Tilbury (1987)

Director: Viðar Víkingsson

Screenplay: Þórarinn Eldjárn and Viðar Víkingsson

Cast: Kristján Franklin Magnúss as Auðun; Helga Bernhard as Gudrún; Karl Ágúst Úlfsson as Tilbury; Erla Skúladóttir as Sigrún; Róbert Arnfinnsson as Rev. Thorfinnur; Aðalsteinn Bergdal as Barði Kemp; Bryndís Pétursdóttir as Lilja; Magnús Bjarnfreðsson as Gen. Tilberry

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Explained in the opening voiceover, an Icelandic production with a British voiceover for this opening to befit the importance of the British characters in this story, the “tilberi” is a witchcraft creation, born from a human rib taken from a grave and kept by a female creator’s breast. Fed on communion wine, it stole milk from other peoples’ cows unless caught and uses it to create “tilberi butter”. This TV movie takes this mythology, and creates a complicated horror period story, in less than an hour, dealing with a changing Iceland during the early 1940s when World War II is in full swing. On the 10th May 1940, the British and Canadian militaries invaded Iceland in 'Operation Fork' due to the concern German forces would take over the country. By 1941, as the film ends its own narrative on, the defense of the country was given to the United States in agreement by Iceland itself. The country was officially neutral during the world, but cooperated with British, Canadian and American military¹, but through this supernatural story we see how this would drastically alter Iceland when forced to open up to the new influences.

Auðun (Kristján Franklin Magnúss) is a young man training to become a swimmer and is asked by a priest to talk to his daughter Gundrun (Helga Bernhard), who was caught taking an excessive amount of wine during communion, and fears she has fallen from her religious upbringing. Because they grew up together, in the same church, the priest naturally thinks Auðun is a more appropriate person to win her own from what are her perceived sins of drunkenness, when it is obviously set up that her story is connected to the tilberi. Set in the capital of Reykjavík, with members of the public working with the British soldiers, the tone is grounded and keeping with the period, but also emphasizes the circumstances is their strangeness. In evoking the period with this grounded nature, we see the banality of the scenario without the glamour of the war, with the male soldiers cavorting with the local women. There is a possible flaw with the film that, at less than an hour, it fudges the complexity, such as having Gundrun come off as a stereotypical femme fatale in the midst of this, or demonizing the Allied forces whilst having one of the characters Auðun encounters being a literal Nazis they have captured. Particularly with that one scene character that yet has a major scene, that tries to throw in anti-Jewish beliefs in his explanation of what a tilberi, you can easily see flaws in nuisance here lost in the storytelling. There is however the sense that Tilbury the film is about the chaos of all this period, which influences the storytelling.

Isolated until this war, this is an Iceland being abruptly thrown into the cultural exchange without a knowledge, from how director/co-writer Viðar Víkingsson depicts it, of how bad the Nazis were, instead that a war is apparently happening but feeling like a place of banality. There is no combat, just sights like seeing a British soldier having sex with a woman at one point, possible a sex worker but at least with an older male driver as their cab waiting with them in the driver’s seat during the act, which completely undercuts the sense of historical importance of all this as the days pass. With soldiers occupying the place, everyone is however just floating along. Trucks drive around and mortar firing practice is done completely isolated from the real war, as despite all the sandbagged protective walls built. The soldiers are mostly comparing condoms (and laughing at the local guy who thinks its chewing gum), cavorting with the local women or at the parties at night, whilst the local women like Gundrun link up with said soldiers. Even if there is a sense of corruption from the Allied forced, it is not as if Iceland, as represented by Auðun, is a noble figure, instead a little naïve itself when the world around them has grown and become more complicated.

Within this sense of stagnation is the mysterious British colonel Tilbury who gives the TV movie its title, a young actor clearly in old man white makeup and a fake nose who is clearly unnatural. Among the British soldiers coming off more as nuisances, or arresting random locals who may be Nazi sympathizers, Tilbury is just hiding among them without anyone questioning his involvement as a general, who is connected to Gundrun. This does lead to Tilbury being a revealed as a goblin-like entity puking green goo, but Gundrun’s relationship to his is interesting as it is clearly weighing in on Iceland’s relationship with the British and how complicated it clearly became, such as the fact that this is shown as a very religious country. Thrown into a relationship to foreigners of the island who will undercut this in their relationships, when not on military drills, the world cannot go back to the perceived morals of the past as now the 20^th century has fully arrived, and it seems neither that the old Christian ideals are celebrated because they were merely what the likes of Auðun were raised with. Spirituality did not really form him for the better as his involvement is less for saving Gundrun, but as a fawning crush from her past that cannot get past her. Central to this is Tilberi butter chocolate disguised as Cadburys chocolate; as symbolic of Britain’s status to the Icelandic as with the Americans, when they appear in the last moments appear with their Hershey’s chocolate bars, there is definitely a negative or at least concerned view of what had possibly been lost due to this occupation over time.

At the same time, however, even Gundrun’s plan for this chocolate, which is not recommended to eat due to it causing seizures, whilst a negative on the types of influences on Iceland from the bigger countries is undercut (even if the script being vague) by her being on her own unknown mission. Tilbury the goblin-creature intends to influence Iceland with these chocolate bars, and it is important to remind one selves that, whilst World War II had clear-cut villains that had to be defeated in Nazis, it was still a morally complicated war where the Allies were not clear-cut themselves at times. It was not a good idea, in the moments where the film undercuts itself, to have Tilbury depicted with the fake nose, which unfortunately throws up anti-Semitic stereotypes. There can be arguments to be made that the film needed a lot more time to really explain some of its content to avoid these unfortunate aspects, like presuming that since he is helping Auðun, the openly fascist person who the soldiers arrested would be viewed as virtuous when he is forced into a hole in the soldiers’ camp like he deserves. I will give the film and its creators’ the benefit of the doubt as, in this war depicted onscreen, the severity of its fight is lost to this world, Iceland shown oblivious and just going off these soldiers, on the outskirts, who don’t present themselves as a positive but something even frightening. They treat the locals like crap despite being there to protect them, and the locals just get on with life. Tilbury comes off less like a problematic dog whistle stereotype but a strange creature of misfit whose chocolate, even if contaminated, is never shown in its full effect, likely more a comment that, even if they were fighting this major war, the British and American soldiers to the locals were less than graciousness in spite of the Icelandic people contributing to them helping the war. Even if the heroes, this presents that, as in the morally complex reality, that didn’t mean ever British soldier and general was exactly a bastion of virtue, cavorting and partying at night, even with a joke later on that one or two are doing inappropriate things to local farm animals.

Auðun himself is also a complicated lead. His love for Gudrún, including intonations that he had relations with her when they were young teenagers, the barn where this transpired to haunt him as he literally sinks into the hay in the last moments, is less a virtuous hero than a putz being dragged along. He comes along not really as a person who deserves pity, but a version of Iceland which will be obsolete and left out, mad, at the end whilst the influence of the other Western states come to Iceland. He is naïve to what is going on and that, whilst horrified by Gudrún’s openly promiscuous ways even before he learns the truth of Tilbury, he comes off less a bastion of virtue himself, but a naïve figure who can’t really talk as he has unfulfilled urges for her that were suppressed. His views of her open sexuality in the cold light of the modern day, decades after the film was made, come off as a prude or just clueless with hindsight. The most overtly elaborate scene, a sudden dance sequence with Gudrún and Tilbury, is clearly his jealous imagination, literally filtered in a green light, with them separated from the world and presuming he is an emotional vampire on her when she is clearly the one in control.

He is an appropriate figure in a world where the less likable people can still help him, but can’t be trusted. There is a joke that even the minor Nazi sympathizer is revealed to have been kicked out of the Olympics, as a swimmer in the Nazi held one, due to accidentally splashing Hitler’s personal viewing box, so there is even in the cynical humour the sense he too is just among a bunch of drifters, losers, also-rans and very confused Icelandic people just living through a major war. Iceland did lose casualties as a result, including 200 Icelandic seamen who died from war related deaths¹, so the country was integral to the war, but as we see in various works of various tones and realities on World War II. Its lasting shockwave on the world includes all the banal moments where things awkwardly transpired, like being stuck with numerous British and Canadian soldiers initially on your soil without warning, and the complicated relationship this would have caused.

Viðar Víkingsson’s film does had a greater sense of complication to this all. You can make the argument, for Tilbury’s biggest flaw, that it could dangerously flub some of its themes, in terms of the fact that less than an hour may be enough to examine some very significant historical themes. However how much it managed to depict, with the matter-of-fact naturalism undercutting any glamour to the proceedings, is still to be acclaimed. [Huge Spoiler] In the end, due to the lore of the tilberi, Auðun gets Gudrún killed by her own creation, so he is not a noble white knight rescuing the local maiden from the invading British, just a man lost in this goal to find her, lost in his madness at the end with the only lingering thoughts left rekindled when he realizing Tilbury is now just posing as an American soldier with Hershey’s chocolate with his own special ingredient added. Nothing he had done was helping at all, and he is a confused Icelandic man just seeing the world turn. [Spoilers End] For its possible flaws in not getting a clear message carefully out, this strange and fascinating folk horror work still comes off as very cynical about this major part of Icelandic culture on both sides. I’m not Icelandic, ironically British like those invading soldiers, so the irony is not lost if I stupidly presume to know what it would have been like for that generation when Operation Fork happened, but in spite of the fact that the UK military were on Icelandic soil to fight the Nazis, there is a greater sense of weight in how this depicts it almost as a farce, a stop gap where bars of chocolate are likely to have a more lasting influence than the biggest conflict on the 20^th century.

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1) The Occupation of Iceland During World War II, written by Sunna Olafson Furstenau and published for Icelandic Roots on May 25th 2023.

Long Dream (2000)

 

Director: Higuchinsky

Screenplay: Higuchinsky and Kyoichi Nanatsuki

Based on the short manga by Junji Ito

Cast: Kenjirô Tsuda as Doctor Yamauchi; Tsugumi as Takeshima Mami; Eriko Hatsune as Kana Sakurai; Masami Horiuchi as Kuroda; Shûji Kashiwabara as Mukoda Tetsurou

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows)

 

Once I searched for a restroom for eight years. It was agony.

Adapting Junji Ito, a seventeen year old girl with a benign tumour named Mami (Tsugumi) is in hospital, a person in a constant state of panic fearing her impending death. To review this adaptation of Long Dream, an obscure title from Higuchinsky, the Ukraine born Japanese director who adapted Uzumaki for a 2000 film, I will have to spoil the source manga as this elaborates beyond the whole story into its own narrative, starting with that she is terrified by another patient who is physically changed and evokes the Grim Reaper to her. This male patient named Tetsurou (Shûji Kashiwabara), who is being treated by an older male doctor, was afraid of sleeping, suffering from "Long Dreams", lucid ones that can feel two days long and full of nightmares, increasing in their length of time to months and centuries.

They are strange dreams of being a soldier, forced to eat his own feet, or cramming for an exam for a year and a half. The longer dreams however, as they continue, lead to full body mutation, a transcendental transformation into an almost alien entity. Where Long Dream the film changes, actually from the source, is that its halfway point is the final twist of the manga. That, when Tetsurou passes his body into the endless dream, it dissolves to dust and leaves a substance which may be responsible for the dreams, leading to medical malpractice as, with memories of a young woman in his life, another patient with a benign tumour named Kana (Eriko Hatsune), the older doctor "treats" Mani by injecting her with this substance, starting her into having long dreams.  

The work, only under an hour and premiered as a TV movie for TV Asahi, feels like a segment from a live action Junji Ito television anthology we never got, which includes its aesthetic touches. For those unaware of Ito, starting as a comic book author in the late eighties, he became a legendary figure in his homeland for horror comics, to the point of even adapting Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human into his own takes, whilst taking into the 2010s to be a figure we fully embraced in the West, becoming his own man in the world of graphic novels and Japanese manga as a result, admired as he is as much a meme too. In terms of trying to adapt his work though, there is not as much as you would think, Long Dream one of the first. Most of it is stripped down drama, in a muted looking hospital environment, barring that Tetsurou when he is transformed brings in a monster from a b-movie, trying to replicate in its own virtues the idiosyncrasies of Junji Ito's work. Ito's has been incredibly difficult to recreate as, not only has he access to unbridled imagination with his talents, but because one of Ito's more difficult to depict trademarks is fine detail, in the designs of the horrific sights but even the faces of characters in terror or menace. This evokes Uzumaki, Higuchinsky's more well known adaptation, which had to openly embrace its obvious CGI, in accepting how ridiculous its more macabre content looks. Ito embraces the ridiculous as he does legitimately horrifying content - as Uzumaki has spirals the source of terror and people turning into snail people - but his craft is a nightmare to adapt even in animation well, and especially for live action even with prosthetics effects. Long Dream was a tale you could, barring some creepy monster makeup, make in limitations.

Where Long Dream though fumbles, even if of note, are Higuchinsky and co-writer Kyoichi Nanatsuki's inclusions after the original story ends. It becomes about the older doctor, as Mami has dreams which cause her, when awake, to kill someone and fall into a realm between dreams, all whilst he is fixated on trying to reach Kana, the deceased woman he loved, in the endless dreams. It leads to the obvious cliché in the end that he finds himself in a dream where he does not know where he is awake or not, which for some will be an immediate cop-out. The film has a gleefully pulpy tone, where it undercuts the dramatic monologue of not being able to get into the world of dreams by bashing someone's head in, but this ending will be full cheese, certainly being an unnecessary touch when, actually, the premise of stretching the source's final twist works enough by itself. That of medical malpractice is fascinating, when it should lead, with the doctor experimenting on himself, to his downfall as much as Mani's transformation being a clear signpost to happen. Long Dream, which is an obscure work which is difficult to see, is slight, another curious, worth a rediscovery now Junji Ito is a huge figure nowadays in the West as much as in Japan, but that ending will frustrate some.

Out of Time (1988)

 

Director: Robert Butler

Screenplay: Brian Alan Lane, John J. Sakmar and Kerry Lenhart

Cast: Bruce Abbott as Channing Taylor; Bill Maher as Maxwell Taylor; Rebecca Schaeffer as Pam Wallace; Kristian Alfonso as Cassandra Barber; Leo Rossi as Ed Hawkins; Ray Girardin as Capt. Krones; Adam Ant as Richard Marcus

Ephemeral Waves

 

One among many feature length television pilots to shows that never came to be, Out of Time instead exists just as an NBC TV movie, one which never became the series it intended to be, and opens up with matte shots of a cyberpunk state in 2088. Thermo vision/night vision glasses are standard for police, looking like a pair of 3D paper glasses, in a world where there was a nuclear ban in 2012 and police work has changed radically to using technology and cerebral methods of stopping crime. Unfortunately, the great grandfather of Channing Taylor (Bruce Abbott), the man who innovated this new policing system and is held as a divine figure in police work named Maxwell Taylor (Bill Maher), is a shadow whose weight it too heavy for Channing. Channing is also a classic cop who shots first and asks questions later, now as a result in this different world a a "departmental hemorrhoid" suspended for not living up to a grandfather who was more careful in his police work. When trying to catch Richard Marcus, who in the many curious casting choices here is played by Adam Ant of all people, he first is suspended, then when Marcus is found having tried to acquire experimental time travel technology, Channing tracks him down and ends up back in 1988 as a result trying to find his man.

The cast is one of the most prominent aspects of the entire production. Born Stuart Goddard, Adam Ant's music went over in the USA, but here in Britain, a certain age group will have to think of songs like Prince Charming and Stand and Deliver, will know him as a musical icon at one point, and may not known Ant went into acting. Channing as our lead, who will be transported from 2088 to 1988 by a time machine Adam Ant wants to use for nefarious leads, is Bruce Abbott, who most know in cult circles for Re-Animator (1985), and his grandfather Maxwell is Bill Maher, an actor-comedian who would go on to be a political pundit, in hindsight a strange choice for a geeky put-upon cop his own colleagues laugh at, also played like a frankly sexist man who will use the sci-fi x-ray glasses on a woman's clothes, and is meant to be the underdog promoting non-violent and cerebal policing techniques.

Leaving behind a girlfriend, an NBC news reporter, for the past, Channing is going to effectively play out Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) of a future person being befuddled by the then modern world. That when there was the Big Library Fire in his timeline, with books a rare possession, and 107 Stephen King books having been written, suddenly he returns to 1988 where a library exists. Plutonium batteries from the future are naturally unavailable and even pre-marital sex and cigarettes baffle Channing. Honestly, barring the sombre finale, where it becomes clear he will not see his girlfriend far in the future, Out of Time does pad its length with a light comedy tone which for some will not be that interesting, unless you look at this as another curiosity of weird television premises. There was an obsession with cop shows in particular, over decades, in having cops' souls transmogrify into British bulldogs, cops who can grow toys with their dead son's souls in them really big, or serious cop shows which are also musicals, all examples of real premises and pilots which came to be, coming off as attempts to refresh a genre which on television was recycled greatly. Watching more of these, I wish a new program existed that remade all these premises within it in the same world. The grandson from the future is apt among the same police division, even if in its original context of Out of Time, some will find it a sluggish production.

It is a work whose sci-fi tropes are also clearly worked around by setting it in 1988, jettisoning most of all the opening quarter barring the sci-fi guns. The one aspect which tries to fit its sci-fi premise are some of its odder techniques in editing, especially with the time travel, where the screen distorts and shakes for long periods at a time as if, having to view this from a VHS rip, the version a viewer may see effected the content unintentionally. It is trippy, and it is the one aspect to a conventional narrative, in the end, of a nerd cop and a future cop left partially dim-witted in the past which plays out very conventionally. Even that Adam Ant is here, a flamboyant factor as an English musician dressed as if he should be in Alan Rudolph's Trouble in Mind (1985) does not really stand out, and only a sombre ending, involving a copy of Shakespeare's' Sonnets with a torn page which will travel through time, which does have a surprising level of tragedy to it, has anything which stands out as strong or distinct here. The TV movie exists as a fascinating curiosity, but as that, one which managed to get even a British VHS release, but is an obscurity nowadays.

Whether it could have lead to a good series or not is up-in-the-air, though there is sadly a grim reality at hand that the romantic female lead, Rebecca Schaeffer, would be killed by a stalker a year after this premiered in 1989, which adds an uncomfortable "what if" to history that is to be discretely ignored.  As it stands, there was the true likelihood, in one reality, Out of Time would have still been cancelled after one season, as unless more science fiction tropes were brought in, the time travel machine is erased as a quantity by the end of this pilot, with only the idea of Maxwell beginning to design the technology his great-grandson Channel would use, as well as find his true brave self, the last semblance of the prologue. Again, so many of these types of productions exist, were never successful, and end up fished off of YouTube and VHS rips, and with only speculation to consider, just from this one entry, it is watchable but a production which is, to use one word, "okay" with all the average connotations that suggest.

Hard Evidence (1994)

 

Director: Jan Egleson

Screenplay: Richard Rashke

Cast: Kate Jackson as Sandra Clayton; John Shea as Tommy Marchant; Terry O'Quinn as Wiley; Beth Broderick as Melissa Brewer; Jennifer Guthrie as Beth Tyler; Rand Courtney as Shane Clayton; Megan Gallacher as Shannon; Gustave Johnson as Agent Curtis; Dean Stockwell as Commissioner Sam Caldwell

Ephemeral Waves

 

There is an entire world of made-for-TV cinema, including true crime dramas and melodramas, and this is my tentative toe dip into that out of curiosity. They are something many are probably aware of, but who talks of them? Baring infamous or acclaimed examples, they are something to consider as more people and distributors look back at them with interest, finding the ones of virtue even if during the DVD area, a film like Hard Evidence were being released in the United Kingdom. The American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) toe dipped into this area too, specifically with their licensing of films owned by Multicon, allowing theatrical screenings in the United States to be booked for a film like Death of a Cheerleader (1994)¹, a film based on the real-life murder of Kirsten Costas. Hard Evidence, originally called Justice in a Small Town, would never become a cult film in truth. Starting off explaining itself as based on a real tale, but with the names changed, this is a tale set in Georgia involving corruption in their Labour Department, one which will combine crime, romance, thriller and the struggles of being a single mother together into one film. Whilst sadly not in the film as much as one would hope for, Dean Stockwell is the corrupt commissioner Sam Caldwell, which is great casting.

More surprising is Beth Broderick, who I remember as the wisest of the aunts from Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996-2002), a Melissa Joan Hart sitcom for young teens I used to watch as a kid. There are many potential surprises with this area of cinema, such as surprise appearances from actors outside their usual territory, and whilst Hard Evidence did not live up to what one would hope, the one image I will have is this figure from childhood nostalgia playing a seductive Southern Belle, one who in the office is the figure who helps acquire new female employees for to send to parties and for men to have sex with like a brothel Madame. That was a surprise.

Not a lot can be further elaborated on Hard Evidence, as this is one of those story driven films which are solidly made, but honestly do not stick out in anything. It is fascinating to watch in terms of how, reflecting back, a film tackling political corruption in the 2010s onwards would have people on multiple sides of the political spectrum arguing for it, toeither praise it for its bravery or challenge it for being liberal propaganda, whilst there is a TV film from the nineties here which has its entire set in this subject. It does not even wait to get to this point, set up with single mother Sandra Clayton, played by Kate Jackson, immediately starting work as a secretary where everything is openly rotten. Her immediate boss if a slime ball that has new female staff hired by Melissa Brewer, played by Broderick, just to blackmail into sexual favours to keep their jobs, forces staff to also pay for a new car for Stockwell's birthday, and is even involving in drug smuggling. This film does emphasise a paradox with many media - lifestyle magazines, TV movies - which do not explicitly tackle adult subjects onscreen but still are obsessed with true crime, corruption, or subjects like domestic violence and murder, a vicarious nature to this work even if moralising which this film does admittedly get into when it becomes more genre in its plotting with supposed real life events. There is one scene, I would suspect was not in the TV broadcast, in Hard Evidence which is done entirely seriously, and we will get to, which is incredible strong whilst being tastefully done, but the same applies here. It eventually becomes quaint, in spite of itself, ending on a wedding with a group photo and charming music over the screen as if this had been a melodrama and only that.

That scene, of a prelude to a female employee being raped by a corrupt upper class man she is forced to be with, involving nudity, is a surprise, as it is very explicit in content and context, the catalyst for Sandra to start digging up dirt on her bosses with Tommy Marchant (John Shea), a male member of staff fully involved with the shadier side but sick of it, falling for Sandra at the same time he wants too to whistle blow the corruption.

The film onwards is a pot boiler which is ultimately just average in the sense that it is interesting to watch, but after the experience was ultimately passing time, not feeling the weight of the material. Scored to a surprising southern rock score, this juggles a lot in hindsight, which makes the okay nature actually detraction. Romance is there with the leads, as they gather evidence and both, he more so, are threatened by being found out. There is domestic drama as her teenage son hates his mother being out for work, then eventually learns of her goal to bring down Stockwell and supporting her when the tension and danger grows. And there is thriller in how, when a FBI employee appears, mistaken for an assassin, eventually the lead pair has ominous threats over the phone and trying wire tapping to deal with. This is a lot to work with, not just for entertainment but just a subject, but it skims past it all in the end.

That this is even about political corruption this casually depicted is odd nowadays decades later to revisit. No one bats an eye with a film like this having came out once ago, set in the South, suggesting political corruption at any level, whether it is a good film or not. Probably the one thing to say of this film is that its images of political corrupt are neutered as merely corrupt figures, without addressing the cause of such figures existentially, something which jars when discussing these subjects, especially sexual harassment and violence in real cases of corrupt male figures, in real life. That is likely the reason this film exists and probably no one bats an eye to it. This film still exists in a wholesome moralisation in the end, in spite of the one uncomfortable sequence which shocks in actually showing sexual violence, a character as much allowed to exist herself without the ramifications fully depicted and she, in truth, being fully fleshed out as a human being who can even overcome such a horrible event. Dramatically this is dry and merely okay, one which does not stand out. Instead, this the curious film to witness off the beaten path, effectively of the mainstream even if most have never even heard of it, one whose inertness in itself causes one to ponder like this.

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1) For AGFA, it is definitely in mind to the film Death of a Cheerleader being sold as a cult film, with the description, in their theatrical film catalog, of it being "a mean-girl melodrama with campy charm".

The Boy from Hell (2004)

 

Director: Mari Asato

Screenplay: Seiji Tanigawa and Naoteru Yamamoto

Based on the work by Hideshi Hino

Cast: Mirai Yamamoto as Setsu/Dr. Emma; Mitsuru Akaboshi as Daio

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #38

 

One more brain transplant will save him!

Hideshi Hino, the manga author behind the source material, does not play the meek author in the opening of The Boy from Hell, an episode of the show Hideshi Hino's Theatre of Horror (2004). Hino is not like Junji Ito who, whilst having depicted himself in his manga as a man close to insanity, in real life is a meek man, as well as writing mind bending tales like Uzumaki (1998-9), who also wrote manga about his cats. Hino depicts himself here entirely on the cusp of the void, wishing his nightmares on a person in voice over, his manga written in a grimy apartment based on his real sins, as a young woman perishes in a doomed fate before the episode proper starts. Only the grotesqueness of his work, and a knowing sense of humour throughout, prevents this turning into Garth Marenghi, even if The Boy from Hell is a fun piece to introduce myself to his work.

The TV episode, nearly feature length, clearly has a sense of humour when said boy, the resurrected son of a female doctor, jumps head first into his own reflection at one point, and smashes his face into it, staring at himself confused afterwards. The set-up does not hide the absurdity of this, even if it becomes a grimly humoured work with gristly content. In a green screened car, the son named Daio reminds one why you never stick your head out of a moving vehicle when, cruising with his mother Dr. Emma (Mirai Yamamoto) and their elder male servant, he gets decapitated by a truck. Mrs Emma is informed by a random old woman at his grave that, if she uses the tusk the old woman has, slicing a boy's throat open onto the grave, Daio will be resurrected. One terminally ill boy in her hospital later, and Daio is resurrected. Unfortunately, he looks like a ghoul once he springs out the grave, with a similar ghoul's taste in human flesh.

Set to an almost Goblin-like score, barring the Theremin like synth, this low budget work is over-the-top, and one of the incentives as well is that this is directed by Mari Asato, one of the few horror films directed by a woman from the 2000s. Here she is playing with an over-the-top farce as, puffy eyed and fanged, Daio keeps escaping and eating the locals at night, as the film skirts between intentional and unintentional humour as a low budget TV production with a lot of gore. Some of this is exceptionally dark, as this has no qualms even off-screen of killing many children, but the humour is clearly there on purpose, with an idyllic scene of mother and son undercut, alongside him being in a wheelchair with his head entirely bandaged, by the shot of a pigeon having landed on his head. Nor the fact that the other main character cannot be ignored as anything else by intentionally farcical, a detective who can smell crime and the actor I noticed near the end has a giant fake nose on. Even his introduction suggests this, involving finding the old woman from earlier dead on Dr. Emma's doorstep, having crawled all the way there, and not questioning Dr. Emma for how the elderly woman got there.  

The film is helped, even in mind to its clear budget limitations, because of these tone, the gristly contrasting with the silly, all heightened knowing it is schlocky and embracing it regardless of the matter-of-factness of the ordinary locations. Hideshi Hino's work, looking at it, is very exaggerated and unrealistic at times just in character designs, which this looks virtually alien to, but he would have been proud of how this compensates for this in tone, such as including the most awkward birthday party ever when the birthday boy is chained up with a Hannibal Lecter mask on. Mari Asato does as much as she can with a limited budget, one of the weirdest moments reflecting its lack of budget by constantly referring to a superimposed nightmare hell, Buddhist Hell as depicted by way of early 2000s low budget computer layering. With a giant version of Daio imposed over actors in black undergarments being beaten, chewed on and crushed, it becomes more bizarre as the detective himself does eventually find the entrance there in a tunnel, when you presumed before it was just a reoccurring dream sequence.

It is an acquired taste, undeniably, but as part of this era, it follows my great taste for obscurer Japanese horror. Whether animated or live action, even something like this has an unique energy, coupled by the fact this still takes itself seriously, even here ending as a tragedy despite the fact this narrative has had an attempted brain transplant to cure Daio, which does not work, or the genre trope of glass jugs of dangerous acid which someone always gets in the face. Mari Asato has thankfully progressed on, making it her filmography to stay in horror cinema, even getting to higher budgeted work like Fatal Frame (2014), which is a good thing. As for Hideshi Hino, and his TV show, The Boy from Hell was defiantly an incentive to explore his work now; even with the absurdness of the initial introduction video, this stands out for depiction his lurid works.

Killdozer! (1974)

 

Director: Jerry London

Screenplay: Ed MacKillop and Theodore Sturgeon

Based on the novella by Theodore Sturgeon

Cast: Clint Walker as Lloyd Kelly; Carl Betz as Dennis Holvig; Neville Brand as 'Chub' Foster; James Wainwright as Jules 'Dutch' Krasner; James A. Watson Jr. as Al Beltran; Robert Urich as 'Mack' McCarthy

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #259

 

It's too heavy to hang and it's too big to put in the gas chamber.

What is a killdozer? That sounds almost a joke, but this term has three meanings, four if you include the original novella by Theodore Sturgeon that connects to the others. One is, sadly, a real incident named after the short story, where after a series of conflicts with the local government in Granby, Colorado, a man named Marvin Heemeyer on June 4, 2004 went on a rampage. With a modified armour-plated Komatsu D355A bulldozer which even had guns fitted inside to fire, he managed to destroyed multiple buildings, including the town hall, though this thankfully led to no one being harmed baring Heemeyer's own suicide. Thankfully, the other two Killdozers are pleasanter. One, likely getting its name from the TV movie we will cover here, is a Wisconsin noise rock band behind a goofy yet catchy song called Knuckles the Dog (Who Helps People), of the era in the early 90s, thanks to grunge and Nirvana, when very unconventional areas of rock got even mainstream interest in belief they could be sold to the public. The third is the TV movie itself, infamous as a film, readapting the 1944 novella which was originally set in World War II and a Pacific Island, transporting it to the modern day and an island off the coast of the African continent.  

About a bulldozer possessed by an alien life-force, mowing down a group of male construction employees on said island, Killdozer the film is fascinating as, if ever one wanted to point out what American seventies cinema was like, even this ludicrous premise is taken with all the gravitas of the New American cinema wave of the era, as if the script was penned by Paul Schrader with Sam Peckinpath directing this. It is about a group of men, some broken down and one a former alcoholic, all outsiders, isolated and facing their own morality except the fact it is a giant Caterpillar D9 bulldozer which terrorises them, even having ominous shots watching them over them burying a fallen comrade on the beach, looking over on a hill nearby. Jaws (1975) was this, released a year later, with men facing a shark, but no one would bat an eyelid, even if the legendary USS Indianapolis speech by Robert Shaw in a contest with industrial vehicles would be ridiculous. John Carpenter effectively took this film's tone with some of his films, but even Christine (1983), about a sentient car, was not this po-faced. Killdozer because of this tonal schism was compelling for me.

Killdozer is a bleak film in tone, even if this is about a bulldozer being compelled to murder due to contacting with a glowing blue meteorite. This is a film about men isolated where, when one is killed due to the shock of just the bulldozer scoop hitting the meteorite, already forces the tiny group to have to mourn their death, including Dutch (James Wainwright), a member who mourns him the most and who goes through the most compelling journey. Their foreman Kelly (Clint Walker), due to a history of alcoholism, is almost robotic in his coldness, as he tries to get them to keep working until it becomes obvious what is attacking them. Even if Dutch, losing his mind and becoming more childlike as he copes in memories, suggests there has to be a logical explanation for all this, including remote control, they realise quickly this is an inhuman circumstance. The absurdity is not even a killdozer, a giant monstrosity of a machine which can crush and destroy, but how this is depicted includes the logical gap that, whilst able to gain some speed, this cast could easily outrun it on foot.

Barring the sci-fi beeping noises it makes, the grounded production style, matter-of-fact in an era prolific of television movies, fits this film's severity in tone. A brisk film in pace, with no fat at all, this could almost work barring presentation details which helped with its infamy. The film even in a way deals with its absurd premise outright in thought, as the survivors have to contemplate with how, if they live, they explain the casualties and property damage to their superiors, even if they have to accept that telling the truth will brand them insane. There is a line which, knowing of before seeing the film, is absurd when heard of, pointing out that you cannot hang a bulldozer for murder practically, but spoken from Dennis (Carl Betz), the right hand man of Kelly, it does come with a morbid humour from this character, a figure is sardonic, accepting this dumb situation. It does not defend the film's truly haphazard tone, entirely because of what it is about, but it does ask of why a premise like this is ridiculous, helping the film get a cult reputation. Something about cursed objects in horror, certain examples, are more accepted than others but it depends on what they are. These objects like a bulldozer are banal objects, though a Caterpillar D9 is an intimidating machine even used in military service. This is not the same as a film called The Refrigerator (1991), which played to its absurd premise, where the concept of what is possessed sounds inherently ridiculous, though a giant American fridge if hit with would still kill someone. Here, presentation, with its headlights made eyes and its habit of driving around in circles like a lunatic, is where the strangeness lies.

More so as, adding to the serious tone, the cast whilst mostly of television fame are the sort of character actors of this era in American cinema which really emphasises the era this was made in. Clint Walker was the long western television series Cheyenne (1955-1962), whilst the other figure ultimately a protagonist is Carl Betz as Dennis, a prolific television actor who did dabble in cinema too. One actor who definitely cements how even the casting is of its time, and the one actor I recognised and was happy to see, is Neville Brand as 'Chub' Foster, who I know as an immediately recognisable face, of granite, from Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive (1977), playing the owner of a hotel who keeps a man-eating crocodile in the back waters.

It does emphasis how tone and circumstance does drastically effect a story as, if made in the 2000s, a made-for-television work like this would be possible taken as serious, but not as severe in tone, likely have more than just male actors in the case, or if with the SyFy channel, possible made like their many monster movies of the era with obvious CGI and a possible ironic edge. Killdozer is, as made-for-TV horror films go, one that is iconic though for me always heard as in a notorious way. It is undeniably silly, but I found myself compelled by it taking itself so serious, and being well made, that it comes off even more compelling as a pop cultural artefact for having virtues too.

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.

Three Crowns of the Sailor (1983)

 

Director: Raúl Ruiz

Screenplay: Raúl Ruiz

Cast: Jean-Bernard Guillard as The Sailor; Philippe Deplanche as Tadeusz Krasinski, The Student; Jean Badin as The First Officer; Nadège Clair as María; Lisa Lyon as Matilde; Claude Derepp as The Ship's Captain; Franck Oger as The Blind Man; Diogo Dória as The Sailor's Sister's Fiancé

An Abstract Candidate

 

Don't stare or you'll end up like me.

Initially, I could almost view Three Crowns of the Sailor as being more subdued than some of the other productions I have seen just from Raúl Ruiz's eighties period, but then again his films can be subjective, and as this French production continues its world becomes more and more dreamlike as it continues. It is certainly one which is structured carefully and simple to grasp - a student (Philippe Deplanche), after murdering hsi professor, encounters a nameless sailor (Jean-Bernard Guillard), who will help him escape onto his ship providing he provides him three Danish crown coins before dawn and listens to his tale. Set in (mostly) black-and-white, this bookend follows on, in full colour to the sailor's experiences when he encountered the crew of the Funchalense and left home. The ship, naturally, is mysterious, travelling on its way from Singapore to Tangiers, the sailor encountering various people who will become memories to create a new family from when he has left his.

The crew themselves are eccentric and alien. The captain is obsessed, even in his dreams, of singing Beethoven's Ode to Joy, and there is a cruel hierarchy including that those loyal to the ship have letters marked in tattoos to their skin, connected to a tapestry the captain is sewing with the letters on in his spare time. When one crew member decides to throw himself overboard in disgust to his lot, he immediately appears the next day obvious to what he has done. They do not even use the bathroom; at least defecate, as the sailor learns when instead they sweat maggots from their skin. Obviously, something is amiss, [Spoilers] as Ruiz is adapting the Chilean legend of the Caleuche, the ship of the dead, from the Chilean director. [Spoilers End] But he is less interested in the obvious narrative then the sailor's journey, which in itself is an ode to the world of storytelling, where Ruiz himself in his career would have tangents, diversions and layers of stories upon layers which is continued here.

The sailor's life on the ship will lead him to encounter in Singapore a doctor in the body of a young boy, aging backwards like Benjamin Button if not fed, to a young woman in a Columbian brothel called Maria whose meek manner is contrasted by her living quarters, a bedroom where on the bed and even hung on the ceiling are many dolls, with glowing ominous eyes, and where she keeps her possessions in a full sized coffin, including marking all the men who come to her on the lid in chewed up multi-coloured gum she has had. To see Ruiz's work, especially in the rare moment you are graced with a fully restored version than the VHS hazed rips that a lot of his career exist in, shows how exceptional he is as a filmmaker but also how unconventional. The eighties was his most prolific and weirdest part of his career, and with the legendary Last Year in Marienbad (1961) cinematographer Sacha Vierny with him, Ruiz's world here is a thing of eerie beauty. Rich coloured gels and lighting dye the world, filmed in natural locations, from the purplish of purples to the reddest of reds. One thing, seeing his work as it should, which stands out is his curious and inspired framing of shots which keeps one off-guard, inspired by his love of Orson Welles and his use of the visual frame. He is obsessed with objects and figures in the foreground and background, taking advantage of the three dimensional space in the two dimensional image, whether a hand buttering food, a cup or even a scabby wart covered foot.

The most amazing thing about this beautiful aesthetic is that Three Crowns of the Sailor was originally commissioned as a made-for-television film. That is not a bias against made-for-television films, as if anything with a man who made moving images in all mediums as one breathed oxygen, Ruiz here with Vierny, ­his wife and frequent editor Valeria Sarmiento, and everyone who collaborated on the project effectively show the a television commission is good enough to be shown on even a theatrical screen. This style is, also, where Ruiz can wrong foot a viewer. Sometimes it is overt - a bravado first person shot from the captain of the ship playing cards with the sailor, giant hands with cards greeting one in the image - but as the film becomes more and more haunted, and weirder, the style is able to effortlessly bring this about in mood. Three Crowns is subdued at first, a slow burn as the sailor enters the world of sailing, but even this is marked in oddness. The celebration for his leaving by his family and the neighbourhood is heightened, even before a frame or two is edited in of men with masks on, and whether a result of damage of the restored negative/film source or intentional, it starts the many scenes with blue faded marks on the image itself.

The introduction to Maria, in her oblique and apologetic tone and her collection of dolls, introduces more of the surreal in the sailor's tale. His story is less overtly bizarre, fed on the influence of classic storytelling Ruiz will gladly even evoke in a library shelf of such titles in one scene, but in exaggeration. A scene with a young boy who saves his life has many globes of the world in the room, and when he does become overtly surreal, the sequences are more striking. The most striking is Mathilde (Lisa Lyon), the erotic dancer the sailor becomes fixated on, until the point he learns that beyond her mouth, her body is literally like a doll's. This can be interpreted in a crass way, that she herself blatantly says she has to do everything with her mouth, but even to the point of fake female genitalia we discretely see placed on the table, the most surreal of scenes in Three Crowns of the Sailor, and its most extreme, also is definitely one few would have expected to find in a film. It also still means something as, in his search for something real, the sailor's finds himself trapped in another illusion again as a result than what he wanted.

On a surface level, Three Crowns of the Sailor was just a wonderful, strange pleasure of storytelling itself. A work which is entirely about the spun stories of the sea, the sailors exchanging them and spiralling out in their elaborateness as they are retold by others. The only consistent, between the ship sinking only to return in another harbour to a blind man who lied so much one cannot gather truth from him, is money which proves the sailor's downfall. Even said money, in various currencies, blurs into each other in what it is. Said film, by itself, is a thing of utmost beauty even in its strangest and unnerving aspects, for the story of the student returns and, in his hasty and violent reaction to the sailor's stalling, he realises the trap he has found himself in. As a film, part of the tapestry I found myself submerged in years ago, tales-within-tales, it is an experience I am ever grateful to have had finally.

 

Abstract Spectrum: Dreamlike/Surreal

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

Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue (1990)

 

Director: Milton Gray, Marsh Lamore, Robert Shellhorn, Mike Svayko and Karen Peterson

Screenplay: Duane Poole and Tom Swale

Voice Cast: George C. Scott as Smoke; Jason Marsden as Michael; Don Messick as Papa Smurf; Lorenzo Music as Garfield; Laurie O'Brien as Baby Piggy / Mom; Lindsay Parker as Corey; Janice Karman as Theodore (voice); Jim Cummings as Tigger / Winnie the Pooh; Ross Bagdasarian Jr. As Alvin / Simon (voice); Jeff Bergman as Bugs Bunny / Daffy Duck; Townsend Coleman as Michelangelo / Dad; Russi Taylor as Huey / Dewey / Louie / Baby Gonzo; Frank Welker as Slimer / Baby Kermit / Hefty Smurf; Barbara Bush as Self; George Bush as Self; Paul Fusco as Gordon 'ALF' Shumway

Obscurities, Oddities and One-Offs

Now I'm seeing ducks!

Beginning with the Ronald McDonald Children's Charity, with Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue recovered from a VHS rip, we start with an advertising where children of various disabilities and social standings smile to the camera in idyllic commercial depictions of childhood, happy and with a children's chorus evoking the ideals of charity and contributing to those in need. We forget that whatever one's opinion of McDonalds and any corporation in general¹, with this the fast food franchise's charity part of their public face, any business has to account for the world around them. This includes various attempts at charity and "community service" for a lack of a better term depending on whether they sincerely desire to help the public or if for dubious means. This is also important to think of as that charity also helped produce this curious combination of public scares and pop culture, a very odd one where, not since Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) and all the hurdles to get Warner Brothers and Disney to agree to let their characters co-exist on the same screen, this is done for the sake of a fear of children getting into narcotics and done as a public health service.

Likewise, the prelude to this infamous cartoon special about saying no to drugs also includes an address by the then-president George Bush Sr. with his wife Barbara Bush, hoping this work would be advancement on the war on drugs the USA was involved in this period. It is surreal to envision or even see this piece, from a Buena Vista International distributed production; the imagine of Donald Trump, when he was president, sat on a couch with Ivanka Trump, addressing an audience like this feels a foreign and peculiar world on long ago. Baraka and Michelle Obama maybe, but what Cartoon All-Stars... is, if also a vague and misguided attempt at social consciousness, is also a fascinating time capsule that, were it not for all the rights negotiations that may be involved to re-release it, does show a period where children from the USA especially grew up with "say no to drugs" campaigning, this just one of the various ways to promote the message over various pop culture. There is even a reference to Freddy Krueger of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise in dialogue which, alongside how peculiar it was a horror villain known as a child murderer managed to be referenced even in this production, goes to show the era it was made in was a time ago. The reason why this one is known and infamous is that, for this tale of a teenage boy named Michael, an added surrealism of having this writer's name, we have the likes of Garfield interacting with the Muppet Babies to help him kick drugs. Where the evil smoke figure on the opposite should, tempting poor Michael to crack, is voiced by the legendary actor George C. Scott, and where it effectively turns into an animated version of Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend (1945), only with the addict protagonist seeing Donald Duck's nephews rather than bats...who then start to sing.

Now the layman will be aware that the issue of drugs in modern culture has yet to be resolved. Marijuana being legalised in states in America is a huge change - where Simon of the Chipmunks is able to inform everyone what one is but it is still considered the gateway drug to worse narcotics - but instead of mocking Cartoon All-Stars... however, the bigger tragedy is that this was the work of earnestness by conservative/corporate USA, whether the people animating and voicing the film were actually earnest in the goal or not, which was inevitably going to be doomed to squareness about the subject. It actually feels like a perversity in itself, in truth, when you have these characters materialise from the toys and possessions Michael's younger sister has (the likes of the Smurfs to Winnie the Pooh), looking and sounding as we may have grown up with them, only for the harsh reality of them to have to encounter drug addiction. Even if the box hidden under Michael's bed is full of weird alien forms of narcotic tools, it feels wrong for this to have transpired, despite the many parodies which may have existed. Winnie the Pooh's obsession with honey and demeanour should raise suspicions, Garfield was always cynical, and out of all the Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles to be included, the only one being Michelangelo the party dude feels strange unless he is a teetotaller surfer dude, but with the other characters it feels like a moral transgression if you think of how these characters have been brought into the subject where, for all the dancing around actually talking about real drugs and their effects, "crack" is actually referenced at one point.

For myself, missing this anti-drug campaigning by being too young and British, I did nonetheless grow up with some of these characters. I remember Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Smurfs, the Ninja Turtles and Garfield cartoons. Then there are figures only know in the UK in hushed voices and Simpsons references like Alf: a cat eating alien (who threatens to eat Garfield in the one darkly humorous line) who started as a live action character, got an animated work to qualify here and eventually had a cancelled talk show in 2004.  And in some cases, there are characters being used for this moralising which is actually a transgression against them rather than feeling too innocent to be involved. The rumour, which has never been substantiated and was eventually debunked², was that Jim Davidson, the creator of Garfield, did not get his permission to include Garfield which compromised future screenings. I am, however, thinking of someone like Bugs Bunny, who here with Daffy Duck was the first time someone else ever took on the role after Mel Blanc. God knows anyone who has actually seen at least one of the old Bugs Bunny shorts where Tex Avery/Friz Freleng/Bob Clampett school made him the ultimate libertine of cartoons, who dressed as women constantly and was an utter spiteful misanthrope to suckers, the kind of figure whose morally concerned version here vastly contrasts a character more likely to be on jazz cigarettes himself.

The fact all these characters, including their voice actors, were pulled together is spectacular, and the animation is not bad. Even for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which I have already referred to, it took Steven Spielberg at the height of his powers (just as a production) to be in the same room so rivals Disney and Warner Brothers would allow Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny onscreen together, and even then there had to be rules set in stone. Here, under the auspices of protecting children from drugs, more influence was found if dooming this special due to the obvious copyright issues now to deal with. In terms of voice acting, whilst there are some legendary if underappreciated voice actors here (like Frank Welker, the living zoological database for animal real or imagined), the one big gleeful discovery for a cineaste is one of the only animated roles for George C. Scott as the evil Smoke, a tempting vapour who promoted those evil nasty drugs on young adolescents. It was probably a pay day, but George C. Scott was one of those character actors who could make any production better just because he was there and he was the best thing in Cartoon All Stars... as to be expected. In fact, the Smoke character, a purple cloud of smoke in a suit, is the one intelligent aspect of the short, Smoke's temptations and threats having a weight to them with the legendary Dr. Strangelove actor voice and that the dialogue does not shy away from him still being a threat even when Michael kicks the drugs.

The message itself is vague and confused, and that is the ultimate reason anyone understandably mocks the short. It does not dare try to explain why drugs are harmful, throwing weed under the bus in the same light as crack, when they are in different categories, and depicting the damage caused by them through nightmare scenarios that feel like they are drug hallucinations themselves rather than the real grim toll they cause. From the deranged theme park of roller coasters through the brain matter and the hall of distorting mirrors, to a musical number where the song is about saying no to drugs in various ways, it never dares scare children with the truth of the harm drugs can cause. Neither does it even admit why anyone would be hooked barring some platitudes of curiosity and stress. What it does instead is just a fantasy scenario - where Bugs Bunny borrows a time machine "from some coyote" to take Michael to the past where he first took weed, all in black and white in one clever touch, before going on to a series of scenes of him suffering hallucinogenic nightmares, including a sewer full of multicoloured sludge or a carnival where a giant Miss Piggy sucks him up in a drink's straw. The many shots of what Michael will look like ravaged by drugs instead looks like a zombie, not factual accuracy to the real toll of narcotics, where animation in its exaggeration betrays the message.

If the finale of the short did not scare you off drugs, there are moments where it does completely contradict itself, not at least a father whose beer drinking is not thrown under the bus too in the one line it is brought up in. The entire scenario is the product of squares pulling their punches and being uncomfortable even trying to talk about drugs, only referencing a few and leaving the others vague which is a dangerous thing in itself, the sense that instead we will put a really ominous synth drone when crack is mentioned and that will be enough, all in a video gaming arcade when this happens to emphasis the clichés of that being a den of debauchery. The only sense of adult thoughtfulness is that aforementioned line of dialogue that Smoke, Scott's villain, promises to return at the end like the nagging potential for relapse, a detail which is an actual struggle for some addicts and the one only honest consideration. The rest is deeply silly and not surprisingly was the sort of thing dope heads could smoke pot and laugh at as was the case for Reefer Madness (1936). In terms of a cultural artefact, I do find it compelling and recommend people find this; in fact, as with any project, I wish it was legally available as, even as an animated project, contextually it is a really unique piece and, in its own perverse existence, is watchable.  The weirdness of the project in itself is enough to recommend anyone look into.

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1) I have softened to McDonalds, both because in Britain fast food stores like it, as American exports, exist in a very different way to the image I have had of them in the United States; in America, you have tomes like Fast Food Nation, where the 2006 Richard Linklater adaptation will always stick in mind for the moment about faecal matter in the burgers, or the 2004 documentary Super Size Me demonising them but in England, especially as a result of a pandemic, their banality as regular people work hard jobs in their kitchens to provide food for regular people working hard jobs has become more significant. Particularly as someone who is working class myself, seeing them as an inherently evil corporate monolith is overly simplistic as, blending in the background next to a supermarket where my closest is, it just seems a gaudy building where people on both sides of the till exist, with their individual existences. Also, whilst I prefer other burgers, I have to admit at some point, after the toil of 2020,  just binging on their menu and giving in to stuffing one's face just once would seem far less like you are selling your soul nowadays as I type this, that and their McFlurries were always good.

2) Mark Evanier, head writer of Garfield and Friends (1988-94), debunked the rumour on the Cartoon Research Facebook page HERE with the following text in October 2013:

"How about if I confirm it? Jim knew all about the special, he okayed Garfield's participation and approved whatever had to be approved.

I believe the original plan, which got all the various copyright holders to agree to let their characters participate called for limited airing."