Contamination (1980)

Sometimes referred to as Alien 2, this is Luigi Cozzi's unofficial follow-up to Ridley Scott's Alien, which he first named Alien Arrives on Earth (or Alien arriva sulla terra in its original Italian iteration) before he was forced to adopt the even lamer title Contamination. But aside from the basic concept of bursting alien eggs, nothing really binds the two films together. Cozzi's film is actually a fairly decent action caper that owes a lot more to James Bond films than to any sci-fi/horror title. While entertaining, it pales in comparison with the source material.

Where are the face-huggers?

A cargo ship docks in the NY harbor without a living soul on board. Health officials and the police investigate. Strapping on white procedural outfits, they climb aboard and find a decimated crew who appear to have succumbed to chest-bursting agents. Venturing deeper into the vessel, they come to the cargo bay, where stacks upon stacks of boxes are amassed, inside of which are hard, green eggs. The eggs, when heated, as by an adjacent heating duct, start humming weirdly, then burst in a cloud of green spray that immediately infects the people it touches, making their insides burst out in a grotesque explosion of pink entrails.

Eggs filled with acid... or how to remove

two intermediaries at once

Following the messy demise of the crew sent to investigate the derelict ship, one NYC police officer remains unscathed. He is quickly taken into custody by the American government, who send in colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) to question him and learn about the threat from outer space. Thus, we get an obligatory exposition scene in which scientists discuss the nature of the pulsating eggs in front of bewildered officials who struggle to explain their origin. This lasts a while until Holmes suddenly remembers having seen those eggs before, in a drawing made by Mars explorer Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch) who returned home shell-shocked after a memorable alien encounter in a martian cavern. As the plot unfolds, the film slowly sheds all resemblance to Alien and starts falling squarely into Bond-esque territory.

It's not long before Hubbard's partner on Mars, Hamilton, is revealed as the megalomaniacal antagonist. Motivated by Darwin's theory of natural selection, he cultivates the eggs in a Columbian coffee plantation, which he also uses to ship the nasty organisms worldwide in an entirely over-the-top showcase of villainy. Of course, this warrants a trip to Columbia for our two protagonists where they come across the usual plethora of gun-totting, chop-sensitive henchmen, treacherous babes and vicious traps. Reuniting with its horror roots only in the very last scene, the film features an alien creature that you might want to stick around and see, as well as a rightfully gooey punishment for dopey Hamilton.

Don't be fooled by the cover art

Contamination is hardly a horror film. Although they are fairly exciting, the horror sequences don't occupy much screen time, being mostly contrived to the final scene wherein the egg-laying "alien cyclops" is revealed. While a far cry from the Giger-inspired alien queen from James Cameron's official sequel to Alien, its design is quite clever. You've got these two pear-shaped globs of flesh linked together around a big, expressionless, yellow eye, with an hypnotic gaze and a toothed intestinal tract to boot. Although it's a bit too stiff, the creature is memorable nonetheless.

As far as the other gore scenes are concerned, the splatter effects are quite effective. Of course, the blood is not the right color and the bursting body parts are not anatomically correct, but the sheer fun of seeing people explode overwhelms those tiny flaws. However, contrarily to what some synopses would have you believe, the narrative is not a simple series of abdomen-bursting scenes. It's more of an action/horror hybrid made to cash in on many different trends in popular cinema. Following the immense success of both Alien and Moonraker during the previous year, Cozzi and crew concocted a cocktail of formulas taken from those two films. Thus we get alien motivations behind the villain's megalomaniacal plan for world domination, exotic locales meant as egg hatcheries, dopey fist fights with guys in contamination suits and a whole bevy of action film gimmicks turned on their heads. And while this makes for a rather implausible storyline, it's all in good fun. Besides, implausible as it may be, it isn't more so than launching Bond into outer space...

A poor man's oo7: Ian McCulloch takes

Bond-esque allures by playing dress-up

Affordable escapism

As in many Italian exploitation films, location shooting is one of the key elements to the film's success. Despite the far-fetched narrative, the filmmakers' willingness to travel gives their work a semblance of credibility rarely attained by studio-made fare. Thus, while you may question the veracity of humming alien eggs, you can't deny that of the Columbian streets and forests featured in the last act. Credibility aside, these exotic locales also give scope to the project, allowing both the characters and the viewers to make the world their playground. Deeply rooted in the spectacular tradition of early cinema, Contamination borrows ideas from many sources to offer its viewers a taste of magic in the guise of instantaneous trips to the far reaches of the imagination. And while limited in technical terms, it isn't in terms of passion, containing an obvious, almost desperate desire to please oozing from every scene.

This desire to please stems from a certain candid entrepreneurship that eventually comes to define the film. This is expressed in the filmmaker's unbridled faith in its ability to transcend budget constraints and rival with A-list productions of the time. Obviously, this is wishful thinking, but it also proves their commitment to their work. Unfortunately, in trying to ascertain big-budget airs, the film ends up trading originality for sure values, wasting the narrative freedom commonly associated with lower budget films in order to widen its scope in according to the dictates of Hollywoodian filmmaking. Thus, even though it tends to over-blow some elements, everything in the film is obviously derivative of other, better films. While this may (and should) put off some more adventurous viewers who were sold this film as an occult rarity, it will certainly please casual genre fans who aren't too hung up on looks and simply wish to have a good time. Because despite some dated narrative twists and gaping plot holes, Contamination never forgets its primary mandate, which is to entertain. While a bit slow-paced and uneventful, it features enough bewildering imagery to make it a marginal success fueled not by talent or vision, but by a passionate love for cinema that transpires in every attempt to make the film appear as a legitimate Hollywood outing. That said, Contamination is a glorified DIY film. Its relevance derives not from genre savvy but from the mechanics of film magic, which it lays bare and use as its primary hook.

Despite humble objectives, the film still surpasses many genre crossovers by managing to keep its eclectic influences in check and allowing them to interpenetrate in meaningful ways. By downplaying the horrific elements in the narrative and using them to fashion the traumatic background of both the protagonist and antagonist, the film brings a highly-welcome sense of other-wordly tragedy to an otherwise generic fratricidal struggle. It also helps justify the nervous breakdown suffered by the two men. As for the alien eggs, they make for very interesting, eye-catching "death devices" that redefine the sense of impending doom present in standard actioners. If you think about it, the world is already full of megalomaniacal villains. Just think Gaddafi, Tony Hayward, Kim Jung Il... But whereas these guys use money and military power to ascertain their dominance, Contamination's Hamilton has quite an ace up his sleeve: an acid-filled-eggs-laying alien beastie brought back from Mars. This is worlds away from even the most far-fetched contraptions devised by Ian Fleming. And although Hamilton is obviously inspired by Hugo Drax, and his Nazi-inspired theories about racial superiority, Hamilton distinguishes himself with the help of other genre staples, including a faint hint of ESP and a certain madness derived from a strange encounter of the third kind. Thanks to Cozzi's film, we realize that, while they may seem detrimental to any "realistic" stance, horror elements can actually strengthen action scenarios by imbuing sordid motivations and means to otherwise standard bad guys. While this may not be a unique discovery, it makes Contamination much more interesting than many, more literal, cash-ins of its ilk.

One of the film's most enduring images: a cavern

entrance shaped like a toothy maw welcomes its

visitors into madness

Given the minuscule budget Cozzi had to work with, the special effects and action sequences are quite impressive. They include plane crashes, machine gun battles, crackling bonfires of space eggs and aliens munching on humans. Truly, there is some really crafty filmmaking at work here. In the visual effects department anyways. It's just a shame that the screenwriters did not have the same pretensions as their artisan counterparts...

The uneven, eclectic cast (the four main roles are secured by actors from four different countries, each with a different mother tongue) make the most of their lines, but given the circumstances, everything that comes out of their mouth turns to camp. Besides, no amount of characterization can make you forget that they portray basic archetypes mostly devoid of interest. This is an obvious drawback of mimicry, a process which sustains the film and greatly limits it at the same time. You see, by taking cues from bigger, better films with A-list casts and stellar production values, Contamination eventually crumbles under the weight of these other films. Willingly derivative, it never manages to surpass any entity from which it derives and, entertaining as it may be, it will never become a reference point.

The advantages and shortcomings of commensalism

If it is fair to say that Contamination feeds off Bond films and Alien, it is also fair to say that these latter films greatly limit the radiance of Cozzi's film. In using motifs from such monuments of pop culture, the Italian director gives his film pleasant features that will necessary force comparison. And obviously, comparison doesn't play in Contamination's favor. Comparison actually prevents the film from securing any form of self-standing status within film history, condemning it to being described as a "hack", a "rip-off", or a "cash-in". Fortunately, and this is its only saving grace, it is made by crafty, passionate people with a childish, but overwhelming love for popular cinema. Thus, my advice for you is this: there's no need to hunt the film, but if you come across it in an otherwise uninteresting video store, don't hesitate. That said, any open-minded genre fan should enjoy this film.

2,5/5 A crafty, entertaining B film that's a bit too derivative for its own good.

I Spit on Your Grave (2010)

aka I Know What You Did Last Month

This unnecessary remake of the 1978 exploitation classic tanked big time at the American box-office. Grossing just under 95,000$, this multi-million dollars venture is the umpteenth proof that Hollywood should devise a two-tier system of production in order to recoup its losses from blockbuster bombs. Given the instant availability and low cost of digital medias, this is the route they should be taking. Then, instead of having sharply photographed, eminently theatrical and ultimately uninvolving exploitation films, we'd have true visions of horror. That said, while it fails to capture the gritty realism of classic exploitation cinema, this film boasts a form of misogyny that was long forgotten, thus creating one of the most appalling examples of phallocentrism in the annals of cinema.

Topical interest

First things first; I must confess that I haven't seen the source material for this film, neither out of disgust, nor ethics. I haven't seen it for reasons purely circumstantial. Therefore, the current review will not be comparison-based and this will probably enhance its relevance. What drew me toward this film is curiosity. Curiosity and topicality. I will come back to this later, but I wished that this film could metaphorically avenge Lara Logan, the CBS correspondent whose brutal rape during the recent Egyptian uprising stirred controversy and revealed the twisted beliefs beheld by many conservative commentators.

As you probably know, I Spit on Your Grave is a rape/revenge film in the tradition of The Last House on the Left. Only here, the victim avenges herself, turning the table on her aggressors and submitting them to tortures worse that what she has personally endured. Obviously, this last assertion is debatable, but the fact remains that it is the ethics of revenge which are appraised here, as in all revenge films. This is precisely where their interest lie, in opening up a debate between the fans of these films and their detractors while making spectator identification wholly problematic. Should we condone the vindictive violence onscreen as a form of justice, or as some critics have suggested, a sign of female empowerment? And what about the rape scene: harmless male fantasy or revelatory snippet of true-to-life violence? These questions are essential to any appreciation of the film, but the fun of analysis also pertains to hypothetical speculation.

The rednecks are overdetermined rapists. And sexy women are overdetermined victims. Just for the fun of argument, let us imagine Arab rapists. Obviously, this would shock quite a few people, but what would it do for the spectators, or commentators of such films? Then, let us imagine a man being raped by rednecks... Oh! Somebody already beat us to the punch: James Dickey, the guy behind Deliverance. Now, I'm certain that the mere mention of this title instantaneously brings back the painful memory of Ned Beatty's victimization in any male who has seen the film. This should draw many more questions, paramount of which is why there aren't more examples of sexual violence directed at men, considering its effectiveness amongst genre film fans. I'm betting that most male moviegoers remember the rape of old Ned much more vividly than that of any screen female, including Italian goddess Monica Bellucci, whose abominable rape in Irreversible was excruciatingly lengthy. I'm betting that many of these guys have playfully replayed the squealing bit in one form or another during their life. As for the rapes of women, they're a common occurrence, both onscreen and off, which has tended to lessen their impact in the minds of men. Now, you'd think that a film like I Spit on Your Grave could actually thwart these trends, but that's where you're wrong. Made by men, for men, relegating women to the depths of infamy, it is merely an example of self-centred scrotum-petting.

Men are pigs

One Thousand and One Phalluses

Jennifer Hills is writing her second book and she needs isolation in order to do it. On her way toward a forest cabin in Hicksville, USA, she meets a threesome of foul-looking gas station attendants, the "pack leader" of which dishes out lame attempts at seducing her, convinced that his rugged good looks will magically illuminate the road to her panties. When Jennifer mocks him, it's clear that his fragile male ego has been hurt, as well as the tenuous authority he seems to hold on his buddies. When he stumbles in front of her, slipping on an oil spill and falling flat on the wet cement like a goofball, the insult is just too great for him. Although, he lets Jennifer leave, you know that he has silently pledged to regain his status amongst his boys by using her weak body as a way to assert his dominance.

A few scenes pass by in which we see Jennifer parading in various skimpy outfits, including a surprisingly revealing jogging attire that attracts attention to itself mainly because of the narrative incongruity it suggests. Since she is shown as a boozing pot-smoker, it's hard to believe how Jennifer could also be a dedicated jogger. There is no absolute contradiction here, but the jogging bit is clearly out of character. The raison d'être of this scene is merely to show Jennifer's body and so is that of the underwear scene in which she undresses completely in order to remove a wine stain on her pants. While scrubbing over the sink, she is unknowingly filmed through the window by a mysterious pervert whose appreciation of Sarah Butler's lanky body is meant to echo our own. From where I stood, both these scenes appeared excessive in their showcasing of Jennifer's skin, as if they were meant to accuse her of titillation, hence half-justifying things to come.

After a while, during which we have learned next to nothing about the "protagonist" except a certain inclination toward nakedness, there's a plumbing failure at the cabin and she needs the help of a plumber. A slow-witted local comes to her rescue and is awarded a kiss for a job well done. Being somewhat of a complexed virgin, the young man is embarrassed and flees the scene, only to go and brag about the kiss to the three gas station attendants from before. As a friend pointed out, the fat one with the camera is actually Damian from Mean Girls. You know, the sarcastic gay guy who loves pink... Well now, he's got a bandana, some leathers and a rad attitude. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't picture him as anybody other than Damian, which made me shout at the screen a couple of times (things like: "What's happened to you, Damian?" and "Nooo, Damian, noooo!!"). Identity confusion aside, he portrays the voyeur of the group, the pervert who rapes not with his cock but with his camera. In this scene, he shows head rapist Johnny the clip taken earlier through the window of the cabin. Combined with the jealousy derived from dim-witted Matthew's confession and the frustration from his first encounter with Jennifer, Johnny becomes overwhelmed by his urge to rape. And so he packs his guns and invites his buds to share an evening at Jennifer's cabin, thus reclaiming his leader status.

Johnny has got one great, big hard-on for Jennifer

There begins the night of one thousand and one phalluses, during which guns and cocks alike swarm around Jennifer and into her mouth, vagina and ass. Of course, there's no hardcore material, but the scene still seems interminable. At first, the guys push guns down her throat, "preparing" her for the following onslaught of cocks. In a disturbing display of broken masculinity, they rely on deadly metal phalluses to assert their dominance. Then, they do so through the humiliation of dim-witted Matthew. Using his shy appreciation of Jennifer as a springboard, they force him to express his love physically, like a man. They first laugh at his impotence, but then, they are quick to encourage him to go "deeper" and "deeper" once he musters enough testosterone to start humping her like a wild animal. All the while, the camera lingers on the atrocities, making it a point to capture the overzealousness of the nonchalant yokels in matters of rape.

At some point, Jennifer manages to escape, only to fall into the clutches of an accomplice, the local sheriff, who brings her back to the cabin where she is gang-raped some more. After the deed, which involves anal and oral penetration, she manages to stand up and walk down a muddy path on very shaky legs. Just before the sheriff gets a chance to shoot her, she does an angel leap into a river and vanishes from the narrative until the time of reckoning arrives. Later in the film, Jennifer confesses to have survived off bugs and stuff while in the woods, recovering from the incident and plotting her revenge. And although this is the most horrific part of her tale, it is not shown onscreen. Instead, we are treated to the sight of the boys enjoying the great outdoors by drinking beer on discarded car seats. Then, in accordance with the most dated of slasher film clichés, they start being stalked by an unseen assailant who draws them outside their houses by making thudding noises, leaving dead animals on their porch, and such and such. Eventually, the five men are all sequestrated and killed, each in obligatory poetic fashion that often borders on the comical. Frankly, the specters of both Jason Voorhees and the Jigsaw Killer loom about this forced, unoriginal and unsatisfying conclusion.

Testicular synapses

I'm sure that the majority of people will agree to say that most genre films are male-centric. Although you rarely see a live one, these films are all about cock and cock-titillation, and this film here is the perfect example. Not only does it focus heavily on the motivations and apprehensions of the rapists, but it manages to transform the rape victim into a ghoulish, soulless slasher. Given its prevalent phallocentric philosophy, the title contains a blatantly misleading incongruity. It is the "I", which seems to suggest that the female victim is also the protagonist and thus inherits decent screentime and characterization. But as things stand, the titular pronoun is used in the exact same way as that in I Know What You Did Last Summer. It is the denomination of a monstrous observer and savage judge of morality ready to slash you from behind a bush (no pun intended). By depicting Jennifer as such, the film likens her tormentors to the gorgeous teenagers from Jim Gillespie's film, basically good folks involved in a moral dilemma solved by an outside entity holding the supreme truth of the universe.

Much to my surprise, the film focuses almost solely on the rapists, limiting Sarah Butler's output to that of a slasher villain, tormented at first, then transformed into a wisecracking avenger. Contrary to the male rapists, whose characters are distinctive and developed, Butler's Jennifer is a generic victim. All we know about her can be resumed to clichés. She is a big-city writer, of what, we don't know. De facto, she is depicted as a drunk who needs the quietude of the country for inspiration. That's all we learn about her. Her remaining contribution to the film involves stripping butt-naked, screaming gloomily, being force-fed various forms of phalluses, and taking revenge. Never is her psychological ordeal fore-fronted, whereas that of the rapists is devoted an entire hour of screentime.

For some reason, the makers of this film thought it would be neat to show the aftermath of the rape entirely from the rapists' point of view, keeping Jennifer as a plot device for later use. Hence we see dim-witted redneck Matthew crying away in a desperate, and infuriating effort to rally us behind his plight. We see the poor sheriff being traumatized by a videocassette left by Jennifer in his family house. All this generic thriller fodder does is to flesh out the "antagonists", humanizing them much, much more than Jennifer. This greatly widens the discrepancy between the very "human" rapists and the highly objectified victim, whose entire persona is limited to her body, and most specifically, her genitalia. In the end, the film builds up toward an underwhelming finale that showcases all the screen-writers' creativity embodied in the torture implements utilized by Jennifer to exact revenge. Wishing to follow in the footsteps of Saw, minus the sickening editing, director Monroe locates the crux of horror not in the theatrical rape scene, but in these fakely imaginative contraptions. This is quite fitting if you consider how the rapists are fleshed out to maximize the effect of their demise and how Jennifer functions in the exact same way as the Jigsaw Killer. Just like sick old John Kramer from the undying torture porn franchise, her ordeal is useful only insofar as it encourages her to teach her victims a moral lesson. Just like Jigsaw's sickness, her rape is incidental. It is used not to characterize the protagonist, but to give a dubious moral dimension to her killings, as exemplified by their "poetic" nature (the voyeur has his eyes eaten out, the anal rapist is anally raped...).

To all you rapists out there: never forget to kill your victim!

Otherwise, you could go to Court or have your nutsack removed

The film self-destructs because the fantasy of female empowerment is likened to that of sexually-repressed slashers à la Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. Rape itself is shown as something horrible, but one that is no different from other crimes, one that entails no horror but potential revenge on the perpetrators. What the film basically tells you is this: after you rape a girl and she starts wandering away from you, don't just stand there and laugh, shoot her in the back before she reaches the river. That way, you can bury her body in the forest and be forever blameless. That way, you can save your balls and cock, go back to your family and enjoy a normal life. This is made explicit by the fact that Jennifer is depicted as a looming specter whose function is retribution. Her body is not the vector of a painful post- rape aftermath, but a mere sperm dumpster bestowed with castrating hands. That's all there is to the "female-empowerment fantasy" suggested by New York Times columnist Jeannette Catsoulis. And for those who say that the perpetrators get their rightful punishment through the liberated hands of a liberated female, well they don't. Their ordeal involves no humiliation, nor does it put the burden of shame on their shoulders. It is important to note that Jennifer does not observe as her victims are executed, leaving them an ill-deserved quietude prior to death. Hence, she fails to capture the power of the gaze, which remains in the male realm. Most of all, she fails to really humiliate her victims, whose deaths are almost heroic. Protesting loudly, and in great contrast to her own meek opposition earlier in the film, the men go out with a bang whereas we would have wanted them to whimper and cry and break into shapeless, battered balls of shame. In that light, castration is only a half-effective symbol of justice, which fails to truly break down the macho self-assurance of the rapists. What's even more shocking in these scenes is how Jennifer tortures her oppressors using their own words. By replaying the previous rape scene with a simple reversal of roles, she fails to become her own person. She is merely the reversed mirror of male aggression. She uses the weapons of men, the words of men, but without gaining their power to look. She is supposed to be a successful writer, and despite that fact, she has no confidence with words and must rely on the words of men to express herself. Hence, she is never liberated from the shackles of patriarchy. Victim in the beginning, she is also victim at the end, in a vicious circle which the film willfully keeps unbroken.

Women are from Mars, men are from Venus

Strangely, the film is not about male aggression, it is about male fragility. All the pivotal scenes prior to the rape focus on the humiliation suffered by Johnny's ego. First, he gets rejected. Then, he is humiliated by Jennifer in front of his friends at the gas station. This double hit obviously tarnishes his image amongst his peers and threatens his alpha male status. When Matthew comes up to him and claims to have been kissed in his place, his ego is dealt an even stronger blow. That's when he decides to use the rape scenario as a way to step back into the spotlight, prove his manhood and reestablish his self confidence. The city woman is just a convenient outlet to achieve this. Much like a warrior's trial, overcoming her monstrous femininity allows the men to gain a form of selfhood, which is exemplified by the returning peace following the disappearance of Jennifer and the heroics displayed by Johnny and Andy in the face of death.

Beauty and the Beast

Unfortunately, and this is the main flaw of the film, Jennifer's character doesn't benefit from such a complex exposition. All through the film, she is pictured as a crude parody of femininity, alternating between the rigid roles of victim and castrator. There are absolutely no shades of grey in her characterization and this is how the film does violence against her. By creating a character so shallow, they have effectively reduced femininity to an accumulation of clichés that only warrant a male conception of females according to which rape is wrong only insofar as it is punishable (by law and by shears). There is no female empowerment here, and those willing to make that contention are either mad or uncaring. Female empowerment does not mean giving women the weapons of men and allowing them to do violence against them. It means giving them their righteous place onscreen as full-fledged, tri-dimensional characters with enough psychological depth to convey the full horror of rape and not merely the genital aspect thereof. It means giving them access to discourse, and not merely have them use prefabricated sentences or mimicked dialogue. All these things, which the film doesn't do, are what contributes to making females alien to male sensibilities, which thus makes their plight unintelligible to us.

The theatrics of exploitation, or dreaming of Header

If it was pure exploitation, I wouldn't be so hard on this film. But instead, it chose to trade the cheap, home-movie look of 1970s exploitation films (which worked so perfectly in early Craven) and go for that pristine, distancing Hollywood shine. In the process, it injected high doses of morality into the narrative as well as failed attempts at dramatic depth, creating inner contradictions that eventually tear the whole project apart from the inside.

While Sarah Butler is a great casting choice (her frail physique making her a perfect victim), the crew of redneck is mostly miscast. Soft-eyed soap opera star Jeff Branson hardly makes a convincing villain, while L.A. art curator Daniel Franzese comes out as a rather awkward redneck. What really compromises their effectiveness, though, is their carefully selected, almost preppy clothing and delicately catered facial hair. Their lack of a Southern accent also impairs their ability to transport us to the dirty South. Obviously, all of these people were cast not as film characters, but as theatrical actors provided with an extended wardrobe. And in the end, far from "becoming" their characters, they come across as a bunch of city guys with a bad case of country-fever.

All the way through I Spit on Your Grave, I was hoping to see grandpap Martin pop out of the scenery and "show them youngins how you really one-up someone". Header wasn't that great, but at least it boasted decent actors for the job. Their thick accent and dirty look was necessary to ascertain the proud roots of their characters. For them, rape needn't be explained in lengthy exposition scenes. It was an established tradition, just like it was in Deliverance. From where I stand, this new iteration of Meir Zarchi's semi-classic is a politically correct rape film that's produced far too nicely to reflect the crass reality it is trying to depict. The clean-looking, sexually challenged rapists are neither convincing, nor are they terrifying. And the attempts at creating dramatic tension without giving the victim half the onscreen time she deserves, well that's just pathetic.

Schlussel, Hoft, Wilson and the vicious circle of rape

As a social phenomenon, rape is very interesting in its ability to instantly reveal one's intrinsic beliefs. The mere word triggers a plethora of diverging, oft-contrasting reactions from people. Most of them involve some sort of castration fantasy. But others are near-apologies. One of the most disturbing and strangely common reactions to rape is the condemnation of the victim. Most advocates of this logic tend to focus on the good looks or skimpy outfits worn by women as a form of justification for male rapists. According to them, beauty and self-confidence are things unfitting for a woman to flaunt, lest she immediately becomes an object of universal lust. You'll notice that this way of thinking is strangely similar to that of many Sunni Muslims. At any rate, it is hardly befitting of any society claiming that its women have been "liberated".

But what's more disturbing in this ideology is how men are depicted as being merely instrumental in the act of rape. It's like every single man is a sex-focused pervert with a brain directly located in his scrotum, a machine which has got to fuck anything even remotely attractive. When tabloid readers nod their heads and suggest that such or such rape victim "should've seen it coming", they're basically saying "she should've known that men can't possibly keep their dicks in their pants". These kinds of statement are offensive to rape victims in that they put the blame on their shoulders for being attractive, but they are also offensive to men, which they liken to beasts unable of self-control.

Going back to Lara Logan, I Spit on Your Grave didn't do anything for her. It didn't do any rape victim justice. It merely uses their plight as a way to replay an almost Freudian castration narrative in which the "lack" is the only thing to characterize women. I understand now that Logan's own personal form of vengeance will be to stand tall again and brave adversity as she used to. She must stay unbroken, and thus the rapists will have lost in their attempts at dominating her and taming her femininity. Yet, in all their pettiness, these beastly men are not nearly as bad as the hardcore hate-mongerers from the backwoods of humanity who immediately used the incident to try and propagate their beliefs. Like starving dogs eyeing a stinking pile of excrements, they jumped on the ugliest headlines possible in order to fuel their hateful agenda. If it is true that hate breeds hate, then they are the living proof thereof.

Illuminating blogger Debbie Schlussel had this to say about the Logan's rape: "It bothers me not a lick when mainstream media reporters who keep telling us Muslims and Islam are peaceful get a taste of just how "peaceful" Muslims and Islam really are. In fact, it kinda warms my heart. Still, it's also a great reminder of just how "civilized" these "people" (or, as I like to call them in Arabic, "Bahai'im" [Animals] are". Obviously, the natural reaction to such drivel is fury. But no matter what I think about Miss Schlussel, I will not give her the satisfaction of dishing out insults for she would certainly revel in them, as she obviously revels in hatred. I will simply try and dissect the aforementioned hate speech. First of all, despite a shy retraction after she was panned and insulted by "the left", which I'm sure she was, there is no denying that she expressed joy about Logan's rape. Hell, the opening paragraph of her blog entry (transcribed above) states that her heart (what heart?) was warmed by Logan getting a taste of violence. These are the kinds of words that you cannot undo, especially when used in a lead! Although I agree with Miss Schlussel about how reading is fundamental, I cannot say that she softens the blow anywhere in the following paragraphs. Quite the contrary.

Following an excerpt from a real media source in which Logan is said to have "suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating", she casually remarks: "Hey, sounds like the threats I get from American Muslims on a regular basis. Now you know what it's like, Lara." Hummm... It kinda seems like she is comparing Logan's ordeal to her own, the poor thing. But although I'm sure she is pelted with hate mail every day, I doubt this mail ever raped her. Being a staple of hate-mongering, the "rape as lesson" narrative is used by Schlussel with clinical coldness in order to do a better job of hate-mongering. This allows her unapologetic and unfocused hatred for Islam to take roots, thus allowing the vicious circle of in-humanism to be completed. First through her carefree attitude toward Logan's rape, then by putting words like peaceful, civilized and people between quotation marks when referring to 15-20% of the world population, she proves herself to be not merely slanderous, but downright misanthropic.

Debbie Schlussel uses rape as a battle trumpet

(this representative photo was taken

while browsing here)

Other criticism of Logan is to be found in the enlightening writings of Jim Hoft and Simone Wilson. Hoft, the eagle-eyed Gateway pundit who spotted Al Sharpton's rarely seen Nazi salute, blamed Logan's "liberal belief system" for her attack. The guy probably doesn't even know the meaning of the word "liberal" but that's another thing... As for his hatred for Logan, it has taken strange proportions since scabrous aspects of her personal life came to be publicized (or invented) by tabloids. From then on, he started a real campaign against her, dishing out elegant puns such as "in-bedded journalist" and "media whore".

As far as I am concerned, his vitriolic antics point to one thing and one thing only: a secret fondness for the lady. I'm just guessing here, but could all these nights in crusty sheets where frustrating wet dreams were chased away by dawn could have gotten to ol' Jim when he heard that Lara had torrid affairs with men other than him? Did he felt betrayed? Or was his soul devoured by jealousy? At any rate, his comments regarding the personal life of Logan are not only unjustified, they're unworthy of any serious journalistic pretense. As for the strange question he asks early in his article, "Why did this attractive blonde female reporter wander into Tahrir Square last Friday?", I'm inclined to think it shows just how he personally lusts for her. More than that, it shows just how natural rape can appear to the advocates of fear and how inclined these people are to blame beauty for it.

What Hoft is basically saying, by focusing on how good Logan looks, is "she should have known". Everybody knows blonde babes are a shoe-in for brutal Arabic gang-rape. And for those who don't know, there's unattractive, beige-haired male reporter Jim Hoft to make it clear. To answer your question, Mr. Hoft, Logan went into Tahrir Square because that is what journalists do. They go where the action is, in order to report the news as it happens, so as to illuminate the world with the beacon of knowledge, even if it means putting one's life on the line. A blogger is not a journalist. At least, very few of them are and you are certainly not one of them. Reprocessing information from other media sources, regurgitating them if you will, and stamping them with a candid, unfocused and partisan comment, this is not journalism. It is just ranting. And using the ordeal of a woman you personally describe as "attractive" as a way to promote hate, well that's just inhumane, unworthy at least, of anything Logan stood for when she "wandered" into Tarhir Square.

Simone Wilson, in a much milder article for salon.com, insisted heavily on what she calls "the Hollywood good looks" of Logan. While she doesn't use them to justify the incident per se, it seems to come naturally for her to mention how "shockingly" beautiful the victim was, and how blonde. Not unlike Hoft, who also uses the irrelevant epithet "blonde" to describe his favorite "media whore", Wilson reduces Logan's entire being and career to her physical appearance. Which is what rapists also do. Wilson would say she doesn't condone rape, which I'm sure she doesn't. Nonetheless, she replicates the very mindset allowing rape to be justified. Insofar as a woman is characterized only by her "good looks", she never comes out as a real person, with real feelings and emotions. She comes out as a flat object, the object of the gaze, which in its superficiality warrants any sort of immediate self-gratification. I Spit on Your Grave's superficial outlook on Jennifer is the same as Wilson's on Logan. While both entities may argue that they don't support rape, they support the underlying mentality, which dictates that a woman is just as good as how fuck-able she looks.

It is what it is, but exactly what is it?

I Spit on Your Grave is nothing but what it represents. It is nothing but the reaction you can derive from it. Its content is only as interesting as the analysis you make of it. But from a purely objective standpoint, the film fails because it misplaces drama, away from a greatly objectified woman whose ordeal is exploited to forward a vacuous moral lesson. It fails because it is too sharply-photgraphed and too theatrical to allow the realistic depiction of a very real issue. It fails because the chic rednecks and unimaginative writer from the narrative are totally un-involving. It fails because its very existence is based on a contradiction. By trying to be politically correct and exploitative at the same time, the film doesn't know when to hit the gas and when to hit the break. The result is a complete, utter crash that leaves no survivor on or offscreen.

1/5 A far too glossy, phallocentric exercise in contradiction.

Anthropophagus (1980)

Directed by late exploitation king Joe D'Amato (born Aristide Massaccesi), this title can boast induction in the original list of prosecuted "video nasties" (along with many other Italian genre films including The Beyond, Cannibal Holocaust, Prisoner of the Cannibal God and Tenebrae), but not much else. It features genre vets George Eastman aka Luigi Montefiori (who co-wrote the screenplay) and Serena Grandi, as well as Tisa Farrow, sister of Mia, out for what is basically a walk in the park. Distinctive almost only in its most extreme iterations of violence, this lackluster slasher is narrowly saved by the bucolic beauty of its natural sets as well as the grotesque appearance of its antagonist.

Feast your eyes, this is probably the highlight of the film.

Mary Whitehouse's devoured fetus

Anthropophagus is known mostly for a few bits of nasty gore conveniently located near the end. But are they nasty enough to recommend the film? The short answer is: no. No, unless you don't mind suffering through the tedious first hour, comprised mostly of badly-shot moments of fake suspense and atrociously-delivered dialogue that fuels a shallow narrative devoid of originality.

The controversy surrounding the film has brought it a long way from its Italian birthplace, but the truth is that the film doesn't deserve that much recognition. You see, the essence of the controversy surrounds a brief, unclear and wholly implausible baby-eating scene meant to push the envelope just a little beyond the expectations of casual horror fans. It's one of those gimmicks that would've been relegated to the footnotes of horror film encyclopedias if it weren't for some high-minded British observers who thought films could corrupt youths and thus went on a tape-burning crusade that gave ample visibility to "infamous" titles such as this one. Ironically, despite the intense crackdown on horror films meant to preserve the innocence of children, youth crime in the UK is now such a rampant problem that kids have now become horror film villains in their own right (see Eden Lake, Wilderness, Heartless...).

Adding water to both the mills of the censors and promoters of this film, Anthropophagus was even described as a snuff film, thanks to reactionary bodies according to which the fetus was a live one. Seeing how it is actually a skinned rabbit (or a glistening red blob as it appears onscreen), anybody who would make such a crazy contention must either have had his head turned sideways when the "fetus" was shown or must really have a bone to pick with Italian horror. At any rate, the controversy is a fraud, just like it was a fraud to claim that the sex scene between Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson alone was worth the admission price to Vicky Christina Barcelona. It is a fraud originally meant to combat the film and its nefarious influence, but which has instead extended its influence beyond the wildest expectations of its producers. This is a perfect example of how censorship always provokes an advert effect. Just think about it for a second. A videotape lying on a shelf in plain view is much less intriguing to a child than one that is locked in a cabinet. This is Psychology 101. By locking every single copy of the video nasties in a large, government-controlled cabinet, what the British nation did was to encourage children to try and break into that cabinet, effectively spurring on their criminal desires in what can only be described as an eminently thoughtless, counter-productive method of social control.

It's not fear that tears you apart... it's her!

Island of Death

For those who mind, the plot of the film is as follows. A group of tourists vacationing in Italy decide to embark on a tour of the Greek islands, accompanied by an attractive stranger (Tisa Farrow) who wishes to visit recluse friends in the process. Upon reaching a deserted harbor, they are surprised to find no other boats anchored there. Even more surprising is the total absence of people on the island, nor within a number of empty houses that show traces of recent human activity. As you might have guessed from the title, the island's inhabitants have all fallen prey to an anthropophagus that has kept their corpses in a dilapidated crypt that serves as pantry.

When their boat drifts away, the tourists are forced to spend the night in an abandoned house where they are stalked only briefly by the grim reaper, who takes a shy bite out of an enterprising young man, then leaves. There, they also manage to rescue a fetching blind gal who brings little to the plot but another body to mangle. After that, the film cuts to the following day during which the tourists wander around the island, doing a bit of sight-seeing. Thankfully, we can share in the fun. The fun of sight-seeing, I mean. There are moldy ruins on the island as well as a gorgeous mansion where the girls learn about the local elite, a decadent, murderous family, the head of which has transformed into the titular beast following the death of his son. There's no satanical influence here, nor are there supernatural occurrences. There's only an umpteenth whacked-out psycho who appears to have unlimited resources until he meets with the iron resolve of the generic male hero, out to save the generic damsel in distress. Then, the beast caves in quite quickly, going out with a mild bang that should put a fleeting grin on your face.

Anthropophagi are people too!

While not as juvenile as American slashers from the same era, Anthropophagus' characters are equally uninteresting. Their demise is uninvolving and so is their swift, surprising victory over the antagonist. The plot involves a lame love triangle as one of the sole attempts at characterization, but this triangle is toppled very early when the male element succumbs to a deadly bite. Aside from that, the film is basically a depiction of people running around an island. If it wasn't for location shooting, which is one of the two strongest assets of Italian exploitation cinema (along with the volatile camera, which fails to give the film wings in the present film), this would've been a pretty bland experience. In a way, the film works better as a travelogue than a full-fledged horror film, delighting us with the homely streets covered by white archways, sumptuous rock formations, ruins and Mediterranean villas covering the island more than with the cheesy gore. The horror scenes are far apart and although they involve repulsive brutality, they're mostly devoid of scares or suspense. Set in broad daylight, involving a zombie-slow slasher and less-than-sympathetic victims, these scenes are not exciting at all. They hold together only through the promise of gore, which often fails to materialize but in boring bites to the neck.

Get out of the way, you expendable turd.

We want to see the ruins!

Anthropophagus is the kind of film where the heroine finds herself in a secret room where she removes drapes from atop human-sized objects only to have the camera zoom in on the worm-ridden face of a corpse with ad hoc noise aggressively littering the soundtrack. For the two people in the world who weren't expecting a rotting corpse, this provides an utterly shocking surprise. For those who knew but still feared the sight thereof, it's a perfect excuse to grab on to your date and sink your face in his armpit. But for the vast majority of us, there's nothing there but an overdetermined scare tactic. Plain and simple. Maybe the decrepit aspect of the rotting faces or the squirming maggots will repulse you, but your unease will only last a few seconds. As far as horror goes, the film does not overstep the boundaries of casual grotesquery, sacrificing tension for clunky depictions of gore while creating atmosphere only by way of badly-lit settings and a trippy, keyboard-heavy score. By thus relying mostly on fetus and entrails feasting to create effect, the film is very much akin to a freak show.

Seeing how ineffective the scares are, how shallow the narrative and how uninteresting the characters, the crux of the spectacle lies in the sight of George Eastman in heavy makeup, slumping through the gorgeous Mediterranean scenery with some form of slashing weapon in hand. His widely exposed teeth betray his eagerness to feed on the flesh of whoever he encounters and his slow, nonchalant demeanor is that of the confident predator. Contrarily to what you may conclude from the premise, or from the subjective underwater shots, he is not a supernatural being and he can be killed with common weaponry. His decrepit aspect probably derives only from his queer diet and not from any form of devilish influence. Despite being dubbed "the Grim Reaper", he is no more than a run-of-the-mill slasher, mute and deranged, with no ability to feel, reason or talk. His tragic background, exposed in a quick flashback and some notes left in his villa, doesn't begin to explain what has happened to him. Nor does it make us care about his fate or that of his victims.

Don't believe the hype

The only things worthy of attention here are the Mediterranean exteriors (of which you get clearer shots on postcards), the grotesque aspect of George Eastman and his willingness to bite into foul-loooking red things. Apart from that, the film is a run-of-the-mill slasher. All in all, there are two gore scenes that really stand out, but by the time you get there, you won't find them so impressive. Besides, it's nothing you haven't seen before, or will not see again. This is a film to horrify uptight British bourgeois. Casual horror viewers should be wiser than to consider their laments as any form of recommendation.

1,5/5 A slow-paced, boring film with great scenery and a few nasty gore scenes. Nothing worth hollering about.

Chopping Mall (1986)

R2D2 just got bad-ass...

Produced by Julie Corman, wife of Roger, and featuring many references to other Corman productions, including Little Shop of Horrors, A Bucket of Blood and Attack of the Crab Monsters, this run-of-the-mill entry in teenage horror features boring, blocky antagonists and a forgettable performance by scream queen Barbara Crampton. Originally billed as Killbots, the film did fairly poorly in its original run. When re-released under the clever new title Chopping Mall, it did much better.

The mall as teenager trap

The title says it all, although there is no actual chopping in this film. What you have instead is the epitome of 1980s horror: bad wordplays and trendy settings. Paramount of these is the mall, backbone of social life in the years of plenty, where children come to play and indulge in fattening treats, where the elderly can find the only company available to them, where teenagers become victims to the autocratic dictates of fashion... and to robotic night-watchmen. This is where the story begins, develops and ends, as if the world beyond held absolutely no interest.

Actually, the film begins in a mall-within-a-mall during a video robbery-cum-arrest meant to promote a new line of robots designed for mall security. Inexplicably, this video is shown to a widely heterogenous crowd of people assembled in the plaza, including Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov, who reprise their roles from Eating Raoul to awful effect. Thanks to this clever mise-en-abîme that features an aggressive robber being quickly neutralized by a talking cone on tracks, it becomes obvious how a mall would need to purchase laser-shooting automatons instead of hiring two or three unemployed Mexicans at minimum wage. We are certainly not won over, and so is the crowd. But as the presenter so convincingly puts it: "Nothing can go wrong". Then, WHAM! The title appears, in blocky red letters.

Chopping Mall has the flair for graphic design of a 1950s sci-fi film

So far, so good. But that's disregarding the dubious attempts at humor that come bursting right after. I mentioned that the mall was the epicenter of social life in the mid-80s. This is illustrated in a series of vainly humorous vignettes intertwined during the opening credits. I tried to chuckle at the sight of such jolly attempts at spectator-tingling, but to no avail. After all, campy humor works mostly when unintentional. What did make me grin is the ensuing thunderstorm during which lightning hits the power box for robot controls conveniently located on the roof of the mall. Nobody'd thunk it, but this turns the robots into rampaging killers. It happens on a Friday night, too, when four couples of teenage clerks have planned a saucy party in a furniture store. I guess you can picture where this is going.

Postmodern horror with a dull edge

The killings begin in the fashion of slasher films, as the cast members are isolated and picked off one by one, starting with the most sex-starved. But when the big-breasted blonde has her head blown to bits and her brains splashed all over the windowed walls of the store, the film assumes the airs of cheap alien invasion films. Lasers start crisscrossing across the screen, narrowly avoiding the screaming teenagers who rush through clouds of mattress plush. When they all regroup in the back-store, the mechanics of survivalist horror take hold of the narrative structure. The kids band together to try and stay alive through the night.

Big-breasted Leslie has about 0.0001 seconds left to live

Considering the infinite amount of supplies available in the mall, including, but not limited to propane tanks, fuel canisters, assault rifles, shotguns and magnums with unlimited ammo, you'd think that the kids would have a pretty easy time getting rid of a trio of wisecracking tin cans (that's right, the robots talk too). But that's overlooking the apparent invincibility of the pesky machines, who can withstand close-range explosions and machine gun fire, not to mention break down metal doors and electrify water pools. It will take real ingenuity to destroy these foes, and some crafty handiwork, which provides some of the few thrills contained in the film.

The highlight of Chopping Mall is a 90-seconds tracking shot taken inside the furniture store. It shows the four couples at various stages of the amorous rite, featuring the umpteenth revelation of Barbara Crampton's breasts, which is almost the only asset she brings to the film. This shot is surprisingly well-choreographed. It is sweet and humorous, revealing a little something about everyone, including their sweet "teenage" flesh.

The rest of the film is merely a tedious succession of lame action-pieces taking place in interchangeable mall corridors, each featuring new storefronts to marvel at. You'd think that a barrage of gunfire against a slow-moving metal cone would be exciting, but meh... it gets tedious after a while. And so does the recurring "Have a nice day" quipped by the machines after each kill. It's fun at first, but the sixth time around, the humor is completely dull. So too becomes the film, once the kids start getting chased around, rushing mechanically from store to store, leaving one of theirs behind at every turn, until the last killbot has been defeated and the final couple is left standing.

The spectacle of blue lightning trumps the spectacle of breasts

I mention this last couple standing because I wish to insist on how obvious the survivors are. Maybe this is typical 1980s screenwriting, but it reeks of dubious moralism. According to horror film lore from that era, it seems that only the pure ones can defeat impossible odds, especially since purity is herein tied to intelligence and rationality. In all honesty, I'm sure everyone vowed for any other character, but ultimately, they are let down by the rigid needs of a moral to justify the ensemble.

For one, I'm sad to see actresses who bare their breasts be sacrificed like vulgar sluts. These women have brought more to their roles than those who don't, if only the guts to pose for pervy cameramen and teenage viewers. To me, systematically killing the flashers is like saying that there is something intrinsically wrong with a woman's self-confidence. One might argue that rewarding these girls with survivor status only validates their objectification within horror films, exalting promiscuity and readiness to strip as the paramount values of heroines. To me, the objectification of women lies rather in the systematic slaughter of promiscuous girls, which is what effectively reduces their worth to their breast-baring abilities. This is precisely what happens here with Suzee Slater and Barbara Crampton, whose summary execution almost directly follows the revelation of their private parts.

Breasts aside, the spectacle herein lies in the dated but spectacular special effects. The multicolored laser beams generously dished out by the killbots and the blue bolts of electricity surrounding squirming characters may seem crude by today's standards, but they catch the eye much more efficiently than any of the lackluster sets and awfully designed monsters. If there's marginal fun to be had here, it is achieved by marveling at the irresistibly retro visual effects punctuating the film like so many energetic attempts at legitimate showmanship.

Dated FX and cameos galore are the main selling points of the film

Dreaming of Megan Halsey

There is Barbara Crampton in this film, and there isn't. Sure, she's beautiful, as always. Sure, we get to see her breasts. Not as extensively as in Re-Animator, but they're still present. What sucks is how flat her character is, how instrumental her mental breakdown, and how easily she falls prey to the killbots. I must say that I expected more from Roger Corman. I expected love and respect, when all I got was lukewarm affection. Obviously Corman is not Stuart Gordon, for whom Crampton is a muse, playing major parts in four of his films, and many of his perverted fantasies, appearing fully naked and given head by a decapitated scientist in Re-Animator while strapped as a dominatrix in From Beyond. The tragic innocence that has come to characterize her amidst genre fans is nowhere to be found here. Instead of being a damsel in distress viciously tormented by otherworldly perverts, she is now a mere sacrificial party girl. Poor, lovely Barbara... Even if I wept when you died, the film paid no mind...

As for Dick Miller, who appears onscreen as Walter Paisley for the fifth time since A Bucket of Blood (1959), he isn't given much to work with either. He does manage to light up the screen for a few moments with his seamless humor, poking fun at the accuracy of the killbots, but disappearing soon after, to fit the narrow needs of the screenplay whose teenage content is merely brushed by superficial attempts at self-reflexivity.

This lego rendition by Eric Weber perfectly exemplifies

how blocky and crude Chopping Mall truly is

Conclusion: A jolt that fails to electrify the viewer

Chopping Mall ruins its cult potential by trying too hard to be funny. Its use of dated slapstick, crude wordplays and overbid of shallow references to better films are transparent efforts to broaden the appeal of the generic premise. But instead of improving the ensemble, they contradict the generally straight-faced approach to dramatic tension, making the film a highly unsuccessful mixture of horror and comedy. The only things left to behold is the naive robot design and dated special effects. Unfortunately, such plastic elements cannot elevate what is essentially a boring, formulaic entry in 1980s horror.

2/5

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

"Do I need a reason?"

Produced by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, the originators of the Halloween series, this stand-alone entry directed by Tommy Lee Wallace has garnered more negative reviews from genre fans than from critics, which is a surprising rarity. But despite consensual hatred, the film contains some of the most enduring images from the series, including an in-film TV ad prominently distributed (and ridiculed) on Youtube, as well as a risqué demonstration of child sacrifice. On top of that, the female protagonist is a big-breasted infant whose wide brown eyes, curly hair and black negligee will surely generate sexual fantasies amongst perverted loners such as myself.

The joke's on you, Mike

You probably all remember this third chapter in the series as "the one without Michael Myers". And although this is an entirely accurate description, it doesn't do the film justice. Season of the Witch is actually a fairly decent, refreshingly self-standing film that deserves a loving audience of cynical horror fans. While certainly not on par with John Carpenter's original film, its high camp value and addictive central jingle make it a welcome asperity in the unified facade of the series. This is one of those titles that demands rediscovery, especially among film savvy crowds who can appreciate a single title without it being part of a tedious, overlong series of mass-produced, similarly-designed products.

For one, I was glad to be rid of Michael Myers. After all, who needs a mute, hulking slasher when you've got killer Halloween masks that shoot laser via a piece of Stonehenge fastened in the back? Old Mike is not even an interesting character, merely an icon of repressed sexuality. The guy doesn't even know the meaning of fun whereas old Conal Cochran is the inventor thereof. You see, the main antagonist from Season of the Witch is a good-natured Irish prankster and toymaker whose idea of a successful practical joke involves the mass-marketing of rubber masks that turn children's heads into hollowed-out sacks full of roaches and venomous snakes. Yes, you read that correctly: hollowed-out sacks full of roaches and venomous snakes. If you have a hard time imagining this, then all the more reason to see the film!

Comes Halloween, children start losing their heads

Of course, there are many more reasons, including the two protagonists, boozing, mustached Dr. Challis and gorgeous, wide-eyed jailbait Ellie Grimbridge, as well as their ever-present sidekick, Mr. I. Camp. Both their shocking romance (Tom Atkins is actually old enough to be Stacey Nelkin's father) and memorable ineptitude as heros are a continuing source of laughter. In all honesty, I could make this review a simple enumeration of all the hilarious incongruities and memorable lines comprised in the paper-thin, linear narrative, but that would spoil the fun. Suffice it to say that Season of the Witch is one of the best surprises I ever had watching dated horror films, rivaling the enjoyment I had when I first watched Troll 2.

Synths, nursery rhymes and other ineptitudes

The opening credits of the film are a thing of beauty. They're simple, effective, they ominously foreshadow the tragic ending and they are punctuated by a keyboard score of rare, clunky beauty. The crude computer graphics and gruesome notes from the 1980s at work here should put you right in the mood to enjoy the ensuing cheese-fest. The retreading lines of luminous orange dots constituting this scene are hypnotic to look at, working jointly to form a mysterious figure that reveals itself right after the grim titles to be a computer-generated jack-o-lantern. How delightfully modern!

Behold the credits of the future

The opening shot shows a dark, empty road at the bottom of which a title reads "Saturday, October 23rd". A running man emerges from the shadows, pursued by a large American car. The man tries to find refuge in a trailer inside a construction site. After he fails to get inside, he must stand alone against a well-dressed assailant emerging from the car. In what can only be described as an arthritic fight scene, he manages to trap his foe inbetween two cars and resume running away from a second assailant. That's when things start turning out real good. The film cuts to a gas station on the very same night, without any breaks in the continuity. Nonetheless, a title appears, reading "One Hour Later". You can't make that stuff up. Writer/director Tommy Lee Wallace probably wrote "One Hour Later" in his screenplay and thought it would be a good idea to make a literal transcript of his words onscreen, even though it is completely irrelevant to know whether the running man reached the station an hour, two hours, three hours, twenty minutes or half an hour after his encounter with the well-dressed men. The important thing to know is he crumbles into the arms of the gas station attendant, but not before a crucial leitmotiv is introduced. The TV spot for Silver Shamrock brand Halloween masks, with it's addictive jingle inspired by famous nursery rhyme "London Bridge is falling down", high-pitched singing and floating children's heads is a classic in its own right. And if you haven't had your fill with the first utterance, don't worry. There are plenty more spots where this one came from...

The place where it came from is actually the same place running man Harry Grimbridge is escaping during the opening sequence. That is Santa Mira, a small town founded by Irish settlers, home to the world-renowned Silver Shamrock mask factory and throwback to the fictional Californian town where the action of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) took place. After Harry is rushed to the local hospital to remedy what appears to be a mental breakdown ("They're going to kill us! All of us!", he repeats while holding on to a rubber Halloween mask), he is murdered in his bed while under the care of nonchalant Dr. Dan Challis. His assailant then calmly walks outside, sits in his car and sets his body on fire, leaving the police with no evidence as to his identity. With no official solving the mystery of Harry's death, it's up to his daughter Ellie and Dr. Challis to investigate. Following a thin paper trail, they end up in Santa Mira, where toymaker Conal Cochran reigns supreme thanks to an army of well-dressed, mute henchmen. Thanks to favorable circumstances, the unlikely duo will soon discover that the old man with the wavy airline is indeed trying to kill everyone thanks to a plan so far-fetched, you couldn't have imagined it in your wildest dreams.

Shortcuts toward cult status

Season of the Witch features a scene in which Ellie is walking through the parking lot of a local inn when a woman in a still car honks for no apparent reason. Seeing how Ellie is understandably shocked, she rushes out of her vehicle and offers an incongruous apology. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you", claims the woman before introducing herself. Obviously, she does so only in order to make her own death narratively relevant. There is no reason for her to honk accept the half-assed introduction of her character, which constitutes a typical shortcut in Wallace's lazy screenplay. You see, it is almost only through accidental encounters and coincidences that the plot moves forward, such as in this instance. Two more instrumental characters are also introduced through dubiously circumstantial events: the desperate wino who accosts Dr. Challis for a sip of booze and mask-selling kingpin Buddy Kupfer who nearly crushes the good doctor with a slackly fastened bike atop his hulking camper. Both these one-dimensional individuals are pawns in a sadistic game played by Conal Cochran with the help of director Wallace. And so are Ellie and Challis, whose progression is also made circumstantially without any input of their own.

Despite their good intentions, these two are the worst detectives you will ever see. They're so terrible at what they do, that it's actually touching. When arriving in Santa Mira, Ellie suggests they head down to the mask factory right away, upon which Challis, who is horrified by the idea, declares that he "needs a drink instead" despite the six-pack he ingurgitated in the 20-minutes drive from Sierra Madre. After that, they have casual sex... twice, upon which Challis asks Ellie how old she is (which I found hilarious). When they finally arrive at the factory on the following day, the pair argues a few moments with an elderly clerk and then decides to turn heels and leave. Upon reaching the treshold of the windowed door from whence they came, they are faced with winnebago warrior Buddy Kupfer, whom we discover is the top seller of Silver Shamrock masks in the US and has thus merited a free tour of the factory, which he offers to share with his newfound "friends". This nullifies the need for trespassing and thus, the two snow-white heros can enter the factory while retaining their law-abidingness. The narrative is constructed likewise in order to minimize the involvement of the two protagonists, limiting their output to simply "being there" when things happen, and indirectly causing the death of all possible allies in the process. Their involvement is so minimal that's it's funny. Seeing Ellie mildly annoyed by the factory clerk's lack of cooperation and her abandoning the fight as readily as if it concerned a 2$ refund is actually hilarious. Her father has been sadistically murdered, for Christ's sake! You'd think that she would be fairly pissed off by this, more feisty and definitely unconcerned by frivolous things such as sex with an old mustached man. But clearly, characterization is not the film's strong suit. Nor is plausibility... But considering the nature of the narrative, these almost are assets. They allow the straight-faced series to make a welcome shift toward camp.

"Where do you wanna sleep, Dr. Challis?"

"That's a dumb question, Miss Grimbridge."

Dumb question indeed

Many if the fans critiquing the film have pointed out to the gaping plot holes as the film's main weakness. Personally, I would be inclined to disregard these plot holes since the big picture and the various plot twists are much more interesting in themselves than as part of a logical whole. Besides, there was a huge plot hole in the previous two entries, which didn't seem to bother the fans. I mean, why is Michael Myers impervious to bullets? This is not explained, except through vague hints as to how "the shape" is the incarnation of evil. Founded on a what appears to be a blatantly psychoanalytical interpretation of madness, John Carpenter's original film breaches toward the supernatural thriller at the very end in order to chill its audience. Setting up a boy who murders his sister out of what we can assume is a form of jealousy, making him repeat the incident endlessly through the slaughter of horny teenagers after sex, it would appear that Michael is just your average serial killer. Yet, he manages to survive an onslaught of pistol bullets and a two-story fall, disappearing from the scene without leaving so much as a drop of blood. At the end of part 1, this is just meant to leave you guessing, going home from the theater along with the fear of an undying boogeyman. In part 2, it has become an accepted fact about Michael.

Nobody complained about the implausibility of Michael's survival. Likewise, nobody should demand an explanation as to how chips made from the rock of stonehenge could generate lasers. It's magic! Any other explanation would only feel contrived. As to why one would want to create such chips, let me refer you to the unlikely antagonist of the film, M. Conal Cochran. When questioned by Dr. Challis, who's then a captive in the factory, he replies: "Do I need a reason?", at which point I couldn't repress a burst of laughter. "Yes, you do! You fucking do!" is what Challis should've replied. Instead, he lets the old man go on a half-explanatory revelation that borders on lyricism. Despite his poetical attempts at describing "ancient Celtic traditions", the soft-mannered, baby-faced madman never quite manages to convince us about the true motivation for his actions. He merely comes out as a fun-loving joker who incidentally wants all the children in America dead. Seeing this character, and all the ludicrous contraptions with which he has surrounded himself, is when you realize that plausible, elaborate causality is only necessary in serious dramatic film. Here, we can do without, and this is exactly what happens. Here the power of images and ideas takes on a new form, freed from the constraints of good sense, which binds many superior films. This is fantasy, people, not political drama. As soon as you understand this simple fact, then you can enjoy the more far-fetched ideas contained in this film, such as mechanical men, killer masks, monolith stealing and the likes. All of these increase the camp value by a notch and allows us to tolerate the omnipresent narrative shortcuts and uninvolving investigation carried out by the protagonists.

While uninvolving, the horrific events depicted in the film are nonetheless memorable. Although they're scarce, the kills are surprisingly gory and inventive. I'm talking punctured eyes, heads twisted off, laser shots to the mouth... You shan't be disappointed on that front. Yet, the most enduring images are located near the end, when one child is killed in a sadistic demonstration of witchcraft and several millions more are believed to have suffered the same fate. The highlight of the film involves Cochran experimenting with his patented death masks on the unwilling Buddy Kupfer Jr. Seeing the kid die is shocking, especially in light of the fact that children are usually safe from harm in horror films. Well, this is one example where the tide is turned around. As Conal would say, it's all a joke on the children. That said, when Dr. Challis tries to have the flickering TV pumpkin from the opening credits (which triggers the masks) off the air in extremis and we are left to wonder if he has succeeded or not, we cannot help but give in to pessimism. At any rate, the joke's on him because by the time nine o'clock sounds in California, it has already come and gone in the four other time zones spread over the US, meaning that millions of families are already dead, having succumbed to Cochran's devious death ray or the venomous snakes thus materialized. Still, Challis desperately holding on to the phone, trying to save millions of children, this here is one classic ending. It's proof that almost no horror film is larger in scope than Season of the Witch, which involves a whopping number of potential victims whose fate is left unresolved. The film revels in excess and it is quite befitting, especially in a world where small-minded slashers are a dime a dozen.

Joke's on you, Challis: more than half the children

in America are already dead

A film that has to be seen (to be believed)

Contrary to the first two entries, who managed to keep a straight-face despite some ludicrous material, this third Halloween is refreshingly campy. The situations, the characters and the dialogues are hysterical, making for a shit-load of classic moments. The narrative shortcuts and plot holes may point to a weaker construction, but considering the material at hand, they were inevitable. Besides, I'd take originality over plausibility any day of the week, which is what the film offers. As far as mad slasher films are concerned, the market is overflowing. Hence, by 1982, Michael Myers was undistinguishable from many other masked killers. On the other hand, there weren't many Conal Cochran, nor are there today. Despite weak characterization (which is also the plight of slashers), this rather unique antagonist takes the cake when it comes to evilness. His master plan to kill millions of children instantly is one to jot down in the annals of horror, not merely in a passing sentence from a sadistic review. All in all, Tommy Lee Wallace is a dreamer. By daring to be different, and at the risk of alienating the huge fan base secured by the first two films, he has left an indelible imprint on the world which I personally pledge never to forget.

2,5/5 A cheaply-made camp film with a distinctive flavor and many memorable images.