Eraserhead: Dare to make Non-Sense.

Image from www.rogerebert.com

I have always considered myself a critic for the average joe. I don’t want to be the cinephile, touting film theory and other jargon over the heads of others. I want to fairly represent the normal person who goes to a movie theater to enjoy a film, get some popcorn, yada yada yada. So I will not, for this movie, be offering a vast interpretation of the strange symbolism I saw. Instead, I offer my repeated reaction to everything I saw:

(Image from adisin-beneathyourskin.blogspot.com.)

 

Does anyone know where the plot went...hello?

My best attempt at a summary is thus: Henry Spencer is a poor dork living in a bad apartment in the middle of a desolate industrial wasteland, who likes to make googly-eyes at his sexy neighbor and contemplate his navel (actually his radiator… which I’m told represents suicide, but I wouldn’t know). After watching him spit out a sperm from his mouth, courtesy of a man pulling levers (inside his brain, I think) we find that Henry’s girlfriend, Mary, is pregnant with a muppet reject  deformed, premature baby. They rush into a marriage, Mary leaves from lack of sleep, Henry steps up to be a dad… and then everything gets weird. Fast.

    In all seriousness, this film is presented pretty nicely. The surreal imagery we’re presented flows pretty smoothly from scene to scene, leaving the viewer to wonder if what they just saw was actuality or hallucinatory symbolism. The symbols themselves are certainly not boring, definitely thought-provoking, and shows that David Lynch is a very creative man. In short, I couldn’t pan this movie on execution even if I had wanted to.

    But, as creative and revolutionary as the execution is… the film is difficult to sit through.  The music-less atmosphere is thick, suffocating and uncomfortable, made only worse by a plethora of painful characters. Henry’s a social pariah, Mary is spineless, and her mother is so crazy she just ups and latches onto Henry’s neck in the middle of a dinner scene. And the moments when we see the strange hit the fan are borderline indecipherable, and usually fairly gross. It’s a lot to take in and I suspect the average person will be lost within five minutes.

    My biggest issue with this movie is that it is sloooow. The pacing goes at an uncomfortable, teeth-gnashing, painfully slow rate; what’s more, I think it’s on purpose. Sometimes these scenes meander on, way past when whatever point was made, and it leaves me clutching at my chair and begging Lynch to call ‘cut!’. The scene which gives the movie it’s title is such an example, as it goes on and on to make a point that could have been made in less than two minutes. Somehow, despite the actual storyline jumping around quite quickly, it feels like the film is dragging their feet. But, again, this was likely on purpose given how the film is classified as ‘horror’. 

    So my final verdict is mixed. If you are savvy to the way of films, adore the flicks that force you to think, and crave a movie that will leave you pondering for several days afterwards, then you have to get Eraserhead under your belt. It’s chock full of strange and provocative images that are begging for your personal interpretation, and gloating in the fact that you’re left clueless. As for those who aren’t looking for any of that, and went to the cinema to casually relax, than keep this one at an arm’s length. Much like Donnie Darko, this is not a film watched at the sleepover with popcorn and chocolate milkshakes.

    In fact I wouldn’t recommend eating at all...I ate popcorn...and regret my decision. So, in lieu of this, we’re going to aim for something that looks a bit more silly-awesome.

Next Film: SGT. Kabukiman, NYPD.

Carrie: What Happens When They Laugh

It’s Halloween night; I’m all dressed in my best Gothic attire, I have my favorite Stephen King movie all set to go, and a nest of uneaten candy calling my name. The day is great and I feel happy, a luxury poor Carrie White would never be able to claim.
Carrie White is a lost child. She’s teased and tormented by her peers at school, and abused by her religious zealot of a mother. Her life doesn’t look to improve, until, one day, she discovers that she’s been gifted with telepathic powers. Not only that, they come when a handsome classmate finally asks her to the prom. She attempts to take her life back into her own hands…and it all goes horribly wrong. The night that this town would never forget…black prom.
Carrie is an interesting piece. I discovered it when I was an unhappy 16 year old girl, wishing for someone who ‘understood’ what it felt like to be bullied. What I found when I picked that book up was one of the most raw picture of teenage life I had ever seen. King it so right that this book was banned from several different school libraries. It was unfiltered, truthful, unapologetic in it’s portrayal of just how nasty teenagers can really be.
This version of the movie keeps that, mostly in how nasty 70’s’ teenagers can be. Nancy Allen’s Chris Hargensen is just so hateful, spiteful and nasty that I can’t look at her without getting angry; Sissy Spacek as the titular character is fragile and delicate…and then so unnerving and horrifying later on; and John Travolta plays Billy Nolan like a more vicious version of Danny from Grease. They’re all fantastic, though a chunk of them didn’t go off to do anything else too special (Sans Travolta).
This is my favorite version of the movie because everything looks the part. The normal, everyday suburbia is clean, bright and cheery; Carrie’s house, by contrast, looks as old-fashioned and suffocating as the mother herself. It’s all so quaint and suburban, making it all the more interesting when it’s shaken up. It even managed to include an awful little prop from the book: a statue of Jesus, crucified, with some of the freakiest looking eyes you ever saw. It was a major point from the text, despite how little we see it, and I can’t ever forget it after seeing it in this film…that awful statue…

He’s always watching.

That being said, this is also one of the first movie’s I’ve seen that isn’t tacked down by very many useless scenes. There’s one I would have cut, mainly when Tommy goes to find his Tux with his two annoying friends, but otherwise everything else we see keeps the story going at an even pace. If it seems like I’m overselling this, it’s honestly because there’s not much wrong with it. Blunt, to the point, and unforgiving; just like it’s source material.

 I can’t recommend this film enough. It’s a dark, twisted film that really probes the uncomfortable places of being a kid, and the dark subconscious of those suffering from some pretty intense bullying. The newer versions can’t measure up, and I don’t see this one going away anytime soon.

Halloween: THe Boogyman comes home.

Image from http://backwoodshorror.com

Beware the bogy man…
    The little town of Haddonfield is in shock when 6 year-old Michael Myers murders his older sister, Judith, with a kitchen knife. 15 years later, Halloween Night, the amoral  Myers has escaped from his Asylum and returned home to commit more atrocities. His path crosses with that of  Lynda, an amoral-blond-bimbo (Dead-Meat #1), Annie, an amoral-jerk (Dead meat #2 2), and Laurie, the responsible girl-scout who turns a blind-eye to their poor choices (Jamie-Lee Curtis). It’s a suffocating thriller as you watch Myers slowly stalk idiotic teenagers whose dumb decisions come back to bite them, and the relentless prowling of an evil man who just. Won’t. Die!
    And then the sequels came and ruined everything, but that’s neither here nor there.
    So I’m naturally biased here, as this was the first slasher-movie I ever saw, but the film has enough of a fan-following that I need not try to force myself to be negative. It is an entertaining and scary horror film that has several bragging points for it’s low budget: Mikey himself is a terrifying force with little more than a painted Captain Kirk Mask; For a film done near completely at night, it did an amazing job making sure everything was adequately visible, and the film uses that darkness well towards its jump scares. With some great piano tracks and camera angles, it’s clear that John Carpenter knew exactly what he was doing.
    That said...perfection, it is not. We are, after all, talking about one of the core slasher films, and it did churn out the biggest slasher movie stereotypes. Sorry for spoilers, but Lynda and Annie, the two amoral teens I mentioned, are killed, and only responsible, ‘pure’ Laurie gets out alive.  Mikey also has a tendency to move impossibly fast when the plot demands, and how he actually learned to drive in that asylum is still a little questionable:
    There’s also a question of how someone who looks like this gets unnoticed for so long, but most of these are nitpicks.
    Lastly, there’s one more elephant in the room that needs addressing. There have been several critics who claim the film promotes several terrible things, misogyny and sadism being just a few. They’re valid points, given the awful things that happen to the girls, but I don’t think they’re nearly as terrible as some would believe. After seeing the absolute torture-fest that was Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, I can say confidently that Halloween isn’t in support of any of that. Annie and Lynda didn’t die because they were sexually promiscuous, they died because they were caught in an unfortunate situation. Furthermore, their deaths were not overly violent or drawn out, and unless you find suffocation and stab wounds titillating, you’re not gonna be too turned on when they’re finally axed.
So, my final thought is thus: This is a horror movie classic, and an awesome piece of October nostalgia. It’s the type of film that demands watching with a group of friends over a bowl of popcorn, lights down low, and sound up high. It’s spooky, unnerving, well acted, and very well directed. Just do yourself a favor and bypass the sequels...they’re not worth anybody’s time, even casually.
Since my next post will be on Halloween, how about we tackle my favorite horror movie, which just so happens to be classified as a cult film?

Next Film: Carrie

The Stuff: The Stuff of Badly Written Nightmares.

Image from comicartfans.com

This would be a hell of a lot scarier if the directors had given a damn.

...Okay, seriously, what the hell?

    Two unmanned, unimportant construction workers discover a weird bubbling substance in the middle of winter. They get the incredibly stupid brilliant idea to taste it and soon it’s sold by container to millions under the name ‘The Stuff’ (height of creativity, that one.) Ice Cream Companies world wide send in a badly-acted mole to get the formula, only for him to discover that The Stuff is an evil, mind controlling alien bent on taking over the world. Bad special effects ensue, badly written characters are killed in stupid fashions, and I’m left laughing at just how pitiful this film is.

    First of all, let’s just be clear; the idea isn’t entirely stupid, but it is incredibly lame. The idea of killer ice-cream is so kitchy that it needs clever writing and good storytelling if it is ever going to get off the ground. Such was the case with Killer Klowns from Outer Space which made good use of colorful visuals, insanely comedic writing, and good actors whose charm outweighed their stereotypes.

    That charm and fantastic writing was nowhere to be seen here. Ignoring the premise, the visuals were some of the ugliest I’ve ever seen (second only to Nuke’em High), and the writing was some of the worst I’ve come across. The Stuff looked utterly disgusting, even when it was presented in colorful containers, with method-of-murder being the only interesting thing it ever did. The story-telling techniques were non-existent with terrible pacing, poorly written characters, and some of the most inane movie-logic I’ve ever seen; seriously, if you saw some strange white substance bubbling up out of the ground, would your first instinct be to eat it, or call the CDC?

    Such poor presentation is only hindered by the actors.  The child actor was surprisingly okay, but the adults in this film were just comedically bad.  Mo’s faux southern accent, punctuated by one too many ‘uhs’ and ‘ums’ triggered my gag-reflex more than once;  The dad comes across more abusive than authoritative, and Nicole couldn’t be more plain and boring if she tried. The corny acting on all sides just breaks whatever spell you’re trying to put forward, and leaves me feeling detached rather than entertained.

    My final thought on the stuff is that we are at the site of a tragedy.  Remembering the acid-cream pies from Killer Klowns, I wish the directors of the stuff had tried to have a little more fun with their concept instead of attempting to play it straight. With this in mind, I must dissuade those looking for a fun horror movie to watch this October. The Stuff is insultingly poor in production and presentation, in dire need of some pruning shears, and leaves on the most confusing ending I’ve seen in awhile. If the creators didn’t feel it was worth their time to make it the best it could be, it’s not worth your time to sit through it.

To prove my point, our next film is a little classic film that proves that quality can be achieved on a shoestring budget.

Next Film: Halloween.

Killer Klowns From Outer Space: Kost-effective Kure for Klown-a-Phobia

 

They have their own theme song...what are you waiting for?!

This is the second monster movie I’ve watched that took place in California. Is there something going on there that ole’ sunny Cali isn’t telling us?

            Specifically our little story takes place in Crescent Cove, California, where a suspicious shooting star interrupts what would otherwise be a goofy and awkward totally hot makeout between our main characters, Michael and Debbie. Mike and Debbie in typical horror-movie-induced stupidity go to investigate find that their town is now in danger from alien clowns Klowns. The Klowns are here to murder, collect, and snack on innocent civilians, so it’s up to Mike, Debbie, and Debbie’s ex-boyfriend/cop to stop them in what is one glorious horror-comedy.

            In movies like this the story is both non-important and a saving grace. I say non-important because looking for plot holes and logic in a movie about alien clowns would be missing the point.  However, it’s also a saving grace because it just continues to dive deeper and deeper into absurdism as it goes. We get lots of ‘you be dead’ scenes in which the Klowns kill and capture townsfolk in increasingly dark-comedic fashions, and I always give credit to a movie that rewards people who mark smart decisions in a crisis. And it’s somehow insanely fun to watch our main cast of characters scramble about like little ants.

            Ah, but here comes the nit-picking I must do as practice. For while the movie flows seamlessly, it has two points that almost dragged it down. One of those was Chief Officer Mooney, whose blatant negligence towards emergency calls (did it not cross his mind that we could be dealing with serial killers dressed as circus clowns?)  and obvious brutality against the youngsters would have gotten him fired ages ago. But, thankfully, David being the smart and responsible cop in the movie balances that out and just makes Mooney murder-fodder for later on (and it’s especially hilarious, trust me).

            The other thing was, sad to say, Debbie. I had high hopes for blondie when I saw her, as she was smart enough to realize that a circus tent in the middle of nowhere (that happens to look like the skittle version of love-craft on the inside) is likely unsafe, especially when you see it just after you saw something weird in the sky. But her smart decisions were not due to last as she fell into the obligatory role of damsel in distress.  In the movie’s defense, this does add to the overall b-movie feel of everything, but I just felt disappointed. It would have been kick-ass for the girlfriend to be the smart one who takes the lead instead of her boyfriend.

            Overall it won’t ruin the experience, and I say you have to see this movie. This is the crazy-awesome at it’s finest, with some of the best comedic timing I ever seen in a film. It has better acting than a film called Killer Klowns deserves, decent special effects for its time, and stays internally consistent through most of the movie. Ignoring the fancy-critical approach, it’ just a damn funny movie that’s best enjoyed late at night with a buddy and a bowl of popcorn.

            Now then, let’s see. We went from the well known, to box-office, to teen, and to obscure. What next...how about something British?

Next Review: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Lost Boys: Live Long, Die Never

-From sodahead

Of course I was going to make a Twilight reference. What kind of Internet nerd would I be if I hadn’t?

            The Lost Boys is a teenage horror film from the 80s. It’s about Michael and Sam Emerson, who move to Santa Carla, California with their mother, Lucy. They move back into Grandpa’s house, but soon discover that his taxidermist tendencies are the least of their problems. Michael gets himself mixed up with a tribe of vampires in an attempt to impress a hot-hippie-chick, and discovers that he’s slowly turning into the same undead murderer his new buddies are. The only way to save himself, his new girlfriend, and their little friend Laddie, is to face off against his new found family; Van Hellsing style.  It’s cheesy, predictable, and wicked fun to watch; loved it from start to finish.

            Our plot is highly unoriginal for it’s time: New kid in town wants to impress pretty girl/ join the cool kids, new kid ends up joining gang, and gang turns out to be bad. It’s saved from feeling like an after-school special thanks to the lack of smart adults, and an incredibly dark, moody atmosphere(and, you know, the vampires.). The bad part is that our pace is incredibly fast. Conversations go at break-neck speed, and relationships aren’t really given the time they need to develop properly. The time it takes for Star and Michael to get to sexy-time breaks the record for the fifty-meter dash.

            Problems aside, the Lost Boys themselves are the saving grace of this entire film They look like Captain Hook on a goth trip, and sport an attitude that an older Peter Pan would have likely been proud of: Party all night, sleep all day, and never grow up.  But what makes them so fascinating is this mafia-like stoicism that underscores everything they do. Joining the family is a big deal, and being part of the gang trumps whatever else you had going on.

 There’s also something refreshing about watching vampires excitedly hunt, stalk, and kill their prey with the same childlike glee of Christmas Day. I have nothing against the romanticized vampire, and in fact quite like it, but it’s also nice to get back to the basics. Add to the fact that the book stores these days are saturated with fanged-pretty-boys that are more likely to be your prom-date than your nightmare. Needless to say, I was rather happy to put these vampires into the ‘bed afraid’ part of my brain.

            Sadly, our villains will forever be much more interesting than our leads. Michael and Sam aren't bad characters, but they fall into a predictable pattern pretty quick. Michael is the good kid who made a big mistake and Sam is the poor, nearly helpless younger brother who’s trying to keep the big secret from Mom. In fact, the mother is the only one who honestly surprised me. She wasn’t treated like the mindless authority figure that I expected her to be and was instead shown as a loving and attentive parent (while still oblivious to the plot.)  It’s my biggest pet peeve when adults act worse than the kids in these teen movies(or in a sitcom) or when attempts to be a parent are shown as ‘mean’ and ‘intrusive’. So this movie gets a big ole’ gold star for treating Lucy as an innocent bystander who actually knows how to be a good mom.

            To draw into my final thought, I ask you to think about where the vampire has gone these past years. To echo my statement about ‘fanged-pretty boys’, I enjoyed this movie because its different from what I’m used to. The idea of “Vampire Bad” has been lost in the flow of popular media and I'm always grateful to get back to the classics. And, as a classic, I highly recommend this movie to anyone looking for a good Vampire movie. It’s cool, dark, fun in it’s nostalgia and awesome in it’s old-school action.

P.S: I hope you like G. Tom Mac’s song “Cry Little Sister”, as you’ll be hearing it a lot. Kisses!

Next Film: Killer Klowns From Outer Space (yes, that’s how they spell it).