The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle (2009)

Director: David Russo

Screenplay: David Russo

Cast: Marshall Allman as Dory; Jeanette Maus as Amelia; Sean Nelson as Jason; Tania Raymonde as Ethyl; Vince Vieluf as O.C.; Tygh Runyan as Methyl; Richard Lefebvre as Weird William; Natasha Lyonne as Tracy

Abstract List Candidate

 

[Some plot spoilers]

 

You guys name the turds you find?'

Little Dizzle is not the best example of unconventional American independent cinema, but is sad David Russo never made anything else as he has a distinct style as a director/writer/animator here that would have been interesting to see progress. He immediately shows, even if this was the one project he ever wanted to make before leaving cinema, his talents with an opening montage of a message in a bottle travelling in super fast time delay footage across the oceans. That it just leads to our protagonist Dory (Marshall Allman) finding said bottle and its message to just be a "fuck you" also states the playful absurdity of the production we will watch.

Dory, whose search for meaning comes with him going through as many major religions as he can and even atheism in search of worth, is a self proclaimed "Data Meister" who, finally snapping, burns his bridges so much his "ashes are halfway to Mars", left with only becoming a janitor for an office complex to work with. To be a janitor, hanging out with people his own age, their boss a cross dressing former soldier who fought in the first Desert Storm in the first Gulf War, is to see the world few do, as explained when the term "janitor" originated from "Janus", "arch" or "gate" and the Roman deity regarded as the doorkeeper of heaven. Among nice people, his life is arguably better now, the initial set up is playful with touches of stranger aspects peering occasionally from under the surface, with the production value afforded just from being able to film in a large building complex. A lot of the film has an amusing humour, such as the funny use of black censorship bars for a sex scene, and how (after some cleaning) the same room will be used for a meeting. You also find some very choice and inspired musical cues too, such as a cleaning montage set to non-English rap music.

The plot is steadily introduced when a company occupying one of the floors are testing experimental cookies which self heat in the mouth to reproduce the "just baked" taste. Such cookies, tested on the janitor staff by prompt of Tracy (Natasha Lyonne), have a very adverse effect on men only. Namely, that they cause pregnancy of strange fluorescent blue fish unable to survive long after their birthing. It is an odd premise, finitely a subversive gender swap, with the most interesting detail being that everyone who experiences this comes from it with a greater happiness. Birth and pregnancy are profound biological and cultural aspects of human beings which cis-males are separated from due to biology; yes, there is clearly a joke that these male characters, as it develops from the digestive tract, are pooping out blue fish rectally when they have gestated, but the experience and emotional bond to their fish is meaningful to them, tragically as said offspring will die soon after.

In terms of whether the fish fully amounts to hidden dept will depend upon whether layers can be found in the film. Certainly in terms of the themes at hand, it takes a big handful of concepts like from a bowl of experimental cookies. Dory's spiritual crisis could be seen as a gag and simplistic, between being now Jewish to wearing a Nietzsche t-shirt, but he fits a type of figure, of a generation, where in the West there is a disconnect from organised religion but sometimes reticence to abandon spirituality, which is befitting of also how alternative spiritual beliefs would grow over the decades such as Wicca. Co-worker O.C. (Vince Vieluf), the other most prominent character, wants to become an artist, his exhibition of toilet related art frankly the last dying breath of taking instillation art seriously, whilst it is ultimately his idea to provide the homeless with coats embroidered with "I'm sorry" on the back, to promote self healing for anyone who reads it, is a very naive and very easy to misinterpret idea, but possible the best one he had.

If anything, Little Dizzle as a film skirts around these subjects, alongside the corruptness of the company behind the cookies, much to Tracy's own horror, with a comic broadness. The weird aspects come from hallucinations caused by said cookies, alongside pregnancy and a desire to ingest salt, such as a sacred animation fish, Dory's shower freak-out done in deliberately fake computer animation, and a lot of manipulation of sound and visuals. Definitely, the film hedges its bets on that initial premise - the blue fish - and imagines the emotional attachment with sincerity and absurd humour.

It feels definitely as much of its era too, from a period when French filmmaker Michel Gondry and many films about young adults trying themselves were common in cinema. Also the musical choices definitely show a point when it was more common to have more "indie" or idiosyncratic choices, probably the best choice in this film a cover of Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft by The Langley Schools Music Project. An outsider music institution, the project was musical performances by four different Canadian elementary school choirs recorded in the seventies, covering songs between the Beach Boys to that song, originally by Klaatu but more famous by The Carpenters, that was released as an LP in 2001 and became a cult gem. It is a perfect choice for the ending, a sweet one where, rather than the presumed conclusion of beating the evil corporation, out lead decides against it because he has gained something much more profound from his misadventure.

Whether the film actually works as a great film is entirely subjective in this case, although there is plenty to admire. Certainly, it is not "abstract", as it never gets to the point the hallucinations warp reality fully. Likewise the blue fish, including the titular notion of the Immaculate Conception, never gets immensely religious and surreal, which could be the one real flaw of the film, that there was a lot left on the table which could have been explored. As it stands however, I admired the film, sad to see that its creator had no really continued beyond this.

Abstract Spectrum: Quirky/Weird

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

Punk Rock Holocaust (2004)

Director: Doug Sakmann

Screenplay: Nick Esposito, Doug Sakmann and Christopher Stella

Cast: Kevin Lyman as Himself; Heather Vantress as the Warped Tour Reporter; Lloyd Kaufman as Belial / Satan; Doug Sakmann as William Van Landingham, III / Main Executioner / Explosion Stunt Executioner; Steven Smith as the Fuse Action News Reporter

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #159

 

And that my friends is how the drummer from Def Leppard really lost his arm.

Tongue in cheek, I am glad the type of music in this film, a slasher film built around the Warped Tour and to promote it as a brand, faded away whilst heavy metal, even still off the record charts, got its groove back after the nu metal decades. I say this as someone, growing up as a teen in this era, who immediately recognised Bowling for Soup, all crushed to death by one of their own members, so call me a hypocrite at the same time. 

Having grown up in the early 2000s, and been able to catch up with some of the trend, there was a time when even Metal Hammer magazine had bands like Funeral for a Friend prominent, not a derisive comment but that, reading it in the late 2000s, those bands were not as prominent when the heavier music gained popularity again and were more likely to dominate their free CD compilations over those bands likely to go on the Warped Tour. This period instead was nu metal on its way out, when ska punk was a thing, and we were just off the "New Wave of American Heavy Metal" whilst cult metal bands from Europe and around the world, chugging along, would eventually become the legends but not until after this period, even those like Meshuggah who started in the early nineties.

Here the Warped Tour, whose staff and founder Kevin Lyman play himself, are lightly mocking themselves even, though it does come with a Woody Allen levels of self confidence issues when a joke says they are about as punk as Pee Wee Herman. Punk Rock Holocaust itself is peculiar as a hybrid of concert footage, a promotional film, and a micro budget slasher film which however has a level of production value few have. To my surprise, hearing of this in a negative light over the years, this was a surprise, a mess, but one that would have actually thrown a kitchen sink on stage if considered funny, that production value a huge virtue alongside a sense everyone was having fun.

Contextually director Doug Sakmann has already made a short film called Re-Penetrator (2004), a porn horror story inspired by Re-Animator (1985) which suggests he was already unconventional, a good thing as the worst nature of slashes especially was predictability and telling a conventional story blandly. He has to work around that, honestly, this is a long list of deaths tentatively wrapped around a story involving a Warped Tour. The attempt at said plot is more complicated than you would initially think, all stemming from a band playing "industrial New Wave synth pop" being slighted by Lyman, demonic revenge and Troma figurehead Lloyd Kaufman playing Satan, if the Devil had followed comedian Bill Hicks advice and gotten into the music industry, a huge music mogul pulling the strings on popular bands. To this film's credit, it is openly humorous with this plot, an absurd film desiring to build a high body count but with a silliness, where the masked killer is so evil they will contaminate the vegan food stand with animal fat.

Again, it is a messy film in structure. They also make the blasphemous mistake, when Andrew W.K. comes to save music, to cut away between his set and death by electrocution to another scene at the autograph tents where his songs are muffled in the distance. It does also make too many defensive jokes about Warped not really pushing punk, which is less a criticism but a sense of too much insecurity then they might have realised. It is contrasted by the level of humour which is not in jokes and amateurish but are actually funny, such as a fake French hardcore band named Beret, created by Kaufman's Satan because this was the time when the United States and France, during the second Gulf War, were divided on the conflict, the hostilities something he can make a profit on by having an angry French band all in stereotypical white and black shirts, berets and black trousers being snotty.

In terms of said micro budget, it's ambitious too which is a blessing when, rather than a lack of budget not being a deterrent, having a very dull sense of imagination is a dangerous mindset that can affect anyone. A lot of the bands and musicians - Bowling for Soup, Andrew W.K, "Jeff from Simple Plan" who is impaled on a guitar - were clearly happy to be involved for a lark, but rather than an indulgent and dull experience, it's an indulgent film which still stays creative. Baring one tasteless joke comparing the growing massacre as "Hot Topic meets Altamont", (see The Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter (1970) for why), it was an absolute blast. A playfully ghoulish film as, whilst the insecurity can be felt, has also the glee to just imagine the Warped Tour staff being unscrupulous, to the point of feeding the increasing numbers of victims' bodies to the staff in economic cannibalism and taking it to an exaggerated extent.

The amount of resources in general are a huge assistance, a whole sense of a culture being displayed, almost documentary-like, which happens to have been invaded by a slasher film. Between skateboard half pipes being used in the midst of performances, and all the various stands and tents you get to see , it has a vibrant colony of people on screen for my initial jokes I look to with fondness seeing them enjoying themselves. The production even shots in the real New York Time Square, with advertisements for The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and Prince's comeback album to a major record label, Musicology (2004), all in the goal to recreate a famous scene from Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), where Jason in the same square scares off some punks by showing his face under the mask.

The practical effects are also a high point, the entire crew behind them (or the few depending) the MVP for Punk Rock Holocaust. It gets to the point, with the ambition, that what I first thought was a comically cheap prop, cyanide apparently coming in black and blue pills in an orange medical bottle labels clearly "Cyanide", was actually done deliberately for a joke. Probably the most elaborate scene is helped by a band called The Phenomenauts, one of countless bands inspired by old science fiction pulp and also embracing it in an elaborate stage persona and show, meant as a crew of a spaceship with one of the members a robot. Not only do they bring in firework guns, which can hurt people in this film, but also a tour van even is crushed by a crane and blown up. (That the band snuck into the tour twice the previous two years before, only to be officially invited for the 2004, adds a nice contextual touch to them having a big scene in this film).

The film even shows the kind of resourcefulness that other micro budget films, with less resources, would applauded by recontextualizing real demolition footage. The schism with the Warped Tour itself, whilst compelling, feels like a detriment to all these wonderful little touches as, whilst its funny that founder Kevin Lyman has actually made a pact with Satan, making the joke they are conformist and designed by Old Nick to steal your soul does cross a line in making the likes of Less Than Jake and Pennywise feel compromised by accident. A shame as, with the rest a better balance of goofiness, like trying to synch around actual mosh pit footage with a killer going stab happy, you have something completely charming. Deeply silly, indulgent and with flaws, but a utterly entertaining for me whilst it lasted.

The Fall (2019)

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Screenplay: Jonathan Glazer

Archive Review

[A review left unfinished earlier this year, it qualifies as an archival piece because it did not include any references to whether it qualified for the Abstract Rating or not. Also as a very short review of a short, I wonder if it had been sufficiently detailed enough, even with the additional context added now later, to be a good review or not. For the sake of appreciating Jonathan Glazer's work however, I have provided the review nonetheless.]

 

After making Under the Skin (2013) - his startling sci-fi film which combined the unnatural, Scarlett Johansson in a brave role as an alien temptress, and the banality of Scottish urban environments, where Johansson is inexplicably in a film where you have buses, beans on toast and even Greggs sandwich shops onscreen - Glazer sadly vanished throughout the rest of the 2010s. In general, in he has been elusive to film making in general, but especially in the theatrical field as he has only made three feature length films between 2000 and 2013. But then the director who made his name with music videos for the likes of Radiohead suddenly dropped a project on BBC Two one night, when this ominous short suddenly was shown after an episode of The Americas with Simon Reeve on the unsuspecting public on 27 October 2019.

It is so short, The Fall is like a fragment of a nightmare rather than a production you can easily discuss in greater detail. One of the influences was a snapshot of Eric and Donald Trump Jr on a big-game hunting jaunt, holding a dead leopard they had shot, and it is not a surprise to see this as what it literally says on the surface without need for deeper detail, that of a mob who are trying to get a terrified man out of a tree at night in the middle of the woods. They do, taking a picture having pounced on him like prey, like an animal captured or killed at a big game hunt, only to proceed to hang him. The hanging, which evokes actual lynchings without any attempt to neuter the iconography, does take an odd turn when there is not only a drop in the middle of the woods, but that it is endless downwards for the victim.

Prominently the cast wears masks, ornate and carved, evoking for me Japanese theatre. They are startling in obscuring emotion in the mob and the victim, with their fixed feature and the strong emotions to them. The symbolism beyond the obvious is so minimal, like a dream, it would be absurd to spin a political slant baring the fact that, in its presentation and tone, it is inherently scary to witness. Anything beyond comparing this imagery to real life commentary would obscure inherently potent imagery which is political in its universal simplicity. Glazer for an interview with the Guardian website went as far as talk about the rise of National Socialism in Germany and the likelihood of this happening again¹, and mob mentality is an aspect of humanity, in any context, which is still a dark side of us as a species. That there is a lynching, alongside the comparison to hunting a person down like an animal, itself is as frightening as an image because people have sadly become victims of this.

The film, shown on BBC2 without opening and ending credits, has a strange nature to it which is compelling. All set at night, with the quiet coda that, managing to stop himself on the way down, we leave with our victim with a leg each side of what is an endless well climbing up slowly, hopefully a victim who has survived unscathed. Mica Levi, an indie musician who stormed cinema composition with her music for Under the Skin, gives The Fall something evocative and minimal to adding to the tone. The result, alongside its intention and clever screening tactic, causes one hope that Grazer produces more work soon as he has still firing on all cylinders. 

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1) Source HERE.

Generation X (1996)

Director: Jack Sholder

Screenplay: Eric Blakeney

Based on the Generation X comic book series from Marvel Comics

Cast: Matt Frewer as Russel Tresh; Finola Hughes as Emma Frost; Jeremy Ratchford as Sean Cassidy; Heather McComb as Jubilation Lee / Jubilee; Agustin Rodriguez as Angelo Espinosa / Skin; Randall Slavin as Kurt Pastorius/ Refrax; Bumper Robinson as Mondo; Suzanne Davis as Arlee Hicks; Amarili as Monet St. Croix / M

Ephemeral Waves

 

You know I don't like Jello.

There for me is a dividing line between when superhero films meant just Superman and Batman, with the others for theatrical cinema and television a random assortment, with DC Comics in dominance and no standard template, and then the moment Marvel Comics managed to get its act together, leading to the current era which began as far back as Blade (1998) when they got their foot through the door, then the X-Men (2000) firmly planting their flag in the genre. Personally, I find the older era for more interesting, a lot of esoteric productions I am more inclined to watch, as decisions  even with great films like Batman Returns (1992) you get something idiosyncratic, whilst the template the Marvel Studios films have stuck to bored me to the point I have not watched them at all. Which is a shame as, open to American comics as a medium, Marvel have a fascinating history of figures and stories I would be interested to look, even the bad creative decisions, and whilst The Cannon Group did release Captain America (1990), the company were mostly regulated to television and had to also deal with rights issues in lieu to that company, hence why it took the 2000s when Spider Man finally had a theatrical movie.

That television should not be ignored though, and whilst the elaborate films of now sadly, from the few I saw up to the early 2010s, been very predictable, there is a greater joy in those titles which were not high budget films but attempts at hits like Generation X. It is ironic that the 2000 X-Men film had a huge significance on the way superhero films would dominate cinema globally, apt as this review is about the first attempt to adapt the characters to live action, a TV movie that acted as a pilot for a show that never came to be, trying to adapt these iconic characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at a time when they were a big seller in the nineties.

The X-Men, and I say this as an outsider with lack of knowledge on the actual comics, had to take a while to get to that success, steadily growing as a franchise since the sixties. Created in 1963, they were a metaphor for racial intolerance, as outsiders marginalised by society and even seen as a threat, one which has lasted as long as it has due to the fact the metaphor can still tragically relevant to the modern day and that, for a reader, that metaphor can also extend to anyone LGBT, trans, even just an outsider like the loners at a school could easily see themselves as these characters and have someone to represent themselves with. This was  especially when through the seventies onwards more characters were added, including the iconic Wolverine, and X-Men became an actual rainbow of figures of all ethnicities, men and women, even characters with disabilities, as the character of M here, just an overconfident girl with insane levels of invulnerability, was all this in the comics by accounts but also autistic.

By the time of this TV movie, we already had the 1992 X-Men animated series, which I have fond memories of watching as a young kid at the time. I would have been too young to know of this, especially as this is not based on the main series but the titular spin off, part of a time when the X-Men comics were very popular and these spin-offs could exist. This film however, which yet has a fitting connection or two with what came before and after in the franchise, was definitely a failure. A curious one, from the director of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985), a film without his knowledge was coded with blatant metaphors of the main male character's struggle with his own homosexuality, and The Hidden (1987). Someone also clearly saw Batman Forever (1995), the Joel Schumacher films in that franchise with Batman & Robin (1998) closing off the old superhero films, as Batman & Robin was reviled and Superman was M.I.A since the Cannon Group acquired the rights and fumbled the character in the late eighties with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987). I like the Joel Schumacher Batman films, and I will not try to defend them nor claim them as guilty pleasures. In fact, whatever you think of their erratic natures and ridiculous camp, you cannot just lift Schumacher's trademark that he wanted to make every location bold and distinct even in all the neon gels he used. He made more grounded films, but the former production designer had an eye for aesthetic which is an acquired taste but I admired.

Batman Forever was actually a hit, so Generation X borrows all the canted camera shots and coloured gels it can get. That is actually one of the best bits of the TV movie, alongside Max Headroom star Matt Frewer looking at Jim Carrey's performance, playing one of the villains in that earlier film, and thinking he can be even more over the top and a sex pervert too. What likely killed the show before it even got started were many creative choices which feel like the screenwriter was bored with the comic they had and decided to doodle off to the side. Writer Eric Blakeney, whose career before was writing television like 21 Jump Street, could have easily went with the main metaphor of these characters. For those who have no ideas what the X-Men are, or at least going to their origin to scrutinise where someone deviated greatly from the source material, in the world of the comic people have mutant genes which provide them superhuman abilities or drastic bodily changes when they hit puberty, also leaving a potentially subversive metaphor that the cruelty and bigotry the normal world has for them is a jealously as much as a fear that they are now evolutionarily inferior. It also leaves many metaphors of the existential and moral crisis teenagers and even adults have in drastic circumstances, as these "mutants", in coping with the changes few can share the equivalent of and affecting them physically and mentally.

In the world of Generation X, this has already lead to the darkest timeline as, when the comics had the likes of giant "Sentinel" robots created to hunt down mutants, where Frewer's evil scientist Russel Tresh tries to lobotomise a mutant, to get his pineal gland, just to only get a discharge for medical misconduct and the poor mutant victim gets shipped off to a mutant camp ran by the government. The nineties, as we neared the Millennium, even with a title like this speculated about the future ahead, where here night time in the setting is a neon soaked dark metropolis, and Tresh lands on his feet well after his dismissal. Now he has joined an advertisement company where he is paid to brainwash people with subliminal messages for Slick Lips Lipstick, Coffin Nail Cigarettes and, with wonder why Sega thought it was a wise decision contextually to allow this, the real life beat em up arcade game Virtua Fighter. He only comes off as going too far when he now wants to control people in their dreams.

With a little research, the production had to change and create new characters because of the budget being preventative from trying to bring certain characters onscreen, comics with a lot more ability to push imagination with fewer resources required. Set at the Xavier Academy where young mutants have been rescued from the camps and persecution, at the same real building used in the Bryan Singer X-Men films, the two adults in charge are Emma Frost, soap actress Finola Hughes wandering around in sexy leisure wear, and Banshee, played by Jeremy Ratchford who also voiced him in the animated show I grew up with, even though his Irish accent is terrible. The teens, a little group in a giant school are thus: Refrax (eye lasers), Mondo (a toned down gift from the source character of being able to briefly absorb the density of what he touches), Skin (one of the leads, with a super stretchy body), M (perfect, but does little, original a more interesting sounding character due to being with a learning disability), Buff (an interesting female character in this time period as, with a super muscular body, she is uncomfortable with her appearance before such body types were more accepted), and Jubilee, a character I also saw in the animated series who was clearly meant to be a character sold to viewers at the time. It is strange how Jubilee, standing out in the animated series is the mall rat teen who shot fireworks out of her hands, was a trend character who never became as big as the attempts to sell her did, especially as the character would appear in other live action films.

Inexplicably the screenwriter, like the one I have imagined in this review for a joke and build up, was much more interested in writing a premise about a fifth dimension, where dreams are a real life version of Plato's realm of perfect forms, and can be accessed with psychic powers and a dream machine. I am sure one mutant, maybe more, exist who could tap into dreams, and considering Dr. Strange in the Marvel back catalogue and all their creations there has to be a few, but baring every mutant now being a "little" psychic", someone got bored and accidentally created a premise befitting a director of a Nightmare on Elm Street sequel instead. I am not precious about accuracy to source material, the man who has no real investment in the X-Men, but there was a fine line between a drastic story risk which still played to the premise about adolescent mutants with powers, and a premise which limits this aspect almost entirely even in knowledge of the budgetary restraints.

Beyond this, Generation X has a lot of plot, but is vet limited to what actually transpires. Whilst X-Men gained so many parallels to keep the metaphor alive, this is instead the school of TV action, drama and exposition, a constant flux of event which when works is why television is compelling, makes the notorious oddities like Steel Justice (1992) (about a detective in a futuristic Los Angeles who can make a dinosaur robot toy a giant one with magical powers) more compelling, but also makes anything which does not really push the limited budget or characterisation less exciting. This story eventually becomes a group of over powered mutants against one normal man, more severe as a plot fault if you stop and think about it. Matt Frewer's Russel Tresh is a deeply creepy figure, who coxes Skin in dreams to become a voyeur to and [Trigger warning] threats to "mind rape" his little sister to get his to follow orders, but he never has any sense of threat to suggest this film, with no greater depth to it. There is no real sense of threat from this character even when he gets dream powers. The only time that he stands out in terms of how he should have been written as is when the film recreates the scene from Batman Forever where he kills his boss from a fall from a giant window in a tall building; using television budget effects to conjure dreamt shadows of birds, in a dream sequence surrounded by business people at conference table, it is one of the only moments  where the film gets vaguely imaginative as well.

The darker tone is surprising, as the release that came after, not for television but beyond on VHS, even has cursing, not dancing around the subject but a scene just created for Jubilee to say "shit" and "fuck" for go measure in the same sentence. The result however, in spite of this clear attempt at a darker and neon stained tone is something missing the mark. Definitely, with good reason, it never got the television series - tonally it varies drastically, where Tresh can be an uncomfortably menacing figure but who also auto suggested a board of potential investors beforehand in their dreams to fart at the same time at a certain hour mid-meeting. The only constant detail is the aesthetic, which is compelling even on this television budget as hyper-saturated. Even the teen protagonists are not likable, bickering and insulting each other to the point of being detestable. The only time, and the one plot detail that stands out, is when Refrax suddenly shows real nobleness, when in his affections with Buff, going on a date at a country fair, an ability to see through clothes finally clicks; he goes before anything transpires, with actual honour, only for her to think otherwise, his sincere attempt to tell the truth and show his love for her a good moment.

I admit I enjoyed Generation X, just as a failed curiosity sadly ignored, as it never had a DVD release. X-Men, the Bryan Singer film, came only a few years later and erased this title from existence. Ironically, it was Wolverine, a grizzled old vet, rather than the teenagers who broke out, all because the production hired an unknown named Hugh Jackman at the last minute that ran with the role and made his own career. X-Men has had a lot of films over the 2000s, from 21st Century Fox, to a varying amount of success but with the perverse tale of New Mutants (20??) as a fitting coda, an attempt to go back to young teen mutant characters which has been in limbo since it was first announced for release in 2018, between Fox being gobbled up by the House of Mouse and the COVID-19 pandemic. Generation X itself was meant to be a big title, causing one to wonder how the production and Marvel reacted to its clear failure; Stan Lee himself made the unfortunate comment, in an L.A Times article just before its television premiere¹, that "[if" this thing doesn't create demand[...] I'll eat my hat!". One wonders whether he would have lived up to the bet and ate said hat, considering how gun-ho and passionate he was.

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1) Source HERE.

Ashes to Ashes (1993)

Director: Paul Rinehard

Screenplay: Paul Rinehard

Cast: Christine Collard, Dan Boesch, John Whitman, Mary Reed, Joseph Greselin, Ken Nimocks

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #158

 

Must be squirrels.

From the obscurest realms of horror cinema comes another shot-on-video film, a supernatural tale where a widowed father brings his daughter and son to a new home, one cursed in a gristly past. It does dangerously veer towards stereotypes, where a band of gypsies used to live there at the turn of the century, their male leader "the Barker" indulging in child murder which, when he turned on to one of their own children, led to a bitter fall out. It is however a premise, the haunted home, we will always return to as our won architecture will, as it ages, wear the signs and marks of their pasts, and there is always that curiosity, if undisclosed, of the people who lived where we lived before you, even if it is never anything sinister and finding their possessions abandoned to time up in the attic. Here, just from the wooden panelling decorating the walls instead of wallpaper, something weird is in the air.

The father is a father. The son has a mullet. The daughter, Wendy, is the most interesting figure and worthy of more detail as she is mute and is confined in a wheelchair. This poor girl is called "bitch" a lot and tormented, but it is interesting to see a very progressive choice in lead. It is also a figure more threatened in such an environment, when the moment they get to the house in broad daylight, and no one else seeing, a random man wearing a top hat menaces her. It does bring up the sense of real world fear, that if you cannot scream, and you are limited in movement with the inability to use one's legs, you could feel more vulnerable if nocturnal noises were heard at night. If you encounter a ghost girl, as here, naturally anyone in her position would be spooked.

A true micro budget film, so obscure I doubt few know of its existence even in the SOV community, it does use its limitations to an advantage. It feels far more distinct, more eerie, rather than have monsters or cheap superimpositions effects that instead you have actors in period dress costume just appear onscreen. In any real life context, a person appearing in your house at night would terrify, and it feels close to a theatre technique to forgo any practical effect for just the visitors to be tangible and still be a threat, able to torment the living here regardless.

Contextually, Ashes to Ashes even on its miniscule budget could work. Little touches like the depiction of the ghost world as just another room in the location, with moody flickering lights, electronic noises in the soundtrack and a woman using tarot cards, are evocative enough with an open mind. It is an extreme minimalism on restrictions, not an issue if you can use it well. Even without the little splashes of gore (such as a stick to the back of the head) or odd touches like ghost voices layered over gibberish over the opening, this minimalism can still be creepy. A bloodstained clown is inherently scary, especially as it is just a guy in the basic of clown costumes, pretending here to be a ghost, popping up and suddenly having fake blood appear around his guts.

The issue is that, as with so many stories, the production just wants to tell a really generic story and refuse to stray from the template even if it is not spectacular. Our real protagonist Wendy is threatened, but beyond the innate weight of her characterisation, there is not a lot to go with that is not generic. Barring some unintentional humour, such as the brother with the mullet being possessed by his own guitar playing, Ashes to Ashes is as dry as toast, which is an insult to toast as a metaphor. Sadly, this is also an ultra obscure horror title which might not be worth investigating due to this one flaw, undermining all its best virtues.

Butchered (2003)

a.k.a. The Hazing

Director: Joe Castro

Screenplay: Eric Spudic

Cast: Susan Smythe as Lynette; Juliet Bradford as Barbara; Phoebe Dollar as Jenny; Elina Madison as Daphne; Christopher Michaels as Anthony; Adam Crone as Darren; David Alan Graf as Andrew Braxus; Ben Belack as Brent

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #157

 

Yeah, that's a big girl alright.

Butchered is not a good film. Actually, it is so bland that, whilst painful to see, I now consider The Summer of the Massacre (2011) from practical effects artist and filmmaker Joe Castro to be at least distinct. Near Death (2004) looks better now because it had moments and a personality. Butchered, well, at this point for me comes from a fondness for these low budget horror films, and for everyone who reaches this point as I have, there is a joy to these films as there is in the best of cinema, genre or not, and when that expectation for the minimum is not met, it feels unbearable. The worst thing is when a production is bland, does not feel like its creators were investing their personality, and feel pointless to have made regardless of resources.

The premise is a lot of tropes common in horror and will always be used unless human society changes drastically - a women's fraternity, two women here the sole figures representing it due to (understandable) budgetary restraints, testing two new people who want to join by having them stay in a creepy funhouse for a night. Said funhouse happens to have a monstrous giant woman inside killing people and generally haunting the location in secret rooms. The problem arises when this story is merely told as generically as possible.

The period before the main plot starts properly is much more interesting as a result. The frat sisters' boyfriends are perverts, secretly filming them changing or in the shower with the plan to extend these secret camera to the whole campus, yet still with these two male actors with their shirts off for pure beefcake only. There is the recreation of the opening from John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), the stalking scene done through a clown mask, reinterpreted by digital manipulation of the screen so you have only two eyehole sized images on the screen. You also learn, in a challenge before the funhouse, how uncomfortable (depending on the context) it could be to have to squirt whipped cream and chocolate sauce into one's bra, even before having to do press ups afterwards. (God knows whose carpet that this transpires on it, as alongside some cherries with juice, it is left a mess afterwards).

After that, it is merely a narrative which is told blandly. I learnt to my surprise The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) is not the only film where a dead man's pizza is consumed, this time admittedly less fresh and covered in worms, but aside from this, I am amazed how colourless this film was. Castro, for all the times I have not necessarily liked his work, is nonetheless someone with personality, between his more misanthropic qualities to his elaborate special effects. Even the practical effects here are below his high standards which have surprised me at times, only found with part of a severed hand with a finger twitching. Instead there are a lot of comical rubber heads replacing the actors', which is shocking because working on Blood Feast 2 (2002) before and making a film like Near Death after, the one virtue he has had was the quality of his practical gore work.

The rest of the film when it becomes the typical slasher film, where these characters and a stray pizza man are trapped in the funhouse and picked off, is really not worth discussing. Generic characters in darkened corridors is what you get, with the adding fact that the film is only 69 minutes or so, the other seven afterwards end credits. Butchered manages to drag onwards even at such a slim length with a lack of energy. There is even an egregious sequence of exposition from the aforementioned pizza man, of a potentially interesting background of the killer being the first daughter who murdered her siblings, aside from the fact that, if they cannot even afford an elaborate gunshot sound beyond a pop let alone resources for a flashback, it is pointless dialogue to have included.

Made with Cinemassacre Productions ("Proudly corrupting the Youth of America"), any film regardless of minimum resources could have been made including ones that would be good or at least fin. Castro as a filmmaker, though I have felt he is more of a set piece creator, did however co-write The Jackhammer Massacre (2004), a scuzzy little number but managing to pull something interesting off. Here, as with many films, it is not a good sign if you are setting it in bland corridors in the dark unless that is deliberately taken to an extreme or given some flair. Sadly instead this is as bland as paste. I do not necessarily blame the script either as, with subjective taste, screenwriter Eric Spudic, who has also been an actor, had made a film like Aquanoids (2003) which, whilst trashy, was at least a film with a bit more happening within it as Jaws with giant fish men. Butchered just emphasises that, for the sake of a viewer, it is probably not a good idea to make a slasher set within one location unless you really can make it idiosyncratic, as even slasher fans would have trouble with this unless they had an undying love for the horror sub-genre in general.

The Kingdom I & II (1994-7)

Directors: Lars von Trier and Morten Arnfred

Screenplay: Tómas Gislason, Niels Vørsel and Lars von Trier

Cast: Ernst-Hugo Järegård as Stig Helmer; Kirsten Rolffes as Sigrid Drusse; Holger Juul Hansen as Einar Moesgaard; Søren Pilmark as Jørgen 'Hook' Krogshøj; Ghita Nørby as Rigmor Mortensen; Jens Okking as Bulder Harly Drusse; Otto Brandenburg as Hansen; Annevig Schelde Ebbe as Mary Krüger; Baard Owe as Palle Bondo; Birgitte Raaberg as Judith Petersen; Peter Mygind as Morten 'Mogge' Moesgaard; Vita Jensen as Female dishwasher; Morten Rotne Leffers as Male dishwasher; Solbjørg Højfeldt – Camilla; Udo Kier as Åge Krüger

Abstract Spectrum/A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #32

 

It's going to be a busy night.

It is so strange that I grew up with Kingdom Hospital (2004), the Stephen King Americanised version of The Kingdom, a Danish two season mini-series co-created by Lars von Trier. If there ever was a great way to show cultural differences, comparing Kingdom Hospital to The Kingdom is the marathon to try to see this in action. As well as not being able to imagine the American version of characters like Dr. Hook as they are played here by Søren Pilmark next to his American version, sympathetic but even before turning into a darker figure of Season 2 distributing cocaine to the staff made from distilled left over eye drops, I cannot imagine how King would have reinterpreted the second season even if he himself, as an author, has covered very dark material in his literature and might have been game to.

Both versions have flaws. Kingdom Hospital, originally a mini-series but then shifted into being a first season which never got a follow-on, deviates way too much at times, to the point of rushing its conclusion. The Kingdom is tragically flawed entirely out of its hand, an exceptional piece of work over two seasons but with the knowledge that it needed a third season to actually finish the narrative. One which it never get as Ernst-Hugo Järegård, who played Stig Helmer the egotistic Swedish doctor who hates "Danish scum", passed and left the production without a key character and a lot of loose threads as a result.

In context, when the first series came to be in 1994, this was after Europa (1991), von Trier's ambitiously stylised World War II drama, and before his drastic shift to the Dogme 95 manifesto, championing a radical alternative of stripping away artifice, with Breaking the Waves (1996) coming in between the two series with a notable change in his style and tone. Von Trier's really divisive reputation even separate to his films does not have to be considered with The Kingdom, even when he walks out at the end credits of every episode to make thoughtful comments on the programme, instead here a pure genre hybrid where he can still sneak in satire. Namely, that this is a medical soap opera interlaced with supernatural drama that eventually turns into pure horror by season two.

Truthfully, I prefer Season Two. The original season is more highly regarded, and with a few loose threads notwithstanding, it can work as one giant story with a great twist ending. Truthfully, it is a very generic supernatural story of a ghost girl haunting the elevator at the hospital, the plot recreated by Kingdom Hospital with a far more elaborate scope including time travel and a talking anteater. What elevates The Kingdom's first season is that, looped around this, is the medical show and its idiosyncratic characters. In one of the best openings of a TV show, The Kingdom always starts with the point that the past of the hospital, when it was once bleaching pools and the supernatural, will break through the foundations rather than scepticism. It also immediately cuts to television show opening credits, suggesting a regular medical soap opera, with also one of the best TV themes, an evocative choral chant over nineties synth.

A large portion of the series is also comedy, which is some of the best material, one of the best aspects that was transported to the American remake and became its best aspect, and one of the underappreciated aspects of Lars von Trier. Whilst something his attempts at jokes have even lead to him being kicked out of film festivals, it is a reminder that for all his bleak and confrontational work he has a sense of humour, which is outstanding here. Certainly, he came to this with a lot of satire on medical science, everything not stable in this hospital before you ever have to deal with the supernatural. Your head of the hospital is more interesting in his "Good Morning Air" project than running an actual hospital; medical malpractice has transpired, as Stig has left a young girl brain damaged; the Masonic group of doctors who secretly run everything is a boy's club who are against occultism, but still indulge in it (including the blasphemy of drinking camomile tea) and are a frat house who use an initiation ceremony that can led to your nose being cut open; even characters who are sympathetic like Dr. Hook has his secret network of trade, and using blackmail even if for noble circumstances, more ethically shaky than how it is depicted for the character in the American version.

This is before the second season where characters nearly die, and end up crueller as a result, or when you discover a secret cabal of Satan worshippers in the staff roster. Or are an actual demon revealed due to a game of word association. The first series, in its best virtue, builds as a very black humoured comedy. A lot of the better aspects came from this for the American version but becoming more openly wackier - such as the Good Morning Air project, or how a young staff member (son of the head), in his attraction to an older nurse, steals a corpse's head for a sick prank. There are aspects which are much better here. In both versions, a Greek chorus of two kitchen staff, played by actors with Down's Syndrome, are there but in von Trier's their dialogue is even more meaningful despite never interacting with the cast, a poetry to their speech of greater meaning then their remake versions. The other is that, whilst Bruce Davison was great as "Dr. Stegman", Järegård's performance as Stig is exceptional. His character is utterly detestable, but he is strangely admirable because of Järegård's acting, making his passing a worse blow for producing season three.

The production's other distinction is a potentially divisive one, but not alien to von Trier's habit of very radical aesthetic choices. The visual look is deliberately grimy, one that could put people off, even with night shots occasionally having a murkiness with streaks from the light sources; there is also a saturated brown aesthetic to the first series, followed by an emphasis on green when series two introduced a Satanic evil eye looming over the hospital. If you can accept this, the aesthetic works, as paradoxically even when he stripped away all artifice, or said to have done with an actual manifesto created for this change in attitude, von Trier has always had distinct aesthetics even when he claims to have removed them. Certainly, he was perfect for a project like this, co directed and designed for Danish television, in which he was prepared to take a huge leap away from his trademarks from before and work on a TV budget. Baring Epidemic (1987), which felt like a prototype for von Trier's minimalistic era, this was a considerable step in a different direction even if it is pure pulp with supernatural elements.

The strength of the mini-series is really from the performances and the scripts by von Trier and his collaborators. For me, the plot of the first Kingdom is more of an introduction to a greater narrative, where you learn of all the characters over four hour long episodes. The Kingdom II is where the show ramps up for me, in the absurdity and horror, and the strengths grow. It takes a lot more risks, a dangerous tightrope between the more serious content and some deeply silly jokes, where a thread from the last season of Stig wanting to use Haitian zombification techniques to stop Hook blackmailing him contrasts against the serious implications found after Season One, that the ghosts of the hospital are worst things to worry about with demons involved.

As the characters have been established, they can now have more plots, such as the head's existential crisis leading him to a New Age therapist working in the under passages of the hospital, or even a minor character, a student doctor, getting involved with illegal bets with staff driving headlong into traffic in an ambulance, both to woo a female colleague he is in love with but also from remorse when a previous drive lead to a bystander being injured and on death's door. The second series eventually gained my love for it due to how it can have two diametrically different sides hit crescendos. On one side is the humour - when you have a dream scenario involving an inexplicable cameo by a penguin, or the slowest chase possible in the medical archive, a security camera and one of the characters, due to circumstances, being in a wheelchair, showing von Trier's legitimate light side without cynicism.  The other is how much heart he could have for all the darkness he has depicted, the subplot with cult star Udo Kier.

Kier's role in season one is both a figure from the hospital's dark past, and probably the most famous moment of the first season, a shocking final birthing sequence that is as ridiculous as it is startling. In season two, having to follow this, Kier has two roles, the figure of the past now openly demonic, the other a pure innocent, noble but left in a monstrously deformed body, Cronenbergian in its elaborateness. The scenes between Kier and another character, [Major Spoiler] his mother [Spoiler Ends], are bittersweet and haunting, a reminder that Trier for all his horrors and nihilism sometimes has touches of the humane which appears from under the surface. For him especially, the "innocent", wise or pure hearted, who appear a lot in his work are people to admire, be it Kier's character here to even Emma Watson's in Breaking the Waves, making the fact they are still hurt (or here suffering to show virtue rather than succumb to evil) more tragic. The tragedy that we never got a third series was felt harder for me as a result. The show already escalates to an entirely different plain when demons are introduced and a priest is killed, but when we get to the final episode, Pandæmonium, all the plot threads build to an even greater crescendo from Season One. One which is grim and unsettling, the kind that leads to the darkest of third series, even Death making an appearance as an onlooker as he had a busy night on his hands. It would have lead to a season that, alas, never came. Thankfully, the show ends on Stig staring down at a toilet cam showing his usual hatred to everyone else, a playful reminder of the emotional gymnastics which both series took a risk on and, in spite of being unfinished, make them still gems.

Abstract Spectrum: Dark/Eccentric

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