Here are
some brief impressions of the three films I saw on Friday, August 2nd:
Watching
this flavorless melting pot of dated horror film devices and random Chucky
lore, I felt a distinct nostalgia for the blessed 1980s. After all, it was only
then that people could make decent killer dolls films. Now, the sub-genre has
all dried up, as if the tribulations of pint-sized serial killers were somehow
growing passé. Judging from the lack of innovation in this unwelcome sequel,
there’s certainly a good reason for that, and even returning
director/screenwriter Don Mancini seems to be fully aware of this distressing
fact. By displacing the story further away from its urban roots, and into the
realm of more “respectable” genre fare, he seems to tell us that there is no
more water left in the mill, but what can be borrowed from others. Abandoning
the nearly Cronenbergian approach prevalent in the previous two entries of the
series, Mancini plays it safe here, indulging in no stylistic or narrative
excess, electing instead to keep things predictable and boring in a transparent
bid to hang on to the whims of nostalgic fans. A definite step backwards for
the series, which allows it to step back into canon.
Part family
drama, part haunted house caper, the introductory chapter of this surprisingly
conventional outing sets up paraplegic cutie Nica (Fiona Dourif) as the
unlikely protagonist and sacrificial victim of our most celebrated psychotic
doll. Caring for her aging mother in a remote Victorian homestead, the young
woman has learned to overcome her handicap and become a useful housekeeper.
That is until a mysterious package lends on her doorstep, containing a
fuck-ugly red-haired talking doll. Rather unconcerned by the origin of said
doll, Nica takes it in and allows it to run rampant in the house, where it
creates a web of intrigue and mistrust. When mom gruesomely commits suicide,
the rest of the family pops into Nica’s life, questioning her capacity to take
care of herself and threatening to sell the house and move her to a nursing
home. These threats, however, will soon sound hollow in the face of impending
doom, with the killer doll trying to complete a murderous task undertook two
decades ago.
Long shadows as a shortcut to nobility...
As
mentioned in my opening paragraph, the decision to set the story in an old
Victorian homestead, far away from the seedy trailers and dilapidated
apartments of the two previous films, is a transparent tactic by
writer/director Mancini to inject a false sense of nobility into the series. It
is as if the nobler tradition of haunted house horror could magically infer
gravity to some lowbrow slasher fare made famous for its unabashed use of
profanity. “Don’t fuck with the Chuck” was the tagline for the third film.
Twenty years later, we can now enjoy a playful, variation on the theme with “Be
afraid. Be effing afraid”. This reference to Geena Davis’ line from The Fly (1986) actually sounds like an
MPAA-sanctioned publicity stunt made to promote Chucky to a new generation of
constipated do-gooders, not unlike our crippled protagonist, whose lifeless
bottom half seems to instantly infer virginity. Personally, I think the new
decor is quite unwelcome, especially if one looks back at the carefree 80s,
when people still gave a damn, and Chucky movies were assorted with awesome
action set-pieces. Here, the in camera approach greatly narrows the potential
for spectacle, and a few snippets of gore are the only things left to quench
our desire for excitement. Unfortunately, one ripped-out jaw is not going to do
it for me, nor is the artificially mounting tension, epitomized in my heart by
the tedious wait for Chucky to utter his first nasty quip. Fact of the matter
is, we know full well where this thing is going and we know what path it will take to get
there. Hell, even when Mancini has a chance to do good, and cash-in on some
carefully crafted anticipation, he ends up choking by taking the most boring,
beaten path on to the next scene. This can best be exemplified by the sequence
in which the whole family gathers for a meal around the dinner table, unaware
that one of their plates has been spiked with poison. Pondering on who will
croak, we eagerly await the spectacle of a messy death until one of the guests
suddenly ups and leaves on the pretext that he doesn’t feel well. That’s it. No
puke on the dinner table and no satisfied expectations. Likewise, the
nine-year wait for a sequel to Seed of Chucky could’ve never prepared us for this bland new
film. At least, there was some experimentation in the two previous chapters, a
dab into the grotesque and the organic, allowing for new latex creations and
some new directions for the main storyline. Here, everything is too neat, tidy
and conventional, as if Mancini was attempting to step back into the womb, or into a
sealed capsule that would somehow withstand the passage of time.
Despite my own recriminations against the film, there has been quite a buzz from
hardcore fans and they seem to agree that Curse is a worthy entry in the series. And while I
feel that it rather sounds like a swan song (it is the only title to be
released straight to video), I understand their feelings in that the murder
mystery format used here marks a return to form for the franchise. It must
certainly be reassuring to exit the darkness cultivated in the previous two
entries and bask at the pretty façade of this polished effort just as it must
be reassuring to welcome back the tried and tested slasher mechanics from
earlier films. Most importantly, in regards to fan service, is the fact that
the present screenplay widens the canon by including flash-backs and
supplementary exposition on voodoo aficionado Charles Lee Ray (portrayed by
Brad Dourif in fully human form). It also manages to tie several loose ends
left inbetween chapters of the dislocated series, pegging not only one, but two
satellite characters (Chucky’s former girlfriend Tiffany and choice victim Andy
Barclay) on a definitive timeline. The very apparition of these two characters,
and especially that of estranged hero Barclay, probably acts as balm on the
wounds inherited from the series’ turn into a darkly humorous form of
self-parody, which has seen anti-hero Chucky become an unlikely protagonist.
Now, everything is back in its original place, with virginal Nica reclaiming
the spotlight from the stubby-fingered, foul-mouthed little killer. The fact
that her character is portrayed by Dourif’s daughter Fiona further seems to
indicate a return to bases for the series, with trashy Tiffany yielding to the
candid charms of the wheelchair-bound young woman.
In the end,
your appreciation of the film will probably depend on your stance with regards
to the direction taken by the series in recent years. While purists will
probably jump for joy at its return to the narrow canon established in the late
1980s, fans of the grotesque excesses showcased in the two most recent titles
will feel abandoned and disillusioned. As for laymen, they will see a
disappointing film that fails to deliver on some nice tension-building,
choosing instead to distill the horrific aspect of the narrative with dated
slasher tactics. Finally, casual horror fans will see a fairly average, gutless homage to several horror traditions characterized by decent production values, but far too
little innovation to stand out from the crowd.
** This rather forgettable entry in
the series rejoins the canon by drawing from dated horror traditions, sacrificing both
the epic set pieces from parts 1-3 and the dark humor from part 4-5 in order to reclaim some lost fans.
Despite
some pretensions as a serious critique of corporate excess, Raze is hardly a narrative film, and
whatever dramatic issues contained in the premise are entirely subservient to
the primitive spectacle of brutality. One could say that the film features
“fights”, but these are not akin to the highly choreographed ballets of Yuen
Woo Ping; these are brutal expressions of instinct, and they are appropriately
punctuated by a barren, rhythmic soundtrack. In turn, the absence of a
bothersome or overly intricate dramatic canvas and the unabashed showcase of
female-on-female assault make for a unique experience of “pure” genre cinema.
And while the film could rightfully be tagged as exploitative, no one will dare
call it hypocritical, for it never uses manipulation to justify the violence
onscreen. Maybe genre fans will be the only ones to grasp the worth of such
artistic integrity, but even that’s OK since the film is squarely aimed at
them. All in all, Raze is a UFO on the movie scene, if only for its unadulterated dedication
to the raw depiction of violence as a spectacle.
Abducted
and imprisoned by a shady secret society obsessed with morbid
entertainment, a group of women are forced to fight each other lest one of
their family members is executed by their captors. Confined to damp cells in a
stuffy stone cellar, being psychologically and physically abused by
unidentified masterminds, these women develop fragile and desperate
friendships, hoping that more than one of them will come out of the ordeal
alive. Obviously, this turns out to be wishful thinking, as their tormentors
are carefully overlooking and videotaping their every move. And in the face of
death, protagonist Sabrina is different from her peers only in her unflinching
desire to survive, and her subsequent brutality in the ring. But despite the eager
fists she swings at her opponents, she also proves to be a very humane cellmate, trying to console the
other women in her clique and to protect them from psycho-bitch Phoebe, who
enjoys killing with her bare hands, totally unconcerned by the threats against
her mother’s life. In the end, Sabrina and Phoebe are pitted against each other
in a bloody grudge match, but this does not prove to be the climactic event of
the film. Instead, the winner of their bout takes the violence upstairs, turning the tables on her aristocratic captors and earning her freedom through their demise. Whether this brand of happy ending truly befits the tone of the film is another issue entirely...
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Red filters as narrative devices: Raze
There is a
certain purity to Raze that is unmatched by all other women-in-prison or martial arts film.
Not only are the numerous fight scenes well choreographed and energetically
carried out by a talented cast of XX fighters, but they are also shown from a
gritty, non-heroic angle. These fights are dirty, and they challenge any form
of “honor” often associated with such confrontations. This is made clear very
early, as protagonist Sabrina fakes abdication against her first opponent, only
to whack her after she has let her guard down. This girl does not fight for the
greater good, for the fate of humanity, or any such bullshit reason. She merely
fights for survival, and that makes her profoundly human. This also sheds the
need for further characterization. In fact, all the characters’ backgrounds prove not so
important in fleshing them out as their current imprisonment, which naturally
exacerbates their emotional fragility and murderous impulses. In short, emotional resolve is herein equated with survival instinct, and it sheds the need for any sort of lengthy exposition. Where
characterization DOES make a difference is in the later fights, in which
friends are pitted against friends. Unfortunately, these confrontations fail to
attain real dramatic highs, feeling more like obligatory narrative devices than
earnest attempts at catharsis. Actually, the film distills the whole of the
excitement it provides in the sheer brutality of the fights, and not in their
dramatic implications. And while this could be considered a screenwriting flaw in many circles, it's merely a way for the film to remain as straightforward and uncompromising as possible.
Raze’s purity also proceeds from the
simplicity of its narrative construction, and its use of expressionistic
devices to better draw the viewer into the ring. The whole project is almost
experimental in that regard. Each fight scene is preceded by a black card on
which the names of the two combatants appear. This deconstructive tactic
subverts the tradition of invisibility associated with conventional narrative
cinema, exposing the real nature of the film as a pure showcase of violence.
Then, there is the rhythmic soundtrack, punctuated not by music per se, but by
the aggressive beating of drums, which gives the film a rough, tribal feel that
is perfectly in sync with the characters’ mindset as they are reverting to a
form of primal barbarity. Then, there is lighting, whose function here is not
to make the fights more intelligible or to better delineate the combatants, but
to cultivate the oppressive quality of imprisonment. And while it might seem
strange to shoot intricate fight scenes in near-total darkness, it is an
efficient way for the authors not to glamorize these fights, but to make them an integrant part of the surrounding darkness. Hence, the black and red hues bathe the characters in a
ominous glow, complicating the showcase of their martial proficiency, but
contributing a far more important sense of despair to the show. All of these
key features allow us to enjoy the film on a purely visceral level, hence
exalting the unapologetic mindlessness inherent to genre cinema. Such integrity
is highly welcome too, for it challenges the bourgeois notion of genre as a
prepackaged narrative format. Here, narrative conventions are eschewed like the
lining of fat on meat slices, and only the raw power of instinct remains, allowing us to ponder not only on the nature of genre cinema, but on our own violent instincts as well.
**1/2 Brutal and unapologetic, this
“pure” genre film refuses to let melodrama or even plausibility ruin its gutsy
action scenes.
From the
looks of this unbearable gore comedy, Troma-type bad taste hasn’t aged so well,
nor has it managed to mature along with its dedicated audience of 20+ years. So
before you try and return to the titular Tromaville high school, maybe you
should remember how it was back in the day. Remember the lame jokes, hysterical
acting, inane screenplay and redundant tribulations. Remember it all, and know
that things haven’t changed one bit since then. The nuclear power plant is now
an organic food concern, but the same barrels of shining fluorescent goo lie
within. New actors have replaced the old ones, but they are equally annoying in
their incessant yelling. Scour your memory and you will appreciate just how sterile Kaufman’s studio has
become in its stubborn refusal to evolve. Then, maybe you will find it in your
heart to make yourself a favor and steer clear of this stinking mess.
Tromaville
High used to stand right next to the local nuclear power plant, but some
leakage spoiled the water supplies, causing a massive outbreak of monstrosity
and mischief. Now, the plant has been replaced by a food concern known as
Tromorganics Foodstuffs, which supplies the school cafeteria with highly
dubious morsels. Evidently, the head of the factory is a soulless crook (played
by Lloyd Kaufman himself) and he’s got the high school principal on his side.
Thanks to his help, he manages to unload a massive quantity of noxious glowing tacos on the students, making the whole glee club turn into a roving band of
mutant gangbangers. Mischief ensues as the eco-friendly lesbian protagonist
reluctantly teams up with a rich new girl in order to save the day. There’s a
sex scene between the two near the end, and it’s the definitive highlight of the film. The
aggressive overbid of tomfoolery making up the remainder of the runtime never
manages to elicit more than embarrassed laughter.
Watching Return is like stepping in a nightmarish time warp
Lloyd
Kaufman may be just as young at heart as he ever was, but it is simply because he
hasn’t matured at all through the years, becoming so complacent that he now
recycles his old jokes endlessly so as to desperately keep his dubious brand
alive. Frankly, I think he should stick to the funding of cleverer independent
cinema than his own. With the current revival of 1980s style genre cinema
(exemplified by Astron-6’s Troma-produced Father’s Day), things could be far rosier (and
less embarrassing) for Lloyd if he stepped back behind the director's chair. Here, he merely relies on the nostalgic value of dusty artifacts, digging out a car explosion from a 1980s film (I'm pretty sure it was The Toxic Avenger) to complement a series of dated, overdone jokes featuring crudely caricatured characters, parading Toxies, and pet ducks (later shoved in the mouth of their owners). While it can pass off as a meta-joke to the
most open-minded of viewers, an automotive explosion recycled from another film remains an easy
substitute for blowing up a new car. And that wouldn’t even be so bad if
everything else didn’t seem borrowed from the 1980s as well. Replacing Mayor
Belgoody and a slew of other lard-laden crooks, the school principal is a
typical Troma archetype, and so are the mutated villains, whose punk attire
seem to have emerged from a nightmarish time warp. Hell, there’s even Cigar Face popping in to
quip his famous one-liner from The Toxic Avenger! It sure is all a blast from the past, but that is precisely why we have blast doors...
However mediocre and redundant the rest of the film is, the final insult comes at the end, when Kaufman cheats its audience in the
most abominable way by cutting the story short and providing a mere
cliffhanger as the conclusion to this 85-minute chore. I’ve never seen anything
quite like it. I know the title bears the mention “Volume 1”, but this hardly
justifies an incomplete story. Not only is this unfair to the viewers, who have spent a full 9$
to see a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, but it fills them with anguish at the thought of having to sit through another volume of this stuff just for some closure*. Last time I checked,
narrative cinema was all about telling a complete story within the confines of
a given time span. Cinema is NOT TV. It’s not made to imprison the audience and manipulate them into watching more. Furthermore, this tactic seems like a last ditch effort to squeeze a really old and dry lemon for some juice. It was not enough
for the Class of Nuke ‘em High to generate two inferior sequels and a recent DVD re-release. Now, we
have to endure a “remake/quasi-sequel” broken down in several parts!?! Coming
from an indie production outfit such as Troma, this is a surprising ploy to shamelessly cash in on the previous glory of the brand, a
practice unfit for the greedy corporate heads at Disney, but even more so for a
bona fide genre icon such as Lloyd Kaufman. Shame on you, Lloyd…
* I must admit that I enjoyed the final reference to Carrie, and think that it will make a fine start for the next part, but no flash of genius could've saved the film at this point.
* I must admit that I enjoyed the final reference to Carrie, and think that it will make a fine start for the next part, but no flash of genius could've saved the film at this point.
1/2* Filled to the brim with annoying
overacting and crude humor recycled from earlier Troma films, this latest
effort by the venerable Lloyd Kaufman is a pathetic exercise in regressive
nostalgia. I recommend you slap an old copy of The Toxic Avenger in the VCR instead….
