Shrek (2001)

The Movie: Shrek (voice of Mike Meyers, the star of Austin Powers and Wayne’s World), is an ogre who lives all alone in his swamp. This is how he prefers it; and his only real contact with the outside world is to scare off the occasional band of torch-wielding villagers who decide to come after him. Unfortunately for Shrek, his simple life is about to be upended. Lord Farquaad (the venerable and prolific John Lithgow), the local ruler, probably has the worst case of short man syndrome you could ever encounter. He is determined to be the Perfect King of the Perfect Kingdom; and the various fairy-tale entities who inhabit it have no place in the perfect world he envisions. As such, he’s been busy rounding them up for banishment; and Shrek’s swamp is where all the exiles wind up. To Shrek’s dismay, his neighborhood suddenly becomes awfully crowded.

Angrily, Shrek sets out to confront Lord Farquaad and demand his swamp back; accompanied by an annoying talking donkey (Eddie Murphy, last seen here in Bowfinger) who offers to show him the way. Fortunately, when Shrek arrives at Duloc, Farquaad’s kingdom, the tiny tyrant is in a mood to bargain. Having been told by a magic mirror that he isn’t technically a king, and that to become one he needs to marry a princess, Farquaad has fixated on the lovely Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz, last seen here in the Mask). The one catch is that Fiona is currently locked in the tallest tower of a ruined castle, which is surrounded by a moat of lava and guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. If Shrek agrees to rescue Princess Fiona and bring her back to marry Farquaad, then Farquaad promises to return Shrek’s swamp to him, with all the squatters packed off elsewhere. Not really having a choice, Shrek and Donkey set out to rescue the princess.

However, it turns out that getting Fiona away from the dragon, difficult and nerve-wracking as the incident is, is just the easiest part of the adventure. Fiona is nothing like Shrek has expected a princess to be, and against his will he finds himself taking to her. Fiona, meanwhile, while initially disappointed that her rescuer wasn’t Prince Charming, finds herself warming up to the ogre. You see, unknown to Shrek, Donkey, and Farquaad, Fiona has a major secret. It’s why she was locked in the tower in the first place, and it’s definitely going to have a major impact on how things turn out…

The Review:

Shrek: “Oh, you were expecting Prince Charming?”

Fiona: “Well, yes, actually. Oh... this is wrong. This is all wrong! It's not supposed to be an ogre!”

I was in the mood for something different. Ever since I first saw Shrek in the theatre, it’s been one of my all-time favorite movies. In fact, I saw it in the theatre probably at least three times; something of a record for me. Admittedly, this movie has suffered a lot over the years due to Disney’s attempts to wring as much cash out of it as possible; repetition, over exposure, and three unneeded and increasingly inferior sequels. But if you can put all that aside, the original Shrek is extremely clever, well made, funny; something that can be enjoyed by children and adults alike.

Probably the aspect of this movie that caught and held me from the beginning was the message. Shrek is a message movie; but unlike most message movies it doesn’t attempt the bludgeon its audience with said message sledgehammer-style. Instead, the message is woven intrinsically into the script, the plot, and the characters’ motivations. Said message is one that we all need reminded of on a fairly regular basis: life never turns out the way it’s “supposed” to, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The setting of the movie, a world where all the fairy-tale characters we’ve known from childhood live, is perfect for showcasing this message. After all, thanks to Walt Disney fairy tales as we know them are extremely codified and formulized. I’m sure that the moment you read “fairy tale”, a very specific set of tropes immediately came to your mind: beautiful princess in danger, handsome prince to the rescue, monster, true love, marriage, happily ever after. If you grew up watching Disney movies (and let’s be honest here, who of us hasn’t?), these tropes immediately come to us without any conscious thought, because they’re what we’re conditioned to expect.

The genius of Shrek is that it presents us with these tropes, priming our expectations, and then turns them on their heads. Pay attention; all throughout the movie, whenever a character expresses how something is “supposed” to happen, we see it come about in a very different fashion. However, ultimately the outcome is all the better for it.

Lord Farquaad is probably our best example of this. He is a control freak who is determined to create the Perfect World; and he has a very specific picture of how such a perfect world looks. Everything in his kingdom is very carefully scripted. Whatever doesn’t fit the script is quickly disposed of.

However, as is always the case, perfection is beyond Farquaad because he, himself, is imperfect. Farquaad doesn’t fit his own script at all. The script calls for a king who is tall, handsome, dashing, brave and noble. The reality is a short, insecure, weaselly coward. When Shrek first lays eyes on Farquaad’s castle, his observation is “do you think he’s compensating for something?” And that, in a nutshell, sums up Lord Farquaad. A truly great man lets his actions speak for themselves and accepts the respect that is given; he doesn’t demand and script it. Farquaad wants to be seen as brave, wants to be seen as the man who makes the hard decisions, wants all the reward and glory that would come with rescuing and marrying Fiona; but he wants somebody else to make the sacrifices and take the risks it entails. When Shrek and Donkey arrive at Duloc, Farquaad is holding a tournament to pick a suitable champion to rescue Fiona. “Some of you may die,” he tells the aspiring champions, “but that is a risk I am willing to take.” Personally, that line always brings to mind a certain former president when he was trying to drum up support for a disastrous and unnecessary war; one waged for very similar reasons.

Fiona’s motives are, ironically, very similar to Farquaad’s; she is trying to compensate for a perceived imperfection in her life. When we start to get to know Fiona, it quickly becomes obvious that she’s anything but helpless. She’s more than capable of taking matters into her own hands when it’s needed. When the princesses takes on a whole pack of forest bandits single handedly, and beats the living snot out of them without taking a scratch; it’s clear that she has no problems defending herself. In short, Fiona never needed “rescuing” at all; she would have left that tower a long time ago if she wanted to. She was there entirely because she felt she had to be.

After a little over a decade (has it really been that long? Yep, feeling old.), and plenty of media overexposure; I don’t think it’s a spoiler at this point to reveal Fiona’s curse: she turns into an ogre at night, and will continue to do so until “True Love’s first kiss” will lock her into the form she’s supposed to take. Now, Fiona has been raised with some definite ideas of what a princess is supposed to be. As she tells Donkey when he finds out about her curse; “princesses and ugly don’t belong together.” She’s got everything about her rescue and the removal of her curse planned out to the smallest detail; so of course, none of it goes as expected. However, you have to admit she’s much better off with the outcome she gets than she would have been with the outcome she was expecting.

Shrek’s motivations are the exact opposite. Beaten down by society at large, he’s long given up on any kind of perfection. All Shrek wants is a place of his own where he can be alone and avoid all the abuse that others direct his way. However, despite his social problems and the expectations of others, he’s not a monster. The scene with the lynch mob at the beginning shows that. Lynch mobs are obviously not an uncommon thing for Shrek, the resigned little eye roll he gives upon noticing this latest mob makes that very clear. However, while he very observably has the villagers outgunned, he settles for scaring them off instead of actually hurting them. Unfortunately, a lifetime of derision has made Shrek feel on some level that he isn’t worthy of any kind of positive feeling. This makes him insecure, and all too ready to believe the worst.

That brings us to Donkey, who, while at times seeming like odious comedy relief, is actually a very important character who is absolutely necessary for Shrek and Fiona’s Happily Ever After. Donkey is actually an archetypal character. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, an archetype is a concept; a principal, ideal or fear presented in the form of an individual. Donkey embodies one of the fairly universal archetypes; that of the Fool.

In brief, the Fool notices what everyone else misses, which is the source of his power; but is oblivious to what’s blatantly obvious to everybody else, which is why everybody considers him a fool. He succeeds by approaching the problem from a direction that never would have occurred to anyone else. Longtime readers and anybody who knows me in person can probably guess why I so identify with the Fool.

Anyway, Donkey approaches everything ass-backwards (pun not intended); but since he lives in an ass-backwards world, this in absolutely necessary. His obliviousness to social expectations can make him extremely irritating; but it also means he’s not blinded by them, either. He’s willing to try things other people aren’t, and this brings about some unexpected, but needed, outcomes. For example, he is obviously the first individual to extend the hand (or hoof, in this case) of friendship to Shrek. Shrek initially finds Donkey obnoxious, but even more so Donkey confuses him. For some reason, Donkey doesn’t seem to notice or care about the fact that Shrek’s an ogre, and Shrek obviously doesn’t know how to handle it. Fear and hatred Shrek is used to, but genuine friendship and positive regard is an alien experience for him. Something similar happens, for the same reasons, when Donkey meets the dragon guarding Fiona. However, being that the dragon turns out to be female, she reacts by falling for him. While this does produce some extra unexpected consequences in the short term; in the long term it provides the heroes with a needed ally for the climactic showdown with Farquaad.

Likewise, Donkey’s inability to be blinded by social expectations means he’s usually aware of what’s really going on, even when everyone else isn’t. And, it also means that he’s the one who always says what needs to be said, even (especially) when it’s not the “appropriate” thing to say. In short, Donkey is the one who lights a fire under Shrek’s ass when he lets his insecurities get the best of him, and who always ensures that Shrek goes in the direction he needs to go.

The animation in Shrek is marvelous; and ultimately you get the sense throughout of a genuine, living, breathing world of which the characters are but a part. While there are, admittedly, some pretty awful lines, there are a lot more great ones and exchanges of dialogue. Finally, there is a truly witty sense of humor throughout; both for children and adults. Along with this, Shrek has this really dark, nasty edge just below the surface at times. It’s subtle, but it’s there. Most notable, though it took me a while to add it all up, are the presentation of the Three Bears among the exiled fairy-tale creatures. When we first see them, they are all three locked in cages. Later, we just see Father and Baby Bear in Shrek’s swamp. Finally, when the camera pans across Lord Farquaad’s bedchamber, if you look you’ll notice that his bearskin rug has Mama’s bow. Disturbing stuff, and I have to wonder how younger kids who’ve noticed this have reacted.

In the end, Shrek is a true classic of a movie. Unfortunately, this has been overshadowed by the sequels. Shrek never needed a sequel; it’s perfect as a self-contained story on its own. Unfortunately, artistic in integrity (or any integrity, really) has rarely been able to truly get in the way of somebody making obscene amounts of money. Worst of all, to my mind, is that the first sequel comes very close in the first two-thirds of the movie to overcoming that. However, that’s a discussion for another review.

Night of Death (1980)

The Movie: Martine (Isabelle Goguey), after months of unemployment, goes to start the job her fiancé got her: a caretaker position at Deadlock House, a nursing home. She arrives a day early, and for some reason that seems to be a major problem. The stern director, Helene (Betty Beckers), initially claims that they don’t have the facilities for her yet; but she’s able to throw something together rather quickly. Even more surprised is Nicole (Charlotte de Turckheim), the woman who currently holds Martine’s position. Nicole’s not happy about Martine, because, despite Helen’s attempts to explain that she’s there to assist Nicole, Nicole’s convinced Martine’s her replacement.

Still, in spite of the rough start, Martine and Nicole wind up getting along and Martine starts learning the ropes of her new job. She has her work cut out for her, because there are all sorts or weird rules and restrictions: the new employee is not allowed to leave the grounds for the first two months, for one; or the fact that all the inmates are vegetarian, and the staff is expected to follow suit. And speaking of the inmates, they generally seem more suited for an insane asylum than a nursing home.

It turns out that Nicole was more right than she knew about Martine being her replacement. That night, while Martine is on a date with her fiancé (Helen declares that since Martine doesn’t officially start work until the next day, she’s not yet subject to the not leaving the institution rule), the inmates gather in a solemn processional and meet with the creepy, limping groundskeeper, Flavien (Michel Flavius). The procession troops into Nicole’s room, where they grab her from her bed and drag her to a secret basement under the kitchen. There, they lay her across a slab, slit her throat, and cut open her nubile chest and belly. Then Helene, Flavien, and the inmates reach in, pull out organs, and have a ghoulish feast.

When Martine discovers that Nicole has disappeared the next morning, Helene tells her that Nicole threw a fit about her being hired to the point of being unbearable, and was subsequently dismissed. The story doesn’t ring true with Martine, however; as it doesn’t jibe with the extremely friendly and conciliatory note Nicole left her. Martine discovers more clues that Nicole’s disappearance wasn’t as Helene would have her believe. Her life becomes a major balancing act between trying to figure out what’s really happening at Deadlock House on one hand, and coping with its inhabitants’ increasingly disturbing behavior on the other. And meanwhile, time ticks by; two months pass rather quickly, and said inhabitants all eagerly look forward to the coming of the 28th…

The Review: By this time, while it’s probably stereotyping, I’ve come to expect a certain pattern for end of the ‘70s European horror films: Style and mood over a coherent storyline. Copious nudity. Killings that tend to be more dramatically shocking or mean-spirited than graphically gory. Weirdness for weirdness’ sake. I was expecting all this with Night of Death, but it’s not what I got. Not that I’m complaining, I was just a little surprised.

Exploitation-wise there was gore, and one or two scenes of it were more graphic than expected. However, it still wasn’t gratuitous; used only when it was needed. Likewise, there wasn’t all that much nudity (I will admit to being a little disappointed about that); and what there was served the plot. As for the plot itself, it was extremely straightforward and coherent. There were some definite moments of weirdness, mood and style; but the plot took precedent.

The core of the plot is revealed very quickly; Helene, Flavien and the inmates of Deadlock House are all members of a cannibal cult, and the need for caretakers and ridiculous rules are a ruse to get a prospective meal in and then fatten her up before they eat her. However, there are a few genuine twists. What’s more, they’re very well woven into the main plot. None of them feel like the scriptwriter just pulled them out of his ass when he felt he needed a certain outcome; there is always a significant build-up and legitimate hint beforehand. Even the inevitable kicker ending doesn’t come out of nowhere; there are hints about it almost to the very beginning. They’re just presented as side-notes and throwaway details, however, so it’s possible to miss the significance of them until you think back on the movie once the end credits start to roll.

But what really got me were the heroine and her situation. Her situation struck a chord with me because it was all too familiar; this is my job. Admittedly, I deal with individuals with disabilities instead of geriatrics, and I babysit them at their jobs instead of taking care of them at home. Still, there are more than a few similarities. Ultimately both are the same field, taking care of people who, for whatever reason, are unable to take care of themselves. Also, I’ve had some experience at nursing homes in my life; and the inmates of Deadlock House are far more my clients than they are those of nursing home staff.

Here’s the main thing about working in healthcare, particularly this specific corner of it: it could drive a saint to commit murder. I’m not exaggerating. Healthcare has one of the highest turnover rates, largely due to stress and burnout. I’ve known no end to coworkers who’ve left because they couldn’t take it anymore. Martine’s experiences working at Deadlock House (not counting the cannibalism) resonate with my own work experiences far more than any other movie I’ve seen.

The first major issue lies in dealing with the clients (that’s what we officially call our charges at my job). The first thing to remember is that these are individuals who are even more blatantly dysfunctional than your average human being; otherwise they wouldn’t need the care in the first place. This can make even seemingly everyday interactions infinitely more complex. Now, lest readers think I’m being too harsh, let me point out that I have a lot of experience in this from both ends. On the one hand I have been gifted with Asperger's, A.D.D., mild Tourette’s, cancer, and various other conditions that the gods, in their infinite sadism, decided I was worthy to have bestowed upon me. I’m very high functioning, but I understand intimately the need for accommodation and being unable to comprehend “proper” social interactions.

On the other hand; no matter what your problems, there is a limit as to how much of your actions you can blame on your handicaps. No matter how much of the short end of the stick you got, at a certain point it all comes down to your choices and actions. One thing never fails to amaze me is my society’s tendency toward overcompensation. I concur that we have treated those with disabilities horribly in the past; and that they are human beings fully deserving of the dignity that comes with that. Hell, I firmly believe that just being human automatically entitles you to handicaps and disabilities; some are just more obvious or socially acceptable than others. However, people have a habit of forgetting that it is entirely possible to have a disability, and still be an asshole.

One of my best and dearest friends, who has worked in this field far longer than I have, comments on one incident early in our relationship where I was appalled about how she was venting about a client, even saying “that’s a horrible thing to say about your clients.” She points out that ever since I started this job, she’s never heard me say anything like that again. I’ve had my own experiences with that; once my brother told me, shocked, “Nathan, that’s a horrible thing to say about retarded people!” However, whenever I’ve expressed those exact same sentiments to individuals who’ve actually worked in the field, the response I’ve always gotten was some variant of “yep, welcome to the club.”

So to repeat, I know Martine’s charges all too well. And I find the way the movie depicts them extremely believable. At first they just seem amusing. For example, one of the patients (as per usual I can’t recall his name) is always knitting a red something or other. When Martine asks, he explains that he is “knitting Revolution.” Later in the movie, when he has been punished by the cult for misbehavior, Martine finds him knitting in black instead. When she asks, he responds that “the Revolution is in mourning.”

However, as the movie goes on their behavior toward Martine gets more and more inappropriate. For example, blatantly looking in her window while she undresses. One patient in particular exemplifies this; Mr. Leon (Jean Ludow), an old man who’s usually in a wheelchair even though he can walk perfectly, and who’s always playing with a variety of toys and magic tricks. He revels in using them to be obnoxious. At first he’s amusing, but very quickly it’s obvious that Leon is a major asshole. And it should also be noted that while Martine shows a patience throughout the movie that would shame most saints, by the end she’s getting very fed up with all the crap.

It’s extremely difficult already figuring out the line between where to accommodate for disabilities and where to hold someone accountable for their actions. It’s so much more so when the line is drawn for you. Watching Nichole deal with her charges, I couldn’t help but feel a little envious. She tells them exactly what needs to be said, and doesn’t sugar coat it. She even slaps Leon at one point when he crosses a line. I’d get in so much trouble for doing that, and I’ve had clients who need far more than a slap.

The second major issue is dealing with the bureaucracy of the job. One of the most notable things I’ve obtained in the last 5+ years is a deep and utter loathing for the word “professional” and all its derivatives. From the context it always seems to be used in in contemporary society, my definition for professional is “appearance for appearance’s sake, whatever the cost.” I’m sure plenty will argue that, but I have yet to see any evidence to the contrary. I understand the need for some focus on appearances, considering that we are taking care of vulnerable members of society, but at a certain point it just becomes ridiculous. Except for the fact that this was in the context of a horror movie, I really didn’t see anything suspicious of the rules Martine is expected to follow. Considering all the ludicrous expectations I’ve had to deal with in the name of “professionalism”, not to mention all the ones women have had to deal with throughout history due to their gender, it just seemed like business as usual. The only real difference is that professionalism is usually implemented in spite of potential harms; in this case it’s used to hide them.

Something that surprised me halfway through the movie was when I realized that I was actively hoping for Martine to survive. Now, partly, as I lay it out above, I identified with her situation. I will also admit that I was in love from the moment that I saw she was a French-speaking redhead. However, there was a bit more to it. Through her actions, Martine reveals herself to be a genuinely nice and good-natured person, who’s only mistake is winding up in a nasty situation. Following that, watching how she handled the situation further endeared her to me. Martine behaves in a truly competent manner; and even when she’s caught (which she is several times), she coolly provides a rational excuse for what she is doing. She only truly freaks out once, and it’s a situation that I’m sure would cause any of us to freak out. Even then, she is able to do what needs to be done.

Finally, I would just like to add that Night of Death has a few truly scary and beautiful set-pieces. The stand-out for me is the scenes where the inmates gather for their ghoulish feasts. They walk out into the hall in a column, all dressed up, moving quietly by implacably while an eerie song plays on the soundtrack.

So in conclusion, Night of Death is a decent and enjoyable little horror movie. Well made, eerie and atmospheric, but with a definite plot, it’s worth watching. I just wish that certain elements of it didn’t feel so familiar; but I have personal issue to blame for that more than the movie.

Compare and Contrast: Evil Dead (1981) & Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)

Evil Dead: Ash (the famous Bruce Campbell, in the movie that made his name as a cult actor) and his girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker); along with their friends Scotty (Hal Delrich) and Shelly (Sarah York), and Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), Ash’s sister, have rented an isolated cabin in the mountains for the weekend. However, there’s something kind of spooky about the place when they arrive. What’s more, there are all sorts of hints that dark force lurks about the area. Unfortunately, Cheryl is the only one who notices these first hints; partly, it’s suggested, because she’s a New Ager and therefore open to these kinds of things; but I suspect that it’s largely due to the fact that she’s officially the fifth wheel, and therefore doesn’t have anything to distract her. In any case, the others don’t put any stock in Cheryl’s concerns; they’re way too focused on their weekend and their significant others.

Of course, Cheryl’s fears are anything but unjustified. That night the boys go into the basement and discover some things left behind by a previous tenant. The two fateful items for our campers are a really disturbing book, and a tape recorder. The kids play the tape, which it turns out was made by an academic translating the book. He identifies it as the Naturon Demonto, the Sumerian Book of the Dead, and says that it includes passages that allow the evil spirits lurking just outside our world to come in and possess the living. Then he proceeds to read the translated passages.

Naturally, this spells the end for our heroes. The tape finishes awakening whatever evil force that academic called to the area, and the campers are possessed and killed one by one. Will any of them be able to survive?

Dead by Dawn: Ash (still Bruce Campbell) and his girlfriend, Linda (this time played by Denise Bixler), go on a getaway together to an isolated cabin in the woods; where it would appear that the rightful owner is not using it. Unfortunately, said rightful owner, Professor Raymond Knowby (John Peakes), was working on the translations to a rediscovered copy of the Necronomicon, or Book of the Dead. When Ash stumbles across the good professor’s copy and plays the tape of his translations, it has the exact same effect as in the first movie. The dark force called up by the book snatches Linda, and then comes back possessing her body to torment Ash. And it’s not just Linda Ash has to deal with, either; the evil power has all sorts of weapons at its disposal from possessed trees to Ash’s right hand developing a mind of its own.

Ash has one tiny sliver of hope, though he doesn’t know it. Professor Knowby’s daughter, Annie (Sarah Berry), is headed back to the cabin with some missing pages from the book. Said pages have what is needed to put the evil back down. Unfortunately, there are the inevitable complications. When Annie arrives to find a bloody stranger in her cabin and her parents missing, you know she’ll draw the wrong conclusions. The stupid redneck couple who she hires to guide her through the woods is going to make things even more difficult. And that’s nothing compared to what her father buried in the cellar…

Compare and Contrast:

Ladies, gentlemen, hermaphrodites, asexuals, and everyone else; I am pleased to announce that this blog has now been up and running for a full three years! Unfortunately, with that landmark comes some very bad news; the tumor in my hand is back yet again. As of this writing I have no clue what’s going to happen; I’m just praying it doesn’t involve any further surgery or loss of body parts. Naturally, I’m doing everything I can to cope with the situation; among other things digging out all my old tumor-coping movies. Among the ones at the very top of that list is Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn.

The aspect of the movie that puts it in that spot is one particular scene. In that scene, the Evil possesses Ash’s right hand, which then proceeds to beat the living snot out of the rest of him. Finding himself completely unable to control the hand, Ash attempts stabbing it, cutting it off with a chainsaw (and then later replacing it with said chainsaw), trapping it under a garbage can and some books (the top book very prominently titled A Farewell to Arms); and then when all that fails and it busts free, trying to shoot it with a shotgun. All throughout the rest of the movie, whenever the characters are in the middle of dealing with something particularly nasty, Ash’s severed hand has a tendency to step in and make an already unpleasant situation even worse. Considering that my problem centers entirely around my own right hand, for all intents and purposes, developing a mind of its own and going out of its way to hurt me, not to mention my tendency to use tasteless humor as a coping mechanism for my problems, you can probably draw your own conclusions as to why I revisit that scene to face my medical issues.

At roughly the same time, a remake to the original Evil Dead has come out as well. I have yet to see said remake, although I fully intend to. However, the timing (which, unless you count the presence of perverse gods, is purely coincidental) got me thinking that I should probably write something on the original while I was at it. After all, Evil Dead was remade once before. Despite its title Evil Dead 2 isn’t a sequel, it’s a remake.

It’s a fascinating experience watching the two movies back to back. They have the same director, most of the same crew, and even the same lead actor playing Ash both times. In both movies Ash has a girlfriend named Linda, although she is played by different actresses. There’s the same basic setup, the same core plot, the exact same major props, and I’m pretty sure that’s the exact same cabin in both movies. And yet, despite all that is recycled into the second Evil Dead movie from the first, we have two very different movies here.

The first Evil Dead is very much a straight horror movie, and an amateur work. There’s really not anything deep or complex about it at all; I’d even say that it’s elegant in its simplicity. Evil Dead is your typical spam in a cabin setup; a small group of young people goes somewhere isolated and gets slaughtered by the evil lurking there. Our heroes are presented in the broadest of strokes: Ash is the hero, Scotty is the asshole, Linda and Shelly are the girlfriends, and Cheryl is the spooky, New Age chick and Ash’s sister. They make a lot of the mistakes we’ve all come to expect from characters in horror movies. It’s also obvious that this is a very low budget film.

And yet, in many ways these elements work to the movie’s advantage. Old tropes become old tropes in the first place because they work when you know how to use them. Raimi shows that even this early in his career, he was very adept at employing the ages old horror clichés to their most effective. He plays with your expectations; giving you an expected build up, but holding off just long enough on the payoff that you start to wonder if it actually will play out like you anticipate.

Something that continually fascinates me about Evil Dead, and Evil Dead 2 for that matter, is the nature of the Evil itself. Possession horror itself isn’t unusual, I’ve reviewed at least three or four movies centering around the theme on this blog thus far. What gets me is how the Evil seems to infuse everything; the woods, the cabin and its possessions, eventually it gets to the point where the possession of the human characters is just an afterthought. Once called up this dark force subsumes the landscape itself, and it is only then that it starts to possess its human victims. Probably the part that gets me the most is when Linda is possessed. For the most part she doesn’t actually attack; she just laughs this repulsive giggle and mocks Ash while he struggles, complacent that he will eventually fall.

While it does happen that a low budget hamstrings a perspective movie from the beginning, this isn’t always the case. One of the things I love the most about low budget cinema is the occasional director I come across who doesn’t let his financial limitations stymie him, but instead lets it influence him to be far more creative and innovative than he would have been if everything he needed had just been handed to him. Raimi does this all throughout Evil Dead, using what’s at hand however he is able. The most notable use of this is the p.o.v. shots representing the Evil. We never see the Evil itself, but it is constantly represented by these p.o.v. camera shots moving through the forest at heights and angles that couldn’t be reached by a human. For the last one he reportedly tied the camera to the handlebars of his motorcycle and drove it straight at Bruce Campbell, which apparently cost the actor some hospital time. So that shriek of sheer and utter terror Campbell gives just before the credits; it ain’t acting.

Probably the biggest difference Dead by Dawn has from the original Evil Dead is its tone; the first is a straight horror film; the second, however, has a sense of humor. Now, people tend to look at me funny when I say this, among a great many other things; but humor and horror are two sides of the same coin. They are both emotional reactions, and how one reacts to them varies from person to person. Also, despite what we may think, the line between the two often tends to be very thin and blurry. All you have to do is tweak the circumstances just a little bit, and something we’re cringing at one moment we’re laughing at the next. As Mel Brooks put it: “tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”

What Raimi does in Dead by Dawn is to essentially take all the main elements of the first movie and flip them; play upon how outré they can be, tweak them a little, and play them up for how ridiculous they are. You’ll notice that there are a few major changes as a result of this. Our unhappy campers are just Ash and Linda this time, and Linda gets possessed within the first five minutes. A large section of the movie is just Ash, facing off alone against the Evil and slowly but surely losing it. For this movie Campbell reveals his amazing talent as a physical actor, as the helpless Ash gets battered and bashed all over the place.

However, the sense of humor at play here is a very grim, whistling past the graveyard kind of laugh. Dr. Freex on the website the Bad Movie Report makes the observation of Dead by Dawn that Ash actually dies in the first five minutes, and the rest of the movie he’s in Hell. This is probably due to the larger budget Raimi had second time around, but even more than in the first movie, he plays upon the theme of the Evil infusing and taking over Ash’s whole world. It’s obvious that this movie is tongue in cheek, and sometimes it even gets a little cartoony, such as with the gallons of multi-colored blood, but this is still a horror movie.

My description of the scene with Ash’s possessed hand at the beginning of this review probably gives as good an example as any of the kind of humor on display here. The whole movie gets downright surreal at some points, with a few parts that leave it vague as to how much of what we see is really going on, and how much is just Ash’s decent into madness. And, while the end was used as a way to segue into Army of Darkness five years later; on its own I find it to be one of the most original ‘the hero is screwed’ style endings I have ever come across. The fact that you may need to reflect a moment before you realize just how much he is screwed and why only makes me like it more.

So in conclusion, watching Evil Dead and Dead by Dawn back to back is an interesting experience. There are so many similarities, and yet they are two very different movies. The first is a straight, low budget, yet effective horror movie; the second a bizarre mix of horror, humor, slapstick and surrealism.

Spring Breakers (2012)

The Movie: Four college girls have been best friends since kindergarten, and are still attending school together. They also really like to party. Well, Faith (former Disney sweet young thing Selena Gomez) does try to be a good girl. She’s part of a conservative church group, but despite her group’s warnings she still likes to hang out with her friends. Cotty (Rachel Korine, wife of the director), on the other hand, is really into the whole ‘party girl’ thing. And as for Candy (former Disney sweet young thing Vanessa Hudgens, last seen on this blog in Sucker Punch) and Brit (Ashley Benson of the TV show Pretty Little Liars); don’t turn your back on them.

The four girls are determined to go to Florida and have the ultimate Spring Break. Unfortunately, Spring Break is almost here and they haven’t saved anywhere near enough money. Fortunately for the girls, but not any of the other people involved, Candy and Brit have a brainstorm on how to get the needed cash. Armed with ski masks, squirt guns and hammers, and with Cotty driving the getaway vehicle, they rob a local restaurant. The girls are suddenly rolling in cash, and it’s off to Florida as planned.

As always, however, the good times inevitably hit a snag. A wild party the girls are attending gets raided by the police. Worse, all of the girls’ ill-gotten loot has been blown on booze, drugs and scooters; so they can’t afford to pay bail. This is compounded by the fact that none of them, particularly Faith, want their families to know what they’ve really been up to. However, Fate decides to grant them a guardian angel of sorts.

Actually, fallen angel is probably more accurate. The girls catch the attention and interest of a drug dealer who goes by the handle “Alien” (James Franco, of the Sam Raimi Spiderman trilogy). Alien swoops in and pays the girls’ bail, then offers to show them the good time they’re after. Faith does the smart thing and bails out, taking the bus back home. However, the other three girls are very interested in what Alien has to offer them. This is going to land them in some trouble. Another drug dealer feels that Alien has gone too far poaching on his turf, and is determined to remove the problem. The fact that Candy, Brit and Cotty are so eager to work for Alien is going to bring them right into the middle of the conflict. Then again, Candy and Brit have up to this point shown definite signs of being junior crime lords in the making. Maybe this won’t be so disastrous for them after all…

The Review:

“Spring Break, bitches!"

Is it weird to be disappointed that a movie isn’t anywhere near as bad as you were expecting it to be? That’s the $64-million question I am putting before my readers. When I saw the previews for Spring Breakers, they put to mind a certain kind of movie. They promised four popular young things, two of them who were only recently Disney teen poster girls, showing as much bare skin as their nudity clauses would allow; drug fueled mayhem, sleaze, depravity, explosions, weirdness, and a really bad plot and script. Of course, I had to check it out. However, the movie I actually did see, while it did have its moments, never quite lived up, or maybe I should say down, to my expectations.

Admittedly, the bar was probably set way too high, or low, as the case may be, from the start. After all, among a great many other things I have long submitted myself to the likes of grindhouse exploitation movies, B-flicks, low-budget sexploitation, no-budget sexploitation, independent films, young John Waters, David Cronenberg, Jesus Franco, Ken Russell, a handful of truly fucked-up Japanese flicks, and more Italian porn than is probably healthy for a single individual. No major Hollywood studio these days could possibly meet the standards that that sets, nor would they want to. Also, actresses these days, particularly young actresses with the kind of status that Gomez and Hudgens currently possess, have some pretty strict clauses in their contracts as a matter of course that limit how far they are able to go on screen. There is some hope for Hudgens, who I will elaborate on shortly; but while the advertising campaigns play on Disney “good girls” breaking into “big girl” roles, the sad truth is that at this juncture Gomez and Hudgens still have far too much riding on their good girl image to risk throwing it away just yet.

As I said earlier, Spring Breakers does have its moments. It is undoubtedly a consciously weird movie, although the constraints of the Hollywood studio system insures that it’s not exactly envelope pushing; maybe envelope tapping. Parts of the movie definitely look like a drug trip. There’s also a tendency to loop scenes and lines of dialogue, switch them around, and play the dialogue from one scene while we watch another scene entirely. Sometimes it works for effect, sometimes it’s just irritating. Also, the one image that really sticks with me is two girls in neon yellow bikinis and hot pink ski masks wielding sub-machineguns.

As for the sleaze, that’s a little bit harder to pin down. It is definitely a sleazy movie, at least for the first half. However, at about the halfway point it feels like the movie has grown bored with the sleaze and cut down on it for the most part. Also, there are definite limits. In its favor, I will say that Spring Breakers is honestly and sincerely sleazy; none of that attempt at making “safe sleaze” or promising something and then chickening out. However, it feels like at the beginning the director drew a line and said “up to this line the sky’s the limit, but this is as far as we go.” I can’t decide how much of this is admirable restraint and how much of it is just studio restriction.

Of the cast, I would have to rank Franco as the best. Admittedly, Alien is a caricature; but he’s a very convincing and believable one. The highest point of favor I can give to Franco in his role here is that I didn’t recognize him. I have a very good memory for faces, if not necessarily names or contexts. Even if I can’t attach a name or a context to an individual, sadly an all too common occurrence for me, I can usually recognize that I know a face from somewhere. The fact that it wasn’t until I was looking up stuff for this review that I finally recognized him speaks volumes for this man’s talent. As I’ve mentioned in other reviews, my favorite actors tend to be the ones who can sink so far into their character that we actually forget we are watching them.

Franco also has the funniest scene in the movie, a monologue where he’s trying to impress Candy and Brit with the alpha male routine. “Look at my shit,” he says multiple times, fortunately meaning it in the very figurative sense. The following is paraphrased, but it’s the basic gist of his monologue, interspaced by proclamations of ‘look at my shit’: “Look at all this cool stuff I have! I have all this money! Look and swoon at what a strong, virile, male I am! Look at my phallic overcompensation devices (i.e. guns, and if that’s how you’re going to use them, I’ll call it like I see it) and visualize what I’m trying to convey with them!” However, after doing the desired oohing and ahing, the two girls each grab a gun and use it to play their own dominance game; and Alien discovers that these aren’t just two young bimbos he can seduce, but younger, female versions of him. Of course, he’s automatically in love.

The other lead that caught my eye was Hudgens. Now, up to this point I’ve been on the fence about her as an actress; having never seen any of the High School Musical movies, and finding that in the only other movie I’ve seen her in, Sucker Punch, she’s really not given anything to work with. In Spring Breakers, she scared the hell out of me. Hudgens very believably portrays Candy as nihilistic, amoral, and extremely vicious about getting what she wants. Now I know some of my longtime readers will point out how I tend to be most attracted to women who scare me; but seriously, Candy I would stay as far away from as possible. I can now believe that Hudgens is genuinely interested in more mature roles. She won’t be claiming the crown of Lina Romay or Linnea Quigley anytime soon; but I’m sure that we will see gradually more mature and risqué roles from Hudgens in the future. She has some genuine talent and potential as an actress if she keeps working at it.

As for the female leads as a whole, I had no trouble believing they were college party girls; a back-handed compliment if I’ve ever given one. It’s funny, considering the media blitz, but Gomez really doesn’t go out of her “good girl” roll at all. Unfortunately, the screenwriter didn’t know how to portray why she is that way, so Faith is more a cipher than anything else character wise. Not only that, but she leaves as soon as things start getting interesting. On the one hand, how often do you see characters making smart decisions in these movies? On the other, though, this was the perfect set-up for an “innocents in over their heads” style exploitation movie; and the vile part of me that likes to watch those things was screaming in fury that they didn’t follow through on it.

Ultimately, Spring Breakers as a movie occupies that awkward neither realm that lies between an exploitation and an art film, but doesn’t qualify as either. On the exploitation side, the movie refuses to truly dive down into the sleaze; although the first ten minutes made me think it would. However, on the art side, I got the impression that the director truly was trying to make a point. Unfortunately, I never figured out what that point was, it was too garbled. The ending is one of those maddeningly vague, ambiguous movie endings that I have long learned to associate with either the director not knowing how to end it, or the studio deciding they didn’t like what he had and making him change it. There was a major missed opportunity to raise it up and take it an innovative direction, which disappointed me.

If you mostly watch just mainstream Hollywood movies, you will probably find Spring Breakers weird and sleazy. However, for somebody like me who actively seeks out the truly weird and socially unacceptable, it’s actually rather tame. Spring Breakers does have its moments and I did have some fun with it, but ultimately I found this movie to be not particularly memorable, either in the positive or negative sense.

Side Note: I put up a few more links to other blogs. In particular, please check out Horror Movie Medication. The gentleman in question just started that blog, but thus far he has some good reviews and fascinating insights.

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

The Movie: The Gecko brothers, Seth (George Clooney) and Ricky (Quentin Tarantino) are the current escaped dangerous criminals in the news. After making a jailbreak and robbing a bank, the two are headed across the border to Mexico where Seth has made arrangements to find refuge. Unfortunately, he’s got a lot on his plate. Not only are the entire Texas law enforcement apparatus and the FBI after the brothers, Seth’s also got to deal with Ricky. Delusional, psychotic, and probably a little paranoid; Ricky is very much a loose cannon and makes Seth’s already difficult task of getting the two across the border twice as hard. To further exacerbate matters, Ricky winds up brutally killing the hostage the brothers have with them.

Luckily for the Geckos, and unluckily for everyone else involved, there is another set of guests at the hotel where the brothers are currently holing up. Reverend Jacob Fuller (long time movie vet Harvey Keitel of Saturn 3) is on a trip with his two children, Kate (the ubiquitous Juliette Lewis) and Scott (Ernest Liu) in their Winnebago. The family has suffered a tragedy recently with the death of Jacob’s wife, and Jacob himself is suffering a crisis of faith as a result. Of course, things get much worse when the Geckos, a little desperate at this point, take the family hostage and hijack their vehicle.

Somehow, despite Ricky’s quirks and a few unseen complications, the motley crew makes it across the border into Mexico. However, the real trouble comes when they arrive at the place where Seth arranged to meet his contact; a skuzzy biker bar/strip club/brothel that goes by the charming name ‘the Titty Twister.’ You see, the Titty Twister is a very literal tourist trap. It’s run by a group of vampires, who use the place to prey on the bikers and truckers who come through. Suddenly, the desperados, their hostages, and the few remaining customers of the bar find themselves trapped and forced to band together if they’re going to survive the night.

The Review:

“And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because I don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what I saw is fucking vampires!"
-Seth Gecko

I must admit to feeling very ambivalent about Quentin Tarantino. On the one hand, he’s very definitely inspired by the same kinds of grindhouse movies I have come to love. He’s even put a lot of work into rereleasing many of the more obscure examples so they can be seen by a modern audience. And he’s not just a fanboy imitator either; Tarantino knows what makes them work, and he has enough talent and experience as a director that he’s able to use them as inspiration for movies that are very much his own.

On the other hand, Tarantino has the unfortunate habit of running off with his id and reveling in the more unpleasant aspects of these kinds of movies. He is all too prone to exulting in onscreen carnage and brutality, to the point where it can override everything else and become difficult to watch. To get an idea about how conflicted my feelings are toward Tarantino’s movies, know that I really enjoyed Kill Bill, and then look at my review of his Inglorious Basterds remake. If you just want the short of it, that movie repulsed me, pissed me off, and even offended me; which is extremely difficult to do. In short, Tarantino can make some good movies; but only so long as he keeps a leash on his id.

Tarantino wrote the screenplay for From Dusk Till Dawn, and as a result his fingerprints are all over the movie. It is an odd little film in some ways, namely where the characters seem to start out in one movie genre and then take a detour into another halfway through. However, it is very competently put together and the end result is great; a love letter to the old grindhouse exploitation thrillers, specifically the crime-thriller and survival horror subgenres. And, unlike so many movie “homages” made today; while there are plenty of little in-jokes and references to other movies of this type (note Scott’s Precinct 13 t-shirt for one example), they are kept subtle and non-intrusive, and From Dusk Till Dawn very much works as a movie in and of itself.

Just the film’s genre jumping goes miles in showing how good the script is. For about half the film it’s a crime-thriller about two bank robbers who take a family hostage and try to escape to Mexico, then about halfway through it’s suddenly a survival horror about being trapped in a bar run by vampires. And yet, the momentum is so good that the cognitive dissonance doesn’t set in until the credits start rolling.

The vampires themselves are very well done. For one thing, they’re definitely monsters. Most of the vampires are hot (half of them being strippers and one being played by Salma Hayek), but it is a very far cry indeed from the tragically sexy vampires that have infested pop culture. These are very definitely monsters, and never shown as anything different. What’s more, there’s never really any exposition about what they are or what they’re all about. None of the protagonists have any interest in investigating it, as their primary motivation is just trying to survive the night. In fact, one scene has them trying to remember all they know about vampires, and then debating over whether it will actually be of any use against their current opponents or whether they just remember it from some old movie. There are a few intriguing hints throughout; but they are just that, hints. The last shot just before the credits blew my mind the first time I saw it; and I was still very ignorant about the wonderful cinematic worlds I was taking my first steps into.

Ricky Gecko, as played by Tarantino, provides us with one of the more pervasive archetypes of the crime-thriller genre: the Loose Cannon. In short, this is the criminal with no self control whatsoever, who’s constantly buggering up things for everybody else. Tarantino is convincing; but considering that nearly every role I’ve seen him play has been Ricky in one form or another; I’m at a loss as to how much of it is due to talent and how much is typecasting.

Seth Gecko was apparently Clooney’s first major film role, something I was unaware of until I started writing this review. You wouldn’t guess it; Clooney is one of Dawn’s two major heavies who carry the movie. Seth is an intriguing anti-hero; on the one hand he is a career criminal and a brutal son of a bitch, but on the other he also has a very strong sense of honor and duty. In fact, he really tries to keep things as quiet and safe as possible; his more brutal deeds are largely due to Ricky.

Seth’s relationship with Ricky also does what none of the other crime-thrillers seem to have been able to and provides an answer to the one urgent question surrounding the loose cannon character; namely, why the hell don’t they cut him loose at the first signs he’s going to be trouble, much less after the first dozen or so times he’s loused things up for everyone else? In this case it’s simple; Ricky is Seth’s brother. Seth loves him and feels responsible for him, despite the fact that Ricky makes things twice as hard as they should be for him. That whole honor and duty thing can really bite you in the ass sometimes.

Harvey Keitel is the other heavy who carries the film. The man has a very, very long string of roles behind him, even at the time he played this one, and it really shows. Jacob Fuller is completely believable as a movie character despite his fantastic circumstances. Keitel plays him as a man who, upon first glance, is completely unremarkable in any way. He quiet, soft-spoken, not a coward but obviously not looking for excitement, either. Fuller is a man you could see every day and, unless you have some kind of in-depth dealing with him, not think anything of it.

However, there’s a whole hell of a lot more beneath the surface. Once trouble starts, Fuller turns out to be a very tough and competent old guy. Just observe his attitude and demeanor from the moment he and his family are first kidnapped by the Gecko brothers; everything he says and does conveys the message that he’s not going be pushed around. He does bend a little, not much you can do when someone’s pointing a gun in you and your children’s’ faces after all; but he makes it clear that he will not bend more than he absolutely has to.

Aside from being a stubborn old cuss, Jacob also shows a much needed level-headedness. He’s along on this trip unwillingly, but that doesn’t mean he won’t step forward and do what needs to be done when the Geckos’ methods aren’t working. Several times through the first half of the film, it’s Jacob who takes charge of the situation; and he’s ultimately responsible for getting everyone into Mexico. It’s never said in words; but watching Seth and Jacob interact, you can tell that Seth is developing a grudging respect for Jacob despite himself.

There’s one more aspect of the character of Jacob Fuller that I’d like to comment on, and that’s about his status as a clergyman. This is important to me because I, myself, happen to be a preacher’s kid. Now, the thing about my father is that unless you happen to be in church on Sunday, or it comes up in conversation, you’d never know he was a minister. If his job doesn’t call for it, he doesn’t advertise. Not only that, my father has actively encouraged my interest in other religions. I was never a Christian myself, my faith journey took me in an entirely different direction; but I have the utmost respect for my father and his faith, and both have had a strong influence on my own spiritual views.

I’ve noticed in Hollywood movies that when they’re not Catholic priests (who have their own set of stereotypes), Christian clergy tend to be presented in one of three ways: they’re rabid Bible-thumpers, they’re myopic hypocrites, or, to paraphrase my father, they have little haloes. Suffice to say, they’ve rarely if ever matched my experiences with the main clergy presence in my own life. Jacob Fuller changes that. In demeanor and personality, he very much reminds me of my father. This is particularly true where his faith is concerned. He does talk about his religion when the subject comes up, and it’s clear that his crisis of faith is having an effect on him. However, there’s far more to him as a person; his faith is part of him, it doesn’t define him entirely. It was only on my most recent viewing that I consciously realized how much Jacob reminds me of my own father, but it makes the movie more real for me, and is no doubt the main reason I’ve always found him so endearing.

Lewis and Liu do well enough in their roles. I’ve noticed that Lewis in this film isn’t too different from other characters I’ve seen her play, but it works. Also, and the fact that this bears any mention at all depresses me to no end, I so love a truly strong, competent movie heroine who’s able to handle herself.

As well as our main characters, From Dusk Till Dawn has a rather large supporting cast that’s full of B-movie veterans. Fred “the Hammer” Williamson appears as one of the Titty Twister’s customers; as does the famed gore-effects artist Tom Savini, who plays Sex Machine, a biker with the most interestingly shaped and mounted gun. Tom Saxon makes a brief appearance at the beginning. Cheech Marin plays three minor, but very distinct, roles. The supporting role most people take away from this movie is probably Salma Hayek as the vampire queen “Santanico Pandemonium”, the name a reference to the Mexican nunsploitation Satanico Pandemonium. Even if he wasn’t credited, you’d know Tarantino wrote the script to this movie from the lap dance she gives Ricky during her number. I would say nasty things about the man, if it weren’t for the fact that I’d do the exact same thing myself in his situation.

One final positive element about From Dusk Till Dawn, particularly as a horror movie, is that there’s no safety net for any of the characters. Big name actor or second stringer, protagonist or supporting cast; from the moment the vampires first make their appearance it’s made very clear that none of these people is safe from them. In fact, by the end of the movie nearly the entire cast has been killed off. This makes it extremely suspenseful, as we have no idea who will live or die.

So in conclusion, From Dusk Till Dawn is a love letter and homage to the old grindhouse exploitation movies of yore that at the same time is very much its own movie. It’s full of gunfights, explosions, gore and female nudity. It also has a good script, great dialogue, and a cast full of talent and B-movie veterans. This is definitely not a date movie; and my male readers, if you are lucky enough to find a woman who is willing to see this with you on a date, hold on to her. However, if you’re into exploitative trash done very well (guilty!), you do not want to miss this one.

Cemetery Man (1994)

The Movie: Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) is the caretaker for the cemetery in the small Italian town of Buffalora. This is a lot harder than it sounds; because the dead have a habit of coming back within seven days of being buried there, and only destroying the brain will put them down permanently. Dellamorte and Gnaghi (Francois Hadji-Lazaro), his developmentally stunted assistant, have their hands full; and it gets worse as, due to town bureaucracy and political expediency, there’s no outside help for them.

Francesco’s already unstable and stifling world is turned completely upside down when his eyes first land upon a grieving widow (Anna Falchi); “the most beautiful living woman [he’s] ever seen.” Despite his rather limited social skills Dellamorte does manage to strike up a romance with her, but it can’t last. When they make the stupid decision to have sex on her late husband’s grave, he digs himself out and attacks her. Francesco stands over her body, praying she won’t come back as a ‘returner’ (the movie never uses the word ‘zombie’); but of course that prayer is not granted, and sadly, he uses his pistol to put her down. A while later Francesco realizes his mistake when he runs into her as a returner and has to be saved by Gnaghi. The fact that she came back means that she wasn’t really dead that first time, and Dellamorte killed her.

Things get worse as Dellamorte struggles to forget her and continue doing a job that he hates, but can’t ever seem to escape from. Two major series of events knock his already wobbly world completely out of orbit. The first is the consistent reappearance of the object of Dellamorte’s affections in various different roles; always giving him hope that he can re-obtain her, but ultimately leaving him all the worse for it. The second is an appearance by Death himself, who tells Dellamorte to stop killing his dead; if he really doesn’t want them coming back as returners, then he should just start shooting the living in the head so they can’t come back in the first place…

The Review:

“Nyah!"
-Gnaghi

It is once again the time for what seems to be becoming a tradition for this blog; my yearly one-fingered salute to that unholiest of holidays, Valentine’s Day. Suffice to say, I hate and detest it. I elaborated at length on my reasons why last year in my review of How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, so I shant repeat them here. If you’re interested, please read that review.

It would seem that, in this country at least, the French have a reputation for making confusingly weird movies. In recent years I have watched a lot of European movies, particularly French ones; largely, I’m sure, due to my fetish for women with French accents. In that time I have made this discovery: when it comes to truly batshit movies that leave you confused, uncertain, and nursing migraines, the French ain’t got nothing on the Italians.

From the 1960s to the early 1990s, the Italians had a major B-movie industry that, among other things, excelled at ripping off popular big-budget movies and movie genres. Spaghetti westerns (now you know why they’re called that), post-apocalyptic movies, porn, space opera, zombie gut-munchers; the Italians would take them all and add their own bizarre interpretations. For quite some time, your movie hadn’t arrived until it was the subject of countless Italian interpretations. I don’t know what the status of the Italian film industry is today; but the B-movie machine of around three decades is certainly long gone, and the world is so much poorer for it.

Cemetery Man, or Dellamorte Dellamore as it was originally titled in Europe, came in around the tail end of this period. It is one of those movies that are impossible to shoehorn into a conventional Hollywood genre. While the basic plot may seem like a horror movie, Cemetery Man is anything but. Likewise, while not, technically, a comedy; this is one seriously funny movie. Also, it’s not exactly a romance; although it definitely borrows more than a few conventions from that genre. If I had to sum up Cemetery Man, I would define it as a philosophical meditation on love, and on life in general, that just happens to feature zombies and a really twisted sense of humor.

Cemetery Man is about Francesco Dellamorte, a man who is so wrapped up in death that he has almost completely forgotten how to live. And by ‘death’ I don’t just mean the obvious trappings such as the graveyard and the returners. Buffalora itself is so wrapped up in bureaucracy and appearances that it’s utterly stifling. One look at the records office run by Francesco’s friend Franco (Anton Alexander), and you’d think they had a form for everything. The chief of police (Mickey Knox) is the kind of man to form an opinion, and then ignore anything that contradicts said opinion. As an example, when Dellamorte is walking out of a hospital where he’s just shot three people, visibly holding the gun, the policeman tells him “oh good, you have a gun, you’ll be able to defend yourself.” And then there’s the mayor (Stefano Masciarelli), who’s so fixated on getting reelected for a sixteenth term that he’s willing to exhume his own daughter (Fabiana Formica) to use on his campaign posters.

Things don’t help matters when Dellamorte’s love interest (never actually named, and billed as “She” in the credits) comes into the picture. Actually, that’s a gross understatement. In so many ways, their romance is so much like the tragic, overdramatic relationships pop culture tells us romance is supposed to be. And yet, the movie does not hesitate to show us just how unhealthy it actually is. Dellamorte is obsessed, and when the object of his obsession slips his grasp yet again, he’s all the worse off for having thought he had a chance in the first place. The sacrifice he makes for her in her incarnation as the new mayor’s assistant will really make you wince and squirm, especially if you’re male.

So in short, Dellamorte finds himself trapped and in a no-win situation. There is his romantic cycle of see, want, thinks he has a chance, ‘whoops, just kidding.’ Then there’s his job, which he hates, but can’t seem to get away from. The scenes where he sacrifices to hold onto a job that he hates but is led to believe that he must hold onto at any cost resonated with me as well. When you’re constantly caught between these two particular cycles, life inevitably starts to seem hopeless and unbearable. Yes, I am bitter; why do you ask? I thought it was pretty obvious.

However, in certain ways Dellamorte is at fault for where he winds up. The main one is his dealings with people. It’s clear from the beginning that he’s been cutting himself off from other people for a while now. The scene where he first tries to approach the widow, and the conversation he attempts, show just how stunted Dellamorte’s interpersonal skills are. Also, the rumor going around town that gives him so much trouble, that he’s impotent; at one part he tells Gnaghi he started it himself. On one hand, I can understand why Dellamorte would want to cut himself off from the rest of humanity. After all, people as a whole tend to be stupid, ridiculous and irritating to insufferable extremes. However, there are always exceptions; and it is these exceptions who make life worth living despite all the other crap. When you cut yourself off from human companionship, you start turning inward to the point where it’s near impossible to deal with the outside world at all.

Unfortunately, Dellamorte only has two people who could be considered friends. The first is Franco, who he talks to all the time on the phone, mainly mutually feeding each others’ frustrations and resentments at life. However, they never seem to have much to say on the rare occasion that they meet in person. Second is Gnaghi. Dellamorte obviously keeps Gnaghi around so that he can feel superior; which is a shame, since Gnaghi could teach him a lot.

Gnaghi is the movie’s most fascinating character; and it is a true testament to Hadji-Lazaro’s acting talents how well he comes across. Gnaghi is rather disgusting, particularly when he eats. He only ever says one word, “nyah,” which isn’t even a word at all; yet it’s truly amazing just how expressively he is able to use that one word. Not only that, Hadji-Lazaro seamlessly pulls off the seemingly impossible balancing act of simultaneously making Gnaghi repulsive, cute and loveable.

Thing is, there are all sorts of hints throughout the movie that Gnaghi is far more intelligent, competent and aware than Dellamorte wants to believe he is. What’s more, Gnaghi actually gets a healthy romance. It’s with Valentina, the mayor’s unfortunate daughter. Gnaghi’s first encounter with her does not go well, but when she gets killed in a motorcycle accident he gets another shot. This time, even though he just winds up with her head, it goes swimmingly.

I know that this sounds like the lead-up to an extremely tasteless punch line, but it actually turns out quite the opposite. Gnaghi and Valentina’s romance is probably the sweetest, healthiest, most convincing and enviable relationship I have ever seen in a movie; I kid you not. It really must be seen to be believed.

The sets for Cemetery Man are gorgeous. All the shots of the cemetery at night are simultaneously eerie, and darkly beautiful. Probably the one that sticks in my mind are the witchlights floating around Dellamorte and his paramour as they make love on her husband’s grave. There are so many camera shots that just blow the mind, not to mention some amazing tricks with light and shadow. And then there’s that wonderful Terry Gilliam-esque Grim Reaper that blows up out of Dellamorte’s trash fire.

Finally, as I alluded to earlier; despite the tragedy and serious philosophical musings, Cemetery Man is a truly hilarious movie, albeit in a rather twisted and morbid way. The funeral for Valentina, her friends, and the boy scouts on the bus they crashed into has this really warped song being sung in the background. There’s the rather ludicrous scene of Dellamorte being jumped in the shower by a bunch of zombie boy scouts. And then, there are all sorts of wonderful one-liners and lines of dialogue.

So in conclusion: Cemetery Man, a philosophical meditation on life and death, love and hate, which features zombies and has a really warped sense of humor. Not for every taste, but I guarantee you’ve never seen anything else like it.

Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

The Movie: 1995 was the 50th year of the American Teen Princess beauty pageant; and a television film crew was sent to the small town of Mount Rose, Minnesota, to cover it. However, as they discover, there’s a lot more going on. Just below the surface is a nasty web of intrigue centered around the two contestant favorites.

On the one hand we have Rebecca Leeman (Denise Richards of Starship Troopers); the spoiled daughter of Mount Rose’s richest family and, more importantly, of Gladys Leeman (Kirstie Alley), the pageant chairperson and former winner. On the other is Amber Atkins (Kirstin Dunst, last seen on this blog in Small Soldiers) a sweet, talented girl who works two jobs and lives in a trailer park with her single mother (Ellen Barkin). Most of the town backs Amber; but “somebody” (no prizes for guessing who) is determined that Rebecca will win. As the number of “mysterious” deaths and potentially fatal “accidents” grows; the question isn’t whether Amber will win, but whether she will live long enough to compete.

The Review:

“Oh yeah. Guys get out of Mount Rose all the time on hockey scholarships... or prison."
-Amber Atkins

Happy 2013 dear readers! How are you getting on with your resolutions? My New Year’s resolution is to attempt to be more positive. It’s nowhere near as easy as everyone would have me believe it to be; but I have been blessed with some truly wonderful individuals in my life, so I have some hope that it is possible. However, my longtime readers need not worry; considering how little humanity has changed in the however many thousands of years since our ancestors first came down out of the trees and started forming society, it’s doubtful that the cynicism you have grown to know and love will be going anywhere. And that brings us to today’s review.

I got my VHS copy of Drop Dead Gorgeous off a friend in college who was selling some of his movies. Said friend is from Minnesota, and he told me that not only was the movie shot there (and that he was in a play with one of the extras), but that it portrays small-town Minnesota very accurately. Sadly, my own personal experience with Minnesota is mainly a large number of stopovers at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport. However, I noticed that the town of Mount Rose looked very familiar. Having lived in small, rural towns a large portion of my life, it’s my opinion that this film portrays rural, small-town America as a whole very accurately.

That is probably the make it or break it aspect of this movie’s humor for most audiences. While there are plenty of obvious jokes on display, much of the humor is only noticeable for those with a certain lifetime experience. If you have any real first-hand experience with rural small-town America (and probably small-town Minnesota especially, as I said, I wouldn’t know personally), you will likely spend much of the running time nodding in recognition; and if you have a sense of humor you’ll also be laughing. However, if you really aren’t familiar with that kind of community, there is much that will pass right under your radar.

In fact, if it weren’t for all the familiar faces and big-name actresses in the cast; it wouldn’t be too hard for me to believe that Drop Dead Gorgeous was a real documentary about a real town. Mount Rose, like all small communities, is the kind of place where everybody knows everybody else’s business to an uncomfortable degree; and isn’t afraid to make judgments on it. Just observing the characters interacting hints and insinuates at whole undercurrents of Mount Rose’s community that are never addressed directly by the movie itself. We are given a very definite picture of the town’s factions, of its most prominent views, and of how its citizens view one another.

As my longtime readers are well aware, my favorite part of almost any movie is the characters; and Drop Dead Gorgeous introduces us to all sorts of interesting, wonderfully quirky individuals. Just the pageant contestants are enough to scratch this itch; my two personal favorites are the dog enthusiast with her “lucky” bolt (it fell off an airplane and hit her in the head, but fortunately at an angle so that it didn’t pierce her skull), and the drama geek who does a monologue of Soylant Green for her talent. However, if you’re looking for familiar faces; Amy Adams makes her first film appearance as a slightly dim-witted cheerleader who is a bit blatantly… I think licentious is the word I’m looking for, while the late Brittney Murphy is wonderful as Lisa, a girl following in her older brother, Peter’s, footsteps. Peter left for New York to do Broadway; and considering that she shows us pictures of him dressed as Liza Minnelli, Madonna and Barbara Streisand, we can guess the main reason why he would have wanted to leave Mount Rose even before it’s spelled out for us in one of the movie’s better lines. Out of all the people we are introduced to, my personal favorite would have to be Allison Janney as Loretta; Mrs. Atkins’ best friend, and for all intents and purposes Amber’s second mother.

The thing that intrigues me most about Drop Dead Gorgeous these days is the true nature of the conflict between Amber and Rebecca. In it, we can see a microcosm of the top-down class warfare that has been plaguing this country since the Reagan years, if not further back. From the beginning it’s clear how uneven the footing between the two girls is. The Leemans are the richest people in Mount Rose; which in contemporary society makes them the “job providers” and the economic center of the town. As a result, they are able to dominate things almost completely. Loretta puts it very succinctly early on: “You're talking about the richest family in a small town. It's front page news when one of them takes a shit.” Because of their power and influence they are able to, quite literally, get away with murder.

The Leemans whole motive behind Rebecca competing is a sense of entitlement; they feel she deserves to win simply because of who she is. This is very obvious in all their behavior. Hell, Rebecca’s performance for the talent competition shows very clearly where the Leemens think they stand in the scheme of things. I’m not going to spoil it for you, it really has to be seen to be believed; all I’ll say is that I’m not a Christian and yet I still find it blasphemous.

As such, the Leemans have no qualms about using their influence to rig the pageant. And the sad part is everyone’s aware of it. From the beginning, nearly everyone interviewed states that Amber is the one who probably most deserves to win, but that Rebecca will win anyway because of who her family is. When we are introduced to the judges it’s clear that they were all handpicked by Mr. Leeman; hell, one of them is an employee in his store. On top of that, Mrs. Leeman is the pageant chairwoman.

Amber, on the other hand, is on the bottom rung of the social ladder. She’s the child of a single mother, and they live in a trailer park. Amber has to work two jobs on top of high school to help support the two of them. While she’s talented and has definite dreams, Amber is likely to end up like her mother if she doesn’t find a way out of Mount Rose. That’s where the pageant comes in, Amber needs to win it if she wants to make something of her life.

Dunst is wonderful as Amber; she’s always done sweet, cute and energetic very well. However, I couldn’t help but notice that Amber tends to get her breaks through other peoples’ misfortune. Admittedly, her first big break comes not through any actions of her own, but karma for the Leemans; and her third through simply being in the right place at the right time and being able to capitalize on it. Her second break, though; there’s a hint that she might not have played it as fair as we’ve been led to expect. Kind of makes you wonder if she’s really that sweet.

In conclusion, Drop Dead Gorgeous is hilarious, clever, and well put together; a witty and, at times, all too accurate look at small-town America.