Verotika (2019)

 

Director: Glenn Danzig

Screenplay: Glenn Danzig

Cast: Ashley Wisdom as Dajette; Scotch Hopkins as the Albino Spider; Paul Vandervort as Francois; Rachel Alig as the Mystery Girl; Sean Kanan as Sgt. Anders; Alice Haig as Drukija; Kayden Kross as Morella; Natalia Borowsky as Sheska

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #188

 

Monsieur, you have no eyes. "Fuck" is my speciality.

I was immediately intrigued when the idea of Glenn Danzig had directed a film was brought up in the horror community. He is not the only person from the world of heavy metal to have made a horror film even, but he makes sense to have; the man who has been proclaimed by many of us fans Heavy Metal Elvis just because of his vocal style, let alone actually releasing an album of Elvis covers in 2020, is most well known for the first version of the Misfits, the legendary punk band, before his singles career under the band Danzig also became iconic. He has always had an interest in horror and macabre, Verotika based on a line of comic books from his comics company Verotik, a medium he has dabbled in for decades now. This is the first time he has managed to have a full length project in the moving images medium actually be completed. Some may be aware of the time of Satanika, another of his comics under his Verotik company, which he managed to commission a three minute animated pilot for from the Japanese animation studio Madhouse, which is a pretty big deal as Madhouse were then a big and famous anime production company. That, even though it did get a VHS release, was only a couple of minutes long and never expanded upon.

Here however he directed the film himself, with his own resources, only from the premiere at Cinepocalypse film festival in Chicago, Illinois for Verotika to gain notoriety which was also enticing to me. Even something notorious would have been a success as, personally, it is better to leave a lasting impression than be predictable but dull. As a horror anthology with three parts, what you initially get is a lurid heavy metal album cover as an aesthetic, presenting by a female host Morella (Kayden Kross) who introduces herself by gouging a victim's eyes out with her fingers, suggesting this is going to be (hopefully and with fingers crossed) memorable.

If we were only talking about the first segment The Albino Spider of Dajette, it would have been notorious still, either about Danzig having just made a short film, or if the rest of the movie had been like this opening segment, but it would have be a compelling one which appealed to my surrealist tastes. This is not mocking his work either as Dajette was utterly compelling for how weird it was. It is clear as well, take or leave, he has a style from the get-go even if he has to work with a very small budget, where everything including the aesthetic is broad to an extreme. Here, for example of this, you have a female protagonist with bright pink hair, a hyper exaggerated physical figure, matched by other actresses through even just this segment, and a thick accent, in a world of other exaggerated performances which is clearly meant to be France, as everyone has an accent, but exists in its own world.

There is a notion I will argue that a piece of art can redeem itself of any technical or artistic issues if it can create a streak of legitimate surrealism from itself. You do not ignore the problems, but as was the idea of the Surrealists, unintentional surrealism was just as compelling, and I wonder how Andre Breton would have reacted to The Albino Spider of Dajette. It cannot be skipped around that, from the first few minutes, when Dajette (Ashley Wisdom) is making out with a man, the reason that moment suddenly collapses is that it is revealed she has eyes growing out of her breasts, which is never directly connected to the plot and is legitimately surreal. You could contemplate an entire biological logic gap to how having literal four eyes on one's body would work, with two different sets of vision, or how, with Dajette quite a full figured person who wears a lot of tight shirts, how she has not scratched her other eyes and made then sore continually due to having fabric rubbed into her eyes. Instead, the plot manages to get odder than this and you have other concerns to pay attention to.

Saddened by her rejection, Dajette weeps and a tear lands on a nearby albino spider. The spider, rather than this becoming a charming fairy tale motif, becomes an albino man-spider humanoid of full size, with four arms, who when she dreams becomes "The Strangler", throttling women around the city. All of this is frenzied, almost random material which layers on itself, driven by instinct for what is striking. An obvious CGI spider turns into actor Scotch Hopkins in full costume, with two additional fake arms with his own, also with a French accent and thankfully deciding to chew the scenery in his scenes. In general, this short stands out, not only for this, but also for the attempt at creating a French set world with little resources, with everyone speaking English in accents, where every woman is wearing a fetish outfit, and with the soundtrack is full of French language music. Danzig helped compose the original score, as it would have been blasphemy if he had not, but for this segment you also have an eclectic mix for the tone; the French pop is actually good, whilst the French metal/hardcore was ridiculous, adding to the already perplexing emotional rollercoaster seeing the segment for the first time.

We could have done without the wannabe male rapists in the porn theatre set, but thankfully, Dajette stays entirely without in the place of Danzig's mind like automatic writing. You can argue with concerns, as throughout, about his fixation of female eroticism by way of a male gaze circa the nineties, where I can imagine the comic book cover with the exaggerated appearance. It is an entire era I missed as I was too young, and have yet to explore, but I think of illustrations for the likes of Witchblade, which have harsh colours, female figures with revealing curves, and depending if Rob Liefeld was involved, many pouches to rival Batman's utility belt. Particularly when men get older, Danzig in his sixties making this film, it does become a greater issue whether erotic desire and depicting it can be tackled without it becoming creepy or juvenile, especially when this is ridiculous rather than sexy. But, when I heard about Verotika's instant infamy, this was what I was hoping for if it was not actually a secret gem. The problem, as this review goes on, is entirely with the other two segments.

Also, let us turn that initial concern on its head - is Danzig's view of women fetishishtic and sexist? - with a concern of collateral damage caused by the women throughout this film, actors to even American adult film star Kayden Kross as the host, and that they have as much voice to be considered for even making this film. This was probably coming to mind as, for the second segment Change of Face, Danzig does indulge in a five minute strip club sequence which likely involved real erotic dancers being hired. As long as there is no exploitation and female participants were paid, we should separate between the female actresses willing to wear skimpy costumes or being naked from the issues of how their images are portrayed, least we throw the baby out with the bathwater. This subject is definitely worthy of having as, for every female participant be they a model or a straight-to-DVD Scream Queen or an adult film star, they need to be thought about in contrast to the likes of this hyper sexualised film.

And if you look into these figures, whatever you think of the gaze and their performances, this film includes many fascinating working women. Adult film actresses like Kross are always interesting in that, for all the problematic issues with the adult film industry, the irony was never lost the women were the figures more likely to become icons in that career and also, especially in the modern era, be more openly aware of this in their promotion of their rights and pro-sex ideas. Dajette has Tonya Kay, a burlesque headliner and actress; Courtney Stodden, in the second segment as a victim, is a former beauty pageant competitor who is a singer, actress and reality television star; the last segment even has Caroline Williams in a tiny role as a peasant I completely missed, iconic for me for playing the lead in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II (1986). I am sure you can dig into everyone's careers, even figures new to cinema, and I have barely covered some of the faces in Verotika, a reminder that, actually, we need to be a lot more careful when we raise concerns of an objectifying gaze when, for anyone happy to be onscreen, these are still human beings with lives¹.

Particularly as there is not a lot to really work with for this segment, as we might roll our eyes at Danzig having that strip club scene, set to some of his own music, but there is the bigger concern of how this segment starts to malaise that creeps into Verotika. Some of the absurdity is there, that our lead is a face stealer who has hair Elvira would be proud of, working as a mysterious masked dancer at work and stealing other women's faces in her off time, but this shows the real problem Verotika has in that it starts to wind down and drag along. Throughout there are many stilted pauses, which keep the tone of before to proceedings, but it however has not a lot of story nor energy either, still with an ending but not standing out at all.

The sense of entropy fully plagues the final and third segment Drukija Contessa of Blood. Under a different name, this is a Countess Báthory tale. The legend of Elizabeth Báthory is of a Hungarian countess who is one of the most prolific female murderers in history, killing numerous girls and young women between 1590 and 1610, including the notion part of her folklore that she bathed in their blood as a way to keep her youth. This is very well worn territory for cinema already, between Hammer Studio making Countess Dracula (1970) to Juraj Jakubisko's Bathory: Countess of Blood (2008), a revisionist period drama which offers the idea that Báthory was an innocent woman railroaded with gossip of these crimes made up to use against her. This is also territory, for the erotic transgressive tone Danzig is looking for, Walerian Borowczyk tackled in his own anthology Immoral Tales (1973), so the musician-director is in a precarious position for comparison.

In contrast to Borowczyk's lavish adaptation, Danzig's does require a castle that looks likely like it is made from CGI in the far background, but considering how many straight-to-DVD fantasy and medieval films exists, he is thankfully able to find outdoor locations and costumes to get the tone right. A greater concern for me is that there is no trajectory for what is transpiring, no story and not much else but scenes of virgins being tortured and nude erotic blood baths. I did smirk when it was pronounced "wirgins" at least once, which would have made young Udo Kier from the Blood for Dracula (1974) era proud, but there is also no actual ending either, which is the bigger surprise. I do not remember Borowczyk's having an actual ending either, or not of importance to him whether Báthory was punished or not in favour of the aesthetic and transgressive mode. The real Báthory, according the story, only got caught when she targeted fellow nobles' daughters, thus showing class bias even back centuries ago, but here Verotika ends with an anti-climax which adds to the film the sensation of a deflated balloon.

The greater problem was that, rather than the compelling car crash, this feels unfinished. That first segment is ridiculous but that would have been compelling by itself or for an entire film in tone. The rest however shows that, subjective tastes over artistry, the biggest disappointments in life are those where you have no sense of reaction or even a vicarious pleasure, merely a sense of wasted time. This is even more disappointing as, with actual pain having to write the review, I like Glenn Danzig as a musician, so there is the added sense that with an emotional attachment to a person, beyond a distant celebrity, these emotions hurt more. You want, even on a micro budget, "Dirty Black Summer" or "How the Gods Kill" the song as horror films, even the absurdity of that Satanika animated teaser. You get in the first three quarters, so best watch it over and over again instead.

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1) And so the male actors aren't left out, yes, with the knowledge of pro wrestling, there is even an abrupt cameo by Sean "X-Pac" Waltman as the guy at the club reception booth that caught me off guard.