Columnists
Entries from September 2015
BY TODD GARBARINI
I have been a fan of the Italian giallo subgenre for 30 years since my
initiation into it was precipitated by my first viewing of Creepers (1985), the severely cut version of Dario Argento’s Phenomena, my personal favorite film of
his. Subsequent viewings of films by
both Mr. Argento and his mentor, Mario Bava, as well as Lucio Fulci, Lamberto
Bava, Luigi Cozzi, and Michele Soavi solidified a love for the putrid and the
fantastic, and anyone who has seen these movies knows how delightfully
entertaining they are: off-kilter camera angles, ludicrous dialogue, and what
writer Todd French referred to as “a maddening narrative looseness†are present
in these films in a way that they are absent in other genres. There is just nothing like an Italian giallo film. With all of the mock horror films that have
been made going back to 1981’s Student
Bodies and the later, more contemporary and successful Scary Movie parodies, it was only a matter of time before someone
took on the giallo. Quite honestly I am surprised that it took as
long as it did.
Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks, who looks a lot
like Franco Nero in 1977’s Hitch-Hike
and also co-wrote and co-directed the film) is a film editor who actually cuts
movies on celluloid. Once a great editor
who worked with top-level directors, he suffered a tragic accident which cost
him four fingers and has been relegated to cutting movies with wooden
substitutes that look like they might be sound-designed by Jack Terry (John
Travolta) in Brian De Palma’s Blow Out
(1981). In fact, The Editor, which was shot in the summer of 2013, starts out much
the same way that Blow Out does, with
a movie-within-a-movie concerning a stripper who is accosted on her way home
from work (a nod to 1982’s Tenebre
when Ania Pieroni is attacked by a vagrant). There is a lot of blood as you can well imagine, and when the action
moves to the editor, we see a sad and decrepit man whose young, attractive female
assistant has the hots for him for some reason. His wife is a former actress who is beyond her prime and takes out her
frustration on him. If all of this
sounds depressing, it’s not, as the film is actually quite humorous in that
it’s a send-up of giallo films. If you are a fan of these movies to the same
extent that I am, you will recognize the obvious tips of the hat (or strokes of
the blade) to Mr. Argento’s Inferno
(1980) and Mr. Fulci’s New York Ripper
(1981). There are also myriad instances of silly dubbing (another staple of giallo), gratuitous nudity, and the
sound of the actors and actresses voices coming off as too theatrical and
forced. This is all deliberate as a
tongue-in-cheek salute to these movies that we love so much.
Now, unfortunately for Rey, someone is
killing people off all around him. Naturally he is the prime suspect, and a rookie detective (played by
Matthew Kennedy, who looks like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, who also co-wrote and co-directed
the film – do you see a pattern here?) is after him almost every second just
trying to pin the crimes on him. And
what would a giallo send-up be
without Udo Kier?
There is a conscious effort on the part
of the filmmakers to pay homage to the cinematography of this once great,
bygone era. The movie-within-the-movie
possesses a color palette that would do Luciano Tovoli and Romano Albani proud
as it harkens back to 1977’s Suspiria
and 1980’s Inferno respectively. The film is beautiful to look at in every
respect. Even the poster art is
gorgeous! It comes with a reversible
cover and I prefer the image on the inside which just screams “the 80’sâ€.
There are an abundance of extras in
this collection, and I appreciate the fact that Shout! Factory has done a
DVD/Blu-ray combo on this title. I
highly recommend The Editor for those
with a love for these films. The extras
are:
Making
Movies Used to Be Fun
(51:03) is a funny and entertaining behind-the-scenes look at the making of The Editor and reveals that most of the
people in front of the camera are also some of the people behind the
camera. Conor Sweeney, like the
aforementioned Brooks and Kennedy, contributed to the script.
Hook
Lab Interview
(7:11) sits with Norman Orenstein and Trevor Tuminski in a comedic look at
their musical contribution to the film.
Brett
Parson Poster Video
(5:35) chronicles the agony that the poster artist endured trying to create the
film’s poster. Oh, the humanity!
Astron-6
Film Festival Introduction (1:57) is an annoying piece better left unviewed.
A
collection of several scenes cut from the film.
Full-length
audio commentary with Adam Brooks, Connor Sweeney and Matt Kennedy. I would advise you to watch the film first as
this contains many spoilers. It is also
a lot of fun to listen to.
-
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BY ADRIAN SMITH
Somewhere
in the north-German countryside is a POW camp for Naval officers and assorted
other servicemen. The camp kommandant claims that it is completely escape
proof, but this does not deter the camp escape committee, lead by Captain
Maddox (Jack Warner, best remembered as the titular copper in Dixon of Dock
Green). They've tried tunnelling and going over the wire, but they always get
caught, or worse luck the tunnel collapses. Thankfully the kommandant is a
reasonable man who understands their duty to try to escape, unlike the sadistic
guard Captain Schultz (Anton Diffring, an actor who escaped Nazi Germany
himself in 1939, only to be typecast as Nazi thugs for most of his forty-year
career), who would happily shoot prisoners if he could get away with it.
Lt.
Ainsworth (Anthony Steel) has an ingenious idea. An accomplished artist, he
creates a papier-mâché head which can be assembled into a convincing dummy that
the men refer to as Albert. This way someone can escape whilst the prisoners
are being escorted outside the camp to the shower block, and when a headcount
is taken, the German guards will not notice that anyone is missing. This is a
plan so daring, and frankly quite bonkers, that it can only be based on a true
story, which it is. Albert was built by John Worsley in the camp Marlag O, and
it was used twice to allow men to escape. It is an amazing story and Albert
R.N. belongs alongside other true POW escape films like The Colditz
Story (1955) or The Great Escape (1963).
The
film was directed by Lewis Gilbert, who was responsible for an incredible
forty-one films between 1944 and 2002. In 1953 alone he was working on Johnny
on the Run (for the Children's Film Foundation), Albert R.N. and The
Sea Shall Not Have Them, which may explain why this particular film does
not get mentioned in his recent autobiography "All My Flashbacks: Sixty
Years a Film Director". There were just too many films to cover. Gilbert
is one of the most prolific yet largely-ignored British film directors, with
most perhaps mainly remembering his 1966 hit Alfie and contributions to the James Bond canon; You Only Live
Twice (1966), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker
(1979).
Albert R.N. has recently been
restored for this new DVD release from Renown Pictures. It both looks and
sounds superb. Sadly there are no other extras included. A commentary track
from Lewis Gilbert would have been fantastic, or failing that a historian who
can give details of the actual true story would have given the package some
more weight. Despite this Albert R.N. comes highly recommended. The kind
of black-and-white movie which you used to find on TV on a rainy afternoon, its
depictions of wartime heroism, sacrifice, honour and above all, the stiff upper
lip, will make you proud to be British.
BY ERNIE MAGNOTTA
Throughout most of the 1980s, prolific
filmmaker Charles Band ran the (sadly) now defunct distribution company Empire
Pictures. Empire, whose fun movies had their own unique style and humor, released
a plethora of enjoyable, low-budget action/sci-fi/horror/fantasy titles the
likes of Walking the Edge (1985), Crawlspace (1986), From Beyond (1986), Troll (1986), Dolls (1987) and Cellar Dweller (1988).
The company, however, is probably best known for the amazing cult classic Re-Animator (1985) as well as the
popular Ghoulies and Trancers series. If, like me, you’re a
fan of Empire Pictures’ entertaining output (as well as a fan of Band’s later
company, Full Moon Pictures, which is best known for the iconic Puppet Master series), you can rejoice
as their much-sought-after cult favorite, Zone
Troopers, has finally been released on Blu-ray.
Solidly directed by Danny Bilson (The Rocketeer) who also co-wrote with
his long-time friend Paul De Meo (Arena),
Zone Troopers tells the enthralling
tale of a small group of American soldiers who, while battling the Nazis in
Italy in 1944, stumble across a crashed spaceship from another galaxy. Led by
tough-as-nails Sergeant Stone (Tim Thomerson from Trancers), the soldiers not only do everything in their power to
stay alive, but also to ensure that the aliens and their advanced technology do
not find its way into the hands of the evil Nazi horde.
Zone Troopers is a unique and
extremely fun combo of old-time war films and B-movie science fiction fantasy.
The highly enjoyable movie also boasts an amazing cast. Timothy Van Patten (Class of 1984, The White Shadow) is
dead-on as young, New Jersey soldier Joey Verona. Van Patten goes all out
delivering the innocence and patriotism (as well as the requisite East Coast
accent) necessary to bring this wonderfully clichéd role to life. Art La Fleur
(1988’s The Blob) is terrific as
tough, but loveable Corporal Mittinsky aka Mittens, and Tim Thomerson, who
conveys quite a bit of info through very subtle facial expressions, is
excellent as the indestructible Iron Sarge. Rounding out the group of stalwart
heroes is Biff Manard (Trancers II)
who makes his character of writer/reporter Dolan more than likeable. The
lighthearted film is filled with action, adventure, camaraderie and humor, and,
at times, feels like a 1940s comic book. It also benefits from a fun musical
score by talented composer (and brother of Charles) Richard Band (Re-Animator, The House on Sorority Row),
wonderful special alien effects by legendary makeup artist John Carl Buechler (Friday the 13th Part VII: The New
Blood); not to mention top-notch
cinematography and editing by long-time Charles Band associates Mac Ahlberg (Prison) and Ted Nicolaou (Subspecies) respectively. Filmed in both Italy and the US, the
well-paced film also contains intentionally dated and, therefore, intentionally
corny and priceless dialogue (mostly from Van Patten) as well as a bunch of
1940s references which makes the war section of Zone Troopers feel entirely authentic.
Zone Troopers has been released
on a region one Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. The high definition transfer looks
fantastic and the movie is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
Special features include the original theatrical trailer, an interesting
onscreen interview with the great Tim Thomerson, and an amusing and informative
audio commentary by director Danny Bilson and writer Paul De Meo who both seem
to enjoy revisiting their cult film (and rightly so). Whether you’re a lover of
war movies, retro science fiction, or you’re just looking for something fun and
different, Zone Troopers is
definitely the Blu-ray for you.
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BY ERNIE MAGNOTTA
Although I was barely ten years-old, I
remember feeling terrified while watching horror master Wes Craven’s 1978 made-for-TV
thriller Summer of Fear (under its
alternate title Stranger in Our House)
as well as thoroughly enjoying his adaptation of the comic book Swamp Thing four years later, but it
wasn’t until November of 1984, while viewing the trailer for some new horror
flick called A Nightmare on Elm Street,
that I recall hearing and remembering the name Wes Craven. After being thrilled
by this masterpiece which, in my opinion, is Craven’s greatest work, I certainly
wanted to learn more about this extremely talented filmmaker. After doing a bit
of research, I quickly discovered that I had already seen Craven’s original and
very interesting Deadly Blessing (1981)
and, also, his other masterpiece (in my opinion): 1977’s The Hills Have Eyes. Whenever someone mentions Wes Craven, I
immediately think of Nightmare and Hills, so, due to hearing the very sad
news of his passing, I’d like to focus this article on those two masterworks
because if any movies from his amazing filmography show Wes as a
writer/director to be reckoned with, they are, without a doubt, The Hills Have Eyes and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Craven’s first movie as writer/director
(and editor) was 1972’s controversial, but important The Last House on the Left. The disturbing film, which was inspired
by Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960)
and produced by Sean Cunningham (Friday
the 13th), was made during the height of the Vietnam War and
seemed to be Craven’s outcry against the rise of violence in the United States
at the time. It also rightly depicted that violence as brutal and horrific
instead of glamorizing or sanitizing it. Lensed in New York and Connecticut for
only $87,000, the film’s poster featured the immortal tagline ‘To avoid
fainting, keep repeating, it’s only a movie…only a movie…only a movie…’, dealt
with revenge, booby traps and a civilized family vs. an uncivilized one. The
last two would show up again in Craven’s next film.
Five long years later, Craven would write
and direct again and it was definitely worth the wait. On July, 22nd,
1977, The Hills Have Eyes was
released upon an unsuspecting public. The $230,000 budgeted film dealt with the
Carters; an average, middle-class family whose car breaks down near a deserted
bomb range in the Nevada desert while driving cross-country. Once stranded,
night falls and the Carters are repeatedly attacked by an uncivilized,
cannibalistic, mutant family who live in the hills and have been surviving in
the desert for years by feeding off of anyone foolish enough to cross their
path. The cannibals, who go by names such as Mars, Mercury, Pluto and Papa
Jupiter, brutally murder Mr. and Mrs. Carter, their oldest daughter Lynne, and
Beauty, one of their two dogs. The deranged mutants also kidnap Lynne’s infant
daughter, Katie, leaving only Lynne’s younger siblings, Bobby and Brenda, along
with Lynne’s husband, Doug, and their second dog, Beast, to face the crazed
family, hopefully rescue little Katie and survive.
Although still a hardcore piece of horror
cinema, The Hills Have Eyes is a more
enjoyable experience than The Last House
on the Left. Where Last House went
for and achieved stark realism, Hills
deftly balances realistic, identifiable, likeable characters with somewhat
over-the-top/comic bookish, but still terrifying, villains (who Craven based on
the supposedly real-life, 16th century, cannibalistic Sawney Bean
family). The film chillingly shows that in a life and death situation, an
intelligent, passive, civilized person may have to become just as uncivilized
as his or her attackers. The film’s memorable tagline, “A nice American family.
They didn’t want to kill. But they didn’t want to die.â€, pretty much sums up
the entire movie.
The cutting edge, low-budget film, which
introduced the world to future horror movie icons Dee Wallace (The Howling, Cujo) and Michael Berryman
(Deadly Blessing, The Devil’s Rejects),
went on to gross $25 million and quickly became a cult classic, further
solidifying Craven’s name as a major and original talent in the world of horror
cinema.
Over the next seven years, Craven would
work in both film and television and, with the exception of the aforementioned Swamp Thing, would always direct films
in the horror genre. Immediately following Swamp
Thing, Craven completed an original horror screenplay which he
shopped all over Hollywood. Every studio
felt that the script didn’t have potential and passed on it. With almost no
money to his name and just about ready to give up on the project, Craven
finally saw a glimmer of hope as a tiny, independent company called New Line
Cinema gave the film a green light. New Line head Robert Shaye, whose company
dealt mostly in distribution, but had recently moved into production by making
a few low-budget films including an underrated 1982 horror called Alone in the Dark, believed in Craven’s
script and production immediately began with Wes once again in the director’s
chair. The screenplay’s title was A
Nightmare on Elm Street.
The frightening film tells the tale of a
group of four teens who all begin having nightmares about the same creepy,
burnt-faced man who skulks in the bowels of an old boiler room and wears a
dirty red and green sweater, a beat-up, old fedora and a self-made glove of
sharp “finger-knives.†When her friends begin dying one by one, intelligent
teen Nancy deduces that if this mysterious figure kills you in your sleep, then
you die for real. After getting almost no help from the adults around her,
Nancy does some digging and finds out that the murderer’s name is Fred Krueger
and that his motive is to kill the Elm Street kids as an act of revenge in
order to punish their parents who burned him alive ten years earlier due to him
being a filthy child murderer. Armed with only her wits and a few self-made
booby traps, Nancy prepares to face Krueger in a desperate battle for survival.
Made for under $2 million dollars, the
expertly crafted film was released on November 9, 1984 and, little by little,
gained momentum as horror fans slowly began to discover what an unexpected gem
it was. After all, the trailer made it seem as if it was just another in a
seemingly endless cycle of formulaic dead teenager flicks still being released
due to the massive success of both Halloween
(1978) and Friday the 13th (1980).
But A
Nightmare on Elm Street was different. It was something special. More of a
psychological thriller than a by-the-numbers slasher film, Elm Street’s extremely original story, much like The Hills Have Eyes, was partly
influenced by real-life events. Wes Craven read a series of articles in the L.A. Times which detailed several young
men who were afraid to go to sleep and tried everything in their power to stay
awake. When they inevitably nodded off, they died. Craven immediately thought
“What if a person, like a boogeyman, was killing them in their dreams?†With
the story now in place, Wes then began to construct his soon-to-be iconic
villain. Craven based him on a scary childhood incident where, one night, while
little Wes was looking out his bedroom window into the alley below, a creepy
man wearing an old hat continued to stare up at him with a look of evil. Craven
then took the name Fred Krueger from a school bully who constantly tormented
him (he did the same thing twelve years earlier with The Last House on the Left; naming one character Fred and the other
Krug) and decided on Elm Street because it was a street close to the school
where he used to work as an English teacher as well as being the name of the
street where JFK was, unfortunately, assassinated on. Wes said that he wanted a
name/place that evoked pure Americana. Craven then chose the razor-sharp glove
because he was thinking of what early man may have feared and thought of the
claws of a bear. He also wanted Freddy to be a painful, optical effect, so he
decided on red and green for Freddy’s sweater after learning that they were the
two colors which were the most difficult for the eye to see side by side.
Lastly, Craven decided that Freddy would be very different from the plethora of
mute, masked, cinematic psycho killers which were inundating theaters at the
time. Freddy would talk (including a few darkly humorous lines of dialogue)
and, although covered in burnt scar tissue, remain unmasked. The chilling
monster would also take great pleasure in terrifying his victims-to-be.
Continue reading "SWEET NIGHTMARES: REMEMBERING WES CRAVEN"
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