AN ODD BUT PLEASANT PAIRING: 'THE WICKER MAN' AND 'IN THE DARK HALF

I remember the first time I saw "The Wicker Man".  At the time I was in college, drunk on

Xmas break at a party upon which eve a bong made out of a watermelon was passed around like a surreal fruit blimp.  The cult movie I then watched which, though the butt of countless jokes, for various reasons (other than intoxication) stayed with me.  I mean sure the movie is funny... police dude who looks like Phil Collins' dad gets stuck on pagan island as the sacrificial lamb dupe only to be entrapped by Christopher Lee who wears a skirt... sorry KILT, I know I know I KNOW I am being culturally insensitive again.  Damn, those mandatory classes didn't take. 

Initially, as a youthful intoxicant, none of the film (other than the campy hilarity) really resonated with me other than I would totally sign up to live on some pagan island and dance around bonfires made out of republicans.  What did resonate with me after the years broke my spirit and I had to look at most things with more analysis than before, was the mythological base upon which the film was laid.  The lost child and the symbol of the rabbit, the belief in spirits and nature, the historical gore of what Romans describe the wicker man to be... it's not a surprise Christopher Lee sees this as his best film despite the same replaying clip of folk music in the background.   

Ok let's face it.  Foreign policy.  The Brits have their shortcomings.  Like cold pork pies, for example, stored for days/hours not in the fridge.  I mean how unsanitary is that?  And large masses caring about soccer.  Lord, I hate American football, but soccer makes our farcical dementia-inducing national pastime actually interesting by comparison.  And nobility.  How hilarious is that sensationalized borefest descending from the folks who had the most money and land 500 years ago.  At least in the states, we call a spade a spade, our nobility being... taaadaaa... the folks with the most money and land, not the Duchess of Cadburlingberrytshire.  I mean at least Madonna earned her holdings and title (Queen of Pop, richest pop star), wtf did the Duke of Pisswick do other than fall out of his mum's ass?  Note: British women also do not have vaginas, they have "fannys".  This has been documented by scientists and pornographers.

NEVERTHELESS the Brits have one thing we poor Colonials do NOT have, and that is a

superwealth of LORE.  It just so happens when you have relatively high population of the same folks in the same land for like a thousand years, you get a lot of weird myths and ghost stories because generally speaking, scary shit does down. Eventually, if the US of A doesn't get blown into space, we will be able to scare the marbles out of ourselves on film with ghosts of ancient times other than the Native Americans whose treasure trove of mythos has largely been exploited or ignored.  What Brits can do is the eerie thrilling horror tragedy that connects its lineage to tragedies of yore.       

*And speaking of yore, note: when I am talking about "The Wicker Man", I am of course referencing the original, not the confused remake starring Nick Cage. 

Point being, what made the movie great was the basis of myth. Without that underpinning, all you have is humans doing a bunch of crazy shit to each other.  Which we do all the time.  A well-meaning police officer who is equally endearing as he is annoying in this tale is subjected to the will of a culture much older and darker than his Christian god, reflecting the clash of religion that came to the British isles and the subsequent wars over which god or gods to believe in.  Also you have the hot chick "the landlooord's daughter" singing to the virgin policeman naked through the wall, which is both creepy and funny at the same time.  Her song was creatively remixed by "The Sneaker Pimps" if you are a fan of this movie.  

The terrifying commonality of old religions (which makes me sort of think it equally

cracked as the new ones) is that the ultimate sacrifice = flesh.  That the gods or god may very well be the giver of life and sun and spring, but that there is a dark face of this all-knowing creator that requires of us to give that means the most to us in order to please his/her/their/its will, which for whatever reason is flesh.  One may presume that the gods are definitely bar-b-cue fans.  In the end, however, you have to confront the dark side of what be humans have believed for thousands of years about forces larger than ourselves.  The characters of the island in "The Wicker Man", have resigned themselves and eventually embraced that darkness.        

That same black starry river flows underneath "In the Dark Half", even though the stories are poles apart, there is a nocturnal similarity between the two that made me connect them.  The plot revolves around this messed up adolescent girl named Marie whose homelife is in tatters and mind is full of fear.  Each day she runs to a concrete building in the middle of nowhere to perform various mysterious rituals, the purpose of which we will come to know only as we begin to understand the reasons for her cracked life.  She feels that tragedy befalls her primarily... because it does, like how we ask ourselves why Tom Cruise gets a private jet and the folks working to cure diseases and fight wars have to struggle.  Living in a low income neighborhood of what appears to be a smallish town, with a basket case for a mother and a crush for an adult single dad nextdoor neighbor, Marie lives in the awkward bracket between childhood and teenagerdom where we don't quite know who we are or even what we feel and almost everyone around us is not what they seem.  


Jessica Barden steals the show here: her character's pre-teen unpreparedness for the

sexual or substance conquests of her mates, denial/rebellion against aspects of life we come to accept but initially regard as unfair (because it is), and good heart are stunning.  As bad things get worse, this girl faces what many of us avoid for life because the question is too big: is there  always such a difference between intuition, and delusion?  Yes, we can certainly all define the terms using a dictionary or DSMV but we have all had those moments where we (as Stephen King would put it) "shine" a tad.  Moments, feelings, places, acts we cannot explain to anyone.  Part of being an adolescent, or rather the part that is terrifying, is the feeling that you are going through this experience alone.  While there may indeed be 1000 other kids in your high school, you experience the freshness of love, the intoxication of drugs and/ or sex, the pain of heartbreak and the first sour tastes of the catty cutthroat actual adult world all by yourself.  And in those moments, it is up to you to decide what's real, and how to act.  

This girl is more alone than most of us,  and living in a small town it becomes natural for her to sneak away into the forest, and to manifest herself there.  Part of that manifestation is the supernatural, paranormal, occult, or the age-old question: is it just insanity?  Note to reader: I ask myself that question all the freakin time. 

There are parallels in both of these movies and while I can't say there is a gigantic sacrificial burning man in the end of each, those parallels do speak over the glaring differences in mood and theme.  For instance, both begin with the loss of a child and the question of what happened to an innocent person.  Both pieces call into question why life has to be so cruel, and what if anything can we do to rectify that cruelty.  Parallels of child and adult lessons, the occult, communion with nature, and sacrifice come into play as both tales unravel.  In the end, that power of myth and history is there too, lurking and occasionally baring a white tooth or the glint of an eye from just beneath the surface.

Watch "The Wicker Man" first, then this modern piece.  Two very different tales with roots in the same old forest.

WTF "The Wicker Man" = 26
W = 10
T = 9
F = 7

WTF "In the Dark Half" = 21
W = 8
T = 7
F = 6

 

 

DEVIL

I have been meaning to review this film for a long time.  Another unexpected pleasure. 

I really enjoy it when horror movies rationalize Christianity in a fun-sized thrill-kill neat n' tidy box.  With its elevator music, sterile office building waxed floors, and cityscapes, I was reticent to sit back and take this one in.  It seemed too easy to film.  Like something that could be done in a day at some job site in Philly.  Sometimes cheap equals cheap.  So, yeah, I had my reservations.  

But I persevered. 

Take your average citizens, your average situation, a simple ride to whatever floor in an office building.  Think about how often and absentmindedly we trust ourselves in these enclosed spaces that span hundreds of feet.  Anything could go wrong.  For that short amount of time, think of the freedom temporarily bestowed upon everyone in that steel box.  No rules.  No recourse to the law.  No protection.  

Think of the people we trust on a daily basis in general, and the assumptions we make automatically about strangers.  I love this concept, sort of a recall to the "pod people" idea.  But in a real sense, this is the truth.  We ride on buses with molesters, we sit in restaurants with paranoid schizophrenics, we interact on the street with those who have drawn blood with fists and other implements.  To deny this about the human race is to deny the human race for what it is.

And then we have the real evil, the Devil, that shadowy figure in history, myth, or religion (whichever you prefer) that channels the dark side in all of us.  Christian lore is a treasure trove of excellent horror fodder, The Bible being a great start on blood, guts, and detailed instructions on sacrifice.  The folks in the elevator stand against each other, but really, they stand against what we have deemed the darkest power there is.  I liked the varied personalities of the trapped people, their histories, back stories, and how they unravel as time grows short and the menace becomes more and more apparent.
Because I don't do so well watching stuff about enclosed spaces (partially out of boredom too, no scene change), as per usual I allowed my assumptions to make the judgment call about this film before I let the film speak for itself.  Turns out evil speaks well enough for itself.  Enjoy.

LOVELY MOLLY

 

If I could shorten this review to one word it would be: yum.

 

It occurred to me the other day, in dialog with another movie lover vis-à-vis the ideology and use of gore, that horror movies...or should I say GOOD horror movies...are like PASTA.  Go ahead and scoff at me, it's fine.  But I'm right.  Good horror is like good  pasta.  I shall explain: the componants of horror are varied, but you can reduce it down to two basic pieces that make up all of the horror related across time: substance and gore.  The substance is the plot, characters, mythos, wordplay, and so on - the pasta.  The gore...well, that's the sauce.  Let's face it, in most horror (especially in the olden days) someone gets a'sliced up or eaten or burned at a stake and so on.  A trueborn horror movie has the perfect blend of both substance and gore, pasta and sauce, those timeless ingredients of a masterpiece meal.

 

And oh is "Lovely Molly" a dish.  Directed by Eduardo Sánchez (director/co-writer of Blair Witch...I know, I had my reservations too...Blair Witch was a product of its time and a valiant effort but...kinda overbuzzed for what it was), this film is in my humble opinion exemplary of the expert combination of character acting, mythos, mystery, local color, shock-horror, and that final saucy sauce: blood'n'gutz.  I ended the film sated with the story, and sad that it didn't go on longer, in the same manner that one wishes a good book goodbye like some old friend.  The plot twists in this thing are also bad + ass.

 

Centered on the life of Molly (Gretchen Lodge), a low income mall janitor with a closet full of secrets behind her, the movie begins with the pastoral images of her quaint wedding to her truckdriver husband Tim (Johnny Lewis), attended by a girl we soon discover is her sister Hannah (Alexandra Holden).  Molly and Tim are that "even though we ain't got $" couple, as they move into their new home in a wooded area with quite a bit of land.  I'm not sure where this setting is supposed to be, or if they make references to it in the film, but it reminds me a lot of the poorer rural areas of upstate New York, though that was just how it resonated to me.  Since they do not have adequate funds to purchase their own home, they move into the empty house of Molly's parents, now deceased.  

 

What endeared me to Molly, Tim and Hannah is their struggle and the past darkness that they just don't talk about but still visibly grapple with.  These actors do not appear Hollywoodized.  They do not look like they have personal trainers and eight hours of make-up done just to look like a perfect person pretending to be imperfect.  The genius of these characters is the imperfections are plain, and painful to see. Put simply and without the political correct parlance of our time: they pull off poor people with just enough of a touch of white trash to convince you that they are representative of a huge portion of struggling Americans in the same grim chainsmoking minimum wage fucked up world.

   

That Tim and Molly have this seeming gift of a house should be a helping hand; instead the house is the harbinger of their undoing.  Haunted houses are one thing, but this story is far deeper and more convoluted.  Molly is witness to the flashbacks of her past experiences, many of which were blocked by trauma or child confusion.  This leads her to undergo a transformation into both the stereotypical hysterical female (the woman no one believes until it is too late) AND the evil woman (the woman we blame it all on) and the victim (the woman who must bear the sins of those who came before her).  That Molly combines all of these film/fiction personas is testament to the complexity of her character and the mastery Lodge demonstrates.  Without spoiling, there are several places in this film where I remarked to myself that the scenes must have felt very invasive and self-degradating or maybe even cathartic to execute. All I know is I don't think I could have done them. Lodge can and does.  Give her an award. Give her some good pasta.

 

 

The movie cleverly plays with use and disuse of the video camera, perhaps as a partial callback to the Blair Witch/reality/home movie simulation genre birthed into horror at the turn of the century.  It also cleverly plays with camera angles and sound - particuarly subtle sounds, even more so than other horror movies I have seen using just a touch of some element to cast a shadow here and there.

 

What we ultimately have is the combination of decent into madness and something else, the question that makes every single human being shiver at some point or multiple points in our brief little lives, whether it has to do with daydreams, fears, nightmares, suspicions, rumors, sickness, lies, the past, hallucinations, and so on.  That question: IS IT REAL?  And I think in the case of Lovely Molly, perhaps this question is too easily answered, which would be the one little stick of criticism I would float in here, but it isn't substantial enough to fuck up the movie.  If anything, that the movie does give you is a direction, in my case what I felt was a decisive departure from the camera flitting and somewhat arguable images of Blair Witch.

 

Lastly GORE.  Gore is like cursing or yelling.  Too much of either and people simply do not take you seriously.  Without going into it, the gore in this piece is choreographed with care and precision, and yes oh yes, there IS THAT MOMENT where you want to jump out of your seat and scream "Ohhhhh!  That did NOT just happen!  AND I crapped my pantaloons!"  (disclaimer: I did not just admit to crapping my pants) 

 

Which brings me to what always gets my hairz a'standing on end: mythos.  Molly's folly (teehee) is her exposure to that powerful element found in so many horror movies and is often underused and misused and misunderstood and undeveloped, etc.. In this case it's just elusive and mysterious enough that you want more, but don't feel like you've been cut short an explanation.  You know it: the sinister dark presence.  Hard to do right.  Elusive as fuck.  But when it's done right makes you scared of the ancient things on this earth.  Scared of of the rocks you stand on and the trees behind your house and the darkness at the basement floor.  That's horror people.  You can spin it any way you want it and argue until you are blue in the face that campy stuff is equally wonderful but it is movies like these that burn holes in your brain in the shape of questions marks.  Delicate, but effectual.  Yum.

 

WTF = 27 

W = 8

T = 9

F = 9

 

 

 

A RETURN TO SALEM'S LOT

When you really love a given work it becomes difficult to render an appropriate review. This issue becomes even more burdensome when this work is, by most movie-quality-barometers, a complete and utter stink bomb. A Return to Salem’s Lot, a sequel in name only, to Stephen King’s heralded original work, Salem’s Lot, is quite possibly the most absurdly underrated “crappy in-name only” sequel in history. This film is truly up there with the likes of Halloween III and Zombi IV in the “would be a classic under a different name” category.
 

The soundtrack is memorably creepy, harpsichord-ridden, and begging for a techno remix; allowing for the film’s atmosphere to set in without any defense. Those of you with lifetime experiences in the American Northeast will have no difficulty attaching your receptors to this setting. Bovine country indeed.

Donning Hollywood starlets, horror cheese mainstays, and decorated actors from the golden age of cinema; this film has the cast alone to separate itself from the pack of oft-forgetten straight-to-video sequels. Famed Charles Grodin lookalike Michael Moriarty (The Stuff, The Stand) turns in a tour-de-force performance as the only character he knows how to play; a hard-as-nails, woman-ravaging, manly-man in the body of a shoe store manager from Seattle. Andrew Duggan and June Havoc also chime in as the undead Aunt Clara and Judge Axel, the latter of which is the “king of the vampires” type, who eerily resembles my grandfather.

Speaking of star power, A Return to Salem’s Lot features former Hollywood slam-piece Tara Reid (American Pie, recipient of botched boob job, seen here with melted face) in her first performance, as a lovable pre-teen vampire who tries to seduce Michael Moriarty’s smart-ass son, Jeremy; an unforgettably ginger badass with a mouth like a trucker and a filmography that could fit on a fortune cookie paper.

These casting accolades are a clear second place to the involvement of screenwriting, acting, and low-budget film legend, Samuel Fuller. This self-described “nazi killer, not nazi hunter” is a breath of fresh air, as he is halfhazardly thrust into a plot involving vampires for NO DICERNABLE REASON WHATSOEVER. This is the beauty of cheese-cinema. If you can’t have an elderly nazi hunter in a vintage Studebaker randomly plop himself into a  script about vampires, then you just aren’t living; screenwriting-wise. 

 Ensemble cast aside, A Return to Salem’s Lot makes it’s bacon on being an extremely well-balanced horror film; engorging the viewer in appropriate doses of eerie music, scares, good movie makeup, and a quickly developing plot. Director Larry Cohen is far from gunshy, racking up a healthy body count of vampires, humans, and drones (see the film) alike.At one point, a plethora of doped up cyber-punks (Think Bill Paxton in Terminator) are viciously murdered by seemingly elderly townsfolk. At another juncture, Andrew Duggan rips a vagrant’s face off! Look mom, one hand! 

 Another aspect of A Return to Salem’s Lot that garners my respect is a homage to the time-tested tradition of writing stock footage of the wilderness into a given horror plot. This goal is handily achieved through the creative writing of Michael Moriarty’s character as an anthropologist; Allowing for not only gratuitous scenes of tribal sacrifice, but also ample shots of the rainforest and wildlife, even if grossly overused. Hey, anything to add some gore and tribal mamories, right?

 I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this film would have been an 80’s horror-cheese smash hit if it were released under a different name. Maybe, “writer of the vampire bible” or “nazi killer vs. the geriatric vampire horde.” Literally anything would have sufficed. Maybe we would be giving this film the respect it deserves today, instead of taking the Stephen King route and filing suit to ensure that his name will never be associated with this work. Apples to Oranges.After all, A Return to Salem’s Lot has very little to do with its alleged predecessor. No character’s transcend the works, nor do the antagonists share any similarities, absent a slight resemblance, and vampirism. Maybe they are second cousins? Regardless of the title or classification, this film is very enjoyable; seek it out!

There. I did it. I Reviewed a horrible film that I love more than most Oscar nominees. *exhales* 

WTF = 21

W - 6 (not all that witty, but still disturbing at times)

T - 7 (great post-CGI effects when employed)

F -  8 (thoroughly enjoyable)
 

THE BURROWERS

When I sat down on a tired Friday evening to watch this Western-themed horror, I admit, I was expecting something cheap and flat.  A screensaver with some blood and guts and a bunch of yipping gunslingers saving damsels and such.  Maybe I would get a few laughs at Blazing Saddles comparisons, etc..  So I hunkered down as the sun set and I sipped my moonshine, prepared for for the inevitability of turning off the movie when I got bored.

...dead wrong, Betty, dead wrong.  
  
The Burrowers (2008) is a unexpectedly wild ride through twisting unclaimed terrain.  The haters will say this is just another version of Tremors...and they would be the kiddies who look up the wikipedia instead of reading the book so they can look smart in their shitty community college classes.  Note: don't diss this movie around Betty. Why?

Because you can see when a movie is half-assed.  You can feel it when the actors don't care, when the directors are just collecting paychecks to buy another summer home in LA or the south of France or putting another notch on their lame resume.  Some of those movies make it to the so-bad-it's-good list.  Most are just insipid (hopefully) forgotten reels. But what I was taken by was that this movie is trying its hardest to put a new twist on a once-popular American genre that's more or less gone out of setting and style after the likes of John Wayne and Hi Ho Silver, etc.. That's why most of us (myself included) generally scoff at the idea of a Western horror, because its outside of the typical framework of where we are expecting to feel fear (haunted houses, spaceships, zombie-infested shopping malls, sunken cities, high school proms, republican conventions, honey-boo-boo and so on).   But this is a powerful mix of both those elements, with a message to boot.

After the savage slaughter/kidnapping of members of a pioneer family, local law and gunmen set off to discover what they believe will be hostile Native Americans or bandits.  What they discover is a creature whose history predates any tribe they might hold responsible for these acts.  The men, consisting of an Irishman looking for his girlfriend, a freed slave, some prideful Calvary dudes, and locals who sense something is dreadfully wrong with the initial assessment of the crime committed.  A girl found buried alive, in a state of paralysis, is the first signal they are not seeking a group of angry natives, but something far more sinister and - what surprised me - complicated. 

The creatures these men seek are killers from before Western civ came to the Western world, beings as brutally foreign to the posse as the land is to newcomers from the East.  Here we have hints of films like Alien, and yes, Tremors, if you must, but the main thread and connection to characters is unique onto itself.  My one criticism of the piece is that, I wondered if it was almost too brutal, that there was too much of a sense of hopelessness.  And also, I am never a huge fan of anything CGI, but I thought this was tastefully done in most parts.  It's all offset by the dynamic within the hunting party; there is a LOT more going on between the group of characters than just a simple manhunt, which makes the film a period piece in its own right.  Part of it is just the setting of the 'untamed' territory of the west itself, and how it must have appeared to settlers coming from what they termed as a civilized, orderly, and predictable world.  I imagine that the kind of pride and self-assurance needed to exist in such uncertain and seemingly hostile terrain must have saved and/or killed a lot of folks back then.  That same manifest destiny drives the group of hunters to a conclusion that I did not soon forget.  Watch this one.  It's a horror diamond in the rough. 

WTF = 26

W = 9

T = 9

F = 8

 

GRACE

I would recommend this movie for every pregnant woman.  Because if you can't handle the horror of this film, you definitely can't handle 22 years of indentured servitude.  

My guess is that most women don't have the words to capture the fear of childbirth and raising a baby.  I certainly don't.  But this movie does a good deal in taking those nightmares and magnifying them, from almost every possible angle.  Women are pressured to have children by families, peers, and themselves, but for most parents, children actually create more stress, health issues, regrets, and misery than it is acceptable to socially admit.  It's great to see a movie that unabashedly plays with those fears.

WTF: 19
W =7
T = 6
F= 6

Your main character is Madeline, the typical ticking biological clock so obsessed with the 'mother experience' that she's had three miscarriages, been on fertility drugs, and somehow the light bulb doesn't go off that if you are really intent on making the world a better place with your parenting skills there are bazoodles of homeless parentless kids out there in need that would be grateful to have the love of a forever home and family.  But we live in a self-centered society, and it stands to reason that for thousands of years we've been biologically procreating for entirely selfish reasons.  Back when we needed labor on our farms, kids made for the cheapest you could find and lack of birth control made it impossible to avoid sans celibacy.  Even nowadays parents like Madeline will be easily understood by most viewers (aka not me).  They will understand her 'plight'.  I'm not sure why everyone including idiots, abusers, and talk show hosts believe it is somehow their 'god given right' to bring their squalling crotchfruit into existence like we don't have enough creatures ruining this planet, but for viewers like me, there's a certain satisfaction in watching this thing play out for all parties.  To a degree the film brings parallels to The Walking Dead, taking a horrible premise and making it believable, almost banal is Madeline's resolve to keep her child at all costs.    

Like anything in life, having a child comes with one hefty-ass price tag.  Check out the New Yorker's article on unhappy parenting (I think it went out in 2010) and we  encounter a slew of anonymous parents who confess (obviously is highly inappropriate to publicly wish your kid was never born) that things were better before kids were ever in the picture.  But I refer to the baseness of life, the daycare costs, vomit, screaming, shit, more screaming, crashing your car, getting herpes at 14 from half the football team, then maxing out your credit card at a head shop.  That MUNDANE kind of stuff that kids do.  We don't get that far into the picture with Grace, and perhaps that is the point of view of the piece: that the beginnings of life are insane enough to speak for themselves.

 

Madeline is a whole different bag of monkeys.  To begin with her family or 'support network' is strange and convoluted, her mother-in-law namely, and the doctors she seeks vs. the doctors she avoids.  Her history with the vegan dharma namaste midwife unfolds, but the actress is fabulously serious.  Her husband, interestingly, but I decided well-played, is kind of a non-entity.  Often when you have a hankering woman ready to pop one out, you have a reticent man wondering wtf he is getting himself into.  In the second scene, (weird sex scene), she clearly is looking for a fertility hose rather than an orgasm.  Then comes the product of the whole exercise: when the baby is pronounced dead, she decides to carry it to term and go through the grueling and gruesome experience of a stillbirth.  Pretty much every potential mother's nightmare.  But Grace lives. She is soon to discover that motherhood, in her case, is far from what she or anyone could ever envision, that it means sacrifice on a whole new level. Because as many of us say, unknowing, and sated with wine at family dinners: "Blood is blood."

I like this movie because it is brave, because it manages to challenge the stereotypes of both liberal and conservative approaches to family planning while taking the viewer on a gory ride through an 'unexpecting' mother's life.  While I must mention there are a few side characters whose acting is so poor and clearly waiting for a cue for a poorly meted out response they almost ruin the film (the midwife's assistant...needs to go back to the acting clinic stat...and a few others), the plot choices and the unraveling of this story make up for its shortcomings.  

So kiddies and potential parents, consider this your first "informational" video in Nurse Betty Bloodletter's Parenting 101 ("What to Expect When You're Expecting: The Horror!") Course.  

Because children are our future...or not.   

HAUSU

OK KIDDIES HERE WE GO!

Hausu is an exercise in awesome, a queen of kitsch foriegn cinema.  I first saw this in a movie theater, so I got to experience the film in its full beautiful colorful glory.  

Basic premise is the main character is a young girl grapples with the loss of her mother, the addition of her new stepmother, and decides to go with her schoolmates on a summer trip to her distant aunt's house.  What these girls do not know about the aunt and her home is what makes the story.  

But I think what makes the movie is the fucking hilarious characters like some real-time Sailor Moon (on acid) meets Abbot and Costello (on acid). *

*Note: unfortunately, whilst I have never actually done acid, I like to speculate that this movie is exactly what it would be like.  What this also translates to is: I have a lot of trouble imagining that sober people created this film. But maybe that's just me. 

Case in point severed head of girl biting the ass of other girl at random point in the film which will be explained during the film but not really. 

This is the beauty of some films...many of them foreign because we Americans like to have everything tidily explained n wrapped up.  Maybe that's a mean generalization, but maybe my generalization is true.  This isn't artful, gorgeous hole-in-the-story ambiguity we get in movies like 'Antichrist', but it is a horror movie that is all about going along for the ride and enjoying the trip...whatever it is you are tripping on be it your own unique brain chemistry or a can of rubber cement.   

I would recommend this movie as a must see even though I'm not planning on giving it a super high score.  The plot is really dumb, not gonna lie.  The characters are a step above mental retardation.  And I imagine the effect was more scooby-doo than fear-inducing.  But there you have it, in spite of my well-crafted scoring system, we have a kick ass movie that everyone who enjoys the variations of the field of horror films should SEEEEE!

It's visually gorgeous, ridiculously funny, a self-parody probably (?)  The music is laughable with it's own flare of late seventies ballad gold embedded in parts of the film.  The characters are cartoons, and if you can deal with that and not expect depth or explanations of what you are seeing, this movie may also earn its place as one of your own favorite horror flicks.  Think of it as a cross between scooby doo, a bubble gum commercial, and an art film.


Watch it folks!


WTF = 20


W= 5
T = 10
F= 5

Here is the film's trailer:

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD

It had to be done.  And it was not an easy decision: in prefacing the many zombie movies to come into this collection I had before me several questions.  The first was - do I give my esteemed readership a classic or do I surprise them with something modern and hyper-real?  The answer, searching my ghastly heart of hearts, whispered...no shouted: CLASSIC!

Ah, but then I had to ask further: do I give them what they're expecting...which frankly is Romero?  This is not to say that I will not rant AT LENGTH about Romero's fabulosity and shortcomings at some point in the future.  What it came down to is picking the single zombie movie that had the most impact on me personally, and the answer to that complicated question is:

WTF = 25
W = 9
T = 8
F = 8

Yeah, yeah.  It may not be the scariest zombie movie out there, but in my mind, it's one of the most creative.  Fulci is a pro at this, so there are going to be a lot of readers in my readership that feel differently and that's ok.  Your opinion is valid.  And validly denied.  If I were to recommend a zombie film to someone who never saw a zombie movie before, I would tell them to see this - yes even before Night of the Living Dead - for the sole purpose of seeing zombies in their Italian-American overdubbed heyday.  I'd tell them to see Night...etc. to get the backstory of how it all sort of began, but only after seeing the cheesetastic and somewhat creepy creation of City of the Living Dead.  For the record, this is a decent story with hilariously horrific details.  

I'm talking about religious overtones.  For once, forget the science of zombies.  While (as I have said a'many times before) I quite enjoy it when directors/writers try to provide evidence-backed explanations for extraordinary plots, this is one movie where I kinda like the blurred meaning and the idiocy of the characters.

As is true to most Italian horror movies, the plot is really of no import.  But I'll give you a briefing.  In this case, we begin a creepy macabre priest who commits suicide on hallowed ground, thereby opening a portal to hell.  I love/hate it when that happens.  Sometimes you get an awesome splash of zombies battling humans to the last man.  Other times you get a Republican electoral win.  Saying that I prefer the undead is a blurry statement, so I'll be specific: I prefer the fictional outcomes and this is one film that by far exceeded my expectations.  After the priest hangs himself, you have a seance with a bunch of psychic mediums that gets broken up when Mary Woodhouse (aka Catriona MacColl) has some sort of a seizure and they have to call 9-11.  The paramedics pronounce her dead, and the police think it's a bunch of druggies in their investigation.  A psychic with a low voice and a white-girl-afro (a hilarious product of the 70's that I truly wish would come back into fashion merely so I could laugh at them all over again) claims that this is the end of the world or some psychic blibblab, and we are instantly launched into zombie fun, beginning with...

...Woodhouse's burial.  A snazzy scene.  For some reason or another the poor woman wakes up in her coffin (this is why cremation is kinda preferable to me) and is rescued by the cigar-smoking Christopher George playing Peter Bell.  I have to say that the coffin scene here is not to be beat.  Rather epic in terms of lighting, timing, and dare I say: acting! I'm not sure how little or how much of this film is overdubbed, but the lot of it is self-aware and awesome.  George rescues MacColl and they begin a fun adventure to finding this portal to hell so that they can close it before the apocalypse begins. 

In a fight between Columbo and Christopher George, I'd vote for George any day.  This guy is like a less stylish Lou Reed with a few really bad acting classes.  Just a joyride to watch as he tries to man up to Woodhouse in their quest up the East Coast to the source of the undead scourge.  He manages to smoke cigars for the majority of his speaking roles and to not appear actually affected by the majority of the whole 'rising from the grave' thing as is the trend in Italian zombie movies (until it's too late and such).  Once they make it to the town a whole series of weird happenings has already passed and people are beginning to suspect that something is seriously wrong.  Couples pick the wrong make-out spots.  A poor young girl dies too soon, leaving a little brother looking out the window for her to return.  Suspicious men in provincial bars begin to talk amongst themselves...somewhat Lovecraftian. 

By the time Woodhouse and Bell arrive, it seems already too late.  What follows is a series of powerfully awesome scenes of horror that you will not forget anytime soon.  Not in the sense that they are scary, but only in the sense that they are classic.  And in some cases - even by 1980 - classic rip-off material.  I think this is partially where Fulci rips off Argento (once you see the maggot scene, you might be somewhat reminded of my dear Suspiria).  This is a moment where you're like...uh...are these directors simply putting in flying maggots everywhere because they know people are grossed out by them?  It's definitely not scary, more like one of those TV extravaganzas they have in Latin countries where you have girls in skimpy sequined dresses speaking with lots of rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr's and fruit hats and crappy bands and dudes with false teeth and tuxedos (not much different than MTV, but at least MTV as a bit more tact and by tact I mean less fruit hats and more guys with gold teeth and shitty new pre-teen music releases that nobody over 14 and or over 110 IQ would purchase).  

But...again...I digress!  I will preface my next statement in stating that above all things in the world including pain, bleeding, breaking of bones, bending of ligaments and tendons beyond their natural capacities, etc.., my GREATEST MOST HATED THING IN THE UNIVERSE is puking.  I would rather have someone break my fingers one by one than deal with a stomach virus or food poisoning.  I hate doing it, and I hate hearing it, and MOST OF ALL I hate watching it.  BUT!  This movie quite possibly contains the #1 best and unbeatable puke scene ever.  An unfortunate couple drives up to some make-out spot and starts doing the nasty in the front seat of a car...which I never EVER understood as I do not find gear-shifts or consoles or dashboards, glove compartments and seats designed to fit people as snugly as possible conducive to lasciviousness. I mean, if you're going to drive all the way to some secluded spot, why not bring a sleeping bag or something?  Why get it on in the most uncomfortable way possible?  I do not understand.  But for some reason, it works on film and it always has worked on film, because you can simply stick a camera in the window.

The girl gets the creeps, the undead priest shows his face, and suddenly, slowly, with almost unbelievable ridiculousness, the poor girl voms out her entire internal organ system.  I feel SO SORRY for the actress who had to film this scene.  I'm not sure what they used, sheep or pig or cow or whatever, but I'm QUITE POSITIVE it was not worth whatever she was paid to do it for.  Anyway, because of the unique total grossitude of this one scene, I have to cite it as the most intense internal organ vomming ever to be filmed ever.  To date.  You may not find that an achievement, and to be honest, I'm not sure if I do either, but there you go.  The glorious part of this scene is (for those of you who share my phobia) the that vomming is so absolutely ridiculous and filmed in a horrid piecemeal of cuts where the model obviously had to shove various pieces of raw organs and fake blood in her mouth.  I think finally it got too much for the actress so they put an obvious dummy in her place for when she pukes up her own stomach or her liver or what-have-you.  It's too fake to trip the gag reflex, but too awesome to ignore.  

The remainder of the film is a mix of people teaming up to attempt to understand/counteract the series of evil events that has taken over the small town and its inhabitants.  Naturally the team of pure genius uses the old and unbeatable horror fuck up methodology to deal with said events:

Let's split up!

Aaaaahahahah!!!!!!!  Gets me every time.  Like any non-suicidal group of frightened human beings would EVER use that plan EVER in a situation where dead people were getting out of coffins and eating the living?  Who comes up with this bullshit?  Answer: directors.  On speed perhaps.  And on a small budget.  Further elaboration: because the movie would end too soon if they didn't split up.  Ah.     

But let us not dwell in the nonsensical ridiculousness of this 1980 production of cheesetastical zombificiation.  Instead we should rejoice in the nonsensical ridiculousness of this 1980 production of cheesetastical zombification!!!!!!  This is the timeless rhetoric of horror: whatever you hate about it can also be loved (unlike puking).  While this movie makes little sense in terms of a scientific explanation (biblical being the total opposite of scientific) of the scourge of the undead rising to claim the earth, this is a 93 minute joyride of zombie shenanigans that winds the viewers down and down into the catacombs to the end of the world.

There's something refreshing about zombie movies that does not request but DEMAND that you take them as they are, flawed plots and all.  I suppose that this is ultimately what I love and hate about zombie movies.  They are in various ways true 20th century creations in that they give us big fireworks - displays of blood and gore and maggots and intestine barfing and soundtracks worthy of Wesley Willis - with little explanation other than 'this is a reflection of ourselves!!! oooooo!!!'.  They are often poorly cut, acted, directed, overdubbed, and produced, but they are also often barrels of fun n' gore with a few religious/biological/social undertones here and there.  City of the Living Dead is among said barrels of fun that is not to be read deeply but definitely to be enjoyed as a preface to all that came before and all that followed.  It is what it is!!!