Two years after Canada became an independent nation, the chief of the Kanesatake Mohawk nation led a small armed group against the Catholic seminary that had claimed nine square miles of land promised to indigenous people for themselves. The rebellion was crushed by local authorities. In 1936, the land was sold against the Mohawk's wishes. In 1956, a golf course was built on the land, right next to an ancient site of burial mounds. In 1989, plans were made to expand the golf course and clear the contested wooded area. Mohawk protesters built a barricade to block access to the land. Early in the morning on July 11th, police deployed tear gas and concussion grenades against the protestors. This was the first of several violent interactions and stand-offs between protestors and police, that lasted for 75 days and ended with heavily armed military forces being sent in. By the time what became known as the Oka Crisis was over, two people were dead and a little girl had been stabbed with a bayonet. Around the same time in Ontario, a project with some startlingly similar themes was being filmed. Upon release in 1991, “Clearcut” would receive little attention. After many years in obscurity, the film was recently released in a collection of folk horror films, beginning the recognition of this overlooked motion picture and what is, I think, of it acquiring the reputation of a classic.
Peter Macquire arrives in the Canadian woods, where First Nations protestors are trying to stop a logging operation from completely clearing the area of trees. Peter is a lawyer representing the tribe and he's come to tell them that they've lost the case blocking the company from building on the land. Peter plans to appeal but feels hopeless and angry at Bud Rickets, the logging CEO. After participating in a sweat lodge ceremony, Peter meets a mysterious First Nations activist named Arthur. After violently attacking loud partiers at Peter's hotel, Arthur coerces Peter in accompanying him on a mission to kidnap Bud Rickets. Peter is dragged along as Arthur captures and ties up the CEO, before taking them all deep into the woods. Arthur – who seems linked to the legendary trickster spirit Wisakedjak – grows more erratic, making it clear that he intends to follow through on his promise to skin Rickets alive. Peter feels increasingly conflicted about his loyalties.
“Clearcut” is based on a novel by M.T. Kelly and directed by Polish filmmaker Ryszard Bugajski, neither of whom have any Indigenous blood, as far as I know. Despite that, it is one of the angriest films I have ever seen. An early scene has a protester, after being beaten by a cop, scream profanity at the “white man.” Throughout, police and white authorities refer to the local tribe as “Indians” or “chief.” Meanwhile, the scenes of lumberjacks hacking down trees with chainsaws are shot with a vicious fury, as if we are watching innocent kids cut up. The film returns to the image of blood, or blood-like sap, running down the bark of trees, as if the land itself was gushing from a grievous injury. When Arthur acts against the hicks at the hotel or Rickets, he wraps them in duct tape, notably covering their eyes and mouths. It robs the white people of their visual identity, much the same way all Indigenous people have been treated for centuries. Arthur usually speaks calmly, matter-of-factly going about his gruesome business. As if he has been living with his rage for so long, that it has subsided into silence. That's the kind of fury “Clearcut” shows at all who violate the Earth and disrespect the ancient ways.
Peter is notably not exempt from that rage. All throughout the film, Arthur is chastised by white men for not doing things “the right way.” Such as when he improvises some spear-fishing. In the last third, during a second steam house ritual, Peter begins to cough and say that Arthur has done it wrong. This seems to point towards the lawyer's true intentions in helping the First Nations people. He claims to be an ally and shows repeated anger and frustration towards the CEO. However, when ultimately forced to choose between helping the “Indian” and helping his fellow white man, who do you think he picks? As a weepy white guy myself, I feel an anger at the injustices persecuted races and minorities have faced from my awful government. Is this an attempt by my psyche to displaced some degree of guilt? Do I care only because it makes me feel better? There's a lot of films out there about brown people suffering, seemingly made primarily to make white folks feel bad. “Clearcut” attacks this attitude head-on, daring to ask its white audience to examine the true origins of their sympathies.
I'd like to think I'm utterly sincere in my very cool and woke convictions, in my outrage at environmental and social injustices. Maybe I'm full of shit though because I found Graham Greene terrifying in “Clearcut.” When he casually suggests blowing up the paper factory or skinning the CEO alive, it's with the exact sort of tone that makes you completely uncertain of if he's joking or not. The way he refers to himself as an “Indian” or suggests he scalps someone, it speaks to such a clear anger at the treatment of his people and his Earth. When he moves towards violence, all of that tightly contained anger bursts forward into physical action. You have no doubt that he's capable of all the things he says. When he does bellow in rage during the second steam house ritual, it continues that undercurrent of dark humor alongside a frightening intensity. The implication that Arthur truly is some otherworldly spirit of mischief exists strictly at the film's margins. Nevertheless, Greene perfectly captures that feeling. He is violently unpredictable and quietly funny. All of his behavior in accordance with a grand plan that definitely exists even if only he can see it.
“Clearcut” is one of those films that, despite its lack of supernatural events or standard genre conventions, still can't be classify as anything but horror. François Protat's cinematography is gorgeous, looking out over the trees and mountains with an appropriate awe. He creates a real eeriness with simple images, such as Greene's hands outstretched over a lake or Peter's vision of a tree branches reaching out like hands or antlers. Despite the natural beauty of the locations, “Clearcut” feels more and more like you are descending into Hell as you watch it. Michael Hogan's increasingly delirious cries as he goes into shock, combining with the certainty that Peter isn't getting out of this unscathed, adds to a growing sense of intensity throughout.
Ultimately, “Clearcut” is one of those movies that leaves you stunned in silence afterwards. It feels like a blow to the head, an expression of a primal anger at a list of injustices that has been growing for thousands of years. It does not let its own audience off the hook, forcing the viewer to consider some very unflattering things about themselves. Or maybe that's just me. Either way, “Clearcut” is a hell of a right. A thriller of such intensity that it almost becomes unbearable in parts, it features Graham Greene giving the performance of a life time and some awfully striking imagery. I'm glad the film is getting recognized now. And thirty-four years later, it's hard to say if anything has gotten truly better for Indigenous people. Maybe we need some people like Arthur in real life... [9/10]
Peter Macquire arrives in the Canadian woods, where First Nations protestors are trying to stop a logging operation from completely clearing the area of trees. Peter is a lawyer representing the tribe and he's come to tell them that they've lost the case blocking the company from building on the land. Peter plans to appeal but feels hopeless and angry at Bud Rickets, the logging CEO. After participating in a sweat lodge ceremony, Peter meets a mysterious First Nations activist named Arthur. After violently attacking loud partiers at Peter's hotel, Arthur coerces Peter in accompanying him on a mission to kidnap Bud Rickets. Peter is dragged along as Arthur captures and ties up the CEO, before taking them all deep into the woods. Arthur – who seems linked to the legendary trickster spirit Wisakedjak – grows more erratic, making it clear that he intends to follow through on his promise to skin Rickets alive. Peter feels increasingly conflicted about his loyalties.
Peter is notably not exempt from that rage. All throughout the film, Arthur is chastised by white men for not doing things “the right way.” Such as when he improvises some spear-fishing. In the last third, during a second steam house ritual, Peter begins to cough and say that Arthur has done it wrong. This seems to point towards the lawyer's true intentions in helping the First Nations people. He claims to be an ally and shows repeated anger and frustration towards the CEO. However, when ultimately forced to choose between helping the “Indian” and helping his fellow white man, who do you think he picks? As a weepy white guy myself, I feel an anger at the injustices persecuted races and minorities have faced from my awful government. Is this an attempt by my psyche to displaced some degree of guilt? Do I care only because it makes me feel better? There's a lot of films out there about brown people suffering, seemingly made primarily to make white folks feel bad. “Clearcut” attacks this attitude head-on, daring to ask its white audience to examine the true origins of their sympathies.
“Clearcut” is one of those films that, despite its lack of supernatural events or standard genre conventions, still can't be classify as anything but horror. François Protat's cinematography is gorgeous, looking out over the trees and mountains with an appropriate awe. He creates a real eeriness with simple images, such as Greene's hands outstretched over a lake or Peter's vision of a tree branches reaching out like hands or antlers. Despite the natural beauty of the locations, “Clearcut” feels more and more like you are descending into Hell as you watch it. Michael Hogan's increasingly delirious cries as he goes into shock, combining with the certainty that Peter isn't getting out of this unscathed, adds to a growing sense of intensity throughout.
Al Ta'awitha
Last year, on my stop in Egypt during my Horror Around the Wolrd tour, I took in Mohamed Shebl's “Fangs.” Despite commonly being referred to as the Egyptian “Rocky Horror,” I found the film to be a bit more than that. It was a charmingly home-made Halloween party with a highly specific perspective that I found interesting. While a handful of Egyptian horror movies exist, Shebl seems to have been one of the few filmmakers who truly specialized in scary stories. His latter most films, 1989's “Nightmares” and 1992's amusingly entitled “Love and Revenge... With a Meatcleaver,” seem to be completely unavailable to Western horror fans. However, I was able to dig up a subtitled copy of his follow-up to “Fangs,” 1987's “Al Ta'awitha.” Generally, that title is translated as “The Talisman” though the alternate title of “The Curse” seems to be a little more accurate within the context of the actual movie.
Mahmoud is a simple family man, living in a modest Cairo home. The cramped residence houses himself, his wife Rawya, their young son, their teenage daughter Nadia, his mother, and his sister Faten. The family is often having money struggles. When a mysterious man appears, willing to buy the house and give the family a spacious apartment by the Nile in exchange, Rawya is eager to take it. Mahmoud does not want to give up his home though. Little does his wife realize but this eager buyer is actually an evil sorcerer. He really wants their house too. Determined to drive the family out, the villain puts a curse on everyone in the residence. Poltergeist activity, fires, distressing visions, deadly accidents, bleeding faucets, and a visit from a demonic goat all plague the family. They seek out the help of a mystic woman but will it be enough to stop the presence haunting them?
As with “Fangs,” the fun here arrives from seeing these familiar moments mashed up in such a free-wheeling style and then paired with hokey, low-fi special effects. A sequence where a black goat projects a star-like shape from its eyes is so low-budget in its construction that the moment borders on abstract art. The car crash is created by seemingly pushing a toy car into a wall. The film saves its wildest special effects for the last few minutes, when the villain tears his own skin off and a towering classical demon with red skin and horns appears. All of this stuff is pure camp but those “Evil Dead”-like perspective shots are genuinely kind of eerie. The film's soundtrack is mostly pilfered from “Psycho II,” alongside a number of American pop songs that the producers definitely didn't pay a license for. The score works though, managing to make an otherwise very silly horror film feel a bit spooky at times.
Speaking as someone with zero insight into the Egyptian mindset circa 1987, it's hard to read a cultural significance into “The Talisman.” Faten is outspoken in her left-wing politics, much to the chagrin of the traditionalist grandmother. The word of Allah is invoked many times in hopes of driving out the demon. A Sheikh appears to give the family a blessing, assuring them that faith in Allah is all that is needed to overcome evil. It simultaneously feels fairly conservative in its religious messaging, not unlike how any number of American Satanic Panic flicks do, while also being more open-minded than you'd probably expect from Egypt in the late eighties. I'm intrigued but also too ignorant to draw any concrete conclusions here. Still, “The Talisman” is too fascinating to dismiss. I know Shebl's films are unlikely to ever gain official distribution in the west but hopefully his other two movies crop up online eventually. Flawed though it is, I liked “The Talisman” enough to want to see those too. [6/10]
“Masters of Horror” was a beautiful dream, despite never living up to the potential of its concept. The dream was so grand that Mick Garris actually envisioned the program as the first in a whole series, in which masters of different genres would be assembled and allowed to run amok. (As long as it was within a television budget.) The first proposed of these spin-offs, and the only to make it to air, was “Masters of Science Fiction.” The masters, in this case, would not be the directors but the authors, famous sci-fi writers having their work adapted into hour-long episodes. It was a good idea and the production team – which, Mick Garris claims, barely involved him – got Stephen Hawking to be the host. I remember being intrigued by “Masters of Science Fiction” in the lead-up to its debut... And then there was nothing. About a year later, when a DVD release came along, I learned that four episodes of the series aired as a summer replacement on ABC with zero promotion. While “Masters of Horror” remains something like a cult favorite, “Masters of Science Fiction” has been entirely forgotten. Well, not by me but I remember everything. I figured I can squeeze an episode into the Blog-a-Thon so I can finally give it a look.
“A Clean Escape,” the debut episode, is about two people. Deanna is a psychologist. Every day, a man named Havelman enters her office for a session. Every day, Havelman has no memory of their previous sessions together. In fact, he thinks he just left home from his wife and kids, that he has to leave early to see his daughter's play at her school. As a result of a trauma of inexpressible grandness, Havelman has retreated entirely into his memory. Deanna is determined to bring him out of it... To face the consequences of what he's done. Because there is nowhere else to go, as the two are actually hundreds of feet underground in a top-secret bunker. Because everyone above is dead. Because Deanna is determined to make the man who killed the world face the gravity of what he's done.
Those two people are Judy Davis and Sam Waterston. Davis, with a wild fringe of hair that makes her look totally exhausted and on the verge of collapse, gives a complex performance as a doctor who feels sympathy for her client but also demands he face justice for his crimes. The moment where Waterston finally realize who he is and what he's done is a powerful one, a man reduced to screaming and crying like a child. The grim moral of the episode is that those in power tend to be shielded from the consequences of their actions, even if by their own mind. However, for one moment – when “A Clean Escape” crosses over the most into horror, thanks to the grim sights of nuclear annihilation – the guilty are allowed to feel the weight of what they've done. A good hour of television. It's a shame “Masters of Science-Fiction” was never given a proper chance. [7/10]
Public access television has a bad reputation, associated with amateur productions made with a complete lack of budget or production values. While this is true, the low barrier to entry for local television meant the kind of people who maybe didn't normally get to make movies and TV shows managed to sneak onto television anyway. That brings with it a natural, home-made charm all of its own. That is readily apparent with “Haunted Indiana,” a nineteen minute Halloween special made for Bloomington, Indiana television station, WTTV4. It tells five urban legends, collected from the Indiana University Department of Folklore: A professor is chased through the woods by the ghost of a hanged murderer. A motorist on Cable Line Road near Elkhart, Indiana encounters the Sasquatch-like Cable Line Monster, which costs him his life and leaves his face imprinted on a near-by tree. A group of kids on a camping tree awaken within a ghostly cemetery. A devout Catholic woman decides murdering her husband is not as big of a sin as divorcing him, burning their house down and sealing her own fate instead. The final tale involves a little boy named John hearing strange noises from the stairs outside his bedroom at night, proceeding a grisly fate.
I've never been to Indiana but the stories and backwoods locations displayed here seem universal to me. The production values in “Haunted Indiana” are non-existent. Co-writer Stephen White provides the narration, speaking in plain-voiced tones that aren't spooky at all. The narration plays over all the footage, doing little to distract from the extremely cheesy acting. Shot entirely on video tape, the whole short has a grainy, washed-out, backyard look to it. All the music is stolen from recognizable scores, with the “Night of the Living Dead” and “Psycho” themes being notably reused. Most prominently, the special effects are deeply unconvincing. A “ghost” is a Halloween store prop with pixelated vector graphics overlaid. A monster is a pimply mask with bright red stage-blood dripping from his mouth. The fourth story is mostly composed of shots of the woods and trees in the surrounding area.
If all of the above sounds like criticism, then I'm afraid you've misread my tone. “Haunted Indiana' is exceedingly charming exactly because of its lack of professional sheen and flashy special effects. The corny acting pairs perfectly with these well-trotted ghost tales, capturing the exact kind of community theater vibes you want from local legends such as these. The special effects further seal this “let's-put-on-a-show” atmosphere, the efforts of inexperienced craftsman doing the best they can with the extremely limited resources available to them. I doubt those involved with “Haunted Indiana” made much, if any, money from its production. This is the result of people doing it strictly for the love of the artform, motivated by the desire to tell a story and have a good time than any businessman-like concerns. Pure cinema, in other words, as it should be.
As for the stories themselves? The Cable Line Monster segment is so dark, as to be barely perceivable. The shot of a face appearing on a tree at the end is extremely goofy. The third and fourth stories are so minor as to barely register, counting as underwhelming examples of horror. The first and fifth segments, however, kind of rock. There's a campfire story creakiness to both rendition. The highly energetic sequence of a cheap spectre chasing a balding professor through the woods is exhilarating. The finale, of a little boy haunted and claimed by an hideous beast, is the exact kind of scary story youngsters pass around the playground. Threadbare as the production values may be, there is a certain zest to the telling that makes it invigorating anyway. Unlike most public access productions, that air once and are never seen again, “Haunted Indiana” re-run on local TV for many years. During all those showings, it is said to have spook more than one young viewer. That's exactly the way it should be, as this brief anthology persists entirely on the same kind of barreling-ahead youthful energy that an impromptu exchange of urban legends does. Overflowing with lo-fi Halloween vibes, it now survives forever as a blurry internet upload. [7/10]
I've never been to Indiana but the stories and backwoods locations displayed here seem universal to me. The production values in “Haunted Indiana” are non-existent. Co-writer Stephen White provides the narration, speaking in plain-voiced tones that aren't spooky at all. The narration plays over all the footage, doing little to distract from the extremely cheesy acting. Shot entirely on video tape, the whole short has a grainy, washed-out, backyard look to it. All the music is stolen from recognizable scores, with the “Night of the Living Dead” and “Psycho” themes being notably reused. Most prominently, the special effects are deeply unconvincing. A “ghost” is a Halloween store prop with pixelated vector graphics overlaid. A monster is a pimply mask with bright red stage-blood dripping from his mouth. The fourth story is mostly composed of shots of the woods and trees in the surrounding area.
As for the stories themselves? The Cable Line Monster segment is so dark, as to be barely perceivable. The shot of a face appearing on a tree at the end is extremely goofy. The third and fourth stories are so minor as to barely register, counting as underwhelming examples of horror. The first and fifth segments, however, kind of rock. There's a campfire story creakiness to both rendition. The highly energetic sequence of a cheap spectre chasing a balding professor through the woods is exhilarating. The finale, of a little boy haunted and claimed by an hideous beast, is the exact kind of scary story youngsters pass around the playground. Threadbare as the production values may be, there is a certain zest to the telling that makes it invigorating anyway. Unlike most public access productions, that air once and are never seen again, “Haunted Indiana” re-run on local TV for many years. During all those showings, it is said to have spook more than one young viewer. That's exactly the way it should be, as this brief anthology persists entirely on the same kind of barreling-ahead youthful energy that an impromptu exchange of urban legends does. Overflowing with lo-fi Halloween vibes, it now survives forever as a blurry internet upload. [7/10]
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