Halloween 2014: October 16th

The Wolf House (2018)

La Casa Lobo

Many independent filmmakers have bemoaned the current state of getting funding for your projects. How the studios are all risk averse and nobody is willing to take a chance on anything potentially uncommercial. While I have no doubt that this is absolutely true, we also seem to be having right now a strong moment for strange stop-motion animated movies, the most painstaking and time-consuming of all types of animation. (Already itself a costly and arduous medium.) Within the last few years, we've had “Mad God,” “The House,” “The Old Man Movie,”  and “Oink,” all of which definitely fall on various degrees of the weirdness spectrum. Also residing on the far end of the strangeness meter is “The Wolf House,” a 2018 Chilean animated feature with such a dark and surreal tone that it's hard to classify it as anything but horror. The film was critically acclaimed and quickly developed passionate defenders within the artsier corners of the horror fandom. 

The film is presented, in-universe, as a propaganda production for Chile's notorious Colonia Dignidad, essentially a cult that also performed atrocities for the Pinochet regime. A young girl named Maria, after letting some pigs loose, flees the colony in fear of punishment. As she runs through the woods, she feels the presence of a predatory “wolf” always behind her. She soon arrives at an abandoned home. Inside, Maria finds she can manipulate the home and anything inside it into whatever she wants. She finds two pigs, adopts them as pets, and soon changes them into humanoid children that she names Ana and Pedro. They are happy there for some time, until a fire deforms both kids. Maria feels the influence of the “Wolf” always in the back of her mind and, slowly, it calls to her more and more...

The first thing anybody is going to notice about “The Wolf House” is its bizarre and spellbinding visual presentation. Directors Cristobal Leon and Joaquin Cocina built a life-sized replica of the house. The animation takes the form of stop-motion “paintings” slowly coming to life. Figures that resemble, at different points, papier-mâché, dolls, and stuffed animals represent the characters while often shifting in size and appearance. The film is presented as one continuous shot, sometimes from the perspective of Maria and sometimes from an omniscient observer. The result is a movie that is constantly shifting and moving, characters and setting manifesting before our very eyes in a myriad of forms. “The Wolf House” is, in other words, not quite like anything else visually, an incredibly ambitious presentation that exists in a realm all its own. This is using the medium of animation to truly create sights that could be done no other way. All the while, “The Wolf House” remains tactile in its appearance, using its mixed-medium techniques to create something that feels as if it emerged directly from the subconscious of a disturbed child's mind. 

While "The Wolf House" is most impressive as a one-of-a-kind visual experience, its story touches on interesting and disturbing themes. When María finds herself at the magical house, it feels like a metaphor for the freedom someone who grew up in a restrictive, controlling environment must feel once they are out. The pigs – animals she already feels a kinship with – both figuratively and literally become her children and a chance to start over. However, the programming she sustained as a child is difficult to escape. The "Wolf" often speaks to her, an insistent voice telling her things are imperfect and that she'll never be truly free. When the fire happens, the Wolf's influence becomes stronger over Maria. She remakes the kids into "perfect" blonde, Aryans who speak German and wear turn-of-the-century clothes. She reads Pedro a disturbing bedtime story about a dog that runs away from home and is brutally murdered for his actions, instilling in her own kids the same sort of lessons she was taught at the Colony. The pig-children take this to heart, wishing to never leave the house. They end up hiding things from their "mother" and lying to her, putting María in a similar role to the one she longed to escape. When the situation grows more desperate, that is when she calls out for the Wolf and accepts the control he has over her. Anybody with any degree of childhood trauma can relate to this, that the negative thoughts and codependency bred into you by an abusive or codependent parent are difficult to leave behind. As someone with OCD, the way "The Wolf House" portrays the insidious lingering effects of childhood abuse as an intrusive thought, something that intercedes as if from an outside force on your logical brain and is always lurking in the back of your mind, is especially effective.

I'll admit to being an ignorant American though. I had no familiarity with the true story of Colonia Dignidad and Paul Schäfer before watching the movie. I assumed it to be a fictional framing device. I certainly picked up on how the dialogue in the film switches between Spanish and German, how Maria remakes her children into ideal Germans under the influence of the Wolf, and how that surely connects to the persistent rumors of Nazi war criminals hiding out in Chile and their influences on the local dictatorships. I know enough about cult psychology to immediately guess what kind of things happened at the Colony. (Namely, that all the horrible stuff the narrator denies happened most certainly did happen.) Reading up on the historical context makes it much, much worse though. "The Wolf House" tells a perverted fairy tale in which the role of the Big Bad Wolf is rewritten to be a benevolent protector, who promises to "watch over" all the little "piggies" that come to visit him at the Colony. Once you know that Schäfer did everything to give him access to children he could abuse, the effect of that line becomes utterly sickening. "The Wolf House," in universe, functions as propaganda for a cult and torture camp run by a pedophile, designed to indoctrinate its most vulnerable followers. This makes the film a statement on the power of indoctrination itself, how young minds are intentionally twisted to see their predators as their protectors and the cages that hold them in as their homes. This device makes the message – the intense feeling of betrayal and anger that radiates through every minute of the film – far more devastating than it would be in a traditional narrative. "The Wolf House" being structured in this way puts us, the viewer, inside the head of Schäfer's victims. It exposes us to the psychological conditioning they experienced every day. 

Colonia Dignidad still exists, by the way. Schäfer is dead, the camp has been renamed, and residents are allowed to come and go as they please. It operates as a tourist attraction now with a restaurant, something so obscene that it seems incomprehensible to me. As for "The Wolf House," I'd have to give the film the highest recommendation possible simply on account of its mind-melting visuals. The elaborate and bizarre animation, the absolute skill used to bring these images to life, is a fulfilment of the promise everything cinema can do. The movie also tells a deeply disturbing story, using layers of meta-fictional devices to expose us directly to the effects of living under a cult. If you don't know the historical context exactly, as I did on first viewing, the film still operates as an unsettling horror movie that will leave you feeling extremely unclean afterwards. It's a statement on Chilean history by Chilean artist, expressing ideas in bold and clever ways that must be seen to be believed. [9/10]

Terror is a Man (1959)

They've been making movies in the Philippines since the early days of the medium. I have no doubt that many classy and prestigious films have been made in this beautiful country. However, when we genre fans tend to think of Filipino movie making, what comes to mind is usually the trash. If you've seen a women-in-prison flick or a Rambo rip-off, odds are good it was at least shot on the islands, if not a totally Filipino production. They made a whole documentary about this! This is largely thanks to actor-turned-filmmaker Gerardo de Léon and his frequent collaborator, Eddie Romero. The two teamed up with American expat Kane W. Lynn in the late fifties to begin producing low-budget Filipino films for an international audience. Their first big hit was also the first horror movie made in the Philippines, a black-and-white Dr. Moreau riff entitled "Terror is a Man." The success of the film launched what became known as the Blood Island series and marked the Pacific Nation as a prime spot for productions in need of an exotic location on a tight budget. 

A sailor named William Fitzgerald survives a ship wreck and washes up on the shore of an obscure island. There, he is rescued by an eccentric scientist named Dr. Girard. The doctor has come to the island, with his beautiful wife Frances and assistant Walter, to conduct his research. The longer William stays at the doctor's abode, two things become apparent: Firstly, the mistreated Frances is very attracted to him and, most important, Dr. Girard is performing some ethically dubious experiments. The castaway soon discovers the horrible truth. That the doctor is attempting to turn a panther into a man, resulting in a half-formed monster that has a habit of escaping its cage and killing natives around the island. 

In many ways, "Terror is a Man" is about what you'd expect for a monster movie shot in a foreign country in the late fifties. Its story is derivative. Aside from the obvious inspiration of Welles, the script clearly draws from "Frankenstein," "Creature from the Black Lagoon," and "The Most Dangerous Game." Befitting a horror flick made nearly at the dawn of a new decade, it's gorier and sexier than many of the creature features that proceeded it. The panther man is vivisected on-screen, some throats are ripped out, and Greta Thyssen wears a succession of tighter outfits. Despite this salacious edge, "Terror is a Man" is also more character driven than you might expect. A surprising amount of time is taken with the relationship between Fitzgerald and Frances, the film actually devoting quite a few scenes to their growing attraction and eventual chemistry. More time is also spent developing mad Dr. Girard's desire to speed up evolution and Walter's growing discontent than is usually allowed in films such as these. This is both good and bad. It's nice that everyone is a little more fleshed-out than they needed to be. On the other hand, it does give "Terror is a Man" a rather slow pace, the plot moving in starts and stops until finally getting moving in the last half-hour. It's easy to imagine a slightly less ambitious version of the film that also gets to the point a little faster. 

However, de Léon and his team do make the film look good. "Terror is a Man" clearly had a limited budget, the cast kept small and most of the story taking place in only a few locations. Despite that, the film is quite atmospheric at times. There's a very cool POV shot early on from the monster, the branches from the trees swinging back and forth in the camera's face. The black and white cinematography produces some striking use of shadows, usually when the monster is lurking around the doctor's lair. The monster is kept off-screen for a long time, the audience's first glimpse of it occurring in a fittingly nightmarish scene where William sneaks down stairs and sees a bit of the bizarre surgery the doctor is getting up to. The non-horror scenes look equally good, such as the moment where the hero is invited into the maiden's bedroom, her slowly beckoning towards the doorway. It's not quite the heaving bosoms of Hammer but still quite daring for 1959. 

Frances being the only white woman on the island makes her an object of desire for almost every male in the film. Including the monster. That's the other most interesting thing about "Terror is a Man." Its beastie is surprisingly sympathetic. As in "Island of Lost Souls," the doctor performs his invasive surgeries on the panther without the aid of anesthesia. The monster is largely wrapped in bandages, which was probably a cost-saving measure. (Though the cat-like face of the creature does look quite fearsome.) However, this effect also furthers the impression that the panther-man is in constant pain. That's furthered by the cruelty the doctor and his assistant heap on the beast. Frances is the only person who is kind to it, leading to the all-too expected climatic image of the monster carrying the maiden in his arms. The panther-man kills some random, innocent bystanders too. However, Dr. Girard is clearly presented as the story's villain, the monster's half-formed and murderous state more a result of the man's hubris than any immoral nature on the creature's behalf. I guess that's what the title means. The mad scientist eventually being destroyed by his own creation is standard practice but "Terror is a Man" didn't have to give its bugbear a soul at all, so the extra effort is appreciated. 

Gerardo de Léon, Eddie Romero, and Kane Lynn would make three more monster movies in the Philippines later in the sixties, each in color and bloodier and more salacious than the one before it. While "Terror is a Man" is usually included as part of this Blood Island series – to the point that it was retitled "Blood Creature" on VHS – there's no indication here that the island is called that. Funnily enough, despite his association overseas with tawdry fare like this and "Women in Cages," Gerardo de Léon is actually regarded as one of the great names in Filipino cinema. He's the most awarded director by the country's equivalent to the Academy and was given the title of National Artist for Film in 1982. Those skills are definitely on-display in "Terror is a Man" to some degree, especially in its moody visuals. I do wish the movie was a little less slow but I'll still give this one a recommendation to monster fans who haven't caught up with it yet. [6/10]

Black Mirror: Playtest

With the second episode of its third season, “Black Mirror” would reflect on augmented reality. It follows Cooper, who has set out on a worldwide tour after his father died of Alzheimer's disease. Mostly as a way to avoid difficult conversations with his mother. While in London, he hooks up with tech journalist Sonja. After his credit card gets hacked, she encourages him to answer a job listing from SaitoGemu. That's a company known for their horror games. Cooper signs up for it, arriving in a sterile white room, and allowing himself to be injected with a high-tech implant. His brain becomes the augmented reality machine itself, seeing graphics he can interact with right in front of him. He's soon driven to a spooky mansion to enhance the experience, where the game system starts to mine his memories and fears for horrifying graphics. Cooper is left wondering what is real and what's part of the game as his evening grows more frighteningly real. 

"Playtest" would premiere a mere three months after "Pokemon GO" came out and made augmented reality the hot fad in tech for a while. The idea of a gaming system projecting elaborate hallucinations right in front of your eyeballs is merely one symptom of the larger point the episode is making. From its first scene, we see Cooper looking at his phone, dismissing calls from his mom. He plays a video game minutes before a plane lands. His trip around the world is captured in photos and videos he records. While sitting in an English pub and looking at a happy couple, he browses a dating app. When he meets up with Sonja, their conversations swirl around gaming and technology. He finds out his card has been hacked via his phone and, later, applies for this new job through another app. Technology already surrounds Cooper before he allows a complex digital device to be injected right into his brain. It's infiltrated every aspect of our lives. While seated in the gothic mansion, he wonders aloud how people amused themselves before the invention of computers. Our complete dependence on technology in the modern age has opened us up to all sorts of new horror. Which is, I suppose, the thesis of every episode of "Black Mirror." It's especially potent in "Playtest" however, where someone willingly allows a tech company to access the innermost aspects of his own mind. 

"Black Mirror's" focus on technology has always made it, obviously, a show that sought the cutting edge in horror. It was never going to do an episode about a haunted house. Except that's exactly what "Playtest" is. Gothic horror trappings are still common in video games, with this episode's setting clearly paying homage to the many dusty, Victorian mansions of the "Resident Evil" series. Much like those games, a creaky setting is combined with high-octane freaky monsters, such as a giant spider with a human face. Cooper is savvy enough to comment on an incoming jump scare, after he opens a pantry that blocks half the screen. "Playtest" gently mocks such a classic horror set-ups in the name of a reclaiming them. By the last act, the episode is managing to mind quite a lot of tension from the classic set-up of an ominous door the protagonist is too afraid to open. 

"Black Mirror" being the kind of show that is very clever, sometimes to the put of aggravation, "Playtest" certainly doesn't stop there. Gothic trappings aside, this is primarily an hour of psychological horror. Much of the tension is derived from the audience not knowing how much of what Cooper is experiencing is real. This question becomes especially pertinent as the threats he encounters become more surreal. "Playtest" is full of foreshadowing, various levels of reality interacting, and a few twists. However, the script invests you enough in Cooper and his problems, that these narrative swerves feel less like rug pulls and more like natural evolution of the story's themes. The rotting of the mind, loosing grip on reality, and doubting everything around ideas naturally built into the story.

While "Black Mirror's" social commentary and attempts at multi-layered scripts can veer towards the didactic or annoying, "Playtest" remains on the right side of that. (Though the final scene comes right against that level.) It helps that Wyatt Russell, as Cooper, has an affable, surfer dude charm in his early scenes that eventually moves towards a more pathetic, vulnerable state. He also has good chemistry from Hannah John-Kamen, giving more weight to their casual interactions. Director Dan Trachtenberg shows the same utterly sincere approach to the horror elements here that elevated "10 Cloverfield Lane" and "Prey." A steady hand like that, which doesn't back away from pulp elements without looking down on them or sacrificing a sense of intelligence, is probably what "Black Mirror" needed all the time. [8/10]

Skinflicker (1972)

Most would assume that “The Blair Witch Project” was the first found footage horror movie. Genre buffs are likely to point at influential predecessors like “Cannibal Holocaust” or “Man Bites Dog.” If you're really interested in the style, maybe you've heard of obscurities like “The McPherson Tape” or “Psychic Vision: Jaganrei.” Truthfully, the format is older than that, being born with 1960s experiments like “The Connection” and “David Holzman's Diary.” As far as I can tell, the first movie to specifically combine the premise of footage being recorded in-universe and then presented to the viewer in our universe along with deliberately horrifying images is “Skinflicker,” a forty-two minute long short made in England from 1972.

“Skinflicker” is presented in the context of being a confiscated document, shown to law enforcement for the purpose of training. The film follows three blue collar political revolutionaries – Wilf, a teacher; Susan, a nurse; and Henry, a gardener – who have recruited a pornographer to record their manifesto and kidnapping of a member of British parliament. The trio intends to capture the minister, confront him with the common acts of cruelty that have radicalized each of them, and then execute him on-camera. Georgie, the cameraman, doesn't believe they'll go that far but he's soon proven wrong, the three would-be rebels totally committed to their plan. The subsequent footage that follows shows the three interrogating the politician, torturing him, and the inevitable confrontation with police. 

“Skinflicker” strikes me as a film about conflict. Not only about class conflict but about conflict within the medium itself. While the three revolutionaries are nothing but sincere in their dedication to their high-minded ideas, the cameraman shoots stag reels for a living. He wears a mask, while the others show their face. When the gang drags the minister out of their trunk, wrapped up in bandages, Georgie starts to nervously crack jokes about mummy movies. As it becomes more and more clear what the three plan to do, the cameraman is increasingly horrified by their actions, until he becomes a victim of the rebels himself. The chasm is clear: One group sees film as a platform to carry powerful messages, literally as a way to document their acts of violent revolution. The other party, meanwhile, sees film as a crass commercial product, a way to record things that can be sold for a profit and easily discarded. You see this clearly in the way the cameraman tells jokes while dispassionately recording a dense political monologue being read. When the leader of the trio asks the man if he understands why they are doing this, he grumbles out “for a laugh” before changing his mind to “vengeance.” Those who see filmmaking simply as a way to turn a quick buck can't understand those that have higher aspirations for the format. 

The film's political content more-or-less speaks for itself. It is endlessly fascinating to me that director Tony Bicat and writer Howard Brenton – the film arose out of their equally politically inflammatory Portable Theatre Company – make their violent revolutionaries common folks. They were not radicalized by political theory but, instead, political reality. The scene where they each give their story to the captured minister is quite stirring. The teacher describes a child with bad glasses who was written off by the system and the nurse discusses how she's groped and abused by the old men she cares for. Once the representative, the only person in the room with any actual political power, is strung up, he makes excuses, slowly begging for his life. The statement is by no means subtle. The film seems to suggest some ambiguity over how far these three push things. A child is injured, if not outright killed, during the kidnapping. The brutality of what they put the minister through is clearly meant to disgust and repel us. Still, I don't think there's any doubt about where the filmmakers' sympathy lies. That the government framing of the film directly contradicts what the trio say, disregarding their clear political motives and saying what they did was a senseless act of violence, shows that they are being mislabeled and misconstrued so as not to threaten the status quo. 

As a piece of proto-found footage, “Skinflicker” startlingly predicts many of the trademarks of the subgenre. Visually, this is a grubby piece of guerilla filmmaking, that takes full advantage of the gritty, black-and-white 16mm most of “Skinflicker” was shot on. The primary location is an industrial garage of some sort, four brick walls that are caked with filth. Tedium, like a long unbroken shot of a car ride or Henry threatening to stomp on the politician's false teeth, stands alongside the raw violence. The performances are powerfully close to reality. Henry Woolf is especially unhinged as the manic Henry, who bursts into dramatic monologues before showing how uncompromising he can be. The elongated violence is what pushes “Skinflicker” into the realm of horror, though the whole short leaves the viewer with an unclean feeling. A thousand faux-snuff movies would follow in “Skinflicker's” wake but few of them would capture the genuine sense of anger and grittiness it invokes. [9/10]

Halloween 2024: October 15th

Fear (1996)

In 1997, former Funky Bunch leader, underwear model, and hate crime enthusiast Mark Wahlberg gave a vulnerable, meaningful performance in "Boogie Nights." It proved that the brawny pretty boy from Baastan was, in fact, a talented actor. In the years since then, Wahlberg has become a huge star, a Hollywood big shot, and earned two Academy Award nominations. Still, he's rarely returned to the level of depth and angst he showed as Dirk Diggler, usually insisting on sticking to his tough guy persona in-between attending Mass, investing in cricket teams, and making insensitive comments about 9/11. A year before his breakout performance, Wahlberg had his first starring role in tawdry, uncreatively entitled thriller "Fear." While the film was dismissed by most critics in 1996, it was a hit with teenagers and has since developed a cult following, receiving a few reappraisals over the years. Time for me to investigate further. 

16 year old Nicole lives in the woods outside Seattle with her security expert dad Steve, her step-mom Laura, and stepbrother Toby. While out with friends, she catches the eye of the mysterious David McCall. His good looks and sensitive words entrance Nicole and the two are soon professing their love for each other. However, after seeing her hugging a platonic male friend, David becomes violent. Nicole breaks up with him but is soon won back over. Steve is cautious of the boy, especially after discovering his daughter is having sex with him. After Nicole spies David coercing her troubled friend Margo into sex at a crack party, she dumps him permanently. David doesn't take rejection well and begins to terrorize Nicole and her family, insisting she belongs to him. Things come to a head when David and his hoodlum friends descend on the house.

If "Fear" was a smarter, more perceptive film, it would be about how young women, so often conditioned to be submissive, ignore obvious red flags and their better judgement when around guys who are obviously bad news. A few days after they start dating, David is already ordering Nicole around. He tells her to get him a drink and starts walking around her father's house like he owns the place. He ignores curfews and personal boundaries, pushing her into more sexual acts. What's especially infuriating about this is how much Nicole's stepmom approves of David's obviously manipulative behavior. Laura wants Nicole to like her, to rely on her when she's feeling down, which means accepting her boyfriend. Who is, by the way, older than her and a high school graduate while Nicole is a sophomore. When David gives Nicole a black eye and beats her friend up, everyone is far too willing to forgive him. His route to forgiveness involves some pathetic begging, gifts, and an insincere apology. All of this, sadly, is all too common an experience in reality. Boys behave badly, girls are told directly or indirectly to accept it, and obvious signs of abuse or manipulation are ignored. If "Fear" told that story in the context of a trashy thriller, it could've been pulpy fun while carrying a deeper, more relevant message. 

That's not the movie "Fear" is though. Producer Bryan Grazer pitched it as "Fatal Attraction for teens." The film falls right into the clichés of the domestic thriller format, in which an unhinged outsider upsets the equilibrium of suburban tranquility. Considering this, perhaps it should be unsurprising that Nicole – despite ostensibly being the protagonist – is not centered in her own story. No, "Fear" is actually about her dad. In his first scene, Steve comments on Nicole wearing a short dress. Later, her stepmom calls her a slut for wearing make-up. Dad wants his daughter to go to a James Taylor concert with him but she chooses to hang out with her ruffian friends instead. While the push-and-pull of being a parent with a growing teenager, eager to establish independence, is fertile ground for a thriller, "Fear" doesn't go in that direction. The night David takes Nicole's virginity, he steals a bracelet that says "Daddy's Girl." Later, he defaces it to say "David's Girl." Steve constantly watches his daughter on a security monitor. After he suspects that her boyfriend is beating her up, the adult man confronts the teenage boy in a verbal battle of macho wills. (Which includes, of course, David questioning the man's sexuality and virility.) Later, he vandalizes Steve's midlife crisis mobile, with a gross note referring to "popping both your cherries." Not Nicole's cherry, her father's. By the time we get to the last act, where David repeatedly asks Nicole to choose between him or her dad, the implication is clear. "Fear" is about how young women belong to men, either their fathers or their lovers. Ultimately, how they control their own sexuality and life choices, the film seems to say, should be up to their dads. Did a purity ball organizer write this? This unseemly subtext is paired with multiple scenes of teenage girls in the shower, their bathing suits, or their underwear. The result is a movie that feels disconcertingly obsessed with the sexuality of young girls and how they are perceived, not by themselves, but by the men in their lives.

But I'm the idiot here, expecting sensitive politics from a cheesy nineties movie. The domestic thriller is, inherently, a conservative genre. It values the integrity of the 1 man/1 woman/2.5 kids household above all else. The minute the threat is defeated, and Steve reestablishes himself as the alpha male of the household, "Fear" ends with images of its family hugging one another. The evil has been vanquished, balance is restored. It's a story type built on the most hysterical of insecurities. This is likely why movies like this so often veer towards high camp. "Fear" was directed by James Foley, who made classy movies like "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "At Close Range" before the success of this film led him to similar schlock like "Perfect Strangers" and the latter two "Fifty Shades" movies. The first act of "Fear" suggests it might've been a prestigious film too, as the cinematography and editing are slick. The infamous sequence where David gives Nicole her first orgasm on a rollercoaster pushes the movie into the realm of erotic thriller. It only grows seedier from there. David's gang of hooligans are cartoonishly evil, blowing crack smoke into Alyssa Milano's face as she gives one a lap dance. The sequence where David makes his first kill features the bad guy flipping someone through the air like a pro-wrestler. The last third moves "Fear" totally into the realm of overheated horror. David tattoos Nicole's name on his chest before leading a "Straw Dogs" style siege on the home. Once it becomes a totally trashy home invasion thriller, I was finally able to enjoy "Fear." There's a good, gross shock involving a doggy door. A little kid runs someone over. An electric drill is weaponized. When a shadow of an intruder moves over a window like "Nosferatu," Foley and his team finally find the right balance between sensationalism and professionalism. If "Fear" has operated in this mode its entire runtime, it might have reached the campy heights of "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle."  

Perhaps "Fear's" melodramatic emotions is exactly why it appealed so much to teenagers. Everything feels more intense at that age, when petty disagreements between young lovers become living soap operas. "Fear" operates like an R-rated afterschool special, with its reductive moral, exaggerated anxieties, and Carter Burwell's thundering score. The youth demographic is also obvious in the fashion and soundtrack, which scream 1996. There are certainly signs that the film is in on its own joke. Mark Wahlberg, with his usual douchebag posturing and overpowering Masshole accent, makes David the sketch comedy version of a teenage stalker. (Most apparent during a hilarious scene where he spits threats through a keyhole.) Milano and William Petersen, as the dad, give similarly sweaty performances. Reese Witherspoon – who viciously subverted gender politics like this in "Freeway" and "Election" – is going for more realism. Which is a choice, I guess. Maybe if I saw this as a teen, at a sleepover where everyone thought Marky Mark was hunky, I'd have nostalgia for it. Watching as an adult, I find the script more gross than fun and its approach more often silly than amusing. I like plenty of similar trash so I understand why it's a fave for some but I couldn't embrace "Fear." [6/10]

Fangs (1981)

Anyab

Most of us can wrap our brains around the idea of a foreign knock-off of a popular domestic product. It follows that people in another country would be interested in a cheaper, locally produced version of an internationally renowned name. In the film world, this makes plenty of sense too. Countries like Italy or India, with their extensive movie industries and broad distribution networks, could cash-in on the popularity of global blockbusters for a fraction of the cost. Moreover, productions such as these allow filmmakers in other countries to reinterpret popular themes through their own cultural identities. However, what do we make of foreign language rip-offs of unpopular films? Though an enduring cult following has made it the longest running movie of all time now, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was notoriously commercially unsuccessful upon initial release. "Rocky Horror's" rejection of gender conformity and heteronormativity surely made it a difficult movie to export in conservative countries where homosexuality is outlawed. Such as, say, Egypt. In spite of that truth, for years, I have heard of the existence of an Egyptian version of "Rocky Horror." That "Anyab" – translation: "Fangs" – is real proves that Richard O'Brien's queer musical must have resonated with someone in the Land of the Pharaohs. The lack of behind-the-scenes information on director Mohammed Shebl and "Fangs" leaves many questions unanswered but the film survives and, in many regards, speaks for itself. 

In truth, "Fangs" only follows the first act of "Rocky Horror" before going off in its own direction, sidestepping most of the queer elements altogether. Nevertheless: A narrator in an office introduces us to Ali and Mona, who are young and in love. They set off on a road trip before they catch a flat in a thunderstorm, seeking shelter in a near-by mansion. They are invited inside by a hunchback, who informs them that a party is ongoing. The master of ceremonies is none other than Count Dracula himself, who soon expresses an interest in Mona. The young lovers will learn much about the nature of the world during the long night.

"Rocky Horror" was obviously the main inspiration for "Fangs." Not only does it apes the beginning, it is also a musical. Several of the songs share the same purpose as their counterparts. A pair of red lips introduce us and the story's themes. Ali and Mona express their feelings for each other during a duet not dissimilar to "Damnit Janet." The couple sing about searching out a light as they approach the mansion in the pouring rain, with the hunchback getting a solo. There's no "Time Warp" or "Sweet Transvestite" equivalents, though Dracula's party guests do perform a dance number and the count gets an introductory song. Once Dracula appears, "Fangs" begins to owe more to Bram Stoker. What with the subplot of the vampire attempting to seduce the virtuous maiden, a shot of the count climbing up the castle, and a shout-out to Christopher Lee. Much the same way O'Brien's musical freely mixed his angst about his own sexual identity with his love of vintage rock 'n' roll and campy sci-fi/horror, "Fangs" is a similarly intriguing jumble of pre-existing pop culture. It's more blatant about what it steals from. "The Munsters" theme appears alongside the soundtracks to "A Clockwork Orange," "Jaws," "For a Few Dollars More," and "The Man with the Golden Gun." The film keeps many of the same horror tropes that "Rocky Horror" used and combines them with the romantic love triangles and status quo reinforcing melodrama. (There's also a training montage that might've been inspired by "Rocky.") Meanwhile, the fashion is strictly of the late seventies and early eighties, with quite a few disco beats, velour jumpsuits, brightly colored leotards, and KISS-style face paint. In other words, "Fangs" is a fascinating remix of all sorts of pop iconography that was still ricocheting around the globe at the time. 

At the same time, one feels as if the movie reflects a specifically Egyptian identity. First off, a chicken is slaughtered during the opening credits, the kind of thing you'd not expected to see in a Western production. Secondly, the film leans much more on the idea of naïve innocents facing a world that threatens to corrupt them. Ali and Mona are said to have an outlook that is "pink," while the narrator and the villain warn that the world is more "black" than that. A lengthy sequence in the middle begins with the narrator saying vampires are only fictional before Dracula breaks the fourth wall. We are then treated to a half-hour long series of fantasy scenarios, wherein Ali and Mona's future wedded bliss is repeatedly assaulted by another type of bloodsucker: Businessmen. Dracula appears as a plumber that charges outrageous amounts for a quick fix. He also takes the guide of a skimping butcher, a shifty used cars saleman, a greedy landlord, a flint-nosed cabdriver, a cheating doctor, on and on. The repetitive scenarios each conclude with the vampire flashing his fangs, paired with a dramatic sting on the soundtrack, and the narrator laughing him off. It goes on way too long but the message is clear. The real threat to Ali and Mona's "pink" worldview is not so much literal vampires as the crushing financial realities of the world. This theme is obviously universal while the specificity of "Fangs'" allegory reflect an Egyptian viewpoint. (Dracula also compares himself to Hitler, dispelling any unfortunate anti-Semitic stereotypes about vampires. The corrosive elements here are greed and authority, not the Jews.) 

"Fangs" is probably too long. None of its songs are the immediate ear worms we heard in "Rocky Horror," though they're aren't bad in their own right either. The synth and disco infused music has charms of its own. Mostly, "Fangs" fascinated me for the lo-fi Halloween party ambiance it contains. A blanket of fog always floats along the floor of Dracula's abode. The big dance number has the guests donning rubber Halloween masks while shaking it in front of large cardboard cut-outs of the classic monsters. The production design in general is neat, with some high-contrast reds and blacks on display. The classic horror theming continues throughout, in the subplot about the enslaved hunchback desiring freedom and a black-and-white musical number Dracula has. In general, there's a sort of homemade, pop art energy to much of "Fangs." The characters' thoughts sometimes appear as comic book word balloons. Colorful graphics and text appear on-screen at various intervals. A bizarre dinner sequence has Dracula pausing and restarting time itself. It's much more refined than "Witchdoctor of the Livingdead's" kids-playing-in-the-backyard chaos while maintaining the same sort of do-it-yourself value. 

"Fangs" lacks the outright transgressive queerness of its primary inspiration for obvious reasons. However, the movie is subversive in a sense. The bloodsuckers are vanquished in surprisingly gruesome fashion while the young lovers look forward to a bright future, on the steps of the Great Pyramids, well aware of the darkness of the world but staying optimistic. Honestly, I kind of like that ending better than Brad and Janet sinking into hedonism and emptiness. Drac's other sidekick also shadow-boxes while in the shower, so maybe the movie is gayer than I gave it credit for. The film is an off-beat camp artifact that boldly steals from way more famous movies. At the same time, this is more than refitting a Hollywood movie for local sensibilities, the way "Mahakaal" was. "Fangs" is weird and quirky and personal and funky in a way that I can enjoy, an ideal type of overseas rip-off that uses the far more well-known source material as a jumping-off point for the director's own ideas. This is my first exposure to Egyptian genre cinema and it has me excited to check out more movies like this. [7/10]

The Twilight Zone (2002): Upgrade

The 2002 version of "The Twilight Zone" rarely impresses but I include every other version in this marathon, so it seems rude to leave it out. "Upgrade" at least has a suitably "Zone"-ish premise. Annie is moving into a new home with her family. Her teenage son and daughter are always arguing. Her husband isn't the most helpful. Csonka, the family dog, christens the place by whizzing on the fireplace. In a moment of desperation, Annie wishes for a better family. That's when Csonka is replaced with a well-behaved poodle. When Annie notices this, her husband insists Csonka has always looked like this. Soon, much to Annie's horror, everyone in her family is replaced with "perfect" alternatives. Is she experiencing a breakdown or is something stranger going on here?

"Upgrade" functions on a notice that every version of "Zone" has considered at least once: Be careful what you wish for. The idea of Annie getting what she wants, only to be horrified with the results, is a potentially intriguing idea. Unfortunately, "Upgrade" rushes into it so quickly that we never get a chance to feel much of an impact. There's one or two scenes with her obnoxious teenage kids before they are replaced with idyllic new versions. We get a few more scenes with her husband – played by the rapist from "Thelma & Louise" – before he's replaced. Tthe episode never truly digs into Annie's deeper wants and needs. Her old family doesn't seem that bad, which could've been part of a point. Simply because we love someone doesn't mean they don't do things that annoy us. Any minor resentment she has towards them is barely established before the change happens. A change, by the way, which doesn't have any evident downside of its own. The new family is perfect and the horror of the situation comes from Annie not knowing why this shift is happening. Which is a valid enough idea. The people we see everyday inexplicably changing appearances and personalities would be very distressing. However, a little more time spent with everyone before the weird shit begins, to give us a better idea of what is being lost, would've improved this tremendously. 

This being the 2002 version of "The Twilight Zone," there's not a degree of subtly at work here. Every shift is accompanied by a dramatic whooshing noise, happening exactly when you expect them too. I think the tension is supposed to arise from us wondering why this is happening. Is Annie having a psychotic break, from the stress of moving into a new home? Was a supernatural bargain struck at some point or is this a reality shifting, Mandela Effect type thing? The answer is revealed in the final minutes and it's very stupid, disregarding everything that was interesting about the idea up to that point. In spite of its flaws, "Upgrade" still almost works based on a decent performance from Susanna Thompson as Annie. She conveys a convincing amount of panic and confusion as a woman whose life is transforming around her for no reason she can detect. "Upgrade" is too shallow, in its execution and ideas, to truly impress. However, Thompson doing a good job of freaking out at least gives this rushed half-hour a bead of pathos. [6/10]

Hair-Raising Hare (1946)

The golden age of American animation and the classic era of horror just so happen to occur at the same time. Accordingly, there were quite a few cartoons from the thirties and forties goofing on the then-contemporary monster movies. Perhaps the best of them all is Chuck Jones' "Hair-Raising Hare." It begins with Bugs Bunny rising from his burrow, when he sees a shapely female rabbit. He follows the curvy bunny into a spooky mansion, only realizing too late that she's a wind-up doll. That's when the mad doctor in the castle, who looks a lot like Peter Lorre, reveals the true reason he lured the rabbit to his lair: To feed him to the big, red, hairy monster that lives in his basement. A wacky chase ensues. 

The horror-adjacent Disney shorts made around this same time were more about putting a whimsical spin on the classic iconography of the genre. Chuck Jones and the Merrie Melodies, meanwhile, used the monster movie premise as set-dressing for a series of progressively sillier gags. It starts with the ominous castle having a neon sign out front and builds to Gossimer's own reflection being scared off by the sight of him. The elastic stretch-and-squish of cartooning is eventually applied to reality itself. In "Hair-Raising Hare," the Fourth Wall is repeatedly transgressed, the audience eventually invited to participate in the story itself and, indirectly, saving the day at the end. The horror trappings of the short – the spooky castle, the Lorre-esque villain, a trap door, a suit of armor with a glistening axe – are more ingredients to blend into the freewheeling absurdity of the piece. 

Gossimer, himself, is the greatest gag of the film. Bugs compares him to both Frankenstein and Dracula, yet Gossimer draws from no specific legacy of monsters. Instead, a big menacing mound of brightly colored hair, topped off with the absurd visual of colorful nails and bright white sneakers, makes him a generic idea of a "monster" that later works like "Sesame Street" would run with. Despite being nearly eighty years old, "Hair-Raising Hare" remains sharp and funny. That's largely because Bugs Bunny, the ever anarchistic smart-ass, remains a highly amusing hero. After all, he gets into this situation for reasons most any male can relate too: He sees an attractive partner and has a momentary lapse in judgement. From there, Bugs pulls schemes that range from packing up a golf bag and running for the door, turning a suit of armor into a locomotive, and stops to do his enemy's nails. By the end of these seven minutes, most any concern for narrative has gone out the window, the mad scientist that instigated this plot not being seen again. Instead, "Hair-Raising Hare" is dedicated to making the viewer laugh with zanier gags, as noble a cause as any other I can think of. The result is a classic bit of cartooning that stands the test of time. [8/10]

Halloween 2024: October 14th

Mr. Vampire (1985)

Geung see sin sang

I'm not going to lie to you guys. I first learned what a jiang-shi is thanks to Hsien-Ko in the "Darkstalkers" video games. I wasn't always as big of a folklore nerd as I am today. I'm sure that character – who is awfully adorable for being a rigor-mortis infused, qi sucking, hopping corpse – was a lot of western people's introduction to the concept, a figure in Chinese ghost stories comparable to the Eastern vampire or zombie. Of course, the reason Capcom thought to put a jiang-shi into their monster fighting video game series is because they were a common presence in eighties Hong Kong martial arts movies. The visual clichés of the creature were solidified then: The Qing dynasty era burial robes, the paper with holy symbols stuck to their heads, the stiff-armed and hopping gait, the blueish grey skin and little fangs. While Sammo Hung reintroduced the concept to Hong Kong cinema in 1980's "Encounters of the Spooky Kind," it was 1985's "Mr. Vampire" that truly kicked off a wave of martial arts horror/comedies about the monsters. The film – which Hung produced – spawned several sequels and a whole batch of imitators, making these distinctive Chinese ghouls a prominent part of the international mythic bestiary. 

In the early days of Republic-era China, Master Kau uses Taoist magic to relocate corpses to new graves for rich clients who hope to please the spirits of their ancestors. The reanimated bodies are kept under control by magic scrolls glued to their foreheads. Otherwise, they would become wild, breath-sucking jiang-shi. Kau's clownish assistants, Man-choi and Chau-sang, often get into mischief. The group is hired to relocate the ancestor of a rich businessman, Mister Yam. Kau is distressed to find the body hasn't decayed in twenty years, a sign that it's going to become a vampire. Kau attempts to keep the hostile spirit under control but Man-choi and Chau-sang's incompetency soon leads to the hopping vampire getting loose. The group attempts to get the supernatural terror back under control. Romantic rivalries, more magic, a horny ghost, and lots of kung-fu ensues. 

As with "Encounters of the Spooky Kind," "Mr. Vampire" is a loosely plotted film, with intervening subplots and set pieces that don't have much to do with the primary story. Man Choi seems to be attracted to Mr. Yam's daughter – the debut role of future action star Moon Lee – while her military officer cousin also pursues her. This leads to a slapstick sequence where Man Choi uses magic to manipulate the officer's body and humiliate him. A lengthy subplot involves Chau-sang falling under the sway of a female ghost, whose frantic lovemaking threatens to exhaust him to death. She's introduced in a musical number, where she attempts to hitch a ride on the young man's bicycle. That leads to a wild sequence where Master Kau has to fight off the spirit, which results in her hair turning into spikes and her head floating around the room. Later, Man Choi is bitten by the jiang-shi and must hold off the transformation by constantly dancing on a bed of glutinous rice. (Which seems to have a similar effect on these Eastern vampires as garlic does to European ones.) None of these plot threads or sequences have much to do with the story of the leaping vampire getting loose. This results in "Mr. Vampire" playing a lot like a gag comedy, the main narrative being nothing but a clothes line to hang a series of increasingly outrageous stunts and jokes on. 

And when those stunts and jokes are this entertaining, who can complain? As in many of the films of Hung, Jackie Chan, and their collaborators at Golden Harvest, "Mr. Vampire" smoothly combines acrobatic martial arts and physical slapstick comedy. The action scenes are endlessly inventive and fast paced, constantly showing off the skills of these performers. A sequence where Kau and his students ensnare the vampire with a net of enchanted thread is fantastic, playing out like an elaborate ballet of stunt work and action. The finale features Chin Siu-ho, as Chau-sang, effortlessly running up walls, leaping over props, and using chairs and tables as weapons. An earlier scene, where the hero is nearly branded and has to juggle the buffoonish police officer while fighting off another revenant, shows off how adapt the movie is at getting both thrills and laughs out of these action scenes. Mostly because the film is equally good at both elements. An earlier scene, where Chau-sang mistakes the daughter for a prostitute, got a lot of laughs out of me. As did the Marx Brothers-esque bodily possession sequence. The totally physical performance does lead to a few overbearing gags. Ricky Hui mugs furiously as Man Choi, especially during an inexplicable moment of homophobic gaggery. Overall though, the stunts and comedy work perfectly in sync to create a consistently entertaining motion picture. 

As a light-hearted monster movie, "Mr. Vampire" is a lot of fun too. Director Ricky Lau and cinematographer Peter Ngor make a good looking film. The nights are beautifully dark, often cast in gorgeous shades of blue and dark green. Many of the sets and locations have a charming artificial quality to them, the film fully transporting the viewer into its fantasy land. Mostly, I came away from the movie understanding why the jiang-shi would become such a pop culture icon after this. The stiff-limbed movement of the vampires is such a cool visual, an interesting physical stunt and a fittingly uncanny feature. These vampiric creatures hunt by sensing people's breath, leading to several mildly suspenseful scenes of people holding their breath while the monster hovers near-by. Yuen Wah, another member of Chan/Hung's troupe, plays the main jiang-shi and his make-up gets more beastly as the film goes on. The ghost scenes are also a hoot, featuring bizarre special effects and visually inventive camera work. I don't know if it's ever scary, exactly, but "Mr. Vampire" maintains a spooky, kooky tone throughout that is perfect for the Halloween season. 

A wild horror/comedy circus of a film, "Mr. Vampire" rarely slows down. Something crazy, cool, or funny is happening on-screen nearly every minute of its runtime. Lam Ching-ying, as Master Kau, remains an ideal straight man throughout and somehow manages to make a unibrow intimidating. Much the same way "Encounters of the Spooky Kind" did, the movie gets right into the action and ends the minute after the threat is resolved. I've got to respect economic storytelling like that. "Mr. Vampire" is considerably smoother than Hung's earlier supernatural kung-fu comedy, with more likable characters, funnier gags, and cooler gimmicks. In other words, this is the stuff of cult movie legend and exactly the kind of third-eye stimulating madness I seek in Hong Kong movies. After years of grainy bootlegs and subpar releases, the movie finally has a lovingly restored Blu-ray release, so check it out right away. [9/10]

Bleeders (1997)

Who mourns for the VHS gimmick box? If you're of the right age, to have wandered video stores during their hay days, you know what I'm talking about. In the eighties and nineties, any goofy feature on the VHS box, to make your title leap off the shelves at customers, was a worthwhile investment. Horror movies were especially fond of these. Boxes with embossed covers or lenticular holograms were always a good bet. Some went further and decorated their cardboard sleeved with monsters with blinking eyes, monsters that roared, or monsters that propositioned you. Low-budget Canadian horror movie "Hemoglobin" was written by the same team who made "Alien," based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft, and starred Rutger Hauer. You'd have thought that would've been enough to sell the movie but its distributor had another thought. They cut out four minutes of nudity, retitled the film "Bleeders," and stuck a plastic sleeve full of squishy fake blood on the front of the box. Maybe this was the right instinct because, seventeen years later, that box gimmick is still the main thing people remember about this movie. 

Three hundred years ago, the Van Daam family got kicked out of Holland because they loved incest too much. The family eventually settled on an island in the Northern Americas. In the modern day, last of the bloodline John Strauss arrives on the island in hopes of finding an answer to the mysterious blood disease that is slowly killing him. Instead, he finds a dead end small town where the biggest new story is that the local cemetery is being dug up, due to cheap coffins causing bodies to fall out... That's what everyone in town thinks is happening. In fact, a clan of inbred, mutant dwarfs live under the island and have been feeding on the town's dead bodies for centuries. Now that their food supply is being removed, the monsters are coming above ground for fresher meat. John Strauss, his devoted wife, and the alcoholic town doctor investigate and discover that John has a very predictable connection to these damnable creatures.

Loosely adapting Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear," "Bleeders" does show some of the author's favorite themes poking through. Such as the curse of a degenerate family bloodline dooming the protagonist to an ultimately inhuman existence, grave robbing ghoul monsters, and old legends in burned down homes. Unfortunately, the film follows another one of Lovecraft's recurring tropes too closely. Namely, a protagonist who is a totally inept dork. John Strauss spends most of the movie in a sickly stupor, his nose frequently gushing blood, and often falling unconscious. His voice is spaced out, he speaks of insatiable urges, and generally acts like a weirdo. It's hard to believe his wife would be so totally devoted to him. When the easily foreseen truth about John's genetic destiny is revealed, the character falls into more disturbing behavior. That could've made for an interestingly sordid story of a descent into depravity. However, Roy Dupuis as John and Kristin Lehman as his wife both give such unlikable performances. Dupuis is stilted, Lehman is somehow both blank and overemotive. They share zero chemistry, no matter how much graphic humping they do in the uncut version. Their tragic love story is played as contrived melodrama, leading to a thoroughly unconvincing final moment. 

Bafflingly, the story of the Strausses digging up his horrible family history often feels like it's playing alongside an almost unrelated second movie. Much like Full Moon's "Lurking Fear" from three years earlier, "Bleeders" is also a schlocky monster movie about a small town being overwhelmed by cannibalistic underground humanoid dwellers. The creature effects that bring the deformed ghouls to life aren't bad, their hunched and tumorous bodies being properly grotesque. Scenes devoted to the creature surfacing, attacking people at the docks, yanking victims through open graves, or pulling little girls underground is when "Bleeders" is at its most lively. This element peaks early, when Hauer's doctor enters into the tunnels under the cemetery. After a hurricane blows in and everyone takes shelter in the town lighthouse, "Bleeders" becomes a repetitive siege picture. Tension free attack scenes continue until the movie blusters towards an underwhelming climax. 

In general, "Bleeders" is a movie with an off-balance tone. The musical score is composed of Indian sitar music and wailing guitars that would be more at home in a Skinnemax erotic thriller. The film has the plot of a low-brow creature feature but approaches everything with deadly seriousness. For an example of that, it opens and closes with comically self-serious narration. This conflicts with the characters, most of whom are written as cartoonish assholes. The married couple stay at a hotel which also functions as the town mortuary. The woman who runs the place is utterly obnoxious, while her daughter is so soft-spoken as to barely exist. While hanging around the burned house, John encounters an old woman in a wheelchair who speaks with a hilariously exaggerated Mainer accent. The little kids and fishermen around town are all played in this weirdly broad manner. The only actor in the film, perhaps unsurprisingly, that strikes the right balance of camp and gravitas is Rutger Hauer. The scene where he performs an autopsy on one of the creatures, dryly commenting on its hermaphroditic nature, is the highlight of the movie. When Hauer announces to everyone in town what's happening, it's the right kind of campy exuberance that this movie needed significantly more of. Always a pro and a joy to watch, Hauer manages to wring something like actual pathos out of his character's standard backstory of alcoholism and failure. (Delivered minutes after he's introduced.) Really, if the movie had been completely about him and cut out the married couple entirely, it easily would've been improved. 

Depressingly, this would be the final screenwriting credit of Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett in the former's lifetime. Considering the quality of the duo's output, and the obvious respect O'Bannon had for Lovecraft, it's difficult to believe "Bleeders" represents their original screenplay too much. I guess that's the difference between getting a Ridley Scott or Paul Verhoven to direct your script versus getting the guy who made "Witchboard III" to direct your script. Having now seen the film, I actually understand exactly why the distributors threw a cheap Halloween decoration on the box to help sell the movie. Despite its strong pedigree, "Bleeders" is a limp mess. It's held back by a weirdly split story structure, unappealing characters, and a general lack of dramatic tension in its execution. Lumpy, formaldehyde-slurping, subterranean hermaphrodites and a boozy Rutger Hauer go a long way but it's not enough to salvage this forgettable feature. [5/10]

Strange Frequency: Soul Man

Owing to shared custody weekends with my dad, and his Carl-like taste in music, I watched a lot of VH1 during 2001. Based on the success of shows like "Behind the Music" and "Storytellers," the network was continuing to drift away from just playing music videos into more music-adjacent programming at that time. They started to produce scripted movies and shows too. Such as "Strange Frequency," which was described as "the rock 'n' roll version of the Twilight Zone." Beginning as a TV film, thirteen half-hour episodes would spawn from the premise. I never watched it at the time but, considering the amount of folklore around the music world, it always struck me as a good idea for an anthology. 

"Soul Man" revolves around Mitch, a much abused roadie for temperamental rock star Jason Armstrong. He also lusts after Nicole, his boss' main squeeze. While looking to replace a broken guitar, Mitch stumbles upon a piece of music written in blood. It's supposedly the last song composed by Jimi Hendrix, on the night he died. Legend has it that playing it successfully can summon the devil. Mitch does so and, afterwards, is approached by a manager from Iscariot Productions. Later that night, Jason injures his hand and Mitch is asked to fill in for him. The resulting concert turns Mitch into a star overnight and wins Nicole's heart. That's when he figures out who his manager actually is. Soon, the shredding roadie is in a contest for his very soul. 

There's no rock legend more persistent than musicians selling their souls to the Devil for talent and success. This might be because signing contracts with record companies already feels like a Faustian bargain. (An observation made many times before, in classics such as "Phantom of the Paradise.") "Soul Man" – a clever title, I'll admit – is a standard take on this premise. After signing with his new manager, Mitch stumbles into success without realizing what he's gotten himself into. However, probably owing to "Strange Frequency's" low budget, the episode can't explore this idea too thoroughly. Mitch goes from his incredible first concert to a moral questioning immediately in the next scene. The only bad thing that happens is Nicole getting pushed aside by a wave of shrieking groupies. The middle act feels like it's missing, the episode heading right into the climax of a "Devil Went Down to Georgia"-style duel. Which is set in the same music store location we saw earlier, one of seemingly three sets in the entire episode. 

The script is rushed. The budget is low. There's a lot of close-ups of someone's fingers rockin' on the guitar, while the actor's faces appear in a totally different shot. Despite its obvious flaws, I still kind of liked "Soul Man." Mostly because of its leads. Roger Daltry acts as both the show's host and plays the Devil. Probably because I watched too much "Highlander: The Series" as a kid, I'm abnormally fond of Daltry as an actor. The devil is exactly the kind of hammy role he excels in. He even gets to put on a hick accent in the double role of the music store owner. James Marsters, "Buffy's" Spike, is serviceable enough as Mitch. We only see a little bit of his considerable charm here, stuck in a fairly one-note part. It's also funny that the show so obviously uses a double for the guitar playing scenes, when Marsters is actually a decent guitarist in real life. Maybe I'm nostalgic for pre-9/11 basic cable schlock like this – check out the low-rise jeans the girls wear – but I kind of enjoyed "Soul Man." I would've much preferred VH1 pivot to shit like this than reality TV trash. I hear there's an episode with Eric Roberts as a murderous hippie? Oh sweet Satan, help me resist. [6/10]

The Merry Frolics of Satan (1906)

Les quatre cents farces du diable

French magician turned cinematic pioneer Georges Méliès probably created the first horror film, 1896's “Le Manoir du Diable.” That short was simply about the devil pranking a guy inside a spooky house. Méliès would expand on this theme all throughout his career, the concept reaching perhaps its most ambitious form with 1906's “The Merry Frolics of Satan.” Two gentlemen visit an alchemist, who gives them a pill that he promises can grant any wish they might have. The two men request to travel around the entire world within a few minutes. Little do they know that the alchemist is actually the devil himself. They conjure a magical train that takes them all around Europe but each destination is fraught with misfortune, imps usually appearing to ruin whatever good time the two are attempting to have. After a calamitous journey through the heavens on a carriage pulled by a phantom horse, the devil whisks his victim away to the inferno below where he roasts him over a fire on a rotating spit. 

Méliès made what are often known as “trick shorts,” little films devoted to nothing more than displaying camera tricks and simple contraptions to achieve the earliest possible version of cinematic special effects. This meant they were light on narrative. “The Merry Frolics of Satan,” at 22 minutes long, is among  Méliès' longest works. That doesn't mean it has much more in the way of narrative. This is essentially a series of set pieces, the travelers beset by a new supernatural mishap everywhere they go. Every scene features some loopy slapstick, usually achieve through large paper prop interacting with the actors. This results in scenes of people being knocked about by an enormous telescope or a phantom hand. Or a lengthy sequence of a set of briefcase being unfolded into the miniature train. That stunt is topped later, during a scene where rampaging imps and a pair of monkeys fold up the tables and chairs people are dining on and yanking them away.

There might not be much story here, merely a comedic condensation of the Faustian moral of “Never bargain with the devil.” However, the style is the point with  Méliès' films. The special effects are crude by modern standards. Most of the unusual faces and props are nothing more than elaborate pieces of wood or paper, that fold in on themselves. The trap doors from which objects emerge and disappear are never disguised. In effect, however, it makes for an enchanting visual appearance. Many scenes were colored-in by hand, creating a surreal appearance resembling a child's activity book. Similarly, the playfulness on display is incredibly charming, even 128 years later. The skeleton horse pulling the celestial carriage kicks its feet in the air. Leering faces appear among the stars. Dancing girls do a kick line after our doomed hero arrives in Hell.  Méliès was having so much fun bringing these incredible visuals to life for the first time. He made that clear by casting himself as Satan, the mischievous overseer of all this mayhem. The result is a piece of cinematic magic that still impresses over a century after it was first put to celluloid. [8/10]