American Mary (2012)

Directed by the Soska sisters, a pair of eccentric twin filmmakers from British Columbia, this unconventional rape/revenge film takes a typically feminine, clinical approach to its subject matter by avoiding the comforting recourse to humor in its depiction of horrific extremities. This allows the directors to tackle a plethora of intriguing social issues such as evolving gender roles and shifting corporal identities with all the emotional maturity necessary to do them justice. And despite a very unsatisfying ending, the result proves entirely earnest, original and genuinely disturbing, a privileged window into a world of dark and deviant fantasies. Further providing a captivating new avenging angel to the roster of rape/revenge artisans, the film also brings some much-needed estrogene to a sub-genre that usually objectifies the women it is meant to empower. Perhaps most important of all, it provides a meaty part for the best scream queen of Northern Hollywood, the lovely and dangerous Katharine Isabelle, my love for whom has actually grown with the spectacle of her gory retaliation against male oppressors and the revolutionary gender politics that it entails.

It's a shame for our national pride to be
dubbed "American" Mary...

I knew nothing about American Mary or the Soska sisters before I wandered into the video store a few months back, which is hardly surprising considering the nature of their work and the popular tastes in these matters. Being both a fan of body horror and women's cinema, I was immediately drawn to the film, and the eminently fetishistic box art featured on the DVD cover. For me, the whole project screamed of innovation, or at the very least, singularity. After all, there are but a few rape/revenge films produced each year, and even fewer outside of Hollywood. Hence, a Canadian rape/revenge film directed by two women felt to me like a once-in-a-lifetime find, and I duly decided to indulge in its revolutionary iconography, hoping that it would subsequently wash the awful taste left by the recent I Spit on Your Grave remake. And so I eagerly got home to indulge myself in the spectacle of artsy reconstructive surgery and bask into the moody light of true horror unblemished by comedy.

The story of the film focuses on Mary Mason, a brilliant medical student on her way to graduate as a surgeon, and thus enter a privileged circle jealously guarded by eccentric macho males. Unfortunately, she is eventually stopped in her tracks by her college's student loan offices, to which she owes a whopping 364$. Forced to come up with that sum within two weeks, Mary applies for a masseuse job in a seedy local nightclub. Dolled up for the interview, but clearly unwilling to partake in the degrading antics expected of her, she ends up wowing the owner by stitching up one his battered henchmen. But then, she also catches the eye of an exotic dancer who hires her to perform deviant reconstructive surgery on a close friend. Initially shocked by the ungodly nature of the operation, Mary finds a new occupation in the process, the path to which is validated when she is raped by one of her tutors during a decadent party in the high-rise apartment of a prominent surgeon. Convinced that her newfound wealth is the product of prostitution, the man seems to think it OK to have Mary drugged, raped and videotaped, which will seal not only her, but his fate as well. With some help from the nightclub owner who previously interviewed her, Mary eventually captures her aggressor and practices her new craft on his unwilling body, creating a monstrous work of art that positively spurs her on. The rest of the film chronicles her dealings with various interlopers as she promotes a home-based clinic for body modification. And while it features many intriguing tribulations on the way there, the film is unfortunately crowned by a clumsy, disappointing twist ending that feels painfully perfunctory.

Beauty and the Beast: Mary wakes up next to her rapist
in one of the film's most uncomfortable moments.

In the end, what I first envisioned when appraising the DVD cover was pretty much what I got: an off-kilter account of the protagonist's shattered innocence and subsequent strive for self-determination untainted by sensationalism and simplistic characterization. Eschewing excessive sentimentalism and oblivious showmanship, the film thus manages to convey a respectful and even-handed portrait of its characters and their deviant passions, using broad caricatures only to depict the self-styled male surgeons. In recourse to social realism, the film turns traditional  representational tropes on their head, scratching off the veneer of the surgical profession and  allowing marginal individuals to come out of infamy. This tactic also applies to the rape/revenge genre itself, which evolves from a shock-based mechanical tradition to a poignant dramatic framework. This is achieved by constantly keeping the focus on Mary and relegating the rapist to the background. Here, the story is hers and hers alone. As for the male aggressor, he is given minimal exposure, just enough to convey his disgusting contempt for women's sexuality. As for his eventual victimization at the hands of the protagonist, it constitutes not an end in itself, but merely a step in her transformation. Hence, while the pivotal rape is the main contributor to Mary's characterization, she does manage to cover some ground on her own, becoming an assertive new version of herself and not merely the shell-shocked killing machine usually associated with male iterations of the genre. 

The film's topsy-turvy take on representational tropes also allows for revolutionary gender politics. Aside from the fact that it features a composed, self-assertive female protagonist, the film is also intriguing in its depiction of her revenge, understood not as a primitive exercise in retaliation, but as a  truly intellectual endeavor. Transforming her former tutor in a truncated and sutured work of art instead of bluntly removing his genitals or shoving a shotgun up his ass, Mary refuses to be brought down to his level of animality. Instead, she achieves four revolutionary objectives in one fourteen-hour session of tentative surgery: 1) she practices her new craft, making a mockery of her tutor's contention to the effect that "surgeons aren't allowed any mistake", 2) she selfishly imposes her will on his body, much as he did during the chilling rape scene, 3) she empowers herself with his craft, thus gaining his elusive professional power and social status, and 4) she transforms a man's body through surgery in order to befit her own needs whereas it is usually the other way around. This clinical venture further proves us that Mary won't be dogged down by male abuse, but will rise instead to take her place in our increasingly competitive world despite crippling emotional hurts. It also begs the question as to what constitute the appropriate punishment for the male rapist. Personally, I was first made livid by the spectacle of Dr. Grant's butchered body and I had trouble sleeping on the night. I don't know why since I am the least susceptible man to incur such a woman's wrath, but I did. And thus does the film showcase the very last word in terms of poetic retribution, spurred on by millennia of unspoken sexual abuse against valiant girls and gals who lacked both Mary Mason's resources and unflinching assertiveness. An unpleasant, but necessary venture into visual extremes. 

Mary's revenge is not beastly and brutal, but poised and
clinical, a liberating effort for all the silent victims of rape.

Revolutionary gender politics also help denature the film's obligatory love story between Mary and shady club owner Billy Barker. First drawn to him by the need to score some quick cash, the protagonist is initially subservient to him, accepting his 5,000$ offer only because she direly wishes to pursue her studies. But after being raped, Mary quickly turns things around, becoming a major transformative force not only in regards to herself, but to all the film's satellite characters. This is made abundantly clear through a very short shot in which she waltzes into Billy's club, asking him if "he'd like to make 5,000$" (by capturing Dr. Grant for her). Using a similar formulation as he previously did, the film entertains no illusion as to who is now in charge. Simultaneously attracted and frightened by the young woman, Billy quickly becomes subservient to her, lending henchmen for her protection and club space for her meetings. He even develops a candid crush for her as exemplified by a fantasy sequence in which she lasciviously dances on his stage. In the end, he even begs her to elope with him, away from rainy Seattle toward sunny Los Angeles. And so it is Billy who eventually loses his poise, unable to dominate his seething emotions and ultimately playing the traditional "female" counterpart of a truly empowered "male" mogul.

(This paragraph contains spoilers)

Unfortunately, while its refreshing politics and accurate characterization allow the film to transcend its male-produced counterparts, I was displeased with two crucial narrative devices: the anemic dramatic trigger and the atrocious twist ending. Call me picky, but I had a real hard time immersing in the story on the back of its perplexing dramatic trigger, namely the fact that Mary is "forced" to take on a sleazy job to generate a measly 364$. Therein lies the credibility crisis of the entire enterprise: if the protagonist is supposed to have money problems, then why does she live alone in a big apartment with a wi-fi internet connection, an iPhone, a Macbook, a car and fashionable lingerie? Are we really supposed to buy this “glamorous starving student” bullshit? Well, I personally couldn't, and it nearly ruined the film for me, seeing how this shockingly ineffective attempt at miserabilism further creates a crisis out of something that isn't, allowing the film to run with the ensuing drama and generate dubious tribulations from it, thus bringing the story into a far darker realm than it should've gone according to common logic. A troubling screenwriting flaw. But then there is the perfunctory twist ending, yet another flaw that compromises the whole enterprise. Having Mary killed by a tertiary character, one that didn't utter a single line of dialogue in the whole film, is a slap in the face to whoever was actually involved in the narrative. But the real insult lies in the fact that the directors had to include a flashback in order to remind us of the killer's identity. Dramatic progression being what it is, you'd expect the ending to be a carefully planned affair involving returning themes and characters. But having a nondescript jilted husband pop out of the closet and off the protagonist, that is plain lazy. It makes for a tragic climax sure, but so would a deadly slip on a banana peel, a device equally irrelevant in terms of true tragedy.

The film's flawed dramatic trigger features an annoying
new archetype: the glamorous starving student.

Despite some small screenwriting flaws, the film is entirely redeemed by its singular imagery. Starting with the breathtaking opening sequece in which Mary practices her craft by dissecting and sewing turkey meat in disturbing close-ups, the film offers a privileged venture in the world of surgical fetish. A frightened novice herself, the protagonist is brutally introduced to that world when she is first asked to perform genital ablation on a troubled fashion designer. Providing a mesmerizing display of ungodly self-indulgence (the discarding of the nipples and vaginal lips being framed in sensuous close-ups), the following operation proves to be quite a brutal introduction for the uninitiated. And while such bodily alteration is considered a form of self-abuse in some parts, it is actually a growingly popular, and distinctly postmodern practice fit for disturbed eccentrics and fashionable cosmopolitans alike. Unbeknownst to many, the art of body modification actually goes far beyond scarification and breast implants, and the film proves quite didactic in that regard, allowing us to glimpse at some lesser known practices such as tongue-splitting and penile sub-incision. It's not always pretty, but it's always intriguing. There's also a quaint charm to it if you can appreciate that sort of stuff. Personally, I thought that watching the devilish Soska sisters waltz in Billy's nightclub, smirking jagged smiles and sporting elegant strands of lace running through flesh bodkins in their backs, was a rare treat. And so is the sight of Mary's happy patients as they display recently forked tongues or slightly infected penises. There's not only pain involved in body modification but also a certain aesthetic enjoyment. By displaying both within the same narrative, the directors create not only a singular, but also an earnest effort in representation.

In the end, while the film is abruptly cut short by the intervention of an obscure peripheral character, the trip was absolutely worthwhile. American Mary, while flawed and catering to some very specific tastes, is a mesmerizing effort in humanistic representation. Denying intricate characterization to the self-serving, self-styled and inhuman "slashers" in their ivory towers, the film gives the spotlight to those marginalized individuals vilified by popular mores, rape victims, strip club owners, beastly bouncers and explorers in the nether realm of experience. As such, it offers a privileged look into an alternative world where women can be empowered as artists and surgeons alike, a dark world obscured mostly by bourgeois tastes, reaching for the light of nobility with some help by the surprisingly talented Soska sisters, who would impress me even more if they were to pull off a worthy sequel to nondescript slasher See No Evil (2006). A very surprising effort from two really intriguing artists.

3.5/5  This revolutionary rape/revenge film brings a whole roster of marginal eccentrics out of infamy by way of a refreshingly humanistic take on traditional narrative tropes. A mesmerizing journey for those open-minded enough to undertake it. 

                                                      

NB - I'd like to thank my friend Louis for this review. Thanks for your helpful insight, your emotional honesty and your genuine love for women.

Grave Encounters (2011)

While the title of this independent Canadian effort seems to infer some straight-to-video disaster with faint allures of J-Horror, it is actually meant as a crude parody of paranormal investigation shows, the eminently poor quality of the wordplay being a direct window into the two directors’ contempt for the many bargain-basement Ghostbusters currently saturating the airwaves. Adamant on exposing the charlatanism inherent to their practices, the Vicious Brothers hence create their own fictitious crew of witless opportunists and have them partake in a real-life nightmare meant to expunge their sins. Shot entirely from a subjective point of view and capitalizing on the “found footage” gimmick, Grave Encounters is a direct heir to The Blair Witch Project, which it updates through the use of truly claustrophobic settings and a constantly widening offscreen space. The result is nothing original, but it is quite effective, with a minimal amount of occult events producing maximal effect. Relentlessly paced, with no wiggle room left for the entrapped protagonists, it also boasts a rare quality amongst contemporary horror films: the ability to actually scare you.

Forced attrition is the wage of witless ghost hunters.

The titular TV show is the brainchild of con artist Lance Preston, whose alleged childhood brush with the occult is the hook for his hokey ghost-hunting concept. This is all explained through an introductory interview with one of the show’s producers who shares an hilarious promo in which Preston tells of his “traumatic” background and solemnly invites the viewer for some “grave encounters”. The producer then goes on to explain the show’s popularity and hint at the horrific events that caused its untimely end. Apparently, something went awry in the process of filming the sixth episode, something that decimated the crew, leaving their raw footage as only testimony of their ordeal. Edited down from 76 hours, the following 90-minute account of the events gives us a privileged insight into what actually happened. We thus get to see Preston and the gang conducting preliminary interviews and setting up their gear for an overnight lock-inside the asbestos-filled walls of a disaffected mental asylum. Using unconvincing testimony from various caretakers, some of which is literally made-up, they gather some highly unlikely proof for the alleged haunting of the building by former patients. But despite everybody’s initial skepticism, ghosts really do manifest during the night, senselessly tormenting the film crew for our own sadistic pleasure. 

Anchoring the story in the “authentic” world of reality TV, the Vicious Brothers’ bid for verisimilitude is established very early through the use of constant re-framing and re-takes, numerous interventions from the crew and the presence of blurred faces to indicate non-cooperative subjects. It’s rarely pretty, but it gives the film the raw quality necessary to formulate a relevant critique of reality TV aesthetics and allow terror to take a truly tangible form, which the derelict setting exacerbates to wild extremes. An absolute wet dream for urban explorers, the disaffected Riverview Hospital hypnotically draws you in its infected bowels alongside the protagonists, with which we share a kindred fascination for its macabre history. As such, it proves to be the primary vector of the film’s creepy atmosphere and an economical way for the filmmakers to create affect through simple suggestion. And while derelict mental institutions are slowly becoming overdetermined horror settings, they will always retain a genuinely creepy quality. Not because they house the most singular elements of our society, but because they suggest wild extremes in doctor/patient relationships, undue imprisonment and experimental surgery meant to benefit self-seeking eccentrics over helpless Others. This makes the perspective of tortured souls looking for retribution all the more tangible, not unlike the unwavering feeling of entrapment that one derives from being clustered within its walls like the poor souls of old. In that sense, Grave Encounters reminded me of Session 9, another low-budget horror effort capitalizing on the asylum setting for maximal affect. Both using oppressive ruins as ready-made sources of terror, they effortlessly convey a similar feeling of claustrophobia while focusing on the disturbing imprint from barbaric practices past. Here, every element of décor is bone-chilling, from the crayon-covered walls to the empty bathtubs and the stainless steel gurneys, all remnants of a tortured past constantly trying to emerge into the light of day, creating as many hideouts for angry ghosts as there are evidences of previous foul play.

Approximate framing a necessary ill for success
in the world of "found footage" films.

Further cultivating verisimilitude in a bid for increasingly tangible terror, the film features a smart dosage of parody, which allows for a relevant critique of TV excess that eludes the traps of absurdist flamboyance. Hence, the protagonists are depicted as properly vacuous and self-serving while retaining a certain measure of humanity necessary to make us partake in their plight. As for the exploration of their deceitful ghost-hunting methods, it is achieved in a fun, but level-headed way that prevents the film from transforming into a self-defeating farce. This is initially achieved in a rather seamless manner, through casual interviews with active caretakers who mention various generic symptoms of ghostly possession (cold breezes, open windows…), hinting at supernatural presence without actually making verifiable claims. The film crew then proceeds to mount cameras near “paranormal hotspots” in order to capture elusive specters on film. The protagonists' seamless usage of that perplexing expression proves quite useful in appraising the semi-serious nature of their endeavor, which allows them to coin hokey technical terms to better substantiate their outlandish "beliefs". The ongoing parody of their methods then continues with the introduction of the paranormal investigator’s toolkit, complete with many dubious contraptions that will find renewed relevance along the way as platforms for ghostly manifestations. In the end, while these colorful elements of ghost-hunting lore all convey a definite pictorial quality to the characters and their craft, their limited originality prevents any slip in realism. Even when self-promoter Preston and phony medium Houston Gray start challenging each other for the best conjuring method caught on tape, we are spared any bothersome hysterics that might’ve hindered the sense of terror deriving from the film’s realistic approach. Such restraint from the directors is crucial in cultivating the appropriate mood, and it is admirably achieved throughout.  

Further taking advantage of its limited budget by cashing in on the intangible sense of menace permeating the main set, the film creates unbearable tension through absence alone. Waiting incessantly for the first occult event to grace the screen, we are constantly left scrutinizing the depth of field in search of an elusive presence, becoming increasingly edgy from the sheer certainty, but constant withholding of impending horror. When forces from beyond finally do manifest, their actions are initially quite tame, almost playful. Hence, we see a wheelchair moving forward almost imperceptibly in a empty corridor, then the hair of a crew member swerving above her head. We derive some mild unease with such unwarranted presence, early goosebumps to prepare us for the following massacre.  That said, things quickly take a turn for the worst when another crew member is pushed down a flight of stairs, paving the way for a literal descent into Hell as deformed ghouls start dropping from the ceiling, flash-banging and lobotomizing those unfortunate enough to stand in their path. Pacing is key to creating affect here, as we slowly become involved in the protagonists' plunge into madness, but it can only be achieved through careful manipulation of the audience. Evidently, the "found footage" gimmick provides immediate spectator expectations, informing us of the protagonists' demise even before their first appearance onscreen. While causing obvious dramatic limitations, this gives a chance for skillful directors to effortlessly shape our spectatorial experience. Here, the Vicious Brothers constantly keep us on our toes by cleverly withholding the realization of our expectations and by using gradation in order to catalyze them for greater effect. While these techniques allow us to seamlessly step into the diegetic world, they are also effective against the protagonists, whose maddening experience becomes equally gradual and inevitable as the turn of an oiled screw driven by a relentless power drill, which aggressively causes their forced attrition.

Widening offscreen space is key
to manipulating spectator expectations.

While it is seamlessly cultivated through the very emptiness of the film’s vast settings, absence is also conveyed cinematographically through the creation of a particularly vast offscreen space. Featuring many interlocking white corridors lined up with doors to patient cells, it seems like every shot exudes a constant sense of impending menace stemming from all edges of the frame (even the upper one, as the diegetic ghouls can also drop from the ceiling). Hence, a simple static shot taken from the middle of a corridor is bursting with a disturbing sense of dread, creating depth in the scenery from the mere suggestion of a lurking monster. It’s really simple stuff, but so are the mechanics of fear when stripped to its bare bones by such a disturbingly realistic effort. As the story unfolds, offscreen space is widened even more as the characters’ field of vision is systematically narrowed by the use of increasingly inaccurate equipment. The night-vision lens, for example, merely creates additional offscreen space by providing a mere halo of light around which darkness accumulates, simultaneously providing cover for lurking entities and impairing the protagonists' progression through their oppressive surroundings. Shadows are thus literally threatening to engulf the protagonists as they are lured toward the asylum's endless underground tunnels, forced into a dark void that threatens to penetrate their minds like the nasty orbitoclasts of early brain surgeons. Enduring the ordeal alongside them, ours then become a truly harrowing experience in dreadful expectations and the perfect materialization of urban exploration gone awry.

Unfortunately for this surprisingly cost-effective piece of genre filmmaking, it features a complacent  screenplay that shamelessly invokes otherworldly logic to make sense of all inexplicable phenomena plaguing the characters. Case is point is when the exasperated film crew decides to look for a way out of the asylum. After busting down the door from which they originally entered, they are inexplicably faced with yet another empty corridor. After following a sign indicating the way to the roof, they are faced with a dead-end. Never bothering to provide a satisfactory rationale for such events other to say that they imply some ghostly shenanigans, The Vicious Brothers unduly trap their protagonists and compromise all of their chances for survival, making them akin to the mindless cannon fodder of slasher films. And while such screenwriting shortcomings could be said to derive from the "found footage" format, with our intimate knowledge of the protagonists' fate forcing the directors to deprive their characters of any fighting chance, I'm sure that any competent screenwriter would beg to differ. Especially since there are so many interesting things to do with dark exteriors, most important of which is the preservation of the film's naturalistic approach to its outlandish material...

Darkness clamps down on the protagonists,
engulfing the spectator alongside them.

All in all, while the film doesn’t transcend the fairly rigid mold from which it originates, it is quite effective in fulfilling its humble objectives. The characters are true-to-life and their ordeal bears definite airs of verisimilitude, allowing for the creation of genuine terror from nearly nothing at all, empty settings and empty pockets. A very satisfying effort from Canadian duo The Vicious Brothers.

3/5  Despite a lack of originality and a barren premise, Grave Encounters proves to be ruthlessly cost-effective in its ability to generate heartfelt onscreen terror. 

Ginger Snaps (2000)

I would really like to love this film. After all, it provides an earnest twist on the werewolf sub-genre, it was produced with some of my taxes, and it stars a tremendously fetching, teenage Katharine Isabelle. I would like to love the film but in all fairness, it is only slightly superior to similar genre fare, defused as it is by a very underwhelming finale and some formulaic twists. The premise is quite clever and the free-floating camera allows for some privileged intimacy with the characters, but the end result leaves one eager only for a closer look at Isabelle’s tail-free buttocks.

Despite some real screenwriting efforts, there is only so

much to do with the werewolf narrative.

While it is not an actual spoiler (like Gregg Araki’s disappointing Kaboom, for example), the title could be said to accurately describe the premise. Ginger Fitzgerald is your average teenage recluse, fantasizing about death with her equally moody sister Brigitte in their gloomy suburban basement. Both sisters are hormonally challenged in that they have never experienced cramps (or as they call it, “the curse”) despite their age (15). But when Ginger starts feeling symptomatic back pains, it would seem that she has reached womanhood after all, much to the delight of her mother and the despair of her fearful sibling. Her natural transformation is precipitated however, when she is bitten by a roaming lycanthrope, thus becoming a sex-starved, self-assertive individual with growing panache and growing hair, as well as a bothersome tail above her lovely behind. Seeing how her sister is fast degenerating and starving for human blood, it is up to Brigitte to save her, with the aid of a savvy local weed dealer and all-around botanic enthusiast.

While it could be said to be only another teenage monster flick, Ginger Snaps actually edges its competition by bringing along a highly welcome, contemporary twist on gender representation. As is the case with vampire stories, the werewolf narrative always focuses on the transformative power of the affliction and its intrinsic ties with sexuality and the awakening of sexual potency. This is often tied to a very macho iconography, with the phallic canines of the vampire tying the predatory nature of the creature with the idea of rape and werewolf hair reminding one of secondary male sexual features. What Ginger Snaps does with its premise is to cleverly transpose these tropes into the dreary world of awakening femininity, thus providing a refreshingly frank perspective on the matter. This provides not only screenwriter Karen Walton with a distinct voice in the genre, but also the whole of horror film females, whose sexuality is finally depicted in its rightful complexity, and not merely as an instrument of the devil.

Appropriating the myth for an earnest

depiction of budding femininity.

As a male with no sisters and very few female friends, it never struck me how much grimmer the perspective of womanhood is than that of manhood. From what I remember, almost all of our secondary sexual traits seemed cool when we were teens. We got to grow hair like dad, coarse hair that would make us look though. Then, we could cum, and assert ourselves through the power of our gushing seed, making pissing contests all but obsolete through tales of jizz-covered windows and walls. Personally, I long for the carefree days when I could climax without cumming and messing up my sheets, but it now seems that any sexual inconvenience I might ever experience can hardly be compared with those experienced by young women. In the film, this is depicted in a delectable scene where the school nurse explains the nature of her cramps to a discouraged Ginger. “Thick, syrupy, voluminous discharges are not uncommon”, she says before adding that the apparition of a “brownish, blackish sludge signals the end of a cycle” that will repeat itself every month for thirty years. The bleakness of this discussion flattens Ginger’s traits into a mask of painful desperation. Not only do the two sisters have to cope with a bleak hometown comprised of rows after rows of bland suburban housing, with hostile female classmates and horny male classmates to endure, but they also have to cope with the life-long curse provided by their very gender. That is the horror of adolescence and it is heightened to great new extremes by the traditional genre tropes associated with the lycanthropic transformation.

As far as gender representation goes, one must also note the absence of any strong father figure within the narrative, with the sole male character worthy of interest being the functional weed dealer. The ineffectual dad, or parent, is a staple of teenage genre films. Otherwise, there would always be a quick resolution to the problems faced by teenage characters in such narratives. But it is rare to see such a purposefully subdued character as father. Maybe, this is typically Canadian, but the patriarch here is a non-factor, neither a tormentor, nor a resource for his estranged progeny. He does not seem interested in their faith and he squirms at the very mention of their budding sexuality. “Pam, we’re eating!”, he sternly interjects as his wife is discussing cramps with his daughters. “They never go out!”, he blandly states as she forbids the two girls from going out and becoming prey to the “beast of Bailey Downs”. Judging from such apathic reactions, it seems that his role as parent does not go beyond providing sperms and sitting down at the dinner table with his family. Such a representation of the “dad” opens up a whole window as to the uncaring nature of the male gaze in matters of female sexuality.

"Blackish sludge", or the horrific terminology of puberty.

The lack of interest of the father actually echoes with that of most male characters within the narrative. From teachers who admit to being “sickened” by the girls’ macabre, but highly elaborate photo series depicting “life” in Bailey Downs to school counselors who argue that there is no justification for hormone-driven female violence and horny classmates who see nothing more in Ginger than a “mutant lay”, the male landscape is pretty bleak here, and synched to fit that of the dreary suburban landscape. Surprisingly, the only male character of valor here is the obligatory “stoner” and this provides yet another twist on conventional representational tropes. Being a lucid, resourceful, selfless and helpful peripheral character, he turns out to be a welcome substitute for the usual drug-peddling cannon fodder. Again, this might merely be a Canadian thing, but the idea of drugs here isn’t contorted into the rigid framework of morality, but it rather opens up an intriguing world of arcane knowledge. Using his botanic skills, our friend actually manages to devise an antidote from wolf’s bane distilled in alcohol. While this provides the sub-genre with a fun alternative to silver bullets, it provides the whole genre with something far more important: the recognition of pot-smokers as potential mystics and awakened individuals. I don’t wish to go into this at great length, but the criminalization of recreational drugs is a social plague that is profitable only to violent criminals and soulless pharmaceutical companies. Thanks to enlightened liberal narratives such Ginger Snaps, this highly disturbing, hatred-fueled staple of our well-thinking “progressive” societies is at least challenged. And so does the fight to free female sexuality from a stern logic of sin and amorality extends to include drugs in a vibrant panorama of understanding and open-mindedness.       

But while the film eschews the conservative staples of the genre in matters representational, it doesn’t stray off the beaten path in terms of story-structure. Shortly after Ginger is bitten by the werewolf, in a confused, hyperkinetic sequence that leaves the viewer more startled than excited, the film starts walking along the dotted lines of the genre. The young woman becomes estranged from her sister, sporting a new look that doesn’t do much but flaunt her natural beauty. She also becomes interested in boys, but in a predatory manner that leaves one poor classmate infected. This takes place in the backseat of his car, where Ginger very much plays “the guy” by aggressively pinning her partner down and nearly raping him. This is another fun play on gender expectations, but it remains rooted very much in the conventional predatory instincts of the cursed individual. The rest of the narrative sees the cursed sister becoming increasingly worse, with the healthy sister helping her cover the bloody tracks left by the beast, all the while trying to devise a cure. This plays out very much as you’d expect it to be, with victims falling into the werewolf’s path like so many leaves on a park alley in autumn and Ginger turning evil in the most predictable, over-determined way possible. The main problem here is that, while the latter remains an interesting character for the most part of the narrative, her final transformation into a being of pure evil, and somewhat uninspired craftsmanship, seems to sap every early attempt at characterization, drawing the final confrontation with her sister far away from the Shakespearian heights that it could’ve achieved into a simple, and very disappointing “close encounter with the beast” type ending.

Cat calls for a foxy, err... wolfy Ginger at the height

of her sexual potency.

This is a great shame since Katharine Isabelle is not only one of the most beautiful, but also one of the most interesting Canadian scream queens since Neve Campbell. While her character from Freddy vs Jason is nothing more than sexy cannon fodder, her work within Canadian genre cinema has allowed her to portray two of the strongest, most dangerous and intriguing female leads in recent memory. Aside from Ginger Fitzgerald, the accursed young woman who longs to be considered more than just a simple lay by her male peers, Isabelle has also incarnated the vindictive Mary Mason from the recent rape-revenge effort American Mary (reviewed here). Escaping the poisonously farcical tone of the I Spit on your Grave remake (reviewed here), this latter film has established one of the strongest avenging angels out there and a character of true, unflinching resolve. However, if Isabelle portrays Mary with cold efficiency throughout, she strikes a better balance as Ginger for most of the original Ginger Snaps. Being both a strong and willing young woman, but also a scared and confused one, she brings nuance to her role, appearing both vulnerable and terrifying at the same time. Unfortunately, this balance is eventually trumped by her completed transformation into a werewolf.

As far as mise-en-scène is concerned, the volatile, free-roaming camera helps create a very organic sense of space, alternating freely between languorous tracking shots and POV shots to create an all-encompassing panorama, but also clinging mercilessly to the protagonists, entering even bathroom stalls and exploring changing rooms with all the self-control of a seasoned pervert. This greatly helps achieve the level of intimacy necessary to depict the predominantly sexual nature of “the curse”, and the privileged and very close relationship between the two sisters, while servicing the spectator looking for forbidden flesh. In that regard, the navel-puncturing scene is highly erotic. While Brigitte is laboriously fitting Ginger with a “cleansing” ring of pure metal, piercing her flesh with a tiny phallic tool, the accursed sister is squirming on her bed while screaming and holding the railing with both hands, very much like in the throes of ecstasy. This highly sexual image is actually reprised both for the back side of the DVD cover and the chapters list in an obvious attempt at suggesting raunchy love-making. Luckily for us, while it could be said to have been taken out of context, this image actually proceeds from an even more enticing, if merely symbolic sexual encounter between the two sisters. And that is truly the magic of horror filmmaking at its psychoanalytical best!

A sublimated sexual encounter between the two sisters

is the psychoanalytical high of the film. 

Camerawork aside, the film uses clever mise en abyme to link the two sisters’ troubled everyday life with the droning experience that is high school, allowing for smooth and seamless transitions between the two. It turns out that the entire opening credits, in which the girls are framed and photographed in elaborate death scenes to the rightfully melancholy music of Michael Shields, are part of an elaborate school project entitled “Life in Bailey Downs”. The transition from the opening credits to the school settings is thus not only seamless, but very telling of both the protagonists’ state of mind and the revolting nature of their existence. Unfortunately, such clever storytelling techniques eventually disappear as the narrative starts drawing from the prefabricated, almost necessary mold of the traditional monster movie, very much moving on rails up to the final reel. As for the settings, they are appropriately droning, but hardly extraordinary in their banality. The endless rows of prefabricated houses on which the film opens could be said to have power in themselves, but it is eventually only in their bathing in blood that those suburban dwellings find meaning for what they are, fake neighborhoods sanitized from life itself and begging for blood only to give them meaning again.

There is much to be said about Ginger Snaps, both as a vehicle for the gorgeous and underused Katharine Isabelle and as an earnest feminist horror effort, but the film does not actually deliver the goods as a whole. Once the wheel is in motion and the narrative starts striving on prefabricated tribulations, its feminist edge starts losing its sharpness, eventually being destroyed through the evacuation of the gender issue into the redundant motif of monstrosity.

Suburbia livened by blood, death and Thom Best's

organic camerawork. 

2,5/5    While it benefits from a clever feminist premise, some organic camerawork, and one of the greatest scream queens out there, Ginger Snaps is eventually marred by its familiar story structure.   

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)

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

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

Poor Elena is entrapped even by her hair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elena's captivating beauty makes the viewer

particularly adverse to vaginal mutilation

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


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

You Are Here (2010)

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.

Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)

"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!

3/5: A relentless gorefest that gives you no time to reflect on its shallowness.

Footnote 02/14: Added half a star. Karim Hussain's over-saturated photography is just that good, and a nice way to create that vintage 70s look!