IN SEARCH OF DARKNESS (2019 - Documentary)

 If I was an attorney defending 1980's horror movies on a charge of willful genre damage, I'm not sure I could save my client from the chair. Yes, it produced some fine and original films that I love as much as any fan, and some that are gloriously silly fun to prevent us getting too earnest about terms like 'importance' and 'meaning'. Nevertheless, the '80s was also the era where horror suffered from two damaging forces particular to the time. Firstly, there was the relentless sequelitis, whereby any character or format that could be repeatedly milked to exhaustion was so treated, with little regard for anything except cynical box office exploitation. The uniqueness of Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers for example became victims of gradual reductionist exercises in diminishing returns in which their back story was either ignored after being set up, explained unnecessarily when their enigma was part of their appeal, or their appearances just became a platform for staged 'kills' instead of depth. 

Linked to that was the tail wagging the dog of  horror films that seemed almost solely driven by the practical FX pyrotechnics that were supposed to be in service to the plot and ideas. Admittedly I have a great fondness for the period's advances in the tangible reality of prosthetic creatures and make-up whose threat level unnerves the mind more than when you know what you are seeing was added 'in post'  - but too often it felt like the Visual Effects Supervisor was a stronger guiding hand than the writer or director. 

Your honour, the defence suggests that the emphasis on the look of '80s films can't be blamed entirely on the creators or studios themselves (not even the non-coincidence that the French term 'cinema du look' was coined in the 80s to describe the high-gloss work of then-emerging filmmakers like Luc Besson). As an influence on America, the Reagan administration and Reaganomics' support of the rich between 1981-88 ushered in a period where conspicuous consumption and the visual demonstration of excess was not only accepted but encouraged. Gordon Gekko's "Greed is good" speech written by Oliver Stone for WALL STREET was so seductive that it became a call-to-arms for yuppies not a warning as intended. With that in mind then, what is a great horror movie FX sequence if not a demonstration of "Look what we can do, and this time it's bigger, better....more!"? Qualities like taste and restraint were sometimes as out of place as an old lady at a Dead Kennedys concert.

Horror fans of my generation are also prone to a rose-tinted view of the 80s because its is inextricably bound up with our coming of age at that time. Can we honestly say that it's the period's films that are being celebrated by us or our own sweet nostalgia for being young? I'll lay even money that every generation feels this way about the decade when they were teens.

Having said all that, let's get to the point of this article: IN SEARCH OF DARKNESS does a lot to remind even the jaded fan that there was a lot to offer in 80s horror despite my overarching whingeing. Across its four hours plus running time you have the pleasure of an exhaustive trip through the well-known and more obscure releases from every year between 1980 and 1989. This is no lazy clip or trailer show though: Writer/director David A. Weiner features some interesting and illuminating interview clips with many of the era's directors such as John Carpenter. Brian Yuzna, Stuart Gordon and Joe Dante, as well as much-loved actors who became genre stars in the 80s like the amiable Tom Atkins and Jeffrey Combs. A bonus for Slipknot fans is the enthusiastic musings here of lead singer Corey Taylor, reminding us that this was also the period when heavy metal music first became intertwined with the medium. It's a great concentrated injection of fun and serious contemplation along the way. Let's agree not to show the jury the big hair photos though, eh? No further questions.

CANDYMAN (1992 - Collector's Edition DVD)

 In advance of seeing Nia deCosta's remake tomorrow, I thought I'd re-visit Bernard Rose's 1992 original - and a mixed blessing it is through a more modern lens (dare you say 'enlightened' five times?).

The theme of urban myths is still richly fertile ground for a horror movie, and it's certainly a worthy stab at a Clive Barker approved take on his short story 'The Forbidden'. Rose's script transplants it from Barker's childhood territory of troubled, impoverished Liverpool to the violent real life ghetto of the Cabrini Green inner city project in Chicago. Philip Glass's angelic choir score still elevates the movie with that hauntingly evocative earworm of a title track 'It Was Always You, Helen' (my ring-tone for a while now) that serves double duty in seeding Rose's intention that this is more a love story than a revenge tale.

The performances bring what they can yet within what I now can't avoid feeling are uncomfortable attitude prejudices of the time that are valid to consider since race is at the heart of CANDYMAN's raison d'etre. Yes, Virginia Madsen's cool enigmatic researcher Helen Lyle is beautiful and capable instead of a helpless scream queen, which is somewhat enlightened. Kasi Lemmons makes the best of her close gal pal Bernadette Walsh. Tony Todd, the strongest suit in the deck, gives Candyman a grace and nobility without camping up any of his lines, a refreshing change to the period's tendency to descend into trailer line flambouyancy (I'm thinking of your sequels' descent, Mr Krueger). In fairness let me add bonus points for the sound design reverb on Todd's dialogue that makes it unnervingly feel like it's occurring in your head. 

Nevertheless, there's no escaping that Madsen's Hitchcock-esque heroine is there as a white saviour who single-handedly rescues both a baby and the black marginalised community. Lemmons' character is not only bumped off well before the end, but she is also the very lightest-skinned black actress one could imagine. Putting those elements together makes CANDYMAN feel less like the progression that the studio trumpeted and more like in effect a reinforcement of the status quo. 

*FUN FACT: According to the making-of documentary, and backed up by the actors, Rose mastered hypnotism and for most of the shoot placed Madsen under hypnosis before the majority of her scenes, hence her often unblinking passivity 

I generally avoid most remakes (especially western reworkings of J-horror originals). The hook, pardon my pun, with a 2021 version of CANDYMAN is what may be attempted in an era of new confidence and opportunity by black artists instead of simply about them. Let's see, shall we...?

SNUFF (1976)

"The film that could only be made in South America... where Life is CHEAP!" shrieks the poster tagline. Not as cheap as the bid for credibilty in this notorious video nasty which only pinged on the British censors' radar when it was cynically marketed as an actual snuff movie. The atrocious dubbing, editing and performances in this grimy, bad porn-style offering are so bad as to defy anyone to believe anything on screen. Michael and Roberta Findlay directed the original footage (titled SLAUGHTER) back in 1971 but the distributor Alan Shackleton shelved it and tacked on a new ending four years later directed by Simon Nuchtern to capitalise on the vogueish urban myths about South American snuff movies - those rumoured to feature real on-screen murder. We'll get to that, but the first ninety percent of the movie is so incoherent and laughably inept that it takes a true horror film buff to wait that long.

The establishing scene of hippie chicks on a motorcycle underscored by a rock riff riding  cheekily close to Steppenwolf''s 'Born to be Wild' tells us the creators were fans of Dennis Hopper's EASY RIDER. The obvious influence of that counter-culture masterpiece is further felt by the later juxtaposing of Chile carnival footage with crude intercuts of two principals spectating unconvincingly as if taking part. In Hopper's movie he grabbed guerilla-style footage of the main cast genuinely immersed in the excitement of New Orleans Mardi Gras. His raw approach is part of EASY RIDER's gripping capturing of the zeitgeist. SNUFF's reality is that of hackwork.

The basic plot is an unsubtly welded cut-and-shut job of two disparate stories that eventually collide like kiddies' go-karts. One the one hand there are the two-timing machinations of glamorous actress Terry London (Argentinian beauty contest winner Mirta Massa) behind the back of her sleazebag producer Max (Aldo Mayo) "All he's interested in is big bosoms" spits her rich playboy lover Horst 

Meanwhile we also follow a bargain-basement Manson cult with a female harem led by Enrique Larratelli's Satán (emphasis on the second syllable please). "I will change men's destiny," he declaims. The portentousness of his statements is constantly undermined by many of his lines sounding like they were post-dubbed in an echoey public toilet. 

After Max's murder by the cult at the aforementioned carnival,Terry is interviewed by a local cop whose office is literally a desk placed in the doorway of a warehouse - production values and setting amusingly reminiscent of PLAN 9.

The rest is tawdry nonsense until we get to the infamous footage that caused all the censorship problems. In an epilogue filmed with noticeably better technical quality, a film crew has just finished a scene that both director and actress feel went well. He then suggests a little filmed celebratory nookie on the bed. Inexplicably the actress is happy to comply (!) until gradually things takes a sinister turn; he proceeds to snip off fingers and disembowel her in unflinching detail. As he brandishes her entrails in the air like a demented high priest, the picture cuts, leaving the hurried audio of the cameraperson blurting  "We got it all. Let's get out of here..." in an effort to simulate the risk of recording genuine horrific transgressiveness on camera. 

Come on now. The sequence is patently fake in its execution and could only fool hysterical reactionaries who are ignorant of movie effects and gullible enough to swallow admat materials on face value. Step forward former MP Sir Graham Bright: his first Private Members Bill in 1983 led to the wave of insane seizures of VHS tapes (as damagingly all-encompassing as the capturing of dolphins in tuna fishermens' nets) along the way to the Video Recordings Act of 1984. Interviews I've seen with him appear to confirm that he really believed that the murders in films like SNUFF actually took place. Thank goodness he never served on the BBFC board as a reviewer. 

As the film's earlier history showed, he wasn't the only fish reeled in. On its U.S. theatrical release in 1976, Shackleton pulled off a marketing trick worthy of lovable 1950s huckster producer William Castle by employing people to picket cinemas in a fake protest at the film's cinema vérité inclusion of real homicide. Their private delight at reports of feminists making real protests as a result were tempered though by SNUFF's eventual exposure as a hoax.

HORROR NOIRE (Shudder Channel Documentary - 2019)

 HORROR NOIRE (Shudder Channel Documentary - 2019)

An excellent and long overdue examination of the black experience and talent representation in horror films, led by Robin R. Means Coleman, PhD and based on her same-titled book (on my Wish List) as well as notable black actors, directors and academics.

Whilst it's not expected to be exhaustive in its 83 minute running time, it's well paced and covers all the most important historical touch points such as the woefully racist depictions as far back as Griffiths' BIRTH OF A NATION, the appallingly demeaning 1930s use of actors like Manton Moreland (covered in detail in all his roles across my blog), the ground-breaking casting of Dwayne Jones by George Romero in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (purely based on his talent and not a forced affirmative action policy) through the problematic, I would argue schizophrenic, Blaxploitation era experiment, right up to the zeitgeist-nailing brilliance of Jordan Peele's GET OUT.

Someone on Amazon criticised this documentary for not featuring white interviewees. Perhaps that says more about the reason why this needed to be made. They certainly have hundreds elsewhere to choose from if such an absense offends them...?

Highly recommended.

LAST CANNIBAL WORLD (1977) / EATEN ALIVE (1980)

 

LAST CANNIBAL WORLD (1977)
Ruggero Deodato's opening move in the dubious game of Cannibal movie chess he played with Umberto Lenzi (see THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER) was this poor and offensive effort. The director maintained that since Lenzi's celluloid sacrificial offering limited its anthropological investigation to a tribal initiation of the white interloper (Ivan Rassimov) inspired from the first nation Indian tribe in A MAN CALLED HORSE rather than cannibal culture, Deodato's film claims to be more truthfully a cannibal movie in its research. It's a shame he didn't study modern western audiences' culture as this movie proposes that Massimo Foschi's explorer character raping wordless native (poor Me Me Lai), is somehow sufficient to willingly bond her to him. This has to rank alongside the appallingly misguided rape-turned-acquiescence of Susan George in Peckinpah's otherwise masterful STRAW DOGS in terms of offensive titillation passed off as justified character motivation.
The film treads what would become the standard text of cannibal movies as white explorers Foschi and Ivan Rassimov trespass unsubtly on cannibal tribe territory then bitterly regret it. 

There are two remarkable scenes however. The first is the epic scale of an enormous real cave structure in which the natives torture a high-suspended Foschi. The physical beauty of this location scene is undermined though by the tribe repeatedly twanging the captured Foschi's penis like George Formby warming up a ukelele. The other is his character's later survival gambit, after Lai is killed by the tribe, of biting into her heart in front of them to pretend he now shares their ways. It's thrillingly transgressive in a way but not worthwhile enough to recommend wading through this toxic swamp.

EATEN ALIVE (1980)

Umberto Lenzi's return of sub-genre serve was an equally dubious venture of rape, animal torture and foreign tribal exploitation only noteworthy for Ivan Rassimov's commanding cult leader in a plot development drawn from the then-topical tragic Jonestown suicide pact.
Me Me Lai, in the last of her three cannibal assault courses on film, again submits in more ways than one as a widowed native who here endures several bouts of forced 'attention' from fellow tribal males in a traditional ritual designed to rid her of her deceased husband's hold over her. (In an interview, Lenzi chooses to accept this as authentic anthropological detail, but that doesn't mean the viewer has to). Equally dodgy was the German studio executives' specific request that Lenzi include a scene where another woman (here Paola Senatore) is...well, you can guess the degraded picture. This says a lot about how exploitation movies were constructed back then, and what rocks were peered under to source such tasteless feedback.
Strictly for completists without any of the harmless voyeuristic fun some Italian horror films of this period offer.

THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER (1972 - 88 Films DVD release)

 

Umberto Lenzi can lay claim to being the originator of the short-lived Cannibal horror sub-genre, though in the good-natured dispute with his friend and rival Ruggero Deodato as to who got there first, it may only be as noteworthy as the two politicians' feud described as 'two bald men fighting over a comb'. Horror fans who picked up THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER may be as surprised as I was that it was released as far back as 1972. Even more surprising is that it's much less exploitative (barring the very fast-forwardable animal abuse) in its plot and handling of character. Rather than the later movies' endless reworking of 'crude white explorers justifiably fall foul of a savage tribe' which is almost Victorian in its racist fear/exploitation of foreigners, the excellent Ivan Rassimov (more of him anon) plays a scallywag who hides out with an Amazonian tribe and eventually assimilates, to his and their cost. He develops a sympathy for them and a marriage with the lovely Burmese/British actress Me Me Lai with enough depth and sensitivity to belie the video nasty ghettoisation these films usually deserve.

This is is the only one of the three cannibal movies Lai did where she is allowed any character work, being subject to the same law of diminishing returns on screen as this sub-genre earned. The 88 Films DVD has a great extended interview with Lai by the intrepid Calum Waddell.

(FUN FACT: In retraining later as a police officer in Essex, in the '80s Lai had the ironic experience of making video shop raids during the Nasties witch-hunts where she had to confiscate copies of her own films, unbeknownst to her colleagues).

EATEN ALIVE (1977 - Arrow bluray)

 EATEN ALIVE (1977 - Arrow bluray)

Tobe Hooper's next project after THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is a strange, stage-bound slice of misguided misogyny. The bluray is a gorgeous transfer but despite an artificial alligator, it's a real crock.

Thankfully, SALEM'S LOT soon came up.

NIGHTMARE CITY (1980 - Arrow bluray)

 NIGHTMARE CITY (1980- Arrow bluray).

Not content with animal (and audience) cruelty with his cannibal movies, Umberto Lenzi gave us this hugely enjoyable video nasty in which a planeload of porridge-faced radioactive passengers disembark at Madrid airport and slaughter anyone nearby with machetes and axes whilst exposing as many victims' boobs as the director can get away with. Loosely based on a Charlotte Bronte novella (so loosely that I'm lying), its absurdity is great fun. Plus you get Mel Ferrer giving every ounce of gravitas this movie doesn't deserve. As Lenzi himself emphatically states in the interview: "They are NOT zombies. They are vampires". Err...okay.