Suddenly in the Dark (1981)

From http://cultfilmfinder.com/wp-content/uploads/
2016/08/suddenly_in_the_dark_bluray.jpg

Director: Young Nam Ko

Screenplay: Sam-yuk Yoon

Cast: Kim Young-ae as Seon-hee; Lee Ki-seon as Mi-ok; Yun Il-bong as Yu-jin

Synopsis: After a photo of a Sharman shrine doll inexplicably appears in the butterfly slides of Professor Yu-jin (Yun Il-bong) butterfly slides, his wife Seon-hee (Kim Young-ae) becomes increasingly paranoid when he returns home from a trip with a young woman named Mi-ok (Lee Ki-seon). Brought into their lives as a live-in maid, with no surviving family, Seon-hee becomes wary of a potential affair between her husband and Mi-ok. It is real, it is a psychological breakdown or supernatural, especially as Mi-ok's only possession is a shrine doll exactly like the one in the slides?

Suddenly in the Dark was the only horror film studio director Young Nam Ko made. He has over a hundred films in his filmography, a number only matched by the likes of Takashi Miike and Jesus Franco in the length of his career. Melodrama, comedy, action and yet only one horror film he desired to make, completed and never got another chance at repeating, making Suddenly in the Dark a curiosity. And whilst the film's plot logic and gender politics could be (understandably) questioned, it thankfully becomes a Repulsion-like tale in which nothing, even when it is openly supernatural by the end, is spelt out for viewers as actually happening or not. In the slew of various films about the supernatural invading homes, this one stands out with the sense that, even if there is an outside influence that eventually take violent action, it is revealed to be vengeance for the transgressions a person does. That such actions are influenced by what is impossible to fully connect, between reality and the imagined, makes things more interesting.

From https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYm
U0NWVmMDItMDRmYi00NjNhL
TllNjgtZTFlM2E3OWRkYTg4XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzI2NzgzMzc@._V1_.jpg

Also of interest is to see a Korean horror film from before the late nineties, in general a rare sight for a Western viewing to see a Korean production from their studio system era Many will be aware of the South Korean New Wave that came in the 2000s, films like Oldboy (2003) and The Host (2006) and their directors, kick-started arguably by horror film Whispering Corridors (1998). Sadly, growing up with this wave, the older era films were never taken into considering by the likes of Tartan Video's Tartan Extreme sub label, the rush for the new shining gems of South Korean cinema never fully leading to their older films getting proper retrospection. Were it not for the Korean Film Archive's hard labour and admirable zeal to preserve their country's cinema, including restoring Suddenly in the Dark itself, these films would still not be known outside the nation barring cineastes on website forums.

So to see Suddenly in the Dark is interesting, a production which shows the efficiency of a film crew that has worked over many films even if this was a one-off genre hop for its director. Like Japan, they gladly made a lot of horror films, even in the case of Suddenly in the Dark if they had their eyes off to the side during South Korea's political climate and whether censorship was relaxing by the point of this production or not.  Like 1965's A Devilish Murder, or Whispering Corridors and its themed sequels, it's interesting to note how their horror cinema (whilst not suggesting all films made within the country are alike) is nonetheless filled with psychological tales where the ghosts haunt people with already troubling neurosis and ordinary human anxieties. (And whilst not technically horror in the slightest, Kim Ki-young's The Housemaid (1960) has been nonetheless threaded into the genre, which emphasises this humanist side to Korean horror). In the case of Suddenly in the Dark there has to be a caveat that, depending on each viewer's personal interpretation of its female lead and her mental breakdown, it could either be defended as a continuation of stories of sexual anxiety or seen as sexist.

From https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtY63xTUAAAp8Qu.jpg

An idea of interest however is to view the film in terms of patriarchal sexism, which actually adds a great deal of depth to the material. As demonstrated when Seon-hee's female friend suggests that a woman nearing her thirties is viewed as sixty, there is a streak throughout of confinement of these women in their middleclass lives. Whilst aesthetically, there is something pleasurable about the late seventies decor crossing into the eighties, there is also a sense of suffocation felt for Seon-hee in its immaculateness. A sense, like the really interesting psychodramas (i.e. most if not all of them), the modernity of their settings is as much complicit in the events, and that the reoccuring choice of female leads, even if it could be seen as sexist stereotyping and almost all of them directed by men, is subconsciously an awareness that these modern lives are life draining even if pleasant to look at.

Aptly, whilst an adult actress, Lee Ki-seon's Mi-ok uncomfortable evokes a teenage nymphet in both appearance and manner, her naïveté and scenes of nudity a more pointed issue for Seon-hee to be anxious about. Of course, whilst not as detailed as it has been described as, her background in Shamanism is significant. South Korean Shamanism, whilst I don't subscribe myself as having any knowledge at this point, went through the same narrative as in many nations' histories of being marginalised by the push of modernity, viewed merely as primative superstition preventing enlightenment, when in the modern day it became clear it was as important just for its sociological and cultural heritage, and had ambassadors promoting this fact, and the possible irony that as technology alienates people it stands out of interest when found in films like this or Kim Ki-young's Ieoh Island (1977). (Whilst a Japanese film, and not necessarily about indigenous religious belief, Shohei Imamura's The Profound Desire of the Gods (1968) is one of my favourite films of all time partially because it painfully details modernity intruding on heritage and ruining life for everyone, even if it is not morally black and white for the better about the behaviour of both sides).

Like any good psychodrama, it is entirely about being placed in the protagonist's state of reality as everything around our lead is suspect. This includes as much its characters behaviour, as likely to be reflecting Seon-hee's distortions of her reality as there is the potential danger of heavy-handedness in the material. It also does so by a lot of visual trickery to depict this. Never subtle, including segmenting the screen into fragments as if through a kaleidoscope, or what appears to be the camera shooting through the bottom of a beer glass, to depict her mental state. Heavy handed but it is effective in its crudeness; in another film it would not work at all, but here the context and general energy elevates the flourishes. Especially when simple things like where exactly her husband is in the house, or not, raise her suspicions and paranoia adds to this.

From http://medialifecrisis.com/files/images/articles/201510-Octoblur/
Suddenly-in-Dark-Night-1981/Suddenly-In-Dark-Night-1981-00-03-39.jpg

Your appreciation of Suddenly in the Dark is as much for a fresh take on the material. That it does have a distinct artistic style or how Korean shamanism plays a part, even if it is a surface dressing, an aspect of South Korean culture not depicted at least for the West outside of films like this or The Wailing (2016). It also depends on whether you find the central anxieties of the protagonist too over-the-top or not, whether it comes off as crass or if you can appreciate its melodramatic streak as I did. Melodrama feels appropriate as, whilst a horror film, there is a streak of the heightened to the material, a vein especially in Korean and Japanese  horror (even into the modern day) where human drama usually is the catalyst for the horrors. That you argue easily the story is much a damnation about gendered roles, even if its explicitly said, helps with this. Rather than what happened in American horror where a slasher killer/monster took priority first and the characters were added later, films like this one have a lot to digest even if they are also entertaining as a mondo bizarro category genre film.

Abstract Spectrum: Psychological/Psychotronic

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

Personal Opinion:

Not a perfect film, but in terms of digging out a fascinating film from a neglected area of a nation's cinema, Suddenly in the Dark does intrigue. A basic premise repeated over a lot of films, the interest here is what is brought in tone, aesthetic and ideas. All of which are worthy of its recommendation.

From http://366weirdmovies.com/wp-content/
uploads/2017/05/suddenly_in_the_dark.jpg

Aaaaaaaagh! (2015)

From http://www.finalreel.co.uk/wp-content/
uploads/2015/10/Aaaaaaaah-Poster.jpg

Director: Steve Oram

Screenplay: Steve Oram

Cast: Denise (Lucy Honigman); Barabara (Toyah Willcox); Smith (Steve Oram); Keith (Tom Meeten); Og (Sean Reynard); Ryan (Julian Rhind-Tutt); Jupiter (Julian Barratt)

Synopsis: In an alternative England, human beings are not that different from primates, communicating in grunts, and interacting in crude and even violent ways even when videogames and television still exist. One named Smith (Steve Oram), mourning the loss of his mate, travels with his friend Keith (Tom Meeten) to the territory of Ryan (Julian Rhind-Tutt). Ryan, with the help of Og (Sean Reynard), became the new alpha-male of a home with an older woman Barabara (singer Toyah Willcox) and her daughter Denise (Lucy Honigman), not impressed when Smith and Keith start to make themselves known. The original alpha-male of the territory, Jupiter (Julian Barratt), lays in an improvised den nearby, cherishing his beloved Battenberg cake in misery of his lot.

I admit, if it becomes my spiritual bias from my part, that my opinion on this is entirely my own opinion, but if human beings did "devolve" back to a primitive state, I seriously doubt we would return back to beasts. For me, the best of humanity feels out of place even from evolution. And also the worst of humanity feels alien even next to nature. In fact even the stupidity of mankind feels alien to nature, no other animal as strange as we. Even our fore-apes would have not been as bizarre as we can be. Steve Oram, actor and here director/star/writer, depicts probably a far more credible example of what would happen if mankind devolved in that, somehow, we would still be able to fix a broken washing machine but we eat meat raw, attempt to shag people randomly and piss up other peoples' refrigerators to mark territory. Frankly  a lot of this people would get away with now if they had the chance.

Aaaaaaaagh! is surreal black comedy, intentionally absurd and with a premise where,  even if it does have its own internal coherence , logic has to go out the window to appreciate it. One of the best virtues of the film is that it reflects human behaviour out its strangest would stand out even when the cast act like the casts of 2001: A Space Odyssey's prologue. It is also the film where Noel Fielding of The Mighty Boosh and The Great British Bakeoff gets his penis bitten off, so every base should be covered. A low budget film, Aaaaaaaagh! willingly shifts between the peculiar and the transgressive, but helping with this is that it had to be filmed within real environments including an ordinary city home making up a huge amount of the production value. The paradox of depicting mankind as primitives but shot in ordinary locations interacting with kitchen appliances and flat screen televisions is as much part of the humour. It also emphasises that this pretty much strips away its characters' emotions to their most vulgar even if the film did not have a script built around a grunted language. The kind of acts that are absurd to witness, like defecating on Clingfilm on the floor, but are things that you could imagine people would actually do and think about yourself actually doing if you were pushed into that direction.

So that means that, even if physically it would be difficult to rip a man's whole arm off with just physical strength, the violence behind it is a facsimile of violent you witness it real life. Like the sex as well, reduced to clothed dry humping with a lot of emphasis on ineffectual useless males. Fittingly as a plot, you could squint and realise this type of plot could have easily played out for a kitchen sink melodrama. Ryan the drug dealer having taking up a relationship with the older wife Barabara, the husband left out on the street whilst Smith plays the potential love interest for fellow member of the household Denise. That it is told in an extreme and over-the-top manner just provides a stranger and more fascinating edge in how this type of real life conflict could play out.

Helping the film is its score, significantly tied to this film as Wilcox's real life husband is Robert Fripp, the legendary guitarist and sole figure who has been in all formations of King Crimson, a legendary progressive rock band. The music comes from the King Crimson ProjeKcts albums, provided in respect to his wife starring in Aaaaaaaagh!, and in lieu of it not being originally composed for the film it is chosen perfectly nonetheless. Even if some of the synthesizers might be ridiculous, as is expected from as talented a musician as Fripp the score is dynamic and the kind a low budget production like this it should be grateful for. All because of the pure chance of their casting, particularly when it comes to the heavier material, a score here that lifts to material up as well in quality when sadly a lot of low budget films, and especially those of even lower budgets than this one without known actors helming them, can struggle at times acquiring memorable music to place over the scenes.

Is Aaaaaaaagh! actually "abstract" though? That is a question that can be lost in amongst the praise to the music and the humour of the film, especially as that is the reason the film is being reviewed in the first place. The answer? No. The irony is that, within ordinary English streets and homes, the film structurally by accidentally (or purposely) comes off as a pastiche of drama which just happens to be cast with ape-people who pee, fornicate and mutilate each other. With the potential to easily be turned into a really provocative stage play, the scenario is very normal in tone despite the strangeness of the material. The strangeness is entirely what the cast do and how they behave, not the structure of the film itself. The only thing remotely close to the alienating mood of the abstract is a brief animation repeated over and over of a chicken, with the most basic of stop motion and quirky music I secretly hope was also composed by Robert Fripp.

Aaaaaaaagh! is weird though. The willingness to brake taboos is thankfully tempered by the generally farcical tone, so that it does not become merely a string of obscenities but more perversely funny. And that does not take away from the sudden bleakness which surprises me with the picture's ending, ultimately proof the film is also good when it does not remove complex human emotions through the premise. Said ending, in which the sense of betrayal triggers an act of violence which undercuts the generally funny tone, does sober the viewer and that reveals a virtue of Oram's picture that might be intentional or not. That, whilst drawing from the dark sense of humour found in British comedy like Chris Morris' Jam (2000), this is a return to my original point that even if people were to act like this they would not merely regress into apes, the psychological baggage depicted in Aaaaaaaagh! complicating social interaction and behaviour unlike with animals. Merely a subjective opinion but a large part of Aaaaaaaagh!'s humour which can be agreed on is that, by dropping these characters into ordinary environments, it is not that strange to imagine people acting this way outside the film if they could get away with it.

Abstract Spectrum: Grotesque/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

Personal Opinion:

Definitely a great example of the current decade's slew of unconventional cinematic oddities, the type that are one-offs and appeal to cult film fans from the off-set and/or appear at festivals like this did at FrightFest. Not outstaying its welcome at less than eighty minutes, when the premise could have dragged on, Aaaaaaaagh! is memorable with intelligence behind it.

From https://s.ynet.me/assets/images/movies/
aaaaaaaah_2015/large-screenshot2.jpg

Blood Beat (1983)

From https://www.twistedanger.com/media/catalog/product/cache/3/
image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/b/l/blood.beat.1983_front.jpg

Director: Fabrice A. Zaphiratos

Screenplay: Fabrice A. Zaphiratos

Cast: Helen Benton as Cathy; Terry Brown as Gary; Dana Day as Dolly; James Fitzgibbons as Ted; Claudia Peyton as Sarah; Peter Spelson as Uncle Pete; Franck Miley as Paul

Synopsis: Christmas season, Wisconsin. At the family retreat in the countryside, a family soon finds the merry season to be at ill-ease, the mother a psychic aware something is amiss in the homestead, and the new girlfriend of one of her sons disconnected from them. Could the random killings by a samurai in the environment be connected?

[Spoilers Throughout]

The infamy of Blood Beat, an obscure film but one which has slowly crept back into interest for those thirsty for odd American genre films, is that it is about a samurai ghost conjured to kill a person every time a young woman has an orgasm. Blood Beat does not exactly follow this premise exactly, in fact like a lot of exploitation/horror films deviating from these premises in the actual content. What sounds like a strange and lurid premise is something else entirely, as Blood Beat is still pretty weird as premises go. It does not get into the fact that it is still a film about sexual repression, family conflict, and a samurai inexplicably walking around the Wisconsin woodlands killing people.

Most of Blood Beat plays out like a very nihilistic family drama, where tensions are so high even Ingmar Bergman films have more levity compared to the attitudes and neurosis shared among these characters. Quite a few independent American genre films from this era have this peculiar trait, where they ingest other genres within them. They are the more rewarding, as rather than the generic exposition padding that the dull exploitation films have, independent productions like this instead ingest older types of cinema their creators grew up with or take on aspirations for more dramatic interaction between the characters. These films can  turn into dramas riddled with putrid emotional turmoil and this is among many.

From https://vinsyn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/
uploads/2017/08/BB_1.1.3.jpg

That it is set at Christmas offers a hilariously strange tone to Blood Beat, considering its premise, but emphasises this dramatic tone. Where the (step)father has moments of frustration with his wife's behaviour, that which may be due to her psychic powers but also has a side found in drama where she spends her days locked in a room painting by herself. Where her relationship with the new girlfriend of one of her sons has the awkwardness of a new person in one's life meeting the family for the first time, only with the added issue that said girlfriend is acting strangely and has a black magic aura surrounding her which erupts through sensuality. Even the side characters meant to just be slasher film fodder have toxic relationships, such as an older couple where the husband barks orders to his wife whilst in the other room with the dog. It can be ridiculous how nasty and bleak these films can be - the most extreme like Carnival of Blood (1970) and Andy Milligan films being practically nihilistic of the entire human species - and Blood Beat whilst not as extreme has an unintentional streak of negativity for human relationships until its ending, suggesting family and their ancestral bond literally leads to spirit strength.

Whilst it can be seen as extremely crass, that her libido is a destructive, not depicted in a way that I feel is sexist but just a bit silly, the girlfriend character for three quarters of Blood Beat is depicted in a way that leads to the film's more rewarding aspects. Whilst it is a family drama inexplicably draped is slasher kill scenes, her plot thread is depicted as a low budget psychodrama, play in a low budget, not-quite Repulsion (1965) style with overt references of Carrie (1976). It never explains why the family has samurai armour in the house, or why a samurai was chosen for this very rural and American type of genre film, but she has before being revelled to be possessed by black magic a fascinating character for this film to have, one who is nervous amongst the family and troubled. One who flinches during a hunt, refusing to see an animal be killed, fleeing from the scene and beginning one of the first deaths. Her sensuality, whilst potentially eye rolling in how it leads to death, does play to Blood Beat's weird tone.

From http://media7.fast-torrent.ru/media/files/
s4/lx/df/krovavoe-mesilovo-scene-3.jpg

Director/screenwriter Fabrice A. Zaphiratos helps in this regard by incorporating avant-garde techniques that create a sense of disorientation. The droning electronic score, found in many a production like this at the period, helps in its atonal noises further for this sense that Blood Beat is going to drag itself into stranger places as it tried to juggle domestic sequences with disconnected slasher kill sequences. That it eventually includes the girlfriend's sexual repression, whilst potentially crass, nonetheless lets the film edge closer to being to psychotronic version of Repulsion with added psychic shenanigans, objects in the kitchen assaulting a character at one point for evidence, where even a box of cereal is potentially threatening.

Sadly Blood Beat decides to end the film in pure gobbledegook. Not compellingly strange, almost logical ideas which ultimately make no sense, but the cod-mysticisms that a lot of horror cinema has which has no actual sense of mysticism even for a fun premise. Eventually the girlfriend is shown, as mentioned, to be possessed by an evil black magic figure, whilst the mother and her children are represented as being forces of good, all with the type of practical effects rotoscoped on screen you see in Indonesian films like Mystics in Bali (1981). Not necessarily a bad thing but unfortunately in context of where Blood Beat was going, with its regional flavour and lengthy scenes of low budget drama, it is a tonal shift that is not compelling weird but just arbitrary. It is an issue as well as betraying the tone Even in an exploitation film, a more honest and rewarding way to tell a supernatural/paranormal story would be to accept the irrational as that which invades normal reality and is beyond logic. Even if it has a pseudo-dramatic cause, confusion is more profound in lurid cinema and art house drama alike. To attempt to explain it rationally is deceitful, and in most cases never is satisfying anyway, where the mystery is loss and the films unravel themselves in having to try to explain something which comes off as convoluted. It is poisoned for a psychotronic film like Blood Beat to make sense, so the ending does in spite of the film's pleasures does slip its qualities down a little.

From http://horror.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/05/bloodbeat-1982-ted.jpg

Abstract Spectrum: Psychodrama/Psychotronic/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

Personal Opinion:

The film is still strange and memorable, but stepping back, even if you are willing to forgive Blood Beat for its flaws and admire its homemade quality from its French-Vietnamese director, he did drop the ball in story logic and in pure psychotronic entertainment by suddenly turning into a series of inexplicable coloured lights and psychic powers in the ending.

From https://vinsyn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/
wp-content/uploads/2017/08/BB_1.1.8.jpg

The Prisoner (1967-68)

From http://cdn-static.denofgeek.com/sites/denofgeek/files/styles/
gallery_adv/public/images/54153.jpg?itok=cTOk7at8

Directors: Patrick McGoohan, Pat Jackson, Don Chaffey, David Tomblin, Robert Asher and Peter Graham Scott

Creator: Patrick McGoohan

Synopsis: Prisoner No. 6 (Patrick McGoohan) is former secret agent for the British government who resigns, only to find himself in the strange community known as The Village, deemed as having too much valuable knowledge to release. A place cut off from the entire world, The Village might be idyllic in appearance but it is a place for former spies  and agents where those in control will gladly use any means for the villagers to comply. With a revolving door of No.2s, all of them trying to learn why No. 6 resigned, No. 6 is both concerned about escaping The Village and who No. 1 is.

How do you talk of The Prisoner? Others have - Repo Man (1984) director Alex Cox has written a book to coincide with the series' fiftieth anniversary. Many have parodied or referenced the series including The Simpsons. Even in the least likeliest of places one swears the scriptwriter was taking direct inspiration from this series, such as the version of the Village Jean-Claude Van Damn ends up in during Double Team (1997). But we should not forget, as my own father had recounted when he saw the seventeen episode one-off back in the day, how bloody odd The Prisoner actually is. Despite only a few of the episodes being canonical to his idea, this was star Patrick McGoohan's personal project which he was able to have due to his success from the likes of Danger Man (1960-68), one where he openly led viewers into a bizarre tale of nonconformity.

From https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTUy
MDg5NzQ3NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjIyOTM2MjE@._V1_.jpg

The spy tales of before in his career merge into this, the secret agent No. 6 finding himself within the Wonderland of The Village. The use of quaint English iconography, from the garden tables and parasols to the symbol of the Penny Farthing, not only prevent the series from dating by being overtly artificial and colourful, but it brings about a paradox in how alienating the environment is despite looking like the utopia found on a jigsaw puzzle. The Village promotes democracy and happiness for its occupants at a price, and it is telling that with the first few episode No. 6 manages to already escape in the series only for things to be completely against him. It is even more telling one of the first episodes has him in an election to become the new No. 2, the event an utter sham controlled out of his will from the start. The metaphors, the cage of conformist life, are obvious but what leaves a lasting impression is how far and how out there this can be to the point of existentialism for No. 6.

Even in the context of the Cold War, The Prisoner instead feels like McGoohan exorcising concerns of how ultimately one cannot find true freedom, which he was open about in later interviews after the series broadcast. That it is by the perverse whimsy of late sixties psychedelic and British upper-lip aesthetic, the Good Ol' Days in its colour and harmonious looking environment, actually adds to this dark meaning in that it feels like Lewis Carroll's version of a Franz Kafka story. It also does not deny how openly weird the series still is, and more so when this was screen on ITV in the UK and shown on American television back fifty years ago. But helping it to succeed, alongside the choice of the Welsh village of Portmeirion as The Village, is the openly whimsical and multicoloured aesthetic. McGoohan, by the way, is incredible. Here you have an actor willing to put himself in everything even for a personal pet project, startling for myself as I have only known him before from his role in Scanners (1981). That he can be suave, that his lines can be full of playful barbs, that facial expression and tone of voice mean a great deal, adds to an incredible performance. He is willing to be pushed and not just in terms of literally, around in a wheelchair with a child-like expression on his face holding an ice cream at one point, but act as a character who is both mentally and physically beaten, controlled and even lobotomised throughout the episodes. Only an attempt at a Western drawl in one episode feels out of place, ironic as he is an American-born actor, but everything else has tremendous power.

Thankfully he was backed by a vast and revolving cast of British actors who will all need to be investigated in terms of their own careers. The Prisoner had the inspired idea, likely to reduce the issue of having to negotiate for the same actor over and over, of having No. 2 being a nebulous figure whose role is played by multiple actors and actresses. One actor, Leo McKern, plays a reoccurring and important part of the main narrative, but switching the No. 2 position adds to the sense of an organisation in The Village more sinister and difficult for No. 6 to fight against, anyone revealed to be No. 2 or a collaborator with a sense nothing is trustable. As No. 2 is the real villain the protagonist is up against, it proves more sinister how they can change easily, how disposable they even are as one episode's plot is about the old No. 2 being potentially assassinated by his replacement.

As there are seventeen episodes, there are too many plots to describe. But The Prisoner immediately from the first episodes fluctuates between science fiction, paranoid spy thriller and the utterly strange. Minds are swapped. One episode opens with nearly fifteen minutes without any dialogue. A costume party turns into a kangaroo court. Even No. 6's dreams are not safe from manipulation. There is a sense that as well though, if the series had gone longer, it could have dwindled. The creative team before the final two episodes try to expand out of The Village for one-offs that stray completely out of the conventions of what came before. One I profess to admiring, an even stranger story involving No. 6 against a villain wearing a Napoleon outfit, a chase through a carnival theme park and exploding cricket balls. The western episode however is the one average episode which warns that, whilst these later episodes even play with the reoccurring opening credits to interest effect, they could have derailed the series into the worst. Thankfully that episode ends well, but it arguably is the one bad moment in the entire series as it sounds exactly as average as you would presume from a British TV production trying to film a western, something that is parodied in Red Dwarf for its artificiality for a reason. Thankfully what you get in the first fourteen episodes, before the last two and excluding the western one, are all compelling. All inventive and catching you off guard continually.

From https://burnhollywoodburnhollywoodburnhollywoodburn
.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/the-prisoner-1967-s01e01_01.jpg

Thankfully The Prisoner ends the right way too. Well, it ends but in a way that was notorious. The ending, appropriately called Fall Out, can be compared to the infamous last ending of another cult series from the nineties, Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995). They are exceptionally different series entirely, but both of them make fascinating comparison to each other. For how they became immensely popular when they were first premiering on television, but both ending with metaphorical endings rather than clear explanations of what happened. Both created in chaotic circumstances - the animated Evangelion plagued by its co-creator Hideaki Anno's deep depression during production and being prevented from creating the original ending, The Prisoner from McGoohan having little time and no idea how to end his project. Both endings did not go down well, Anno getting death threats from fans, McGoohan having to briefly hide from fans. The Prisoner's ending is stranger in how, on the surface, it is so disappointingly matter-of-fact in how No. 6 escapes without any tension. That does not include how in the midst of Fall Out you get licensed music of The Beatles on the soundtrack, a shock considering the licensing issues now that has caused for other older productions, and the unexpected mass chorus of Dem Bones in the middle of the episode. How metaphors literally speak out to represent various forms of subversion and what the hell No. 1 is supposed to be under the gorilla mask. That geography is defied and you witness Patrick McGoohan prancing around in the open side of a truck with a porcelain tea pot just adds to the weirdness. That he is not given his usual credit but just "The Prisoner" in his last few scenes of the series just adds to the sense of something being amiss. The perfect ending in hindsight because of this.

Abstract Spectrum: Mindbender/Paranoia/Psychedelic/Weird

Abstract Spectrum (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Personal Opinion:

Legendary with just cause. This it is a mainstream television series, that still followed the structure of an episodic programme, helps with its strangeness especially when one imagines how people reacted to the series back in the late sixties. (And the reactions to the ending would have been more extreme). It is a case of a work which got away with so much as long as it still kept a sliver of convention to help viewers get into it, allowing The Prisoner to have gained the mainstream and cult reputation it had whilst still being unconventional even for someone like myself. Why it took so long for me to view the seventeen episodes is embarrassing but it was still a rewarding experience.

From http://thescope.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FallOut-6-540x405.png

The Jar (1984)

From http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uMOUCrsYdAc/UT0PPnPPZgI/
AAAAAAAABAc/93GRnYSptxo/s1600/the+jar.jpg

Director: Bruce Toscano

Screenplay: George Bradley

Cast: Gary Wallace as Paul; Karin Sjöberg as Crystal; Robert Gerald Witt as Jack

Synopsis: A man named Paul (Gary Wallace) has a car crash, taking the old man in the other car to his appartment to recover. The old man however disappears without a trace, leaving behind a jar he was obsessed with taking along despite his severe injuries. Paul realises that, even when he himself tries to rid of the jar, the obsession and hallucinations that he is suffering through only get worse and real.

The Jar is a bizarre film, one of the more curious examples of independent genre film from the US. Information about where The Jar came from is scarce - the closest piece of origin story, a titbit of information from episode #31 of Killer POV, suggests it was a student film that got taken and made into a commercial release. This little titbit explains a lot, but even if this information could not be confirmed, you see the sense of a project where its creator crammed as many ideas as they could into the picture in spite of a very low budget, enthusiasm invading logic in favour of the inspiration.

From http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R8MaG5w59PA/VZ6VfFJIYWI/
AAAAAAAACTE/vo8Hj-K-2VE/s640/400blows2.jpg

The jar itself at its centre is curious to say the least. Yes, it does have a ridiculous rubber monster inside it, looking like a gargoyle baby and an example of the more schlocky aspects to the material, but it cannot override what a curious thing the jar is. It is far less strange and imaginative than the jar itself, an unexplained object which causes distress for the protagonist in spite of not knowing why. Stephen Thrower in Nightmare U.S.A suggests a gay subtext of repression but the jar itself can stand in for countless anxieties and fears. The jar itself could just be a symbol of an unknown fear which feeds Paul countless nightmares. The jar inherently evokes a fear of that which is inexplicable, an object which by for whatever reason is inherently diabolical, the foetus creature straight from any other strange horror films unleashed on VHS at the time something which could have easily been removed. The jar itself is even more frightening regardless of what inside of it represents as he cannot escape merely the glass object itself, even when he gets rid of it, even when he destroys it many times. The jar creates He cannot escape the jar even when he gets rid of it, even when he destroys it many times. The jar creates violent forms transgression against his sense of reality, either hallucinations or even his world being sucked into various others legitimately.

From https://i.ytimg.com/vi/88hINrAJcL8/maxresdefault.jpg

From there you see The Jar as legitimately inspired and yet also a mess due to its structure. It is what one would hope to find with this type of obscurer production that, even if it can be frustrating and make no sense at points even for abstract reasons, the results are still compelling rather than predictable. The results are both those you would never get in other films but you are caught out with. You do not expect this type of internalised horror, where Paul is plagued in his apartment most of the film's length, to suddenly be dropped into a warzone near the end with soldiers without any further reference or content. Nor Paul entering an underworld in a religious, church environment where a figure burns a tarot card in front of him. A frenzied mass of inspiration is found within The Jar and in many ways this is for the better, even if nonsensical, rather than for the film to have become a predictable monster film based upon the jar's contents.

There is still a graspable trait to grab onto too. The subplot surrounding a building relationship with Paul and a neighbour named Crystal (Karin Sjöberg) does help The Jar a lot in having a solid foundation to tie onto. Even if it leads to a cheesy end where he mistakes her for another person in a gristly manner, it also helps with the potential metaphor of what the jar actually, a paranoia to his dialogue as he opens up to her about an evil force outside of himself which he is fighting against. Like a psychological fault which prevents him from being with her, it helps the film be more interesting for all its genre trappings by placing it as a psychodrama where the drama just happens to lurch into other realities. It becomes the lynchpin to at least prepare the viewer for the more heightened moments, grounding the film until eventually it become more and more seeped in the irrational, even lurching into black and white for a decrepit urban environment, even leading to Christian symbology you would expect from a heavy metal album for an utterly unexpected conclusion to the events preceding it. Even the fact the performances have an amateurish nature to them help as, whilst the attempted romance and drama is helpful to paste the scenes together, their stiltedness help as much to The Jar's eerie air. The stunted line readings are appropriate for a film that feels like a hallucination, a synth score droning underneath which sucks into its maddened nature further.

From https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BM
mFlN2Y3ZjMtODRkOC00MmIxLWE1NTYtZTdm
MTVjOWI5ZjU1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDUxNjc5NjY@._V1_.jpg

That the film ends with the jar attaching itself onto another person gives it an even more interest side, in the sense that in the VHS sheen of what I experienced, this could repeat and repeat all over again with more and more people becoming fixated and damned by the jar for no known reason. Horror even at this messiest is more rewarding when it plays to a more irrational side where one cannot fully define it, not a conventional monster but weird like this. Even if the poster looks cheesy and ridiculous, The Jar stands out more as an underbelly of strange American genre filmmaking which, viewed on tape or DVD or even online rip, is still compelling in a vague hallucinatory nature. Yes, this is bearing in mind that viewers could find the film irritating in its slow pace and lack of conventional plotting. And it is sloppy as hell in construction. But, like the most interesting of these oddities, they are compelling for the same reasons they confound.

Abstract Spectrum: Psychotronic/Surreal/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Personal Opinion:

This is the kind of film that capsulate how any work could get released on video back in the eighties and. For those who are patient,  you find artefacts like that do induce a haze on a viewer amongst the generic crude. Where someone on a very low budget crammed as many ideas into the project as much as possible. Some of it does not make any sense, but it evokes a sense of maddened creativity even if unfocused. A sign of where these curious productions succeed even against adversity in this case, or at least strange enough to appeal beyond its limitations.

From https://assets.mubi.com/images/film/112671/image-w384.jpg?1445944698