to shine. Which is all the more reason to support cheaply-produced, widely-distributed exploiters, nay, to demand the return of cheaply-produced, widely-distributed exploiters as part of a business strategy to rejuvenate the Hollywoodian machine.

Becsause despite what the detractors of these films will say, these is art to be found in them, and beauty. For the craft of dismemberment is also a celebration of art, and of humanity in its depiction of the most fragile, most prosaic elements of our existence, the soft flesh and the flowing blood which makes us what we are. Then there is the sculptural beauty of teenage Venuses. The spectacle of youth, unveiled by flashy, branded garments. The spectacle of youth in its intrinsic beauty, not in the manufactured beauty of products. But most importantly, the showcasing of humanity in its simplest form, away from the overly intellectualized dramatic humanity of meta-narratives. Hence, the constant reminder of death which characterizes the horror genre, and which finds its expression in the vulnerability of our Earthly beings of flesh and guts, driven not by higher ideals, but by pressing instincts. The celebration of human as animal, and not as a Godly creature, which is at once the genre's driving force and the origin of criticism against it.


Why I digress
Why I digress is obvious. It is because there is so very little to say about The Burning, except to invite readers to look at the tag fastened around it: "A Harvey Weinstein production of a Tony Maylam summer camp slasher starring Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens and Holly Hunter, with makeup and gore effects by Tom Savini". Given the rigid codes to which this kind of films obeys, you should get a fairly precise idea of what to expect merely from that description. And if you're looking for something more, well, you're not gonna find it. The film is fun for the shears, and for the spectacle of Jason Alexander with hair all the way to his forehead. That's it.


2/5 A fairly standard summer camp gore job with some historical interest deriving for the presence of many stars to be.

Horny House of Horror (2010)

This unimaginative, technically inept horror film created for the Japanese home entertainment market fails to transcend the overcrowded sub-genre from which it hails. Fans of Japanese cinema shouldn't be surprised by the eminent lack of production values here and by how straightforward and predictable the narrative turns out to be. Casual horror fans might either be aroused or put off by the copious amounts of sexual themes and genital violence, but this comes only as very mild recommendation for undiscriminating gorehounds. Most people will want to steer clear of this one.

Bland salarymen as protagonists, baseball outfits,
gross-out humor, nudity aplenty and geysers of blood
with nobody at the helm: here's another typical entry
in Japanese gore cinema

When three everymen decide to celebrate their last days together (the protagonist being engaged to a domineering woman who disapproves of his friends and their unabashed love for baseball), they stumble upon the titular massage parlor and are quickly drawn in by its suspiciously low prices. Obviously, these are only meant to veil the actual function of the bordello, which is to mutilate horny men during the act of sex for the entertainment of some perverts watching the whole thing live. But the naive protagonists pay no mind, and are quickly drawn into a nightmarish world of deadly sex toys and ugly decors. Likewise, the viewer is caught in a series of increasingly ugly sets, increasingly annoying antagonists (most of which is Akemi's foul-mouthed lead whore), and increasingly unfunny antics meant to amuse only the most undiscriminating of toilet humor fans, with plausibility being a mere afterthought on the whole. Granted that the vast majority of men value their penises much more than I do, I still doubt that they'd risk death in order to reclaim their severed organ in hopes of reattachment. Seeing how this is the kind of pressing matter that the film addresses as some of its most dramatic issues, you should easily be informed as to the level of this effort.

That said, the film features an incredible amount of penile trauma and blood showers, with lots of gratuitous female nudity to entice viewers while they are repulsed by the lingering promise of castration. The focus here is put squarely on gore, rubber prosthetics and juvenile humor instead of any coherent attempt at creating an affective or engrossing narrative. While this should be just enough to delight fans of the genre, it won't be anyone else's cup of tea. Just picture this for a spell: a close-up of a girl's butt shot at an angle so as to barely hide her vagina from which a shower of blood violently spurts, followed by the severed penis inside her, all of this punctuated by the ungodly screams of the male victim. If you really, really want to see such stuff, despite the incredibly crappy technical framework of the film, then go right ahead: enjoy! By the way, it will be hard for one to interpret such an attack as feminist backlash against the patriarchal Japanese society since the female perpetrators are but slave agents working for a male crime boss. Obviously, if you can manage to identify with the dumb protagonists, then you might find yourself somewhat troubled by their ordeal, in which case you might actually find an angle from which to successfully enjoy the film. Otherwise, I'm sure you wouldn't even consider buying a ticket for such a title. And nor should you.

"Get a hard-on and I cut your dick": if you can appreciate
the deeper implications of such a prank, then please
rent the film...

Of course, the film also score some points for its unabashed showcase of nudity (male and female alike). For those who like her, I must mention the presence of porn starlet Asami in a typically raucous role, that of a veteran cock muncher equipped with a set of metallic vagina dentatae. Personally, I have a hard time enjoying her tomboy antics and her deep, raspy voice and I was much more attracted to the more dramatic, more sympathetic, but eventually more traditional character played by gorgeous Saori Hara, another porn actress. The luckless whore entangled in a world of intimidation and blackmail will certainly sound more appealing to most film-goers, but in the end, the joyous, mass-murdering cock-slasher would have a better dramatic potential, had her character been properly handled. At any rate, characterization is not the film's strong suit, nor is story structure, direction, production or any important technical area, the sole effective department being that of special effects, which manages to produce all of the functional elements of the film, namely the latex prosthetics and onscreen blood meant to gross out the audience.

Saori Hara (born Mai Kato) is a sight to behold. Unfortunately,
the same can't be said about the film's sets, cinematography,
graphic humor, art direction, acting, editing...

Personally, I bought a ticket for Horny House of Horror just to fill some time. And I soon found out that this was the film's main function too: fill some time. But seeing how I could've been doing anything else than watching this stuff, I also realized that time can be spent instead of filled, spent in order to reap future benefits and not just immediate thrills. That said, I quite enjoyed the opening cartoon depicting the function of Japanese whorehouses within society: instructive and lighthearted despite the adult material at hand. I should've left right after...


1/5 This cheap effort in button-pushing is recommended only for die-hard Japanese horror fans and undiscriminating gorehounds.

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)

The pinnacle of postmodern genre cinema, here is a film that manages to create a stunning retro-futuristic world by borrowing heavily from the esthetics of 1970s sci-fi, then reinvents itself using elements from 1980s slashers, creating a brilliant hybrid that perfectly befits the central subject matter. With some nearly experimental flashback sequences thrown in the mix with good measure, the end result is... perplexing to say the least, but swarming with unforgettable imagery. But most of all, Beyond the Black Rainbow is a surprisingly gripping film, and a rare example of truly affective horror.

At the heart of the narrative is a beautiful young woman named Elena who was apparently born and raised in a lab as part of an experiment in para-psychological research. While the exact purpose of her "creation" remains hazy, her ordeal is very real, and so are her psychic powers. Opposite Elena is a rigorous and fearsome researcher whom we assume is also her father. The man spends his entire day scrutinizing the girl with utmost interest as he would a very promising lab rat. And strangely enough, he seems to revel in making her cry (which amounts to provoking a sought-after emotional response from the subject). But contrary to the girl, he has a life outside the lab, returning home to the suburbs each night and exchanging nods with his estranged, TV-addicted wife. And while he indulges in memories past, as any suburban dweller would, Elena eventually breaks free from her holding/living cell, and goes on to explore the massive scientific facility she calls home. At some point, at around the 100-minute mark, she even manages to escape into the "wild", where she is tracked down mercilessly by the creep in a white coat, now sporting a monstrous, bald look.

Poor Elena is entrapped even by her hair

Extremely slow-moving (and a tad overlong), the film tells its story through an accumulation of facts that build up to create a hazy whole. Eschewing synthetic explanations, the narrative is all the more horrific in its depiction of everyday weirdness. In fact, the elusive design of the ongoing experiments makes it all the more unnerving in our appreciation thereof, leaving our perverse mind squarely in charge of imagining the worst, informed as we are only by sudden flashes of ugliness and a truly alarming psycho-anatomical handbook. But most importantly, it uses elaborate, impressionistic images to attack our senses, and keep us wholly involved with the world of the film.

Instead of the usual cables and sparkling white operating rooms from other "laboratory" horror films, Beyond relies on alien organic processes to create affect. In one particularly effective sequence, and the high point of the film, the antagonist is reminded of "simpler times" by his dying mentor, Dr. Mercurio Arboria (itself a name that is almost Asimovian in its perfection). But those "simpler times" are not so simple to grasp for our feverish minds, boggled as they are by the spectacle of evil Barry being used as a willing subject in a hypnotic seance of weird science. Pictured as a white silhouette dipped in a thick, black liquid that seems straight out of The Matrix, he fast becomes one of the strangest entities ever to grace the screen. In fact, rarely has any realist depiction of mad science been so gripping and unforgettable.

Evidently, the literal depiction of science, and especially of para-psychology, can only go so far in describing the actual experience thereof, which is what the film delivers by using symbolism and impressionism, thus proving that even overly rational endeavors need not be framed in a down-to-Earth manner, especially when they concern the inner workings of the mind and its impenetrable depths. Science is boring. But experimental cinema is fun! Which is what the film aims to prove with a very particular, very engrossing storytelling technique that eschews the need for contrived, wordy explanations by making us share the protagonist's experience almost intimately.

And while the experimental "rebirth" sequence will leave you aghast, its contribution to the overall mood of the film pales in comparison with that of the claustrophobic, monochrome settings. Comprised of black, red and white walls with little to no features, naked, empty rooms and endless corridors, the lab comes out as a labyrinthine, living depiction of despair. One can find no hope or no beauty in it, but most importantly, no definite purpose, which is perhaps its most fearsome feature. Just like the underground lab from Shozin Fukui's Rubber Lover (with which the present film shares more than just superficial features), it basks in a dreadful sense of inescapability. But most dreadful yet, it eludes our compulsion to find a reason for its existence. Like the titular cube from Vincenzo Natali's seminal thriller (and another stellar example of how crafty English Canada is when it comes to genre cinema), the horror lies squarely in the existence of the lab and not in the underlying reasons for its existence. Obviously, the victimization of pure, whitely-veiled Elena also informs our reaction to events onscreen. But the true affect derives from the frustrating architecture of the lab and the deceiving whiteness of its walls, which seem to close down on the viewer like an eggshell recovering a helpless chick. Which is how both us and the protagonist are meant to feel in the symbiotic experience that is the film.

The outside world is but a tad less bleak
than the intestinal world of the lab

That is until poor Elena manages to make her way through a series of monochrome corridors filled with monstrous apparitions, all the way to a cozy employee lounge complete with a plaid sofa and a toaster oven. Leaving the oneiric (nightmarish) landscape of the lab per se, our mute heroine suddenly pops up in the "real" world of lunch breaks and radio chatter. This marks a clean break in the narrative, the result of which causes the protagonist to be born again in the mind-numbing normalcy of the 1980s, which abruptly replaces the film's atmospheric, esoteric approach to filmmaking with a very prosaic, pragmatic one. And while this represents a welcome pause from the oppressive atmosphere of the lab, it allows us to see a world only slightly less bleak. Sure, Elena's emergence outside of the medical complex where she has spent her life is a particularly exhilarating moment. The overly luminous, overly sanitary interiors from her past life have been shed like a discarded skin. But the vast, pitch-black countryside she enters next is not the liberating panacea that one would expect. Vastness aside, the high reeds sprouting throughout the open field she now walks make the whole decor out to be yet another inextricable maze. And with the appearance of a stalker, whose impending attack looms over Elena like the proverbial sword of Damocles, it becomes another danger zone as well, where she must pursue her struggle.

Now, when I use the word 'stalker', I do so knowing that the specter of Jason Voorhees and other subpar knife maniacs will likely be invoked. That said, I found the audience's reaction perfectly consistent with the tradition embodied by such laughable figures, into which Barry transforms after shedding his organically-glued wig. If Jason were to suddenly waltz in any other atmospheric sci-fi puzzle, you'd have similar laughs ringing through the theater. Not only does the boogeyman feel somewhat out of place in the world of the film, but his apparition coincides with that of a more open, more familiar setting. Thus, freed from the suffocating constraints of the lab where it was imprisoned along with the protagonist, the audience starts enjoying itself in a carefree kind of way. Just like the raucous audiences of slasher films.

The world of slashers is much more easily
intelligible than that of the lab...

But while the film's last part constitutes a sudden departure from the mood so painstakingly established in the first 100 minutes, it marks a very informed decision from the director. The transition from the overly scientific, overly sensual horror from the past to the everyday, supernatural fantasy of the Reagan years acts as a trap meant to catch slasher fans in their comfort zone, leaving them ripe for the stunning finale. But most importantly, it perfectly exemplifies the narrative cleavage between 70s and 80s horror, which happened almost exactly in between the two decades and which seems to have definitely transformed the appreciation of horror cinema as is. Seeing how the audience plays along, erupting from their nearly catatonic quietude to engage loudly with events onscreen, it seems that the film hits its mark in making us react to that cleavage, which is partly responsible for the estrangement of sensibilities between generations. But is that mere reaction to warrant the film a success? Not necessarily, but it does elevate the film a notch, making it aware of itself, like some mutated entity born out of a carefully conducted experiment.

In the end, Elena finally manages to kill Barry, and the weirdly "scientific" tradition that he represents. Only then is she able to hoist herself out of her lab prison and into yet another bleak, labyrinthine setting, 1980s suburbia. In that regard, the very final shot is chilling to the bone. It shows us a lengthy row of perfectly similar modular houses, lit by dim street lights forming bleak halos around the brown-colored buildings. Elena is no longer a lab rat. Far from it. She has now entered the universal sea of sameness. Her mental abilities are now likely to wither and die like the dandelions on the front lawn of her neighbors. She thus comes to a new form of prison, that of her father, that of the everyday tedium of middle class life. Moreover, she becomes not simply a prison escapee, but a final girl, informing us in resonant fashion as to the crucial narrative shift occurring with the popularization of slasher films, and the soon-to-be steady output of prefabricated narratives meant to entrap youths in a comatose stupor.

That said, the film somewhat functions like Ridley Scott's seminal slasher-cum-space ballet Alien, which itself comes at a crucial time in film history, embodying both the atmosphere-heavy tradition of the very first space exploration film and the simplicity of the slasher film. Not unlike Beyond, Alien can be broken down in two complementary parts, one that relies on dark, impressionistic imagery to create affect and the other that simply involves the tension of being chased by a monster. Both films are also akin in their usage of white to depict both the overly sanitary conditions of medical labs and to hint at fetus-like innocence. The imagery of the womb is also important to both films as they chronicle the birth and youth of two similar, albeit different kinds of 'alien' creatures, one being the "perfect" xenomorph beloved by Ian Holm's Ash and the other being young Elena.

Beyond actually goes a step further in its homage to Alien by using a segmented number in its credits. Anybody who has seen Scott's film will remember how the title gradually appears onscreen using an accumulation of straight white lines. Beyond does something similar when printing the current date onscreen, with each of the four numbers slowly spelling '1983'. So you can see how the director plays on expectations, not only likening his film to Alien, but by unveiling a '3' that one thought would be a '4', as in '1984', perhaps a more befitting date for the action of the film. Obviously, director Cosmatos is a clever film buff, and he has a special knack for toying with viewers. And so, one hopes to he leaves us with more than just this film and a handful of clips.

Few people will mention it, but the graphic depiction of vaginas actually helps strengthen the horrific tone of the film. Let me explain. This has to do with the psycho-anatomical textbook I mentioned earlier. This tome is actually uncovered by an unsuspecting orderly who flips through the pages with an increasing unease that mirrors our own. Seeing the multiplication of anatomical drawings involved in obscure diagrams, we are increasingly alarmed with each turning page, imagining alien operations beyond the realm of our understanding, experiments in deconstructing the fragile body of Elena into mere components meant to make her something necessarily more monstrous than what she presently is. Then, we get to the vagina, the depiction of which is uncompromising and the specific involvement of which is made explicit, as if it was intended as a vessel for channeling psychic energy. And given the opacity of the screenplay, this can mean a number of things. Obviously, it would be hard to top Von Trier's Antichrist in terms of repulsive genital mutilation, but one can sure as hell try, insofar as his imagination is left unchecked. Hence, poor white-gowned Elena need not be sexualized for her to be involved in a sexual nightmare. Not unlike the slasher film virgin...

Elena's captivating beauty makes the viewer

particularly adverse to vaginal mutilation

Beyond the Black Rainbow is a film that you will either love or hate. But it shan't leave you unmoved. Its weird, oppressive atmosphere will clamp down on you like the metallic jaws of a bear trap, its mysterious characters will make you wonder about their unseen depths and the impressionistic sequences of tar-bathing will make your brain overheat. Now, whether you just go with the flow and accept mood as the film's primary driving force or you rather question, and eventually get frustrated with the opacity of the narrative will directly influence your appreciation of the film. As the credits rolled, very few people applauded, as if too shocked to straighten their arms and bring their hands together. I guess these people all took the latter approach, and found themselves struggling to find a grasp on the film. If they had considered retro-futuristic parapsychology for what it is, namely something that one cannot possibly grasp, they could have allowed themselves to sink into the world so painstakingly crafted by Panos Cosmatos. Then again, maybe these people who didn't applaud actually liked the film, insofar as they were totally glued in place. That, my friends, is yet another question in a frenzy of questions begged by the film. But in the end, one should always remember the primary rule of fiction cinema and suspend their disbelief for the duration of any given film. Then, and only then can the mind let itself open to the sensory attacks from which horror best proceeds. And, if anything, Beyond the Black Rainbow is a prime example of horror cinema's power of affect. An immense achievement.


3,5/5 Savvy and effective, this atmospheric entry in postmodern horror is not only an unforgettable sensory experience, but a brilliantly self-reflexive exercise in retro-futurism.

Contagion (2011)

As the title indicates, Contagion is a timely disaster epic that chronicles the rapid spread of a new strain of virus eluding the grasp of medical science. After SARS and the Bird Flu, it was about time to cash in on the widespread "disease" paranoia that has swept Western civilization for the greater benefits of Purell manufacturers and all cleaning products outfits. The received idea according to which extreme sanitation strengthens a people instead of weakening it has grown strong in recent years, and so does the film profit from it, tightening the screw in the heads of disease freaks with the help of alarming sub-titles mentioning the number of days elapsed since the beginning of the outbreak.

You know things are bad when they whip out
those orange bio-hazard suits

Day 1: ??? - Established early on as a major narrative tenet, the search for what happened on the first day of the titular event is a concern quickly relegated to the backseat, but re-emerging as a predictable, alarmist epilogue to the film.

Day 2: After a business trip in Hong Kong, Gwyneth Paltrow's character goes back home to Minneapolis by way of Chicago, where she meets with a former lover, infecting the man in question, her son and many Chinese locals in the process. This marks the beginning of a pandemic, which the domino effect sees spreading through Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas in as much time as it takes Danny Ocean to elaborate a foolproof scheme to rob a casino. Said domino effect is depicted using a fast-paced series of vignettes served with the upbeat tempo befitting the cool montage sequences from the Ocean films.

Days 3-150: People start dying and international health officials are mobilized to help isolate, analyze and eventually combat the virus at the heart of the pandemic, a unique bat-pig compound with a very short incubation period and devastating effects akin to those of a deadly attack of seizure (be sure to check out Gwyneth Paltrow dying on the kitchen floor while convulsing and foaming profusely at the mouth). The film vies to chronicle the evolution of the disease and of its cure through a boatload of weakly interrelated storylines featuring a boatload of A-list international actors. The disintegration of the social fabric and the human drama are not focuses here, but mere cogs in what is essentially the blandly expository, grossly alarmist depiction of a pandemic enforced with a rapid fire of fast-moving, wordy exposition scenes.

Exotic locales abound, as in the best crime capers

I should've known what I bargained for when I sat down to see this big-budget disaster epic by Steven Soderbergh. I should've foreseen precisely what I would get. But still, I managed to be amazed by the director's reverence to previous money-making formulas, as exemplified by his imbuing the present film with the distinct airs of a crime caper. Seeing scientists in heavy bio-hazard suits walking in slow-motion to ear-blasting club music, you'd swear you were watching George Clooney strutting his stuff on some sumptuous casino floor. The same goes for the cohorts of health officials cruising through the streets of Hong Kong aboard shimmering luxury cars. Then, there's the nearly hilarious scene where a blatantly unconvincing Marion Cotillard tracks down the "movement" of the virus by spying on Gwyneth Paltrow through a series of security cameras posted on the walls of a HK game room. There's no escaping the memory of surveillance scenes from Soderbergh's other films when one is confronted with examples of such a weirdly formatted disaster epic. At any moment, it seems that the Ocean gang is about to come out of hiding and devise a brilliant scheme to put that nasty virus back in its place! Luckily, the ensemble is masterfully composed, intimate in the framing of its characters, and fast-moving enough to make you forget about the total lack of dramatic issues, and overbid of superficial science.

The first few shots should indicate precisely what to expect from this film: the music is loud and mostly meant to energize the often boring contents of the shots, the editing is fast and it fragments the film's universe into a myriad of anecdotal snippets gathered from all corners of the world. But most interestingly, the camera focuses almost voyeuristically on its characters, using close-ups of redenned faces and prostrated bodies to better delineate the myriad individual dramas unfolding here, or at least, the myriad of situations in which the virus is involved. Fortunately, this camera remains controlled, and it doesn't give in to the panic that it is supposed to portray, remaining at a comfortable distance from the action epics of lesser directors, such as J.J. Abrams, Michael Bay or Paul Greengrass.

The camera's proximity to the characters is the film's greatest
asset and one of its rare attempts at humanizing the disease

The impressive ensemble cast (Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne...) successfully manages to interpret a plethora of flat, purely operative characters apparently devoid of the most basic humanity. And while the amount of talent at work here is undeniable, it is underused in roles best befitting TV series, where each character delivers interchangeable, over-witty lines of dialogue in an endless exchange of words akin to a stale, but nervously edited, political debate.

In that regard, one should look at the rhetorical tennis match set up between the righteous CDC head played by Laurence Fishburne, his self-sacrificing team of dedicated scientists, and the unethical blogger played by Jude Law, who, despite a credible tone, hardly compares with the current roster of right-wing pundits. In the event of a worldwide outbreak of killer viruses, you can expect such pundits and the powers that be to come at odds with far fiercer intents. You can also expect pharmaceutical companies to profit at a much larger extent, and FEMA to struggle helplessly all the while. Strangely, the present film doesn't capitalize on the nefarious influence of the health industry, nor on government incompetence in order to better cement the narrative, finding faults only in Jude Law's character for jumping in bed with one purveyor of holistic drugs, and for hampering the progress of the righteous, fully dedicated government scientists hard at work to solve the crisis. In fact, the film touches on crucial issues such as mass hysteria, drug approval processes and patent wars only superficially, taking a rather synthetic approach to the pandemic as a clearly delineated event, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. This helps fit the film within the restrictive thriller mold, but it also traps it within that mold, unable to reach beyond the scope of disposable entertainment and into the realm of true affect.

While Soderbergh manages to capture some rather chilling images of death and mayhem, such as Gwyneth Paltrow's seizure attack, or the rising criminality in urban areas, he does so circumstantially, forwarding the plot purely chronologically, with little importance awarded to the characters' emotional state. That said, the film is almost completely devoid of dramatic tension, showcasing death as simply "something that happens" within the world of the film, like the execution of a henchman by James Bond. You will thus be surprised to see Matt Damon's character unable to shed a single tear for his decimated family, the corpses of which are shown in grim close-ups, with their grayish, chapped lips and open skulls making a mockery of their weak, fleshy shells. And you yourself will have a hard time being moved by the death of gorgeous Kate Winslet, who nearly makes us laugh with the revelation of her infection. Showing unflinching professionalism under fire, she reacts to the first symptoms of the disease by fast grabbing the phone and gathering information about the people she had contact with in the last day. Despite the inevitability of her death, she remains calm, and acts in order to better prevent the infecti0n from spreading, much like the cold professional of other Soderbergh films and not the human that she should become in that event. If it is any indication of the film's attitude toward its (far too numerous) characters, the reaction of the first doctor to come in contact with the disease is so dry as to make you shrug your shoulders in disbelief. "Sorry Mr. Damon, but your wife just suffered a fatal seizure of unknown origin. Please be directed to one of our anguish specialists". I guess that with half a billion dead across the globe, a single death is no more than a statistic. But then, the film's intimate framing of its protagonists is rendered absurd by such a conclusion...

Expect to see a lot more panicked telephone calls than

spurting blood and actual drama

All in all, Contagion is an enjoyable slice of high-class entertainment, mostly due to its fast pacing, shifting international locales and the sure hand of director Soderbergh at the helm. The latter is quite possibly the best mainstream director to currently work on mass-marketed drivel. But he is clearly not a sentimental type, more a cerebral type, focused exclusively on the narrative at hand, and not the characters within the narrative, making it advance fast and seamlessly, but leaving many a good souls behind in the process. And so, while his new film boasts the same superb production values as his Ocean films, it fails to rise above the televisual level in terms of dramatic intensity, which greatly impairs its efficiency as an intimate portrayal of average humans in a state of crisis.


2,5/5 This enjoyable, masterfully shot disaster epic is crafted just like a crime caper, with all the fast-talking, witty characters and sumptuous exotic locales that it involves. The result however, is that dramatic content is sacrificed at the profit of style.

The Whisperer in Darkness (2011)

Commissioned by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, the organization which brought the infamous Call of Cthulhu to the screen back in 2005, this ambitious new adaptation was shot using the "Mythoscope" process ("a mix of modern and vintage techniques", as stated on the promotional website) in a bid to create "the most authentic and faithful screen adaptation of a Lovecraft story yet attempted". Oblivious to the monumental contradiction involved in trying to remain "faithful" to Lovecraft's elusive tale of madness, the makers of this film have managed instead to undermine, and even compromise the impregnable opacity of the Cthulhu mythos through an overbid of naive imagery meant to ape 1930s horror films. The end result is at once a commendable effort (in terms paper-mâché) and a very dubious achievement (in terms of adaptation).

Gaps in representation - Exhibit A
R'lyeh as expressionistic nightmare (The Call of Cthulhu)

Gaps in representation - Exhibit B
R'lyeh as postmodern fantasy (South Park, S14E13)

Imagining is always better than seeing
(or how Lovecraftian tales elude depiction)

Members of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society are people of obvious reverence and dedication to the grand master's work. Unfortunately, their very enterprise is meaningless, as the Lovecraftian mythos will forever elude description. A case in point is the feature-length adaptation of The Whisperer in Darkness, which takes great pride in trying to recapture the gloomy atmosphere of the New England countryside by using elaborate models and lovingly painted backgrounds. Where it fails is in its naive depiction of the mi-gos and their famed "brain cylinders". Up until now, these creatures and contraptions existed only as feverish scraps of dreams salvaged from the tale of a madman. But now that they have taken definite shape, their mystique has all but vanished. The resulting film, no matter how carefully crafted it is, remains the umpteenth proof that one cannot successfully adapt Lovecraft to the screen... unless your name is Stuart Gordon and you stay as far as possible from the source material.

Things always look scarier from afar

For those unfamiliar with the eponymous short story from which the film derives, I shall provide a short synopsis. Following an historical flood in the farmlands of Vermont, many locals report sightings of weird carcasses floating amidst tree trunks and debris. While skeptical at first, folklorist Albert Wilmarth eventually engages in a correspondence with one of these locals, aging farmer Henry Akeley, who vies to substantiate his own sightings with material evidence (photos of alien footprints and one strange artifact). After receiving a certain number of letters from an increasingly alarmed Akeley, Wilmarth eventually receives a formal invitation to share in the bucolic splendors of Vermont in order to better grasp the extent of the alien invasion. Obviously, this is all a trap, a trap set up by the deviant mi-gos, a sentient race of flying fungi from outer space hellbent on hiding their existence from humans. Naively enough, Wilmarth falls into that trap, but manages to elude the creatures' grasp momentarily. He then proceeds to figure out how they have harvested Akeley's brain using a custom preservation cylinder and replaced his body with that of a dummy. He also overhears talks of a strange ritual meant to open a rift between Earth and the mi-gos' home planet of Yuggoth (Pluto). Rushing to the scene, he ultimately tries to save Earth from invasion.

What is a mi-go? Let us first consider this pressing question when trying to appraise the relevance of the present film. According to Lovecraft, a mi-go is "a great crab with a lot of pyramided fleshy rings or knots of thick, ropy stuff covered with feelers where a man's head would be." But according to the makers of this film, it is something much less intriguing, and much more rigidly delineated, something that seems to leave the realm of imagination the second it lands onscreen. Now, the very vagueness of the description above is perhaps its greatest literary strength, for it puts the reader at odds against his own sense of wonder. It also insures a lasting legacy for the creatures thus depicted by making them a million things at once, as many things as there are people to try and imagine their features. In that regard, the author's deliberate use of vague and mysterious words such as "stuff", "self-luminous", "things", "growths" and "half-polypous" is meant precisely to create a gap in representation between the readers of his stories, the rationale being that the sight of the monsters depicted is too much for the human mind to process. Hence, remaining "faithful" to Lovecraft can never amount to positing any representation of his words as the definitive one.

Gaps in representation - Exhibit C
The colour as translucent jellyfish (19 Nocturne Boulevard)

After all, there is no definite shape for the limbs of Cthulian creatures, nor is there a shape for the impossible angles covering the lost city of R'lyeh. As for the colour out of space, it is one that varies from reader to reader, boggling the mind of anyone who would attempt to imagine it, for it is, by definition, unimaginable. The colour is perhaps the best example of Lovecraftian excess, as it quite explicitly fails to fit in the spectrum of human understanding. For those unfamiliar with the short story of the same name, the colour out of space is one that possess no equivalent on Earth. That is why it is dubbed "colour". It is for lack of a more precise term. Hence, if one were to show the colour using Earthly means, they would immediately betray its nature. And so, we can see how the embodiment of anything Lovecraft transforms it into something lesser than what it was, namely a glimpse of otherworldly horror.

While the writer often offers elaborate descriptions of sets and moods, he rarely gives his monsters too many details so as to preserve the unholy mystique surrounding their apparition. Unlike Homeric tales, where every single element is rendered using wordy descriptions of epic length, Lovecraft often circumvents monstrous depictions. Which basically means that, these creatures he mentions cannot be described accurately, given their alien shape and unimaginable features which push observers beyond the limits of sanity. That said, they shouldn't be described at length because as many things horrific, seeing them amounts to much less than imagining them. And this is particularly true here, as the mi-gos are so carefully crafted by the nerds at the helm so as to alienate the imagination of all who would rather revel in their own personal fears than to partake in the fears imposed by others. And ultimately, it is a very egotistic pursuit to try and create "definitive" incarnations of literary creatures such as the the flying devils from the present short story, or the orks and dwarves of The Lord of the Rings, which become breathing stereotypes under the thumb of Peter Jackson and crew. And thus the literary mystique crumbles under the weight of rigid images meant to crystallize their constantly fluctuating meaning.

Written using the first person, Lovecraft's stories all share the intimate tone necessary to convey madness as a quintessentially personal experience. Monstrous occurrences, feverish dreams and uneasy impressions, all are detailed as if right in front of the reader. Insofar as film rather takes the "invisible" approach to the narrator, it contributes to the deconstruction of Lovecraft's entire enterprise. In that regard, it would be somewhat of a crude mistake to equate voice-over narration with literary narration, as the former is involved in an antagonist relationship with the images it accompanies. At best, voice-over narration is a worthy complement to the images onscreen. At worst, it will completely ruin an author's attempt at cultivating ambiguity (see Blade Runner). But here, it is merely a way to convey a false sense of faithfulness to the story. It does not add anything more to an adaptation that has shed the diary mode of storytelling as soon as it chose to emulate the theatrical techniques of early Hollywood. What is thus found lacking is the personal "experience" of vision conveyed by Lovecraft's characters and which helps locate the mythos outside the realm of natural perception, and into the realm of madness. Which is something that only Brakhage or other such talented experimental filmmakers can hope to achieve, by equating the camera not to an eye per se, but a mind's eye. After all, while Lovecraft often privileges naturalistic depictions of his sets, he always manages to touch on something alien whose experience will forever remain out of grasp. And while it is relatively easy to convey the sense of something alien with words, or the absence thereof, the same cannot be said of the invisible camera, which is naturalistic by default in its framing of reality. That said, it would take quite a supplementary effort to allow it to convey any form of "personal" realism. And that effort, I'm sorry to say, remains far beyond the reach of the filmmakers at work here.

Fancy marquee posters and dubious gimmicks such as "Mythoscope"
are only meant to hide the fact Lovecraft adaptations are completely
absurd...unless they feature blonde bombshells having their pussy
licked by severed heads.

Koodos for attempting the impossible
While I insist strongly here on the foolishness of slavishly bringing Lovecraft to the screen, I must admit that Sean Branney's film does boast some undeniable craftsmanship qualities, mostly where art direction and set design are concerned. The lovingly crafted sets meant to depict the thick forests of Vermont, with their recessed caves and hooked corpses, the stuffy interiors of the Akeley farm, with their long shadows drawn over cloaked figures, everything in sight is in its rightful place. As for the more high-minded concepts included in the film, such as the plane ride and aerial confrontation with the mi-gos, as well as the otherworldly contraption meant to project the consciousness of the encased brains, they all appear just naive enough to convey the candid sense of wonder derived from early horror films. This prompts me to remark, as I did when I saw Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, that the creators at work here have done a great "nerd's job" of bringing the film's universe to the screen. Unfortunately for Branney and crew, their source material is far more involving and impenetrable than Jackson's, making the ordeal of adapting it nearly insurmountable.

The photography may be sharp and the lightning quite befitting the atmosphere the producers were aiming for. But the direction and general imagery are so conventional, so naive, as to completely miss the mark when it comes to creating a spiritual filiation with the source material at hand. After all, other such inspirational films mentioned by the crew include Dracula and Frankenstein, both of which are based on novels which lend themselves much more readily to the kind of theatrical adaptation attempted here than Lovecraft's stories. And this also informs part of the shapelessness of the work, which tries too hard to peg down the source material to an epoch which it transcended even when it was released. And this doesn't seem to stem from a lack of Lovecraftian knowledge however, but a lack of film knowledge. That said, German expressionism or French impressionism might have proved a better, albeit harder to replicate, technique to convey Lovecraft's word onscreen. At this point, I'd like to refer back to The Call of Cthulhu, where the engrossing images of R'lyeh and it's "impossible angles" (which seem to point directly to German expressionism) are imbued with a distinctly Caligari-esque quality (see image above). As for the elaborate sets created for the present film, they fail both to transcend their nature and to add anything meaningful to the mood of the film.

The Whisperer in Darkness is a monumental achievement in set
design. Here,we see the scale model used to depict the Vermont
mountainsides.

Crafting a contemporary reworking wouldn't have been such a bad idea either, considering that the story itself was perfect in its original, literary iteration. One shouldn't be burdened with slavish adaptations. One should instead demand that the author upgrades on the source material in order to create a distinct cultural item than that from which it came. But seeing how the producers are grouped under the name "historical society", their dedication to the exactitude of facts must be precise, and so their artistic temperament is diluted in purely intellectual concerns. Which points out to a blatant contradiction in their work, that of appraising Lovecraft's work in a purely scientific, rational fashion, whereas it is one that should be depicted in a expressionistic fashion. By choosing to opt for the candor of early Hollywood cinema, the authors are effectively pointing to their own candor, which finds its quintessential expression in the narrow artistic enterprise within which they have tried to cram Lovecraft's otherworldly, ever-expanding genius.


2/5 A well-made, useless film, and a slavish adaptation of the classic H.P. Lovecraft tale.

Some Guy Who Kills People (2011)

Is being a self-sufficient asshole reason
enough to be executed? A pressing question.

Produced by bona fide comedy godfather John Landis and directed by Jack Perez (of Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus "fame"), this surprisingly potent, blacker-than-black comedy achieves a nice blend of sweet and sour moments by relying on a crafty screenplay by Ryan Levin interpreted to perfection by veteran and newcomers alike. The balance of humor and drama is hard to achieve in any black comedy, but the cast manages to pull through with great success here as each individual member keeps a consistent tone throughout the story and remains unfazed by the the film's sharp dramatic fluctuations. Unfortunately, the lackluster twist ending feels ridiculously contrived as it is engineered to jam the viewers' radar at all costs. Still, Some Guy Who Kills People is a commendable achievement in postmodern genre-mixing, allowing for the clever deconstruction of the "loveable loser" archetype, a timely figure that barely hides a disconcerting truth about modern men.

The narrative focuses on the ordeals experienced by Ken, a troubled loner with a history of mental illness, the genesis of which is depicted through a series of recurring flashbacks that the viewer slowly pieces together to from a coherent traumatic experience. Ken allots his time between his day job at a local ice cream parlor and the therapeutic cartoons he draws at home, while under the auspicious eyes of his exasperated mother. Aside from the bitter old woman and his friend/co-worker Irv, Ken is all alone... until his estranged daughter resurfaces and tries to make up for lost time. Unfortunately, the man is not a suitable father for the witty young girl. Underneath the "normal" surface provided by his white and yellow uniform, there lies a shadow of a man, made hollow by the events depicted in the aforementioned flashbacks. So, when the dark and mysterious figures who previously tormented him start dying in ritualistic fashion, all signs point to him. And with the town's sheriff (and his mother's lover) hot on the murderer's trail, the clamp is fast tightening down on Ken... who stands to lose much more than his personal freedom now that he is responsible for the happiness of a promising daughter. And so, a police intrigue develops alongside the main storyline concerning the protagonist's ups and downs, bringing an extra dimension to the narrative, one that provides almost all of the genuine laughs contained in the film.

Actually, the two parallel storylines are but opposite faces of the same coin, situating reality in and outside the comic book universe imagined by Ken to better cope with life. While his hardships as an ice cream vendor, juggling between a domineering mother and a demanding daughter, are deeply rooted in reality, the colorful murder set-pieces and half-assed police investigation possess all the characteristics of fluff fantasy, as depicted in the film's poster. The dualistic nature of the narrative is explained in surprisingly straightforward terms once the sheriff uncovers the true nature of Ken's drawings, therapeutic ventures just beyond the dark veil of reality.

You'll be surprised at just how clever cops are when it
comes to puns. I'm sure you could think of a few just
by looking at this still.

First-time feature screenwriter Levin deserves some koodos for managing to seamlessly, and meaningfully incorporate a comedic police investigation to Ken's heavy family drama. By setting up the town sheriff (Barry Bostwick) as the kinky lover of the protagonist's mother, he bridges the two parallel storylines at a crucial emotional junction. This allows the sheriff's frequent taunts (pertaining to how he's "gonna get freaky with" or give oil massages to Ken's mother) to work as comedic devices while they subsequently help mine Ken's morale. It also allows the two storylines to interpenetrate in meaningful ways, giving the sheriff a chance to seamlessly close in on his "stepson" as well as creating tension between the two elderly lovers. Unfortunately, Levin lacks finesse when it comes to wrapping up the story, and when chronicling the emotional maturation of the protagonist, using surprising shortcuts (such as Lucy Davis' sudden infatuation with spineless, dead-eyed Ken) and incongruous twists to cement the mix, using the estranged daughter as little more than your standard catalyst for the protagonist's slow, steady, and ultimately predictable maturation toward adulthood.

Luckily, there is an army of talented actors hard at work to manipulate us in all the right directions, and shape coherently contradictory characters in the process. If Kevin Corrigan delivers a touching performance as the impotent protagonist, he is outplayed by veterans Karen Black (playing his cynical mother) and Barry Bostwick (playing the goofy sheriff). Black is razor-sharp when it comes to unbalancing her son, dishing out some surprisingly nasty jabs whenever she can, which helps keep him in a perpetual state of self-centered helplessness. Nonetheless, she manages to come out as a sympathetic character whose plight (her raising a reclusive tadpole) is perfectly intelligible. And while one is likely to frown upon her cruelest taunts (such as those concerning Ken's self-inflicted scars or social inadequacy), it is not so hard to understand where she is coming from and what she intends to do with these taunts, namely to shake Ken out of his stupor. As for Bostwick, he scene-steals his way through the film, providing laughs in vast amounts as he plays the dumb cop in one scene, only to amaze us with his cleverness in the next. The quantity of puns he manages to deliver with success is actually amazing. I'd never have thunk it, but there is still some energy in the old coot. Hell, he was just cast as FDR in a nearly completed new film entitled FDR: American Badass!!

That said, not all praise should go to Black and Bostwick. For me, the real revelation here was the incredibly charismatic Ariel Gade, who plays the role of Ken's daughter with contagious energy, illuminating the somber narrative with her smile, which also symbolizes the promise of something better on the horizon. Giving life to a somewhat overdetermined character, Gade's implication is crucial to the success of the film, providing just the right amount of naivety and quirkiness to the plot to counter-balance the darker aspects of the human psyche at work in the other characters' minds. She represents beauty untainted by the ugliness of life, and truly a gal to fight for, opposite bland, obligatory love interest Stephanie (Lucy Davis, who isn't asked to do much here but pose next to Kevin Corrigan).

When does one's misfortune start becoming funny?

There is an undercurrent of tragedy to the story and it perfectly undermines the moments of comedy. Seeing how Ken is depicted as an irremediably broken man with no resolve left, a man in need of a major epiphany to help him rise up from the depths of mediocrity, the film violently departs from the recent, but well established tradition of "the loveable loser", made famous by the Jason Biggs/Judd Apatow comedies. Ken needs not simply reveal his true self to a beautiful, understanding girl in order to grow outside of his shell. He needs to overcome mental illness and the bane of uncertainty on a regular basis, being constantly reminded of past traumas by the scars on his wrist. And these traumas go far deeper than the casual humiliation and mild awkwardness suffered by the beautiful, "troubled" teens from Hollywood. They are not the wounds of a youth in need of legitimacy, they're the wounds of an adult who has failed to fulfill that quest for legitimacy. This makes Ken a deconstructed loser type, an embodiment of the actual toll that it takes on a person to be perceived as the loveable loser. His antics are rarely amusing, they're pathetic. And so, the audience's chuckles are always laced, forcing us to reflect on exactly how funny a poor man's misfortune truly is, adding a layer of self-reflexivity to the film in the process.

Hence, the comic book look of the film, which the poster brandishes a little too brazenly, is used only to delineate the inner workings of Ken's mind, leaving his body hopelessly trapped in the tangible, everyday world where costumes are donned for humiliation, and where vengeance is a sad, lonely act akin to masturbation. The frequent recourse to hand-drawn illustrations, including a wide array of highly expressionistic depictions of felled bad guys which are fast used as evidence against their author, are meant to highlight this discrepancy. The distorted features of the victim's faces appear in sharp contrast with Ken's stoic looks, contributing a great deal to the idea of a vagabond mind escaping from the prison of the flesh. What draws Ken back to the world of the living is a feisty young girl, and conveniently, a girl who is at that very point in life where he himself broke down and gave way for depression to get a hold of him. While young Amy hardly seems to share Ken's blood at first, cracks eventually start to form in her surprisingly self-assured facade, proving that she also is a challenged person in need of help to achieve emancipation. Seeing how both hers and Ken's trauma is related to high school basketball, both of them are able to learn from the other and grow past what is basically a traumatic life experience. And with their collaboration, the two of them will manage to patch up both their respective families, which were almost completely devastated following's Ken's mental breakdown. And this too contributes to the realism of the ensemble, depicting the full extent to which one's man failures can affect the ones around him, and particularly those who love him.

Karen Black plays a very complex character, who cruelly taunts her
son in order to better salvage him from apathy

The film also begs pressing questions relative to female supremacy. Thus, one will realize that all men within the narrative are weak-willed followers, finding personal meaning only through their agency with females, whom are depicted as "calling all shots". If Karen Black's character is instrumental in Ken's victimization, so is his daughter instrumental in his eventual recovery. It is her who encourages him to date, helping him shed his shell. It is her from which his life derives meaning. She is cheerful and self-assured, despite adversity. As for Ken, he cracks under pressure like a twig, making male inadequacy a salient feature of Perez' film. With the somber tone used to depict the protagonist, one is prompted to appraise the rising number of impotent males in leading film roles as a sign of the ages, rather than as a comedic novelty. If Seth Rogen is amusing as the dice-rolling slacker from Knocked Up (opposite despicable bitch queen Katherine Heigl), Kevin Corrigan isn't as Ken. He is the reminder of male uncertainty and ultimately, of the shrinking importance of the male hero. Far from being the typical slacker hero, he is proof that there is no such thing as a slacker "hero", only a slacker to be rehabilitated and made a man once more.

All in all, the film succeeds in its desire to craft an engrossing black comedy by cleverly blending elements from the loveable loser narrative with elements from the exploitation-era revenge plot by way of comic book antics. Such clever alchemy is achieved despite the screenwriter's blunt use of dated motifs to forward the main storyline. Because despite a clear lack of experience, Levin manages to probe unseen depths within many colliding genres, allowing the film to transcend the oft-rigid codes of comedy in order to better craft a realistic protagonist and to subsequently deconstruct the loveable loser archetype, away from bubblegum Hollywood narratives and into the territory of self-reflexivity.


3/5 A surprisingly potent black comedy that establishes screenwriter Levin as a force to be reckoned with. The superb cast further helps him compensate for the lackluster twist ending and predictable motifs used in delineating the protagonist's evolution.


P.S. Fans of British comedy will certainly recognize Ken's love interest, Lucy Davis, as The Office's Dawn Tinsley and Shaun of the Dead's Dianne, proving my contention that she is just mildly attractive enough to play girlfriend to a bunch of desperate saddos, the leader of which is The Office's loser hero, Tim Canterbury.