Three laughs: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

 It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.  

★ or ★★★★★

 

Three laughs case file #34:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (USA, 1986)
Director: Tobe Hooper

It's strange how some horror sequels can get away with a more silly tone, such as Evil Dead 2 or, to lesser extent, Phantasm II (maybe one could also argue Dawn of the Dead). Some that try out similar things are reviled, such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. To be fair, Evil Dead 2 sets a gold standard in horror-comedy filmmaking and others that go that route aren't nearly as good or funny. But that's not to say they are bad movies, far from it!

Director Tobe Hooper has insisted that even the first one is a sort of black comedy. There are perhaps some chuckles to be had from the mad exploits of the Hitch-hiker or the dinner scene late in the movie. Nevertheless, the sequel goes a lot further in this aspect.  The film was made as a part of the director's deal with Cannon Group, which has brought up suspicions that it was made in order to secure funding to the more ambitious Lifeforce (1985), or perhaps earn back a little of what it lost.

The sequel sets out to skewer much more of the Americana than the previous did, with digs about the state of consumerism, media, sexual repression, dual moralism and 80's eat-or-get-eaten capitalism in general. It also dives deeper into distorted ideas of family values. Cannibalism and murder is a way of life, but the film's insane characters also revel in and enjoy it.

Basically the film's plot (such as there is one) is very similar to the one in the previous film. The lady DJ Vanita Brock, or "Stretch" (Caroline Williams) gets kidnapped by Leatherface and his family and must fight to survive in their secret lair, now close to Dallas in order to easier capture victims. Meanwhile Sheriff Lt. Lefty Enright (Dennis Hopper) is out to avenge the disappearance of his son in the previous film. This time, though having a "Chainsaw" massacre is not just empty talk, and power-tools buzz for a lengthy part of the movie. It's also made pretty clear on which body part these long blades are meant to be an extension of.

 

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The very first scene makes clear the intentions and approach of the sequel as opposed to the first. A bunch of obnoxious yuppie teens hoot and holler, and blow people's mailboxes as they're driving to a party on their minivan. But when the night falls, they get a taste of their own medicine as a zombie geek jumps on the youngsters' car. In fact it's leatherface doing a bit of a puppet show with a corpse and soon gives them a show in the use of a massive chainsaw as well. Oingo Boingo is playing on the background for this scene.

2. The film's biggest new character, Chop-Top (Bill Moseley) is a truly slimy and obnoxious dude, out to make Stretch as uncomfortable as possible. It's almost a relief when suddenly Leatherface burtsts through the door. But the clumsy oaf can't catch Stretch as she makes good use of a fire distinguisher runs through a safety door.  Instead, he manages to injure Chop-Top's head, revealing the metal plate he got in 'Nam. But he woes more of the destruction of his terrible Sonny Bono wig.

3. Towards the end there's a touching but blackly comedic scene of Lt. Enright finding the remains of his son, which happen to be a gruesome skeleton on a wheelchair. He proceeds to destroy the entire lair with his own chainsaw. He comes to Stretch's rescue later on and declares himself "The Lord of the Harvest". But Leatherface isn't going to let the guy threaten his family, culminating in a once-in-a-lifetime duel with chainsaws. This was this franchise's high point. It was all downhill from there on.

Joe D'Amato triple feature

 

 

As a preview of next month's ABC's of Italian genre cinema post, I thought I'd take an opportunity to take a couple of monster movies that didn't make the cut for that one. Moreover, this post is to write a bit about Joe D'Amato (1936-99), born Artistide Massaccesi.

He's often seen as one of the more banal Italian genre film director, making shlock from popular cannibal and zombie genres. Yet I don't particularly find his movies "so-bad-they're-good". While he is not a brilliant horror director in disguise, I do find his films to often be more original and suspense-driven than their reputation suggests.

Probably what ruined his reputation was the moralistic fact that he also worked on Adult films, producing first the Erotic films like the Black Emmanuelle series, and then moving on to hardcore pornography (like making the notorious Porno Holocaust). But I have selected here three horror films that perhaps shed a light a bit on why D'Amato was an unique director after all, if not entirely successful.

Antropophagus: The Beast (Antropophagous, 1980)

Italian film fans know the character actor George Eastman, often playing nasty brutes, from films like 2019: After the Fall of New York and Warriors of the Wasteland. He had a fruitful work relationship with D'Amato, working with multiple genres and even co-directing 1983's 2020 Texas Gladiators. But with Antrophagus, he had a role of a lifetime. He also worked as one of the film's screenwriters.

Most of the film concerns a group of young vacationers exploring a mysteriously empty Greek island. It's as if all the occupants therein had died or fled. To spoil a little, it turns out a cannibalistic and mute killer with a scarred face (played by Eastman) lurks there.

The film builds up very slowly, which is partly impressive for a film deemed a Video Nasty, but also partly a bit boring as the puzzle pieces don't seem to reveal themselves. Nevertheless, as D'Amato started out as a cinematographer, he manages to create an unsettling vastness of the island, and claustrophobic interior scenes with ease.

The film's most memorable part comes when we get a flashback on the tragic events that made Eastman's character lose his mind and all sort of reasoning. D'Amato seems to have a point that we are only one bad day away from reverting back into cavemen and killing everyone within our territory.

★★★

Absurd (Rosso Sangue, 1981)

 

A sort-of sequel to Antropophagus, except it actually has an entirely different backstory. But Eastman looks and acts the same way. The actor worked as a screenwriter in this one as well. This time, Eastman's mute killer surfaces on the mainland, killing people that happen on his way, and seeming impervious to bullets.

It turns out the killer has escaped from a medical facility. He battles a motorcycle gang and some cops, but ends up in the houselhold of a seemingly regular family, The Bennetts, who have to fight for their life against the unremorseful killer. The film is a bit darker, utilizing night scenes and the fear of the unknown within a city setting to its advantage. It includes all the basics of a slasher movie, with its unfeeling and unstoppable force coming out of nowhere to intrude on a normal family life.

Compared to the previous one, this is more eventful, but also a bit confusing, as pieces don't seem to add up the same way to a big reveal as before. The violence is particularly brutal here, with plenty of gore and a particularly nasty scene where Katya Berger's head is being burned in an oven. This film turned out on the list of the notorious Video Nasties as well.

Massacessi used the pseudonym Peter Newton this time around. It might be that since he had directed ten Erotic movies in the year between these two movies, the name D'Amato started to wear out.

★★★

Beyond the Darkness (Buio Omega, 1979)

 

As much as those two monster pictures had some nasty and disgusting shades, they pale in comparison with D'Amato's best horror work. It is a thoroughly disturbing serial killer movie that cares not of the boundaries of taste and reason. It has some shades of black comedy as well, that were later more realized in purely comedic films such as DellaMorte DellAmore. It also takes ideas presented by films such as Psycho to their logical extremes.

Frank Wyler (Kieran Canter) loses his girlfriend to an illness. But instead of letting go, he decides to dig up the corpse and embalm her. The family villa houses this secret, but multiple people stumble upon the scene by accident and meet their grisly fate as punishment for this. Iris (Franca Stoppi), the strange housekeeper is culprit on all of this, finding also suitable victims for his young master and helping dispose of the corpses.

 

The film is a gruesome remake of The Third Eye, but also revels in the historical knowledge on stuff such as how mummies were used to be embalmed (we can see this in all gory detail). While the film centers around necrophilia, it also includes cannibalism and gory dismemberments. It seems the effects budget for this was considerably bigger than in most of D'Amato's other works.

While the film may seem to have so many tasteless elements in order to irate cencors and decency activists, it also has a very perculiar and odd sense of wonder in all this. The human mind in its most crazed can be oddly creative and logical in its illogicalities. It's not an easy movie to predict the next scene and it keeps surprising the viewer. The images are sterile and unmoving, which makes for an odd experience to follow such depravity.

 

On the worse side, the ending seems rushed and a bit clichéd compared to the rest of the movie. It had some ingredients that could have made it a serial killer classic, but now it stays more or less just a curiosity for those that can stomach its contents. It has a very cool Goblin soundtrack, though.

★★★ 1/2

Three laughs: Ebola Syndrome

 

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.  

★ or ★★★★★

 

Three laughs case file #32:  
Ebola Syndrome (Yi boh lai beng duk, Hongkong, 1996)
Director: Herman Yau

Has there been a pandemic going on long enough that we might have a bit of a black-hearted laugh about it? I recently had my Covid tested, and even that experience was enough for me to want to have a laugh at this shitty disease's expense. Or perhaps at the assholes who spread it because of no regard for public safety.

Today's film tells the story of one such individual. It is also a notoriously nasty and outrageous film, that could only have been made in liberal Hongkong in the 1990's. They used to have this CAT III rating that allowed directors to truly push boundaries, which resulted for a lot of erotica, but also some very out-there movies.

Herman Yau's Ebola Syndrome is nasty in every sense of the word. It has a kind of racist approach to the disease spreading in Africa at the time, showing natives therein being just primitive tribespeople. The film's main character Kai (Anthony Wong) is one of the nastiest bastards in all of cinema history. A brutal sociopath, misogynist, rapist and murderer, he is a Triad henchman on the run from his bosses to Africa, where he catches a disease. He returns home to become a cannibal chef at a burger joint (in a move parodying the more straight-faced The Untold Story).

The film itself pushes the viewer's buttons and provokes at every turn. The approach is something akin to Troma movies, but made with a better budget and sense of cinematic shots. Yau is not a bad director, but he approaches the sort of nihilistic edgyness that was hip in the 90's, but a bit tiresome now. Ebola Syndrome doesn't apologize for anything, it is a throughly slimy and mean-spirited movie, and proud of it. And, for certain sorts of viewer, also very funny. Viewer discretion is adviced.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The film's opening scene sees Kai having sex with his bosses' wife and getting caught in the act. The boss orders the sniveling underling under a golden shower, which shows quickly on what kind the film's sense of humour is. Nevertheless, the shlubby-looking Kai soon reveals that he is more cunning and ruthless than appears, and brutally murders everyone else in the room.

2. The film's racism could almost be seen a parody of some old-school shockers, such as Italian cannibal movies. The shocking conditions in Africa, for instance, show pig corpses intended for food being stored in broad daylight next to human corpses. Needless to say, they get churn into hamburgers anyway. Both pigs and corpses.

3. But dead people in a bun are not the most disgusting thing the film serves. Later on, we see Kai listening in on some next-door love-making while relieving himself on a piece of meat. Of course the same piece gets then thrown into a pan and served to customers. If this movie teaches something, it's taking distance and remembering at least some resemblance of hygiene.

Re:Make - Suspiria

In this blogging series, I am contrasting a classic movie and its remake. This is to showcase that a remake is not always a bad thing. Very rarely do movie remakes attempt to do anything fresh with their concept, but usually just blandly redo every major scene. But sometimes this is not the case. A new director might find some new angles on the established IP and possibly given a totally new twist rather than same-old-same-old. Some great cinematic feats would not have been possible if there wasn't a rogue filmmaker ready to give a shot in redoing something beloved.

Suspiria (1977)
Director: Dario Argento

vs.

Suspiria (2018) 
Director: Luca Guadagnino

How similar do remakes have to be to earn the same name as its predecessor? While this blog maintains that remakes are all right when there is a fresh take on an old material, are some movies so canonized and huge, no one should ever even try them? Is a horror film's purpose to be scary first and work loftier ideas into the script second, or could a throughly political film about Europe in the 1970's be scary? And how much playing with audiences' expectations is allowed?

Luca Guadagnino is certainly one of the most celebrated Italian directors working today, with a unique voice. But his films often feel to me to be mixed bags. there are brilliant ideas and visual touches, yet often the end result doesn't click together in a meaningful way. But there are plenty of people who admire Guadagnino and his brand of filmmaking. I may be on the minority.

Nevertheless, if Dario Argento's 1977 horror classic Suspiria had to be redone, I was glad it was at least by an auteur with such strong visual flourishes. And the resulting movie is at the very least an interesting one, even if one's mileage of the things Guadagnino has done may very. But let's start by talking about the original.

Often branded as a giallo movie, I think Suspiria was actually Dario Argento's major leap out of the giallo genre and the start of his true auteur status. It is a supernatural horror film but other than that, many of Argento's later films are harder to label and brand. The play between light and music and architecture (and a very flimsy excuse for a plot) are something that only one person in the world could have made. Other Italian directors could keep on churning straightforward murder mysteries.

An american student Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) arrives to Germany to go to a esteemed ballet academy. But as soon as the airport's sliding doors close behind her, she is actually in an expressionistic fairy tale world, where a coven of witches plots and the young blood of the young girls is used to revive the ancient evil of Mother Markos back to life. There are plenty of gory demises and unforgettable death images that seemingly are caused by hexes and dark magic. No better explanation is given.

The original's striking architecture was an influence on the remake's poster art and opening and end credits.

But it's easy to criticize the film's plot's lack of coherence or the bad dialogue or silly dubbing. But they seem consequental, of no bigger reason for Argento's nightmare world. If there are bigger flaws in the movie, would one say they revolve around the fact that beyond the expressionism it doesn't seem to have much to say. Certainly not about the time and place it is set in, rather, Argento seems to want to take us to a timeless place untouched by the rational world.

Likewise, the film doesn't dwell too deep in its portrayal of either dance and ballet or the coming of age of a group of girls in a disconnected location far from home.The film has its basic teenage scenes of lessons and bullying and whispering during sleepovers, but mostly these are used to set up the next victim of the unstoppable murder spree rather than to say something about growing into a woman.

Since it would be futile to challenge Argento at his own game, Guadagnino wisely seeks to remedy these sidesteps that the previous movie didn't have concern for. Visually and aesthetically, his film is more similar to the works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, all cold grey, brown and ugly pastels rather than bright RGB lights. The film switches the focus more on the witches, who are trying to choose a new leader, as well as preparing a spell to do with a dance routine. Dakota Johnson is playing Susie Bannion, the new girl, here, but Chloë Grace Moretz's Patricia is the girl which the film has the most emphasis.

Perhaps the major issue of Guadgnino's film is that it tries to bite more than it can chew. It deals with both blossoming and withering age's issues and traumas as well as Germany's post-war situation, the scars left of the Holocaust, European value system's flimsiness, women's rights, the power of art and the political workings of the witches' coven, all of which bloats the film to more than 2,5 hours long. The characters may be more well-rounded, but they don't feel as comfy to follow (or edgy to see their ultimate fates) since all their scenes are built around a message being delivered. All the time that should be spent on building tensions and delivering shocks, is rather used on building a kind of academic paper with highbrow arthouse filmmaking.


While its good that a film also embraces its weirdness, Guadagnino's experimentations does not always serve the film. Thom York's soundtrack just sounds like vintage Radiohead. Lead actor Tilda Swinton in a dual role works to be majorly distracting, since there is no good bridge between the two (main) characters of the film. The idea falls particularly flat in the climax when her Madame Blanc and Dr Josef Klempener share screen time, as well as a third character that utilizes even more overacting and prosthetic makeup.

The film doesn't feel threatening enough, or even playful enough to deliver on this kind of experiments. Likewise the take on the more body horror-like aspects of the story are a bit hit-or-miss, some striking, some a little half-baked. Though he has certainly seen Hellraiser, the horror side of the movie does not seem to interest Guadagnino as much. He's certainly no Andrzej Zulawski that has the ability to melt both the political and the personal aspects into a great spiral into madness.

While it has good ideas with which to drive these points forward with the story, it is inevitable these its plethora of various ideas will battle each other for the dominance of the movie. At the end it feels like very little conclusions on each is reached. Where the film works wonders is delivering on some dreamlike fast-changing images (one can see the influence of music video filmmaking between these two movies) and its dance school setting, perticularly in its climatic ballet scene that does feel a bit scary and like it could be actual dark magick in the making. In this case, it was smarter to ration the strongest and most colorful visual scenes sparingly.

So, in conclusion, we have to Suspirias that set out to do almost exactly different things, yet also both are horror movies set on a dance school. While Argento's film feels surprisingly effortless even though it keeps upping its visual stylization and shocks, Guadagnino seems to try too hard and looses the playfulness in trying to fit in too many ideas. In the end, I'm still glad we have both of these movies, and Guadagnino's film has plenty to enjoy to warrant multiple viewings as well. But, y'know, it's no classic.

Suspiria (1977) ★★★★ 1/2
Suspiria (2018) ★★★

Three laughs: Parole Violators

 
It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.  

★ or ★★★★★

Three laughs case file #27:
Parole Violators, USA 1994
Director: Patrick G. Donahue

You might know that I tend to love action movies more when the cars in chases are rusted-up old lemons and the actors seem to be picked from a local gym or bus stop. And as dumb as they come. In this case Parole Violators is a home run for me.

"We're ALL potential Video Cops!"

The film concerns a vigilante going around with a video camera to beat some sense to store robbers and the likes. But he also seems to know their names and criminal histories. In actuality, it is the mulleted ex-cop Miles Long (Phil Donahue) who also hosts a local TV crime show.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Cops, an irredeemable piece of propaganda that for years colored the public eye for police brutality and treatment of the poorer classes. Fictional world at least gives us a canvas through which we can better handle the ideas being fed to us. In this case, of course, they are being given as dumb and ineptly as possible which makes the movie such a laugh riot. This film is not really even a narrative per se, more a showcase of various stunts like getting hit by a car or falling from any height. The final showdown in particular is a shooting range that constantly keeps upping the ante with more and more inventive kills.

Anyway, Miles himself soon gets to see that there are cases he can't solve with his camera as a guy he helped put away comes after him and his family. He and his girlfriend must survive a gauntlet after they are kidnapped by a small army of thugs.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The first laugh comes from the opening scene that shows the masked Video Cop stop a convinience store robbery. It shows everything you need to know about the movie, with a lot of roundhouse kicks thrown, cardboardy sets destroyed and wilhelmy cartoon screams added on the soundtrack. My favorite move is Video Cop hitting the robber on the head with his own camera. I gotta wonder how that footage will look on Miles's show.

2. One of my favorite scenes is a woman-on-woman fist fight that ends with the bad girl's head getting impaled to a nail sticking out of a wall. The female lead (Pamela Bosley) quips "Hope you got you tetanus shot, bitch."

3. It gets increasingly crazy on just what the main characters are able to survive as the movie goes on. A particularly insane climatic scene sees Miles getting shot twice while on a roof, but as he's sliding down, he chances the clip on his handgun and shoots baddies as he falls down, landing on his back on a crappy car. It's an image of the entire movie, none of the Lethal Weapons ever did anything so excoiting.

C is for Castellari's Crimes

 During this blog's long history, I've had the chance to talk about Enzo G. Castellari's Eurocrime movies a couple of times before. Here's the review of High Crime and here The Day of the Cobra. Castellari was always one of the more entertaining Eurocrime directors, taking note from American action of the time rather than having more emphasis on commenting the social issues and inherent corruption within the system like some of his peers.

That's not to say his films are just purely fascist mouthpieces glorifying police violence. Castellari is not a toothless director and he has a certain way of having both empathy for the criminals with their backs against the wall, as well as criticisms for the police force's excessive use of force. It may not be exactly the perfect time to revalue these now, but there are some grains of wisdom sprinkled throughout. I think at core Castellari is a lot more humane than many other, more nihilistic Italian genre directors.

Street Law (Il cittadino si ribella), 1974

The face of Eurocrime, Franco Nero himself, plays a timid engineer who gets caught in a post office during a robbery, taken hostage and then mugged as the crooks make their getaway. Afterwards, he gets angered with the police's poor handling of the case and decides to infiltrate the criminal organizations in order to get some justice. Things get more complicated as he befriends a small-time-crook, played by Giancarlo Prete.

The film has some plot elements similar to the same year's American hit film Death Wish, but instead of having a liberal character straight-up lose his humanity due to tragedy like that film, it is clear that Nero's character still has strong empathies as he's trying to protect his friend through a criminal underworld getting increasingly violent. The character is not infallible, making dumb mistakes along the way, but still miracously not getting killed. Nevertheless, the journey drags him through the mud and punches him in the gut.

Castellari first highlights standing up to the violent underworld similar as standing up to fascism in WWII, but then muddies the waters more so as not to make a clear line of right and wrong. There are some irredeemable psycopaths on the crimal side, but also people with their backs against the wall, just doing what they can to survive and to get out of a bad hand dealt to them. The film is light on shoot-outs and car chases, but makes each of them stand out and have a maximum impact. The resulting gem is among the very finest works of both Castellari's career, as well as the Eurocrime genre as a whole.

★★★★

Cold Eyes of Fear (Gli occhi freddi della paura), 1971

Since it's darker, noirish tones and strong suspense, many would categorize Cold Eyes of Fear as a giallo. However, it's visual stylizations are just something that was popular at the time it was made. The plot has more elements similar to some of the more brutal Eurocrime films and thier home invasion or kidnapping subgenre. The film concerns a young lawyer (Gianni Garko) in London picking up a girl (Giovanna Ralli) and takes her to his uncle's house, only to find out there is a gunman (Julian Matteos) hiding out in the same house. He is waiting for a backup (Frank Wolff), attempting to get their revenge on the uncle, who happens to be a judge (Fernando Ray).

The film has a superb swinging soundtrack by Ennio Morricone that can also shift gears when the scenes get more disturbing and suspenseful. The film's weak point is its bungling its cenral mysteries. First of all, its not much of a mystery of waiting to find out why the would-be assassings want to kill the judge. Secondly, the siege situation is dragged on a bit too long for its own good.

Many similar movies, like Almost Human or Hitch-hike get thrills out of big villanous characters and their nastiness, whereas here the characterizations are a bit lacking in interset and they are not properly fleshed out. Here, there's not enough development, except on Ralli's Anna on the very last moments of the film. The visual, film noirish flare of the film saves a lot for fans of giallo, but other wise it seems it is a bit middling in its qualities.

★★★

The Big Racket (Il grande racket), 1976

Towards the end of the 70's, Italian crime films started to take more note on movies like such as The French Connection and Dirty Harry. Thus, they also started to center around tough guy cops roughing things up. In the hands of more capable directors, the police brutality was also criticized and these sort of characters were more like anti-heroes, playing western outlaws at their own amusement and not for the betterment of society.

Fabio Testi's Nico Palmieri is a prime example of a character like this. Rome is taken over by ruthless gangsters, and he takes upon himself to kill just about everyone that comes in the way of his handling of the case. The police superiors are furious at this, trying to have a more bureaucratic approach, that is also ineffective. At the same time, the gangsters also up their violence and go from extorting cash in a small Italian town to torture, rape of women and borderline terrorist strikes.

The film is built like a freight train, with not a moment going by without some new action scene, more ante on the grittines or dramatic development on the case. They are also mostly stuff everyone has seen and expects out of cop movies, just taken to extremes and bigger stakes. With modern eyes, the film has a lot of questionable qualities, from the nasty rape scenes to the depiction of police brutality of a necessary evil to battle violence. But Castellari is still not happy about it. The film is more of a cry of anguish of a circle of violence beginning to engulf everything around it.

★★★ 1/2

The Heroin Busters  (La via della droga), 1977

Many of Castellari's films have some level of western in them. It is perhaps the most clear here. After a globe-trotting opening that sees Fabio Testi as a short-fused cop and David Hemmings as a cold-blooded Interpol agent take down drug lords around the world. These two must learn to co-operate to take down the head of the cartel in Italy. And this is done mostly by having car chases and fist fight around.

The film seems a lot lighter than the other fares into the genre, even the violence is mostly suitable for kids. The movie has the ingredients for something great, but seems at times to be a bit unsure of itself and just shoving out faces with big showstopping action scenes. Thet are plenty well directed, though. There's a great chase scene through a construction site, and in the finale Testi himself piloted a small plane giving chase to the main drug lord. That last scene does resemble a bit too much of an airshow, though with all the tricks possible to do with two planes being utilized.

This is more of the mindless entertainment Castellari began to give us towards the late 70's and 1980's. His earlier work had something to say, but it seems that when he upped the grittiness and the violence, he also managed to burn himself out on these. Nevertheless, his steady quality does make him one of the most notable directors of the era, and especially of the Eurocrime genre.

★★★

Three laughs: Crazy World

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart. 


Three laughs case file #25:
Crazy World (Ani Mulalu? - Crazy World), Uganda 2019
Director: Nabwana I.G.G.

Times are tough and what the world needs now is some mirth and laughter. A gathering of the world's most prestigious film festivals are currently having a streaming festival called We Are One. Most of the festival's programme doesn't exactly capture my fancy, execpt when I noticed that Toronto International Film Festival has presented us a new "supa action" movie straight outta Wakaliwood, Uganda. It was Crazy World Time!

Now, one might need a bit of background of these films. In the poor village of Wakali a group of local filmmakers have taken it to themselves to create movies with what they have. Thus these movies put on screen every villager from small kids to elders, and have some very creative solutions in terms of technics. They never take themselves too seriously, as every movie also includes a VJ, a video joker, making fun of characters and scenes as a running commentary. That's also how one doesn't feel like laughing at people living in the 3rd world, but rather, sharing a joke with some people from a totally different background. It's no wonder Wakaliwood has found fans all over the world.

I'd also like to add that the films keep also getting more inventive and have some clever in-joking as well. The 4th wall is blown up in gags so inspiring, they remind me of the ending of Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles. The first worldwide sensation was Who Killed Captain Alex?, then came Bad Black and now Crazy World. Each of these movies also touches upon more serious aspects of life in Uganda, including militarization, organized crime and kidnappings. But these ideas are more made fun of and thus also laughed at the poor image Uganda may have in western eyes. It's not hard to fall in love with Wakali with its sense of community and love for filmmaking after viewing these.

Three laughs (SPOILERS)

1. The star of this film is Isaac Newton Kizito, as noted by the VJ, the son of the director. Together with some other small kids they form Wakas Stars United! In the film's plot, they are kidnapped children plotting for their escape from the Tiger Mafia. But this plot is only needed to showcase the kids throwing kung fu kids at gun-toting adults. It is clear they are having the time of their lives.

2. There's an anti-piracy PSA in the middle of the movie. In a radar they notice that someone somewhere is pirating the film, and thus they send out the robotic Piracy Hunter to capture them. After some bloody inserts of Piracy Hunter getting rid of fans out in Canada and Paris, it turns out that the culprit is actually the film's director himself, showing his creation to his family. Piracy Hunter doesn't feel any remorse, though.

3. In one scene a gangster discovers that the big wad of money is only colored from the other side. The VJ gives a memorable one-liner to this: "See kids, adults, too, can be stupid."

Re:Make - Maniac

In this new blogging series, I am contrasting a classic movie and its remake. This is to showcase that a remake is not always a bad thing. Very rarely do movie remakes attempt to do anything fresh with their concept, but usually just blandly redo every major scene. But sometimes this is not the case. A new director might find some new angles on the established IP and possibly given a totally new twist rather than same-old-same-old. Some great cinematic feats would not have been possible if there wasn't a rogue filmmaker ready to give a shot in redoing something beloved.

Maniac (1980)
Director: William Lustig

vs.

Maniac (2012)

Dir. Franck Khalfoun

The original Maniac was born out of the cheap grindhouse thrills of the late 70's, early 80's. It is a New York movie through and through, and so seedy you feel like you need a shower afterwards. This aesthetic is very particular, but it gives Maniac some edge its flawed realization might otherwise miss.

We are taken to a journey to a mind of an overweight, bug-eyed, bad-skinned and greasy haired loner who also happens to be a mentally ill serial killer (Joe Spinell). The character is clearly suffering from his conditions, having hallucinations and manic bursts, as well as the uncontrollable urge to date women with his knife. It would be easy to hate this pathetic creature, but there is some unwilling sympathy to found in him. As evil as he seems, at worst he is just lost in his delusions, as helpless to pull himself together as the audience is to stop his gruesome murders.

That's not to say there are misogynistic roots in this rotten apple. He is a total predator, unreleting and unforgiving when he gets his killer instincts on. The stalking scenes, culminating in gory effects by Tom Savini himself, are some very effective use of horror filmmaking. The film is sad and nihilistic, seeing the murders as unstoppable and the killer not even particularly wanted or searched. Just another sad story in a city full of them.

Though by the end the film breaks the main character's insanity twirling out of control into the storytelling as well, the grounded viewpoint was a clear pathfinder. In the film we are stuck to the killer's mind, whether we like it, or rather, not. More grounded serial killer fare followed this, like Angst and Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer, which overemphasized the mundaness and banality of people like this.

After the Giuliani cleansing of New York, it stands to reason another Maniac could not have been updated to the same setting. Instead, screenwriter Alexandre Aja and director Franck Khalfoun decided to set the new version to Los Angeles, a city who gives even less of a fuck of the mentally ill and the unsuccessful sad souls. The viewpoint was then stuck even more inside the killer's head, to the point of shooting the entire thing in POV. These decisions work to show how the entire world in each of the citizens of LA revolves only around themselves.

Elijah Wood's Frank seems at points to be even too nice a soul to belong in the city where everything is sheer surface and real thoughts are kept tightly inside, to the point of bursting. The city of fake people can't help a soul just trying to find a connection. His work as a mannequin creator is an important metaphor to this as well.

But Frank is just as much a madman as his predecessor. When he can't relate to women, he resorts to stalking, killing and scalping them. Though his extreme misophobic deeds are horrifying and disgusting, this lost soul might be even more symphatetic this time around. The film wisely keeps Wood's face and doe eyes out of screen for the most part, telling the story more by just his voice. He doesn't do what he does out of evil, but because he has lost his sanity and is as terrified, unable to help himself and as lost as the audience.

In the end, the seedy and gory Grindhouse shocker was updated into a more clean but genuinely unnerving POV film. It allows perhaps a bit more insight into the mind of a titular maniac. Rather than going through motions, this one dares to surprise and take the story into unexpected territories.

Maniac (1980) ★★★ 1/2

Maniac (2012) ★★★★

A is For Argento's Animals

Since I've been watching a lot of Italian genre films, it stands to reason to write a little more about them. I could even do an alphabet of sorts, as I've already covered B for Bava. In this case, then A should definitely go to Dario Argento, and his first three films, that are often called The Animal Trilogy, as each of them has an animal of sorts in the title. These are mostly just poetic animals, even if the films themseves may allude to them in passing.

Bird with the Crystal Plumage
(L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo, 1970)

 

Though not the first giallo film, Argento's premiere shot at the fumetti-style thriller movie was very popular and influental for its time. It managed to create a boom for the next five years, not unlike Sergio Leone did six years before with A Fistful of Dollars and managed to stay somewhat afloat for the entire decade.

Compared to Bava and other pioneers, Argento didn't have much use for gothic stylings and classic horror environments. He was more interested in modern art, architecture and photography. He would develop a more timeless style over time, but the first three movies are obviously of their time. That's not to say they don't have plenty top offer for the modern viewer, too.

Nice sense of architecture.

But Argento does borrow a lot from Bava, too. Blood and Black Lace premiered the black-clad serial killer and The Girl Who Knew Too Much, released tback in 1963, had a similar premise where an american ex-pat in Rome gets tangled in a wave of murders after having witnessed something they shouldn't have. His Hitchcock-inspired way of shooting film was quite unavoidable in Italian genre cinema at the time.

Compared to how delirious Argento's films did get, there's noticeably a lot more thought put into the inner workings of the mystery plot and less violence. Though what there is, is still shocking after all these years, such as the razor-blade cleaving elevator kill. But suprisingly lot of his later tropes, such as the threatening phone calls and reminiscing previous scenes to unvcover new clues come into play as early as here. Mario Adorf has a memorable cameo as a hermit-like weirdo who gets cross-examined in the course of this, giving a hint that the film could be also have a subtext of the darker side of the hippie culture. After all, the Manson murders were done only the previous year to this film.

★★★★


The Cat O' Nine Tales
(Il gatto a nove code, 1971)

Argento proved again he was not a one-trick pony with this film which has a blind central character. who gets tangled within a web of mysteries and murders. He hears shady characters discussing plans concerning a pharmaceutical company and enlists the help of an investigative journalist to find out if there is a plot behind it. But soon, bodies begin to pile up as people attached to the case and to the company begin to get offed by a mysterious killer.

Sadly, the film doesn't quite fulfill its intriguing premise, even though it has a strong sense of visuals, architecture and athmosphere. I feel like more could have been done with the use of other senses and less of an ableistic vibe the film gives here. Argento does define the genre, as there is a literally "yellow" murder scene when a photographer gets offed in a photo lab darkroom.

The film has a colorful cast of characters, some of which could have been lifted straight from poliziottesci movies (like the informer Gigi the Loser). Like many earlier giallos, it has its scenes that are reminsicent of Hitchcock, like the finale of running on the roofs which brings to mind the first scene of Vertigo. But it has also been hugely influental in its own right, like in the grisly train murder that has been copied to the likes of House of Cards tv series.

★★★ 1/2

Four Flies on a Grey Velvet 
(Quattro mische di velveto grigio, 1972)

The first few films showed promise, but Argento really got lose in the following film, which connects the director's interests in jazz, rock, theatre and opera. Not to mention the familiar realms of dreams, photography and the modern art. Not all of these elements connect especially well (the rock music on the soundtrack is not Goblin to say the least), but Argento is one for good and dramatic scenes rather than a coherent whole, and here he's still experimenting and feeling the vibes.

As in plenty of Hitchcock's films, here the premise is again one of the wrong man being accused. A drummer gets mysterious phone calls, and one night, when following his persecutor, is witness to a grisly murder done by a killer in a baby mask. But the drummer is photographed at the scene of a crime and told that its only the beginning of a cat and mouse game between them. Sure enough, the killer kills again.

The film has a small role for comedy strongman Bud Spencer, who has a talking parrot. Argento is usually one that manages to balance the goofier comedy with his dramatic and deadly serious horror better than any other giallo director. Here, though, Spencer feels a bit extra. There's also scenes of a sort of new age guru making women laugh which are a bit bizarre, but at least somehow reflect the time when this was made. Argento's later works are almost always happening in indeterminable time periods.

The film also has some of the worse aspects of the Italian film culture, with closeted homosexuals being hounded and the ending which has a serious misogynistic vibe, and moreover, is reminisent of the end from Bird with the Crystal Plumage. But though there may be a few missteps, it is still a wonderfully colorful and exciting giallo, which has beenwrongly left in the shadow of some of Argento's better known works.

★★★★

B is for Bava

A director whose films frequently feature festive lighting, blood, death and religious undertones is particularly suited for Easter viewing. As it happens, many of legendary horror director Mario Bava's greatest works not only follow that formula, but are also among his most influental works, and have an English title that begins with B. Previously we have taken a look at his viking pictures and one of his classic giallos, but there's plenty of more aspects to the Great Master. So, let's take a look at Mario Bava films that begin with B.


Black Sunday (La maschera del demonio, 1960)

Bava was there from the beginning of Italian horror movies, having worked as a cinematographer and 2nd unit director on films like I vampiri and Caltiki. But even if it wasn't the first, the impact his proper directorial debut is had to overestimate. Bleak and shocking, Bava certainly pushed the envelope from the very beginning, thus creating a mutitude of subgenres himself. For while Black Sunday may be indebted to British horror movies of the time, it is unquestionably of Bava's twisted mind.

A witch is executed in Medieval times, but before her death, she curses the offspring of her inquisitors. 200 years later, archeologists find the tomb and accidentally set the evil of the witch back to the world of the living. There's also romance attached to the modern descendant of the witch, which is somewhat reminiscent of the Universal Horror classic The Mummy.

Though Bava works in clichéd ancient tombs, cemetaries, gothic castle halls and fields in November, he has a sort of knack of making it all look spectacular and exciting, no matter how many movies you've seen the setting before. Bava certainly has a knack for gothicness, and I mostly prefer his historical horror to more modern endeavours. He also hads the means of using more violent visuals than his American and British counterparts dared, starting a sort of race with the bloody special effects in horror films.

The film's downside is than the actors are a bit stiff and some dialogue as spoken by them is simply atrocious, which takes away from the athmosphere of the movie. For a film as old as this, one can forgive this, but if this were in colore and on the style of later 60's movies, it would be a bigger fault. But otherwise it's a rich film that has visual delights on offer on almost every scene.

★★★★

Black Sabbath (I tre volti della paura, 1963)

In most other horror directors' work, doing an anthology horror would be a middling work, a small, cheap thing to do in between some more substantial movies. But Bava did things differently, and created parobably the best and most stylish anthology horror movie ever made. He might have also given the name for the first heavy metal band, but the truth on that is not within our grasp.

Bava goes for some Russian classics by adapting stories by Tolstoy, Chekhov and Gogol (albeit quite freely). The first is quite a risque giallo story of a woman being tormented by threatening phone calls, which has a strong lesbian subtext. The second is more gothic, which sees Boris Karloff (also the narrator of the film) as a fiend who returns undead after going out to slay a mythical monster. The last movie is the most colorful and the most obvious morality take, where greed over a dead woman's ring gets a woman haunted to madness.

The three films have each a particular athmosphere to them, each highlighting a particular strength in Bava's toolbox. While the film starts out very slow, almost tv episode-like, it gets going. And it gets scarier, too. The first film creates fears out of the unknown grudges of those closest to us, the second of natural powers beyond our grasp. And the final one has perhaos the most horrifying ghoul ever to put on film, as well as colorful lights and inventive angles used to the benefit of creating paranoia.

The film is classy enough horror in that the Karloff opening and ends with their Creepshow-like cackling feel a bit much and spoil the interest one might have for the classic litereture it is based on. And it doesn't hold particularly well as adaptation as these classics as well. But Bava does better characters and directing the actors than many other times in his career. he's truly firing on all cylinders here. Too bad he never got around of making the sequel, which would have seen an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror with Christopher Lee.

★★★★

Blood and Black Lace (Sei donne per l'assassino, 1964)

Pioneering works of Bava were often indebted to either Hitchcock or Hammer horror films. But in the end he managed to find a subgenre totally Italian, and started the giallos with this film. A giallo as I understand one is a horror/suspense movie with a mystery with a race against time as a secret killer going around murdering people one by one. Bava usually had the victims be well-off models so he could have an excuse to have plenty of beautiful women, but also lavish interiors and colorful costumes. At the height of the suspense scene he often would pull out his favorite coloured lights.

Bava's favorite actor Cameron Mitchell plays a fashion-house owner, whose models are being offed one by one. There's foul play afoot and a plot concerning the lives of everyone in the house with a secret diary being a key piece of evidence everyone is looking for. So far, so Twin Peaks. It is both clearly a picture made in the 60's and utterly timeless, as a sense of style as strong as Bava's never goes out of fashion. The film has a musical score of jazzy easy listening which makes me think this has also been a major influence on Pedro Almódovar. 

Later giallo directors had various perks over this, such as Dario Argento having a stronger sense of inventiveness, creating a horror athmosphere and the use of architecture, Lucio Fulci had more nightmarish and surreal visuals, and Sergio Martino had better female characters and reasonable psychology in his movies. All of them upped the gore a lot from this point, which leaves Bava's pioneer work seemingly quite innocent in comparison. But it is a film anyone with a strong sense of cinema can appreciate, not just horror movie fans. Like with many of Bava's films, I would wish the characters were more interesting and less campily acted as a lot of the movie is spent on just them talking. That's the main reason why, as good as it is, it feels like a bit of a chore to sit through this.

★★★ 1/2

Bay of Blood (Ecologia del delitto, 1971)

Being ahead of the curve, Bava also managed to create one of the first films that can be classified as slashers. The film involves teenagers going out to a remote cottage to get slaughtered. But the reason why is some soap opera scheming about inheriting an estate that's not that unlike the plots of his giallo movies.

Bava's violence is a downward spiral of brutality where the cycle of violence can't be stopped once began. The scenes of kids getting brutally killed in bed with very phallic instruments has since become a cliché of the genre, but more nasty for the modern viewer might be the scenes depicting the brutal murders of the elderly characters. Some killings have obviously influenced the later works of the likes of Argento and Fulci.

The film is not visually one of the most captivating of Bava's films, even though he worked also as a cinematographer. Nevertheless, the claustrophobia of small cabins and the silent threat of the nature within is captured well enough. It's not as captivating as some of his more sophisticated movies and at times a bit boring. Nevertheless, it's a film worthy of respect due to everything new it brings to the table of the developing horror movie DNA.

★★★

Baron Blood (Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga, 1972)

The time had long since passed gothic horror when Bava gave his last knack at the genre. Two dopes are investigating a witch's curse and thus think they have resurrected the notorious Bloody Baron when people around them start to die. Bava is at his best visual tricks here, the film features more exciting scenes of a torchlit castle at night and a city under fog than a season of DuckTales.

There's a bit of a retread of ideas first presented at Black Sunday, but also rewriting and re-conseptualizing them. Nevertheless, compared to the previous film this can't help but to pale a little by comparison.

For fans of more classic horror, the film also has some cleverly graphic deaths in an iron maiden, a cool finale of a witch sabbath, and the make up on the Baron's face that surely was a precursor to Freddy Krueger. On the downsides, the script doesn't really hold together, the music is cheap and the acting is way too campy. The Bargain-store Vincent Price main villain is particularly annoying.

★★★