Sayonara Cinema

SUPERBAD (2007) With two weeks left until high school graduation, best friends Seth and Evan are coming to grips with the fact that they will not be going to college together, and try to devise the perfect plan to get girlfriends for the summer with the sole purpose of learning to become masters of bedroom pleasuring before they become freshmen in the Fall. A sketchy plan comes to fruition when their annoying tag-along friend/nuisance Fogell gets a fake ID the same day that one of Seth’s lustful crushes asks him to come to a party she is having, and he offers to buy some booze.

That afternoon, Fogell attempts to purchase said alcohol, and when Seth and Evan think that Fogell is being arrested (though he is really just talking to two cops about a robbery), the co-dependant pair set out on epic journey into the night to score some booze in order to gain access to the party that should bring them into manhood. Meanwhile, Fogell sets out on his own fantastic adventure when he becomes a backseat companion to two of the coolest cops to ever hit the beat. [Read The Rest Of My Review at Geeks Of Doom]

PSYCHO BEACH PARTY (2000) In a small town near Malibu Beach, innocent girl-next-door Florence becomes friends with the local surfers, and quickly catches her eye on surf guru Kanaka. But no sooner does her friendship with the group starts to solidify than they start dying off at the hands of an unknown killer. The group also meets up with a B-movie actress who has taken up residence in a beach house that is supposedly haunted. As residents continue to drop off like flies, each of the survivors becomes a suspect under the iron gaze of the militant police captain Monica Stark. When Kanaka discovers Florence’s secret - that she has a split personality - Kanaka fears that she may be the killer but also finds himself inexplicably attracted to her dark alter ego. And at the annual beach luau, as the local teens gather to dance the night away hoping to stay alive, all will be revealed!

This film, which is actually based on a stage play of the same name and rewritten for the screen by the play’s writer Charles Busch (who also plays the police captain), has been touted as a mix of the 60’s beach blanket movies with the 70’s slasher. However, Busch is clearly more interested in sending up the beach party movies and their go-go style than making anything resembling a horror movie. Following Busch’s script, director Robert Lee King explores the homo-erotic undertones of the surf movie culture, the commie fears of the McCarthy era, and the pure sexual energy of youth without fear of being blacklisted. King saturates his movie with a dripping and over-the-top style of the sixties beach movie with loving tribute to the clothes, the cars, and drive-in culture of the era, and even goes so far as to have the actors “surf” in front of a projection screen. [Read the rest of my review at Gorezone]

EXILED (2006)When Wo is discovered to be living in Macao, Boss Fay orders Blaze to kill him. Wo once attempted to assassinate Fay, and now he must pay the price. But Blaze and Wo were once friends, and Blaze is unable to pull off the job. Even more so, his friend Tai has pleaded for Blaze to spare Wo’s life. These three, along with their gangster friends Cat and Fat, conspire to pull off a highly risky assassination job of Boss Keung, and intend to give the money they earn from it to hide away Wo and his family. Their plot to kill Keung is quite tricky, and even the slightest deviation from their plan will alert Fay, and bring his henchmen down on them. And on top of all this, the clock is slowly counting down to the handover of Macao to the Chinese government, their lives and fates are up in the air as to what the future holds.

For fans of Hong Kong action with knowledge that goes past John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat, you have only to look at the laundry list of talent attached to this film to know that it will succeed on every level. Johnnie To directs, through his Milky Way Image production company. The script comes from the pen of two writers whose previous scripts include EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED, A HERO NEVER DIES, and BREAKING NEWS. And the cast is a perfect assortment of Hong Kong’s classic gangster actors including Anthony Wong, Simon Yam, Francis Ng, Lam Suet, and Roy Cheung, which coincidentally is most of the main cast for Johnnie To’s classic THE MISSION. [Read My Full Review at Geeks Of Doom]

DEEP RED (1975) Helga is a telepathic visiting Italy who feels the frightening presence of a disturbed mind when she is at a lecture. That night, while trying to focus on that mind, she is brutally killed by a hatchet-wielding maniac. Her death is seen by Marc, a jazz pianist who lives in the same building as her. While trying to save her, Marc thinks he sees something as he races through her apartment. It is this sliver of memory, that he can’t recall if he imagined or if he truly saw something, that propels him through the city streets, trying to piece together the puzzle. His path leads him into constant contact with a local reporter, Gianna, who is trying to make a name for herself. But as each piece comes into play, or as a person comes too close to a vital clue, the black-gloved assailant returns from the shadows to murder again. Marc is certain that he is closing in on the truth, but the final discovery could also spell the end of his life!

Director and co-writer Dario Argento once again returns to a familiar world of unknown killers in this genre defining mystery, which was also written by Italian screenplay master Bernardino Zapponi. Together, the two create a film that would shape the crucial ingredients for the 70’s giallo - shocking gore, a dizzying storyline, characters that evolve so that any of them could be the killer, and a pounding soundtrack. But those these would be the standard ingredients, it is Argento’s eye aided by Luigi Kuveiller’s cinematography that keeps DEEP RED a unique film experience that brings fans new and old to the movie again and again. [Read My Full Review at Gorezone]

I’ve been waiting for a chance to write about this movie for sometime, but the inavailability stateside has always held me back. But with Mondo Macabro’s US DVDebut coming up on October 2nd, it is finally time to talk about…

MYSTICS IN BALI (1981) American student Cathy has come to Indonesia to investigate and learn the black magic of the Leyak, the masters of the oldest and more powerful of the black arts. Her friend, a local named Mahendra, uses his connections to get her a meeting with one of the reclusive masters, who decides to take Cathy as a student. Cathy soon learns, through dance, hypnosis and meditation the spells of the Leyak, including transformation. But when Cathy thinks she has learned it all and attempts to leave the old woman, the Leyak master puts Cathy under a possession spell so that she can use her to collect the blood of newborns. The Leyak master literally “borrows” Cathy’s head as her head detaches from her body - with her lungs, heart and organs still attached! - and flies off into the night to bring the Leyak her blood.

Coming out of Indonesia at the height of their exploitation film exporting craze, which utilized the small country’s wealth of folklore, legends, and magic to bring to the screen unique sleazy movies to satiate the filmgoers around the world with sex, violence, and the bizarre. MYSTICS IN BALI has become one of the champion examples of this period of Indonesian Cinema, of which the entire movement was basically funded by the government for tax breaks and to create a small job community. The result was hundreds of micro-budget releases with an eager excitement that helped the films to overcome their technical limitations.

Director H. Tjut Djalil (who would go on to bring the world LADY TERMINATOR) goes native in this black magic filled horror film that pulls from specific regional folklore to bring to the world images they’ve never seen before. His approach to black magic and native superstitions is so over the top that if one did not know it was made by local, one would decry the stereotyping and almost racist depiction of the practitioners. Djalil fills the movie’s soundtrack with rumbling tribal beats and rhythms to punctuate the atmosphere and to remind foreign audiences they are in a strange and new world.

Although there are obvious budget restrictions on screen, Djalil overcomes these limitations with an energetic assortment of special effects. The highlight is of course is Cathy’s flying head, and the first time Djalil lets her head loose is an out-of-nowhere sucker-punch to the collective horror stomach. Unless you’ve grown up on Indonesia folklore, you’ve never ever seen something or heard of something like this before. Djalil incorporates a variety of cheap effects to bring this legend to life, from blue-screen layering and split-screens for close ups to literally flying a mannequin head with some guts attached around on string for the wide shots. The result is ludicrous but somehow hypnotically appealing. Djalil keeps the hooky effects coming as he shows transformations with a cheap WOLFMAN-style fades as more and more make up is applied with each shot, and a fifteen foot tongue that comes out of the woods in which you can almost imagine the poor sod behind a tree trying to keep control over it.

Part of the charm of any East Asia import is of course the English Dub. MYSTICS IN BALI may hold the record for one of the most stilted and blatant exposition dialogue tracks to ever be recorded. And while classic Hong Kong kung-fu flicks were usually given their audio dub by professionals in a studio, this track seems to be recorded by the first people Djalil could find on the street that spoke English, and told to read the script on the spot. Several main characters ever sound like they were dubbed by the same person! To top it all off, Djalil doesn’t ever try to get the actors lips and the dialogue to match up.

Take a look into a world of cinema mostly overlooked save for the most experimental moviegoer with this wildly amusing and entertaining tale that will be sure to put a smile on your face and serve as an introduction to the world of Indonesian sleaze. There’s plenty more where this one came from!

DESCENT (2007) Shy college student Maya (Rosario Dawson) would rather spend her evenings curled up with a book studying than going out to parties. When her friend finally convinces her to go a house party, she meets Jared, who uses his finesse with words to gain Maya’s trust. The two go out to dinner and have a lovely first date before he brings her back to his apartment. It is here that he lets his true intentions be known and after failing to coerce her to voluntarily have sex with him, he rapes her. Shattered by this violation, Maya spends the summer drifting distantly through a job and falls into an world of drugs and dangerous partying.

When she returns to school the following Fall, she finally lands a teacher assistant position, only to discover that Jared is now one of her students. After class one day, she insinuates to Jared that she would like to see him again. Jared, being too arrogant to even question her request, comes over to an apartment to meet her. But Maya is not the insecure woman he once prayed on, and is now full of a demanding confidence that Jared is about to meet head on. [Read The Rest Of The Review at Geeks Of Doom]

BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON (2006) In a world in which Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Freddy Krueger exist, a young man named Leslie Vernon is preparing to become the newest name in serial killers. Following him around as he sets up for the night on which he will strike is journalism grad student Taylor and her two-man film crew, who are fully documenting Leslie’s preparation to become a horror legend, from his cardiovascular workouts, to his methodical choosing of his victims, to his complete rigging of the house where the murders take place. He carefully plants the seeds of the back story and curse that will be associated with his name, and even introduces Taylor and company to his mentor, a serial killer who has since retired. But on the night of the murders as Leslie sets to work, Taylor feels something deep within her - Leslie Vernon must be stopped!

Move over SCREAM, there is a new kid on the self-aware horror block. Building from a base previously set up by the serial killer mockumentary MAN BITES DOG and employing the laundry list of well-known horror cliches and motifs, debut director and writer Scott Glosserman energetically takes on the horror genre with one of the most unique entries to the slasher world in quite some time. [Read The Full Review At Gorezone]

Chaos Campus: Sorority Girls vs. Zombies - Preview Issue #1
If you ever wondered what a Double-D sporting Buffy would look like as a zombie slayer, this would be it.

Scorn #1
Sorrow. Vengeance. Anger. Loneliness. Rage. These are the emotions that have plagued the life of Michael, a vigilante who’s lost everything in his quest for revenge.

The Evil Inside #1
This premiere issue sets the stage for a six-issue miniseries of horror-influenced “gotcha!” short stories.

Spectrum #2
Peter Simeti returns with his one-man created comic, picking up the story of Glass and The Sponsor, as one tries to protect life and one tries to destroy it.

The Chair #2
Picking up right where issue one left off, the tale of an innocent man on death row who’s fast learning the meaning of Hell on Earth continues.

RENAISSANCE (2006) It is the year 2054. Mega-corporation Avalon, whose primary products promise “youth and beauty”, has permeated themselves into most aspects of modern life. When one of their star researchers, Ilona, is kidnapped, Karas is put on the case to find her. His rough and gruff means of data extraction and detective skills are both a contrast to the beauty that the city of Paris wants to show, and a mirror reflection the city’s underbelly. As Karas interviews those that are associated with Ilona, and the hidden truths that her very worried older sister Bislane finally reveal to Karas, he comes to the suspicion that Avalon may in fact be behind Ilona’s kidnapping, or even one of her closest friends. He also becomes acutely aware of just what Ilona was researching, and what it could mean for civilization’s future.

From debut director Christian Volckman, who spent seven years bringing his creation to the screen using rotoscoping animation (the process in which live actors and actions is animated; think the recent A SCANNER DARKLY or A-Ha’s classic “Take On Me” music video), comes this highly-stylized black and white sci-fi noir. Taking many of its visual cues and technology inspirations from the reigning champion of sci-fi nor, BLADE RUNNER, as well as inspiration from Frank Miller’s high-contrast artwork in his Sin City graphic novels, Volckman has set out to create an animated feature film for adults with a love of near future envisioning and speculation.

Volckman and his animation designers have set out to imagine what will happen to the visual appearance of Paris over the next fifty years. The result is a lovingly rendered vision of a sleek, clean, and beautiful cityscape, with walkways and entire rooms made completely of glass, giving the city and open and welcoming atmosphere, while still retaining a sense of history, as the Eiffel Tower is still a center piece of the city . Technology gets a huge bump in this vision of the future as well, as computers, cars, police equipment, and medical instruments get a very realistic advancement from today. We can see the technology that they are using as a distant descendant of what is in use in our modern world. Surveillance and video recording also gets a massive future imagining here. Taking cues from the already Big Brother-esque camera installations all over many major around the world, in Volckman’s future Paris, cameras and microphones are everywhere, with huge control rooms overseeing all of the information being taken in.

This is one of the truest examples of a “black and white” film, in that there is absolutely no grey scale in use to bring the vision of the future to life. White rain falls against a black sky, characters disappear within the inky abyss of shadows, pure white light cuts through otherwise pitch black dance clubs in throbbing blasts. Extraordinary attention is given to the human characters, and though the expressions were originally made by a real person, you forget on multiple occasions that you are watching an animated version of those emotions. The artistic talent that is backing up Volckman’s world here is breathtaking, and at many times the movie almost does appear to still retain its live action origins. Backing up the visualization is an equally impressive audio accompaniment.

The soundtrack assists most of the scenes quite well, enhancing the mood and atmosphere. The blips of the technology, as well as the ambient background hum of the city, provide a layered dull hive buzzing of a very real and living city. Also along for the ride in the English language dub of the film are several prominent names. Daniel Craig provides the lead voice of Karas. Jonathan Pryce and Ian Holm are also on hand in smaller supporting roles. And unlike some celebrity-voiced films that have been seeping into the theatres recently, these actors take a cue from real voice actors, and create characters with their voices. Their names are there for a bit of publicity, but if you didn’t know it was them, you wouldn’t be able to guess who was speaking.

The story narrative itself takes a backseat to the visual flair rocketing across the screen, and at many times Karas’ investigations seems to exist solely to bring the viewer into the multi-layered social spectrum of this future Paris. There has been a lot of time and effort put into creating a very realistic and operating city, and Volckman intends to show it off. His “camera” swoops and sways through the city as it follows Karas, pulling off otherwise impossible angles, zooms, and crane shots, and bleeding through solid objects in continuous motion. An exhilarating car chase, which zips through most of the city over the course of a few minutes, is a highlight of the movie. The story is nothing groundbreaking, with many aspects of the classic detective motif merely updated and adapted to reflect the future world, but it is at least engaging, and seems quite plausible given the future setting, and has just enough mystery and subtle clues that will have any armchair sleuth trying to keep up or figure out the riddle.

Once again, an animator has taken a bold step is bringing down the concrete wall that separates animation as a genre (read “kids entertainment”) and as a medium to tell a story. And here it is used perfectly as a medium to tell the story and bring a future Paris to life. Japan has long known the full range and potential that animation holds as a medium to bring compelling and entertaining cinema to the screen. And with recent works such as RENNAISSANCE and the ever advancing CGI getting closer and closer to photo realistic rendering, that wall is slowly chipping away both here in America and Europe. There will be a day, sooner than later, where these films will be seen not in festivals, art houses, and home theatres but in a multiplex. And that will be a day worth going to the movies.

PEEPING TOM (1960) Mark Lewis is a shy young man, who is always hiding behind either a camera at the movie studio he works at, or behind his small handheld camera wherever he goes walking. Recently, Mark has taken a further step in his voyeurism, as he leads women into a false sense of safety, and then films them as he murders them. Within Mark’s huge home, in which lets out many or the rooms to his tenants, he has an impressive array of camera equipment, film developing stations, and projection equipment. He spends his free time watching his own movies, that is, until he meets one of his tenants, a young and beautiful girl named Helen. Helen’s outgoing personality works as an opposite tangent to Mark, and the two start spending time together. Mark attempts as best he can to talk with her, though his introverted tendencies often thwart his attempts to show what he is thinking. The only way he can “talk” with Helen is to show her his films. Helen soon starts to learn just how Mark has come to be the way he is, while Mark starts to fear that he may be unable to hold back from showing Helen the true face of fear and terror.

Director Michael Powell, working from a script by playwright Leo Marks in his screenplay debut, takes a shocking and frightfully realistic view of a murderer in this character study that gives a depth to the history of the killer Mark, and how he has over years and years organically turned into a monster hiding behind a seemingly innocent face and soft-talking voice. The result is an unsettling dissection of the make-up of a killer, and much like the same year’s PSYCHO, unknowingly set the ground rules of serial-killer suspense and horror, with its for-the-time raw and shocking murder sequences, the blending of sex and violence, and tense atmospheric buildup.

Marks’ script takes a deep look into the psychological creation of Mark Lewis, with his obsession with voyeuristic filming and examination of fright in his victims stemming back to his father’s work as a child psychologist, who used Mark as his constant subject and filmed him growing up. This is turn forced the audience to examine the often debated “nature versus nurture” aspects of humanity’s villains, murderers, and hate-filled supremacists. Without Mark’s father’s interference and objective observation of his life, Mark would most likely have turned out to be a well adjusted adult. Bringing Mark believably to the screen was a vital part to making the film work. The part fell on the shoulders of German actor Carl Boehm. Boehm’s naturally boyish looks, sympathetic eyes, and soft voice with just a hint of an accent created a harmless looking individual. He projects a deep and powerful performance that resonates still today in performances by those in roles where the murder is compelled or drawn against their will to kill, rather than having a desire to willingly kill.

Powell incorporates voyeurism onto the screen in a quite compelling way as he draws the audience into Mark’s world. In the opening sequence, in which we are introduced to Mark and his first victim, we see most of the scene through the viewfinder of Mark’s camera, as identified by a framing cross that cuts the entire screen into four quadrants. This shot is repeated multiple times throughout the film, whenever Mark is using his camera. Arguably, these are the most important shots of the film, as we are in a way seeing through Mark’s eyes and what he believes to be the most important things worth remembering. Through these shots, we become active participants in Mark’s obsession. However, when these shots are being played back on Mark’s projector, with either Mark watching them, or showing them to others, Powell focuses his camera on the character rather than the projector screen. This plays especially important when Helen is subjected to Mark’s horrific film collection. We watch her recoil in terror, but we do not know what she is watching, thus we become voyeurs to Helen’s frightful emotions.

Halfway through the film, a police investigation subplot is introduced as Mark’s victims are found and a correlation between the murders is discovered. Mark becomes intrigued with the police investigators, and films them unaware as they do interviews on the film set that Mark is working on. Mark fully believes that they will catch them, and Mark seems to want to be captured, even offering up evidence to the investigators without them realizing it. When Mark becomes a suspect, he is tailed and thus becomes the subject of voyeurism himself. It is a role reversal that works exceedingly well. Leo Marks’ script gives the investigators some decent screen time, and their detail oriented attempt to solve the mystery would help to pave the way to the police murder mysteries later that decade.

Powell’s final product is a visceral piece that was destroyed by critics, and generally hated by audiences not quite ready for such a personal introduction and relationship with a killer. The film essentially destroyed Powell’s thirty-plus year film career. PEEPING TOM was well ahead of its time, and can be looked back upon now a groundbreaking entry into the modern horror thriller. The recent documentary GOING TO PIECES even gave the film a proper nod as a precursor to the slasher. Before getting approval by the BFCC, many of the film’s more grotesque shots were cut out and forever lost. The Criterion Collection has released the most complete version available, including a brief nude shot that was redone with the actress clothed for the American theatrical release. But whether it is the stigma of the title, or that the film is just too “British”, PEEPING TOM has still yet to gain its proper place in the lexicon of classic cinema.