Death and the Compass (1992)

 

Director: Alex Cox

Screenplay: Alex Cox

Based on the short story by Jorge Luis Borges

Cast: Peter Boyle as Erik Lonnrot; Miguel Sandoval as Treviranus; Christopher Eccleston as Alonso Zunz; Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez as Ms. Espinoza; Pedro Armendáriz Jr. as Blot; Alonso Echánove as Novalis; Eduardo López Rojas as Finnegan; Alex Cox as Commander Borges

Canon Fodder

 

Let's just say I'm looking for a more rabbinical explanation.

[Major Spoilers]

Death and the Company, first of all, has a very unconventional production history which influences the final theatrical release. That, originally, the cult filmmaker Alex Cox was commissioned as part of a series of adaptations of the work of Argentinean author Jorge Luis Borges to adapt Death and the Compass for an hour long story, part of a series which was shown on the BBC in Britain called Cuentos de Borges (1992). This show, which is obscure, is fascinating as a concept for a series, especially as notes reference an episode with Antonio Banderas and another called El Sur, an episode by acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura.

Alex Cox's episode however would be expanded to feature length with Japanese co-funding, leaving Death and the Compass having a curious expanded nature to consider alongside being canonically part of his filmography as a big title as a result. The really interesting thing about this, in mind to the source material and how faithful this is in places, is that Borges' source material is practically a skeleton. A compelling little short story but it is a short work, more an outline to a longer piece, but itself masterful. Borges, in what I have read, is a truly unique voice. His is the ability to start with pulp or genre beginnings in his work, or sometimes from one idea, this effectively a pastiche of detective narratives, and enter abstract/fantastical logic able to use the ability of the written word to have no limits. The Garden of Forking Paths is a spy story where the protagonist accidentally encounters the notion of infinite multiple directions, multiple dimensions, to every movement or act of his which fork off in different directions. One narrative in a short story is a man dreaming his form. Another a library of infinite books which gets into details like a cult surrounding finding one specific book in an infinitely expanding space of them. Another was a man writing a copy of Don Quixote without reading the original book to find its meaning. Borges' literature is unique and emphasises what the written word can do that other mediums cannot.

Death and the Compass is pretty simple, but I have to immediately spoil the ending to get an idea of what the point here is. That Detective Erik Lonnrot, played by Peter Boyle, in the short story and the adaption finds himself at a murder scene of a Jewish mystical scholar in a hotel room, finding a typed piece of paper saying "The first letter of the name has been uttered", and believes this is all connected to a Jewish mysticism alongside other murders and events that follow on. They are proven a trap, his folly to over think the obvious and fall into a deception of a larger meaning to a series of crimes than what is presumed. He is trapped in a liberty designed for him by his nemesis, Red Scharlach, played by Christopher Eccleston, as much improvised from an accident to get revenge on Lonnrot.

Alex Cox himself is a fascinating figure to come into this. Repo Man (1984) is his most famous film, and in a combination of bad luck and having to work around what films he could make, which he has been able too, his is an eclectic and idiosyncratic world of films that are unpredictable. Compass immediately stands out before the film even begins with an eerie carnival piano with industrial groans in the first moments of the score, the music by Pray for Rain going to make itself known and a pronounced part of the film adaption's character. Death and the Compass is very faithful to the source, actually adding content, and Cox as the screenwriter is making this material his own as much as a faithful Borges adaption.

It is a fascinatingly odd pastiche of a pulp crime narrative, expanded even in the short story into an extended template such as The Garden of Forking Paths, here a Kabbalistic related string of murders, of rabbis and Kabbalah researchers, which worms into Detective Lonnrot's obsession just from a piece of paper in a typewriter at a murder scene. The most interesting thing about the adaptation, alongside how Cox adds his own unique flesh to the original text, is how this version feels unlike the original. The short story was penned in 1942 and feels a work of the era, of Argentina (or an unknown melting pot fed from reality) as a diverse environment of people and religions, whilst this film's world is openly (shot in Mexico) a dystopia in the future. Some of it is in danger of being gauche - how the three leads are colour coded in bright primary colours, Lonnrot in blue, Red Scharlach in his namesake red, the conservative and ultimately gutless Treviranus (Miguel Sandoval) in yellow. Here in Cox's world, including in a theatrical cut a bank heist with a prowling one take camera movement, and a cameo for himself as a blind detective, there is a dystrophic feel of a rundown city, of political corruption, a civil war brewing and the police (under Treviranus) becoming more of a thug unit.

This is apt, despite not being needed in the source text, knowing Borges would only pen one film screenplay in his career, co-writing the Argentinean one-off Invasión (1969), a work set in pulp mystery structure that, alongside feeling inside a dystopia, was suppressed by the Argentine dictatorship of 1976–1983, and effectively lost until its rediscover decades later. If anything, Alex Cox's work in this is entirely in mind of adding his own flavour to the production, even changing the text at times into a new personality. Peter Boyle's Lonnrot is a mystically interested figure here, practicing Buddhism and fascinated by religion, a figure in danger of his own persona being an ego and his trap, such as insisting on using a non-regular police car in favour of one which has to be constantly repaired. Treviranus, in the adding footage shot post-narrative as an old official, was barely a character in the source story; here he is not a likable character at all, clearly corrupt or problematic as a member of the police force, but when the narrative is shown was at least right in Lonnrot falling for his own trap. Red Scharlach is not really fleshed out, looking here like a cartoon strip villian, but in the source material, he was just meant as a stock antagonist. Christopher Eccleston gets a lot more from other aspects of his role which are very obvious in who is playing who. It is interesting to known Eccleston, who many will know through the first Doctor Who reboot in 2005 and the likes of Shallow Grave (1994), had a brief moment of these Alex Cox films, getting a lot more to work with in Revengers Tragedy (2002), an adaptation of a Jacobean revenge tale from the seventeenth century, set in the future, where he got to flex his acting muscles but also play a scene of acting deranged talking to his wife's skull.

Technically the film is fascinating, though its origins as a production rebuilt to be longer does present a curious touch. I think out of all its aspects, the one which might prove an issue for many, depending on how its watched, is the sound design, which intertwining the great music from Pray for Rain with the dialogue and sound effects is a chaotic mix at moments. It manages, without falling off the rails, to be a chaotic film in tone in many ways yet adapt the source material. Treviranus' scenes in the future reflecting back could be excised but even they add to the character of a melancholy to the scenario from the least expected source. The long takes with the camera are impressive, especially as Cox fleshes out this dystopian version of the world of pure chaos, where autopsies are performed in the middle of the police station entranceway, and that the opening bank heist, set at a foundry to dispose of old money, is a grimy industrial labyrinth for the camera to weave through. The sense of the flamboyant even is to be found in how phone calls are depicted, superimposing shots within shots or even having the scene shot in darkness, only to illuminate a set in the background with the other person in the phone call involved.

The resulting film is a fascinating production. It is unique even next to the original text, which is an admirable virtue for Death and the Compass. It's appeal will entirely depend on the viewer's reaction to the narrative - where even if you have read this far and had the spoilers, the journey and the meaning were the most important aspect for Borges as it was for Cox, entering a sombre conclusion here in a haunting mansion location. It reaches a profoundness aimed for that, whilst very different, does evoke the messy production that was The Winner (1996), a film effectively disowned by Alex Cox due to tampering, but following in its own idiosyncratic direction with Las Vegas literally being turned off in the end, here the discussion of the most perfect labyrinth and past lives, with more dialogue than the source text added by Cox's script, leaves on a spiritually heightened mark.

Immortal (Ad Vitam) (2004)

 

Director: Enki Bilal

Screenplay: Enki Bilal and Serge Lehman

Based on the comics La Foire aux immortels and La Femme piège by Enki Bilal

Cast: Linda Hardy as Jill; Thomas Kretschmann as Nikopol; Charlotte Rampling as Elma Turner; Yann Collette as Froebe; Frédéric Pierrot as John; Thomas M. Pollard as Horus; Joe Sheridan as Allgood; Corinne Jaber as Lily Liang

Ephemeral Waves

 

What the hell, it's a naked guy with a bird's head!

Immortal is a difficult movie to deal with. For the most part, this is actually catnip even with its weird creative decisions for me, the creation of Enki Bilal, a Yugoslav emigrant to France and comic book artist who, alongside his prolificness, was making films before Immortal already. In terms of a set-up, Immortal is clearly indebted to a world of science fiction, let alone The Fifth Element (1997), alongside Bilal's own work, which if you see stands out exceptionally. The film, a complex mess to unravel, had enough in terms of a bizarre scenario to stand out but also has too many things to factor in why this is a difficult film to recommend.

Staying with the good, this is 3095 in New York City. A giant floating Egyptian pyramid is inecplicably floating above in the skyline. The trope of a dystopia of corrupt corporations, here literally a medical group called Eugenic, exists, this one partaking in illegal medical experiments. There are non-humans, deemed dangerous, stuck in Level 3, where humans are warned to avoid, whilst Central Park has become an "Intrusion Zone", a frozen winter environment where people attempting to enter usually die, spat out as bones when they attempt to enter, and penguins are wandering about for no reason. In terms of world building, Bilal's eye is deliciously weird. Science fiction, I will be honest, is more interest if vivid in world building and/or bizarre. Here a side character, the most beloved for me called Willie, sets up how idiosyncratic this can be as they are a sentient phantom dispenser in a hotel bathroom, one who can provide a handgun as he can, in his cute way, toothpaste from a wall he is stuck to.

In seriousness as well, even the clichéd bleak dystopia of flying cars and artificially generated lungs made in China is not an issue, as it feels immersive, allowing for the stranger details to contrast, the bleak grey and CGi created world a prop to allow the more idiosyncratic content to stand out. That the Egyptian God Horus has to sire a child in seven days, entering the human world, to keep his immortality, which becomes the main crux of the narrative; that a mysterious blue haired woman named Jill exists who is completely alien in form, who weeps blue tears that can even fill a bathtub; that flying monstrous hammerhead sharks, blood red, exist as a species that once were a threat, here appearing as a humanoid one and the regular flying variety.

Here we get to the first immediate issue with Immortal however, even if for me this is not an issue, as it is an aesthetic concept other viewers would not be tolerant on. This probably should have been animated - it almost already is. Most of the side cast, including major characters like the corrupt senator Allgood, are digitally animated models. The main cast however are real actors. Jill as played by Linda Hardy. Horus' final host, after causing seven to explode when their bodies are too sick or full of implants to host him, is Nikopol, a man whose influence is responsible for the anti-Eugenic holographic signs appearing everywhere in the city, abruptly woken from his cryogenic imprisonment when the tub falls from the sky, played by German actor Thomas Kretschmann. The legendary British actress Charlotte Rampling plays Elma Turner, a doctor who becomes fascinated with Jill and takes her in from the police; made to wear an unfortunate headpiece, she can nonetheless act her way around it.  

The contrast to almost everyone else being animated, and with a limited budget despite the ambition, is strange but I can still appreciate its curious mishmash of content. Where the issues come around, which I and other viewers will agree is problematic, is the plot. Specifically in regards to Horus' goal first. Alongside the ultimate reveal that this is a plot never properly told, Jill for obvious reasons is a unique entity who cries blue tears and exists from another dimension, becoming more and more human but of an unnatural form which makes her ideal for Horus's plans. Obviously, Horus' goal is problematic, to want to conceive a child quickly, in that we are dealing with rape as a subject. You would presume the idea is that, near death originally missing a leg from his awakening, Nikopol is stuck in an unfortunate situation of playing host to an entity, like Gods in mythology, who has no concept of modern morality. This is still morally dicey, but it is a premise you can tell in how, if you dealt with it right, this is about of gods involving themselves in the human world but committing acts thinking they are above us or in part of a goal which however the humans will argue against, such as the tale of Leda and the swan¹.  

Nikopol himself is one of them objecting to this, especially as he falls in love with Jill and does not want to be a willing participant, and that would be part of the narrative if fleshed out that would make this a compelling film even if one some would understandably feel uncomfortable to want to watch.  Adding to the issue is that, improvising him a leg from a subway train rail, Nikopol has an additional factor alongside the fact Horus can control him on will that he cannot move said leg without the God within him, so he is a trapped host having to argue against an entity doing things he does not want. Immortal would still be dealing with uncomfortable subject matter, which jars against its stranger content and jokes, such as the Egyptian Gods up in the floating pyramid playing Monopoly in one scene, but tackling the conflict between God and human would be fascinating, with Jill the unfortunate stuck between this on her road in fate.

However is it indeed uncomfortable, despite Nikolai not being a willing subject, how much rape plays a part in this as it does, even if mostly dealt with off-screen. It happens but the repercussions are never dealt with. It was more the fact Nikolai and Jill begin a romance soon into this, with a surprising amount of time "rape" and "the rapist" in himself being in the dialogue, that we are in really uncomfortable and undefendable content. In general, Jill is used in a way that, come least a decade later, would not be defendable at all, in that she is just a cipher. An idealised figure, played by a former model, who eventually to become human loses all her memories, and has erased at opportunistic times when involved with a botched kidnapping. Despite being a character to sell the film, in her distinct pale white face and blue hued features, is honestly a prop, even before you have to deal with the problematic content of sexual violence that is explicitly here.

What makes this worse, and a much more problematic film then when a film merely includes rape, is that Immortal's biggest problem is that none of its plot points ultimately have a point, making those decisions in how to handle gender politics and Jill worse. This very hastily wraps up with a bland romance, deeply problematic in context, and not really using its enticing points at all. There is no point to Central Park being frozen over barring as a final location. Charlotte Rampling's character has no real point at all, wasting a legendary actress, nor the CGI character of a detective, a figure who, alongside a previous history with the floating red sharks when one bit part of his face off, is seemingly to follow the trajectory of being involved in the main plot, including finding about Allgood's corruption, and contribute. He does not have a point, the red shark is dispatched hastily, and Allgood and the entire Eugenic Corporation is never really of importance. Even in mind this is based on stories in a world of Bilal's, this feels hurried and slight. It of course feels a bad position for Bilal to have left himself, when for the most part this film is an elaborate sci-fi film, that the main plot involved the rather unsavoury content it does and rushes all the interesting ideas after so much set-up.

It is fascinating, undoubtedly so. Immortal however becomes less than the sum of its parts by its finale, becoming far less interesting then the film it was beginning. One really tasteless plot aspect does derail the film horrifically, and it is weird to find a film which has so many strange ideas, and an aesthetic most would call ill advised but I found compelling, only become padding and ultimately resolve itself in the blandest way possible. Two of the worst things you can be are predictable, and be tone deaf in objectionable content, and Immortal's interesting features are sadly lost within both.

 

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1) Leda, an Aetolian princess, who the Greek god Zeus turned into a swan to seduce or rape depending on the telling of the myth; the blurring in that last part may come off as some as problematic, which is entirely understandable, and is only upon reflection that, becoming a subject depicted in countless paints of classical art alone, making it still a contentious myth, least in reminding you how adult and dark Greek mythology was in talking about complex concepts even with its Gods, that has been interpreted in a variety of ways

Strangeland (1998)

 

Director: John Pieplow

Screenplay: Dee Snider

Cast: Kevin Gage as Mike Gage; Elizabeth Peña as Toni Gage; Brett Harrelson as Steve Christian; Robert Englund           as Jackson Roth; Linda Cardellini as Genevieve Gage; Tucker Smallwood as Capt. Churchill Robbins; Ivonne Coll as Rose Stravelli; Amy Smart as Angela Stravelli; Dee Snider as Capt. Howdy / Carleton Hendricks

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #236

 

Tinsel, buttmunch. Tinsel Bomb!

[Major Plot Spoilers]

You would immediately think that, if you had an R-rated and explicit horror film starring, written and produced by Dee Snider, of the band Twisted Sister, where he is a bondage /body mutilation fixated villian, we would have something very odd and/or interesting on our hands. Baring one moment where it looked like Strangeland was going to take an actual moral complexity, with a real risk, no this unfortunately not the case. Even when it feels like a time capsule of the late nineties, of the big scary new thing called the internet, and with a soundtrack full of nu metal before that was fully a codified trademark, it is not really that interesting either. At least we go Snider do the opening title theme.

It is instead a very dry film, and actually, a pretentious film for what is a lurid premise. Snider is Captain Howdy, a man who abducts people, including through chat rooms online, and tortures them in various forms of body modification and mutilation for what he calls ascendance. This is where we get into an immediate issue with the film that, referring to the Modern Primitive subculture, this is vilifying it within context, never successfully putting over the clear goal that Howdy is meant to be the cool villain. Dee Snider makes an impressive form, by being built, and having a great makeup team provide his body painting and piercings, but the film decided to have him be the philosophical killer post David Fincher's Se7en (1995), who has a perverse morality to their horrifying acts. Snider will provide commentary as Howdy to his pathology, but this is where the film amongst its many flaws is missing its own point.

And, bear in mind, Strangeland is deceptively lurid. Likely, because of how bland and lacklustre the film is shot and presented, you could forget you still have scenes of people (male and female) naked with sewn up mouths, spikes impaled into them and tied up in a way closer to a BDSM dungeon. Howdy is capable enough to micromanage multiple victims without them escape and ganging up on him, but even without that to consider, his work is twisted. There is not a lot of gore, but Snider gets to explain to one male victim the precise way to pierce the head of the penis, so this film is pushing at the glass ceiling preventing it from becoming truly extreme. This is however juxtaposed against the sluggish film we have where nothing works. Snider is playing the smart BDSM killer, which is awkwardly distorting an underground subculture, clearly meant to look cool onscreen but demonising it. The main police officer lead, despite his daughter being a kidnapped victim, is not likable, and the less said about his younger and more obnoxious police partner the better. For the first act, this movie drags.

It would be an insult to Dario Argento's The Card Player (2004) to compare them, but they are both films dealing with the internet with very stark looking appearances, where in spite of the fact he had a future heavyweight in cinematography in Benoît Debie early in his career, Argento's film was shot in a stark naturalistic way, in mind of a lower budget but also a clear visual change. His was also a tale of a serial killer who taunted the police by challenging them to online card games for victims' lives, so technology in this later film was something to look at with morbid curiosity. The comparison has to be made though Strangeland is a flat, bland looking film in comparison and paced like a snail in the first act. It has humour in that the internet is a new and scary thing here, where having extreme sports like snowboarding in your text only profile on a chartroom is a way to lure a killer, and that a young Amy Smart has to explain to the police both how the internet works and how there is this arcane new tool called a search bar.

Where Strangeland could have taken a turn into something idiosyncratic, and this is where spoilers were created, is Howdy is captured by the police early on. He follows the cliché of escaping prison due to insanity, but the film has him go through a transformation through therapy and being released back into the world. For a moment, for a slither even with clichés, Strangeland suddenly gets a tantalising idea now that Howdy is a changed man, Snider to his credit making a meek alternative version of the character work, demonised by the locals as a monster still. Robert Englund, ever the charismatic presence, makes a worthwhile appearance as a stereotypical scumbag, a figure who, when not clearly watching deeply dubious porn in how it was put together, is going to lynch Howdy on a tree with Christian zealots whilst the detective does not help him. An enticing potential is found here - suddenly forcing you, even with a real monster like Howdy, to see him as a human and the protagonist, even with a traumatised daughter, failing to show a non-bias judgement call, one that will create an even worse monster when Howdy could have been redeemed as a good person.

But it does not do this. His daughter by the way, whilst having one sequence of being traumatised by horrible dreams of her experience, is merely a prop with that plot point never continued with, and this complex narrative turn is a mirage. Our detective will have his hero moment, without his morals questioned, and Howdy is just the same killer as in the first act. Strangeland offers a compelling turn and then dashes it without realising what it wasted. Far more compelling, than waste this final paragraph talking about the disappointment of the content is an amusing tangent on this really pointing where music was going as this does have to be considered. It was playing throughout, a bulky soundtrack to the film, and is meaningful to consider instead.

Alongside a trawl through a stereotypical Goth nightclub from an outsider's point of view, with erotic yet violent dance choreography between a bad nu metal performance, you still however have early System of a Down, alongside Megadeth, Pantera, Anthrax, and bands like Hed PE and Soulfly. Here you have a fascinating time capsule, in spite of Strangeland not being worth seeing, of older metal bands trying to capture the zeitgeist again, bands like Pantera who grew in the nineties, and the coming crop of nu metal I grew up with into the early 2000s. Knowing the same year Strangeland was released, at the same time this was released in October 1998, the first ever Family Values Tour with Korn headlining was in full swing, this is a weird piece of an entirely different medium in transition, including Dee Snider himself, when Twisted Sister was a popular band in the eighties and he tries here to adapt to a new world, as well as partake in a type of filmmaking he was interested in. It does not work unfortunately, so I cannot go further than admit disappointment.

Anatomia Extinction (1995)

 

Director: Yoshihiro Nishimura

Screenplay: Yoshihiro Nishimura

Cast: Kisei Ishizuka as The Man; Jun Sasaki as The Engineer in Subway; Chikako Tone as The Man's Girlfriend; Tomoko Haseyama as The BCG News Anchorwoman

Archival Review

[Author's Note: Almost good enough to have published, this was unfortunately just lost along the way in my writings. Reading this review to publish does entice me to want to revisit Anatomia Extinction. Once an obscure title, an American company Error4444 had a limited edition Blu Ray released in 2021, so people are more aware of this production. Tokyo Gore Police (2009) is one that needs to be returned to as well, as whilst my views here have not really changed at all with my issues with later mid-2000s onwards films from the likes of Sushi Typhoon, as discussed in the review, there is an interest in seeing if my views change a little. Like other archival reviews, the review has been tidied up and even re-written in terms of grammar, but none of the content has been removed or altered from when it was written, even if my tone and views have changed in places.]

 

If there is a fascinating comparison to be made between two different eras, Yoshihiro Nishimura's same premise - where in a bleak futuristic Japan, a figure wanders it turning people into bio-mutants - between the more well known Tokyo Gore Police (2008) and Anatomia Extinction from the decade later is a great example. Anatomia Extinction is superior, as much because, under the Sushi Typhoon label, Nishimura's feature length version has an erratic, frankly tedious third act of mindless practical gore with no cause to truly cheer. Anatomia Extinction has the virtue, beyond only fifty minutes in length that before you shot in warehouses and stages, within the vibrant indie filmmaking era of Japan, Nishimura had to shoot this sci-fi/body horror/splatter work in actual streets and subways stations.

The world, ironically, is more fleshed out and elaborated on here than in Tokyo Gore Police. The later feature film tried to show itself as a fully fleshed world through RoboCop inspired fake advertisements, but with sparse sets with few people. Here, likely stealing shots in the street, the crowds of bystanders going about in their daily lives stands out, as is real night time locations and dark subway corridors. It's ordinary life is fleshed out, like nineties Japan but with the details tantalisingly shown - one, ran with in Tokyo Gore Police of a privatised police force which is merely hinted at in radio and audio, the second which adds so much more here in that there is an overpopulation issue and a string of inexplicable massacres, even of children, constantly taking place. The later makes the mutants in Anatomia Extinction have a reason to exist, that they are creations of a cult wishing (horrifically) to cull the populous by creating monsters.

The work, not very long and as much a practical effects demo, still has this as a simplistic plot where one person finds himself drawn to this cult out of chance, which becomes grotesque and as freakish as you would expect, what with a loved one in a sewer left limbless yet in orgasmic ecstasy and a mutant frenzy that even references Death Race 2000 (1975). Some of it is darkly humorous in a sick way, all with icky and immensely accomplished practical effects, but never distasteful. Knowing Japanese pulp cinema has a gross underbelly I wish never to encounter, there is thankfully as a balance this era of transgressive pulp which yet has a higher bar of creativity and for intelligence. In an era which coined the term of Japanese cyberpunk, whilst not of the genre, there is an intense atmosphere here of claustrophobic crowded streets, tiny moodily lit rooms and a hell of a lot of primal bold colour lighting. Yes, there is CGI visually equivalent to a Playstation One cut scene, starting the film off no less, but as someone who likes dated CGI, that just added to the material.

There is also, in vast contrast to many genre films from the West, a greater sense of being able to tell the stories through aesthetic and mood even in a gory work like this. There is always a danger of exoticising Japanese culture but, whilst a lot of sluggishness and emphasis on conventions is found in Western genre films, there is (even with clichés) a greater emphasis on mood and a gut "visceral" experience, a lot of Anatomia Extinction atmospheric or, picking up the pace such as a midnight hit-and-run escapade, with a sudden volt of energy inbetween.

At this point it is worth saying I had softened to Tokyo Gore Police more but the ending, a mess of randomness, spoilt it alongside the noticeable sense of being shot within a limited environment or available locations rather than ordinary places. Anatomia Extinction still has a pace, an ebb and flow of progression where the latter film did not, alongside a huge factor that there was no irony in the text at all. Instead, the short version has an incredibly grim sense of world building, a sense of constant congestion and melancholy, over ripened within this world to the point people go mad and kill crazy. There is of course the body horror, which was more elaborated in the 2009 film, but here in its limitations it is still appropriate, as arms lost can merely be grown back as guns, and everything (including how mutants are created) having a nightmarish quality. A lot of the problem with Tokyo Gore Police, and these later films aware with targeting Western audiences, was that shot in bright crisp digital camera and all about the spectacle, many of the virtues of mood and the grotesque materials building to the tone, rather than for itself, was lost.

Ghost Game (2006)

 

Director: Sarawut Wichiensarn

Screenplay: Damkeng Thitapiyasak

Cast: Pachornpol Jantieng as Yut; Thanyanan Mahapirun as Jay; Phongsak Rattanapong as Kemtis; Supatsiri Patomnupong as Dao

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #235

 

I wish I could elaborate on the Thai horror film Ghost Game in a great deal, but this will be a short review. It does have the distinction, though the anticipation has now become disappointment, of being something where an advert caught my eye in my youth, and it has taken years to finally see. When DVD review magazines were once a thing, a prolific thing I collected, an advertisement for the Cine-Asia release of this proclaiming it one of the most controversial films ever made caught my attention.

The actual controversy is far more fascinating than the film itself in terms of exploitation filmmaking. In the narrative, the film is set up as a reality television show where contestants have to stay within an abandoned and seemingly haunted prison for a cash prize. The choice of location is a prison where a militaristic group tortured and killed many people until the leader decided that everyone including himself should die on his choice, leaving it a place very quickly established to be haunted by real and hostile ghosts. There is a real location this setting evokes, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. In what is arguably a very tasteless idea by the production, the producers actually wanted to shoot in this location, a place where the Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot members of the ruling Communist Party of Cambodia between 1975-1979, did commit real torture and murder in what was a secondary school they rechristened Security Prison 21.

That Ghost Game's location is called S-11 is close to "S-21", the abbreviation of the real place, does really emphasis what a provocative decision it was to make this film. The real museum is rumoured to be haunted by its dead¹, and even then, they do have skulls of victims on location, including a map of Cambodia created with them, as the film has graves and skulls of victims in its fictional setting. Personally, Ghost Game is not defendable, especially when the film is ultimately bland. They were refused, for understandable reason by the Cambodian government, from shooting in the real museum, and had to shot back in Thailand². The film was understandably banned in Cambodia³; even if personally banning a film even if it offends a country is not a personal belief of mine, this was a really insensitive case of copying another culture's real trauma for a film not really interested in tackling the subject, so I can understand even as someone anti-censorship why a country would not want their real tragedy, which scars the present still for many, exploited like this.

The film itself really only needs to be talked about in an abbreviated form, a worse case of how more tasteless it was as I cannot really find anything really to write of, even if it had willingly dared to be provocative and offensive on purpose. The idea of exploiting real crime in reality television and it haunting the present is worth tackling as a premise, baring the fact that here it is bland. The film from the get-go shows its hand quickly that the ghosts are real, but there is no further dynamic progression or questioning of its backdrop for hundred minutes. The stand-in for the real torturers and killers under Pol Pot is a generic evil general, reducing a real and palpably horrible reality to a caricature you barely see.

There are too many characters, only disguisable even when having to wear prison clothes by their archetypes and appearances. None of them have enough to them to stand out, to the point that even who is mean to be the female lead is a vague figure that only stands out later on. There is an aspect of the production having moles in the competitors to try to cause disruption, but that is barely dealt with. Beyond this there is not a lot I desire to talk of. Characters get scared and eventually die, and Ghost Game drags along. Shot in a stark realistic aesthetic, it never really stands out, and the only moment of levity, even before getting to the prison, is a cameo by a Doraemon keychain, an insanely popular Japanese creation who popular in other Asian cultures as well. He turns out not to be a good enough talisman to save these people nor in his blue smiling form to help this film as it went either. History will find the notoriety of its production a curious bookmark, but this is not a film even for offensiveness of a huge degree or compelling badness to mark out as someone to remember in horror cinema history. It is competently made, with a bleak ending where no one rightly wins, but it is efficient without anything to work with, making it a worse film arguably than a tasteless piece of schlock on the subject, or a Mou Tun Fei-like piece like Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre (1995), where historical atrocity is depicted in a lurid tone. Thus as well, this makes the production's attempted idea for a catching premise much more offensive.

 

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1) Such as described HERE.

2) Such as described HERE.

3) As referred HERE

Summer Lake Massacre (2018)

Originally Massacre at Pine Lake

Director: Andre Madness

Screenplay: T.H. Robb

Cast: Alexis Ford, Andy San Dimas, Briana Blair, Mr. Pete, Ralph Long, Rocco Reed, D. Snoop, Steve Crest and Lee Stone

Archive Review

 

It is shameless, to be honest, to include a Letterboxd review, but with this not a film easy to find. I wish to nonetheless preserve this existence of this weird curiosity, effectively "porn without porn", a slasher porn film from Adam and Eve productions with all the hardcore sex cut out to leave a forty or so minute slasher film. The edited version was briefly on Amazon Prime in the United Kingdom, the review originating from February 15th 2019, but is long gone.

The porn version, part of Grindhouse XXX (2011), a neo-grindhouse porn double bill from when the Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez film Grindhouse (2007) led to a exploitation film pastiche movement, is available. It is a film that would be fascinating to return to, in the cut version or not, even if I honestly think it would not grow and improve in entertainment. I think the greater disappointment is not the lack of desire to track this down but that the review has a negative tone I jettisoned from my work, where the most negative I can get (for the most part) is when I have little to say. When you debate whether to track down and pay for titles you take a risk for, the risk needs to be for something idiosyncratic and weird, and I do not have high hopes from this review this was ever going to stand out even with the hardcore sex.

Grammar has been corrected, if need be, alongside anything to improve the quality of presentation and turn of phrase even if words were changed or removed. Nothing in the review's content has been altered and when need be, any additional notes would have been included as time has passed and thoughts came to me returning to this review. The Letterboxd review was originally written around a work covered from a user called Scumbalina, from her list "Neon Boogers", an ode to "candy colored quivering frontal lobe aberrations on humanity". That list provided a couple of films that, if I have not written about already, would wish to. Even for this negative older review, this is a positive for anyone reading this to look into.

 

[Some Plot Spoilers]

So yes, Summer Lake Massacre was originally a porn-slasher hybrid created by Adam & Eve Pictures called Massacre at Pine Lake. I was initially hesitant to review censored version of the film, only to find that the Summer Lake Massacre version does have its own IMDB page¹. As much as we view this as a pretty liberal era when it comes to hardcore porn, it's still a common occurrence that "softcore" versions edited from the initial origins of films are still a practice, a segregation from the mainstream where that's still a viable method of gaining a wider audience. This suggests that the desire to break through a perceived moral barrier as was desired by the seventies filmmakers, some of which thought they were making art, is still an issue and far from over.

The one only redeeming aspect, if in a perverse way, about Summer Lake Massacre is its aesthetic. The brightly coloured clothes are the kind equivalent to all the pastel colours and nineties neon from the basement of exaggerated, gaudy pop culture. And let us be honest, as many of you the readers have probably have seen one modern porn clip in your lives once, there is the strange detail of how modern porn, in need of a location to shoot in and usually shot on digital cameras, always have the brightly coloured and lightly decorated environments you might find in a furniture catalogue. One slight touch up in the lighting and you get a Greek New Weird film aesthetic, and if you are bored of the sex, some people might find some greater interest admiring all the various ornaments and pictures in the background.

As for Summer Lake Massacre as a film, it is too short in the censored versions to be painful, but the problem is that it is a half arsed production. [Writer's Note: A crass choice of words, and viewpoint I would never use in future writing]. Even with the pornographic aspect, there were only three scenes visibly excised and they looked the most generic sort from what was left in fragments, cutting to a random lizard in another time zone for the first, but sadly never continuing with this unintentionally hilarious choice with a "boing" sound in the transition. Worse, with the awful makeup on the actresses, which does not compliment the plastic aesthetic that I can find charming, the film clearly prescribed the dumbest stereotype of the erotic which is cheesy and frankly dull, an argument for the virtues of softcore erotic actually being mere erotic as it did not spend all its time on boring real sex.

It is a testament to how bad any work is, regardless of genre, if its actresses are lit or dressed in a way that is embarrassing. In fact, if there is any virtue to having watched Summer Lake Massacre, it is an excuse to go on a long and protracted tangent about a severe gender politic issues about mainstream porn, about how it has always been about the exaggeration of sex (in actresses' literal physical shapes, even plastic surgery enhancement, let alone what it depicts) but in such a childish and frankly dull way. [Writer's Note: Now I have a more sympathetic view of female actresses in adult filmmaking. The aesthetic is bland is going to be the argument if you ever need to actually debate this rather than view the material as it was sold for, it we are going to be blunt.]

The debate of misogynistic gaze is not the issue I am thinking of, the one argued by people by Andrea Dworkin and for another conversation, but just how tired and un-erotic something like this (even without the sex) is compared to even a film like from Walerian Borowczyk or Jean Rollin, films which have even gotten defence from women because of both their aesthetic sensuality, but even for their depictions of women as sexual beings. Even really cheesy softcore which has a sense of fun, like the sixties sexploitation films, have more interest regardless of possibly dated attitudes. It is not surprising that the influx of women who are making pornography for themselves, in any media, are more adapt to it than most males in making far more rewarding (and frankly sexier) work as they care about things like aesthetic and emotions that make the work more rewarding, even erotic fan fiction. The kind of things Borowczyk, Rollin and a male creator who cared for such things who gained cult and even a female fan base from when they passed.

In fact whilst we are on this subject as its pertinent, one of the aspects which has always looked off putting in mainstream pornography for me personally, and is here in spades and among one of these issues of mainstream erotica, is that in vast contrast to the idolisation of the female stars, they always cast very generic men as if they were mere props and to allow male viewers to be stand-ins for, not considering that even a heterosexual male could appreciate a really attractive man onscreen even if they have no sexual desire for the same sex. As much as his reputation off-screen has been tarnished by real life scandal, there was a reason James Deen (not to be confused with the Hollywood star), became a cult figure with a huge female fan base as he was attractive and oozed charisma.

[Writer's Notes: The scandals with Deen from 2015 onwards do not paint a pleasant picture in the slightest of the man. To sidestep this to a more light hearted but pertinent comment to make, yes the like of aesthetic care for men in erotica in general is a strange and off-putting aspect. How ironic, even in the worst and least defensible erotic work you can have a hope that a female figure can still stand out above the muck around her, because of the strange paradoxical gaze that is objectifying yet can be subverted to make her stand out, against how the maze gaze really makes the male look grotesque in comparison.]

Back to the film itself, the slasher contingent would be disappointed with Summer Lake Massacre too as, even as someone who has a conflicted and strange relationship with the horror sub genre, this is pathetic next to even some I have found overrated and dull. It could lead to another long tangent, but I will rein it in, that for all my gripes about it, and dismissing some sacred cows, I have enough respect for the slasher genre that I am seeing a film like this one completely squander the premise in such a lazy way. Even some of the most notoriously bad (yet beloved) examples in the genre could stand proudly above this as Summer Lake Massacre barely gets the point of the tropes, baring allowing one to admire a well built horse stable the film is partially shot in. In fact, there are probably slasher films shot in someone's backyard that have better gore effects than this whilst we are at it, slashers as much as mere titillation requiring some actual enthusiasm to be of any interest.

This is all in mind that, with openness to any idea, I have no biases against porn and anyone who works in it, and no concept is potentially bad. There is the obvious, and somewhat weird, notion here that it is meant to turn a person on with real sex only to star killing off individuals, which I do not want to try to explain even in its butchered form. We could do without the black stereotype character either, even if the actor might have been in on the performance and (unlike other films) he manages to get away scot free to safety.

Putting all these concerns together, yes let us have more of this kind of gaudy colourful erotic genre weirdness, but please make something with some actual motivation next time. The initial result here is tedious and would not have stood out even with the sex kept back in.

 

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1) It does not when this archive review was preserved.

Deadly Sweet (1967)

 

a.k.a. I Am What I Am

Director: Tinto Brass

Screenplay: Tinto Brass, Francesco Longo and Pierre Lévy-Corti

Based on a novel by Sergio Donati

Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant as Bernard; Ewa Aulin as Jane; Roberto Bisacco as David; Charles Kohler as Jerome; Luigi Bellini as Jelly-Roll; Monique Scoazec as Veronica Yassupova; Vira Silenti as Martha

Canon Fodder

 

Let's burn the mini-skirts...

Almost every director in the Italian genre industry, within its golden age, made a giallo, as with many of them making a western among other genres. There are rare cases, such as Dario Argento almost always staying to horror and giallo thrillers, but even those who developed trademarks like Enzo G. Castellari, the action specialist, made a giallo in Cold Eyes of Fear (1971) as a one off. Tinto Brass, who was more focuses in erotic drama even before his softcore run, did make a giallo too, and predating his two experimental films Attraction (1969) and The Howl (1970), he made Deadly Sweet. They are effectively siblings, despite Deadly Sweet being a straight forward film, from their lineage of experimentation. They share footage from each other, such as material here of Jean-Louis Trintignant running being used for an almost Jean-Luc Godard cameo gag in The Howl.

Also, because, whilst very much your traditional giallo, what Brass starts as a film slow in getting going eventually stands out for being an unconventional and inspired piece just for the technical bravado it has. Admittedly, as is a common aspect of this film genre, this is a giallo story which does get a bit convoluted. To summarise it, an actor Bernard (Jean-Louis Trintignant) finds a contact he was meant to meet in a backroom of a club dead on the floor, a young woman Jane (Ewa Aulin) cowering in the corner, Bernard trying to find who is responsible whilst falling head over heels with Jane even if her life, including her relationship with her brother and step-mother, is a knotty one with secrets. Alongside an antagonist step-mother, a possibly incestuous relationship with her brother, and a group trying to get an incriminating diary and even kidnapping Jane at one point, Bernard is pulled into a complicated web.

Like many giallo, this is fascinating as a cultural hodgepodge, meant to be set in swinging London, with a French lead in Trintignant, Ewa Aulin Swedish, as an Italian post-dubbed genre film. Deadly Sweet to its credit among others, even before we get to the type of experimental tone Tinto Brass surprisingly brings to the table, is a compelling narrative. Jean-Louis Trintignant as your lead is inherently, even dubbed, a virtue for having such a compelling actor involved, able to still be seen as his own distinct figure as a performer even dubbed as this plays his character of Bernard as an everyman. He is a very sympathetic lead for a giallo, one capable of being hurt and caught off-guard but, when alert, is a resourceful figure among the trope of men who wander inadvertently into these types of mysteries. When the film has its lighter hearted moments, it is openly playful, whether the delightful sight of Trintignant bashing a drum kit or, within the same scene, doing a Tarzan yell and swinging off a rope. It is a little creepy Ewa Aulin's Jane is mean to be around sixteen or so, to the considerably older Bernard, but she is perfect as the figure that radiates an aura that entices him to her. Whilst one of the film's titles plays on a common trope, the femme fatale, Deadly Sweet to its credit is a lot more meaningful on this right to the bitter end.

It helps as well this film, even in the confines of a genre narrative, is where Tinto Brass's experimental work from this period is at its sharpest. This is a surprise, even after The Howl and Attraction show his experimental side, because of the knowledge of his later films in the erotica category where he restrained himself more. Here, even when the film feels its length, Deadly Sweet has some of the most striking moments you could actually find, avant-garde techniques brought in for drastic effect. Here, a contentious aspect of those two avant-garde films of his, using real footage of current events, works hereas it is footage of the Vietnam War in a newsreel within a cinema, not as extreme as in those works in their violent content where even a genre film entirely focused on its plot allowing him to nod to the real world. The frenzied nature of two of the scenes, using striking (if not suitable for everyone) avant-garde quick editing are two of the most incredible you can find in giallo cinema. One with Bernard being tortured for information on a diary of the initial murder victim, a vital clue, the other whilst being pursued when he is in seconds having to decide to flee into the London Underground. Even having scratched images for emphasis, this is incredible work to see.

Throughout there is a lot of style. From the music to its playful use of comic book illustrations for effect, this feels of the late sixties but is alive in its form. Even when the ending is a bleak one, for an obvious conclusion a viewer probably should have seen coming, it feels app for a film that, light hearted at times but also able to be serious, has felt like a rollercoaster. Deadly Sweet was a delight in mind to its creator's future, an argument positive of Tinto Brass' talents alongside his experimental side even existing.

Pepsiman (1999)

 

Publisher: KID

Developer: KID

Single Player

Playstation One

 

There isn't enough Pepsi for everyone, and violence has flared up amongst those wanting Pepsi!

Videogames and licensed properties go hand-in-hand. Especially when you look at earlier generations of consoles, even Olympic mascots have had tie-in games let alone film and programme tie-ins over the years. It is neither a Western phenomenon as, food mascots the subject of today or soda drink as is the exact term, I can also include UFO Kamen Yakisoban (1994), a tie-in game for a brand of ramen, which never was released in the West and also was based on adverts with even a straight-to-video feature film in existence. Licensed games however have the immediate issue that preservation, due to the rights issues, is significantly more difficult. There is also the issue that most of these games alongside "shovelware", a term of work churned out to consoles just for money quickly, are seen as terrible. You have to contend both with the relevance of a licensed property that no longer has pop culture cache decades later, alongside who owns the copyright, and that most of these titles are probably terrible due to a lack of care with their quality over product.

Here, however, we have a case, I will argue, is actually a good licensed game if a tough one, one title as many have learnt of on the internet like myself due to how ridiculous it is. If one title though deserved to be released in the West as a digital or even physical release, if the rights could be figured out, it is Pepsiman. It is not even the weirdest of a food and drink brand's attempts to advertise itself, as KFC's promotional wing has gone as far as have sexy studly Colonel Sanders a real thing both in romantic novels (Tender Wings of Desire by Harland Sanders) and a visual novel videogame, I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator (2019), were he is an anime hunk your protagonist character attempts to date in culinary school. Pepsiman himself however, a Japanese only advertisement character designed by Takuya Onuki, a legendary graphic designer, is one in a row of attempts by Pepsi to get ahead of the likes of their rivals Coke Cola. Some readers may remember their advertisements with animated polar bears, and the likes of Madonna and Michael Jackson appeared with their branding, but Pepsiman as a character was a Japanese exclusive, shot and set in the United States with Industrial Lights and Magic even brought in to render the fully 3D animated hero. Onuki in his creation of the character, setting up as well how the game is a very accurate replication of the source material, made him both a cool character but also an intentionally comedic one, self-deprecation to the advertisements as Pepsiman injures himself as much as he is a hero of providing soda based sustenance.

This is neither the first game he appears in, as he was a secret character in the Japanese release of Fighting Vipers (1995), specifically the Sega Saturn port of the arcade fighting game. For the Japanese market only, though in the decades later becoming a cult item, Pepsiman finally got his own game from developer KID. Knowing Onuki had an investment, distinct to this property, of also handling how the merchandise would replicate the character, it would not be a surprise if he also had some thoughts to how the video game looked just from speculation.

Like the adverts, this is a Japanese take on the West, set in an Americana world, with all the dialogue in English with Japanese subtitles. They have some dated aspects, mainly a lot of American women in tight bikinis, let alone a sole cameo in one advert of a Pepsiwoman, which is just emphasis at the time the Dead or Alive fighting games would develop a notoriety for chest physics, to use the polite choice of words, Industrial Lights and Magic of all people had to animate it too up to their quality of work. The adverts however as well, starting in the mid nineties through past this game into the 2000s, are legitimately fun, a bright and warm hearted view of American culture baring the one cruel joke about a man trapped in the desert merely having a mirage of a cactus being Pepsiman. The game is aware of its existence and is as playful, opening with full motion video pre-titles where you are introduced to Mike Butters, a Canadian actor who would eventually become a mainstay of the Saw horror franchise, opening a can of his beloved beverage from a vending machine only to hear weird music from it. He will be a constant through if you can get through the levels, eating food that Pepsi's main company owned (like Lay’s Potato chips) and surrounded by a ludicrous amounts of empty Pepsi cans, saying inane but charming things like "Pepsi for TV game!" which really do not make sense.

Pepsiman the game itself predates a popular mobile phone game called Temple Runner (2011), in which in a limited number of controls you have a character constantly moving having to avoid obstacles in what is called an "endless runner" game, where unlike "auto runner" gameplay, where a game can have sequences where you are forced to move forwards, "endless runner" means it will continue on and on, with procedural generation. Pepsiman is more of an "auto runner" in that it has a set of levels with set obstacles, our Pepsi branded hero having to negotiate around construction site barriers, cars, even tumbleweeds to avoid being hurt on his missions, a time limit also to bear in mind. There is a jump button and the ability, without burning one's skin off on concrete and tarmac, to power slide under certain obstacles. The slide mechanic has two other functions - the down button on a PS One controller causes one to briefly stop, which is not really useful, but forwards causes one to run faster for a brief sprit, vital when playing chicken with subway trains, also useful to spam (if careful with it) to make up for lost time and distance. The game's mechanics includes the fact that, once you start an action, it has to finish the animation, so this is a factor you have to consider unless one wants to hit a barrier or spiral down a pit.

This is of note as Pepsiman is a hard game, but with mind that the obstacles are not unpredictable and do not change per gaming session. They play out the same way in every attempt, and it is both the mechanics of the game and the player, both their reactions and muscle memory, which is necessary. It became a pleasure to do this, with the only real problem with Pepsiman the game being a lack of a save function to allow you to continue from a level you have reached. Though it only has four levels, split into three parts, Pepsiman even in its original form as a short game has a greater harshness because of this. Lives can easily be accumulated, collecting Pepsi cans during levels mid-run, and completing the game once opens an option to try any section again, but this game gets more challenging as it goes along and requires learning the courses over time to finally beat them.

The difficulty is emphasises, by the first two chapters per level, that enough trips and pratfalls will eventually cause Pepsiman to collapse in embarrassment. Some obstacles are instant live takers, such as being directly hit by cars or rampaging motor bikers, and the many pits and drops to oblivion. Failing to reach the end of a course in the time limit causes a life to be lost as Pepsiman feels embarrassment in not being a hero on time. The third part of all levels has its own mechanics in that you are running towards the screen, away from a giant constant obstacle (twice a giant Pepsi can) with additional obstacles and no slide ability. Unless used in emergencies, the jump button for me in these sections, alongside the disorientating nature of running towards the screen, actually proved more a hindrance when to merely negotiate quickly and carefully around the hazards was a wiser decision.

Pepsiman is a licensed game, when they are notoriously known for many being hashed together cash-ins, which is actually well made. It is tough, and the simple controls can be awkward at times, but this never feels broken or badly designed at all. Even Level Four, the final one when you get to chapter two at the main factory of Pepsi City, is some you can learn. Even with crates appearing out of nowhere and conveyor belts, alongside having to ride a hover board through barely opened doors with a ridiculous reaction time, it is one you can learn to negotiate from improving reflexes and muscle memory of how best to move ahead. Save states would improve this game without losing the challenge, as the point to Pepsiman is focusing on the challenges per level than the instinct a future endless runner game would have. This is more focused on elaborate one-off levels which, per Level and even within one stage, can vary even within them, such as a city on fire leading to a construction site, or a sewer within one part leading to a mad bolt past subway trains and passersby on the train platforms, alongside jumping across roofs to the end goal.

What pushes Pepsiman further is how charmingly memorable it is, apt for an adaptation of adverts which are charmingly absurd. Again as mentioned, this is all done in English when there are cut scenes, each level introduced with Pepsiman listening to a character give him a mission in exaggerated speech. Even within the game, there are playful details like homeless people with signs wanting Pepsi. The only real disappointment, which I learnt of from the soundtrack for this game, is that we may have missed an additional stage. Set up with five stages in the soundtrack, one involves a cheerleader for an American football game, using the most over-the-top voice you can imagine, talking about the cheerleading team being tired from their work and wishing for Pepsi. Already a short game, it is a shame that, for a character about exaggerating Americana, we never got the American football level even if the adverts do have a think for obsessing over skimpy clothing. The music as well, even if it consists of just the same basic theme, with the only lyrics being "Pepsiman!" being repeated, is also part of the charm especially when you get into the calypso version among others.

The game's self awareness, which came from the adverts, is admirable. So much that, if we could get Pepsi to clear the license, this would be great to relicense and have in the modern digital era. Its foundations are solid once you can get around the challenge, and alongside said challenge being worthwhile, the ridiculous nature of the concept is amusing. Whilst Pepsiman was for a moment a really well regarded creation, sadly in contrast KID filed for bankruptcy in 2006, with their projects acquired and finished into the 2010s, and this game did not even sell well when it was originally released. It would be worthy of giving that studio's staff happiness, if we could figure out how to deal with licensed games in terms of copyright decades after, if Pepsiman went from already having a cult status as a videogame to also become a cheap but playable work for legal purchase. For the fact this is far better made and better than what can be done with licensed games, or what is called "shovelware", should be recognised.

The Howl (1970)

 

Director: Tinto Brass

Screenplay: Tinto Brass, Gian Carlo Fusco, Franco Longo and Gigi Proietti

Cast: Tina Aumont as Anita Annigoni, Gigi Proietti as Carlo detto 'Coso', Nino Segurini as Berto Bertuccioli

An Abstract Candidate

I questioned a corpse.

At first The Howl may suggest the tonal inconsistencies of Attraction (1969), another film from when Tinto Brass, an Italian director who eventually would focus on softcore erotica, had an experimental late sixties period. A man's future wife, our lead Anita (Tina Aumont), is bailed out of jail by his influence, only to be told her tale upon being arrested of being raped with a policeman's truncheon by a gang of them. When she flees her wedding however, The Howl intends to be a more morbid, bleaker view of the world which just happens to have moments of farce and levity. It was also wise for her to fled him, a man of power in all its flatness, especially when he does not bat an eye to that tale, even if she tells it with almost humour, deciding instead to flee into this surreal dreamscape capturing the era.

Pale faced, from having fled her wedding, she ends up on an incredibly surreal farce which at times cannot be viewed as anything else as truly dreamlike, even if unintentionally when it was trying to be politically relevant. Early on, this is stated as intent when immediately into this, the film has a horde of English policemen running down a hill and, in one of the many eye-catching moments, a double decker bus burning on fire at night.

The Howl does have its shock value and time stamped content, a film which precariously plays to a profoundness but also nastiness for the sake of it, such as juxtaposing eroticism that is meant to be positive with an off-screen rape scene by soldiers meant to be taken seriously. It throws a giant gauntlet down when its first scenario is a hotel Anita enters which caters to all kinds of sexual perversions and kinks - a mass of imagery, as throughout too much to absorb, including a reference to Leda and the swan, necrophilia, bottomless female teachers and much more. It evokes Jean-Luc Godard's political farce Weekend (1967), a bizarre road trip, whilst in mind that this particular journey exists out of space and even time, further than Godard's did sticking to the French country motorways. But it still has cannibalism like Godard's, in this case a philosopher in a loin cloth and 18th century wig whose family captures and eats people.

With a character at one point, in clown face paint having murdered someone in a train passenger seat, says "I awoke from the dream..." repeatedly, this film shows its hand as intentionally illogical in form, but probably to its advantage is that, whilst full of surreal and intentionally slapstick material, this feels a darker film. Even when Anita befriend and is tagged along by a slapstick male comedy figure Coso (Gigi Proietti), this for all the moments which still have aged badly feels a more powerful work, a memoriam of the state of the world. This is especially the case as it explicitly evokes World War II and its destructive influence on the world from an Italian filmmaker. Explicitly as a stand-in for Benito Mussolini and Hitler, a raving clown of a dictator, is machine gunned down by Anita and Coco.

The film presents moments which are delightfully strange, such as a ducking peeking through a post box slot on a door talking, but most of the film exists from a bleaker worldview, or at least a more sombre reflection of the world. It stops to follow the male sidekick interacting with a ghost of a young woman who has spent her eternity weeping at train tracks, feeling of more appropriate tone here with what it wants to evoke than, as I have seen, Tinto Brass trying to capture the times and, for all the incredible skill still involved, also showing his hand badly. When this film, using the same footage, uses real life mass grave and war footage as Attraction did, it is still questionable to have even brought it in onscreen, but feels more appropriate as the characters end up in a village that clearly encapsulates World War II.

That sequence, an extended one alone, makes this film more profound than even its surreal tone may initially suggest even if just evoking emotions for more real from its creators than they may have realised. Of soldiers, terrorising the town and shooting the populous lined up against the wall, heads on spikes and skeletons everywhere. Even when the film returns back to slapstick, including an entire stint within a mental asylum built in ancient Roman architecture, the title is apt as a deranged howl, as the protagonist herself is going on a downward spiral as the world is. It does feel its length, a journey even in ninety minutes which leaves one exhausted, but you are taken for a ride through such a surreal landscape that is completely admirable in form. [Major Spoilers] It feels more apt, than trying pretence of being about free love as Attraction was, when here instead the narrative conclusion is death by car crash in reality, the delirium collapsing in on it's being [Spoilers End]. Here when a cry of rebellion is broadcast in a sound recording stage, Tina Aumont throwing herself into this role, and in that scene shouting with magical intensity this speech, to rebel against the soldiers in the WWII town, it feels powerful as it is spoken less with latching on just the times, but an ageless form of rebellion stemming with influence of the horror of that war that is magnificent.

The Howl's dreamlike, deeply strange nature will still put people off, a languid work at times which yet can be explicit, nasty or just plain weird. For me, waiting to see this film for a long time, it thankfully has less of the pretentions of the other Brass production from this era, something that is difficult and really feels more a string of consciousness than cohesive, but apt in terms of what it wants to get over. There are better, even more difficult to grasp and more illogical films in this same vein, in just that The Howl does have the issue of what the politics and use of gendered takes on sex involved, when others have nudity and violence but feel more provocative to an advantage, but this is the kind of film that is an acquired taste I open admit an admiration too. When this is focused, this surrealism even if in the end it never had a point gains one with feeling like the creators' and casts' emotions spilling out onscreen, being stuck in the journey swimming in this fully.

Abstract Spectrum: Absurd/Grotesque/Surreal/Weird

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