If you've been a film nerd long enough, and especially if you're a fan of the dark and macabre genres, there's probably a few titles you've sworn off. Movies you've decided you're never going to watch, either because there's someone you can't stand in it or the director is a piece of shit. Maybe you object to the content or tone on some sort of moral or personal level. Maybe there are films that want to show you things you're just not interested in seeing. I've got a few of those, usually because they contain animals being killed on-screen or they sound insufferable to me. But I finally watched “Cannibal Holocaust” after years of saying I never would, so clearly my vows are worth nothing. Another film on my “never gonna watch it” list is “Funny Games,” largely because everything I read about it sounded deeply unappealing to me. Yet, if there's any time of year for me to challenge my own presumption, it's October. So here I go.
Married couple, Anna and Georg, travel to their vacation home with their young son, Georgie. As they arrive at their house on the lake, they notice something strange going on with their neighbors, who have visitors they don't recognize. Later that day, a young man named Peter knocks on their door, asking to borrow some eggs. He overstays his welcome, dropping the family phone in the sink. His friend, Paul, appears before beating the family dog to death with one of Georg's golf clubs. This begins a series of sadistic games the two boys play with the family, holding them captive in their own home, psychologically and physically torturing them.
Moreover, writer/director Michael Haneke wants us, the viewer, to know that he knows he's pissing us off. Repeatedly, “Funny Games” breaks the fourth wall. Peter winks at the camera before he starts his violence. He directly addresses the audience, asking us who we're rooting for. The film concludes with the boys discussing the nature of reality and fiction. The intent is clear: Haneke is implementing the audience in the film's violence. These horrible things wouldn't be happening if we weren't watching. It's our fault. This raises the question of why we are watching this. Haneke denies us any sort of vicarious thrill from his film. All the violence and sexual menacing takes place off-screen. We're given all the torment of going through this horrible experience with Anna and Georg but none of the elements that draw us towards movies like these. This essentially makes “Funny Games” a movie that punishes the viewer for wanting to watch it in the first place.
Moreover, I don't think “Funny Games” is an especially biting deconstruction of horror films or thrillers. There is largely because it's not actually devoid of entertainment value. There are, in fact, people out there who just enjoy “Funny Games” as a mind-fuck and a sadistic exercise in home invasion horror. Years later, films like “The Strangers” or “Ils” would take many of Haneke's techniques and ditch all the pretensions. This is probably because “Funny Games” can hit like a bomb sometimes. By only allowing us to hear the violent acts, not see them, the film often makes their impact harder. The pure callousness of the villains are often chilling, especially when they are actively fucking with their victims. Such as when they rattle off a number of fake origin stories for their actions in quick successions. It's a bit like what Truffaut said about war movies. You can't deconstruct our relationship with cinematic violence without making that cinematic violence compelling.
And yet, I can't wholly dismiss “Funny Games” as pretentious clap-trap. As self-satisfied and smug as the movie is, you can't say that it isn't interesting. The film going out of its way to make us question our relationship with cinematic violence is something. As much as Haneke professes to hate movies like this, he's not bad at making them. In the aftermath of the torture horror genre's brief popularity in America, he would even make the movie again in English, almost precisely copying the original. Which strikes me as a far more pointless exercise. Ultimately, as pompous as “Funny Games” is – I didn't even get into the way the film indicts the media, with the killers referring to themselves by various pop culture duos or a TV screen being present in several shots – there is something here. It's a frustratingly fascinating movie, that begs us to hate it but is too well done not to intrigue in some regards. I think I'm going right back to watching violent movies though. [6/10]
Willis O'Brien's stop-motion work on “King Kong” revolutionized special effects, essentially birthing the blockbuster as we think of it and inspiring a legion of artists for decades to come. Yet, in his life time, O'Brien rarely got the respect he deserved. There's actually a well known cause for this. O'Brien was offered a special Academy Award for his work on “Kong,” as a category for special effects didn't exist yet. He would only accept the statue if his entire team received one too. This offer was refused and O'Brien became an outcast in Hollywood. This effected his ability to get projects completed. Specifically, he tried for years to get a movie about cowboys fighting dinosaurs made with little success. One attempt to get a story O'Brien called “Valley of the Mists” made mutated into a totally different script called “The Beast of Hollow Mountain.” O'Brien wouldn't even end up doing the dinosaur effects for the movie, his passion project essentially being passed on to a totally different crew.
American cowboy Jimmy comes to Mexico to start a cattle ranch. While searching for some lost cows, he comes across a secluded area that the locals say is cursed. Hollow Mountain is surrounded by quicksand pits and there are reports of a monster. Jimmy attempts to get his business going, beginning a romance with Sarita, the daughter of a prominent don, and making a rival of her presumed suitor, Enrique. Jimmy also befriends Panchito, the son of the town drunk. When his father disappears near Hollow Mountain, it's the first sign that the Beast of Hollow Mountain – a ravenous T-Rex that has survived into the modern day – is getting ready to attack the town. It's up to Jimmy to stop the monster.
If “The Beast of Hollow Mountain” can be described as a dinosaur movie/western hybrid, the ratio is definitely skewed towards the western stuff. This, unfortunately, does not mean shoot-outs, rodeos, or horse chases. Instead, “The Beast of Hollow Mountain” is preoccupied with utterly tedious western-adjacent melodrama. Far more time than is advisable is focused on the love triangle between Jimmy, Enrique, and Sarita. Much of the plot is motivated by the business side of running a cattle farm and Enrique's attempts to sabotage it. The focus on Panchito causes me to assume that “The Beast of Hollow Mountain” was aiming strictly for the kiddie matinee market... Yet I can't imagine a child being entertained by such a dull story as this. The dinosaur really feels like an afterthought on a plot much more concerned with a lifeless love story and the realities of cattle ranching.
“The Beast of Hollow Mountain” was filmed in CinemaScope and bright Deluxe color. You'd think this would be because director Edward Nassour was hoping to showcase some wide, cinematic vistas or picturesque Mexican countryside. Not so much! Much of “The Beast of Hollow Mountain” is set in the indistinct village or surrounding swamp, the titular mountain only appearing in a few scenes. Instead, the focus is squarely on the characters. None of whom are all that compelling. Guy Madison – presumably filming this during a hiatus in “The Adventures of Wild Bill” – plays Jimmy as a standard white hero, distinguished only by his need to insert himself into every situation in this small town. He never has much chemistry with Patrica Medina as the girl. Eduardo Noriega is a thinly defined, cartoonish bad guy. Mario Navarro is quite annoying as Panchito, while his dad is an unfortunate cultural stereotype that is played totally straight.
“The Beast of Hollow Mountain” was a regular feature on horror host shows for years. The copy I watched was introduced by Count Gore de Vol. Somehow, it didn't show up on “Mystery Science Theater 3000” until the Netflix seasons. I guess my point is that this film has been disappointing monster kids and dino-fans for decades. Especially since the idea of cowboys versus dinosaurs should be a slam dunk. Eventually, Ray Harryhausen would realize O'Brien's vision for “The Valley of the Mists” as “The Valley of Gwangi," a much superior movie in every way to this one. Only a far too-little, too-late appearance from the T-Rex justifies this one's existence. [5/10]
Once again, I return to the nineties version of “The Outer Limits” in foolish hope that I've finally found an episode with some degree of subtly. “A Stitch in Time” is about FBI Agent Jamie Pratt who, years before, apprehended the serial killer who murdered her best friend. Now she is involved in a far more baffling crime. Bullets and fingerprints link a series of murders, all of men who performed violent or sexual crimes against women, to one person: Physicist and inventor Dr. Theresa Givens. The problem is Givens was a child when most of the murders occurred and they've been going on for decades. Pratt soon begins to suspect why that is. Givens has invented a machine that allows her to travel through time and has been using it to punish misogynist men before they commit their crimes. As Givens alters time, she is the only person aware of the changes happening and it's causing her health to deteriorate. As Pratt investigates, she is pulled into Givens' end game: To destroy the man that abused her as a child.
“A Stitch in Time” reveals in its opening minutes that Givens is the murderer and that she's using time travel to pull the crimes off. So this isn't an episode about “who” but more about the effects of these actions. The episode is most interesting when focusing on the altering time lines. We see the changes occur after Givens performs each murder, the evidence Pratt is investigating – and even the fate of her friend – changing around her with each shift. The inevitable question this raises, about causality and paradoxes, come to a head in the final act. That's when Givens goes back to her own childhood, Pratt tagging along. That finale is fairly tense and easily the highlight of the episode, utilizing a classical stand-off set-up for a easy suspense.
Robert Harmon feels like one of those filmmakers who never got the career he deserved. “The Hitcher” is a stone-cold classic but few of his other films have ever gotten much notice. He's spent the last two decades making TV movies and cop shows starring Tom Selleck. This is surprising, as his debut short film – and an obvious precursor to “The Hitcher” – had a clear ACAB subtext. “China Lake” stars Charles Napier as a California highway patrolman named Donnelly. While on vacation from his official job, he drives out to the isolated China Lake area, where he idles his days away terrorizing travelers and killing anyone who offends his particular sensibilities.
Before becoming a director, Harmon worked as a D.P. on cult classics like “Tourist Trap,” “Hell Night,” and “Fade to Black.” (And also “Nocturna” and “Roller Boogie.”) You can see this sharp eye on display in “China Lake.” The flat landscape of the Californian desert is well utilized, establishing a sense of isolation. Napier is frequently framed from low angles, making him look like the huge master of this domain. As he would in “The Hitcher,” there's several shots from a speeding vehicles point-of-view. Contrasting these fast-moving, close-up angles with the scenes focused on the wide shots of the environment creates an unpredictable feeling. We can anticipate the violence to come but we always feel unprepared for it. The dessert is beautiful – especially when Harmon films it at dawn, the sun breaking over the blue night – but it's also dangerous. An ideal setting for a horror story.
And that's perhaps what is most chilling about “China Lake.” The first scene focuses on the tedium of police work, before moving to its desert setting. The ending brings Donnelly back into this orderly scene, suggesting that he happily goes back and forth from being a public servant and being a psychopathic killer. The implication – that it's easy for a madman to find work as a cop – feels as unnervingly relevant now as it must've in 1983. The way the film is so casual about what its villain protagonist does, which is reflected in the precise editing and pulsating soundtrack, makes it clear how a position of power appeals to men like this. Thoroughly unsettling and fantastically assembled, “China Lake” is a gem. This is essential viewing for fans of “The Hitcher” and proof that movie wasn't a fluke on Harmon's behalf. Remind me to re-watch “Highwaymen” next year... [9/10]
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