Three laughs: Night Killer

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 #42:
Night Killer (Non aprite quella porta 3, 1990)
Director: Claudio Fragasso (as Clyde Anderson)

Ol' shlockmeister Fragasso is best remembered as the director of Troll 2, as well as having been the co-director of plenty of films by another trash master, Bruno Mattei (such as Rats: Nights of Terror). Whereas Mattei was content on doing cheapo ripoff films for the lowest common denominator, Fragasso seems to have quite a high opinion of himself. Case in point is this 1990 horror movie, which the director himself has compared to the works of Fellini.

Well, to my knowledge Fellini never did shlock that featured a killer that looks like the offspring of Freddy Krueger and the Toxic Avenger.  Fragasso would have wanted to make a psychological movie about trauma with parallel universes and dream-like logic, but the studio demanded him to have a more basic slasher plot. But it seems a compromise was reached, since these two sides seem to battle it out throughout the movie. Insult to injury, Mattei, who Fragasso kept saying stole his credits from their previous collaborations, was hired to add gore scenes to the movie. So the tables surely have turned.

In Italy, the film was sold as Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, even though it has even less to do with the franchise than Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 did. In actuality, the film features gruesome murders at Virginia Beach where young women are stalked and killed by a rubber-faced fiend, seemingly with his bare claws. The killer has a grander plan for one of his victims, Melanie Beck (Tara Buckam), who has repressed memories of previously encountering the killer.

CONTENT WARNING: The movie depicts sexual violence.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The scene in the beginning with dancers practicing a dumb disco-dancing routine seems almost like a parody of later-era Argento with Opera or his production Stage Fright. The director's beration doesn't make any sense and the dramatic camera movements showing a really dumb Halloween-costume wearing fiend watching in the balcony just add to the bizarreness.

2. In-movie, it seems to fluctuate whether that mask and glove is just cheap plastic or the real thing. For instance, the killer can easily stick his claws through a girl. The most bizarre kill scene comes, however, when he makes a plaster cast for another lady, then proceeds to sex up his own simulacrum.

3. There's maybe some idea of females fighting against the pervy nature of the men around them in the movie. For instance, our lead has a scene where she lures a cat-caller to the toilet, then at gunpoint makes him strip and flushes his clothes. As the guy asks on how to get them back, we get an amazing line:

"Just reach in and fish them out. It shouldn't be anything new to AN ASSHOLE FULL OF SHIT AS YOURSELF!"

I have to mention the film's final moments as they have so many revealing twists that it's hard to keep up. Mostly because none of them make any sense. Anyway, the killer is shot to pieces by the police. But later on, in Christmastime, our lead's daughter gets a mysterious present. It turns out to be the killer's mask and once she puts it on, she wovs revenge. So, the mask was magical, too? Was this a prequel to The Mask (1994)? Either way, the film is SSSSSSSmoking!

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

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) ★★★★

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.

★★★

Christopher Lee in Memoriam

On June 7th, the world lost one of the greatest living screen legends and a personal favorite actor of mine, Sir Christopher Lee. Much as everyone would´ve expected him to turn 100, he left this realm at the ripe age of 93. He certainly had a long and amazing life, and no one could deny his love for the craft, since he was working until the end. And a good thing too, because his recognizable baritone could liven up the most dire of blockbusters. He´s one of my all-time favorite actors precisely because there´s no thrash film so rotten that he wouldn´t improve it just by with his immense charisma and serious speech patterns.

I am a bit late with this post, but I couldn´t have a better reason to get this blog running once again than to start out by reminiscing some of Sir Christopher´s work. This isn´t necessarily a listing of his greatest roles (might I direct you to this post about The Wicker Man for that), but these are some of his most iconic performances, with some curiosities thrown in for good measure.

Horror of Dracula (1958) 
Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
Dir. Terence Fisher

Of course, the role that made him famous, and a cornerstone in his career was the defining portrayal of Count Dracula in numerous Hammer Studios´ films, starting with this one. As it is, it´s surprising to see just how little we see of the old count in Horror of Dracula, and even in the following film, Dracula: Prince of Darkness. But Lee is such a perfect embodiment for otherworldly evil, as well as a sexy outsider, that he leaves an immediate impact.

As Hammer films tend to have, this one also has top-notch sets, music and a foggy athmosphere you could cut with a knife. The cast is very good, but the acting is still very theatrical. Later on, Hammer directors eased out on acting-direction, but sadly this coincided with the scripts getting worse and worse. At this point they were still eager to try their claws with classic horror stories and giving them an unmistakably English twist.

In The Horror of Dracula, the most notable problem is the same one as in Stoker´s book (from which the film otherwise takes notable liberties). While the opening scenes of Jonathan Harker traveling to castle Dracula and realizing that the man he thought to do real-estate business is in fact an undead monster, are exciting, feverish and threatening. But once the action settles on patriarchal Victorians trying to solve the case of women enjoying sex, the film jars to a halt. Never mind that the obsessive, cold and violent Van Helsing as portrayed by Peter Cushing is one of the best portrayals of that character.

Lee hated the role of Dracula so much, that he refused to say any of his lines in the first sequel, PoD. That film was made to keep the struggling hammer Films afloat, so Lee had to grudgingly accept. The resulting pantomime performance emphasizes the character´s otherwordliness, and the surrealism feels much more like the live-action reprisal of Nosferatu than Werner Herzog´s actual remake could ever manage.

Dracula: ★★★ 1/2
Prince of Darkness: ★★★ 1/2

The Hound of Baskervilles (1959)
Dir. Terence Fisher

Lee played in many different versions of Arthur Conan Doyle´s Sherlock Holmes stories, managing to play Holmes twice and his brother Mycroft once (in Billy Wilder´s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. I have a lot of fondness for that role). Curiously, he was never cast as Professor Moriarty, but perhaps that would´ve been way too obvious. This Hammer Films version of perhaps the most famous Holmes story deserves merit because it takes the opposite direction, casting Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville, with his best friend Peter Cushing as The Great Detective.

Lee´s Sir Henry is something of a buffoon, a very self-important aristocrat that is introduced complaining about his missing shoes and mistaking Holmes as a servant. Lee´s no-nonsense charisma and a sort of anger seethe through a man who´s deadly afraid, but can´t manage but to try to keep up appearances. A scene with a killer tarantula for instance reveals the cracks in his facade, making him totally freeze up in fright.

It´s always a pleasure to see Cushing and Lee play off each other (which makes it such a shame they have so little interaction in Dracula films or, for instance Curse of Frankenstein). They are a pair for the ages, usually having one of them be the straight man, voice of reason, and the other the passionate character, fringing on the edges of madness. It´s evident that the pair got on off-screen as well.

★★★

The Bloody Judge (1970)
Dir. Jesús Franco

If Lee´s career in the 1950´s and early 60´s was emphasized by the films he made with Terence Fisher and Hammer Films, in the late 1960´s and early 70´s his most frequent working partner was the Spanish schlockmeister Jesús Franco. In many ways, Franco had a way of continuing on with some of the work Hammer started, such as taking on their Fu Manchu films with a couple of movies of the Diabolical Doctor of his own. It seems Lee had a fondness for Franco, since he could even convince him to play The Lord of the Vampires once more for 1970´s Count Dracula. Lee has gone on record to praise that film, probably because it gave him dialogue straight from Bram Stoker´s novel, a feat which none of the Hammer movies could manage to do.

Another of Franco´s films that pleased Lee was this historical thriller about the 17th century Lord Chief of Justice Jeffries, who was known for public executions. One must say that Franco was riding on the wave of the wave of British horror of the day, releasing this film between such films with similar subject matter as The Witchfinder General and Blood on Satan´s Claw. Cynical looks at the bloody and unfair history of England were all the rage then.

However, like Franco´s films tend to be, this one is thin on story and oddly uneven. Scenes of torture and nude women were inserted to the finished film in order to gain notoriety. Thus also Lee´s performance disappears from the film from time to time. As Jeffries, he does tremendous work, with his burning gaze and reasoning that he is serving the kingdom by killing people he sees as threats. Lee could make Franco´s films a lot better than they had any right to be, and this one is certainly watchable, if nothing to really write home about.

★★★

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Dir. Guy Hamilton

Of course, the work Lee did in the 70´s weren´t all zero-budget horror films. He was a particularly apt choice for a Bond villain, playing the assassin Scaramanga. He happened to be a distant cousin of 007 creator Ian Fleming, and actually was his first choice to play the agent way back when. While Lee could´ve pulled off both Bond´s ruthless side as well as the more gentlemanny traits with ease, in the films we´ve got, he wouldn´t really have worked.

This particular film is from the most silly period of Roger Moore´s agent, featuring things like Nick-Nack the killer midget, comic relief Southern Sherriff J.W. Pepper and a Funhouse assissation arena. Bond films play for the tastes of that day with some kung fu action thrown in the mix. Yet Lee´s Scaramanga still feels like a genuine threat, never mind that you couldn´t really kill anyone with golden bullets (I´m not sure about the gun, though. It would be very heavy and soft, though).

The character of Scaramanga would prove to be one of the first of Bond´s "dark reflections" (of course Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love being the first). As such, it´s a pity they couldn´t mine some more substance out of that dynamic, resorting to quips about superfluous nipples and bikini girls instead. But this has been a well from which the Bond producers have returned to with every iteration of the character since.

★★★

Mask of Murder (1988)
Dir. Arne Mattson

Now, a lot of Finnish media tended to tell about how much Christopher Lee loved Finland. he came here to fight as a volunteer in the Winter War, after all. Also, as he loved J.R.R. Tolkien´s works, he also appreciated the Finnish language. But he never did act in a Finnish movie. This is something the Swedes got and we didn´t. For Lee had a sizable role in the Swedish thriller maestro Arne Mattson´s English-language film mask of murder, which saw the actor in a Swedish setting.

As far as plots go, this is not really something to write home about, and certainly not one of Mattson´s finest. The Swedish town of Uppsala is here representing a desolate Canadian village. Murders of women start to occur, and it´s at first up to Lee´s Chief Supt. Jonathan Richto solve them, but then he´s suddenly wiped off the game and the case left to his assistant Supt. Bob McLaine, played by Rod Taylor. They have their own skeletons in the closet, and the film has a very cynical outlook in the small town police force as a whole.

I´m going to admit it´s a pleasure mostly because of the setting of an obviously Swedish town, as well as it´s nice to see the nicely mustached Lee and Taylor thinking. The violence is surprisingly stark, owing to the slasher films of the day. Horror fans despise the film, perhaps because it delivers very little in the way of actual horror and that the end twist is easily guessable. But there´s surprisingly lot of Lee in the film, and he gives a fine, subdued performance so I´d say it´s worth checking out.

★★★

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
Dir. Peter Jackson

I have to mention this last, since it was the last time I saw Christopher Lee on the screen. On Jackson´s bloated prequel trilogy, there are very few things on screen that feel tangible, realistic or even emotionally resonant. Lee´s Saruman the White fighting Ringwraiths is of course horrendous as an idea for a Tolkien fan, but it´s also the only offering of fan service in the films that I actually enjoyed. That´s kick-ass, even if it is a stunt double most of the time, and a better fight scene than Lee got in either of the Star Wars prequels he appeared in.

Many people complained that Saruman´s trechery was telegraphed too plainly in the first Hobbit movie. I thought that Lee portrayed him as Tolkien suggested, arrogant and pompous, with a love for his own voice. Again, while the material he had may not have been up to standards, Lee made it his own, and with his extensive knowledge of literary sources, made it even more accurate. As such, he is the best part in that movie, too.

★★

So in conclusion, rest in piece, sir Christopher. I know you´ll be coming back, because that´s the way you work, but try to come back as a benevolent spirit, guiding us to reach to be as awesome as you were in life.

Cruising Revisited

The Crime movie genre has some bona-fide classics that are easy to be recognized by anyone. These include your Film Noirs, Heats and Godfathers. But some of the more interesting films of the genre are treasured by some, and leave others completely cold. None more so, than French Connection director William Friedkin's 1980 joint Cruising. I'm even not that sure myself what to make of the film that seems more content in describing the New York gay leather clubs and subculture than it is of having a familiar plot or character arc. The film is certainly one of the most experimental in Friedkin's career, and thus warrants a closer look, however one wants to do it.

So... Revisited or Chew? Even this soon after creating the categories I'm at a bit of a loss on how to treat this movie. Chewisited! There may be spoilers.


The Face Value

Gerald Walker's novel Cruising was a hot property at Hollywood in the late 70's. The novel was based on a true story of a serial killer lurking homosexuals in the underground gay leather-culture circles. Oliver Stone was very eager to direct the book. The French Connection producer Philip D'Antoni was adamant that Friedkin should direct it. After the financial flop of Friedkin's film Sorcerer he agreed to look into it, and when there were a number of brutal unsolved murders in New York, he decided to do it. In a bit of a rare move for the director, he also took over the scripting duties. Thus he made sure Walker's story would not be twisted into a cutesy Hollywood story of good vs. evil and a happy ending to tie the bow.

For Friedkin's demand of reality, many of the film's gay club scenes were shot in actual leather bars, with the patrons being brought out as extras. As a weird coincidence, an actor in a minor role of The Exorcist was also imprisoned for actually murdering the gay film critic Addison Verrill. Naturally, Friedkin went to him for research of the mind of a gay serial killer. Later on, the actor also confessed to the murders Walker was describing in his novel, although the truth in these confessions is questionable. Never let it be said, however, that William Friedkin doesn't work for the authenticity of the milieu of his films.

The Plot

We follow everynight ordeals at gay bars for a while. After a steamy night out, man takes a new friend to his apartment. During sex, the stranger brutally kills him. Elsewhere, in a gay porn theatre, the stranger also stabs a random movie-goer. Body parts show up in the Hudson river and the police are clueless on the identity of the killer. Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) figures the best way to get information to capture the killer is to send a man undercover. The young, eager officer Steve Burns (Al Pacino) accepts to complete this mission, and settles to live in Greenwich Village under a new identity. At nights he goes to leather bars to observe the situation and ask about customers.

At first Burns thinks the job will be easy like a walk in the park. While he can't share work details with his girlfriend Nancy (Karen Allen), he remains close. But as he starts to go deeper and deeper undercover, the job also starts to strain the relationship. Burns becomes obsessed, but even his superiors are uncertain whether its for the capture of the serial killer, or if Burns has just been sucked in the gay subculture.

The Contents

As mentioned the film mostly deals with describing the New York gay leather clubs and subculture in the sleazy, pre-Giuliani times. Characters and events are less important and the film hasn't got a satisfying conclusion that would explain the mystery. The movie goes deliberately in circles, and the viewer is either caught up with it or not.

Pacino's Burns is an odd character, since we get so little information about him, and even those nuggets often seem to be contradictory. He doesn't seem to have problems being used as a bait. Many of the serial killer's victims look very similar to him, they are dark-haired young men with large eyes. Burns doesn't seem to mind this or have even the slightest hint of fear or care for himself. The film does hint he's willing to go deeper undercover than would ever be required for his job. And make no mistake, this is no euphemism. I mean gay sex here. Many times he's only shown to be interrupted by a chance.

For the most part of the film Burns seems to be playing a role or hiding under a facade. When he first enters the film, he's laughing (perhaps a bit nervously) at Captain Edelson's enquiries of his sexuality and seems to be most at ease here. After a few nights at gay night clubs Burns channels his frustrations to his sexual performance with Nancy. Later on, their sexual relationship seems to go dry. The end hints that he doesn't see her as sexually desirable any more, yet they both choose to play along with the parts they're supposed to.

That final scene arises more questions than it answers. Are those pieces of clothing Nancy is inspecting the same ones the killer used? Was Burns the serail killer all along? Or did he kill his friend and neighbor Ted's (Don Scardiano) violent lover Gregory (James Remar)? Perhaps Ted too?

I wouldn't try to fit the film's motif into such a tight little package. Those items Nancy examines are to be seen more symbolic. Throughout the film, we have seen that Burns has a bit of a violent streak. In the beginning he expresses it through sex. In the middle, he's disgusted on how violently his fellow officers treat captured rent boys. But towards the end, he shoots one suspect dead when he's attacking him with a knife. He has also made a lot of other moral compromises throughout the film, such as breaking into the suspect's house. This shooting is the final deed that pushes him entirely into the dark side. In the beginning he was comparable to the serial killer's victims. Naive, looking for a thrill, trying to keep his urges at bay until he needs them. But giving in to the violence, S&M sex and a grey moral code, he has made himself more like the killer himself. Nancy has a couple of nasty surprises in store for her.

The other side

The film takes itself and its subject quite seriously. The actual murder scenes are brutal, slow, painful shots of violence, not for the weak of stomach. The dangerousness of sex is emphasized. Friedkin does walk a fine line between damning the S&M culture entirely, although to me he doesn't cross it. Plenty of homosexual critics have analyzed otherwise so I'm not sure. Maybe the film IS offensive. The film has two clear comedic parts that have emphasis on how the film views the underground world.

The first is when Burns makes an attempt to learn the code used by rent boys in gay bars. He asks the salesman (a cameo by Powers Boothe) about them, and learns just the multitude of sex acts people are looking to do in those kinds of bars. If he had paid any attention to the salesman's speech, he would've gotten that yellow scarf in a back pocket means you're into water sports. But he goes to a bar wearing such a napkin, and understandably gets into a fight with a golden shower enthusiast.

This is Pacino as Burns still attempting to make the underground scene work for him, more than other ways. He figures any scarf will get him close enough to speak with bar prowlers and doesn't realize that the hanky itself is more or less a promise in these parts. There's no courting period. Or maybe he would secretly like to pee on gay people, or to just watch such an act happening and just can't manage to come to terms with this sudden urge. I wouldn't rule out that possibility, either.

The method actor Pacino always plays the best loose cops, since in interrogation scenes he often relies in surprising and confusing his opponent. Rather oddly, here his tactic seems to have a bulky black police come by dressed only in a thong and a cowboy hat to slap both him and the suspects around. This part takes the suspect, as well as the viewer of the movie, completely off-guard. Friedkin does have Burns's trait of not being afraid at any point of anything, not even making himself completely ridiculous. Yet at the same time, although it shouldn't this over-the-top comedy scene totally works.
"WHO THE HELL IS THAT GUY!?"

The Legacy

During the time of its release, gay rights activists publicly panned the film and protested its release. This forced the studio to put a disclaimer in front of the film that announces that the leather bars are only a small portion of the gay culture and not all homosexuals are into S&M and rent boys. Still, the film's reputation to this day is of a homophobic relic, even if it's not entirely the case.

Critics panned the film widely and it was even nominated in the first annual Razzie awards for worst pictures. Friedkin was also nominated as the Worst Director, but so were Brian De Palma for Dressed to Kill and even Stanley Kubrick for The Shining. More than 30 years of hindsight really reveal what a sham those awards also are, even if luckily none of the prestigious nominees won.

Thanks in part for the controversy leg-up, the film was a modest success at the box office. However, it was by no means as big a hit as the studio expected from director of The Exorcist and The French Connection. One should also remember Friedkin came from the expensive flop of Sorcerer and was quickly fading into obscurity. For most of the 80's and 90's he would struggle for work. But when he did manage to fim a movie, it was always at least interesting. After all, also his biggest masterpiece, To Live And Die In L.A. was yet to come.