Halloween 2024: October 23rd

Oddity (2024)

You'll have to excuse my cynicism but I am skeptical any time a new horror film comes out and is declared to be extremely scary. Especially when it's going to be a Shudder exclusive. Nothing against the horror streaming service, which I like a lot. It's certainly one of the best curated streamers and features lots of goodies for long time genre fans. However, the network's "original" productions tend to be rather forgettable. The kind of well made but rarely excellent indie films that don't often become genre defining classics. No offense to "Anything for Jackson" or "The Beach House" but are they going to be remembered as landmarks in horror? When "Oddity" was hitting the festivals earlier this year and picking up raves, folks calling it terrifying and all that, I didn't read anything that truly stuck out to me. I'm always willing to judge for myself and eat some crow though. Which means it is time to sit down and watch "Oddity" and see if it raises above the pack. 

Ted Timmis, a psychiatrist at a mental institute, and his wife Dani buy a grand home in the secluded countryside. While renovating it, and while the husband is at work, a former patient of Ted's comes to the door. Dani is murdered that night. One later, Ted is dating a woman named Yana. This is when Darcy, Dani's blind twin sister, visits the home. She brings with her a disturbing wooden sculpture of a screaming man. Darcy claims to be a medium, able to "read" an object's history simply by touching it. Darcy's peculiar behavior and the freaky wooden man start to frighten Yana. She doesn't know that Darcy is there with a specific purpose in mind: To find out what actually happened to her sister and take revenge on those responsible. 

It's a cliché by now that medium budget indie horror films – especially those made in the foggier parts of Europe, such as Ireland – all have low-key ambiances that focus more on creating tension and unease. Usually punctuated with loud jump scares or weird, unexplained imagery while discussing themes of trauma or familiar resentment. "Oddity" doesn't truly defy any of these assumptions but ends up being quite effective anyway. The isolated country house setting goes a long way towards establishing a creepy mood. The film is set in the modern day – Wifi and cell phones are plot points – but the shadowy, drafty cinematography still creates the feeling of a Victorian ghost story. Writer/director Damian McCarthy knows how to build eerie anticipation for the shocking moments. Which prove all the scarier because of that patience. The sudden appearance of a masked killer, a decayed and ghostly face, a glaring madman, or that fuckin' creepy wooden figure might sound like standard jump scares but "Oddity" properly draws the viewer before deploying shocks like that, making them genuinely unnerving. 

That wooden mannequin has factored into most of "Oddity's" marketing. And for good reason. The damn thing is simply freaky. The harsh, splintering material contrasts with the overly expressive, all too human deeming face and proportions. The result is a horror prop that takes up full-time residence in the uncanny valley, making an ideal image to build a large chunk of your movie around. When the figure springs to life in the last act, it's a proper payoff to a whole movie of anticipation. McCarthy seems to have quite a grasp on how to make something look unsettling, as "Oddity" packs in visuals like that. A home invader wears a porcelain doll-like mask which, much like the wooden dummy, looks human enough at a glance but a longer look reveals its glassy eyes and smooth features. A hospital setting is full of antiquated medical equipment, strapped to people's faces, or a distinctive square opening in the floor tap into a similarly subconscious type of surrealism. "Oddity" is a film full of dusty old objects that feel familiar but foreign at the same time, invoking a fittingly uncanny feeling. 

McCarthy pairs an above-average handling on scares and some creepy atmosphere with a story with that draws the viewer in. "Oddity" is told in slightly non-linear fashion, enough to throw me off a handful of times. This is probably because the story is a straightforward enough tale of infidelity, murder, and supernatural revenge. However, the out-of-order construction does a good job of giving the audience information we need only when we need it. All of this moves towards a plot with enough twists to keep us guessing. Ultimately, "Oddity" has an off-beat heroine to follow, in the form of Carolyn Bracken's Darcy. Bracken is strange enough that we are initially unsure of her motivations before slowly revealing herself to be a proactive lead we can trust. Steve Wall, with his very squirrelly facial features, is nicely cast as the physical villainous force in the film. This leads to an unnerving showdown between morally gray adversaries that makes excellent use of everything the film has built before that point. In other words, "Oddity" gives us a bad guy to root against that we, the audience, can relate to enough to feel the same level of fear he does during the final act. 

Sometimes, all a horror film truly needs to stick in the viewers' memory is one or two out there images or a decent scare. "Oddity" definitely has that much, not to mention some decent performances, a narrative with a few right turns, and a sound design that helps turns the creepy vibes up. Truthfully, I can't undersell how effectively spooky the "wooden man" sculpture is. I want a direct-to-video sequel where that thing hacks up teenagers in the woods. McCarthy's previous film, "Caveat," also had a central totem in the shape of a raggedy bunny toy, which gets a cameo here. (The director has hinted at a shared universe of some sort between his films but let's not get ahead of ourselves.) I dismissed that movie as your typical Shuddercore but maybe I should give it a shot now. "Oddity" is damn good, with more than a few startling jumps and some interesting ideas. [8/10]

Singapore Sling (1990)

Singapore Sling: Ο άνθρωπος που αγάπησε ένα πτώμα

The exploitation movie maker includes shocking imagery in their product in order to draw publicity, to bring in an audience eager to see what all the hype is about and to prove their bravery against something forbidden. The artistic auteur includes shocking imagery in their films in order to startle the public out of compliancy and make grandiose points about human nature. Eventually, the two goals become indistinguishable from each other. How low brow and high brow ambitions intersect have been noticed before. "I Am Curious (Yellow)" played grindhouses, Cannon put out Goddard and Cassavetes, Cornan released Fellini and Bergman. Likewise, the director of "Bad Taste" won Oscars, "Godzilla Vs. Megalon" is in the Criterion Collection, and John Waters had an exhibit at MoMA. A good example of how these two opposing instincts can crossover is Nikos Nikolaidis' 1990 film, "Singapore Sling." Nikolaidis, an acclaimed director of experimental films in his homeland of Greece, described it as a "comedy with elements taken from ancient Greek tragedy." When released aboard, the movie was called "one of the most disturbing films of all time," becoming notorious for its perverse sexual content. Having matured enough that a movie's content no longer upsets me, I decided to sate my curiosity about "Singapore Sling" and make it my official Greek choice for this year's Horror Around the World trip. 

On a dreary rainy night, a mother and daughter bury the disemboweled body of their chauffeur in the garden. The two enact elaborate sadomasochistic sexual games between each other, often murdering their servants as part of the roleplay. A car is parked outside their mansion, a private detective with a bullet in his shoulder inside. He is searching for his long lost love, Laura, who disappeared three years ago. She was a previous victim of the mother and daughter, the younger girl resembling her. The two women quickly find the man and call him Singapore Sling, after the cocktail recipe in his pocket. They drag him inside and immediately make him a part of their twisted rituals, torturing him, forcing him to torture others, and using him as a sex slave. The daughter has begun to resent her "mummy." (Not to be confused with the mummified corpse of her father in the attic, that she also has sex with.) Singapore Sling, slowly regaining his strength, becomes an unwilling participant in the rivalry between these two deranged femme fatales.

At its most surface level reading, "Singapore Sling" is a self-consciously artsy blending of film noir stereotypes, classic horror atmosphere, and frank depictions of kinky sex. The film is shot in moody black-and-white, set in a decaying old manor full of dusty chambers and dead bodies. "Laura" and the gothic traditions of both classic horror and noir are the immediate influences. The minute the title character appears on-screen, he is delivering melodramatic monologues about his past, his failures, his lost Laura, his alcoholism. (He is also, it must be said, not a very good detective, as pretending to tie his shoes seems to be his only strategy.) The characters of Mother and Daughter are patently absurd. The daughter is played by a helium-voiced Meredyth Herold, who seems driven into a sexual frenzy by any stimuli whatsoever. The mother speaks with a deep French accent, peppering her dialogue with poetry and waving a cigarette holder around. It's all very stylized, a knowing pastiche of cinematic clichés with its tongue firmly in cheek. To add to the intentional artificiality of it all, the women often directly address the audience. All of these ideas are in service of a parody of family roles, social boundaries, and gender norms. Where a permanently teenage daughter plans to murder her mother because she won't let her smoke, the rich disregard their servants like compost, and women are sexually voracious monsters that easily prey on men.

One assumes that any critic worth their salt would have picked up on "Singapore Sling's" playful invoking of filmic tropes and many absurd touches. I guess they got distracted by all the incest, S&M, and bodily fluids. The movie's reputation for being "disturbing" surely is owed to its graphic depiction of what I'll simply call non-mainstream sexual tastes. Mother and daughter fucking is treated as a matter-of-fact act. The daughter recalls her sexual abuse by her father with fond nostalgia, while often humping his corpse. Consent is not a concern in this household and murder is similarly no big deal. The two women usually wear revealing lingerie, when they aren't wearing leather straps. Bondage, elaborate blindfolds, whipping, electric shock therapy, and a casual swapping of partners are common place in their world. I would guess the part that grossed people out the most is the apparent fetish the women have for vomit, forcing both themselves and their victim to do it, with and onto each other. That's not the only bodily fluid involved in their coupling. I guess I'm freakier than the average nineties cult movie writer, as none of these simulations upset me. Honestly, what grossed me out far more was the unidentifiable, seemingly rancid food the family messily devour throughout. There's lots of flesh being ripped from bones and morsels being dug out of shells. Inevitably, this interacts with the daughter's sexual appetite, during an extended sequence involving what I think was a potato. Maybe I can handle kinky sex but sloppy eating is a serious no-no for me... 

Another factor that makes "Singapore Sling's" non-stop depravity more than thoughtless provocations is that it immerses us in this fantastical world. The dreamy cinematography and set design and frequent fourth wall breaks mark the film as an elaborate game being played with the audience. Which is fitting, as the women are always enacting some sort of weird roleplay themselves. They frequently roleplay the seduction and murder of Laura as one of their sexual acts. I'm not convinced that they are literally mother and daughter, honestly, merely assuming those roles. Especially with the frequent implication that "daughter" is a brain-washed Laura, as the two are played by the same actress. In this taboo free world, the limits of mortality does not concern the participants. The women kill their sexual partners, as if they are easily broken toys that as then quickly discarded. One scene sees the mummified corpse of "Daddy" seemingly springing life, further mudding the line between life and death. The daughter plays the role of "Laura" to goad Singapore Sling into their extended fuckery. Before long, it's impossible to know when he's a willing participant or not. The line where reality ends and where roleplay begins vanishes. They are living their roles, the way an actor lives their roles. The way a film's reality exists as long as we're watching it, further emphasizing the absurd use of cinematic hallmarks. 

Once everyone is thoroughly immersed in their parts – the mother, the daughter, the living sex toy – "Singapore Sling" becomes a film about who is in control. No matter what "daughter" does to her "mummy," the older woman is always the one with the power. This is best displayed in the way she bosses the girl around, telling her to only plant certain flowers on the grave or not to smoke. Other times, when speaking directly to the camera, the women seem to drop the act and refer to the other as "bitches." This is a satirical take on parent/child arguments but it's also an example of the interlocking levels of play here. The two are roleplaying as incestuous mother and daughter, who sometimes roleplay separate roles within those games. Sex and violation is always accepted within these games, with the understanding of who the ultimate dom is. As a child attempts to escape their parent's rule and find their own independence, Herold's character wants to be in control. She thinks she can use Singapore Sling as a pawn in her scheme but he has plans of his own that the impetuous girl can't foresee. In other words, "Singapore Sling" is one of the best films I've seen about kink and the layers of fiction and truth, control and submission, and the interactions between them. Though I don't think the blurring of sex and violence seen here – that climaxes with the utterly lurid finale – qualifies as safe or sane...

Much like all the different types of kink in general, "Singapore Sling" isn't going to be for everyone. I'm not surprised that many viewers are simply overwhelmed by the non-stop deluge of paraphilias in the film, becoming unable to engage with its deeper ideas. However, this is such a smart movie that operates on multiple different levels. The performances have the kind of over-the-top theatricality that, once you accept it, is difficult to resist. The immense stylization is an invitation to play in this twisted, nasty world, an invitation many will be too vanilla to accept. However, if you match its freak, "Singapore Sling" is an intoxicating odyssey that, by blatantly emulating cinema of the past, becomes a unique experience all of its own. I'm begging some boutique label to pick up more of Nikos Nikolaidis' work. If this is any indication, I need to see more of what this lunatic has to offer. Now, everyone reading this is free to speculate on my own sexual tastes however they want... [9/10]

Lore: Unboxed

I've been listening to Aaron Mahnke's "Lore" podcast for a few years now. As a retelling of myths, legends, and bizarre true crime stories from throughout history, it can be relatively compelling. Despite finding Mahnke's delivery melodramatic at times and wishing he sometimes approached the topics from a more skeptical perspective. Nevertheless, Mahnke has built a little empire off the popularity of his show, with a whole podcast network and a number of spin-offs. The most ambitious of which would be a television series, which aired for two seasons on Amazon Prime from 2017 to 2019. Though the show was fairly short-lived compared to the podcast, Mahnke still mentions it at the end of every episode. I suppose it's time I check it out. 

Like the podcast, Amazon's "Lore" features several stories an episode, linked by a theme. "Unboxed" is about our sometimes disturbing relationships with dolls. The focus is on the story of Robert the Doll from Key West, Florida. If you don't know that one: When artist Robert Eugene Otto was a lonely boy in 1904, a relative bought him a doll in a little sailor suit that he named Robert, after himself. Boy and doll soon became distressingly inseparable, with his parents reporting poltergeist activity centered around the plaything. When Robert Eugene went off to boarding school, Robert the Doll was locked away. As he returned home as a man, with his new wife in tow, he unboxed Robert and the obsession began again. 

"Lore: The TV Show" is indecisively positioned between being a recreation of the podcast, something akin to a cable channel paranormal documentary series, and a traditional horror anthology program. Mahnke's narration – which somehow sounds less lively here, when compared to the podcast – still provides historical and cultural context. Several other tales interrupt the telling of the Robert story. A cheesy, infographic style opening is about Mexico City's Island of the Dead Dolls. More video essay-like segments concern Frances Glessner Lee's dollhouse recreations of crime scenes, the Russian grave robber who filled his apartment with dolls made from corpses, and Edger Bergen's weird relationship with Charlie McCarthy. The episode then ends with documentary footage of Robert today, in the museum where he currently resides. (And is said to deliver a curse to anyone who takes a photo of him without asking permission first.) All of these segments are fairly well done. I simply wish they didn't disrupt the pacing of the primary story. 

Because the dramatic re-enactment that takes up the majority of the episode, "Unboxed" needs all the help it can get. The period costumes and sets are fairly well done. The cast is convincing enough. However, "Unboxed" is heavy on the melodrama. Eugene's mother wails in hysterics as she hammers nails into the box holding Robert. A sequence in which the death of the boy's grandmother is linked to the doll, as well as the later scene where his wife tries to burn the toy, are extremely overdone. The music is heavy-handed. The script is didactic. The entire approach seems a bit self-important for a ghost story about a creepy doll. This is a bummer, as there's a decent scene where Mrs. Otto gets locked out of a room and seemingly hears Robert moving on the other side. Perhaps this displays something essential about the scary doll subgenre: Sometimes they are spookier when we don't see them move. I'm of the opinion that, whatever truth there was to the story of Eugene Otto and his possessive plaything, it has long since been eclipsed by legend. It is a good legend though and a decent movie or TV episode could be made from it. "Unboxed" doesn't hit the mark though. [5/10]

The Alien Autopsy (1995)

I lived through it and can only barely answer the question of “why” myself. In the nineties, the world had alien fever. While conspiracies of UFO sightings, alien abductions, the Roswell incident, and government cover-ups had circulated since the fifties, the decade of my youth represented a high-water mark for the public's fascination for this topic. Concrete evidence for the existence of extraterrestrials – much less the claim the United States government knew about them – has yet to emerge... Not that this has stopped people from trying to capitalize on the trend. British music producer Ray Santilli claims, in 1992, to have seen a recording of an alien lifeform being autopsied by government agents, supposedly recorded in the aftermath of a spacecraft crash-landing in Roswell, New Mexico. This supposedly inspired Santilli, for reasons I'm sure he could elaborate upon, to team up with producer Gary Shoefield, special effects artist John Humphreys, filmmaker Spyros Melaris, and a small crew of actors and assistants to make a “re-creation” of this obscure footage. That “re-creation” is what was released to the press in 1995, the claimed back story of the footage being a staged re-enactment of real footage conveniently left out. 

Shortly afterwards, the Fox television network would acquire the rights to this mysterious recording. They built a prime time documentary around it, entitled “Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?,” which aired to massive ratings. Jonathan Frakes was recruited to host and narrate. Many apparent experts and professed witnesses of the mythical Roswell story were interviewed, alongside a narrative built around how the film was supposedly found. A cut down version of the original footage was shown, experts in science, photography, and special effects – such as Stan Winston – being interviewed and seemingly impressed. The footage was quickly identified as a hoax, with the professionals interviewed emphasizing that their comments were taken out of context. Santilli would eventually come clean about the origins. Three years later, Fox aired a second documentary called “The World's Greatest Hoaxes and Secrets Revealed!,” in which narrator Lance Henriksen explained how the whole thing was faked. In other words, Fox got 'em coming and going. 

The twenty minutes of phony footage, as well as both of the Fox docs, can now be easily found online. Nearly thirty years after the fact, with all of us being well aware that it's bullshit, what do we make of this now? Santilli and Melaris' film is unconvincing as a hoax. The doctors in the video seem to thoughtlessly fumble around the corpse, cutting it up and open without much cause. For what is supposed to be a government record of real events, the footage is grainy, unfocused, and never gives us a good look at what we're looking at it. Nor do the sets and costumes look all that realistic. One must say that the fake alien corpse is well done. The bloated belly, engorged head, ambiguous genitalia, floppy limbs, and strangely human-like face certainly look real. The autopsy itself – animal guts and raspberry jam is what was inside – are blurrily recorded. In the “World's Greatest Hoaxes” documentary, it's claimed that Nacho Cerdá's “Aftermath” inspired the film. “The Alien Autopsy” certainly doesn't have the eerie power or artfulness of Cerdá's film. Without any sound or further context, the footage itself is quite dull. The shots of clumps of bloody offal laying on treys or unidentified objects being handled do not give us much to talk about.

In our modern age, when hoaxes and disinformation spread readily over the internet, “The Alien Autopsy” and everything that happened around it can be seen as how easily some can be fooled. At the same time, taken as a predecessor to the modern found footage movie, “Alien Autopsy” does represent a surprising amount of effort. I'm not totally surprised some bought into it. People have been tricked by a lot less, Santilli and the others putting quite a lot of effort into this confidence job. If nothing else, that rubber alien corpse looks cool. The hoaxed footage remains a curious cultural phenomenon, with little to offer divorced of that context. As for the “Fact or Fiction?” TV special, it's valuable mostly as camp and example of how editing can change everything. Jonathan Frakes – clearly doing a test-run for the “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction” series he would host on the same network shortly afterwards – wears a whimsical smirk the whole time, letting us know he doesn't take this crap seriously. I've got nostalgia for sensationalist prime time specials like this but I can't claim “The Alien Autopsy” or “Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?” have much value when taken on their own. But, ya know, it's all certainly something. Weird that any of this shit happened, right? [6/10]