Smut Without Smut: Satanic Horror Nite (2021)

 

Including reviews of Sacrilege (1971), Satan’s Lust (1971) and The Devil Inside Her (1977)

Directors: Ray Dennis Steckler (Sacrilege); Zebedy Colt (The Devil Inside Her)

Cast:

Sacrilege:

Jane Tsentas as Cassandra; Gerard Broulard as Jay; Ruthann Lott as Maria; Charles Smith as Lucifer

 

Satan's Lust:

Judy Angel as Pamela Goodright; Ron Darby as Boris; George 'Buck' Flower as Manheim Jarkoff; James Mathers as Wayne

 

The Devil Inside Her:

Jody Maxwell as Hope Hammond; Terri Hall as Faith Hammond; Dean Tait as Joseph; Zebedy Colt as Ezekiel Hammond; Renee Sanz as Devil's Crony; Chad Lambert as Nicodemus; Nancy Dare as Rebecca 'Becky' Hammond; Annie Sprinkle as Orgy Girl; Rod DuMont as The Devil

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

I’ll buy you a dildo for Christmas.

Smut Without Smut, a concept created by American Genre Film Archive, works around the issue that erotic cinema would be off-putting for some, but have their compelling aspects even if unintentional. This is significant even in a serious way as, with the uncensored versions of three of the films covered as they were included in the AGFA Blu Ray release, these films represent a side of filmmaking for all their amateur and absurd tones which will be deeply problematic for some. It is worth putting ahead of time as, especially as actual hardcore films, some people will not feel comfortable (or want to) sit through work which have openly non-consensual scenes even if all these films are truly ridiculous times to witness, openly too silly (or frankly shambolic) to take seriously baring. They are from a different time, even if sadly pornography has its sleazy edges still to this day, so all these films have to be taken with a pinch of salt even in their cut-down Smut Without Smut versions, which will not be possible for all to stomach. Those who can, like myself, will witness truly strange works.

To be blunt as well, some people will not feel comfortable (or want to) sit through extended scenes of real sex if with the artificiality that it is acted out sequences which are prolonged and in gynecological detail. In mind the tone will end up having to be lowered to review these, but wanting to take into seriousness the content, even thought pornography has still a lot of distasteful content to it in tone, these films have moments for all their goofiness you would prefer not to have in them, as much as some people just do not want to watch a man’s hairy testicles up close for a prolonged five to ten minutes. Satanic Horror Nite is closer to what the point on this concept was as Smut Without Smut’s prequel. That one was before AGFA started releasing their mix-tape works to physical media, instead having a double bill of Things to Come (1976) and The Dirty Dolls (1973), two softcore sex films where the removal of said sex scenes made little sense. That title was only logical for outright porn, tackling the sordid world of hardcore that Something Weird Video accumulated alongside their other exploitation film libraries, in this case centering on the obsession in the seventies with Satan and the Devil throughout a lot of these productions.

The compilation version follows The AGFA Horror Trailer Show (2020), another early mixtape from AGFA in which it is initially set up as an actual cinema showing, starting with trailers including in the intermission, not surprisingly going for the obvious sex innuendo with the food trailers but with legitimately idiosyncratic trailers which come some of the best parts of the production altogether. Americana from a different country to mind, such as one for a Wizard of Oz Head Shop, or the obsession between these mixtapes with finding as many trailers for cinemas made for Toddy, a chocolate drink that could be served cold or hot, are an obsession I am developing through works like this. More popular in the likes of Brazil to Argentina, Toddy chocolate drinks were pushed in the USA in these types of trailers, such as one here which is an animated trailer like  an old sixties cartoon about firemen. There is even a Pac Man parody for another concessions stand food advertisement which is also memorable.

This is not about gluttony however, but the sin of lust, and trailers for other hardcore films even if one or two does at least produce a Count-Erotica film which immediately warns you of some of eye-popping content. Even if everything in the Smut Without Smut cut is softcore, the sight of a man humping into a rabbit hand puppet for what is a Count Dracula parody immediately is memorable whether you want it to be or not. These films, uncut versions as well, are weird for how they can straddle the line between legitimately sleazy, progressive, deeply dated and problematic, but also very quaint or weird, where “Englebert Humpsalot” for a pseudonym on the credits time stamps the films to their era or even earlier into the sixties, like a Carry On joke.

Sadly the first film in the compilation, Hotter Than Hell (1971), is not among those included in their full cut which is a shame as it presents itself as a sitcom about demons, presided upon by a Satan who is closer to a gregarious Saint Nick/Green Man figure, whose desire to corrupt the folks up above is less eternal damnation but orgies and sex even in the underworld. This feels like a sex romp comedy which just happened to end up with real sex, boing sounds and all, between demons magically appearing for women or being helpful to frustrated female psychologists. There is already though an inherent issue with Smut Without Smut in context too that, yes, splicing out all the hardcore scenes, alongside making some of these barely over fifteen minutes each between five films used, means that so much tonal context let alone story plotting is lost, which becomes a significant issue with appreciating it as a work by itself.

Sacrilege probably is not a film you would gain a lot of from having all the sex back in, but it is the most notorious of the trio as it is directed by Ray Dennis Steckler. Steckler, infamous for the likes of Rat Pfink and Boo Boo (1966), did make some porn films in his career, and starting with a nude woman (barring gloves and a cape) gyrating to drones and string instruments to the camera, we are absolutely in a strange territory even next to the other films involved in this collection. This woman, in the form of a more humble witchcraft enthusiast in more clothing, will temp a man reading a book in the countryside for what is a played satanic sex ritual. There is not a lot else to talk of, baring that he reads books on witchcraft, and that she has a Siamese cat named Lucifer who is the aforementioned Devil and starts a nice trend of cats in these films. There is also the weird decision to have our witch make erotic cat wails, which is probably one of the strangest aspects of any of the films as this happens even in the sex scenes.

The reason Smut Without Smut exists is that Sacrilege, bluntly, will force you to look at the lead’s testicles in close up for a long period of shots, which is not for everyone. The paradox with hardcore, which this mixtape has to work around, is that porn drags because of its hardcore scenes of actual sex but without them, not in terms of wanting to arose the viewer but for their tone, you cannot really cut around them depending on the film used without potentially losing so much of their tone, or feeling as here they abruptly change scene. Again, and with the desire to not repeat this repeatedly, these films do present a taboo nature when our male lead calls a female friend to join over when possessed by sex, the playing to a non-consensual nature to these scenes in all the films mentioned in this review something which is going to offend people, more so because of the uncut versions having real sexual acts transpire even if they are highly choreographed. Sacrilege out of the three full films I saw is the most lacksidasical, but this would still be seen as a taboo for some still even if that  the film in context, the repetitiveness of the sex scenes themselves, undercut the potential grimness with monotony. The film by the ending also possesses a very squeaky table the scene of the Satanic orgy plays out on top of, and jazz drumming on the soundtrack mixed with soundtrack pieces for a silent adventure serial, which is a realm of strangeness in itself, which cannot defend these to someone who feels sexual fantasies like this are indefensible, but do undercut such a film by reveal how absurd it is as a fictional piece, real sex or otherwise. For Ray Dennis Steckler, it definitely becomes an idiosyncratic production to watch if an acquired taste even next to the others in this. Its compilation version would probably suffice for most, but uncut, the repetition and tone becomes its weird aura.

As mentioned, there are films here which were not included as extras in their full feature form, Sexual Awareness (1974) one of these, about a religious sex cult.  A lot of clearly missing from its cut form, a fragment of curiosity that really does not stand out, and again, about a cult that use hypnosis, this does emphasis that with a childlike naivety in a lot of these films’ cases that they touch upon fantasies which many may find completely unacceptable. It emphases sexual fantasies as a complicated and at times difficult thing, notwithstanding the fact that pornography even into the modern day has problematic aspects, especially when it comes to fetishing race, where we do not willingly face these with the complexity they need as much as rightly challenge them. None of the films in this, though a few have some eyebrow raising and sleazy moments, can be seen as anything but utterly ridiculous, entirely artificial and able to dismiss as from another time in look, especially as  Sexual Awareness in the Satanic Horror Nite cut is played for all its awkward pauses in acting and non-sequiturs, alongside in the intermission afterwards subtly playing to the only innuendo in the trailer choices, with a hotdog advert terms which are far more explicit then one would presume.

Satan’s Lust, which thankfully comes with another cameo by a cat also minding its own business, tries to be a murder mystery with obvious culprits shown in their criminal act from the get-go, a Satanic cult whose murder of a female victim has people sniffing in on them. Those people are Pamela Goodnight and Wayne, who are investigating the strange death of a woman named Carla who was working for Satanic Films, a movie studio in Los Angeles who were not hiding their purpose in being an evil satanic cult. This film, even in mind to The Devil Inside Her really going for eyebrow raising moments, is arguably the skuzziest of the lot as, baring a few romantic sex scenes, which involves their leads shaking their heads in slow mo, this definitely is the one where any concern for trigger warnings is appropriate, Pamela Goodnight probably as put upon as anyone can get in terms of a secret sexual satanic cult. Even in mind that, with legitimate suspicion on my behalf from all the cutaways, that faked fluids were used to be polite about it for scenes, this does become even sleazier the further along it goes, barely over an hour for a film reduced to fifteen minutes or so without the scene. It manages to have a scene that is problematic and twisted in capitals when someone is unconscious for the sex scene, and the perpetrator is thinking of an eleven year old girl, which is gross as that sounds in mind to how slapdash it also is, especially as said scene is also pointless for plot reasons to ever have. The version in Smut Without Smut form is more ridiculous for what it is, emphasis the non-sex scenes as being an ultra low budget genre film with the lack of these off putting edges to deal with, like one’s sex partner to one’s horror turning into a skeleton mid way through. If you could not get the tone, that these films are incompetent for the most part with actors just earnestly going through them, it is completely understandable why those here would still be uncomfortable to experience. This is also in mind that Satan’s Lust does have its own ridiculous moments which could only be laughed at, the most inappropriate use of Yellow Submarine by the Beatles, as an instrumental piece, finding itself here of all places the most obvious example of this.

Out of all the films, whilst with some of the most shocking content, The Devil Inside Her is the most ambitious of the trio as well, trying to be an actual film with a knowing transgressive streak at its heart. Set in 1826, a normal puritan farming family is undercut by the fact that, among the two daughters, one is romantically attracted to a young man, whilst the other is jealous of this. The father neither helps, as even kissing in broad daylight is enough for him to call one of these daughters a “harlot” and punish her with naked whipping, but the pleas of both sisters invokes Satan to appear, as depicted with KISS makeup, spike leather neck and wrist pieces, and the horn. Obviously this is again a film where its attitude to sex has dated extremely, but it is one that feels deliberately transgressive rather than being sordid; even if Satan is depicted nude barring boots, using a backwards talking masturbation ritual to turn into the love interest for both women, there is a clear knowing sense of provocation here not just from the film’s clear low views of this form of Christianity it depicts, even having Satan having the last words with God in the finale that, as long as people are sexually frustrated and he is the first on call, he will always get to the mortals first. Tellingly, its director Zebedy Colt has a compelling history which likely explains this, in that this was someone who clearly was bringing a lot of provocation to the production knowingly; birth name Edward Earle Marsh, he had two parallel careers, a musical and acting career including in several small Broadway roles, with his homosexuality something which he explicitly showed in music about romance and love between men, contrast with his directing and acting roles in hardcore porn, including having of all people a young Spalding Gray, famous for his acting and monologue work among other things, in a role in Farmer's Daughters (1976)¹.

With Satan able to shape shift, this is where the film gets more over the top and memorable. The film certainly has an imagination – where as the jealous sister goes to a witch for a love potion, we bear witness to some vivid dialogue such as the concoction using “the menstrual fluid of a Persian harlot” and Nicodemus the parrot who transforms into a human being, needing to be "milked" to finish the love potion. There is still a lot here which would be considered shocking for people, playing to how Satan disguises himself as members of this family, brining in some shocking concepts such as incest but two really out-there moments, one more acceptable in certain areas of erotica, a golden shower, which takes place at the Satanic orgy in the finale between consenting Satanists, but the other involving consensual use of vegetables which is quite a surprise. This in the Satanic Nite Orgy loses all of this, but also a lot of the tone, where this film which may be still indefensible for its content and tone still possesses a lot more in its tiny budget in terms of tone. It is telling that, even if it goes for the happy ending where the religious win, clearly horny Satanists were the ones we were supposed to be cheering.

The actual Smut Without Smut cut is a fascinating and fun ride to witness, but honestly, it can be argued to be a failure. There will be films people would prefer to have cut down into non-hardcore films to be able to enjoy their cheesy natures, and these versions will be easier to screen at cinema presentations, and more power to those both, but it really gets into the difficulty with what one does with hardcore adult cinema as a concept. There is still taboo some have with the concept of these films, let alone if they have any artistic merit, contrasted by the dichotomy of how one of their trademarks, emphasis on lengthy explicit depiction of the sexual act, is not something that is meant to be experienced for many as an actual film, rather than for titillation, but also is how their stories are structured around them if they have actual stories, making it insanely difficult to not undercut the tone and mood by splicing out the sex. Softcore cuts of these films are still made, which is telling in terms of the market for them, but Satanic Horror Nite also emphasizes the practical issues here that, wishing to re-edit these films for consumption, what this is just is censored cuts in a compilation, with not anything which could have emphasized the disjointed results on purpose and had for fun, such as more Satanic porn film trailers or jokes based on old advertising for drive-ins. I admire AGFA still releasing this, but it is telling that, not films to just jump into as they could be deeply off-putting for their content, the uncut versions are far more fascinating for what strange and sordid productions they are, one in The Devil Inside Her managing to be compelling for its clearly artistic goals among also being porn.

 

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1) The Many Sides of Zebedy Colt from Queer Music Heritage. This is NSFW for some of the archive materials included in the page about Zebedy Colt's life.

Chamber of Horrors (1966)

 

Director: Hy Averback

Screenplay: Stephen Kandel

Cast: Patrick O'Neal as Jason Cravette; Cesare Danova as Anthony Draco; Wilfrid Hyde-White as Harold Blount; Laura Devon as Marie Champlain; Patrice Wymore as Vivian; Suzy Parker as Barbara Dixon; José René Ruiz Martínez (credited as Tun Tun) as Senor Pepe De Reyes; Philip Bourneuf as Insp. Matthew Strudwick

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

A failed TV pilot, based on the 1953 House of Wax with Vincent Price, this like many were salvaged for every other which were simply abandoned to be rediscovered online, to recoup the costs of having made them and at least having a final product, especially as like a few pilots over the decades of American television, this is a feature length one meant originally to introduce this premise. Many however were made into TV movies, whilst from Warner Brothers, Chamber of Horrors was re-appropriated into a theatrical film with a William Castle-like gimmick, where at four gruesome moments, a horror warning (with disregard for epilepsy) fires up with a red light flashing and a "horror horn" blaring. This also opens with a great set piece, likely a scene among a few dubbed too gruesome for the TV series to have been created, where the villain Jason Cravette, actor Patrick O'Neal playing up to Vincent Price mannerisms at points, forces a priest at gunpoint to marry him to a female corpse, the cat at the piano watching as he climbs the stairs with his bride in what is, for a sixties Warner Bros. feature, an act of wedding night necrophilia the film portrays within what they could get away with. Unlike the previous Waxworks films, Price's and the film it remade, Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), the wax museum owners here, alongside recreating horrifying murders for their patrons, have a moral too, as a trio of amateur sleuths happy to help the police catch potential subjects of their museum, such as our villain Cravette himself.

One is an expert and craftsman of the wax models, a charming older man played by Wilfrid Hyde-White, whilst the handsome face of the trio, played by Cesare Danova, is the ladies man who will eventually woo another important character later in the second act, a female sex worker played by Laura Devon, and then there is José René Ruiz Martínez/ Tun Tun as Senor Pepe De Reyes. Tun Tun as he was known is playing a character here that, even if he has many jokes about his height, is portrayed by an actor with dwarfism who is able to whip back the perfect one liners and is absolutely charming as their reconnaissance man. They make a legitimately great trio of male characters, actually good ones with distinct personalities, who are brought on the case of Jason Cravette by his own aunt, someone of high privilege who wants him off the street and not strangling debutants when he is not hiring women to dress as brides.

For a former TV pilot, shot on film at the time, it looks good for a period chiller set in the 19th century, one where even if the film is tamer next to others from the time, is gleefully morbid with scenes like severed hands on a tray. Honestly the only thing that has badly aged is a non-Asian actor playing a Chinese merchant for a brief scene, setting up the second act where, after being arrested and escaped the death sentence at a self inflicted cost of a hand, Cravette is provided a collection of new pointy ones including a hook and various blades to start his revenge on those who tried to execute him, with the twisted plan to construct a body from parts of law enforcement who were involved. The horror warning gimmick itself can also be argued to be a pointless inclusion, as alongside the issue of epilepsy with a flashing red light, it neither goes off a few second before the horror moment, but with enough gaps to not work "properly". It is, however, at least, a cherry on top, to what becomes compelling pulp piece which works by itself, if you really want a fully pulpy genre film which gets a lot right.

Chamber of Horrors was a one-off, which could have spawned a film franchise, juggling the suspense and light tone well here. It manages, goreless, to be legitimately creepy in its premise, as quick to capitalise on the case they are on, the wax models by the leads allow this to show the icky case in detail, including of a headless and armless body wrapped in parcel tape like a public art piece. Contrasting this is the whit, Hyde-White in particular a gleefully invested English man, wishing to separate himself from his family back home, happy to run his museum and publish books on strangulation. It is a film that I would be happy to see get a lot more love for as, for an American horror film, this is a good one from a period where, with movements in the genre coming forth from outside the United States to the independent drive-ins especially, you have something like this, despite its origins as a TV pilot for a show that never came to be, you could hold as a nice gem from mainstream Hollywood.

Night of the Demon (1980)

 

Director: James C. Wasson

Screenplay: Mike Williams and Jim L. Ball

Cast: Michael Cutt as Professor Bill Nugent; Melanie Graham as Wanda McGinty; Shannon Cooper as Carla Thomas; Bob Collings as Roy; Jodi Lazarus as Linda; Michael Lang as Pete; Ray Jarris as Gary; William F. Nugent as Lou Carlson; Barrett Cooper as Reverend Emmet McGinty

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Let your seeds of evil grow within her!

Among the Video Nasties of the 1984 Video Recordings Act, all of them present their own fascinating history and with Night of the Demon, we find ourselves following the trends of "cryptid" culture, including the legendary 1967 Patterson–Gimlin film footage which was said to capture onscreen images of an ape-like humanoid and feed interest in this legendary figure in cinema. With Night of the Demon, there is obviously the dichotomy that this is also a splatter film in tone, where films which helped pave an interest in making them were more family friendly; films like The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972), a huge independent success, and when Monsters! Mysteries or Myths? (1974), a TV documentary with Rod Serling as the narrator, was expanded into a feature film with new footage (and actor Peter Graves taking over narration) for The Mysterious Monsters (1975) for another hit. This is not even the first gorier Bigfoot film as, whilst its plot involves a fake one, Shriek of the Mutilated (1974) exists, but Night of the Demon among some pretty strong competition in the Video Nasties list still stands toe-to-toe with a level of extremity.

With Night of the Demon, the explanation for how it came to be explains everything about the tone and content - originally this was a suspense film, in which Professor Nugent (Michael Cutt), in a bookend disfigured and recovering in a hospital bed, recounts to doctors and the police about his trip with students to a forest region which is said to be terrorised by a bigfoot creature, only for the production to struggle to be sold and producer Jim L. Ball to film additional gore footage which gained its infamy. This is immediately established when a man has his arm ripped off, both the gore intercut to and showing this is not a friendly Bigfoot. Even without this initial context, where after a first version played off mood and tension from director James C. Wasson, you had the gore added which gained a lot of notoriety for those who had seen the film, Night of the Demon from the first time I saw it, and did not appreciate it, to a growing one for it now, is curious in its pacing and tone. Immediately after that arm is pulled off a man like a doll's, it cuts to seventies flute music over an ordinary school, a reminder the early eighties in horror reflects the previous decade in style until the hairspray came in during the mid-eighties. With the daughter of one of the male victims of this creature in tow, what this becomes is a mystery as the team of Bigfoot finders go to the woods in Northern California, where the sightings are, and first ask around before going further into the woodlands.

The gore scenes are mostly linked to flashbacks from tales recounted by Nugent, filtered throughout, be it a man swung in a sleeping bag by Bigfoot and impaled, to the infamous scene of a motor biker having his penis ripped off, which is more for the sake of spectacle splatter than cohesive in their presentation, more a series of scenes to get reaction from than a cohesive series of attacks by a cryptid. It becomes more of a series of exposition scenes, getting to the culprit, until the later half where "Crazy" Wanda (Melanie Graham), a woman living in the deepest woods, is introduced, someone traumatised by a religious zealot father and a significant encounter with Bigfoot. Alongside its tangents, like the moment involving the Bigfoot cult in the woods, there is material with Night of the Demon with hindsight which is out-there even among the Nasties, particularly as this has as a key plot point a child conceived between cryptid and human being. It is a transgressive and uncomfortable scene in presentation, and meant to be to its credit, and it is another story if one of a few of a cryptid creature in a scenario like this, if one here which attempts to be much more serious and a disturbing take on the matter than, say, The Geek (1971), a porn film which exists and was released by Something Weird Video. It is strange how many films, even as far back as Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) with the Gill Man obsessed with Julie Adams, fixate on the monstrous having desires with human women, and in mind that there is a world of cryptid erotic novels, many actually written by women¹, this is a concept for an entirely different piece but is important to keep in mind with human beings fascinated by the monstrous as something to fear but also having a physicality to them that can even be sexual. In some cases it is erotic, but as Wanda's story becomes central to this film, whilst it can be viewed as tasteless in this context, one of the stronger (credibly) aspects to the production as a drama is that it is meant to be a horrifying story. Of religious zealotry distorting and hurting a young girl, and especially with what happened to the conceived child, which can be lost in the film's tone and included splatter scenes, but should be pointed to as the real attempt at a narrative within this.

There is an absurdity that cannot be denied due to how the film was put together, where you are watching in one scene Bigfoot literally forcing two Girl Scouts to stab each other, which is as ridiculous as that sounds, and the languid tone of what was supposed to be a suspense picture from director James C. Wasson is felt and does make it a slower paced experience. It is to be admired nonetheless for a regional production, knowing how hard film production is, and the figures behind this are fascinating, making this an even weirder and rewarding Video Nasty in its context. Producer Jim L. Ball, coming to this business from an obsession with Maria Montez and films she starred in like Cobra Woman (1944) as a kid², even working at American International Pictures alongside Roger Corman in the sound department. He would end up creating a trilogy of these horror films with Night of the Demon sandwiched between Fraternity of Horror (1964), a 16mm production never released until the 2022 Severin Films/88 Films Blu Ray release, and Prophecy of Blood, a video shoot mummy film that is insanely obscure. Director James C. Wasson's career is even more idiosyncratic as he was a singer before this production, a writer of songs and a musical manager, even writing the musical composition for a song written by one of the men behind the legendary Patterson–Gimlin film, which was an influence on him taking this film as a director³. Night of the Demon on screen and off-screen does gain a lot from this. As much as the production onscreen is a lurid and bizarre bigfoot film which is idiosyncratic to witness, this background context adds to the cherry on the cake for appreciating the work behind it, and its infamy as a Video Nasty has more meaning knowing the first proper release this had in distribution was in the British VHS market², and we know how that went.

Only the knowledge of Tab Hunter being offered a role, and declining, suggests an alternative version of the film I admit I wish I could have seen².

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1) Figures like author Virginia Wade, who even became controversial that Amazon was clamping down on their ebook "cryptid erotica", are a fascinating reminder that unconventional (and eyebrow raising) depictions of sexuality have no gender bias, as is documented in MONSTER PORN: Amazon Cracks Down On America’s Latest Sex Fantasy, written by Eric Spitznagel for Business Insider.

2) Just a Little Green Kid Outta Waco, Texas, a Blu Ray interview short with Ball included for the 2022 USA Severin Films Blu-Ray release, and transferred over to the 88 Films 2022 release in the United Kingdom.

3) The Demon Made Me Do It, the Blu Ray interview short with Wasson included for the 2022 USA Severin Films Blu-Ray release, and transferred over to the 88 Films 2022 release in the United Kingdom.

She's Allergic to Cats (2016)

 

Director: Michael Reich

Screenplay: Michael Reich

Cast: Mike Pinkney as Mike pinkney; Sonja Kinski as Cora; Flula Borg as Sebastian; Veronika Dash as Nancy; Honey Davis as Honey

An Abstract Candidate

 

What, demon cats you’re saying?

Made like a modern, multimedia anxiety, Mike pinkney (Mike Pinkney) is a young man living in Hollywood, wanting to make films and creating video art lamenting his life in his spare time, having to make his income by grooming dogs for celebrities. He also wants to remake Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) with cats, i.e. not some unholy musical hybrid from the Andrew Lloyd Webber work with an anthropomorphic John Travolta, but recasting Sissy Spacek with a Persian cat. Obviously, there is a post-ironic absurdity to the proceedings, but director-writer Michael Reich’s film is a chronicle of a mental breakdown, even if it is clear there is humour to this with a prolonged scene dealing with squeezing the anal glands of dogs, which viewers will have to sit through real examples of. Salvation is offered for Mike by a female client named Cora (Sonja Kinski), an assistant to Mickey Rourke’s daughter, who has as chemistry with him and decide to go on a date. He is coasting in existence however, and the rat infestation in his home he needs to deal with before she arrives for date night requires drastic action.

It is tinged with a sarcasm, where his producer is more concerned, when pitched the Carrie remake, that he has never heard of the original film nor the Stephen King novel, but the film undercuts this with moments of the sinister, such as this figure named Sebastian (Flula Borg) suddenly start to talk like a demon at the racquetball court. The best comparison is the “Infomercials” produced and screened by Adult Swim, the adult targeted programming block broadcast by the American basic cable channel Cartoon Network, where they produced works which are meant to be absurd, but with entries like Too Many Cooks (2014) cutting the jokes with conclusions which eventually get into horror. This is more psychodrama in mode, yet the same rules apply, where there is a serious subject in its centre, but there is a prolonged scene, to cause awkwardness, in the locker room afterwards with a man’s bared penis in the centre of shot. There is this sense of bordering on being funny but too weird to laugh is a constant factor here, both to cringe and feel disjointed. This juxtaposition of tonal whiplash does fit the breakdown in Mike, and whilst this cannot afford showing scenes of Carrie, the obvious metaphor of another Travolta film The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976), a made-for-TV film in which, born with immune system issues, Travolta plays a young man who has had to live in a n incubator-like conditions, represents the sense Mike is trapped in his own world even if this plays to deadpan absurdity. The tragedy is there even when he laments at multiple points that he no longer has bananas because the rats ate them.

In structure, this is equivalent of a short story, where the choice which will doom him is a tiny one which is magnified, that he decides to “borrow” from his employment a cat Rosemary to hunt the rats, a cat dubbed vicious by a colleague. What happens in reality is openly stated in the title of the film, the source of where things will go wrong, but the build is more character driven. At first Cora seems to be someone who may be entirely in his own head, as at first her face is mostly obscured on purpose to suggest something is amiss. She is revealed, when clearly a real person, as someone with a complicated psychological back-story of her own, with the shock if you know who Sonja Kinski’s family tree is adding something even unintentionally. The daughter of acclaimed actress Natasha Kinski, thus Sonja Kinski is also the granddaughter of the acclaimed and notorious Klaus Kinski, as known for his off-screen personality (with director Werner Herzog especially) as much as onscreen; whilst this should not cast a shadow over the proceedings, this befits a family which have had distinct and idiosyncratic filmographies between them, and her proper introduction does add a lot more to the film considerably. 

Once Kinski appears and allows Mike Pinkney to interact in their characters, this film despite playing up to ironic wackiness also at the same time becomes a short story toned piece about alienation, based on events that have no basis in producing plot incident but delving into the characters. Sadly it does involves a joke on the lost dog poster that plays a plot point, about transgender people which has no aged well at all, the one real blight on the film as an ironic joke than done to question a character even writing that on the poster looking for the dog. Beyond this however, everything involving said dog, a missing pug named Karma, is without issue, a catalyst for the depth this starts to bring in when the dog makes an onscreen appear. This passage about Karma, when found by the leads, is a shift in drama. It allows these characters to show their own disconnect issues as they, trying to get the dog back to its owner, end up together talking when they decide to break in to complete this virtuous mission, including Cora’s tale as a child of teaching baby ducks to swim in a paddling pool which has a disconcerting end to where the narrative finishes.

It is here where the ironic humour, needing knowledge of pop culture of the YouTube poop video or the Nostalgia Critic, may help appreciate the film, as the man we never see and whose home they break into has a DVD collection entirely about talking animals. I have also found, however, having little context adds to certain works, in context, when even if the references have no grounded form, they became part of the tapestry. The discussion on Howard the Duck (1986) alone is weird, about a topless female duck humanoid with breasts, before you even realise that was a real scene, a brief moment, in a film produced by George Lucas just after the first Star Wars films. Even as the central couple are discussing that real ducks do not have nipples, it is contextually about people who are surrounded by this pop culture and trying to gauge their growing romance underneath this construct. In terms of actual pop culture with meaning for myself, it was actually amusing Congo (1995) is an integral work to an emotional beat, at least as held up as a stolen DVD by Kinski in the rain, especially as I do like that film for its flaws.

Interlacing video layered footage together with this drama also leads a disconcerting edge to Allergic..., especially as it plays to using digital artifice and VHS flaws. The aspect involving the cats and the dog grooming footage, evoking Everything is Terrible!'s DoggieWoggiez! PoochieWoochiez! (2012) in layering footage, is clearly absurd as much as playing to cute animal videos; the Carrie remake is shown, with the famous bucket of blood scene recreated ,by a cat getting the pig’s blood on her through a homemade image layering video project. As Michael’s breakdown continues, and everything is going to end in tears, the more this is involved, including the suggestion of people being possessed by cats, this artifice increasing more and more to the breaking point. That is not including scenes, posing the lead actors or layering, which juxtapose them to ordinary likes art pieces, surreal for the sake of this, but with at least the creative spark with the choices, especially as we are factoring in, in the editing, they represent the thoughts and anxieties of Mike our lead trying to get on with life, slowly becoming more weird and loosing grip with these images exhibiting this. She’s Allergic to Cats will be an acquired taste, undeniably kooky and accused for doing it on purpose to the detriment of the film’s tone, such as a gag of Michael literally falling face first into dog faeces, but the humour is laced with a discontent which becomes more pronounced as the film eventually finishes, not with a bang, but a literal meow.

Abstract Spectrum: Disturbing/Eccentric/Ironic/Wacky

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

Burial Ground - The Nights of Terror (1981)

 

Director: Andrea Bianchi

Screenplay: Piero Regnoli

Cast: Karin Well as Janet; Gianluigi Chirizzi as Mark; Simone Mattioli as James; Antonella Antinori as Leslie; Roberto Caporali as George; Pietro Barzocchini [Peter Bark] as Michael; Claudio Zucchet as Nicholas; Anna Valente as Kathryn; Benito Barbieri as  the Professor; Mariangela Giordano as Evelyn

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Mother, this cloth smells of death.

Ye old awesome horror synth opens Burial Ground, an infamous Andrea Bianchi zombie film the wave that came out of Italy after Zombi 2 (1979), which also opens with a man trying to say to the undead he is their friend only to get eaten. The group who come to his mansion of the damned, to meet him, are to find themselves in the midst of this undead horde, including infamously a mother played by Mariangela Giordano and her child son, played by an adult named Pietro Barzocchini under the name Peter Bark, a very miniscule height male actor with the choice of playing him as said child, making viewers squirm since this film's first release. And yes, it was always weird, as his namesake, Bark's character was named Michael, really weird when he wanders into the bedroom his mother is in during an intimate relationship with his father and becomes jealous by their act.

There is not a lot complicated to Burial Ground in general. Set to a really idiosyncratic score by Elsio Mancuso and Berto Pisano, including a lot of lounge jazz that you would never find in zombie films from the 2010s, the basic premise is that they are in the home of Professor Harry, the man already eaten by the first ten minutes, who was studying rituals to summon the dead, and they have to survive. Michael's weird relationship with his mother being with her husband notwithstanding, it is a cheesy zombie film, and honestly, in tone there is no difference to this to a forties or fifties b-movie, of screaming damsels in distress and men helpless to zombies trying to choke them, only with gore and director Bianchi infamously bringing really transgressive content to his work. It is to the point the score at times suggests a UFO will appear any minute to explain why the zombies came out the ground.

The zombies themselves emphasis this film's legacy, how they can be both creepy but ridiculous, the morbidness of their decay in representing death contrasted by their potato sack cloth clothes, or how that, sanely, you could outrun these shambling undead with ease and get off the premises quickly. Instead, the cast are doomed by fear of the uncanny, moving decay or inexplicably start gurning transfixed and trying to fire at one until some figures out later headshots only work. Admittedly, getting a foot caught in an animal trap as at one point is something that could credibly get you eaten, but there is also both a humour and virtue even to this infamous film how the zombies make up in sluggishness with being clever and being able to use tools. Here, you may be decaying but your knife throwing reflexes are as strong as when you were alive.

Burial Ground is a film which, even next to the other zombie films from Italy, looks like it is chasing the others in trend, your mileage drastically changing depending on your taste in camp and feeling icky, something clear as it tries to top the splinter to the eye scene from Zombi 2 with a head through a broken window. There is still a style to all this to appreciate - I like the music as talked of, and this is still a production from a time where you could film at a real mansion with its aesthetic decor helping so much in the production value - but this is as schlocky as you can get. I love this film, but you have to work around this, to be able to appreciate its absurdity as much some cool ideas for the genre, zombies who figure out teamwork and battering rams. This is also with the film finding itself contrasted by its luridness, which became the more infamous aspect for decades, the more explicitly incestuous slant that comes between Michael and his mother becoming more graphic, in a way a) explains the casting of an adult, and b) is really screwed up. The tone is cemented when the film ends on a quote from the "Profecy of the Black Spider", which does not exist, and yes, is not properly spelt as typed there, adding the cherry to this gory guilty pleasure.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

 

Director: Dwight H. Little

Screenplay: Alan B. McElroy

Cast: Donald Pleasence (as Dr. Sam Loomis); Danielle Harris (as Jamie Lloyd); Ellie Cornell (as Rachel Carruthers); George P. Wilbur (as Michael Myers); Beau Starr (as Sheriff Ben Meeker)

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

After Part III Season of the Witch (1982), it took six years before Halloween returned to the silver screen, Michael Myers firmly back in its centre having been in a coma since the second film. At least, and with spoilers difficult to hide with sequels from previous entries, this addressed the issue that the creators were attempting to kill him off with a giant explosion, so this continuation makes sure that, even if rewriting a dramatic ending, it had an effect. Here the results least lead to him in a coma, badly burnt up, for all the years that past within this world, awoke from his slumber in a mental institute when word of him having a niece is uttered in ear shot. Honestly, the biggest issue with The Return of Michael Myers is entirely that it feels contractual to exist when, for the start of the divisive Thorn Cult trilogy, this could have been more playful.

The decision to write Laurie Strode off screen, as Jamie Lee Curtis was long past slasher films in her mainstream career, and switching to an adopted girl played by a young Danielle Harris is actually a smart move to have gone with. I may find the decision to make Strode related to Myers annoying, but if one is forced to continue the series, having the bogeyman plague other members of the family is far more practical, and meaningful, in mind that for the Friday the 13th movies, they got around issues like this by setting up new random groups of teens and young adults. In the casting of Jamie Lloyd, you have a sympathetic figure if anything. Eleven months off from the death of her parents and adopted, the idea of a figure still reeling from this trauma, and having nightmares connected to Myers, an uncle she has never seen, is an interesting premise for any production to run with. Particularly when you get to Part 5 as well, Harris as a child actor in the film is incredibly charismatic and likable, making the fact her two films in the franchise are about Myers threatening and trying to kill a young girl more disturbing.

If we need to have a sequel, the shame of this film petering out is that this just starts with promise as a quietly set up but engaging follow up, only to start becoming more sluggish as it goes along. It is still a basic premise, with the worst step sister in Rachel, played by Ellie Cornell, even having her own subplot about the romantic triangle between her and the daughter of the new sheriff of Haddonfield. Even with the return of Donald Pleasure, turning his Dr. Loomis into an Ahab character slowly losing his mind, there is a build up from the literal scars from the last film, to an amusing tangent with a drunk mad preacher talking about chasing damnation in his beat up car, and the end naturally driving anyone in his position to start howling like a mad man. With Harris an anchor for viewer sympathy greatly needed, we had nothing amiss with this story. Despite losing Dean Cundey as cinematographer, this does also manage to have its own autumn aesthetic which works in its favour. The Blu-Ray era has been an incredible godsend for cinema like this; once a luddite who had no interest in the technology, my sudden change to the medium over DVD has nothing to do with picture resolution but because it has lead to films being restored or at least, with this one getting better visual quality for them. The orange hued yet cold autumn colours of Haddonfield adds to the creepiness of the premise, of scarecrows in the fields, Jack O' Lanterns everywhere and a small local town plague by memories of the bogeyman before he even returns. The slow, glacial nature of the film, even next to the first two in the series, adds an atmosphere that can stand up to the prequels in having its own personality.

The problems are entirely because, after Season of the Witch bombed, The Return of Michael Myers is a very safe direction to have gone with the franchise. Beyond its supernatural twist ending, which leads to the precipice of the franchise's obsession with adding occult details, it is a generic slasher by its ending at a time when the genre, with so many existing, started getting into far more idiosyncratic ones, for good and for the absurd, whilst this is insanely dry. It is strange, once ago I would have lionised this when I really was not as found of slashers, happy when this was drawing things out and not falling into terrible late eighties perms or z-list glam metal songs. I love those glam metal songs now, regardless of what tier of quality they are in, like the eighties perms, still find slashers can get generic but appreciating their goofiness as much as one succeeds in one or more areas, and find this one eventually starts with a personality, being a solid and mood drenched horror film, only to get insanely perfunctory by the time Michael Myers is terrorising people. Considering he begins just being a force off-screen that can decimate an entire building of a few bystanders, as this starts with, less human and a literal force, we could have gone with more of the sense of dread even if we played out the slasher clichés. By the time he is out in the open, the more lurid slashers can gloat that they at least have more personality.  

Aspects are up to question in logic - the most egregious at one time being the subplot of the locals becoming an armed mob, with an unresolved event when they shot an innocent bystander by mistake - have now actually gained personality. It just goes to show that, lavishing praise on this film once ago, things change as you get older and appreciate the horror sub-genre you once had an ambivalent view of, affecting the films you were more positive on. You could blame this entirely on the screenwriter of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002), and the future director of Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1996), but honestly the issue feels more like no one wanted to make a radical turn in the series, merely replicate what came before despite the fact, with hindsight, the original Halloween is really unconventional in how precise and moody it was. Being beholden to how this starts the controversial Thorn trilogy, there is also the issue even with its virtues that, at least alongside Part 5, you have to wait to see if these films work together as one piece or expose even more problems. It is the obvious thing as well that will factor in for The Return of Michael Myers, and honestly, in the strange world of the horror franchise sequels, it feels less a concern wanting to rank them from best to worst, but more riding this peculiar rollercoaster and see what stood out, this one unfortunately now feel like the straight line in this trajectory.

Games of the Abstract: Shinobi III - Return of the Ninja Master (1993)

 

Developer: Sega

Publisher: Sega

One Player

Sega Mega Drive / Genesis

 

Credit where it is due, with Shinobi III growing in worth over me in multiple plays, I admired it already in mind to its history. The story goes that, allowing videogame magazines to preview Shinobi III, Sega found the reviews lukewarm for their expectations, so they took back the game and made it better, trying again and with success¹. Whilst the game does have its difficult spikes, like a final level which involves negotiating around electrical currents, Shinobi III does feel like Sega flexing with the Mega Drive, more so as it feels artistically positive, in a way that seems alien to the industry as a business, to deliberately halt a realize to improve a title than merely release it.

One comparison worth suggesting in how, like Treasure, the legendary developer of Gunstar Heroes (1993) from this era alongside later cult hits, there was an emphasis on making this game “cinematic” in style, with set pieces and events like boss battles being as much events to play through. This proves a virtue in this follow up in the Shinobi series, following Joe Musashi in his quest to end a returning Neo Zeed, the evil organization defeated in the previous game, as the game is steeped in this idea of memorable set pieces which are there more for cinematic spectacle in sprite form, especially in the earlier levels. You have a ninja surfing at one point, one of two scrolling scenes alongside riding a horse, which pretty much shows how of the period of the nineteen nineties this was in feeling like a cartoon in tone, but alongside the regular game play of Musashi going through levels, jumping hazards, slashing villains or throwing shruiken at them, there is an emphasis on set pieces with this particular game which is also matched by its high production quality as a game.

Whilst the game is consistent and throwing new challenges, like a repeating maze in a traditional Japanese manor with platforming puzzles, it does feel like Sega put the best moments earlier on, but the consistency of the game helps it. Undeniably, the game looks sumptuous, the richness of the game’s graphical style knowing that, whilst released in 1988, the Mega Drive/Genesis had such help in developers learning and improving with the technology over time. Knowing the circumstances as well, that Sega pulled the game, and remade the sequel in little time to make a better game, it is a huge compliment how the quality is still there, also applying to the score by Hirofumi Murasaki, Morihiko Akiyama and Masayuki Nagao. Arguably the high point is Level Three of the seven, very early on, when you are thrown into the main villains’ bio lab of horrifying mutant creations. It is a curious logic where, in the regular game play of Musashi going through levels, jumping hazards, slashing villains or throwing shuriken at them, Level One is in the woodlands, like a traditional chambara/ninja tale, Level Two has Musashi taking the battle to the villains at a military base, against their soldiers and robots, only to get into full scale body horror for Level Three. Expect blob critters exploding from glass tubs, a subterranean flesh pit with giant termites and arguably that which should be the game’s most memorable moment, a horrifying flesh monster as a boss, looking like a skinned man and the size of a building.

Gameplay wise, Shinobi 3 is as much an obstacle course as it is hack n slash, the enemies usually one hit to kill and more a hazard to negotiate alongside the platforming, which becomes more significant later on where you are literally negotiating obstacle courses, be they elevators lined with crawl spaces and mechanized defenses, or double jumping falling rocks to stay upward in a freefall. The double jump, important to this series, is a potentially contentious mechanic as, due to the precise nature of it, only achievable on top of the normal jump, it could lose of a lot of lives due to a lot of mistiming. Of great interest too, following on from the previous games, is Joe Musashi‘s access to a variety of magical abilities. One of the more idiosyncratic is literally sacrificing a life, by hara-kiri, for all your health bar back and damage to your enemy, which may seem an extreme idea to include, but turned out to be a fantastic exploit for the final boss, a perfect robotic simulacra of Musashi, especially if you can accumulate lives, as unlike the others it can be done more than once if you wish to take the risk.

Leaving the arcades, and reaching the 16 bit systems with a series of Mega Drive games, this series would continue with Shinobi X (1995), a maligned but still good Sega Saturn follow up with digitized actors that I wish was more readily available; its aesthetic is contentious, but if you can accept it, it takes the gameplay of this game and adds far more, including a wider set of combat moves, which added so much more to an already solid production. Outside of the handheld consoles, this would be the last of the 2D games in this franchise, one which like many of this era emphasized short and challenging platforming and mowing through enemies, part of the Mega Drive flexing its prowess before the 32 bit console generation would take over. Shinobi III is absolutely a game worth viewing as, whilst history made the likes of Sonic the Hedgehog more valued intellectual properties for Sega financially, this shows the quality of Sega at their best in the home console side, including the knowledge as beginning this review they went as far as pay additional expenses to improve a game from the ground up they could have just released in their original form. In premise and style, it would have been a cheesy sci-fi action film, but the best kind that, within the context of video games, is a joy in terms of pure style. There is an inherent pleasure for those of any game skill if they can work with this game’s specific challenges in its aesthetic pleasures, be it barraging through supernatural samurai to fighting a mecha Godzilla monster as a boss, and whilst games thankfully exist recreating this in the modern day, these are the type I see the trademarks of a “Mega Drive” game in terms of stereotypes in a positive way.

 

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1) Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master/Development, from Sega Retro.