Halloween 2025: October 8th

 

The Untold Story (1993)
Bā Xiān Fàn Diàn Zhī Rén Ròu Chā Shāo Bāo

In 1986, concerns in Hong Kong about the effects of violent movies on children led to the creation of a rating system. Three separate categories were introduced to let parents know what kind of content a film contained before their kids watched it. Category I movies were deemed acceptable for all audiences. Category II was for movies tagged inappropriate for children. (Later, this label would be divided into IIA and IIB, about equivalent to the PG-13 and R ratings we have over here.) Category III, meanwhile, was the only rating that carried legal consequences: Anyone under the age of eighteen was forbidden by law from renting, buying, or watching such a film in theaters. Rather than lead to a softening of violence in Hong Kong cinema, this new system ended up galvanizing exploitation filmmakers. They began making movies deliberately packed with explicit sex and grisly violence, to utilize the inevitable Category III classification as a marketing tactic. These "Cat-III" films would become especially notorious among international horror nerds, in search of ever-more extreme and depraved shock value. Among these notorious titles, "The Untold Story" is probably the most critically acclaimed among global gore hounds. Well, I've got a pretty strong stomach so let's sit down for this extra-rare international delicacy. 

In 1978, Hong Kong resident Chan Chi-Leung brutally burned a man to death. He would destroy his government-issued I.D. and flee to Portuguese Macau, assuming the name Wong Chi Hang. Eight years later, "Wong" is operating a successful restaurant called the Eight Immortals. He claims to have won the business in a gambling match from its original owner, Cheng Lam, who then left the country with his wife and eight kids. The cops grow suspicious of Wong after receiving a letter from Lam's brother, saying he's been missing for months. When severed human limbs wash up on a local beach, one of which belonged to Lam's mother-in-law, authorities begin actively investigating Wong Chi Hang. They are right to do so. Wong is a violent psychopath, prone to murdering anyone who offends him. The Eight Immortals restaurant, and its popular barbecue pork buns, has provided him with a very effective way to dispose of the evidence of his crimes... 

The very first scene of "The Untold Story" depicts a man being viciously beaten and then set ablaze. This establishes, right away, a malicious mood. While some of the violence occurs with a degree of sick humor – a corpse's buns being buttered like it's a Thanksgiving turkey, a receipt spike to the eye – unrelenting brutality seems to be the primary goal here. When Wong assaults and murders a waitress, it's the kind of limits-pushing extremity I've come to expect from international shock-fests. However, “The Untold Story” keeps going. Multiple scenes follow of people being beaten. Methods of torture, like water being injected under the skin to create blisters, are detailed. Self-mutilation and urine being expelled, consumed, and bloodied are reoccurring topics. Yau's film grabs the viewer by the throat and drags them through this world of casual cruelty, in which people are butchered and fed into the meat grinder in exactly the same manner as pigs. In which nearly every interaction is met with shouts, mockery, or punches. It's grimly impressive how “The Untold Story” manages to keep topping itself in terms of shocking, mean-spirited content. After eighty minutes of despicable violence, the film then made me audibly gasp during its climatic cavalcade of cruelty and executions. 

Obviously, such punishing material makes for an uncomfortable watch. One understands the filmmakers' desire to, perhaps, provide some moments of levity in-between the beatings and cannibalism. The choices Yau and co-writer Danny Lee came up with is far less elegant. The group of cops assigned to Wong's case are bickering clowns prone to slapstick antics. Among them is a character named King Kong, also played by an actor named King Kong, a buffoon with a bowl cut. He's part of a team that includes a wannabe macho he-man type, Lee's womanizing lead officer, and the token female named Pearl. Pearl's tomboy fashion and mannerisms are a source of constant bullying from her sexist co-workers. Lee is regularly dragging sex workers into the office, parading them around in mini-skirts and tight dresses. When trying to get finger prints off a severed arm, Kong and Pearl comically hold their noses. This is the level of Keystone Coppery “The Untold Story” chooses to include to lighten an otherwise extremely grim story. The tonal whiplash that ensues is of a severity not seen since “The Last House on the Left.”

As annoying and out-of-place as these scenes are, I do think they serve a roundabout purpose. (Aside from Hong Kong filmmakers' previously documented disinterest in tonal coherence and tendency towards broad humor.) “The Untold Story” portrays the cops after Wong as incompetent. They are warned about him early on but dismiss the concerns and letters. It's only after they see him throwing away suspicious material that they think maybe he's up to something. Wong escapes police custody not because he's a criminal mastermind but because the authorities are nincompoops. When they grab the killer again, their response is to throw him into a jail cell with other crooks they know hate Wong. The police ignore his pleas for help as he's repeatedly beaten. Wong is tortured and kept awake for days until he confesses to his crimes. Basically, “The Untold Story” pits an openly corrupt and inept “justice” system against a monstrously deprived killer, raising questions of whether justice is a concept that can be said to truly exist at all.

While “The Untold Story” is largely an uncompromisingly grim exercise, there does seem to be a purpose to creating such a loveless cinematic world. Anthony Wong becomes Chan Chi-Leung by wearing giant square glasses and shaving his hair down to a widow's peak that makes his head dome-like. He juts his bottom jaw out to create an unflattering double chin, while starring ahead unblinking and pursing his lips together tightly. Wong often swears and yells at anyone he meets. When accused of cheating at mahjong, he admits that he does cheat but is still driven to rage by the accusation. The guy is despised by everyone who meets him. This makes Wong a rather accurate depiction of an anti-social personality type. He's an exposed wire, a terrifying presence that can launch into brutal violence without a moment's notice. Wong also looks astonishingly like the Chudjak meme, the modern face of petty bitterness and undirected hatred leading to mass murder. This is fitting, as Chan Chi-Leung is also a stupid, charmless person. It never occurs to him that killing his employees and putting up a help wanted sign the next day is suspicious. He is motivated primarily by greed. After accidentally committing one gruesome murder, he escalates to full-blown familicide by reasoning that there's no point in stopping now. There's something chillingly accurate in this depiction of evil not as something brilliant and charming but ugly, impulsive, senseless, and greedy. It feels truer to life than your usual cinematic serial killer. 

Anthony Wong's performance was such an impressive display of aggression and ignorance that he won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor, the country's version of an Oscar. It's hard to imagine an exploitation film as gross and nasty as this achieving an honor like that in Hollywood. “The Untold Story” is made more disreputable by being based on fact. Or, more accurately, it is based on the sensationalist rumors that arose in the tabloids and urban legends after the actual crime. The Eight Immortals restaurant was a real place and the family that owned it was murdered following a gambling debt gone wrong. None of the cannibalism or more outrageous acts of violence depicted here are known to have actually occurred, making the film about as tacky an enterprise as possible. Despite that and some embarrassing comic relief, it is a compelling brutal motion picture, that achieves an effectively stunning impact on the viewer. Assuming you've got, uh, a taste for such things. [8/10]

The Sadist (1963)

Arch Hall's son was going to be a movie star. Hall, an actual cowboy who became a Western stuntman, he founded the film company Fairway Productions in 1959. His first feature, “The Choppers,” arrived in 1961. The teenage delinquent flick just so happened to star Arch Hill Jr., who also sang several songs in the film. The movie was profitable on the drive-in circuit, allowing Hll Sr. to pursue his dream of turning his son into an Elvis style rock 'n' roll singer/movie star. Archie Jr.'s lack of screen idol good looks wasn't going to stop him either. Their next features, the killer caveman/rock n roll/dune buggy flick “Eegah!” and musical “Wild Guitar,” were also mildly successful without turning Hall's boy into a teen idol. (In addition to being regarded nowadays as some of the most miscalculated B-movies ever made.) Perhaps with the thought that nobody wanted to see Arch Hall the Second as a hero,  it was decided to cast him as a villain in the next Fairway Production. This was the origin of “The Sadist” which, intentionally or not, has become the best reviewed of Arch Hall Jr.'s misbegotten film career.

Ed, Doris, and Carl are all school teachers. The trio is headed to a Dodgers game, mostly because the married Carl wants to see the single Ed and Doris get together. Some engine troubles ensue and they stop into an isolated gas station in the Antelope Valley. The place is seemingly abandoned but Carl soon finds a still-warm meal sitting on the table inside. That is when a strange young man, Charlie and his equally odd girlfriend, Judy, make themselves known. Wielding a gun, Charlie holds the three teachers hostage. He forces Ed, a former mechanic in the war, to fix their vehicle. When not doing that, Charlie and Judy torment and harasses the three adults. After Carl attempts to reach out to the young man's better nature, he beats him and shoots him in the head. That is when Ed recalls the spree killings reported in the area, realizing that the sadistic and unpredictable Charlie and Judy are responsible. And that they are aiming to make the remaining teachers their next victims. 

“The Sadist” has the kind of set-up that would've been commonplace in the seventies. It's loosely inspired by notorious spree killer Charles Starkweather and his underage accomplice Caril Ann Fugate, whose crimes had shocked the nation six years prior. Attached to this vaguely true crime-like premise is a grim tone. The title is apt. Early on, Charlie beats Carl and starts playing head games with him. Judy asks the young man if he enjoys causing other people suffering, causing Charlie to merely smirk. B-movies were getting nastier in a post-”Psycho” world but “The Sadist” still seems unusually focused on the psychological torment the villain puts his victims through. Charlie constantly reminds Ed and Judy that he's capable of killing them at any point. He forces Judy's face into the dirt, instructing her to eat it, before groping her breasts. It's not that the violence or sadism is especially graphic. It's not. It's that “The Sadist” seems determined to capture a tone of hopelessness. Whenever a chance for escape comes along, it is foiled. The film only grows more downbeat as it goes along, leaving the viewer truly wondering if anyone is going to make it out of this alive.

Part of what makes this bleak quality more surprising is that it exists inside a fairly typically cornball B-movie. Richard Alden is your standard, stout-chinned, fifties style good guy. When he stripes his over-shirt off to work on the car, he warns Marilyn Manning's Judy so as not to scandalize her. Manning and Don Russell, as Carl, give especially mannered and dorky performances, seeming as square as can be. Somehow, these dorks stumbled into a proto-”Texas Chain Saw Massacre” style situation, right down to the extremely grungy looking setting. At the center of this is the bizarre anti-charisma of Arch Hall Jr. Hall's bulging eyes, pug nose, cherubic face, giant chompers, and prominent chin already give him an uncanny quality. “The Sadist” emphasizes this with a streak of make-up under his brow. He guffaws in an idiotic manner and affects a cartoonish voice for many scenes. At other times, his voice is weirdly gruff. Intentionally or not, the film seems to capture the real Starkweather's "dull normal" intelligence. Either way, Hall is such a distressingly bizarre figure that he makes for the kind of cinematic villain you can't take look away from.

Not much actually happens in “The Sadist.” Its super-low budget is apparent in almost the entire movie being set in the gas station. The script is repetitive, composed of failed escape attempts and Charlie threatening the heroes again. Every bright spot is short-lived, possibly making the film feel like a pointless exercise in nihilism. An unexpected attribute holds it together. “The Sadist” was the debut credit of cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. As in the guy who shot “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” “Deliverance,” “The Long Goodbye,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “The Deer Hunter.” Unsurprisingly, this means “The Sadist” is full of striking images. Zsigmond repeatedly attaches the camera to the perspective of Hall's gun as he peers at his victims. Or to the soda bottles he constantly, mindlessly gulps from. The stark black-and-white photography is paired with the flat, desolate landscape that stretches in all direction. The result is a sense of foreboding isolation, furthering the feeling that the protagonists are really out there and alone with this chuckling nut case.

It's entirely possible that Zsigmond's cinematography is the secret ingredient that makes the difference here. Director James Landis' other credits do not inspire much confidence. Hall's lack of star power is well documented and his dad would stop putting him in movies shortly after this. While it's hard to argue for the quality of “Eegah!” or “Wild Guitar,” “The Sadist” is too grim and unsettling to be dismissed. Like all the Fairway Productions filmography, this was quickly made to fill out drive-in double bills, meaning no precaution was taking with copyright. The film fell into the domain immediately and is accordingly available anywhere. However, there's enough artfulness in that carelessness to create an irritating but effective exploitation flick. I know Rob Zombie is a fan of the film and you can see it as a direct influence on his later depraved white trash killer sagas. [7/10]

Alien: Earth: The Real Monsters

The season finale of “Alien: Earth” sees, as tend to happens, the evil corporation losing control of the unpredictable super-weapon they've engineered. Wendy and the other Lost Boys are captured and held in confinement. Unfortunately, Boy Kavalier has forgotten that Wendy can seemingly control the island's entire network with merely her thoughts. She proceeds to torment the security force. She lets her brother and Morrow out of their separate cell, the cyborg soon having his showdown with resident synthetic Kirsh. Wendy goes off to protect Joe, who Boy Kavalier hopes to infect with the crawling eyeball parasite. Through it all, the xenomorph – which seems totally obedient to Wendy – lurks around and kills any one who attempts to hurt it. Eventually, the various opposing forces come to blow, certain someones will be held accountable for what they've done, and youths will be forced to grow up.

When paired with “Alien: Earth's” on-going “Peter Pan” fixation – oh god, I just realize Morrow having one hand makes him Captain Hook, doesn't it? – it becomes clear that this is a show about growing up. Considering “Alien” has always been a series fascinated with reproduction, this is a logical enough idea. However, as it repeatedly has, the show seems fixated on its ideas only in the shallowest of ways. Wendy repeatedly states that she is not human and not machine, not a grown-up and not a child. She is not a robot-girl, not yet a robot-woman. She strikes me most as an edgy teenager, discovering that the world is a shitty place, some people will try and manipulate you, and it can be hard to do the right thing. When Joe sums all of this up by saying that it is “complicated,” she gets mad with him. But he's right, man. Life is fucking complicated. Aside from her cybernetically enhance super-ability and intelligence, what does Wendy think she can do to change that?

There aren't much in the way of any answers. Certainly not to the question of how or why she can do anything she wants with nearly any other machine. There's also no explanation for why Nibs has become delusional and violent, which the other robot children don't seem concerned about. What “The Real Monsters” gives us instead is an origin story for Boy Kavalier. He describes his father as an abusive drunk that he replaced with a robot he built himself. That suggests he grew up in blue collar roots – a betrayal of not only what we know about the super-rich in real life but the show's own themes – and that he's kind of sad and pathetic inside. The show doesn't use this back story as an excuse for his behavior. If anything, this finale clarifies that Boy is an entitled little asshole. However, I don't understand “Alien: Earth's” repeated need to give all of its villains some sort of tragic origin. Why was that necessary? 

I can't answer that question either and it's not the most pressing mystery anyway. No, I've left season one of “Alien: Earth” wondering why the hell anyone would want to make an “Alien” TV show and spend so much screen time focusing on other aliens. The crawling eyeball creature remains the actual extraterrestrial antagonist here, getting a dramatic showdown with the heroes and a promise that it'll be back next year. There's also a bit of gory spectacle, in the show finally displaying what the weird Venus fly trap creature can do. Sure, whatever, that's fine. Aren't we here for the xenomorph? It has a few moments of on-screen chaos but largely lurks only on the sidelines, hissing. As with everything else about Wendy's extraordinary abilities, her bond with the alien is left unexplored. That this TV show reduces one of cinema's scariest, most provocative monsters down to a subservient pet for its super-powered protagonist ultimately strikes me as deeply unsatisfying. Maybe a little insulting too.

What does “The Real Monsters” leave us with, aside from that hilariously grandiose title? There's a fight scene between Babou Ceesay's Morrow and Timothy Olyphant's Kirsch that is mildly entertaining. It says a lot about this show's constant need to re-affirm its own cleverness that, seconds away from winning the fight, Morrow starts rambling about John Henry instead. Ya know, it's weird that this future set series keeps referencing contemporary pop culture! Ultimately, season one of “Alien: Earth” proved to be such an immensely unsatisfying experience to me that I don't think I'm likely to bother with another big budget serialized streaming spin-off series any time soon. Rehashed premises from the older films under the guise of something new, characters that ranged from one-note to annoying, themes and social commentary that was deeply shallow but self-important, and that ever-present god-awful pacing made this season mostly a chore to get through. [5/10]

 

The Hunger: The Secret Shih Tan

One assumes that, when the idea first arose to turn “The Hunger” into a horror anthology show, David Bowie was always intended to be the host. I guess the Thin White Duke must have been unavailable at first though. Season one was, instead, presented by Terence Stamp. I had no plans to revisit “The Hunger,” since the episode I watched last October was annoying, but Stamp's recent passing has motivated me to give an earlier installment a try. “The Secret Shih Tan” follows Craig Yun, the owner of the Golden Tail, the fanciest Chinese restaurant in town. One night, millionaire Hugo Lawery appears with his female companion, Zan. He asks Yun to prepare a rare, poisonous fish and watches him cook the dish. Afterwards, he's given a business card promising access to the Secret Shih Tan. That would be a mythic cook book said to contain the most delicious and forbidden recipes, which drove the last man who made a meal from it insane. If you are guessing the main ingredient in these secret recipes is people, you'd be right. Horrified at first, Yun is compelled by curiosity and blackmail to make Lawery a meal from the book. The young and beautiful Zan, purchased by Lawery at a young age to do with whatever he pleases, is chosen to be the main course, the recipe calling for her to be slain at the height of sexual pleasure.

“The Secret Shih Tan” is based off a short story by Graham Masteron and directed by Russell Mulcahy, two storytellers who know how to make trashy material entertaining. The episode reveals fairly early on that the secret ingredient is people, in an effective sequence where we watch Yun thumb through the legendary cook book. Jason Scott Lee, an underrated performer, does some excellent face-acting in this scene as he notices that all the diagrams in the book are of human beings. “The Secret Shih Tan” does have a twist ending, an act of misdirection that's fairly easy to predict. However, it does fulfill the gruesome promise of the premise while also providing a surprisingly potent taste of social commentary. The rich already figuratively consume the poor and this set-up merely makes that literal. The ending is upbeat while grimly suggesting that participating in this act of classist consumption is the only way to advance in this world. Either way, it does make for a fittingly ironic ending.

“The Hunger” being a slightly disreputable late night, premium cable series, the kind of flesh that's eaten is the only one on display here. The script simply had to include that detail about the young women being in orgasmic ecstasy before being cooked, leading to a predictably softcore love scene. Compared to how obnoxiously directed the two episodes from the Bowie season I've seen were, “The Secret Shih Tan” looks calm in comparison. Only the montage where a body is prepared is prone to shaky camera work and overly frantic editing. Otherwise, Mulcahy brings the level of cool slickness you expect from him here. Not a bad little morbid morsel, this one. As for Stamp's host segments, he makes the totally bullshit narration seem profound and sells the seriousness with only a few glares. The man was an utter professional, that's for sure. [7/10]