The Ghoul Report

Baise-moi (2000)

2011-10-10T05:08:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Motel Hell (1980)

2011-10-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Burning (1981)

2011-10-03T15:12:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)

2011-09-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

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

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

Poor Elena is entrapped even by her hair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elena's captivating beauty makes the viewer

particularly adverse to vaginal mutilation

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

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

Contagion (2011)

2011-09-17T09:35:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

Exotic locales abound, as in the best crime capers

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

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

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

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

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

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

Expect to see a lot more panicked telephone calls than

spurting blood and actual drama

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

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

Some Guy Who Kills People (2011)

2011-09-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When does one's misfortune start becoming funny?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Super (2010)

2011-08-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

Not all superheroes can afford fashionable rubber suits and utility belts.
Huh, Batman, you fucking bourgeois douche-bag!

If injecting some much-needed color in the superhero sub-genre (which as of late has all been painted black) sounds like an appealing proposition, then you will probably want to go out and rent a copy of Super today. No trite political intrigue here, nor any overwritten, moralistic, or otherwise gritty attempt at creating a restrictive dramatic canvas. Only fan service, which is what the genre is all about. Overdetermined, drug-dealing, gun-totting villains abound and the retribution for their crimes is brutal and bloody, even gory at times. The protagonist (Rainn Wilson) is the quintessential nerd turned avenger and not simply a good-looking teenager disguised as a nerd disguised as an avenger (such as Tobey Maguire's Spiderman). His sidekick (Ellen Page) is a similar, albeit more seductive, misfit, hers being an obsession for crime-fighting turned exclusively inward, an outlet so to speak, for her manic-depressive unconsciousness. The two paired together form an irresistible tragicomic duo involved in a wide array of oft-hilarious, always politically incorrect schemes, including semi-random beatings, pipe bomb crafting, brutal murders by cars and near-rape. Add a second beauty (Liv Tyler) to the mix, as well as a large cast of seasoned vets such as Kevin Bacon, Michael Rooker and Nathan Filion and you've got a stellar, star-studded indie gem, amounting to a kick in the ribs of Nolan's Batman and the unfortunate tradition of gritty superhero films that it has spawned.

The story of Super is that of Frank (Wilson), a poor, aging diner cook whose two "perfect" moments include his marriage with co-worker, and former junkie, Sarah (Tyler) and that one time when he directed a cop toward the hiding place of a fleeing robber. Suffice it to say that Frank's happiness hangs by a thread, which is severed when Sarah leaves him for local drug peddler Jock (Bacon). Hellbent on getting her back, he acts on his latest "vision" when spurred on by comic book store clerk Libby (Page) and becomes a superhero dubbed "The Crimson Bolt". Armed with a rather large wrench, he patrols the streets in search of petty criminals whom he beats up senselessly until he has worked up the sufficient amount of courage to attack Jock's mansion. When his plan backfires (literally), he turns to Libby for help. Ecstatic with being the Bolt's privileged confident, she insists on becoming his kid sidekick, Boltie, donning a super-sexy outfit for the occasion. And while there is obvious sexual tension between the two, culminating in a surprising rape scene, Frank remains focused on Sarah, which he finally manages to rescue after a lengthy stand-up fight with Jock's goons.

Calling all destroyers!

The first salient feature of this film is the jaw-dropping opening credits, comprised of a crude hand-drawn depiction of the cast involved in a frenzied choreography which had the entire audience clapping vigorously at the screening. And I'm not just talking claps, I'm talking loud cheers. Hell, those credits alone were worth the admission price, colorful and fast-moving as they were, as well as perfectly coordinated with Tsar's pop-rock anthem Calling all destroyers, a so-so song which finds new relevance here. That said, opening credits are one thing, an important one, granted, but a single element in a much more complex ensemble. As they should, they are an integral part of the story, reflecting on Frank's obsessive retreat in a cartoon world which he has created for himself in order to escape from the grim landscape of everyday life. The manic energy contained in the credits, the raw power emanating from the crimson-colored hero, all these elements are the crystallization of a wish made by a helpless nerd, the realization of which constitutes the crux of the narrative. That said, the biting black humor at work here proceeds mostly from how pathetic Frank really is, and how seriously he considers his calling.

Personally, I must say that I entered the theater enticed first and foremost by the perspective of seeing Ellen Page don a skin-tight, green and yellow superhero costume. Hell, just a glance would've been alright. Instead we get, as stoic protagonist Frank puts it, a very "inappropriate", intensely lascivious parade in which she poses seductively while rubbing her body with both hands. Now, that's the kind of fan service one rarely gets from over-intellectual, trend-setting Hollywood. We're not just talking entertainment here, we're talking hysterical, contagious energy seeping from every shot. This includes each hilarious moment of politically incorrect, sometimes highly original humor. Whether you like to see butters or pedophiles getting hit across the face with a wrench, horny girls raping middle-aged men, gun-shopping with rednecks, or tentacle-filled epiphanies, Super has got it in store.

That said, this new film by James Gunn contains just the right amount of Slither to make it work, whereas his former film contained too much thereof and not enough engrossing characters. This time around, Michael Rooker is perhaps a little underused as an empathic henchman, but there are two very enticing leads to cover for Elizabeth Banks and Nathan Filion (who's got a bit part here). As for the tentacles, they are back! And I was happy to see them. I mean, director Gunn clearly entertains a fetish for Japanese tentacle porn, and it shows here, but in a surprisingly novel, disturbingly iconoclastic way. I won't spoil it entirely, but there is that one scene (a definitive highlight of the film) where God himself intervenes using some very intrusive, wiggling tentacles. Playing well outside the traditional Judo-Christian canon, former Troma affiliate Gunn offers us a refreshing portrait of divinity, one of the most original thereof on this side of Mind Games.

By now, you will probably have noticed that I use a large number of superlatives to describe the film. Well, Super is just that kind of film: one that makes you so enthusiastic and content as to distribute hyperboles as generously as one gives out free tickets to a NY Islanders game. It has that effect on people. And the reason why it had a hard time striking a distribution deal? Blasphemy and sex, two things which are rather revered by hardcore film fans, those who crowd film festivals and midnight screenings, those who understand that if film is meant to echo life, it MUST contain blasphemy and sex. Super is not made for critics. It's not made for the MPAA. It's made for fans, for people who would rather have fun watching a superhero film rather than getting tangled in a political intrigue, people who enjoy the fate of little people trying to cope with a real, albeit disgusting world more than that of rich socialites or brainy science students navigating lush dystopian worlds.

Unlikely romance under the bridge of normalcy: Page and Wilson

While focused on fan service, the film manages to create a very engrossing dramatic canvas by emphasizing the everyday aspect of its superhero narrative and by making its protagonists two true-to-life nut-cases, both of whom embody a distinct tradition of costumed escapism. While Frank is the sad, under-confident weakling who dons his gear in order to feel stronger than he actually is, Libby uses it as an outlet for her psychotic alter-ego trapped deep within the confines of her outward shell. Driven by the desire for power, and for freedom respectively, the two individuals are oblivious to social responsibility, which is obvious in their frenzied exaction of justice. Much more than those of any Batman or Spiderman, their motivations are perfectly intelligible to anyone who has ever experienced isolation or a sense of powerlessness. In that regard, Rainn Wilson is perfectly cast in the lead. And while his unforgiving looks do a part of the work for him, the man gives a full, touching dramatic performance culminating in a heart-breaking scene where he asks tearfully begs God to know why he was made such an object of ridicule. Contrary to that of Page, his performance is perfectly subdued, which makes his outbursts of emotion all the more gripping. As for the tiny Canadian, she breezes by on her soft, irresistible looks and addictive screen persona, embodying, as she did so many times before, the whimsical dream girl that guys love to love (entertaining lustful thoughts about her since I first saw Hard Candy, I was surprised to see that ALL of my male friends find her attractive, no matter their usual preferences for busty blondes or redheads). But while she is great in the role of Libby, the comic book clerk, she appears a tad overzealous as hysterical Boltie, especially considering her limited vocal register. That said, her whimsical smile, murderous Wolverine claws, and proclivity for seductive poses make her easily forgiven in the present context.

The only real qualm I have with the film is its getting rid of her character so conveniently. And while it is common practice to eliminate sexualized, or otherwise extroverted women in order to quell the protagonist's dilemma in choosing a mate with whom to live "happily ever after", I didn't expect it from James Gunn. Granted, Boltie is a psycho, and she would have most likely driven Frank crazy with her ramblings had he decided to side with her instead of Sarah. But at least she loved him, with the passion unfortunately reserved only for mental patients. So why should it be okay for him to cum inside her, then violently push her inside (at which point, one can narrowly see her crotch) and subsequently lead her to her death? Why shouldn't we pissed off by that, the wanton murder of such a carefully crafted object of desire? To some, her brutal execution will provide some giddy thrills by way of a nasty shot of her mangled face, but for those who truly love women, it will be an ordeal to watch. And that single tear shed by Frank in her memory, it is not nearly enough to celebrate the myriads of exquisite female characters murdered by the hands of screenwriters hellbent on saving male protagonists from arduous amorous choices, but not from casual sexual encounters. Not nearly enough.

All in all, while director James Gunn is not the most talented filmmaker around, he is fast establishing himself as a true author, one who values viewer satisfaction above all, indulging in all forms of excessive imagery for them to savor anonymously and without guilt. Those who have seen Slither will probably remember that scene where a captive woman is literally torn apart by an army of oily slugs feeding on her innards. As for those who have seen Super, they will effortlessly recall the girl-on-guy rape scene, or the brutal beating of two butters. Personally, I reckon that it is the kind of shit people want to see. Not that their brain demands it, but their guts, where the appreciation of any genre film first springs. After all, what guy hasn't dreamed of a horny girl ripping their pants off? And who hasn't wished of kicking the shit out of annoying line-cutters, or other social parasites? Now, maybe you don't condone such behavior, but surely you sometimes contemplate it. Which is where genre cinema comes in, as a very therapeutic outlet for pent-up emotions, the new pope of which is irreverent James Gunn, who earns his rightful place in the landscape of American genre cinema by making it so that popular cinema becomes crowd-pleasing once more. The man's current rise to (indie) fame comes at an appropriate time when ancient filmmaking traditions are in dire need of new blood in order to counter Hollywood's systematic recycling of used material (particularly foreign genre films and comic books). And while his films are somewhat derivative of older stuff, they revel in excess to a point where genre cinema manages to regain its lost essence as a primordial, visceral form of expression.

3,5/5 Hilarious, irreverent superhero film brings some much-needed color back to the genre while managing to frame an engrossing, true-to-life drama.

You Are Here (2010)

2011-08-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

Philosophy is the art of asking questions, not of gathering answers:
You Are Here

It's hard to delineate You Are Here and make it sound appealing to larger audiences. Actually, it is somewhat of a hard sell anywhere outside the festival circuit, considering popular tastes in matters of story structure and the crowning importance too often given to the literary model of storytelling. Barely narrative, but not technically experimental either, this Canadian oddity rather invites the viewer to play along in a series of philosophical games embodied by several micro-narratives popping up suddenly, then interconnecting in a surprisingly coherent grid of ideas. While amateurishly-produced, the film boasts crisp HD photography used to frame various intriguing, intricate images bursting with meaning.

The merger of several short films, this aggregate entity manages to attain the lofty goal of elaborating a very potent model of the human mind in its reckless search for meaning. Left to fend for himself, the viewer can choose to enjoy it as a puzzle, question its nature or dismiss it altogether, the former of which is the optimal approach to really get a kick out of this rather unique film experience. Because while Your Are Here puts forth a series of questions, some of which are nearly opaque, it also criticizes obsessive over-intellectualism in trying to peg answers down, begging in the process an urgent question about the very nature of philosophy. After all, the latter is the art of asking questions, not of demanding answers. And although answers are more comforting than questions, they merely help the mind stagnate in a cesspool of self-satisfaction, whereas questions open it up to renewing influences. But most importantly, it helps one hover above the mundane acceptance of things as they are, making one ripe to try and change these things. In other words, we could say that You Are Here is actually a revolutionary film for it cultivates the legitimacy of questions over the stagnant process of answer-hunting. That said, while it harbors professorial looks, it eventually amounts to a series of delightful, playful narrative experiences that are sure to draw the viewer in. Believe me, fun is the name of the game here, that is if you manage to adhere to a liberal, non-mechanical approach to its intellectual structure.

Contrarily to many attendees, I didn't stay in the theater for the Q&A, happy enough with what I saw not to be bothered with superfluous, contrived explanations. I rushed aside instead, scribbling away my thoughts incoherently, creating a jumbled amount of notes which I have a real hard time deciphering now. Needless to say that my excitement got the better of me for I had just unearthed an unexpected gem, just as the guy who discovers one morning that his property lies atop a rich oil well. You see, You Are Here was just filler. I had no intention of purchasing a ticket when I first went through the program. But seeing how it lied just between Bullhead and Victims, I decided to give it a try, thus encouraging local production... and not the big Hollywood bullies. I couldn't believe my eyes as the film unfolded, multiplying constantly in a sea of obsessive interlocking episodes, all of which seemed designed to catch over-thinkers off guard. Mimicking the confused protagonists onscreen, those puzzled viewers who fished for immediately intelligible solutions, probably felt frustrated as answers kept eluding them to better give center stage to other questions.

To those people, I would loved to have given this simple answer, which I think sums up the bottom line of You Are Here better than anything else: "the answer lies across the street". You see, while the film played to a sold-out crowd in the De Sève theater, Cronenberg's seminal Shivers was playing in the Hall. And I must say that such a programming choice is tantamount to genius, both films being perfectly complementary in their criticism of over-intellectualism. For those unfamiliar with Cronenberg's first commercial feature film, filmed right here in Montreal, I will etch a brief synopsis.

Discontent with society and its fixation on the intellectual rather than the physical, medical researcher Emil Hobbes devises a parasite made of "venereal diseases and aphrodisiacs" designed to turn normal people into sex-crazed zombies no longer focused on trivial, "intellectual" affairs. At some point in the film, his partner in crime, the fantastically-named Rollo Linsky, quotes him saying: "man is an animal who thinks too much, an over-rational animal that's lost touch with its body and its instincts". While this doesn't warrant the elimination of all thinking humanity, it certainly is true, especially where You Are Here is concerned. Man is an animal that thinks too much. This is precisely what I took out of this latter film as I watched some very helpless characters trying to find precise explanations for facts that would better be delineated using only one's imagination.

A good example of this is the mystery door appearing on the side of a skyscraper. Since it leads nowhere, one of the characters starts obsessing over its origin. And thus, the desire to crack the mystery eventually overwhelms said character, entangling him in the futile pursuit of an unnecessary explanation. It is as if the immediate world around us could no longer be merely felt, but needed to be explained also, as if only an intellectual explanation could be satisfactory in making sense of anything caught by the eye. The film then proceeds to entrap a variety of characters in similar binds, making them search for answers and follow predetermined routes with slavish nonchalance, showing the pursuit of answers as a way to lose sight of the very question to which it pertains.

Ignorance is bliss: children see the world as a place of
wonder, not as a problem to be solved

As I sat in the tiled hall of the Norris building after the screening, I watched people come out of the Q&A and comment on the film. From what little bribes of conversation I could overhear, I understood that many were annoyed with the fact that the film is "merely" a collage of short films, brushing its fragmented narrative aside as a sign of weakness, when it is actually only one of budget. From where I stand, You Are Here cannot be dismissed with one fell swoop. And while it is a collage, it is a pretty awesome one, one that manages to be entirely coherent, even within the vacuum of ideas which constitutes the narrative. Anyways, people should like collages in this day and age, when everything (fashion, art, thought...) is a patchwork of previous forms stitched together for better or for worse. Hell, Montreal is a collage, encompassing colonial-age mansions, international-style skyscrapers and orange-plated apartment complexes within a single block. Many families are collages, crowding houses with tens of children from several different marriages. The importance now is not conformity, but coherence. Hence, while I love Montreal for its uniquely post-modernist look, so too do I love You Are Here as a single entity. Not as a series of questions, but as a living film which precisely mirrors what little grasp we have on our surroundings, and most of all, the crippling desire to find answers where one should formulate a secondary question instead.

That said, if you can't remember your password one morning, when faced with a blank line on the computer screen in your diminutive cubicle, in a vast city of which you occupy but an anonymous 100 square feet, then maybe you shouldn't even try remembering. Instead of trying your best to put one and one together, trying to pinpoint the precise moment of inspiration which has led you to select this or that password, maybe you should ask a question instead, such as "Isn't it better for my session to remain locked and for me to walk out of the office building, into the streets, and as far away from the city as possible?". Better yet, why not start asking "What is the Matrix?" as one jaded daytime programmer once did, and which led him to save humanity from the clutches of rampant capitalism? How about "What data can be so important as to be password-protected?".

Humanity can be dwarfed by the scenery and put into
square blocks only insofar as it accepts boxed knowledge

If the pursuit of knowledge is done mechanically (without conscience), it is null for it becomes akin to the data processing achieved by computers. And at the dawn of 2024, the projected year when computer chips will have the power to replicate the processing power of human neurons, acting like a computer makes one almost obsolete, an empty shell from a dead world. Because while gathering information can be done by men and machines alike, it is the ability to reflect on this data (read: to ask questions) which separates the former from the latter, making humanity more than the sum of its knowledge. Tagging and classifying found objects, or mechanically solving problems doesn't help one achieve sentience, nor does following orders. Thus, I suggest we consider one of the main tenets of Cartesian thought: "I think therefore I am" in order to reclaim our minds from the debilitating effects of capitalism, which disseminates fake equivalences such as "I buy therefore I am" or "I talk/text therefore I am". If we accept to become the simple aggregates of the items we own and the factoids we have integrated as party tricks, then we barely qualify as sentient beings and thus lend ourselves to being literally replicated and replaced by any machine able to store same factoids and eruct them given the appropriate cue. And that is where films such as You Are Here come in to save the day.

The appeal of Cockburn's film lies in a clever mechanism which involves the viewer intellectually, prompting him to try and solve riddles with the film's characters while simultaneously pointing out the rigidity of the answer-gathering process in which they are all involved. This antagonistic process can best be explained by discussing the enjoyment derived from experiencing the film proper. While it works perfectly as a puzzle, drawing the viewer in as if it was an elaborate game room for idiot savants, it loses all relevance if one finds a definite solution to the puzzle, then pushes it aside, hence defusing its potential as a mind-cultivating device. In the end, the very fact that it prompts questions instead of offering answers makes You Are Here a worthy enterprise and one that should be celebrated as a rare example of involving storytelling focused on active film viewers, the final result being more of an intellectual collaboration between the director and his audience than a dry lecture that provides answers to be jotted down in rigidly structured notepads.

3,5/5 A revolutionary film, not so much in a narrative sense as in its ability to tickle the mind and make one remember the majors tenets of Cartesian thought. Also a powerful reminder of 2024 and the consolidation of the idea according to which the quest for knowledge is a purely mechanical process devoid of sentience. One will certainly find shades of Ghost in the Shell in this delectable meta-puzzle.

Midnight Son (2011)

2011-08-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

Jacob, THE definitive emo vampire: Midnight Son

For those who thought the Twilight films were the pinnacle of the emo vampire sub-genre, Midnight Son is a brutal reality check. Behold the one true emo vampire, 24 year-old night watchman and awkward lover Jacob. Condemned to a life of solitude by a strange disease akin to vampirism, he spends his days painting sunsets in his sun-proof city apartment. His complete transformation is coming to a close when he meets night bird Mary, an equally lonesome young woman bearing a dark secret of her own, with whom he manages to forget his loneliness for a spell. The only problem is that Jacob cannot make love to her, on account of his disease manifesting itself in various ways whenever the pair is nearing the bed.

The first time around, a sudden nosebleed (due to Mary's earlier coke consumption) distracts Jacob from the task at hand, leaving him a queasy mess unable to fulfill the desires of the eager lover in his midst. Things get even dicier the second time around, when his eyes take a predatory greenish color while atop Mary, urging him to dash toward the refrigerator and quickly consume a handy pint of blood. The third time is when the girl starts getting really angry with him, right after they engage in some hot preliminaries which are cut short when Jacob freezes, arguing that he cannot "do it" for fear of hurting her.

While the vampire has always been established as somewhat of a sexual predator, rarely has the link between sexuality and vampirism been established so brazenly and so relevantly as in Midnight Son. Jacob's emphasized impotence results from his ill-assumed predatory instinct. In other words, one could say he is a closeted vampire, a direct byproduct of the now-predominant tradition of increasingly fragile male characters. While vampire fangs are a deadly giveaway toward Freudian psychoanalysis, their failure to penetrate the flesh of their female victim is a timely sign of the weakening masculine resolve, extinguished in a sea of female empowerment and shifting sexual models.

Seeing how the new James Bond is a consummate weakling, one finds the perfect example of the identity crisis plaguing the representation of masculinity at the dawn of the 21st century. Originally intended as a phallus, resourceful superman Bond has now found the ability to cry, and hurt, in a bid to create a more realistic, if not necessarily representative male figure for the series' reboot. This identity crisis finds further anchors in the childish looks of international heartthrob Justien Bieber and the mannerisms of bleak-looking Robert Pattinson, who shouldn't even be considered on par with muscular opposite Taylor Lautner. Considering his hypnotic charm and phallic assets, the vampire figure is the ideal vehicle to expose the cultural male's steady weakening, and never has it been done so eloquently as in Midnight Son.

Wishing her boyfriend was Jerry Dandrige, Mary tries
her best to cope with Jacob's impotence.

Unfortunately, the film doesn't score big points for originality or style, content as it is with boring, everyday sets (as urban California contributes its unmatched ugliness to the story) and mild genre novelties. That said, the idea of a sunset-nostalgic vampire is telling but obvious, as well as weirdly underplayed here (Jacob's paintings have narrative weight in themselves but their content nearly doesn't). As for the coffee mug full of blood, it makes for a rather lame marketing gimmick, especially when a simple pair of rubber fangs would've been much more relevant... and intriguing.

Yet, what really struck me here is the characterization of the black antagonist, which in my eye neared racism a little too much. The guy starts out as a street-smart orderly who surprises Jacob trying to steal blood from a bio-hazard container. Intrigued at first, raising surprised eyebrows and smirking wildly, he soon sees Jacob's addiction not as an alarming oddity, but as a way to make money off him. From then on, he seems to become increasingly evil, sequestrating a poor old man in a run-down house in order to harvest his blood, then turning into a vampire himself, and trying to enslave Jacob. While his character provides some much-needed counterbalance to weakling Jacob, he reeks of overdetermined blackness. Maybe I, myself, is being biased, but it seems that any drug-peddling, abusive, street-smart black with well-groomed facial hair owes more to white-perpetrated archetypes than to any honest attempt at characterization. Then again, it is racial discourse such as this which helps create a cleavage between blacks and whites. And so, I'd better keep my thoughts to myself...

In the end, despite the necessary drawbacks stemming from filming a romance with two no-namers and a video camera, Midnight Son contains enough weeny novelties to keep fans interested. But ultimately, it is through meta-discourse regarding the sexual nature of the vampire figure that the film achieves induction in the "higher sphere" of genre cinema, fiercely deconstructing a powerful mythological figure to create a lesser, but more timely monster, the common Western male.

2,5/5 One of those rare examples where self-reflexivity alone can elevate the level of a genre film above its technical and narrative limitations to create an essential historical document.

Knifepoint (2011)

2011-08-18T20:42:00.000-07:00

It's hard not to think about Haneke's Funny Games when watching Knifepoint. Actually, it's hard not to think about his bone-chilling thriller when watching any given home invasion film. Truth is Haneke's uncompromising work has become somewhat of a reference point in terms of film sadism, amounting to what is probably the finest example of torture porn ever to grace the screen. Although it contains no onscreen violence at all, it manages to handle its subject matter with such technical mastery and dramatic savvy as to virtually nullify any attempt at creating a worthy successor.

The reason for Funny Games' efficiency is threefold. Aside from Haneke's directorial skills, the motiveless nature of the antagonists' crimes and their obvious, and very much emphasized, complicity with the filmmakers serve as rocket-powered engines for the straightforward narrative. The feeling of hopelessness pulsating across the screen is the direct result of these two converging factors. Knowing that 1) the antagonists are pure evil, torturing people without any motivation other than torture itself and 2) the viewers and filmmakers are willing accomplices in their crimes, giving them all the latitude necessary to accomplish their nasty deeds, one is caught between a rock and a hard place, unable to watch, but unable to stop watching either. In the end, we are forced, even tortured into contemplating, and detesting our own sadism by the clever filmmaker who entraps us exactly like he entraps his protagonists.

The fact that Knifepoint is produced independently, without so much as a tenth of the talent at work in the former film has no bearing on the present analysis. After all, Knifepoint is a successful film in its own right. As the director so rightfully put it before the screening, the film is primarily meant to shock and it does so with surprising bravado. By upping the ante in terms of how many despicable acts of torture can be shown in a 88-minute film, it deserves to find a loyal audience of gore fanatics and jaded fans of cinematic extremities.

Submission is the name of the game as the protagonists are raped
and tortured for nearly the entire duration of the film

The film contains no less than three rapes (with two more coming dangerously close to fruition), one involving a spit-covered dick, one with a gun and one with a strap-on knife (à la Se7en). Two of the victims are male and one of the aggressors is female, so there is no sexual discrimination here. At least, the film and its violence cannot be solved using gender representation theories. But while it showcases both males and females indulging in atrocious acts of misanthropy, the film is never quite as gripping as Haneke's Funny Games. There are two main reasons for this, the first of which is the very conventional, almost archetypal look of the antagonists, which almost totally prevents any attempt at deeper characterization. The greasy-haired, tattooed ex-cons onscreen can be little more than what one can imagine them to be. Just close your eyes and picture an ex-con. Then, you'll manage to invoke one of the villains from Knifepoint. That said, the introduction of a female villain is hardly a twist for she acts no different than her male counterparts. Now, the second distinguishing factor between Funny Games and the present film involves the villains' motivations, which, while they fail to explain the full extent of their barbarity, are clearly delineated and overdetermined, which in turn makes their evil seem contrived.

The opening credits are somewhat misleading in that regard, and they help defuse the explosive potential of the ensemble. Using rhythmic editing and B&W freeze frames of the antagonists setting up their plan, the filmmakers have effectively, and inexplicably, likened them to the suave, hip rogues from recent capers such as the Ocean films. This is a moot point to make, but you cannot show antagonists in such a positive light and then turn the tables 180 degrees and make them out to be bloodthirsty demons from Hell. You must do one or the other, not both. Even better, you can try nuancing the ensemble, which is admittingly a very hard thing to do considering the specific aims of the film, but one that would have given the film a much needed extra dimension. At any rate, there is no point in setting up the antagonists to such an extent. The duration of the credits should've been allotted to the protagonists instead, allowing the filmmakers to shape them out a little better in order to make us more sympathetic to their plight, which is filmed without a hint of humor to spare our feelings. In fact, any extra attempt at characterization would've been appreciated, or any effort to capitalize on some facts established early on (such as the rivalry between the two sister protagonists). Because as it stands, the narrative clams up once the slaughter starts and the remainder of the film plays like a series of surprisingly uninvolving vignettes.

All bad guys look the part in Knifepoint

Setting up the antagonists as robbers does little to account for their barbarity. If indeed they had been mere robbers, as the intricacy of their plan suggests, they should not want to kill people, and especially in that amount. Of course, there's some slight psychosis affecting the group, but this contradicts the more Cartesian aspects of their psyche at work here. In the end, what it all boils down to is a crime spree perpetrated by inhuman, prison-trained criminals. So you can either see the film as purely a shock film meant to test the limits of one's endurance to disgusting, gratuitous violence or, to a lesser extent, you can see it as a critique of the American prison system and its manufacturing of hardened criminals. Whether or not you want to scratch the surface a bit is up to you but frankly, I can't say that I recommend it for you are unlikely to find anything really meaty underneath.

Seeing how the film is bursting with close-ups of flesh scraps hanging from various types of weapons, I am tempted to think the film as merely a gross-out fest, which isn't bad in itself, considering the type of audiences at which the film is aimed. However, it will never achieve greatness for it is founded on a contradiction of intentions crystallized in the burning desire to explain the inexplicable. A case example of this is the final rape scene. Before the main antagonist proceeds to rape the patriarch with his gun, he starts telling him about the rationale behind prison rape. He goes on to tell him that in prison, rape is made independently of pleasure, even desire. Apparently, it is merely a means to break one's spirit. And so, before jamming a gun in his ass, he assures him that he takes no pleasure out of it, but does it simply for business purposes. Not only is all of this bullshit (there's a direct connection between horniness and prison rape), but it impairs the sense of horror one might derive from such a rape scene. Because it allows the viewer to circumvent the event not as a manifestation of evil, but as a practical action. That said, it is what the mind can't conceive which terrifies it most, and that is how the horror genre has established itself as such a lasting form of expression. Bearing more resemblances to the psychological thriller than to the horror film per se, Knifepoint lacks the dramatic content to make it all stick.

Actually, it is narrative ambivalence which almost sinks the film. Because in the end, Knifepoint is made of restrained excess, hesitating between total gross-out horror and psychological drama, as if unsure of either one's potential to drive the story. By maximizing the bloodletting, it tends to tilt toward horror, but by circumventing it within the confines of a home invasion film, it penetrates the realm of genre-less cinema, with so-so results. Luckily for us, the film lives up to its tagline by offering a record amount of meaty grub, which allows it to redeem itself but only for a thin slice of film audiences, that of jaded gorehounds.

2,5/5: Mean and disgusting, this one will manage to impress even the most hardened gorehounds. Unfortunately, it will not impress anybody else.

Chop (2010)

2011-08-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

With Chop, screenwriter Trent Haaga (Citizen Toxie, Deadgirl) tries his hand at directing with awful results. His would-be comical torture porn film may be less self-indulgent than the Saw films, but it is almost equally moralistic and definitely weaker in technical terms, which should tell you quite precisely how bad it is.

The film's premise is its strongest suit. It involves a recovering drug addict named Lance who crosses path with a very zealous everyman whom he has wronged in the past. The latter eventually kidnaps and tortures his former tormentor in order to pry out an admission of guilt, but Lance confesses to other crimes instead, for which the antagonist is prompt to find victims willing to join him in bloody retribution.

While many important plot points are established only in passing, with crude gestures devoid of emotion (such as the stroking of a crack pipe in order to establish Lance's former addiction), the narrative manages to draw you in somehow, mostly by veiling the nature of Lance's crime against the antagonist and making you wanting to know, even though you will necessarily suspect something so mundane as to jokingly defuse all dramatic tension.

Unfortunately, said intriguing narrative is marred by incredibly unimaginative direction (only halfway does the film break the chain of shots/counter-shots) and a crippling ambivalence between genuine drama and flat-out camp. The awfully limited lead is caught in a similar bind as he struggles to deliver both the lighthearted moments of comedy and the dramatic moments of tension, often grinning or sulking at grossly inappropriate times.

Look closely at the actors' faces. Notice the unease. It is as if the
pair was involved in a mid-term film school project...

Some inspired gore and a decent turn by Timothy Muskatell as the antagonist manage to elevate the whole a bit, but not up to par. The film almost peaks during a grotesque sequence in which a leather-clad S&M freak menaces to cut off the bound protagonist's leg and fuck the stump, carefully selecting the location where he wants to jizz. But as the action is cut short (by a non-collaborative ringleader), so does the film proves its lack of dedication toward its own would-be twisted material. Had there been some stump-fucking, I might have given the film an extra half-star for daring to go the extra mile. But as things stand, there's nothing novel enough here to recommend the film.

In the end, one could say that Chop is either a limp Header or a campy Saw, both of which are awfully bad. There's very little redeeming value here save for a couple of good jokes, which is sad for Muskatell, who does his best as the baby-faced psycho. Narrowly saved by the rather funny "twist" ending, Haaga's first film is best forgotten.

1,5/5 Some intriguing ideas are nullified by mediocre execution in this amateurish torture porn variation.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010)

2011-08-14T15:09:00.001-07:00

There's little to add about this film other than to say that it is one of Tsui Hark's finest. Boasting stellar production values and some unique screenwriting prowess, Mystery successfully incorporates some wildly heterogeneous narrative elements (both realistic and fantastic) into a surprisingly coherent whole, drawing the viewer into a unique universe where anything seems possible. Part political intrigue, part fantasy action, the film juggles historical facts, lighthearted comedy and tightly-choreographed fights so as to blur categorical distinctions in the name of entertainment. Dualistic in nature, it uses both grandiose, would-be realistic sets (such as the Empress' palace and towering gold Buddha) and fantasy locales (such as the creepy underground lair of Donkey Wang), to offer the viewer a fun slice of revisionist history, depicting an exciting era better known through tall tales and hear-say than through hard facts. As such, it becomes a welcome alternative to the dry and slavishly realistic period pieces made in the West, which often sacrifice fun in the mad pursuit of historical accuracy.

Gorgeous art direction at the service of historical recreation...

Highlighted by elaborate, high-flying action scenes choreographed by seasoned vet Sammo Hung and splendid art direction containing a fair amount of seamlessly integrated CGI, the film boasts a lofty budget, every bit of which is visible onscreen. Thus, we are easily drawn in beautiful China, circa 690 A.D., at the dawn of a crowning moment in the annals of history. Wu Zetian is about to embark on the throne as the first female Emperor of all times. For the occasion, she commissions the creation of a towering Buddha overlooking the royal palace. But when the official inspector, as well as a high-ranking police officer succumb to a mysterious flame that consumes them from within, the future Empress starts suspecting foul play and fears that antagonistic forces are plotting against her. That is when she decides to put old qualms to rest and summon an old rival to investigate the case. The titular lawman thus enters the scene, freed by the very same woman who jailed him for conspiracy many years ago. And luckily for everyone, most of all himself, the man is not only an expert at solving crime, but also an expert martial artist, one who will need all his wits and skills to crack the case. Forced to team up with gorgeous, whip-wielding bodyguard Shangguan Jing'er and albino police inspector Pei Donglai, both of whom seem to have a secret agenda of their own, Dee embarks on a colorful adventure along the tracks left by the mastermind behind the phantom flame affair.

...with pulp fantasy being just a step behind.

Using the basic narrative template of the private investigation, the film capitalizes on supernatural answers, which the viewer is unlikely to decipher. And while some might see this as a dishonest way to keep the viewer guessing, it's all in good fun. In fact, one could say that the film actually challenges narrative conventions rather than embracing them, spiking the narrative with twist, after twist, after twist, overly complexifying an investigation that could've been solved in the first minutes of the film. That said, while one can see the resolution of the mystery as the film's finality, it must be said that the way to get there is much more exciting than the objective, as the story finds relevance not as a series of narrative stepping stones, but as a series of set-pieces erected in the name of spectacle. Whether you, the viewer, decide to watch this as one reads a mystery novel or instead experience the film sensually as a child would is up to you. But I would suggest the latter approach.

And while the private investigation template provides a predetermined structure for the storyline, it also allows some very involving inter-personal dynamics to take hold. That said, the interplay between the three charismatic leads is what truly cements the narrative, providing several humorous innuendos, elaborate fight scenes (paramount of which pits the three against the mysterious and resourceful Chamberlain) and loads of tension by way of veiled intentions. In the tradition of the Hollywood noir, friends and foes become indistinguishable as both Dee's allies seem to play for keeps, yet also seem to share his enthusiasm. And so the poor detective must constantly watch his back, knowing that he is scrutinized by both Jing'er and Pei, who respectively report to various levels of government. Each claiming a unique background, they all entertain different motivations for finding the murderer and they all possess different, complementary skills. Lovely Jing'er is established early as a potential love interest, while being simultaneously portrayed as a supremely devoted servant of the Empress. As for creepy-looking Pei, he looks just like a typical back-stabbing sleaze bag, with just enough fighting skills to make him a worthy adversary for Dee. As the film unfolds, one is not so much preoccupied with finding the mastermind behind the two murders, but with finding where Jing'er and Pei's allegiances lie.

Pei and Jing'er are invaluable allies, or are they?

Defying logic, and physics, Mystery indiscriminately mixes reality and fantasy in a bid to tell an entertaining story free of any unnecessary constraints. And while the conclusion might not satisfy mystery fans, the film provides a little something for every genre fan. Most importantly, it reminds us of what cinema is primordially about: imagination and amazement, both of which are usually under-used by period pieces, and Western cinema in general.

3,5/5 A prime example of what genre cinema should be, a wondrous vehicle of creative imagination fueled by the viewer's faith in the magic of cinema.

Red State (2011)

2011-08-14T14:30:00.000-07:00

I wonder what the cynical adulescents of Kevin Smith's early films would have to say about Red State... Just imagine this new outing as The Phantom Menace seen through the eyes of bitchy, over-analytical Randall from Clerks. What would you think he'd say? Would he rip it to shreds? Probably. Would he point out how uncaring the work is in regards to fans? No doubt. Would he ever stop talking about how bad it is? No. And although I am reluctant to praise Randall in any way (except for his hilarious depiction of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and his closing rant against Dante at the end of Clerks), I must say that I felt exactly like him while watching Red State. I felt like an abused fanboy ready to latch out violently against what I considered to be a cruel trick by Smith. However, it also got me thinking of a practical way to remove the horrible shit stain left on the screen by the director. Another film, a sequel, about the reactions of nerdy fans to his abysmal new film. Then maybe he could redeem himself, seeing how he can only make relevant films when they're entirely located within the confines of malls, convenience stores, studios and other such places where slackers congregate to talk shit about this or that dreadful cultural product.

Are you seeing what I'm seeing?

Three high school slackers decide to go out one night and leave their boring suburban town in search of pussy. After selecting a nameless pair of tits from a singles website and making sure that its proprietor is willing to fuck them all at once, they hit the road in daddy's car and head for a distant trailer isolated by the dark, rural surroundings. Unfortunately for them, something unholy and ill-intentioned is also lurking in the shadows, ready to jump out and claim their soul. Demented preacher Abin Cooper, a composite archetype inspired by Fred Phelps and David Koresh, has actually lured the young men into the trailer in order to capture them and make them pay for their sins. Intended to die in a ritualistic execution, one of the guys escapes, but it doesn't matter, for his story becomes secondary as soon as the cynical fed played by John Goodman appears onscreen. The remainder of the film sees Cooper and his fanatical followers pitted against Goodman's agents in an endless, uninvolving gunfight, which drags the narrative slavishly to the end, where a succession of jokes finish defusing the mood set up in the first twenty minutes.

While eagerly anticipated by flocks and flocks of fans, Kevin Smith's new film, a confused hodgepodge of torture-porn-cum-action comedy, plays strictly for cheap laughs and dry, witless cynicism directed at the most obvious of targets, the Southern red states. In the literal sense, a red state is simply a Republican state. Hence, the film title alone should tell you just how unfocused Smith's attack on conservatives is. Gun-toting, gay-bashing, religious fanatics abound. Sometimes ridiculed to the point of silliness, sometimes gravely depicted, they never come off as characters. They're mere archetypes crafted to push on the viewer's buttons instead of being cogs in a real narrative. Such indeterminacy plagues the entire film, starting with the early promise of torture porn, which quickly evaporates to set the stage for a never-ending action sequence that would feel more at home in a Michael bay film. Torpedoed by Smith's unsure foot at the helm, and in the editing room, this film is a highly unwelcome departure from the character-driven, slacker-realist comedies that have made fat, bearded Smith a staple of the American indie scene. It is an ill-advised attempt at generating cynicism outside of his comfort zone and away from the involving and everyday look of his better outings. New rarely means better, and it is certainly not the case here.

Don't be fooled by the gag; this ain't a horror film.

I will not fiddle with the puck here, as Smith did while shooting his film. Red State is an exercise in futility, a tedious, never-ending series of uninspired, flavorless vignettes trying to pass off as a legitimate, high-minded critique of religious extremism. And while the main antagonist manages to give an occasional jolt of electricity to this lifeless outing, he cannot balance the shit-filled scale that is the narrative. Red State is probably one of the worst Fantasia films I have seen in years, and certainly the worst Kevin Smith film out there. While the famed anecdotalist struggles to create a coherent storyline out of the many big ideas and genre inclinations contained in the film, he also struggles in the editing room, where he multiplies the abrupt cuts and awkward alternations of contrasting moods contributing to the atrocious pacing of the ensemble. Cutting back and forth between genuine moments of dramatic tension, mean-spirited snippets of over-the-top violence and absurd comedy bits, the film ultimately amounts to a confused and highly dubious mish-mash of ideas thrown in a mixer, which is then flicked on with crossed fingers. It's like throwing the entire contents of your vegetable crisper in a blender, pushing the button and hoping for the best. In this case, Smith hadn't realized that there were lots of rotting onions and rancid kelp in the mix, which is probably what caused the debilitating sickness of his narrative.

Michael Parks does what he can to try and
bring a silly caricature to life

Aiming to please both his own fan-base and the horror film crowd, Smith manages to please neither. Because while he sets up an horror film early on, he never follows up on this, nor does he manage to craft the kind of likeable slackers and engrossing, over-the-top situations which he is famous for. Drawing energy from the torture porn premise he apparently vows to update, Smith offers horror fans a tantalizing perspective, which he never capitalizes upon. Instead, he abruptly branches into Greengrass-esque territory, leaving his three leads in the dust and starting anew, with a new protagonist and a new, lighter mood at the halfway mark of the film. The ultra-lengthy, but strangely involving monologue meant to establish Cooper as a delusional, but charismatic monster is thus defused and so are all the efforts made to establish mood up to that point. After that, the film never recovers, deconstructing and rebuilding itself endlessly much to the dismay of the viewer. Throw in some useless, incongruous peripheral characters such as the gay sheriff portrayed with unease by Stephen Root and you've got a narrative far too dense for its own good. Had I trusted my instincts, I would've walked out when the boat started drifting away toward the maelstrom of irrelevance. But I stayed instead... which isn't bad, considering the extra ammo I was given to whine about the film, and thus, to stay true to Kevin Smith, whom I still love.

1/5 Throw a whole bunch of narrative influences, bland caricatures and one hell of a vain, overlong gunfight together without any discrimination and you get something like this: an empty, uninspired farce that will forever scar Smith's filmography.

Another Earth (2011)

2011-08-14T12:33:00.000-07:00

Imagination doesn't cost a penny: Another Earth

Young star and co-writer Brit Marling teams up with ex-boyfriend director, and fellow writer Mike Cahill to create somewhat of a rare gem: an effective, low-budget sci-fi film relying on human emotions rather than dry philosophical ideas to fuel its thesis. The result is a memorable film that will leave you shaken up, and one of the finest examples of indie cinema's power to capture the most intimate, and thus most relevant aspects of life. It is also a welcome addition to the sci-fi genre, which has almost vanished from contemporary screens, except in various truncated or diluted forms. Using the multiverse theory, the film questions the perennity of human mistakes and the dynamics of atonement and forgiveness as two complementary processes.

The protagonist of Another Earth is a brilliant young woman who commits an unforgivable act of vehicular manslaughter during a minute, drunken moment of inattention. Following a party thrown to celebrate her induction at the M.I.T., Rhoda takes her car home and inadvertently crashes into a BMW driven by renowned composer John Burroughs, killing his wife and son, while leaving the poor man in a coma. She draws four years in prison for this, during which the world becomes increasingly interested in the most recent astrological find, Earth 2, a mirror copy of the blue planet hanging in the sky as a tantalizing promise of hope. On its alien surface, speculation has it that another seven billion souls are living as we do, sharing our names and backgrounds while dwelling in mirror cities. The very find of Earth 2 coincides with the night of the crash, and it is actually the spectacle thereof which has caused Rhoda to stare away from the road for an instant, thus destroying the four lives of Burroughs, his wife, his son, and herself.

Unfortunately for physics-buff Rhoda, her Cartesian mind has no interest for Earth 2 after four years in jail but as an hypothetical source of atonement. You see, if one believes that their exact double lives on the mirror planet, sharing their name, appearance, background and so forth, one is also entitled to believe that a discrepancy might arise regarding the question of life choices. After all, aren't we, parental and social influences aside, simply the sum of the choices we have made through the years? For better or for worse, haven't we defined ourselves beyond the scope of our natural traits only by being cowardly at times and courageous at other times? To Rhoda, this question is of particular relevance. After all, what would be her life if she hadn't killed? What if the other Earth hadn't distracted her during that fatal moment four years before? Where would she be today? At M.I.T.? Probably. And if so, would she be close to solving the mystery of the obsessive doppelganger? At any rate, she certainly wouldn't be cleaning for a living, which she decides to do after hard time in jail has made her a social pariah. But then again, she wouldn't have the chance to cross paths with Burroughs either, and try to find atonement in the real world, while struggling with the raw emotions necessary for one to become truly human.

Aren't we the sum of our life choices?

Curious about the fate of her victim, Rhoda Google-searches him (how contemporary!) and learns of his address. And so, she works up the courage to contact him and ask for forgiveness. But when she is finally faced with the man, and the derelict looks he harbors, she is overwhelmed and quickly decides on a subterfuge to explain her visit. Seeing how she is a professional maid, she offers the ill-organized widow a highly dubious "trial cleaning". Right after rebuking her, Burroughs eventually accepts the proposal, on account of its gratuity, opening his home, and his secrets, to Rhoda. If the reigning disorder is any indication of the man's shattered resolve, things are very far from hunky-dory. And so, the young woman sets to work, literally and metaphorically putting order back into his life. To put it another way, she tries to give him back his life in exchange of her own, which she has abandoned after joining the caste of ex-cons.

That said, her ex-con status unlocks another narrative path when she decides to enter a contest to win a trip to Earth 2 as part of a leisurely trip organized by an opportunistic transport company. The rules are simple. All she has to do is write a 500-word essay, convincing said transport company that she is an ideal candidate for the trip. Romanticizing herself a social undesirable like the whores and criminals who crossed the Atlantic toward the New World, she claims to be a perfectly expandable crew member. As the story unfolds, this and the other narrative paths established earlier will converge to form a surprisingly coherent whole, one that leaves just the right amount of unanswered questions so as to stimulate the viewer while managing not to alienate him.

The screenplay contains many "what ifs" as does the imperfect human soul, devoured by nostalgia and grief. But as these questions multiply, we realize that they all bear the same answer, an earthly answer, anchored in the tangible world we experience everyday and delineated, as all things earthly, by the spectrum of human emotions. Earth 2 can thus be understood as nothing more than a wish distracting one from the more concrete, more real aspects of life. After all, asking "what if" only amounts to wishful thinking and it never helps one solve the problems ahead of him. That said, there is only one way to go and it is forward, not backward or sideways. The only forks in the road that one should contemplate are the ones ahead. Previous ones, the choice of an occupation, the choice of a mate or the choice of driving drunk for example, have since been crystallized into static memories. And instead of dwelling on these memories, one should use the emotional content therein as a driving force and shed the hypothetical "what ifs" embodied by the multiverse theory.

After all, one has but one life to live, and this is how the two protagonists eventually make sense of human existence, helping each other in times of need to the fullest extent allowed by their flaws and character limitations. Painful memories and the desire to overcome those memories is what fuels them, allowing them to grow beyond their immediate feelings into the more noble realm of human virtues. Thus, forgiveness and atonement become more than "what ifs". They become a beautiful reality as two complementary processes involving two complementary beings whose lives are intertwined both in love and hate and whose bodies and minds are probed and felt by each other in a celebrated sense of communion, which makes Another Earth one of the most relevant, most touching films I have seen this year at Fantasia.

The intimate camera perfectly delineates the Earthly
nature of the drama at hand

Narratively, the film achieves the crucial task of infusing the sci-fi premise with palpable human drama, without which the genre is no less sterile than an action film without action. This is achieved through the issues delineated by the screenplay, as well as through the sense of immediacy brought forward by the clinging hand-held camera. Oftentimes, it transforms immediacy into urgency, such as when it frames Rhoda's pale skin in close-up as she bares her body and lies down in the snow in order to die the frigid death she thinks she deserves. Drama is multiplied tenfold by the crisp, inhospitable aspect of the snow against her fragile skin as captured by the prying eye of the lens. Then there is that love scene, or the sight of Rhoda's finger tapping on a wooden table, all little things on which the camera focuses, giving the viewer the impression that there is no space between life as they experience it everyday and life as it is captured onscreen.

And while the camera frames details in order to better flesh out the tangible reality of the narrative, so too does the screenplay uses everyday details to seamlessly integrate the sci-fi elements within said narrative. To that effect, the film contains a blabbermouth DJ, who comments mundanely about the discovery of Earth 2, as if it were no more than a traffic incident. Then, there is that wonderful scene in which a woman scientist tries to make contact with the not-so-distant planet, managing to reach another woman scientist whom she establishes as a mirror self using a common childhood memory, that of "space berries". If God is in the details, than so is the crafting of an involving sci-fi film. And while the simple use of everyday elements to anchor otherworldly concepts in a readily intelligible reality trumps the recourse to overly elaborate, extravagant devices and situations (such as futuristic space shuttles or apocalyptic disaster scenes), it also allows idea-driven efforts such as Another Earth to bypass budget limitations. That said, a mere imprint of Earth hung in the sky becomes a very powerful narrative device. Actually, it was the sight thereof which sold me to the idea of the film. I mean, here's another hospitable planet in our midst. What does it hold? The dream of any space explorer, or anybody with the slightest inkling of imagination is suddenly realized. That promise alone is enough to warrant the purchase of a ticket. As for the fact that the narrative contained within is just as subtle and involving as that promise, it is almost miraculous.

4/5 Indie cinema at its best: wits defy low production values to create a supremely engrossing sci-fi wonder.

Helldriver (2010)

2011-08-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

Loud, dark and filled to the brim with compulsory slow motion shots of gushing blood, this is a typical example of Nikkatsu/Sushi Typhoon's recent line of gore-drenched action melodramas. Relying on a derivative storyline and flat characters constructed from traumatic flashbacks, Helldriver manages to reach its goals not with the accumulation of pickled body parts and blood hoses within the gloomy scenery, but with some genuinely exhilarating battle scenes scattered about, mostly near the end, and a crowd-pleasing screenplay involving many key concepts of the zombie sub-genre.

The story is simple, but it involves many heterogeneous elements making for a surprisingly coherent, if completely implausible whole. Kika (Yumiko Hara) is a school girl who comes home one day only to find her helpless father being murdered by her psychotic mother (Eihi Shiina) and uncle, caught grounding the meat harvested from his severed legs in order to eat it succulently later. Joining the endless parade of emotionally shattered schoolgirls in the Japanese genre film landscape, Kika vies revenge and she pits her resolve squarely against her demented mother. While facing each other atop a car near the projects they call home, evil Rikka is suddenly struck by a meteor which digs a round hole in her body, right where her black heart used to be. In order to survive and commit further atrocities, she decides to rip her daughter's heart out and plug it back into her severed, but still pulsating arteries. Logic is suspended for a spell as she does so, leaving the heroine to die in front of her eyes while she laughs frantically.

The bitch is back: devilish temptress Eihi Shiina stars
as monstrous head zombie Rikka

Fast-forward many months, as Kika awakens to a new world order in which the recently dead are rising from the grave and eating the living as a result of the widespread infection caused by alien fumes from the meteor. Following pressures from human rights groups claiming that "zombies are people too", Japan is split in two halves, not unlike the British Isles from Neil Marshall's Doomsday. One half shelters the disenfranchised survivors, while the other half acts as a vast reservation for the infected. All the while, the government is secretly elaborating a program of zombie-killing cyborgs meant to eradicate the plague, the prototype of which is Kika, harboring a metal-plated, external pace-maker and a chain-katana plugged to a backpack full of gasoline.

As the plot unfolds, Kika befriends the head of a humble orphanage and his last remaining protegee, both of which are rummaging through the zombie wastelands, harvesting zombie horns for a local kingpin. You see, the grounded horns are used to create a powerful, hallucinogenic drug fetching a high price amongst the desperate poor living in shantytowns near the border. But when the battle-weary trio is arrested during a drug bust, they are forced by the new, anti-zombie government to infiltrate the Northern reservation and annihilate the head zombie, source of the plague. Of course, that head zombie is none other than Rikka, whose evil knows no bound and whose beating heart was stolen from a daughter hellbent on getting it back. The ensuing series of battles is not to be missed.

Not unlike Tokyo Gore Police, Helldriver is
also a crude political satire

I apologize for this lengthy, and mostly superfluous description of the film. Let's just say I got carried away trying to expose every one of the numerous plot points making up the narrative. After all, while the film goes all over the place, discussing important issues pertaining to drug addiction, government abuse, poverty and human rights, all within the restrictive framework of the Nikkatsu action melodrama, it manages to make sense, in a twisted, synthetic sort of way. And although no one will attend the film hoping to find anything other than ruthless gore and grotesque monsters, it's fun to find some substance in the screenplay, which, while not fully original, is a worthy addition to the zombie sub-genre, if only for its all-inclusive take on the living dead mythos.

Still, this is a crowd-pleaser, complete with imaginative, highly energetic action sequences and loads of immoral violence, directed at everyone from innocent bystanders to bloodthirsty zombies. Using a jittery camera, rapid editing and a super-loud soundtrack, the film provides all the excitement one could expect from such fare, while throwing many neat gimmicks all across the battlefield. The protagonist's motored chain-katana is one of those, and so are the modular zombie limbs used to create horrendous vehicles, flying booby traps and over-powered composite zombies. The grand finale set atop a flying giant made from thousands of slithering zombies perfectly exemplifies the extravagant Japanese approach to genre film-making, one that relegates the dramatic issues so dear to Western cinema to the backseat of a hot-rod driven by the immediate impulses and desires of the film audience. And while such an approach is bound to exacerbate the shallowness of its narrative material, it makes for some pulse-pounding, highly-entertaining films that are unimpaired by morality or plausibility.

Helldriver, your number 1 source for chicks
with metal breastplates and chain-katanas

In the end, all you need to know about this film is that the action is fast and furious and the violence messy and ruthless. Add to that a sexy, tall and thick-lipped protagonist and a manic performance by iconic villainess Eihi Shiina, and you've got what genre fans crave: a relentless effort made with contagious zeal by a bunch of genre fans like themselves. That said, the film contains a fun little reference to Odishon that shan't be lost on fans of Miike's seminal one-scene film. Enjoy.

2,5/5 Zany, but derivative crowd-pleaser is, as tagline states, a full-fledged "joy ride".

Love (2011)

2011-08-14T06:52:00.000-07:00

Contrarily to what some critics would have you believe, Love is not too ambitious. The problem here lies not in scale or feasibility, but in the crew's lack of confidence in their own skills as filmmakers. And while it does seem like an ordeal to seamlessly merge two timelines almost two hundred years apart (one will probably be reminded of Aronofsky's The Fountain here), it could've been carried out successfully hadn't it been for the overwhelming soundtrack by Angel & Airwaves and the overly wordy screenplay. But as it stands, despite great cinematography and some extremely crafty art direction (the futuristic space station and replicated 19th century battlefield are a sight to behold), the film reminds one of a music video, stretched to the unbearable length of 90 minutes.

Early jitters: first-time director Eubank isn't convinced by
the intelligibility of his images, needs explanatory dialogue to
complement every one of them

The year is 2039. Gunner Wright stars as Lee Miller, a single astronaut aboard a space station, which he is given the task of maintaining. All is well and good until the man loses contact with his base back on Earth and becomes stranded in the sidereal void, completely cut-off from his loved ones, and the oh-so awesome humanity he has left behind. At first, he manages to keep his sanity by exercising and trying his hand at the ship's comm station. But as years pass by, he becomes increasingly desperate and starts sinking into madness, which is depicted with all the conventional signs thereof (endless monologues, writings on the wall, hallucinations, dwindling personal hygiene...). At some point, Miller stumbles upon a handwritten diary describing the exploits of a soldier in the American Civil War on a mission to investigate some alien remnants in the desert. And thus, two distinct timelines collide, the earliest of which contains the brief, introductory chapter of the film. As the astronaut starts reading, endlessly pursuing a tedious conversation with himself, so does time pass, until the year 2045, when he decides to exit the space station, no matter the cost.

And so Miller's ordeal lasts from 2039 through to 2045, two dates which weren't chosen arbitrarily. After all, the film is about memory, memory as one's last recourse against death. Since science has now located the cradle of thoughts and feelings directly in the brain, death necessarily implies the disappearance of what we understand as "conscience". While this has allowed the liberation of many from the clutches of religion, it has also left them in a distressing void. The death of one's conscience is not a very exciting perspective and so people strive to be remembered after their deaths so as to attain immortality through agency. That is why one needs peers so dearly: for remembrance, and for providing material on which to leave a lasting imprint. And so the titular emotion, while it is hardly an item that can be precisely delineated, is understood as a way to leave an indelible mark on humanity and thus transcend the reality of death, which is what grants it supreme relevance within the narrative.

This is all well and good and there are many unseen depths to the screenplay. Unfortunately, the execution is completely atrocious. While one would need to reflect on the images onscreen and to bask in solitude in order to better understand the protagonist's plight, the director constantly overwhelms us with the presence of humanity. While silence would've best befitted most scenes, as Love vies to use absence in order to convince its audience of the need for agency, we get deafening music all the way through. And I do mean deafening, as the soundtrack becomes increasingly distracting from the images at hand. Then, there's the incessant blabbering as lonely Miller enters in an endless dialogue with himself, his home base and various hallucinatory characters.

Director Eubank seems to think that Angels & Airwaves hold
the whole world in the palm of their hand

Hell, there is one instant where he picks up an instruction manual detailing how to service a certain control panel. When he does, the camera frames the pages as he flips through them. A Russian text appears onscreen. And so we understand that the protagonist cannot grasp the instructions. Any further reaction of frustration coming from him should become immediately intelligible. So there is no need to have the actor whine about the instructions being in Russian, or worst, make a joke about it. So why does director Eubank do it? Is it because he doesn't give us credit for understanding the images onscreen, or is it rather that he doesn't give himself credit for creating immediately intelligible images? In all fairness, I believe that the latter assumption is true, and that is precisely what torpedoes the film.

While the images Eubank crafts bear some definite narrative weight in themselves, the man decides instead to put sound in charge of propelling the storyline. Which is a terrible mistake considering that the film aims (not unlike Tarkovsky's wondrous adaptation of Lem's Solaris) at cultivating a sort of nostalgia for human contact and what one could call the paramount human feature, love. And while it is hard to convey the feeling of love through the sight of Malibu sunsets (which Miller dubs the grandest sight he ever beheld) and some snippets of a half-naked beach bimbo (the astronaut's wife) who seems to have crawled out of some Miami strip club, it is even harder to convey solitude when the film is crowded with extra-loud noise and incessant dialogue. Strangely unhappy with the well-composed shots he has painstakingly crafted, Eubank doesn't abide by the principle according to which an image is worth a thousand words. He rather seems to think that each image is worth no word at all, and that they all need to be complemented by a thousand words. This creates a film far too dense for its own good, one which eventually self-destructs under the weight of its own uncertainty. It is as if every point Eubank was trying to make couldn't be shown pictorially, but needed instead to be hammered home with an abundance of dumb, explanatory texts and one hell of a nasty power drill called Angels and Airwaves, which ends up numbing the viewers' sensory apparatus to the point of obliviousness.

A distinct feeling of déjà-vu overshadows the entire project

The use of talking heads is a further example of Eubank's lack of self-confidence, and a surprising one at that. Popping up here and there while the main narrative is unfolding are random people's confessions, all of which would feel more at home in a TV report about recovering alcoholics. While all these interventions follow a common thread, each vying for the need of human agency, they feel completely superfluous considering the nature of the narrative, which itself emphasizes that point a great deal. Said interventions actually impair the flow of the film and its unrealized need for absence. They also point to the crippling legitimacy crisis plaguing Eubank's work. By resorting to such a vox populi, the director seems to require outside intervention to help him establish his own, very personal message, trading the author's mastery over his own material for the reassuring multiplicity of arguments. Unfortunately, a film is not a philosophical treaty and so the accumulation of proof will not necessarily amount to a better result, only a more tangled one.

Strangely enough, ex-cinematographer Eubank doesn't even seem to grasp the importance of cinematography in setting the mood of a film, but also in telling the story outright. And so he relies far too heavily on sound, as if trying to find crutches for an Olympic sprinter. Metaphors aside, his film would've been much, much better had there been no sound at all and had one been given the chance to watch the screen and not the cracks forming behind the speakers. In a bid to strengthen his central thesis by every mean at his disposal, and trying to make sure everybody got the point, what Eubank ended up doing is alienating his target audience, fans of space as a black, empty void, those very people who look at the stars in quiet awe, hoping that film could capture, as Kubrick, Tarkovsky and Scott did, the feeling of wonder one derives from otherworldly silence and solitude. Which is precisely the kind of expectations that the director generates when blatantly referencing untouchable classics such as Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey, two films without which most of the ideas contained in Love would be non-existent. That said, attempting to crossover those two latter films is a very dangerous move for it necessarily forces comparison, highlighting Eubank's weaknesses as a director and making his film seem pointless.

Upon exiting the theater, a close friend and sci-fi enthusiast voiced his lack of appreciation for Love with a somewhat relevant question: "Whose idea was it to make a lesser copy of 2001?", he asked. And while this comparison is rather unfair, it should precisely reflect the inner reaction of any film buff at the threshold of the revolving doors. After all, Eubank's work will always draw that kind of resentment for it replicates too many of Kubrick's images without even thinking twice about their contemplative nature. But while some might call this a travesty, I call it merely a faux-pas. After all, the man at the helm shows some definite potential, which he shall exploit fully when he stops borrowing and finds a voice of his own.

2/5 Love underplays some superb pictorial assets to better showcase its derivative ideas, knack for superfluous dialogue and pathological obsession with Angels and Airwaves (from whom the title of the present film is borrowed!). It's a shame because first-time director Eubank shows some definite potential, which should come to fruition when he starts taking control over his own material.

Fantasia 2011 (Day 16)

2011-08-13T21:40:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY, JULY 29

A typically varied, typically lonely *sigh* night at the festival. I actually had four films scheduled for July 29th, Les lèvres rouges (aka Daughters of Darkness) being neatly tucked between the screenings of Beyond the Black Rainbow and Rabies. But seeing how the first film started late, how I didn't want to be involved in a silly rat race like that of Wednesday night, how I wanted to dedicate some time for a proper meal, and how I actually own a copy of the film, I eschewed that screening and grabbed a bit of Chinese instead, where I caught a glimpse of Brandon Trost, star of The FC (his eye-patch does leave a lasting impression).

Then, I managed to gather the fleeting thoughts garnered from the screening of fantastic Canadian oddity Beyond the Black Rainbow. After a scant hour of feverish scribbling in my notepad, I was ripe for Rabies, the first ever Israeli horror film I would see. When that treat of a film ended, I should've called it a night and left the Concordia campus fully content with what I had seen that day. But being the excessive completist that I am, I just had to stay for Horny House of Horror, holding on to the thought that one of my friends would actually honor his desire to see the film and come join me for the midnight screening. Sitting patiently, scribbling with far less intensity than before, I craved his arrival, knowing in the depths of my heart that he certainly wouldn't come, but still hanging on to the thought that he would suddenly emerge, and that we could share a well-needed joint prior to entering the deserted Hall theater. But as it stand, I had to see the film as sober as a pope, and as underwhelmed as any mainstream movie-goer would be, given the spectacle of yet another poorly-produced, excessively gory Japanese button-pusher. And while I wasn't actually surprised by what I saw, I kinda wished that I had been...

FILMS SEEN

Beyond the Black Rainbow
The best surprise this year, the present film acts as the missing link between horror cinema of the 70s and the 80s. Read full review here.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

Rabies
Greatly produced Israeli horror surprises you at every turn. A rarity in an overcrowded genre. Read full review here.

THUMBS UP

Horny House of Horror
Technically and narratively inept Japanese quickie contains enough severed cocks and naked breasts to please hardcore fans. Others should avoid it. Read full review here.

THUMBS DOWN

Fantasia 2011 (Day 15)

2011-08-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

THURSDAY, JULY 28

Only one film? Two reasons for that. First, the sold-out screening for Absentia, which repelled me beyond the limits of the De Sève theater following Surviving Life. Secondly, the book launch (for Vies et morts du giallo) that got me drinking whiskey amidst tightly-knit friends and interesting strangers, whom I was too pathologically timid to approach. Story of my life: I finally do something good with my life (contribute an essay to a collective study of the giallo), something that could open me up to outsiders who might look a bit like myself, maybe just enough to generate a tacit bond, somewhat of an intellectual link maybe. But then I clam up and rush toward the most familiar of friends, the most predictable of relationships... and I drink. Whenever I have to deal with anyone outside my close circle of friends, I drink. I figure that it is the only way for my tongue to loosen, for me to do more than just stand awkwardly and fiddle with my right shoulder (which is also what I do on any given dance floor). But it is actually the best way for me to look like the alcoholic that I am in front of everybody, and for all of my inhibitions to drop, prompting me to dash toward the nearest exit every time and just wander back home where I feel safe and secure. Yep... another righteous night of bullshit for me, and another perfect occasion to look like a total retard when it should've been a chance for celebration...

So, I drank whiskey at Reggie's, whiskey being the sole salary I drew for the tens of hours I spent on my essay. Then as soon as I could, when the clock hit 6 o'clock, I quickly rounded up all of my friends and dragged them outside for a wild walk across downtown to the edge of the East Side. That was fun, if entirely conventional. Talking bullshit with guys such as myself, being myself in the process, and letting the alcohol slowly invest my veins and crown my brain with a tiara of warm inebriation. The sights and sounds of the city, but mostly the familiar voices of my friends, these were the things I managed to enjoy on that night, not the stuffy and awkwardly peopled interiors of Reggie's bar. Yet... it wasn't where I had put my most feverish expectations. And so I disappointed myself for the umpteenth time... making a proverbial fool out of this painfully honest narrator endlessly dissecting himself in the present lines.

FILMS SEEN

Surviving Life

Maybe the biggest disappointment this year, Svankmajer's latest is a technically subdued affair that embraces psychoanalysis so slavishly as to make you wonder about whether or not the man at the helm is still an iconoclast. The film chronicles the life of a dream raider who escapes from everyday tedium in the arms of a mysterious woman in red. While the premise is very intriguing (one is likely to think his dreams in terms of escapist fantasy), their interpretation is much less so as it is done using a strict psychoanalytical framework. The result is a silly investigation film that manages to keep you guessing only to provide overdetermined, unsatisfactory answers at the end. The repetitive, computer-generated stop motion animation actually contributes to the tedium which it is the objective of the film to escape. Shades of Alice and Conspirators of Pleasure seem light-years away.

THUMBS DOWN

Fantasia 2011 (Day 14)

2011-08-13T21:37:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY, JULY 27

Now here's another festival day involving a typically hair-brained scheme of mine. You see, being the Canadian film history buff that I am, I really wanted to see both Un génie, deux associés, une cloche (a spaghetti Western shot in French and starring Robert Charlebois) and Death Weekend (Canada's answer to the American rape revenge films of the 1970s). Of course, I didn't know by then just how generic and underwhelming the latter film would reveal itself to be. And so I entertained great expectations for that particular title, seeing it as a landmark in Canadian exploitation cinema.

At any rate, for me to catch both screenings, I had to cover the distance between the Norris Building and the Cinémathèque in... 0 minutes. The only chance I had was that I could shave a couple of minutes from the first screening by dashing away as soon as the screen went black and jumping into a taxi. But that was without taking into account the numerous construction sites I had to cross on my way. Ultimately, I ended up paying 15$ for a trip that would've been only scant minutes longer had I decided to run all the way. Still, while I missed some exposition at the beginning of the second film, I didn't miss any of the "action" as the home invasion hadn't started by the time I crossed the threshold into the familiar darkness. Then, gasping for air during for quite some time, I set down to appreciate the rare offering that was Death Weekend... but I bitterly found out that I couldn't.

Needless to say that I was fairly disappointed by the film, and by the fact that it made me eschew a dodgeball practice. Seeing how little Death Weekend has to offer, I actually felt cheated by the programmer who made me want to see it on pretensions that it was a serious offering that could contend with the American heavyweights from the same era. Still, I have only myself to blame for I was so blinded by desire as to completely disregard a mediocre review from a reliable source, which I had read the very same day, convincing myself that there still could be something to the film, something that snooty film critics might disregard on account of its shocking nature. Rape revenge films have that effect on me. Actually, any film which is tagged as "extreme" is an instant must-see in my book, making me oblivious to common sense. But in the end, as is common in all areas of life, an unpleasant taxi ride was to show me the truth behind the very fabric of the universe.

Luckily, I still had the last film, and the accompanying celebration of director John Landis (who received a lifetime achievement award that night), emphasized with great energy by the very same loud-mouths who peopled his Animal House back in the 1970s. A sold-out Theater Hall is always a sight to behold, and especially if it is filled with contagious love for film. On that day, love was fueled not only by its own sense of exhilaration, but by a splendidly manic retrospective of the director's work, which made the crowd as ecstatic as a speeding car on nitro. That said, the film at hand was a shoe-in for the audience to which it was shown and a delightful ode to the dumbly, unpretentious comedies of the 1980s, with Isla Fisher as an added bonus to top the cake. Still, on this rather fruitful night at the festival, Un génie was by far the tastiest treat.

FILMS SEEN

Un génie, deux associés, une cloche
Another of this year's special treats, this rarely seen comedic western boasts a star-studded cast that includes Terrence Hill, Patrick McGoohan, Miou-Miou, Klaus Kinski and homegrown music legend Robert Charlebois in the role of self-denying Indian swindler Locomotive Bill. Infused with a large dose of slapstick brilliantly carried out by veteran Hill and a memorable, circumstantial soundtrack by Ennio Morricone, Un génie is a delight to watch, especially in the original French version. Together, Hill and Charlebois form a surprisingly efficient comic duo by complementing each other's moods while Miou-Miou takes care of the lingerie bits with princely negligence. A great achievement, from the Leone-shot opening sequence to the humanistic finale involving the restitution of stolen Native properties and moneys, this film is a must-see for all Québécois western fans, and it comes highly recommended to both casual western and comedy fans.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

Death Weekend
Well, we can pat ourselves in the back! As exemplified by this lackluster, underwhelming home invasion film, it seems that Canada can successfully emulate American genre excesses. Whoop-de-fucking-doo! So here we have Diane and Harry, a would-be couple out for a weekend retreat outside of the city. After an unpleasant road encounter with a band of thugs that leaves their shiny hot-rod in the dust, the pair prepares to enjoy the quietude of Harry's lakeside estate, blissfully unaware that those they have "wronged" are craving retribution. When the gang finally reaches them, everything you would expect happens... in exactly the order that you would've expected. Short on logic (a burning man runs across a dock toward land instead of simply jumping into the water), female flesh (we get a glimpse of a nipple) and blood (we get only a slit throat), this film has little to offer but a mildly exciting car chase near the end. And the reassurance that Canadian cinema can equate American cinema in terms of ineptitude. The only fun one might derive from Death Weekend stems from the wanton, nearly comical, destruction of Harry's numerous properties (including a large motor boat), which the viewer is likely to wish he could partake in so as to overcome his boredom.

THUMBS DOWN

Burke and Hare
Before handing it to him, I spontaneously etched a few words on a friend's ticket for the film, as if entrusting him with the greatest secret of the universe. What I wrote down was actually no secret. It was a celebrated fact of life: Isla Fisher is hot! What can I say? She's drop-dead gorgeous. And even as an object (which she is in the film, considering her minimal output), she remains a great motivation for the central protagonist. According to director Landis, Burke and Hare is a rom-com. But while it isn't so in earnest, Burke's last words at the gallows, before the hangman pulls the lever of destiny, remain: "I did it for love". And he did, quite foolishly so. But it doesn't matter, for the film is more than just its central, rather clichéd love story. It is a delightful romp involving splendid art direction and a wide array of extremely talented comedic actors. Aside from Pegg and Serkis, both of whom do a flawless job of portraying a pair of joyous murderers, the cast includes Tom Wilkinson and Tim Curry as two competing M.D.s and Ronnie Corbett as a zealous police official. Cameos include everyone from Jenny Agutter to Christopher Lee, Stephen Merchant, Ray Harryhausen and Costa-Gavras. Historical accuracy brushed aside imperiously, the film is unapologetic in its attempt to recapture the naive humor which has made Landis famous. Yet far from appealing only to completists, this is an effort that anybody could enjoy, granted an open mind and a propensity for chuckling.

THUMBS UP

Footnote: I'd like to take this occasion to address the film's terrible reviews of late, earning it a mediocre 36% aggregate score on Rotten Tomatoes. To the film's detractors I would like to ask very dearly how they managed to dislike the film to such an extent. Certainly, the narrative is rather conventional in its framing of the central love story and the titular duo have had their exploits adapted to the screen maybe a tad too much. Nonetheless, here's an irreverent mock period piece with impeccable art direction and a wide array of star players, the kind of fodder that mainstream critics usually lap up like scurvy dogs. Maybe it's the irreverent part that they fail to appreciate, or the lack of subtlety in the humor, which is aimed at the same raucous crowds as was Animal House back in the day. Or maybe it's the setting, the sold-out Hall theater vibrating to the beat of unrestrained cheers, which has momentarily clouded my judgment. But from where I stood, this most recent effort is a great return to form for the venerable John Landis, who adds to his catalog of weirdly wondrous sights with a wide array of comical tidbits including corpses in rolling barrels and foot fetishists played by Tim Curry. As for the claims according to which the film is either "not political enough" or "not black enough a comedy", I would like to refer naysayers to Mr. Landis himself who, prior to the screening, described the film as a romantic comedy. Political satire and dark humor is only superficial here, brushing the surface of the narrative like a feature on the ripe foot of the establishment. There's no need to dwell on it, or try to find anything deeper here than the joyous desire to entertain. Which is all a film of this ilk truly needs.

Fantasia 2011 (Day 13)

2011-08-13T21:35:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, JULY 26

While the last film of the day was simple filler, I had high expectations for the first two. Fresh from winning a Jury Award at the Rome film festival, Belgian comedy Kill Me Please possessed all the features of a sure thing: a pair of producers well known for their savvy takes on the black comedy, a plethora of talented character actors from all around, and a strong, timely premise concerning assisted suicide and its fast transformation into a simple commodity. As for The Whisperer in Darkness, it was a long-awaited adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's eponymous short story in which sentient flying fungi from outer space entrap the brains of a New England farmer in a metal cylinder meant to sustain space travel. Produced by the dead-serious H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, following on their supremely interesting adaptation of Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu, this new film is a similar homage to the twisted narratives of the American master and to the aesthetics of early American cinema. But contrary to the former film, which succeeded in depicting the incongruous angles from the lost city of R'lyeh with surprising perceptiveness, the present effort is rather ill-advised in its aesthetic research, amounting to a monochrome canvas highlighted by a few wondrous contraptions captured onscreen with the naivety of dated genre films. While the producers try their best to remain faithful to the source material, drawing from the original text almost word for word, they do so at the detriment of the art of filmmaking.

The first film being scheduled for 5:15 PM, I had to rush out of work in order to catch the rising curtains. And right after the screening, I had to rush again, dashing out of the De Sève theater like a mad man, crossing the underground tunnel to the Hall building in a crackling flash of light and narrowly missing the beginning of the second screening, scheduled for five minutes later. Luckily, the lengthy short film opening The Whisperer in Darkness gave me ample breathing room. Having caught the final moments thereof, I can also say that it wasn't something I regretted missing. It looked far too expensive for a short film and it was marred by a simplistic, predictable twist ending and a surprisingly classical approach to technique. Actually, it was the kind of effort that begs the question: "Why do they do it?" Why do they spend untold amounts of money in order to craft uninspired genre offerings with no chance of reaching beyond the festival circuit? And so, I enjoyed the last of Mandragore's credits, for they brought the promise of something truly wonderful, a rare foray into the opaque mind of my favorite horror author, H.P. Lovecraft!

Unfortunately, when The Whisperer in Darkness came to an end, I felt a huge void inside my soul, as if I had been robbed of something, of my innocence perhaps. After The Call of Cthulhu, I felt that there was room for some exciting, if a bit too literal feature adaptations of Lovecraft's indescribable short stories. But I was wrong. Dead wrong. And so I went into the last screening with a heavy heart, expecting very little from Adam Wingard's A Horrible Way to Die, even though I had loved Pop Skull way beyond my expectations. I didn't want to feel cheated again, and so I lowered my expectations, especially after the film was hailed as being "like a serial killer film made by Gus Van Sant". Fortunately, the tag didn't stick (the film was way too unpretentious), but I wasn't blown away either. And though I can't find major flaws to A Horrible Way to Die, except a total lack of photographic proficiency from the part of the director, I must say that it was a far cry from the former film, which used the indeterminacy of the hand-held camera to better delineate the indeterminacy of the protagonist.

FILMS SEEN

Kill Me Please
Irresistible black and white, but mostly black comedy about death as a luxurious commodity. The film opens with a depressed comedian interpreted by Benoit Poelvoorde who complains about delays in the process of his assisted suicide. "The curtain has fallen", he keeps repeating despite his doctor's advice concerning the myriad solutions for him to appreciate life. And so, he slashes his wrists instead of waiting a few more days for a glass of poison-laced water. Thus begins the chronicle of life in a secluded "suicide" clinic located in the Swiss Alps. Every tenant being more extravagant than the next, the film quickly moves from one hilarious scene to the next, digging deep to offer the viewer a carefully crafted air of indifference regarding every grave issue it can muster, contributing to a refreshing discourse about death and suicide as an absurd ideal, but also about life and how much lighter we should take it sometimes. But unfortunately for the talented ensemble cast assembled in the clinic, the surrounding villagers soon start taking an interest in the clinic's affairs, and they soon decide to take it upon themselves to precipitate its ongoing business... Zany fun ensues.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

The Whisperer in Darkness
Underwhelming, willingly conventional foray in the sacrosanct, opaque world of Lovecraft. Painstaking esthetic research and a faithful rendition of the master's words is nullified by the very uniqueness of the source material, which throws lingering shades of the Sin City syndrome all over a nonetheless righteous enterprise. Read full review.

MELANCHOLY THUMBS DOWN

A Horrible Way to Die
The limitations of mumblecore should become obvious in this overreaching story about a recovering alcoholic, her serial killer boyfriend and a slew of dumb copycats. Some surprising narrative prowess help keep this afloat over the toxic cesspool of self-promoting amateurism. Read full review here.

THUMBS DOWN

Fantasia 2011 (Day 12)

2011-08-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, JULY 25

I almost didn't make it to the theater that night, seeing how I was to be confronted with a romantic comedy. At first, I had scheduled the film because of Johnnie To's involvement, but then, as the screening came closer and closer, I started to have doubts. Pristine production values and solid direction aside, I envisioned a completely uninvolving narrative constituted of predictable misunderstandings and fake feelings. But eventually, I did go, as a completist hellbent on breaking my 64 films record established two years before. I even managed to convince myself that the film would certainly be good, recalling To's impressive track record, and the many pleasant memories I entertain in regards to the eight films I have seen through the years (the bulk of which was at Fantasia). And in the end, the man didn't let me down, coming up with a new film that I found more satisfying than many recent offerings (including Triangle and Sparrow). That said, Don't Go Breaking My Heart proved to be one of the best surprises I've had all year, and it was a privilege to be part of the first North American audience to see it.

The good stuff kept on coming with the second screening, another fine surprise for which I had no prior expectations. Granted, the title is hilarious (and it perfectly characterizes the bland protagonist), but that alone is hardly worth a hoot. Luckily, behind the title lied a clever black comedy, which managed to appropriately dose lighthearted humor and hardcore drama in a seamless manner.

So, I was treated to both a good romantic comedy and a good black comedy during the course of a single night, which constitutes a highly improbable occurrence. But one that materialized nonetheless, thanks to the good people at Fantasia. Thanks again, guys!

FILMS SEEN

Don't Go Breaking My Heart
This film features a classic amorous triangle, wherein a cute working girl (Gao Yuanyuan) must choose between a sweet, romantic architect (Daniel Wu) and a self-assured, but unfaithful businessman (Louis Koo). Both men are filthy fucking rich, contrary to what you might believe based on the initial look of the architect. So there is no real class consideration here, only a question about which of the two men will romantically outbid the other in order to acquire the girl's heart. In rather clever fashion, the crux of the narrative is constrained within the limits of two windowed locales contained in two adjacent office buildings, from where the characters can interact with each other visually, but without exchanging words, which allows many misunderstandings to take root and invade the storyline.

If this had been a gangster film, my friends would've swarmed me for the screening. Instead, I had to share the pleasure of seeing this latest Johnnie To film with my sister-in-law, the big romcom aficionado. In retrospect, her presence was quite valuable to me, as she contributed her knowledge of the genre to my technical appraisal. That said, To does a lot here, with a fairly limited number of sets and characters, managing the maximal amount of misunderstandings one can cram in a 117-minute film by making savvy use of triangular composition. Of course, the genre he decides to use here is riddled with many nasty features such as the undeniable equation of money and romantic potential, but even the most cynical loners such as myself can still appreciate the film from a technical and visual standpoint.

As for the three leads, they vigorously interpret three appealing archetypes, keeping the ensemble afloat thanks to their irresistible antics and charismatic faces. The superior production values further help Koo and Wu flesh out their characters by giving them the ability to lavish extravagant gifts on their object of affection, including shiny rings, prestigious downtown flats, shimmering sports cars, fancy dinners in high-rise restaurants and love messages written on the sides of buildings using lit and unlit windows. Now, I won't dwell on the evils of romcoms, which are not only corny, but which also aim to create unrealistic romantic ideals amongst daydreaming girls, ideals that tend to reduce romance to whatever amount of dollars a man is willing to spend in order to grab hold of a potential girlfriend. Suffice it to say that Don't Go Breaking My Heart is a vastly superior entry in the genre.

THUMBS UP

Some Guy Who Kills People
Although it loses steam during the last reel, this offbeat black comedy manages to successfully incorporate cringe-inducing sarcasm with lighthearted comedy. Read full review here.

THUMBS UP

Fantasia 2011 (Day 11)

2011-08-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY, JULY 24

Sunday the 24th was a particularly great day. I woke up late and managed to grab lunch (and a socially acceptable drink) at my parents', with enough time to make my way to the Norris building to attend the lecture given prior to the screening of Frankenstein Created Woman, my first ever Hammer film. I was happy to be present, as the combined lecture and screening helped fill a gaping hole in my education.

I was mildly surprised by the fact that no one other than myself had brought a notepad to the lecture. But I guess that the concept of "Film Studies" remains alien to the majority of people, even though it is now a common field of study in most major universities around the world. Then again, maybe Sunday isn't meant to cultivate one's spirit. As the Lord dictates, it is a day meant to contemplate His creation, and not to indulge in the frivolous pursuit of knowledge, itself an evil forced upon unsuspecting Adam and Eve by the wicked serpent.

For me, gaining some knowledge is a rather righteous way of compensating for all the lazy hours spent in bed on Sunday mornings... and for the lazy Sunday afternoons spent playing video games. So, it was with great joy that I learned a thing or two about Christopher Lee and the hardships he endured prior to his casting as the creature in Terence Fisher's The Curse of Frankenstein. Then, I learned about the meaning of blood and sex in the Hammer mythology. And while the following film didn't feel like a Frankenstein film in earnest (I remain partial to Whale's pair of classics produced at Universal), the lecture made it better, part of a wonderful adventure devised by one revolutionary production company. This was a truly illuminating session and a nice change of pace from the dumb introductory monologues usually carried out by shy, or Japanese-speaking film directors

My exploration of world cinema continued with the first of three Adam Wingard films lined-up at this year's festival: Pop Skull. I discovered many things thanks to this intimate venture into the mind of a melancholy junkie. First, I discovered beautiful Hannah Hughes, a little known, unprofessional actress with a face to die for. Personally, I much prefer the girl next door types to any made-up Hollywood star. And so I was smitten with Hughes, and with the prospect of seeing her again, and again and again, in the many further Wingard films I had scheduled for myself.

I also discovered an emerging style of filmmaking, or at least I was made aware of a term meant to describe it. "Mumblecore" is a recent neologism, coined to connote a new DIY tradition embodied by the advent of digitally-shot, gritty love stories crafted by emerging American authors to better express the feelings derived from their amorous failures. While the tradition imposes huge limits on itself, notably by eschewing the classic filmmaking notion of framing, it manages to exacerbate the intimacy of its characters by using an immediate, amateurish style akin to that of home videos.

After brushing off the shock derived from the pathetic fate of Pop Skull's protagonist, I resumed my journey into the unknown reaches of the world with the following film, a somewhat unoriginal torture porn film entitled Urban Explorer, which scored big points not for its ruthless violence but for its unique setting. Surprisingly, while this film could've benefited from the "Mumblecore" esthetics, it chooses instead to take a classic technical approach to its material, distancing itself from its protagonists, rather than getting involved directly with them. Seeing how the film chronicles the adventures of some urban explorers taking on the Berlin underground, it could've been shot using a subjective camera. But that would've cranked up the difficulty factor of the project, which was already high due to the unlawfulness of the crew's venture into restricted territory. For a casual horror film, Urban Explorer is surprisingly gutsy in its search for realism and exoticism, which automatically places it well above other films of its ilk.

The last film of the day, Wake in Fright, was the cherry on top of the sundae. The gorgeously restored print of this lost Ted Kotcheff film was a sight to behold, with nary a scratch to be seen on the screen. And it was an unexpected treat too, for I knew nothing about this film prior to reading the program. But then, I've always been a fan of Kotcheff's First Blood, a very powerful but underrated film sadly obscured by two mediocre sequels. So when I booked the screening, I was confident that I would get my money's worth, knowing Kotcheff's background and holding on dearly to the judgment of the programmers at the Cannes festival, who selected the film for their 1971 line-up. Suffice it to say that I wasn't disappointed. In fact, I was happily surprised with this rather irreverent cult classic, and with Donald Pleasance commanding performance, an unrestrained, super-macho take on the outback recluse and a crowning achievement for the man recognized mostly for his role as one-note psychiatrist Sam Loomis. Unfortunately for Kotcheff, who was present and in great shape, very few people turned up for the screening (there was at best 100 people attending the screening in the 750-seat venue). Still, the film was a treat for all the people who did come, and I think Fantasia warmly for it, hoping that the lack of people attending this kind of events will not discourage them from programming others in the future.

Awesome programming job for this, the eleventh day of the festival. Koodos!

FILMS SEEN

Frankenstein Created Woman
Yet another treat for genre fans provided by the good people at Fantasia, this fine, if somewhat classical Peter Cushing vehicle was preceded by an extremely interesting, illuminating lecture by Nicolas Stanzick (author of Dans les griffes de la Hammer), who made sure to stimulate our appetite for the main event. While the film itself branches away from the Frankensteinian mythos per se, opting instead for a take on Renard's Les mains d'Orlac (adapted for the screen as Mad Love), it does boast solid performances by Cushing as the extravagant baron and Derek Fowldz as the treacherous antagonist, as well as an undeniable flair for set design. That said, I wish to say that, contrary to what bona fide film genius Martin Scorsese has argued when he selected the film as one of his favorites, the metaphysical implications of the Baron's experiments were merely subservient to a fairly overdetermined and predictable plot, the ramifications of which only graze the surface of the 'soul' dilemma. Still, the Fisher's mastery of all things esthetics and a perfect turn by stunning pin-up Susan Denberg as the cold but beautiful creature more than compensate for any qualm anybody might have with the narrative.

THUMBS UP

Pop Skull
Intimate, yet universal story about loss is shot using the most intimate of means, a clingy hand held-camera that doesn't skimp on impressionistic stroboscopic effects. Read full review here.

THUMBS UP

Urban Explorer
While entirely unoriginal, this superior torture porn entry scores points for its creepy, foul-mouthed, perfectly-cast psycho and its unique setting (the Berlin underground). Personally, I was very curious to know whether or not the underground complex, and most importantly, the Nazi graffiti on the walls were real remnants of a bygone era, or simple sets crafted or tweaked by the filmmakers. But seeing how the publicity for the film emphasizes the guerrilla aspect of the production, one can safely assume that it's all authentic, which is a treat for the viewers who care for that kind of stuff. After all, not many horror filmmakers have the necessary conviction to risk arrest in order to deliver a film, but the makers of Urban Explorer certainly did, and so they should've. Be sure to watch this film if you want to catch a glimpse at sights truly unseen and if you want to know what "lifting one's shirt" means, although I'm sure you can make an educated guess...

In a nutshell, I believe that casual horror fans will surely dig the film's nastier gore bits, its claustrophobic atmosphere and the mundane insults delivered by the foul-toothed antagonist, but they will be turned off by the the slight narrative shortcuts and implausibilities, which are too few in number to effectively counter the good bits. Recommended for those who like torture porn, but feel that the Saw films are too preachy and needlessly intricate.

THUMBS UP

Wake in Fright
While most festival-goers missed the opportunity to see this long-lost, painstakingly restored Cannes favorite, the ones who did come were in for a rare treat. Irreverent and unapologetic, Wake in Fright involves authentic kangaroo-hunting and a whole lot of male-bonding under the sign of drunkenness. This is a film that perfectly captures the feeling of being lost among friends, entangled in a downward spiral of mindless fun that subtracts one from the more tangible, more important aspects of life. It is a film about the pointlessness of fun for its own sake and the absurdity of its endless pursuit. It also demonstrates, with flying punches and screeching jeep tires, that booze quickly likens men to beasts. Finally, it is a film about camaraderie, an all-too overblown word that connotes little more than collective boredom. That said, the Australian outback constitutes a perfect backdrop for the story and rarely has it been captured with such stylistic flair or peopled with such eccentric types, including legendary Donald Pleasance, who delivers one of his greatest, unsung performances as a decrepit doctor living in a bug-ridden shack. All in all, the film constitutes a triumphant return to the scene for under-appreciated director Ted Kotcheff, who delivered an almost hypnotic foreword, and a shocking jolt to the balls to anybody who thought that wasting time amongst friends is a civilized activity. Truly, this is a crucial cautionary tale about the illusory comfort provided by escapism in all of its forms. See it if you get the chance!

VERY ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

Fantasia 2011 (Day 10)

2011-08-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY, JULY 23

A perfectly well spent, fully saturated day at the festival, Saturday the 23rd featured my very first Japanese film in almost ten days! Pretty weird that, if you consider that Fantasia used to be a premium vehicle for the extravagant narratives from the Land of the Rising Sun. Unfortunately, the festival has been playing for keeps in recent years, selecting on average 2 Miike films and 1 Sion Sono film for each of their annual lineups. Now maybe it's just me... but it seems that Miike's antics are becoming increasingly bothersome. That said, the man is not even that great a filmmaker, even if Western audiences seem keen on praising every single turd he just shat as a perplexing piece of high art. Obviously, he has had a couple of hits in his career (such as Visitor Q, a clever reworking of Pasolini's Teorema), but considering the bulk of his work (turning out an average of 4 films a year since the early 90s), his is a flawed filmography. As for Sono, I don't hate his pretentiousness so much as I hate the Fantasian consensus according to which everyone of his films is a gift from God. And while I still love Japanese cinema for its irreverent attitude and privileging of affect over technique, I see less and less J-films at Fantasia each year, focusing my energy on the annual Sushi Typhoon crowd-pleaser and similar unapologetic genre candies (such as Horny House of Horror and Tomie: Unlimited on display this year).

Speaking of the rising sun, the fiery star was shining brightly on that fated Saturday, but I preferred the comforting coldness of shadows and the enticing pixels of the screen to its debilitating warmth. With a very heterogeneous line-up covering three continents and the work of four prominent directors (Yuen Woo Ping, Jean-Claude Lord, Dick Maas and Kinji Fukasaku, the latter of which has by far the most impressive body of work), I was sure to find something to fulfill my present needs, including that of staying relatively cold despite summer. What awaited me was a roller-coaster of critical enjoyment, with some films nearing rock bottom (Monster Brawl and Saint) while the others soared toward the heavens. All in all, it was a good day, highlighted by "classics" such as Jean-Claude Lord's Panique (shown on the screen for the first time in 30 years) and Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale, the crowning piece of film-making atop the pile, and a perfect midnight film to enjoy amongst other genre fanatics.

FILMS SEEN

Helldriver
Typically noisy Sushi Typhoon melodramatic actioner is bursting with hyper-kinetic energy and ingenuous splatter. Read full review here.

THUMBS UP

Monster Brawl
No matter what nostalgic affection the director holds for classic monsters, he lacks the directorial skills and creative craftsmanship to bring them to life. The resulting effort is hardly a film at all, more of a systematic, uninteresting collage of witless, expository vignettes, battle stats and arthritic fight scenes punctuated by the obligatory commentary track and Jimmy Hart's desperately unfunny antics. After selecting a roster of generic monsters from influential folkloric tales (such as the cyclops, the vampire lady, the zombie man or the "witch bitch", a castaway magic-user from New England so named in order to draw some laughs that fail to materialize amongst the bewildered audience), the director then tags and categorizes them as though they were toys. Then instead of involving them in a narrative, he pits them against one another in a wrestling tournament, systematically introducing a pair of combatants by way of two short videos and some vital stats, then having them have at it in a WWE-type ring erected inside a cemetery. Relying on familiar plot devices from the world of wrestling, including sudden reversals of fortune and some lawless interventions by various ring-side assistants, the film offers nothing but cheap thrills. Using some surprisingly uninspired introductory episodes to instill the bulk of its dramatic issues, Monster Brawl has almost no redeeming value at all. There is no doubt in my mind that real monster fans will want to revisit Universal and Hammer classics instead while fans of wrestling will itch to watch old Wrestlemania tapes from boxes in their basement.

THUMBS DOWN

True Legend
This lush action set-piece claims to chronicle the birth of drunken boxing by telling the story of Beggar Su for the umpteenth time. And while the narrative is incredibly familiar, with obvious dramatic cogs making rusty squeaks as they turn, the superior production values and impeccable action choreography manage to draw the viewers right in and keep them on the edge of their seats. True Legend is the film to see for never-ending fight scenes involving many types of hostile environments, including snake pits, slippery ledges atop huge statues, shaky rope bridges, and tiger pits. That said, director Yuen Woo Ping proves here that he is just as good framing exciting duels as epic-size clashes, as demonstrated by the breathtaking opening scene. As an added bonus, he manages to retain the services of legendary Michelle Yeoh, Gordon Liu and even David Carradine, whom he gives remarkable bit parts. This is Hong Kong action at its very best... and its most conventional at the same time.

THUMBS UP

Panique
Title refers to the aftermath of a chemical spill caused by irresponsible paper industries on the St-Lawrence river. When pets and kids start dying after ingesting tap water, littering the streets and the emergency rooms with their bodies, the people of Montreal face a city-wide state of emergency. When confronted with proof of their wrong-doing, big corporation denies everything, using their influence to manipulate law-makers as well as the public. But when their head marketing strategist hears of the truth, mundanely revealed by a remorseless suit during a cocktail party, she flips out and gathers a group of disgruntled workers and parents in order to take guerrilla action against the Prime Minister, who they believe owes the public an explanation for his jumping in bed with the corporate heads responsible for poisoning his people.

There's something quite touching about director Jean-Claude Lord (Parlez-nous d'amour, Bingo) and his political films of the 1970s. While they are rather uninteresting technically, they embody a pure, one could say naive, revolutionary spirit that is a direct byproduct of the révolution tranquille. Coupled with a keen insight on the backstage politics of the media and a certain knack for satire, they proceed from a powerful, if childish wish to affect change in the world through revolutionary action. And while they don't necessarily have the impact that their author would've wished, theirs is a powerful call for personal sacrifice in the face of adversity, a call for action directed at all film viewers, no matter their political creed or background. It's a shame that Lord later got involved only in crass commercial projects, including several TV series (paramount of which is Lance et compte, a legendary hockey drama and staple of Quebec's pop culture), but I reckon that it perfectly exemplifies the erosion of beliefs brought about by age and comfort. That very fact was tackled head-on by Denys Arcand with his seminal Le déclin de l'empire américain as we see post-referendum activists settle for a bourgeois life of instant gratification, which in turn represents the director's own estrangement from the ideals he once fought for (such as with his unsurpassed 1976 classic On est au coton).

With Panique, Lord recycles many of the archetypes used in his two previous films, Bingo and Parlez-nous d'amour. He even enrolls a large part of the actors used previously, with the notable addition of feminist icon Paule Baillargeon in the lead role. And while it is a surprisingly stoic, talkative film, it asks many pressing questions about government collusion and the irresponsability of the private companies they sponsor. But more importantly, it stipulates that true change necessarily lies in revolutionary action. When Baillargeon's character kidnaps the Prime Minister on the set of a feminist TV talk show, she means business, proving that any organized group of citizens can effectively create change insofar as they are willing to disobey unjust laws and bring down unworthy officials. Despite a lack of dramatic intensity and some heavy reliance on wordy monologues, Lord's film makes us glimpse at a wish come true: a world where government officials need to be accountable for their actions and answer to their electors, lest they be tried by the mob and lynched as the unethical pigs that they are. That said, the film is particularly relevant to the current québécois context in which the underground gas industry avoids all sorts of laws against pollution by throwing big dollars around. And so, my urge has returned for us, collectively, to remove Jean Charest from power and skewer his bodiless head on a stake near the Parliament.

THUMBS UP

Saint
Get this: two back-to-back introductory flashbacks are required to set up this improbable story of monstrous Saint Nick returning to modern-day Amsterdam in order to terrorize the population with his crew of diminutive henchmen. The first one is set in the Middle Ages, where the renegade bishop and his crew of thugs rob and kill the locals, until they are set afire aboard their galleon and left to die, only for them to be resurrected somehow in order to carry on with their heinous crimes. The second one is set in the 1960s if I remember correctly, during the last Christmas full moon. It depicts the traumatic encounter of a future police officer with the supernatural mass murderer, who proceeds to slaughter the boy's entire family while he is off feeding the horses in the nearby stable. As you would expect, the boy grows up to be a recluse focused obsessively on destroying the nefarious specter. Surprisingly though, he is not the protagonist of the film, relegated instead to the role of sidekick to the vacuous teenage star. With so many incongruities stacked up so early, one should immediately realize how narratively poor Saint really is and how eager it is to shed its dramatic assets to better showcase good-looking teenage meat puppets.

That said, despite the film's superior production values (best showcased during a fairly exciting slay run atop Amsterdam's posh apartment buildings), it is little more than your average teen slasher fare, using dubious folkloric pulp as an excuse to show hunks and chicks running around. The forgiving runtime makes it a little easier to swallow, but it's doubtful that anybody will scream for encores, even though the final shot seems to imply a sequel. Bert Luppes gives the film some sense of dignity as obsessive inspector Goert, but his character is so underused as to reveal a weakness rather than a strength in the process of elaborating the narrative. Truly, here is a misguided, uninspired attempt at crowd-pleasing which, if it were not for its providing some rare insight into European Christmas traditions, would be almost completely uninteresting. Steer clear.

Dark stop-motion fantasy short Bobby Yeah, screening right before the feature, was way more imaginative and memorable than its companion, showcasing a plethora of weird and wondrous creatures involved in a twisted game of destruction and rebirth, all of whom will cling to you much longer than the silly Saint Nick of Dick Maas's Saint.

THUMBS DOWN

Battle Royale
A classroom full of Japanese kids slaughtering each other in a frenzied game of survival on a deserted island full of booby-traps? Rarely can one appreciate a premise so promising. Rarely too do films deliver the goods following such an outlandish premise, but Battle Royale is certainly one of those. Barely one decade old, Kinji Fukasaku's seminal effort in inspired political madness has already become a full-fledged cult classic, and rightfully so. His film works perfectly as a razzle-dazzle action film, a poignant drama about the true nature of humanity and a political allegory pertaining to Japan's renowned mishandling of youths. With a roster of 50+ characters, including Takeshi Kitano's melancholy sadist, there's bound to be something in there for everybody. Although it contained a fair share of superfluous additions, the director's cut on display was more than welcome as I had already seen the film more than ten times, almost each screening resulting from a friend claiming he had never seen Battle Royale. And the present screening was no exception as I added another fan to the film's international brotherhood of aficionados. And so it will probably live on in all of our hearts as a rare example of a universal narrative, expressed in a specific language but understood by all as perhaps the quintessential cautionary tale for the new millennium. An incredible achievement.

AUTOMATIC THUMBS UP

Fantasia 2011 (Day 9)

2011-08-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY, JULY 22

Diminutive and marred by sleepiness, the July 22 line-up started rather late, at 21h25 t0 be exact. Maybe I should've packed one or two additional films to that line-up so I didn't end up drinking beer for the most part of the evening, arriving half-drunk at the theater, in which I soon caved in to the pressing need to slumber. Actually, the first film wasn't so bad, unoriginal sure, but rather involving and well directed. If it hadn't been for the mind-boggling conclusion, in which we have to reconcile with a murderous pedophile when he is shown as a poor lonesome soul who just longs for a friend, I might have dug it wholeheartedly instead of just a bit. But still today, I can't buy the idea according to which we should feel anything other than contempt for pedophiles. Sure, one can try and understand their alienation from society at large, but there are limits to inclusion, especially if this means disregarding the fate of a dead girl, or any other broken child who should naturally be entitled to innocence.

Luckily for me, there wasn't any pedophile in the second film. Castrating she-wolves, sure. But no real monsters. Still, the film was a far cry from what I had expected, and from the mythology I had elaborated around Canadian exploitation queen Ilsa, whose exploits I had yet to admire. So it was with a content heart that I prepared for the screening from the back row of the theater, enjoying the ample leg space and the rigid chair which I thought would keep me awake for the full duration of the film. But which didn't. Not that I mind, for those moments where my eyes automatically shut close were not unhappy, or frustrating ones, as they had been during the first screenings. No. They were mere breaks from watching the film, during which I could enjoy myself... marginally so, considering the environmental conditions, but more than I would've, had I fully followed the narrative strain, punctuated as it were by extravagant moments of cartoon villainy and futile attempts at exceeding the dramatic boundaries of exploitation fare.

FILMS SEEN

The Silence

Title refers to the aftermath of a brutal rape/murder perpetrated on a teenage girl from a small German town and left unsolved for the better of 23 years. It also refers to the estrangement of two friends tightly involved in the crime. Impeccable cinematography is the main asset of this surprising crime drama cleverly laced with flashbacks from a simpler time. Unfortunately, while the narrative takes just enough detours to keep you guessing about the murderer's motives, it halts suddenly with an offensive, hardly convincing conclusion that will likely leave the viewer aghast. Some solid, inspired direction makes it recommended viewing nonetheless.

THUMBS UP

Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS
What can one say about this seminal exploitation film which hasn't been said a thousand times before? For those unfamiliar with the busty titular dominatrix, let us shape a brief synopsis of this, her first of many screen adventures, each pertaining to a specific, if always obvious fetish (stalags, gulags, harems or asylums). Here, llsa is exactly what the title suggests, a domineering SS officer testing tolerance to pain amongst naked, nubile girls. At night, after a hard day's work probing the bodies of her inmates, she summons male prisoners to her quarters, which she promptly castrates when they fail to fulfill her voracious sexual appetite. That is until a particularly gifted American POW comes along and changes everything.

While it might appear like loads and loads of fun, over-sized breasts and electrified dildos can only do so much to propel a dry, witless drama such as this. And I use the word 'drama' willingly, as the film takes a straight-faced narrative approach that hardly befits its material. Tame by today's standards, Ilsa has little redeeming values save for a few unintentional laughs and some female nudity. I guess the film is a worthy substitute to porn for those who wish to enjoy tits on the big screen, but are repulsed by the sticky seats of Cinéma L'Amour...

THUMBS DOWN

Fantasia 2011 (Day 8)

2011-08-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

THURSDAY, JULY 21

One of the most memorable, most uncompromisingly fun nights at the festival saw a pair of extravagant gems claim the screen with surprising authority, both of which seemed to have been tailor-made for rowdy festival audiences. Rarely had I seen such enthusiasm, such heartfelt cheers coming from the beastly crowds amassed in the Hall theater. While Super embodies all the qualities of a crowd-pleaser, The Divide was a much more subdued affair. Yet, it drew loud cries of appreciation from almost everyone present, each name appearing onscreen being awarded a banging homage. Surprisingly, legendary American actor Michael Biehn (of Terminator and Aliens fame) received only half an ovation from the audience, to which I participated enthusiastically in order to make sure that Biehn received the same amount of recognition as sub-par director and one-note actor David Arquette did when he came to promote his awful slasher film, The Tripper, a few years back.

This is the kind of nights where Fantasia finds all of its meaning, showcasing great films for receptive audiences before they get shelved somewhere or slapped with limited theatrical runs after failing to get distribution deals from the heartless corporations who control film exploitation, preventing blood and sex from ever seeping unto the virginal white screens of US theaters and into the homes of righteous Christian families. While Super, an American film, enjoyed a limited theatrical release in the US, it went straight-to-video in Canada, where it was impossible for fans of Halifax-born Ellen Page to see their idol rape Rainn Wilson and to witness the film's jaw-dropping animated credits on the big screen. As for The Divide, it is supposed to hit screens in 2012. But whether or not Anchor Bay can muster sufficient marketing funds to successfully promote the film remains a mystery. Seeing how the film has little marquee value, even less so than Xavier Gens' previous Hitman movie, which was guaranteed a certain portion of the hit video game's fanbase by harboring a poster so similar to the game cover as to be considered pop art, its future is as uncertain as that of the film's survivor. Only time will tell if this intense psychological thriller will be shown to sold-out crowds anywhere outside the festival circuit. But it looks doubtful.

FILMS SEEN

Super

Ellen Page in a skin-tight superhero suit. Had this been Super's only asset, it would've been great. Instead, the film reaches peaks of excellence by focusing almost solely on fan service and by bringing just the right amount of Slither into the mix. Read full review here.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

The Divide

A great surprise, this film by shock director Xavier Gens (whom we thought had been absorbed by the Hollywoodian puree machine after he directed Hitman) uses a post apocalyptic setting to stage an uncompromising character study focused on the dark side of the human psyche. While it sacrifices an extremely intriguing subplot (involving kidnapped children used for medical experiments) in order to better achieve psychological relevance, we cannot hold it against the film. We can only watch in awe as the characters start growing further and further away from sanity and all social mores start to crumble under the dictates of a more primordial, more fearsome humanity. The creepy basement in which the story unfolds helps create a lasting and foreboding sense of claustrophobia while a cast of capable character actors keep drawing aces from their sleeves. Michael Biehn is surprisingly authoritative as the misanthropic superintendent, but acting koodos primarily go to son of Rocky and Heroes star Milo Ventimiglia for his chilling turn as the demented antagonist and Michael Eklund as his accomplice/lover Bobby. Masterfully-directed by Gens, the film grips the viewer right from the first second and never lets go, dragging him all the way down into the stinking cesspool of mistrust of egotism revealed under (nuclear) fire. If you were at the screening, you may have spotted me. I was one of the two guys who gave Biehn an ovation from the back of the room. The one nearest to the wall, the ugly one.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

Fantasia 2011 (Day 7)

2011-08-13T21:21:00.000-07:00

WEDNESDAY, JULY 20

There weren't many genre films on that seventh day (none, actually), but it didn't matter much, seeing how the three screenings I had lined up each brought its share of goodies, the last two ranking atop the list of my favorite films this year.

While restricted by a conventional narrative model, Bullhead drew some interesting parallels between the industrial breeding of cattle and the industrial breeding of human males, capitalizing on a perfectly-cast lead and a colorful cast of characters to create a very engrossing story. Lined up as filler for the gap between the first and last screenings, You Are Here ended up being one of my favorite films of the festival by using a very loose narrative thread to draw the viewer in a series of philosophical games, each more involving than the last. Finally, Victims was a crowning achievement, as well as a crowning film atop a stellar series of two. Contained within a single long take, the narrative questioned not the nature of cinema, nor its depiction of time, but rather the perennity and truthfulness of guilt in our guiltless world. In typical British fashion, it also probed the problem of crime amongst urban youths.

While there was nary a soul with whom to share my thoughts that evening, I never felt alone, for there was always the promise of a better film hung in the horizon after each screening. Then Victims ended, and I still felt lighthearted, fueled by my appreciation thereof and happy to go home with the memory of a perfectly fulfilled festival day. It is also during that evening that I realized I could live in film theaters, watching celluloid roll all day long. After all, life doesn't seem all that crappy when you're sitting there, watching silently and forgetting your physical self. It's actually the closest thing to my ideal way of life, a non-physical, purely intellectual existence away from the constraints of hunger, ugliness and lust. Sigh...

FILMS SEEN

Bullhead
A taut crime drama involving the Belgian growth hormone mafia is intertwined with the personal drama of Jacky, a muscular eunuch, on a arduous quest to reclaim his long-lost manhood. Using opportune flashbacks, the film slowly fleshes out both the protagonist and his childhood friend Diederik (now a queer police informant), both of whom were previously involved in a weird "accident" which caused Jacky to lose both his balls and both of whom are now playing on opposite sides of the law. While their personal feud is well-played, the story focuses squarely on Jacky as he tries to conquer the one non-threatening woman which he feels confident enough to approach, childhood crush Lucia, now an outgoing business owner. All these individual narrative threads are knit elegantly within the ready-made canvas that is the crime family chronicles. And surprisingly, all of this holds pretty well, relying on a select number of revelatory episodes and subtle mood shifts. Carried by excellent actors from both sides of the linguistic barrier (French and Flemish alike), Bullhead is a nice change of pace from extravagant genre pieces, that is a very engrossing drama which doesn't overplay the spectacular elements of the narrative, choosing instead to rely on relevant details. Perfectly cast as the over-sized protagonist, Matthias Schoenaerts manages to be touching at times, and scary at others, depending on the needs of the scenario. Most interestingly though, his muscular physique offers perfect contrast to his mutilated genitalia, allowing the film to question the need to overcompensate, or to create masculinity artificially, with the same growth hormone with which we shoot our cattle. The problematic appraisal of masculinity is actually the meaty crux of the film and its most salient feature. While well-crafted, the rest plays along familiar, almost dotted lines.

THUMBS UP

You Are Here
This collage of shorts is one of the most fun rides I've had this year. The wits involved seep through every, carefully crafted micro-narrative inside, creating an illuminating entry in the log of Canadian eccentricities. Read full review here.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

Victims
It was a shame to see how few people turned up to witness such an uncommon feat, a one-take film. I mean, most of the theater was empty, as if people couldn't care for any technical achievement that wasn't a first (The Russian Ark and PVC-1, amongst few others, have beaten Victims to the punch). Actually, I was surprised only for an instant, imputing the lack of an audience to the generalized lack of interest for film as a complex technical means of telling a story. That said, while Victims does manage to contain the entire narrative within a single take, it does so at the expense of concision, as exemplified by the overly lengthy van ride opening the film, which gobbles up a third of the runtime, and showcases a jarring number of redundant lines. Fortunately, the film then builds up nicely toward an explosive centerpiece containing some surprisingly crafty moments of tension.

The story focuses on one Neil Adams and a group of abductors hellbent on making him confess to a brutal rape/murder which he perpetrated as a child. While the man vehemently denies these allegations, his facade eventually cracks, revealing a rather penitent former rapist. But penitent or not, his captors have made up their mind to make him pay, as their very elaborate plan suggests. Wordy but tension-filled, Victims plays out like a timely debate on a subject quite dear to the British psyche, juvenile crime, the ramifications of which are cleverly weighted and appraised within the highly dramatic framework of the narrative. And while it all could be considered a rape revenge film, it is not a bloody one. Nonetheless, it is far more relevant than all the I Spit on Your Grave of this world, tackling its subject matter rather gravely, and synthetically, exposing the evils of both crime and its punishment. A surprisingly potent achievement, and one even your mother will love.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

Fantasia 2011 (Day 6)

2011-08-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, JULY 19

For this first busy weekday, I selected three very heterogeneous films, the sum of which amounted to very little. While I had high expectations for One Hundred Years of Evil, which I foresaw as Zelig starring Hitler (instead of that notorious Jew littering the screen with subversive tomfoolery), I was quite disappointed with the final product, a mix bag of unresolved ideas. Then there was Midnight Son, which I caught scant seconds after leaving my plate at the Chinese restaurant opposite the Norris building. To my surprise, the screening was sold-out, and so I found myself sitting smack in the middle of the first row, experiencing the film as though I had brought binoculars to the theater. But that didn't spoil my fun, for while it was amateurishly produced, the film scored big points for so brazenly deconstructing the vampire mythos. As for The Wicker Tree, it turned out to be a rather flavorless sequel to Hardy's own 1973 marvel, The Wicker Man, the decrease in quality being mostly attributable to the absence of Anthony Shaffer's clever pen. Fortunately, while I wasn't completely satisfied with the line-up for that 6th day, I was happy to have found company for the first and last screenings of the day in a pair of friends willing to share the giddy thrills of the festival for a spell. The two of them faithfully waited for me, doing God knows what, while I attended the second screening. Why they weren't drawn to the antics of yet another emo vampire onscreen is beyond me...

FILMS SEEN

One Hundred Years of Evil

Amazing premise is marred by over-ambitious intentions. The result is a mockumentary containing many intriguing, but unresolved ideas and a far too dramatic approach to some extravagant material. The contention here is that Hitler didn't actually die in his bunker after WW2, but was deported to the US instead, where he became a private citizen who took part in a jarring number of avant-gardist projects, including the scripting of the very first TV soap opera, the invention of fast food and the creation of a backyard space program, the traces of which are still very vivid today. Unfortunately, this unlikely premise is constrained by a very restrictive dramatic canvas elaborated around the two filmmakers' quest for truth, delineated using a dead serious video diary approach. Playing for big laughs and some engrossing emotional lows as well, Years manages to create no definite identity for itself.

As the two protagonists investigate the trail of bread crumbs left by the Fuhrer, the number of humorous vignettes concerning Hitler's contribution to Americana multiply, but they fail to successfully integrate the highly dramatic main storyline, most of them being shown only in passing in order to accommodate the over-saturated run-time. Concerned mostly with narrative digressions, the film even loses sight of its narrative cornerstone, a computer program meant to determine from facial expressions whether a subject is lying or not. Devised by one of the protagonists, this invention is what compels him to investigate Hitler's background. But it disappears from the narrative right after its introduction, as many of the film's most interesting gimmicks which are thrown in the mix only to be removed momentarily. Crude play on words (such as Cryo-Putsch, a cryogenic lab where Hitler's remains are preserved) doesn't help the film establish a much-needed sense of credibility, establishing instead just how superficial the humor here really is.

THUMBS DOWN

Midnight Son

Timely and surprisingly relevant low-budget vampire film equates the downfall of bloodsuckers with the weakening of the North American male. Read full review here

THUMBS UP

The Wicker Tree

A couple of born-again Christians from the Bible Belt are chosen to try and convert pagan Scots, with somewhat predictable results, in this "spiritual" sequel to The Wicker Man. Instead of the subtle, spiritual humor and flawlessly executed plan devised by the clever heathens from the original film, Robin Hardy chooses instead to make a full-blown farce of it all, brushing broad caricatures of both his protagonists and antagonists, and nearly removing all the charm from the enterprise, which, one is sad to realize, could be imputed almost solely to the fine penmanship of playwright Anthony Shaffer. Revisiting nearly every previous theme, Hardy makes all shadowy or ambiguous narrative cogs so obvious as to dispel the whole mystical aura surrounding the series. And while the ending provides a clever update on the original, while a few jokes hit home, the ensemble ultimately feels unworthy to stand beside the 1973 cult classic. Obviously, the aim here is to mock the many received ideas forced upon unsuspecting lambs by American Christian groups , an enterprise doomed to failure considering how few Americans are likely to see, let alone enjoy, the film. That said, setting up the film in removed Scotland doesn't help to get the point across either, but forces comparison with the first film instead. Which isn't such a great idea considering how derivative and underwhelming the current project is.

AMBIVALENT THUMBS DOWN

Fantasia 2011 (Day 5)

2011-08-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, JULY 18

A slow, backwards day at the festival during which great execution managed to save some unoriginal material while some fairly unique material was torpedoed by poor execution. Located at both extremes of the spectrum, Retreat and Love each have their own merits and their own flaws. It's a shame that the former film succeeds thanks to some conservative screenwriting while the latter fails despite original ideas. That said, while first-time writer/director Carl Tibbetts will unlikely do much better than Retreat, first-time writer/director William Eubank has the potential to transcend genre boundaries and make a great career for himself if only he could overcome his initial lack of self-confidence as an author. Only time will tell if I am right, but I believe that one should keep a close look-out for both these guys and their future work.

Retreat

Highly derivative narrative is fueled by three A-list actors in great shape and some solid direction focused on tension-building. While there are far too many twists near the end, the film is definitively worth a peak, especially if you enjoy tightly-wound thrillers based on dramatic composition.

The plot concerns a couple's retreat gone bad with the appearance of a zealous psycho who quickly takes over the destinies of the two protagonists. Asthmatic weakling Martin (Cillian Murphy) and his distant wife Kate (Thandie Newton) are "enjoying" the quietude of a secluded cabin on the uninhabited island of Blackholme when they are disturbed by the apparition of a young man in military attire who warns them of a rampaging pandemic affecting the world. Is the guy a complete psycho, as his increasingly erratic behavior seems to indicate, or is he simply shell-shocked from the horrors he has seen back on the mainland?

The entire narrative rests on this simple ambiguity and the masterful depiction of the ensuing tension, especially when firearms are involved. Despite some unnecessary exposition (focusing on a revelatory tale which writer Kate is currently working on), the film makes good use of the emotional crisis affecting the couple from the get-go in order to alienate all three characters from each other. And while Newton and Murphy do a great job of portraying the two incompatible halves of an unfit couple (the latter being perfectly cast as the impotent husband), it is Jamie Bell who takes the cake as the nutty stranger in charge of their reconciliation under fire.

THUMBS UP

Love

Esthetically riveting, with splendid art direction to boot, this intriguing repackaging of classic sci-fi fare gets lost in endless dialogues and a deafening "atmospheric" score. Read full review here.

THUMBS DOWN

Fantasia 2011 (Day 4)

2011-08-13T21:11:00.000-07:00

SUNDAY JULY 17

The grandest day of the festival, that first Sunday lined up two of my top three films this year, Another Earth and The Troll Hunter. Yet, it was marred by the bitter regrets I entertained in regards to a certain ticket switch. Motivated primarily by intellectual laziness, the swap of my Bleak Night ticket for a A Lonely Place to Die entry left me perplexed about my own resolve. And while the girl at the box office assured me that I would make another film-goer happy, it didn't do much to wash off the feeling of guilt deriving from my betrayal of genre-less cinema. At some point, I did manage to rationalize it all, as I always do, halfheartedly convincing myself that Fantasia was meant for genre films and that I should be more psyched to see a prize-winning action film than a Korean drama. And while A Lonely Place to Die was fairly decent, it could hardly make me forget about the higher dramatic potential of the former film. Luckily for me, the day ended with a bang thanks to a fantastic joke topping a fantastic film. Seeing Norway's Prime Minister inadvertently revealing the existence of trolls was the cherry atop a delicious Scandinavian cake, and it left me laughing for days. That said, the next day's shift was that much lighter, giggling as I was inbetween the cardboard boxes and jumbled waybills of which my life is comprised.

(Irrelevant digression ahead) Those who have read my previous post about Day 1 will notice that I have re-used the same turn of phrase as I did before when mentioning how I manage to rationalize every single heartache I endure. Well, this got me thinking of a girl, whom I haven't thought about for a long time, a girl which might've made my life complete hadn't I been such a spineless jerk. That girl sat close to me in my Film History classes and we used to exchange some words inbetween lectures. I loved her looks, bookish but sexy, and her quirky antics. I remember that she used to draw during class and sometimes she would surprisingly turn around and look at me, as if she was drawing my portrait. At least, that is what my ego has always wanted to believe. At any rate, the end of the semester eventually came to be and I dearly wished to keep contact with her. So I tried to work up the courage to ask her out for a drink. I mean, it's not that hard. All I had to do was to take a casual tone, and mundanely ask if she wanted to do something sometime. A child could've done it. But unfortunately, I didn't have the self-confidence of a child. And so, you a have to picture this: a four-hour class comprised entirely of a arduous mental struggle between courageous resolve and crippling nervousness. "Should I, shouldn't I", I kept thinking as beads of sweat eventually started to form against my temples. The suspense built and built as I tried to devise the best, most enticing proposition I could muster, all the while thinking she would laugh at me and call me pathetic. I glanced sideways with increasing nervousness, both at the ticking clock on the (De Sève) theater wall and at the girl. I barely could hear the lecturer as myriads of questions were vying for the control of my soul. Should I, shouldn't I... Time is running out and I can't make a decision, unable to think of the one perfect approach not to have her make a mockery of me. When finally the bell rang, I ran off, not saying goodbye, not doing squat, but leaving for the familiar comfort of my parents' house.

To this day, I still wonder if I simply imagined a puzzled look on her face, or if it was really there, as a token of her surprise with my dashing retreat. What I do remember vividly is crossing the turnstile in the subway, rationalizing my cowardice by insisting on the many future, and highly hypothetical, romance opportunities I was to have in the remainder of my life. But there was a darker, more lucid part of me which reckoned that I had quite possibly ruined my very last chance at happiness. As time passes, I realize that this dark part of me might've been exactly right and that I may well have screwed up my last chance at happiness. And while I don't know the first thing about the girl's opinion of me, I tend to think for the worst and create an elaborate mythos around her in which I am but a lowly fly. Actually, the most distressing aspect of this story is the fact that I'll never, ever know whether I missed a good chance or not, and forever will feel like a loser for not even trying...

Emotional digressions aside, here is the account of a more joyous time in my life, my four-film adventure on Sunday, July 17th 2011:

FILMS SEEN

Ip Man: The Legend is Born

In this pointless reboot of the series, we witness the upbringing of legendary Wing Chun master, and Bruce Lee mentor, Ip Man. It's a shame that the producers of this third Ip Man film felt they had to depart from the episodic nature of the first two chapters, choosing instead to take an entirely formulaic approach to the biographical material at hand, showing us many irrelevant details of Man's life in the process.. Blessed with the great production values customary in such period pieces, the film does boast some well-choreographed action sequences, which are still a far cry from those in the previous Ip Man films. Add to that a sappy romance between Man and an obsessive noblewoman (whose father is played by a typically extravagant Lam Suet) and a very unsatisfying twist ending and you've got an underwhelming new entry in a stellar saga, one which will certainly have a harder time piercing the North American market. Seeing how Chinese actors are commissioned to play Japanese characters, one furthermore finds that Hong Kong's sense of realism is just as skin deep as Hollywood's. In the end, despite all its flaws, the film manages a thumbs up for being just entertaining enough.

THUMBS UP

Another Earth

A minuscule budget doesn't prevent this subtle, engrossing sci-fi film from soaring up high. Read full review here.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

A Lonely Place to Die

While I was promised exhilarating action sequences from this prize-winning British effort, those are kept mostly for the final few scenes in which several parties, each with its own shadowy agenda, collide into an orgy of exciting gunfights and primordial brawls for survival. The first part, while a little less exciting, does feature breathtaking photography of the gorgeous Scottish highlands, framed by a volatile, daredevil camera who closely follows as the characters rush through the jagged landscape. Unfortunately, it is really hard to buy the premise, which involves a pair of high-flying international kidnappers with a really over-complex M.O. Snatching rich kids from unsuspecting households the world over, they then proceed to entrap their prizes in buried boxes, one of which is unsuspectingly unearthed by the protagonists, who are soon entangled in an intrigue much bigger than themselves. This is all well and good, a little implausible perhaps, but acceptable as fiction. That is until the bullets start flying, all over the screen but in the large human targets. At some point, even I, who has to ability to suspend his disbelief indefinitely, was getting tired of seeing the two villainous sharp-shooters armed missing their targets over and over again so as to allow them to escape using a linear escape route. Not only are these endless shooting bits implausible, but they make for a somewhat tedious game of cat-and-mouse that lasts for the better part of the film. Fortunately, it all wraps up nicely with the appearance of a heavily-armed group of mercenaries hellbent on recapturing the captive girl liberated by the mountaineering protagonists. As the many characters in the narrative congregate in a festive little village, so too does the film find renewed vigor and an undeniable sense of purpose. So be sure to stick around for the tension-filled finale. As a parting note, I must add that Melissa George is quite sexy in her mountain-climbing attire, making for one visually-enticing heroine.

THUMBS UP

The Troll Hunter

This hilarious, cleverly crafted mockumentary manages to blend CGI animation with live-action cinematography almost seamlessly. The result is a surprisingly realistic fairy tale with razor-sharp wits that joyously pokes fun at incompetent authorities, conspiracy theorists and everyone who takes life too seriously. A prime example of Scandinavian genius at work.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

Fantasia 2011 (Day 3)

2011-08-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY JULY 16

The first somewhat busy day of the festival was highlighted by the presence of Robin Hardy and the director's cut of his celebrated cult classic The Wicker Man. To my surprise, the house wasn't packed for the event, even though it took place in the diminutive J.A. De Sève theater. Still, it was a real treat for those who did come (including two of my friends who had never seen it before!). The print wasn't all that great, amounting to the same patchwork of restored and raw footage as seen on the DVD version, but merely witnessing the film was awesome in itself. I mean, Britt Ekland's naked body on 35 mm, or Edward Woodward's panicked expression when the flames reach his wicker prison... these are the things which cults are made of. In this case, cunning and carefree cults of clever tricksters.

People should've flocked to see The Wicker Man.
Unfortunately, they didn't.

The remainder of the line-up was a mixed bag, filled with vastly heterogeneous titles ranging three continents and various narrative styles. The Reef was a realistic survivalist horror film set in the crystal-clear waters surrounding the Australian corral reefs; Superheroes, an engrossing documentary starring an abundance of real-life crime-fighters; El Sol, an animated oddity focused on the absurd adventures of wasteland roamers in the post-apocalyptic future; Knifepoint, an excessive midnight film depicting one of the vilest home invasions this side of Funny Games. That said, Day 3 was perhaps more representative of Fantasia than Day 2 as it showcased a varied selection of films, each hand-picked for genre fans and each only slightly unconventional so as not to frighten said genre fans too much. The resulting line-up, while entirely worthy, is not groundbreaking at all.

FILMS SEEN

The Reef

Were it not so strikingly similar to international sleeper hit Open Water, this film might've been good. Because while The Reef contains impeccable cinematography, including some neat underwater photography, and a tailor-made score involving a whopping eleven musicians, it is never quite as gripping as Open Water, which purposefully barrens the scenery in order to better focus on the two central characters and their plight. Here, the narrative rather plays like a slasher film than a psychological drama, stranding the protagonists in inhospitable settings and pitting them against silent killers who bump them off one by one until a lone survivor (girl) makes it to safety. Of course, one will surely appreciate the scenery and the exhilarating moments of tension arising with the presence of sharks, but the lackluster, redundant screenplay will do very little to really draw him inside the world of the film. And by the way, boasting that any film is "the scariest (or best) shark film since Jaws" is saying very little, seeing how the shark sub-genre basically amounts to a sterile wasteland. That said, The Reef isn't even worthy of such a dubious honor...

THUMBS SIDEWAYS

The Wicker Man

Stellar, enduring cult classic benefits above all from a flawless screenplay by playwright Anthony Shaffer who displays a rare knack for delightful witticisms and humorous jabs at moral rectitude, all wrapped in the confines of a minutely crafted police thriller. Set on an isolated island off the coast of Scotland, one which has eluded the claws of Christianity, choosing instead to worship the" joyous old gods" of Celtic folklore, the story chronicles the coming of an intrusive mainland policeman who meddles with the locals' business in search of a missing girl. Shocked by what he sees at every turn (including, but not limited to, slow-motion orgies, pagan fertility rituals and phallus worshiping), Sergeant Howie represents the humorless and devout facade of the British Crown. Opposite of him is the charismatic Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee in his best performance ever), a playful noble who knows how to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Tightly-wound, with impeccable performances from the entire cast (including Edward Woodward, Ingrid Pitt and gorgeous Bond girl Britt Ekland), The Wicker Man is a colorful and unforgettable foray into a secluded world and its intriguing, liberating belief system. That said, the plethora of songs performed by the cast merely adds to the fun, culminating in two noteworthy cult scenes, the Maypole dance scene (involving children running around a phallic maple tree) and the siren song scene (in which Ekland fully disrobes and dances wildly in an attempt to seduce Howie through the common wall between their rooms). This was my tenth screening of the film and I intend to see it at least ten more times.

AUTOMATIC THUMBS UP

Superheroes

Engrossing documentary involving out-of-this-world characters with various intriguing backgrounds gets lost in the multiplicity of storylines. Although it contains many great dramatic bits, it never manages to form a truly concise whole, which is typical of the editorial jitters one might experience when faced with such an overwhelming amount of material as that filmed during the preparation of the present effort. Unfortunately, the plight of documentary filmmakers is to make difficult decisions in the editing room, too few of which were taken here. Nonetheless, the film managed to make me cry, thanks to a brilliant parallel drawn between the beastly crowds attending the San Diego Comic-Con , where fake superheroes are reveled for preserving the status quo, and the surrounding streets, where real-life heroes care to disenfranchised tent-dwellers too numerous to count. I must admit that seeing these people made me shed some bitter tears, seeing how 0.001% of the fortune amassed by 0.001% of the richest Americans could propel all of them above the poverty line, the same 0.001% which fights so zealously against tax increases and government spending so as to throw away more money lobbying than they would need to solve world hunger. That said, the world does need heroes, but it doesn't a full gamut of them (no matter how colorful their names or how unique their M.O.s), it only takes one, one who will hold the machete of justice high to better remove the heads of heartless bank executives and spill their golden blood all over the black ghettos of L.A. and the Mexican refugee camps of Texas. Similarly, Superheroes should've shed a few of its titular characters in order to make a clearer, more precise point.

AMBIVALENT THUMBS UP

El Sol

Insane South-American animation film finds a bunch of crude, hand-drawn characters wandering through a post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of purpose. While entirely unfocused and episodic, it is imbued with a manic energy that sustains it throughout. And even though the jokes are a mix of hits and misses, managing to generate any reaction from raging hilarity to mere shoulder shrugs, the pacing is so relentless as to make you forget about anything other than enjoying yourself.

Complementary animated short Prita Noire was cute and compelling in a fucked-up sort of way, using the voice-over from fairy tales over a bleak backdrop involving an armless baby and a creepy doll with two pet spiders. Very cool, independently-produced effort involves very imaginative art direction and creative animation. A logical companion piece to the equally cheap but lovingly-made El Sol.

THUMBS UP

Knifepoint

As the director of Knifepoint so rightfully pointed out before the screening, midnight films are meant to shock. And while to shock isn't such a lofty goal, it is achieved with surprising bravado in this mean, super-violent home invasion film. Read full review here.

THUMBS UP

Fantasia 2011 (Day 2)

2011-08-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

FRIDAY JULY 15

The second day is usually when the festival gets into full gear, as the Theater Hall is filled with cheerful Friday night crowds eager to experience all sorts of thrills garnered from the remote corners of the world. And while I wouldn't have been caught dead attending the premiere of Deadball, a sequel to the uninspired Battlefield Baseball (Fantasia 2009), I was delighted to attend the sold-out Quebec premiere of Joe Cornish's Attack the Block, which was paired with another first-class crowd-pleaser, Sable & Batalion's first short film: The Legend of Beaver Dam. For me, that is when Fantasia truly kicked off, with a pair of exciting, very high-quality genre gems, the likes of which were lovingly picked from the tree like ripe fruits.

Those unfamiliar with Sable & Batalion will want to keep an eye out for their future films. Best known for their musical play J.O.B. The Hip-Hopera, this pair of Montrealers is also well versed in the art of genre film-making, as displayed by the smarts they use to reflect on the slasher film. You see, Legend of Beaver Dam is more than its generic title. It is actually a musical slasher in which the killer's viewpoint is brilliantly depicted using the power of song. Relying on some terrific singing voices from their diminutive protagonist and metal-inclined creature, their tale is one of humiliation and retribution in the purest tradition of the genre. But it is one to reflect so relevantly on its nature as to earn a rightful place in the annals of noteworthy postmodern horror.

The main course (Attack the Block), while not as surprising, is crafted to perfection. And it is one that finds renewed relevance today, as British cities are experiencing the upheaval of the disenfranchised and disorganized. Because while the narrative backdrop involves an intergalactic turf war, the topic itself is very earthly. Starting with a mundane robbery perpetrated by hooded thugs on a lone woman, the film quickly establishes the proliferation of wanton criminality in the crowded British ghettos. But contrary to ass-faced Prime Minister David Cameron, it doesn't systematically condemn the kids' actions, trying instead to understand, by giving them the sufficient latitude to express themselves as something other than stereotypes. Thus, the film chronicles their adventure and in doing so, thwarts many of the misconceptions one may entertain about criminalized youths. But while the film is an interesting milieu study, it is also an exhilarating, fluid action/horror piece that boasts a surprising flair for composition and monster design. The result is a very potent genre piece, at once exciting, visually stunning and political. This is exactly the kind of fodder one will wish to see at Fantasia.

As for Ironclad, it contained enough vitamins to make for an invigorating starter. It's just a shame that Chop wasn't sweet enough a desert to top that wonderful evening.

FILMS SEEN

Ironclad
A conventional, by-the-numbers historical epic highlighted not so much by the great production values or Paul Giamatti's flat performance as King John, but by the zany, ultra-gory battle scenes, which work as a loving tribute to the heroes' zeal in trying to reclaim their kingdom from an unfit monarch. Recommended for fans of historical epics who won't simply settle for looking at the scenery.

THUMBS UP

Attack the Block
A rare gem: a superbly directed, exhilarating horror film set in Orwellian British projects, with all the colorful dialogue and political undertones it implies. The monster design is impeccable and so are the young actors carrying the plot.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

Chop
Amateurish torture porn entry throws a couple of good ideas around, but fails for lack of a definite identity. Read full review here.

THUMBS DOWN

Fantasia 2011 (Day 1)

2011-08-13T20:56:00.000-07:00

THURSDAY JULY 14

Fantasia. Opening night. When film fanatics, genre enthusiasts and closeted nerds take to the streets and congregate for the great mass of alternative cinemas, where one can watch films with his guts after leaving his brains at the door. It is also where jaded, genre-savvy film scholars can try and catch a glimpse of that most elusive of genre film features, innovation. Of course, one can always appreciate a well-made, if conventional outing in any crowded genre, but the real prize lies in finding a film that manages to stand out from said genre, be it because of a twist on narrative conventions, or any kind of technical novelty managing to elevate pulp fiction to the level of art. Few films can achieve this, and they're often very hard to find. Especially on opening night, where conventional tastes dictate the conduct of film programmers. Unfortunately, this year was no exception. The selection of Kevin Smith's horrendous Red State as the opening film was actually one of the most misguided attempts at crowd-pleasing to grace the festival in many years. It is also one of the rare slip-ups in this year's otherwise stellar program. At the very least, it gave me an interesting story to tell...

Opening night at Fantasia is a memorable moment indeed. The crowds are beastly, the energy is contagious and the impatience at the box office is epic. Unfortunately for me, I had no ticket for the opening film this year, as they were sold out scant hours after they went on sale. Thinking my absence from the first day celebrations a personal failure, I devised a plan to find myself a seat in the Valhalla of film madness. With a fat, black marker and a piece of cardboard, I fashioned a tool to guarantee a seat, one that would prove my love for film better than my obsessive collecting of old VHS tapes. 'Will pay 50$ for a Red State ticket', I wrote in letters as big as my marker could muster. Armed with such a weapon of mass persuasion, I left my Petite Bourgogne home with confidence. But when I reached Mackay street, a substantial surprise was in store for me. Contrary to what I had envisioned in my head, there was no file line of ticket holders by the Hall building, no serpentine accumulation of twitching bodies and eager faces. Instead of that, a constantly revolving door through which flocking congregationalists were slowly filling the auditorium. Upon seeing this, my plan came apart for I had wanted to walk beside the line and test a crowd which failed to materialize. Had there been a line, I'm convinced that I would've scored a ticket in less than a minute. But without a crowd, I felt that my chances had suddenly dwindled.

"Fuck Red State", I thought in a brief moment of lucidity, "I'll just see it when it hits selected theaters". And so, I decided to grab a ticket for King of Devil's Island instead. I wasn't fully happy with this decision, but I still managed, as I always do, to rationalize it all, convincing myself that I was about to see a more intellectual, and probably more rewarding film, but knowing in my guts that I craved the irreverent attitude and political incorrectness of Kevin Smith. At any rate, I shrugged my shoulders and took to the monstrous queue leading to the box office. I was scant moments away from sealing my fate by purchasing a King ticket when a faithful announcement was made. Tickets for Red State had just become available, as if some divine entity had, as one of my friends later put it, decided to reward my boldness. I jumped at the occasion, leaping across the velvet rope to exchange 9$ (instead of 50$) for a precious, precious ticket, driven by my gut feeling and unabashed love for the horrific and the weird. Although I didn't know at the time, it was quite unfortunate that this "blessing" came to be because, as satisfaction goes, it felt much better to get the ticket than to see the film per se...

Luckily for me, opening night was not completely wasted as the second film was right up my alley: a stellar, gorgeously produced HK action film the likes of which should've opened the festival instead of Red State.

FILMS SEEN ON DAY 1

Red State
An atrocious, ill-advised and sterile mix-up of genres resulting from Kevin Smith's venture outside of his minuscule comfort zone. Read full review here.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS DOWN

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
Richly-produced, with terrific special effects and exciting fight scenes to boot, this is a treat to all fans of high-flying kung-fu epics. One of Tsui Hark's best, most accomplished films. Read full review here.

ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP

Fantasia 2011

2011-08-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

THE BIG FANTASIA ROUND-UP, or My 75-film Odyssey Into the Heart of Things

Fantasia, that blessed time of year when I can close my shell over my head and forget about the outside world, only to be reminded thereof with every venture in the surrounding streets, where an array of fashionable clones walk with oblivious nonchalance. It is a time where far-out fantasy brushes with the painfully prosaic elements of one's life, causing a quick resurgence of lucidity lost in the midst of everyday responsibilities.

For me, every edition is a life-affirming experience through which a gamut of questions about life and death find answers in the most unlikely places. And this year was no exception. This year, it seems that the sights and sounds from the festival have allowed me to put my life back on tracks and for once in a long time, I feel that the road ahead is actually a promising one.

With the release of Vies et morts du giallo, to which I contributed an essay, my first published work in five years, I managed to crack my shell a bit and start feeling like a new person, a person with the actual power to affect change in his life and in his surroundings. And with the many strolls I took through the land of clones (Ste-Catherine street), I also started to see myself as a real individual, one that stands out from the others, who have willingly made the choice to blend in and breeze though life on the comforting lifeboat of normality. Although I understand these people, I do not envy them for I long for something different, for a life of rewarding hardships far away from the masses. And now, it is finally time to assume my choices and start fighting in their name.

But most of all, it is the 75 illuminating feature films I attended, which have left the deepest imprint on my soul and made me the rehabilitated film buff and demonic reviewer I am today. Somehow, they allowed me to convince myself that I could take on the world. Nay! They convinced me that it was my duty to take on the world and contribute my ideas to the cultural pool. Hopefully, the present accounts of my journey will perhaps be enlightening to others and it is my deepest wish that they will be. So, without further ado, here is the first chapter of my introspective adventures in the bizarre, through dated conventions lace with dark surprises. Here is my special section dedicated to Fantasia 2011!

FIRST OF ALL, LISTS
Following the advice of a close friend, I will start with a schematic breakdown of the festival, listing the films seen on each day, then including a selection of winners in various categories so as to provide the impatient with quick vital stats (links will be added periodically):

Alphabetical list of titles
Day 1 (Red State, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame)
Day 2 (Ironclad, Attack the Block, Chop)
Day 3 (The Reef, The Wicker Man, Superheroes, El Sol, Knifepoint)
Day 4 (Ip Man: The Legend is Born, Another Earth, A Lonely Place to Die, The Troll Hunter)
Day 5 (Retreat, Love)
Day 6 (One Hundred Years of Evil, Midnight Son, The Wicker Tree)
Day 7 (Bullhead, You Are Here, Victims)
Day 8 (Super, The Divide)
Day 9 (The Silence, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS)
Day 10 (Helldriver, Monster Brawl, True Legend, Panique, Saint, Battle Royale)
Day 11 (Frankenstein Created Woman, Pop Skull, Urban Explorer, Wake in Fright)
Day 12 (Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Some Guy Who Kills People)
Day 13 (Kill Me Please, The Whisperer in Darkness, A Horrible Way to Die)
Day 14 (Un génie, deux associés, une cloche, Death Weekend, Burke & Hare)
Day 15 (Surviving Life)
Day 16 (Beyond the Black Rainbow, Rabies, Horny House of Horror)
Day 17 (What Fun We Were Having: 4 Stories About Date Rape, The Catechism Cataclysm, Stake Land, Frankenstein 2000, The FP, Cold Sweat)
Day 18 (Redline, Bangkok Knockout, Tomie: Unlimited, Lapland Odyssey, Last Days Here, Hollow)
Day 19 (Dharma Guns, Kidnapped, Vampire)
Day 20 (Invasion of Alien Bikini, Marianne, The Woman)
Day 21 (Wasted on the Young, Brawler, The Devil's Rock)
Day 22 (Little Deaths, Exit, Bas-fonds)
Day 23 (NO FILM)
Day 24 (The Phantom of the Opera)
Day 25 (Clown: The Movie, Cold Sweat, Absentia)

FIVE BEST FILMS
(Classic films, namely The Wicker Man, The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein Created Woman, Wake in Fright, Un génie, deux associés, une cloche and Battle Royale are excluded from this category because they needn't extra praise)

1- LAST DAYS HERE (Don Argott, Demian Fenton, directors)
One of the best documentary films to grace the screen in a long time, this arduous journey into ex Pentagram singer Bobby Liebling's sub-basement frames its subject without any compromise to good mores, but with an undeniable respect that seeps through every shot, even during the most shocking scenes of crack consumption. After all, crack consumption, paranoid delusions and debilitating heart aches are all hard facts of life. And so is the unforgiving process of aging and the certitude that it is never too late to make amends and to redeem oneself in the eyes of the world. These are the heavy boulders which Last Days Here juggles effortlessly. But the film is more than just a chronicle of Liebling's tragic "last days here". It is an interventionist effort designed to drag him away from the depths of infamy and into the reconforting spotlights of the metal scene. And it is a very successful one at that. For when you see a bed-ridden, hospitalized junkie and ex-rock star tearfully thanking the film crew for their presence at his side, you know you've got an exceptional film in front of you. But when you witness the revival of the man's art through a concert orchestrated by same film crew, crying tears of joy just by watching him don his demonic grin once more, you know you've got a classic film in front of you. Great, great, great stuff. Read full review here.

2- THE TROLL HUNTER (André Ovredal, director)
While a far cry from Last Days Here, namely because it only emulates reality instead of making sense thereof, this delightful, effects-driven Norwegian import is a must-see for all fans of fantastic mockumentaries. Because while fantasy is often grounded in far-away, unattainable lands, there is still a way to bring magic to our own world, as trite as it may appear to most. By mixing Scandinavian fairy tale mythos with sharp political insight and a biting sense of humor, the creators of The Troll Hunter have done just that. The result is a surprisingly believable, down-to-Earth story about trolls and the people hired by the government to cover up their existence and keep the general public in a state of disbelief. What's so surprising about it all is that even the most skeptic and grounded viewer could actually get caught in the game on account of the film being so detailed and so well served by its CGI beasties. But believable as it may be, Hunter has an incredible sense of humor, one that is subdued just enough to be hysterical to even the most stoic of film-goers. Scandinavia contributes all its wit, its intelligence and its breathtaking scenery to this film, allowing the creation of this amazing example of what one can achieve with just a little imagination, a remnant perhaps, of a time long-forgotten when belief was a beautiful, magical thing and not merely a debilitating obstacle to adult considerations. But while the film succeeds as a fictional oeuvre, it also does as a documentary one. After all, the film operates primarily in documentary mode, using an immediate, hand-held camera that contributes a lot to the exhilarating action scenes while also doing its job as a diary for every character involved. Rarely do such smart filmmakers as the ones behind Hunter take an interest in fairy tales. Luckily for us, they did, and so they have left us the gift of a film which we should do all in our power to keep unearthed.

3- ANOTHER EARTH (Mike Cahill, director)
I was sold to this film with a simple still depicting Brit Marling's Rhoda staring at the titular planet, hung in the oh-so familiar sky like the proverbial sore thumb. Luckily for me, the film was as subtle as that obsessive blue mirror and just as intriguing. A sci-fi film rooted in the deepest corners of the human soul, Another Earth is a mammoth achievement for the young people at the helm (Cahill and ex-girlfriend Marling, both of whom co-wrote the screenplay). And it is a treat for all sci-fi fans who have witnessed its near eradication from the screen. Luckily, this film now benefits from a widespread theatrical release, which is proof that there is still room in the overcrowded multiplexes for little films with big ideas. Read full review here.

4- BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW (Panos Cosmatos, director)
The ROC (Rest of Canada, for those unfamiliar with this québécois expression) rarely produces genre films, but when it does, they always pack a mighty punch. Just think Cronenberg. Think Vincenzo Natali. And now, one has to recognize the humbling presence of Beyond the Black Rainbow, a subtle but powerful meditation on horror film history. Because while one could see it as a sci-fi film, they wouldn't find much here to support that claim as every sci-fi element contained inside is minutely rigged to produce horrific effects. The minimalism of the ensemble points to a masterful self-assurance from first-time film director Cosmatos, especially in light of how gripping the ensemble is, relying rather on opressive sets and ungodly flashes of extreme ugliness to instill the proper mood rather than on opressive sound effects and overdetermined scare tactics. Using a retro-futuristic approach to the material at hand and a sudden, crucial shift of aesthetics near the end, Rainbow is a prime example of post-modernist, genre-savvy execution. Some great stuff coming from out of the blue and the happiest surprise for me at this year's edition. Read full review here.

5- SUPER (James Gunn, director)
An irreverent superhero film? Finally! And it's got Ellen Page as a latex-clad, manic-depressive Juno with Wolverine claws? Count me in! And so I was, with three of my friends, my brother, his girlfriend and her brother, an heterogeneous menagerie brought together by the desire to have fun again while watching a superhero film, applauding our asses off at every of the numerous occasions when exhilaration came in our midst. It's not often that you see people applaud the opening credits of a film so lengthily, but I must say that I myself was blown away. And while the remainder of the film cannot sustain the insane pace thereof, it does contain some of the funniest, most memorable scenes ever to intrude in a conventionally-plotted superhero narrative such as this. Just thinking about how luminous and entertaining Super is and how excruciatingly boring Christopher Nolan's Batman films are, I get even more pissed off than I already am, especially in light of the fact that the former film hasn't even landed a distribution deal for the theater run while the latter are praised by some as two of the best films of all times. Two of the best films of all times! If ever contempt for cinema could find an embodiment, it would be in such claims. Then again, it is useless to dwell on things one cannot change, for there are myriad other things that one can change. And making sure that kick-ass films such as Super find an audience is certainly not the least of them. Read full review here.

Runner-ups

ATTACK THE BLOCK (Joe Cornish, director)
COLD SWEAT (Adrian Garcia Bogliano, director)
DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME (Tsui Hark, director)
THE DIVIDE (Xavier Gens, director)
KIDNAPPED (Miguel Angel Vivas, director)
VICTIMS (David Bryant, director)
THE WOMAN (Lucky McKee, director)
YOU ARE HERE (Daniel Cockburn, director)

FIVE WORST FILMS
In no particular order.

RED STATE (Kevin Smith, director)
I haven't seen Cop Out but I know for a fact that it is better than Red State. Yes, the latter film is that bad. After dedicating his life to crafting inspired, bitter-sweet rom-coms, many of which have left an indelible imprint on Americana, Kevin Smith has only recently wandered away from the paddock and this trip out is as ill-advised as they come. Abandoning almost all of his close collaborators (where are Jason Lee and Jason Mewes when you really, really need them?) as well as most thematic obsessions upon which he has built a lucrative body of work, Smith has decided to start anew, but without any hint about how to do it. His new film is a jumbled, tedious affair filled with untimely, obvious jokes and awkward dramatic moments half-assedly glued together between incongruous action scenes. Oscillating dangerously between the vain extravagance of Michael Bay and the crude political insight of Michael Moore, the film does a great job of neutering Smith's very personal brand of humor. It is as if the director had decided to take a handgun out of the rack, point the barrel squarely at his foot and pull the trigger. Read full review here.

THE CATECHISM CATACLYSM (Todd Rohal, director)
A super-tedious 80-minute film? Yes. There is such a thing at Fantasia sometimes. Luckily for me, I didn't have high expectations for Catechism Cataclysm. In fact, it was just filler and I would've certainly walked out of it had I not another film scheduled right after. You see, this is a purposefully irrelevant film, sort of a self-hating oddity really. It goes all over the place but in those rare recesses where one finds some redeeming value. While the film does boast one exhilarating, lasting scene involving noisy Japanese contraptions and exploding heads, the crux of it involves far too much of the two things I hate most in the world: overacting and the absurd used as comical devices. Yuck! Read full review here.

VAMPIRE (Shunji Iwai, director)
Another film which I would've walked out of, hadn't I misinterpreted my friend's puzzled look as he gazed at the screen. While it starts out brilliantly, Vampire only does so in order to better fall from grace. And the film does fall... and fast, all the way down the slippery slope of over-ambitious wishes. The narrative is strangely structured, breaching into a fast-growing number of strands which remain unresolved as more and more strands are uncovered. Thus, various characters come and go, leaving almost invisible imprints in their paths, then disappearing. And so, we are treated to a series of quickly succeeding vignettes, some of which contain some intriguing elements, but most of which are redundant or incongruous. It's a shame because there are some good ideas pertaining to the vampire mythos and to teenage angst at the center it all. But seeing how they are scattered about in a confusing, overreaching stew, they lose all their shine and start blending in the scenery. Read full review here.

DHARMA GUNS (LA SUCCESSION STARKOV) (FJ Ossang, director)
Just the sound thereof is annoying: Dhar-Maguns. Maybe I'm being blinded by my debilitating hatred for the main actor of this tedious collection of increasingly irrelevant vignettes, but it seems to me that he could've ruined even Citizen Kane with his excruciating blabbermouth and agony-inducing accent.

"Mé kisson lè Dharmegeuns?" Please, shut up. "No-mé vrémin, kisson lè Dharmegeuns?" Shut up! "KISSON LÈ DHARMEGEUNS!" SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!! HAAAAAAAAAA! PLEASE MAKE HIM STOP! PLEEEEEEEEEEASE!!!

In all fairness, while I loathed the lead, I also loathed the fact that director Ossang used dialogue, the one most overused and expandable aspect of film-making, and especially experimental film-making, in order to try and subvert narrative conventions. Nice try, bub. Read full review here.

THE FP (Brandon Trost and Jason Trost, directors)
By far the most annoying film experience I ever had (mostly because of the drunken crew members who laughed their heads off at every fucking line), watching The FP was like going back to high school, where I used to write similar screenplays with my friends, condemning myself all the while for aiming so brazenly at the lowest common denominator. This kind of shame is obviously unknown to the Trost brothers, who shower us ad nauseam with an endless array of repetitive, obvious and offensive jokes and situations. Not unlike sports movie references, wigger jokes should be used with moderation, not as the central pillar of any narrative as it is the case here. In the end, the film is, quite literally, a shit storm and it spares no one in the audience. Now, whether or not one likes to be covered in shit pertains to one's personal preferences. As for myself, I'd rather steer clear. Read full review here.

BEST SHORT FILM
Keep in mind that I haven't seen any short film programs, such as Small Gauge Trauma and so forth. The only shorts I did see were those programmed as the first parts of feature films. My impression thereof was mostly positive, with a handful of titles which actually surpassed the features with which they were coupled. But the best one was definitely:

Éric Falardeau's CRÉPUSCULE
This québécois venero-Christian fable stars a clan of sexless, not-so-gentle giants obsessed with human genitalia. When a candid scout stumbles upon a clearing where two naked hedonists (one could call them Adam and Eve) lie down in the grass and start getting it on, he freezes in place and stares in awe from the quiet comfort of nearby brushes. That's how the incremental narrative takes hold, for he then proceeds to tell others of his kind about his curious find, bringing an increasing amount of mates for the second and third rounds of vigorous sex provided by the oblivious pair of decadents. While little can prepare you for the closing blood orgy, the viewer has an inkling of doubt concerning the creepy creatures' intents all the way through and this creates a very gripping atmosphere of tension. In the end, whether you wish to see this as a Christian or anti-Christian allegory, a meditation on porn addiction or a cautionary tale about venereal disease, you will be left in awe by the ungodly amount of work involved in the creation thereof. You see, this 20-minute effort is entirely done in stop motion animation, and not the crappy kind, the 24 frames per second kind! The result is a breathtaking, incredibly fluid and elaborate masterpiece complete with masterful tracking shots and an abundance of moving parts. Hell, even the grass is moving in some shots, along with the giants' arms, legs and heads. Shit, you'd have to be mad to undertake such a project, but Falardeau clearly is and so he succeeds at creating a very impressive, lasting work of art. While the audience didn't react accordingly, I impute that to shock, rather than lack of satisfaction. At any rate, I liked it. Even more than stellar runner up: The Legend of Beaver Dam.

Short films who outdid the features with which they were coupled:
- Crépuscule (was better than Bas-Fonds)
- Bunny Boy (was better than Dharma Guns)
- Death and the Blue-Eyed Boy (was better than Exit)
- The Unliving (was slightly better than Invasion of Alien Bikini)
- Bobby Yeah (was much, much, much better than Saint)

BEST FIGHT SCENE
Why not? And for once, it's not Asian boys who will claim that prize!

CHARLIE FONTAINE VS BOBBY FONTAINE (Marc Senter and Nathan Grubbs), Brawler
Prior to this memorable, and incredibly intense fight between two brothers, one of its promoters says: "this is the kind of events local legends are made off". And he's got that right. Because while the two American boys lack the proficiency of their Chinese and Thai counterparts when it comes to martial arts, their final confrontation is infused with a dramatic intensity that no Sammo Hung, Yuen Woo Ping, Tsui Hark or Panna Rittikrai film could ever wish to attain. I mean, here's two brothers, brought to life by two very committed no-namers, punching and strangling each other senseless in a mob-controlled brawling match. While the narrative stakes may not be as high as can be (the fate of the world doesn't depend on the outcome of the fight) the humanity of it all is circumvented much more accurately than in Far Eastern narratives, and any given Rocky film for that matter. The fist to the face of one's brother, the sound of flesh being battered by eager knuckles and the slithery fingers holding on to his neck with ungodly strength. This is the stuff which tragic masterpieces are made of. At least the genre-film version thereof.

Runner-ups

SU QI-ER VS YUAN LIE (Man Cheuk Chiu and Andy On), True Legend
One hell of a lengthy fight, this pits two very determined brothers-in-law against each other and against the scenery. Classic HK action featuring some choice Wushu and the deadly, effects-laced Five Venoms Fist technique.

DEE, JING'ER AND PEI VS THE CHAMBERLAIN (Andy Lau, Bingbing Li, Chao Deng and Nan Xu), Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
Marvelous, high-flying action in an underground cave involves a huge arsenal of weapons and some perilous stunts on rolling logs.

BEST ANIMATION FILM
An easy choice, especially if one considers the rapidly declining number of animated features shown at the festival.

Redline was head and shoulders above its two competitors this year (I haven't seen Legend of the Millennium Dragon, for lack of interest). It didn't share El Sol's primitive looks or Surviving Life's monotony. Quite the contrary. Because while it is a melodrama at heart, it is one that involves brisk and fluid action scenes so intense that one could have an heart attack just by watching them. The peripheral characters are colorful, both in the literal and figurative sense, and their characterization owes a lot to the impeccable animation. While this is not anything like Miyazaki, it works splendidly as a genre piece, specializing in the craft of heavily armed hot-rods zooming across any terrain, goofy-looking aliens and shapely idorus. It's a shame that the action sequences are inter-cut with so many dramatic bits, halting the excitement every time. But the end result is all too gorgeous and addictive to make you care for such petty concerns.

Mutants (2009)

2011-07-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

Titular qualifier makes you forget about classic zombie narratives for a spell, but the subterfuge doesn't last long...

Mutants starts out as more than a vulgar zombie film, but the conventions of the genre eventually catch up to it and the entire enterprise sinks into the familiar depths of banality. It's a shame to see the light of originality, rare as it is when the living dead is concerned, flicker and die to accomodate the needs of today's hyperactive audiences. But then again, it comes as no surprise to jaded genre fans.

The film starts out as a love story, a bittersweet, surprisingly involving love story. Usually, in the zombie narrative, the protagonist's loved ones are always the first to bite the big one. Here, it takes quite some time before the family unit starts to disintegrate, the time of a Cronenbergian transmutation during which the dramatic crux of the film unfolds.

Sonia and Marco: a couple on the verge of a viral breakdown

The film begins with a couple of paramedics fleeing aboard a bloodied ambulance, led by a trigger-happy female soldier who promises to guide them to a fabled safe zone held by the military. After she dies during an exchange of gunfire with potentially infected locals, and the ambulance runs out of gas, the couple seeks refuge in an abandoned hospital within the woods, where the female protagonist tries to treat her infected boyfriend to the best of her abilities. However, it soon becomes obvious that the zombification process is irreversible and incurable.

As the victim starts getting worse, shedding body parts and puking copious amounts of blood, so does the couple's relationship start deteriorating into a pathetic showcase of extreme interdependency. While this lasts, the viewer remains on edge, contemplating how the zombie apocalypse could actually affect their lives as an emotional hardship and not simply a privation of commodities. The arduous transmutation process, during which her boyfriend becomes increasingly erratic and aggressive leaves the protagonist in a nightmarish limbo wherein she contemplates solitude as a painful liberation from the dreadful new realities of the flesh. Seeing how this ordeal is a dramatic high point, the film soon has no other way to go but down.

After the boyfriend completes his metamorphosis, he is replaced in the narrative by a slew of unsympathetic bit players whose presence feels hopelessly contrived. The following chain of events is a simple collection of obligatory fight scenes filmed with an hyper-kinetic style that greatly contrasts with the contemplative style used in the first part. Of these two parts, one will surely prefer the slower, more original and involving first half to the formulaic, confusing second half. Shades of 28 Weeks Later obscure the illuminating opening act and the resulting discrepancy makes for a flawed film with just enough dramatic weight to make a lukewarm recommendation. As for the mystery surrounding the existence of a hidden military safe zone, it is resolved flatly during the conclusion, leaving the viewer unfulfilled and wanting to go back to the beginning in order to start over again.

An interesting design does not necessarily warrant the overwhelming
presence of mutants in the second half of the film. A zombieless
zombie film would've been more interesting.

All in all, while the monster design is good and some of the extra characters possess intriguing qualities, Mutants is ultimately a self-defeating, badly dosed effort in crowd-pleasing, which is narrowly saved by an engrossing first half. Let us just hope that director Morlet gets his game back for further films and eventually manages to follow the route of originality all the way to the end.

2,5/5 An enjoyable love story is marred by hyperactive action scenes that almost seem out of place considering the buildup that led one to them.

Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)

2011-03-27T08:56:00.001-07:00

"If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes..."

Despite a complete lack of depth, Jason Eisener's neo-grindhouse Hobo still gets the job done. Like a creaky roller coaster, it takes you for one hell of a relentless ride into the abysmal depths of society, caricatured with (very) broad strokes of a bloody brush on a decrepit urban canvas. Genre icon Rutger Hauer therein manages to combine the murderous anger of replicant Roy Batty, the tenderheartedness of Blind Fury's Nick Parker and the derelict look of The Hitcher in one engrossing character with iconic potential: a poor man's Batman whose visceral sense of justice is unmarred by aristocratic word-chewing and flashy gadgets. Well-supported by a cast of ultra-nasty villains and heroic hookers, he breezes through the narrative with his hand on the pump and the viscera of his adversaries all over his dirty clothes. That said, the title alone should give you a fairly accurate description of what to expect from the film, not in its literal connotation alone, but in its simplistic, straightforward and politically incorrect wording.

Hobo wishes to start anew. But he needs

to do a little cleaning first...

Face value

Frankly, while the film is highly entertaining, a delight for undiscriminating fans of gory violence, it doesn't have any further ambition. When I first read the synopsis, I immediately thought about Street Trash. And so I braced myself for an unapologetic milieu study that used black humor to highlight the desperate joie de vivre necessary to endure life in the gutter. But that was without taking into account the film's gorgeous cinematography, its surprising sense of social realism and tendency toward self-deprecation, which are nowhere to be found in Hobo.

Eisener's film is a lovingly crafted homage to both the exploitation cinema of the 1970s and the gore cinema of the 1980s. But beyond this crude, yet successful crossover of genres, it has little to offer in terms of artistic or intellectual depth. It is purely focused on fan service, which makes it refreshingly unpretentious, but also wholly limited. Everything on the screen has great face value, but from the moment you scratch the surface and try to find deeper meaning, you will be met with the coldness of interstellar void.

Although it shares Troma's knack for crafting overly nasty, intellectually inane villains, Hobo lacks the lighthearted, parodic tone that helps propel Kaufman's films near the realm of social satire. What's left are unidimensional, hardly memorable archetypes whose raison d'être is entirely limited to titillating our bloodlust and providing meaty obstacles on the protagonist's course. There are no hilarious stabs at municipal politics or juvenile nihilism in here, just an endless strand of clay pigeons succeeding each other under a rain of buckshot.

Using a gritty, grainy style of photography to circumvent the atrocities, the film uses disgusting violence in order to justify disgusting retaliation in a never-ending loop of immediate, simplistic causality. Thus, the only fun to derive from the film lies with one's own twisted sense of justice and enthusiasm for ruthless gore. But then again, the target audience has both of these qualities in spades.

Blowing up balls for justice

Street cleaning in a nutshell

Thankfully, the film is so fast-paced and full of nasty splatter that it hardly gives you time to breathe and reflect on the flimsiness of the narrative. It starts with an unnamed hobo on a train, crossing the border into Hopetown, which the locals have dubbed Scumtown, a much more adequate denomination for this urban hellhole. One of the first events witnessed by Hauer's character is a brutal street execution carried out by local crime kingpin "The Drake" and his two dim-witted sons Slick and Ivan. Their victim, Drake's brother, is stuck through a manhole with a cast-iron cover fastened around his head, then beheaded in front of a large crowd forced to cheer at gunpoint. After that, a scantily clad she-bum rushes in and starts dancing lasciviously over the geyser of blood.

After witnessing a number of such tasteless incidents, culminating in a particularly mean-spirited robbery in which a toddler is menaced at gunpoint, the protagonist abandons his dream of purchasing a lawnmower to start a landscaping business and buys a shotgun instead, with which he wreaks havocs on the many different types of criminals plaguing Hopetown, following the trail of bodies right up to The Drake. In the process, he befriends a warm-hearted prostitute who gets stuck in the crossfire when she attempts to help him exact justice. There are no subplots here, just a mean, literal and linear chronicle of the titular character's exploits, highlighted by frequently creative gore and some tame attempts at humor articulated around crude word plays and a cameo by popular Canadian show host George Stroumboulopoulos who hams it up as a newscaster brutally murdered on the air. As for any attempts at legitimate social critique, they are marred by an overly cartoony depiction of violence and a total lack of nuance in the characterization.

Beheading in 3-2-1...

Canadian genre fans unite!

Just with the description above, you should know instantly whether or not this film is your cup of tea. Even a mildly positive reaction should warrant a ticket for the ride, for there is no let-down following the initial street execution. There is actually an incremental progression in the brutality of the violence, which is sure to please even the most demanding of gorehounds. That said, I urge all Canadian genre fans to crowd the few theaters in which the film is shown nationwide. At the dawn of these umpteenth general elections, it will give you a rare chance to appreciate federal money well spent.

The reviewer for this week's Montreal Mirror opened his article with a statement to the effect that Hobo represents the most controversial use of Telefilm's money since David Cronenberg's Shivers in the late 70s. While a far cry from David's first commercial feature film, a venereal zombie film and a strong link in his unbroken chain of body horror films, Hobo delivers what every genre fans relishes: rhythm, gore and a total lack of morality. And it delivers all these things in stacks. Thus, you get blown-off heads, beheadings, broken limbs, hung orderlies, carbonized children, splattered hobos, hands stuck in lawnmowers, shotgun wounds to the stomach, bone shard impalements, neck-sawing, skate blade kicks, fuming electrocutions, cop killings, chest carving, genital explosions, all comprised in the short, 86-minutes runtime. Suffice it to say that this film is j-u-i-c-y, and it is quite unapologetic about it. Its Manichean outlook on justice and personal politics in the face of criminality actually help it stuff brutality with brutality, creating a turducken of gore, which becomes the perfect vehicle for the crafty special effects team at work here.

Getting your money's worth

From the moment you approach the box office and say: "One ticket for Hobo with a Shotgun", you should know where your money is going. Or at least, you should have a pretty fair idea of what to expect. That said, nobody who willingly decides to cross the threshold into the theater should be disappointed with the film. For Canadians, it's also a rare chance to see their tax money at work. And while not every taxpayer will agree with the filmmakers' usage of immoral ultra-violence, nobody can deny that they did a great job of giving the fans exactly what they want, which is what popular cinema is all about. Thus, while it is a social investment in monetary terms, Hobo gives us an instant return onscreen, in a vernacular language shared by all, rich and poor, Francophone and Anglophone, men and women. Truly, it is one of the very, very few good things to come out of Harper the First's Conservative government. But now, come May 2nd, it will be time for a new era of medieval obscurantism to begin. After that, our home horror films won't be on the screens anymore, but in the streets, where cops with stun batons will beat and jail 100-pounds hippies armed with cardboard signs in a tyrannical display of power that perfectly exemplifies the state of North-American democracy as a form of representative repression. Still, when corrupt heads of state start ruining your lives, you can always turn to the horizon and maybe, just maybe, a hobo with a shotgun will be there!

2,5/5: A relentless gorefest that gives you no time to reflect on its shallowness.

Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)

2011-03-03T14:52:00.001-08:00

Directed by FX wiz Kevin Yagher (who disowned the film after his work was marred by studio interference), this fourth entry in the popular, but flawed Hellraiser series is not as bad as people have said. Still, it's pretty bad, especially since Pinhead has now greatly upped the ante in terms of tedious philosophizing. Dreadful Cenobites aside, the film stars a wide array of paper-thin, underexposed characters thrown against a confusing canvas of mythological hodge-podge. Although it contradicts many of the facts brought forward by the first three films, I would still recommend it to completists who might want to broaden their knowledge of Hellish lore and who don't mind the occasional inconsistency.

Why couldn't Chatterer be the lead Cenobite?

Damn you to Hell, Pinhead!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Pinhead sucks! The S&M guru is especially dreary in this fourth episode as he talks non-sense for what appears to be an eternity, rambling on about the virtues of pain like a senile dominatrix going nostalgic on us. From the moment he rears his ugly, nail-ornated head, you know the fun is over. What loose narrative thread still holding the film together becomes severed to fit the overwhelming need to showcase His ignominious Majesty. Even though Clive Barker's original novella mentioned him only in passing, he soon became a necessary staple of the series, sparking riots amongst fans through his absence. And like many boogeymen before him, he has also become an overwhelming presence in the narrative, one that limits the screen-writers' job to finding cool-sounding but empty one-liners for Doug Bradley to recite in distinctive British speak.

Born in Liverpool, where he became friends with Barker and fellow writer Peter Atkins (who wrote the screenplays of chapters 2 through 4 as well as all four Wishmaster films), Bradley is not unlike one of the Beatles. His face is instantly recognizable amongst pop culture aficionados and any performance he gives is met with awe and adulation from insatiable fans. But whereas Barker and Atkins are John and Paul, Bradley is more of a Ringo, using "a little help from his friends" in order to achieve fame as part of a project driven by more enterprising artistic talents.

Personally, I prefer when his character takes on a more subdued role (as in the original Hellraiser and Hellraiser: Inferno, my two favorite entries in the series). Then, and only then can the focus be on the real protagonists of these films, that is the humans caught in a web of ill-fated desires. After all, Pinhead is neither a funny, nor a like-able guy. He is a blood-thirsty demon who would gladly sink hooks through every part of your body. It's actually a miracle that his brand of one-liner pelting actually caught on. For that, you have to give credits (or boos) to Clive Barker, whose original screenplay contained the juiciest ones, including "We'll tear you soul apart!" and "No tears, please. It's a waste of good suffering." (actually a two-liner...). These simple bits of dialogue, as well as the brilliant makeup/costume job from the original creature crew, have created a monster. Not a demon, but a fanged rat, eating away at the screenplay like merry old Freddy Krueger, who also became a farce once his own series started to depict him as a comical anti-hero meant to sell Halloween costumes.

A trio of tentative tales tenuously tied together

Although the film begins in outer space during the year 2127, it quickly shifts to the Age of Enlightenment as the mysterious Dr. Merchant tells the story of the Lament Configuration. Alone aboard space station Minos, Merchant had just solved the golden puzzle box with the help of a remotely controlled robot when the place was overrun by cops out to arrest him. Unconvinced as to why they should let him pursue "what he has started" (namely, summoning Pinhead and his cohorts in order to trap and destroy them forever), the shrink of the pack takes him aside for a friendly consultation during which Merchant calmly explains his actions by retracing his family history and incidentally, the history of the box.

We then cut to 18th century Paris where his ancestor Philippe Lemarchand is creating a custom toy for a wealthy client, the Lament Configuration. Unaware of how cruel Duc de L'Isle intends to use this contraption, he stands by the window of his mansion after delivering the object and witnesses the summoning of a demon princess, ironically named Angélique, within the skin taken off a peasant girl. Traumatized by the sight, he eventually decides to create another box, one that could counter the effects of its demonic double. Dubbed "The Elysium Configuration", this new box seems only theoretical at this point, involving rays of light trapped in perpetual motion within an outside shell of gold and black.

Lemarchand witnesses the evil he has created

When Lemarchand is killed by Angélique while on a mission to retrieve the Lament configuration from De L'Isle's mansion, it's up to his descendants to give a definite shape to his theoretical project. But Hell has other projects for the family of "toymakers" (as they're affectionately called by the Cenobites), projects that involve the creation of a box that would permanently bridge the gap between Earth and Hell. Starting with architect John Merchant in 20th century New York and closing with Paul Merchant in the 22nd century, the saga of the Lemarchand children are chronicled in the last hour of the film, which involves far too many narrative shortcuts and plot holes to really cash in on the intriguing premise.

The third sequel syndrome

By the time the third sequel rolls around, it is not uncommon to see horror film series launched into outer space. Think Hellraiser: Bloodline, Leprechaun 4, Critters 4, with Jason X being a late bloomer. This should tell you just how desperately film producers are reaching for plot at that point. But whereas it made sense for the Critters to go back from where they came, demons from Hell hardly seem at home in the stellar void. Being a Gothic piece, Clive Barker's clever novella seems to lose relevance when transposed away from the Victorian estates of Britain, large family houses seeping with the secrets of many past generations. Even the modern villa of Dr. Channard felt alien to the mood cast by Barker. So did Joey's high-rise apartment and JP's over-crowded nightclub. Now Pinhead's up in space!?! For me, this is the umpteenth proof of how purely commercial film sequels are and how willing studio businessmen are to sacrifice the spirit of an artwork in exchange for a mere hint of novelty meant as a selling point. The production history of this film is actually riddled with such interferences and this is how Pinhead has come to reign supreme over the narrative.

As I understand it, the film was meant to focus on the decadent French bourgeois from the first timeline. But instead, the producers wished to introduce geek star Pinhead earlier and so, they removed slices of meat from the narrative in order to replace them with tasteless, chewy fat. Thus, the early incarnations of soulless Cenobites within French aristocracy, which could've helped us better understand the origins of Frank Cotton's ritualistic masochism, are removed to make way for an established, readily exploitable, but irrelevant figure. Having failed to grasp the defining trait of the previous Hellraiser films, namely human desire and its ability to push the boundaries of pleasure into the nether realms of pain and suffering, this new entry relies on superficial staples (such as Pinhead's monologues and various blood-drenched ceremonies), creating what is basically a grocery list of horror gimmicks. Given this mindset, the space setting may appear as a nice addition, but it's actually a meaningless attempt at exoticism.

On top of that, space has never looked so dull. Comprised mostly of dusty chunks of trash apparently taken from the dump, the futuristic scenery is entirely underwhelming, which is a necessary drawback of the production's obvious lack of artistic consensus. Against such a depressing backdrop, which should remind aficionados of the dreadful depiction of Hell contained in Hellbound, Pinhead's brand of joyous sadism almost seems illuminating. And so, we are treated to a few inventive bits of gore, including a hook in the brain (accompanied by a cute squishing sound) and a singular death by crushing. The third act is highlighted by gore, which slightly compensates for the terribly lackluster sets and lack of genuine tension.

The "Cenobite Maker" scene will likely

wake the viewer from his slumber

Gore-wise, the film has its moments. The obligatory Cenobite Maker scene is quite nice. It involves a pair of twins whose faces are fused together with a rotating cylinder. Duc de L'Isle's necromantic ceremony is equally creepy. It features skinning, hooks and a pit to Hell. Nonetheless, while gore and gruesome imagery goes some way to try and salvage the inconsistent narrative, they don't fully succeed. Their contribution to the last two chapters are earnest but they can't compensate for the lacks in the art direction and screenwriting department. That said, the middle segment is by far the weakest link in the film. It features the least interesting Merchant, the most incomplete scenario, the biggest quantity of verbiage by Pinhead and the most uninteresting costumes. If it weren't for a glimpse of Valentina Vargas' exquisite body during a dream sequence, this segment would be entirely forgettable. Surprisingly, despite numerous cuts, the first segment remains the most intriguing one and its radiance accounts for nearly all my enjoyment of the film. Almost the entire creativity and craftsmanship of the production team seems to have been focused on this segment. The costumes and sets are way superior and the character of De L'Isle, although short-lived, is the most intriguing in the entire film. He would have made a perfect replacement for evil protagonists Frank Cotton, Dr. Channard and JP Monroe. Unfortunately, his early death leaves a void in the narrative that remains unfilled. And thus the film starts its rapid decline into oblivion.

The whole world in a bottle

Clearly, this film is too ambitious for its own good. Containing three distinct timelines spanning almost 350 years and covering the entire history of the infamous golden box from Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart in a scant 80 minutes, it was an impossible achievement. The screenplay's lack of finesse, its crude usage of returning motifs and pathological emphasis on Pinhead all combine to ruin a valid, but wishful premise. Most importantly, it reveals just how confused and uninteresting the Hellraiser mythology really is.

Whereas the first film was a Gothic tale of lust, the later films have all branched in different directions with their one uniting feature being a disturbing fetishism for the leather-bound Cenobites and the many contraptions that allow their coming. Here, screenwriter Atkin's debilitating obsession revolves around "the box". In the original film, the box was an exciting prop, but that's just what it was: a prop. Its origin was unimportant. It was the mystery surrounding the object which was exciting. Being a timeless piece of deviant art, its forbidden nature gave it all the sense it needed to have. Whatever we may have imagined it to be in our minds is much more exciting than what it is revealed to be in this film. And this betrays the very nature of horror film sequels: to create entire mythologies around secrecy-veiled characters who end up trading their mystique for illusory depth. This is why sequels never outdo the source material. The extraneous exposition they require is often detrimental to the mystery surrounding the boogeyman and thus, our fear of the unknown is no longer solicited. Only our curiosity is.

The funny thing about curiosity is that it is interesting only insofar as it is not quenched totally. When one of the universe's dark secrets is unveiled, not only isn't it horrific anymore, but it isn't interesting anymore either. Same thing with the dreaded Lament Configuration. As an item bought with a bundle of bills in a Maghreb café, it preserves a certain mystique that almost makes it desirable. Its appeal to the enterprising traveler remains the same as that of unexplored regions of the world. But as a commissioned work carefully dated and tagged as a museum exhibit, it becomes nothing more than a dusty artifact to be shelved. Its nature shifts away from the realm of tales and legends into the rigidly academic domains of history and archeology.

Launching the box into space

doesn't make it more interesting

This wouldn't be so bad if Peter Atkin's work was consistent. But considering how many angles he used to develop the mythology and find half-assed ways to resurrect Pinhead and his minions, we tend to see only the glaring contradictions thus surfacing and not the glimpses of genius injected in every single of his screenplays. This creates an heterogeneous whole that seems to isolate each of the films in the series within its own set of rules. While this is not a bad thing in itself, it makes it hard for enduring fans to really discern who's who within Hell. In this film, Angélique is presented as a demon princess, whom is meant to have known Pinhead personally prior to her conjuration. Many questions come to mind once this fact is established. First of all, we cannot help but wonder how the royal castes of Hell are organized. In Hellbound, Hell is depicted as a mostly empty labyrinth ruled by a rotating prism named Leviathan. Are we meant to believe that Angélique is Leviathan's daughter? And if so, how did Leviathan reproduce? This question is only mildly puzzling if you consider the blatant inconsistencies in the timeline. If Pinhead was transformed into a Cenobite during WWI, how is it that he knows Angélique? I'm sure that there is some sort of explanation for all this, but I just know that it involves a great measure of "film logic". These inconsistencies are not a problem in themselves, but considering how the sole interest of this fourth film lies in broadening our knowledge of the Hellraiser world, they become very bothersome. By trying to make a quick buck on the spectator's back, the producers of this film have neutered the ambition to really expand on the mythology by crafting a film as large in scope as it appeared to be on paper. Instead, they have crafted an entirely forgettable, entirely useless film.

For God's sake, stick to the first film
I have seen my fair share of Hellraiser films by now, and although each new title somehow manages to titillate my curiosity, I always end up being underwhelmed by what I see. Despite consistently weird imagery and a certain inclination toward genuine nastiness, the many sequels spawned by Clive Barker's original film always come up short in terms of spectator involvement as well as in the screenwriting department. The lack of creativity shown by Barker's collaborator Atkins, his over-reliance on the uni-dimensional Cenobites as well as the ever-changing production design all contribute to the lackluster aspect of these sequels. Thankfully, new penmen Boardman and Derrickson added some new blood to the series with Hellraiser: Inferno, turning out a surprisingly tolerable Christian-minded horror film in the process. But this is not nearly enough to refill the gas tank.

If there's any advice to convey here, it's that you should simply stick to the original film. It's the only one that makes any sense, and it is the only one which is truly involving. The sequels are fun for a sit, but they don't transcend the genre like the original did. And they don't seem to even comprehend what made the source material so great. Lust, desire, whatever you may call Frank and Julia's motivations, these were deeply human and deeply tragic emotions. They held the narrative up and into the stellar backdrop of horror excellence. What followed is a bunch of soulless rehashes showing horror without managing to horrify us, let alone make us care.

1,5/5 Despite obvious ambitiousness and some glimpses of genius, this film remains the brainchild of its producers: a lackluster, confusing Pinhead vehicle.

Contamination (1980)

2011-02-25T19:20:00.000-08:00

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)

2011-02-18T14:54:00.000-08:00

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)

2011-02-14T14:50:00.000-08:00

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.