Chamber of Horrors: Ultra-rare House of Wax rip-off about a serial killer who likes to marry women - but only after he’s killed them! After a confrontation with police, the killer loses his hand, but comes back a few years later with a host of screw on murder weapons that can attach to his hand - a cleaver, a hook, etc. The stupidest part of the movie or the most ingenious depending on how you looked at it, was the William Castle-esque gimmick used to scare the audience.
At the beginning of the film, an announcer lets the audience know that some parts of the film are so scary that they’ve come up with a technique to let the audience know they might want to close their eyes. These techniques are called the Fear Flasher (the screen flashes red) and the Horror Horn (a loud horn noise) which both appear before the “4 scary moments” in the film. So, essentially at four times in the movie the screen flashes red, and a horn goes off. This effect produces the opposite reaction of scariness - namely because, A. we’ve just been told that only four moments in the movie will actually be scary (and they aren’t very, actually) and B. because the whole idea of being let known when the scary moments are going to happen doesn’t let you actually be scared by them. The film suffers for it’s failure to get Vincent Price, who was probably smart enough to smell a stinker like this.
Out 1: Jacques Rivette’s 13 hour free-form partially improvisational film which has screened about 5 times since it’s release in 1971, taking on a mythical status as the ultimate rare film. It took two days to watch and many more to make sense of what I’d seen. Ostensibly when you get down to plot, the film is about 2 groups of theater companies performing 2 different Aschylus plays, and preparing for these performances by using intense improvisational excercises known as “organics” in the modern world. For about three hours we watch almost nothing but improv moaning and movement, which for me was really fascinating - you’re lulled into a sense of meditation as you’re watching a kind of metaphor for the creation of art itself. After that the film starts to move towards it’s fictions - as blind mute (or so it seems) Jean Pierre Leaud and con woman Juliet Berto get involved searching for the secret (or not so secret) members of a mysterious cabal of 13, a modern version of the cabal in Honore de Balzac’s History of the Thirteen. It’s really an incredible film, but hard to describe or discuss unless you’ve seen it. If anything, I’ve got maximum bragging rights as a film snob now, although I’ve probably got to tackle Satantango next.
The Departed - So tightly plotted and densely put together, like a tightly formed jigsaw puzzle, that there’s little room for breathing, for appreciating the characters, for - life, really. The film feels like it’s main purpose is to get from point A to point B, and at no moment did I really understand why Matt Damon was so loyal to Jack Nicholson, why Leonardo acted the way he did - it’s as if the whole film was a MacGuffin but without the pleasure of experiencing the filmic artistry, as in a film like, say, Inside Man. Leonardo DiCaprio tries so hard, god love him, but I still never buy him as an adult, no matter what.
Flesh Feast - Insanely crappy film featuring poor washed up Veronica Lake in her final role as a mad scientist who has developed a way to reverse the aging process by using maggots which have been feasting on dead bodies. Veronica has a bit of trouble with her lines and her rubber gloves - her ad-libbing when they don’t go right on is just so sad.
It’s all too too nuts, and too too genius in the end, when the final plot twist rears it’s amazing, tiny-mustached head. Must see.
Going Places - Super mysognistic, but very funny Bertrand Blier film with Gerard Depardieu, Miou-Miou, Jeanne Moreau, and Isabelle Huppert. The films fascinating in both good and bad ways throughout. The film is about two lowlife lotharios who love to fuck and fuck and fuck some more - and they do - as they journey all over France and back. And you won’t believe how people commit suicide in France. Recommended.
The Host - An evil mutated fish monster attacks downtown Seoul. Beautifully shot, and it all worked really well.
Count Dracula - Jess Franco’s version of the “real” Dracula story, starring Christopher Lee and Herbert Lom. The film doesn’t really do much interesting in the way of telling the Dracula story, but it’s really all about Klaus Kinski’s insanely brilliant portrayal of insect munching Renfield. I really wish Franco had tried to tell the story from his point of view, because Kinski really steals the show in a major way.
The Exterminating Angels - Strange French film about a director who rehearses live sex scenes with two strange actresses (based on a real case where the director of this film was arrested for sexual harrassment after they claimed he forced them to masturbate on camera). It’s sort of like a French version of one of those late night Skinemax movies, but I still liked it.
The Garden of Delights - Bunuelian (and I mean it) absurdist tale of a man whose temporary stroke/paralysis/amnesia has rendered him unable to tell his greedy family where he hid their fortune. To try and jog his memory, they act out bizarre sequences from his childhood and adult life. Made in the last days of the Franco regime, the film’s overly allegorical, and tries a bit too hard to replicate the Bunuel style.
The Earrings of Madame De… - Was prepared to love this after reading the very famous rapturous reviews from Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, but it was just so bougie and bland, I couldn’t really get into it. But that one breathtaking shot where the ripped up paper turns into snow on a mountain is a keeper.
Spider Baby - After the Earrings of Madame De, I came home and had a far better time watching this hysterical horror comedy with Lon Chaney Jr. and Sid Haig. It’s about a family, the Merrye’s, who have a strange disorder where they age backwards, and this leads to them being a murderous bunch of weirdos. It’s all played like The Addams Family or the Munsters, so even when something horrific’s going on, it’s pretty damn funny.
Cobra Verde - In the running for one of my favorite films of the year. Herzog’s last collaboration with Klaus Kinski is an unjustly overlooked film - more outrageous and over the top in it’s portrayal of delirious obsession than probably any of the director’s films. Kinski plays a bandit who travels Candide style - first finding work as a slave master and later sent to a remote African country to start the slave trade up. Think Henderson the Rain King on acid, and you’ve got it. Eventually Kinski leads an army of topless naked female slaves against the reigning king - and winds up serving another more deceptively vicious king. I guess it’ll get a DVD release soon, and I’ll probably buy it.
Le Pont Du Nord - Odd as usual Rivette film features ex-convict Bulle Ogier and biker chick daughter Pascal riding around the city getting involved in the usual nonsensical intrigue. It’s great, hard to see tho.
Bacchanale - John and Lem Amero were two important exploitation filmmakers from the 60’s 42nd St. grindhouse era. They have a pretty interesting story you can read more about in Sleazoid Express. This film’s pretty amazing, a completely weird surrealistic exploitation porn film where a Swedish babe Uta Erickson dreams herself into a bizarre world where she eventually goes down to hell to perform sex acts and watch others perform them for devils.
Child Bride - Utterly wrong in every way. This is ostensibly a Reefer Madness-esque moralistic message melodrama about the Appalachian practices of marrying child brides to creepy old men. The main character is a teacher who is trying to pass a law against the practice and meets with resistance from her townsfolk. It’s hilariously campy. One little girl has it rough, her father’s murdered by his arch-nemesis, who then tries to blackmail the little girl’s mother to let him have the daughter as a bride. A lot of people argue about one scene in particular - where the girl goes down to the swimming hole, disrobes and goes for an extremely extended, gratuitous swim while Old Man Creepypants watches lustfully. The imdb users say it’s tasteful and brief, but it’s not. It’s loooong, and completely wrong! There’s also a midget who runs moonshine, an attempted tarring and feathering, and an ending that doesn’t make one bit of narrative sense. In other words, a must-see.
Elena and Her Men, French Can-Can, and The Golden Coach - My favorite of the Renoir “Stage and Spectacle” trilogy was Elena. Ingrid Bergman is utterly radiant. But it’s hard to argue with Magnani, who looks both utterly ugly and attractive at the same time. French Can-Can’s end sequence is amazing as well, though the film loses track with the Russian prince plotline. I remember my Dad taking me to see these all when I was young, but the only bit I really remembered was the bit at the end of Elena with the singing gypsies.
Not on the Lips - Wonderfully charming musical from Alain Resnais with Audrey Tatou and Resnais’ girl Sabine Azema. High on my list of favorites.
That’s all for March, maybe I can plow through April and May and be up to date.
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