MARCH 7, 2013

GENRE: SLASHER, WEIRD, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (FRIEND'S COLLECTION)

Part of the HMAD "process" is to look around online (usually just the Wiki and IMDb pages for the film) and watch the bonus features for every film I can, because I like to know where they were coming from, if the movie was compromised, etc. Surely you can watch The Crow 2 and just hate it, but maybe if you know that Dimension had about 30 minutes cut out of it you can cut it some slack. However, some movies maybe shouldn't be researched, and should just be experienced without any knowledge about their creation. Ogroff The Mad Mutilator (aka just plain Mad Mutilator) is one such film - I suspect that if someone were to come forward with a tell-all book about its production, I'd tell them to keep it. I don't want to know*.

For example, early on a woman is tied up for a while by Ogroff, seemingly not wanting to kill her for whatever reason. He then goes off and kills some chess players that are just chilling in the woods, and then comes back and casually kill the girl as well. Why would I ever want to know the logic behind any of this, and ruin what, when in the right mood, is pure bliss? Even knowing the age or biographical information about the director would ruin things. Is he a 14 year old? An elderly man who had been raised by wolves? An actual psychotic? I don't want to know! Nor should you - you should let the magic that is Ogroff just pour over you.

At this point I should mention that I watched the film with my good friends Phil Blankenship and Jackie Greed, who have been invaluable and supportive of HMAD pretty much from the start. Phil of course has been the programmer for about 75% of the "Revival Screening" entries, and we can thank Jackie for just about all of the "Screener" copies since most of the studios tend to ignore me (can't blame em, really), and they only watched a few minutes of this a while ago before deciding they couldn't continue without me. It didn't take long for me to see their point - the movie seemingly begins somewhere in the middle, with a family on the side of the road in some isolated locale. The dad is seemingly just taking a piss, but the kid has wandered off and the mom is standing around near the car, so either the dude has a huge bladder or the car is actually broken down. And that would be fitting, actually - you notice the three genres at the top (four if you count French), but there's also a vampire in there somewhere, and it fits splatter and exploitation as well (not to mention is almost assuredly an independent production). Why not add "breakdown" to the mix?

But really, it shouldn't be considered any genre, as it creates its own. Ostensibly an attempt to cash in on the early 80s slasher craze, the movie is loaded with so many other things (including a bit where a girl seemingly falls in love with Ogroff) that by the time it's over the slasher element is a distant memory, since it ends with Ogroff on a motorcycle, swinging an axe and trying to rescue his lady from a priest that turns out to be a vampire as zombies wander around in hastily edited cutaways. Any continuity that exists between shots is seemingly accidental; things like closeups of someone inspecting a car's engine are inserted between wide shots of a different area entirely, and at one point a corpse seemingly regains the head that was chopped off earlier. There's a ton of gore, but apart from one pretty cool axe in the face, it's beyond cheap - usually you just get Ogroff swinging his axe (which he masturbates at one point) around at random, clearly not hitting anything, followed by an insert of said axe hitting what appears to be a pillow that has a blood pack inside of it.

Only the legendary Disconnected even comes close to hitting this movie's levels of WTF and endearing batshittery, but if I were to watch back to back I'd come away thinking Disconnected was technically flawless in comparison (Things would be another one to add to this mix). Ogroff wisely keeps dialogue to a minimum (6 or 7 total lines, and I'm not excluding incidental "No!" type stuff, because there isn't any) as the movie was quite obviously shot without any sound, and whoever was responsible for creating its soundtrack wasn't... how you say... good. Music just stops and starts at random, foley FX are way out of sync (and sometimes mismatched; a sledgehammer hitting a car door has broken glass sounds, later the sound of him hitting the actual glass is accompanied with a THUNK), and at one point we hear wild jungle sounds for a while despite the fact that the scene takes place in a French forest. The music is particularly special; imagine Carpenter's infant nephew fucking around with his Halloween II era keyboards and you'll have the right idea for most of it, but some 60s jazz drums get tossed in on occasion for good/confusing measure.

And an idea is all you CAN have unless you have an all region player, as the movie has seemingly never been released on US shelves, which is unfortunate (hey Intervision - get on this!). If you're all-region equipped, I highly recommend it if you have an affinity for this sort of thing. Now, I know what some might be thinking - yesterday I watched a movie that was just as inept (actually, not even AS inept), so it makes no sense that I'm championing this while damning that one. But here's the key difference - Bloody Jack lacked that je ne sais quois (hey, I get to use that term about an actual French movie for once!) that makes things like this, Things, and Disconnected so special. It's not just a bad movie - it transcends that term and becomes its own unique, wonderful thing that I'll never forget, whereas the Bloody Jacks of the world begin to fade before I've even finished watching them. I can forgive bad a lot easier than I can forgive being boring, I guess is the point to take away here, and after 6 years it's probably a good idea to start making a few of those instead of just aimlessly rambling all the time.

What say you?

*The DVD did have a bonus feature that appeared to be a retrospective by some of its makers, but they were in French with no subtitles, so that was of no use. We did, however, watch the "Diaporama", which was a collection of behind the scenes stills that proved they did have a camera and a crew of at least two.

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MARCH 6, 2013

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

Back in the day, the Asylum used to distribute indie productions like The Legend Of Bloody Jack, but it seems they've given up on that sort of thing and focused on their own. And shockingly enough, that's probably for the best - not that any of their movies are particularly great, but few are as bad as this, which suggests they either lacked an eye for quality horror flicks, or couldn't afford anything but bottom of the barrel nonsense that made their mockbusters look like genre standouts in comparison.

I can say two nice things about the movie that could have saved it if not for all of the things I'll describe afterward. One - it's an indie horror film from the 2000s that was shot on film, which is wonderful - I had forgotten what real dirt and flecks look like (as opposed to the filtered ones that are tossed on every 4th horror movie post-Grindhouse). Second, even though they're pretty much terrible, at least they continued with the "old school" (also called the "right") approach and used practical FX for the kill scenes - cheapo fake guts and the like are still better than a bunch of poorly rendered After Effects tricks.

However, in a way that's also kind of representative of the movie's main fault - it's a guy who thinks he had the right tools to make a Friday the 13th style slasher but failed to use them properly. He's got the bland kids you won't mind seeing die, the isolated locale, the camera, the bucket of Karo syrup... but, judging from the script and abysmally flat direction, not an ounce of the skill needed to actually pull these elements together and make a decent movie. Believe it or not, these movies might not be Oscar contenders, but the ones people like tend to be made by folks who actually know what they're doing - it's not as easy as the cynically minded might think. Hell even I know I'm not talented enough to make anything even as good as one of the junkier Friday sequels (OK, MAYYYBE I can do better than Buechler), and I take these movies much more seriously than I should.

I did consider that this was supposed to be a spoof, especially when I stopped after about 20 minutes to see if this was a student film only to discover that the director is Todd Portugal, who is the guy behind those "Thumb" parodies (The Blair Thumb, The Godthumb, etc) and thus might be looking to try his brand of humor with full sized actors. But if so, it's a pretty tone deaf approach to such things, and would have to be considered a conceptual spoof where there's really only one joke and they're seeing how far they can stretch it. There are some laughs (like when a character says "Sometimes things happen" and the reply, in this very boring movie: "Not to us"), and it's not hard to imagine Portugal telling his producers "We're gonna make an intentionally dumb slasher movie, it'll be hilarious" and forgetting that making fun of them is just as difficult (possibly even more so) as doing one for real. The timing of jokes, the ability of an actor to play dumb material straight... all of these things require skill as well. At any rate, if your audience still isn't sure if a movie is supposed to be a joke or not by the time it's over, it's not a successful one either way.

You know what the saddest thing about this movie is? (Spoiler ahead!) It all turns out to be a goddamn dream, and I was actually relieved. Not only did it help explain the horrendous continuity (no closeup ever appears to have the same lighting of the wide shot, and the character's hand or whatever will always be at a different angle), but not all dreams are exciting, and this movie captures that perfectly. Sometimes you have a dream where you find yourself forced to talk to your pal's girlfriend who you have zero connection to, or endlessly walking around outside your house doing some menial task (gathering wood, here). And sometimes a character will show up, take over the dream for a while, and then exit just as randomly, as the obligatory cop (or ranger) does here. So Portugal really nailed that aspect of it, and the twist also involves the killer showing up and killing them all again (for real this time), doubling our value and allowing us one last chance to try to tell the two main male characters apart (I failed to do so).

The movie does have one interesting element to it, though it seems like just a half-assed way to justify shooting the whole thing during the day (film that you can use at night is way more expensive) - it takes place in that part of Alaska where the sun doesn't fully set for months, leaving the region in permanent daylight (the movie Insomnia also had this unusual backdrop). Since it was shot in California it's clearly just their way of avoiding night shoots, but I can't deny it might be an interesting idea for a movie funded and created by someone who knew what the hell they were doing.

What say you?

P.S. My main motivation for watching this was the realization that I'm only about 30 slashers shy of enough for a full book, "A Slasher A Day" or something. So I'm gonna bulk up and hopefully find enough unreviewed faves to do that.

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MARCH 5, 2013

GENRE: REVENGE, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

With a title like The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (and about a dozen others) attached to a German production, I figured this movie would be pretty grim and gory for its day, but it's actually kind of tame, the sort of movie that MST3k or a horror host would love since it clocks in a little over 80 minutes and doesn't have much they'd have to cut for their basic cable audience. Hell, it's even got an overly happy ending (spoiler) - you expect the hero and heroine to survive, but their comic relief carriage driver and another girl get away too? The Germans sure were a lot more uplifting in the 60s.

Anyway, fun little flick, which apes the Corman/Poe productions (with Christopher Lee subbing for Vincent Price) in that it takes a certain element from a Poe story (in this case, "The Pit and the Pendulum") and creates a story of no relation that is reverse engineered to get to the part everyone knows, i.e. a guy in a pit being menaced by an ever-lowering blade. Of course, all "Pendulum" adaptations have to do this since the original story doesn't give many details and starts with the guy already in the cell for reasons unknown, but this goes above and beyond by pretty much ignoring everything but the titular event - it's not even the Spanish Inquisition. By the same token, that one Saw sequel with a pendulum scene could be considered an adaptation.

However, it also apes Mario Bava and other haunted castle movies of the era, so the ladies are gorgeous and the sets are intricate and far more terrifying than the "Old Dark House" counterparts of the 30s and 40s. I bring them up because the plot is similar; a guy and a group of other folks are at a remote location seeking answers involving ancestors, there are a lot of hidden passageways and the like, and (again, spoiler) just about everyone lives. The only difference is that there's a real supernatural threat instead of just some guy dressed as an ape or a vampire in order to scare folks into getting an inheritance for himself. No, Lee is out for revenge, because everyone is related to the folks who killed him 30 years before, and he needs their blood to be fully reborn or some nonsense, so it's like a cross between a typical Dracula/vampire movie and an Old Dark House, but with some Poe tossed in for good measure.

So yeah, it can be a bit generic, like a sort of greatest hits horror movie - there's even some potions and a lab for some mad scientist flair - but I was pretty entertained throughout. Lead hero Lex Barker is appropriately charming, scoring a few good lines and seemingly enjoying himself as he goes through the motions, and Karin Dor as the heroine is the sort of actress from the era that will make you wish you were around at the time to appreciate her in her prime. And the sets are terrific; it takes a bit for them to arrive at the castle, but it's worth the wait - Universal should track down the production designer's original notes and build the thing for their Halloween Horror Nights attraction, as it's much more exciting than the Van Helsing or whatever inspired ones I've seen. Skulls! Pits! Passageways! It's got everything and more (plus Christopher Lee, who I honestly thought was just doing a cameo when he died in the opening scene).

The journey there is fun too - I actually pondered for a second if the movie was more about their trip to the castle than anything else, as it lasted a good 20 minutes and had its fair share of horror moments and obstacles. I assume they had to pad this out a bit because they didn't get the castle set for long enough to make a whole movie there, but if that's the case they did a fine job of keeping it just as interesting to watch as the rest, a far cry from just about any modern "breakdown" movie, which you might as well just fast forward until the teens get to the scary house after their car runs out of gas or gets a flat tire or whatever. Hell, it's even kind of amusing watching Barker wander around the town in the first reel (prior to the carriage), asking around and encountering local weirdos.

It's never particularly scary or exciting, but it's CHARMING, and not at all unpleasant like the title suggests (one of the alternates, Castle of the Walking Dead, is much better). I don't know if it's available on a GOOD edition anywhere, since this was a Mill Creek style affair (off-center cropping, VHS transfer, etc), but if you find it in a budget pack it'll probably be one of the more enjoyable movies in there.

What say you?

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MARCH 4, 2013

GENRE: ASIAN, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

For the past couple years, I've watched movies that are both foreign and "unusual" (read: kind of fucked up) on my birthday, and I wanted to go all out this time because it'd be the last time I spend part of *my* day worrying about seeing a movie in time. Well, it's not as horror-driven as the others, but I doubt I could ever get more upsetting a movie than Strange Circus (Japanese: Kimyô na sâkasu), which involved a young girl who is being raped by her father before she starts enjoying it and wanting to take her mother's place permanently, with tragic results. And that's just the first half hour or so - it goes even further into WTF territory by the time it's done.

As you might expect, there are a lot of head scratching plot developments, and I'm not even sure I fully understood it all by the end. To keep things from getting TOO disturbing (relatively speaking), we thankfully never see the young actress during the sex scenes - it's always played by the woman playing the mother, as we're seeing it through her head where she has taken the mother's place. But as the plot goes on, we learn just how much of an "unreliable narrator" she is, on top of the fact that there's the possibility that all of it is made up by an author looking to score a best-seller. Oh, and the entire thing is wrapped up in bookends where the story is being told at some goofy circus/stage show, so when you add in the flashback driven narrative of the third act and all the plot twists, it starts to make Tale of Two Sisters look kids' show simple in comparison.

But man, what a flick. Even if I was risking an aneurysm trying to keep it all straight, I was enjoying director Shion Sono's vivid photography and the impressive set design, particularly the classroom that looked made out of blood covered sheets. Folks have been telling me to watch Sono's movies for a while now (Cold Fish seems to be the go-to request), and I have to say if they're all as nutty but enjoyable to look at as this, I won't be putting it off much longer. The story's pace got a bit sluggish at times (particularly when the movie first switches focus to the author and her assistant), but it never stopped being visually interesting, making it a lot easier to forgive. And considering how many twists and turns it takes (through multiple layers - it's a story about a story about a story, after all), that it clocks in at around 1:45 is actually kind of impressive (Cold Fish is 2.5 hrs long, which is the REAL reason I've been putting it off).

So how is it a horror movie? Well, like Audition, I think going in expecting one is detrimental, though in a different way. While Audition is very much a horror movie, it's best not to know that going in, and letting that element shock you like the characters in the movie. Here, it's a "how far will this go" tale of madness and psychological obsession, culminating in a gruesome, highly disturbing visual that firmly puts the movie in genre territory but hampers folks like me (even with my casual approach to spoilers) from discussing it much, and if someone asked I'd just tell them the movie was a psychological thriller. It's right gory though, I'll say that much.

I got to thinking after - it must be nice to make a movie like this without being vilified and hoarded by negative press right off the bat. A few years ago, Dakota Fanning made a movie called Hounddog where she was raped, and long before anyone had the chance to see it, folks crusaded against it, resulting in a VERY limited release (11 theaters, most of them dropping it after a week) and zero fanfare since. I can't imagine what this movie, which also has these elements but adds incest, would go through over here - it'd probably be edited down to nothing and STILL buried. But Sono seems to have been able to make the film as he liked and free of the sort of picketing and overblown outrage that would accompany something even half as taboo as this had it been made in the States. Not that folks don't have a right to piss and moan, but since the film is ultimately a tragedy and an account of how this sort of despicable act can affect more than just the victim, all of it is justified - none of it is meant to titillate or glorify the act, which is a lot more than I can say for a few "rape-revenge" type films (not to mention borderline comedic adult films like Taboo 2). I'd say those would be far more damaging and upsetting to a victim of rape or incest than this is, and if you get past the puzzle nature of the plot and usual Japanese "WTFery", there's a real, sad story at its heart. Highly recommended for those who can stomach its nature without getting on a soapbox.

What say you?

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