Halloween 2024: October 12th

The Fan (1982)

Der Fan

It says a lot about the state of things in 2024 that many people have unironically adopted the term “stan” – from a song about a serious case of erotomania that ends with a murder-suicide – to refer to themselves. The internet unendingly accelerating every aspect of our lives has made individuals basing their entire fucking personality around their favorite singer or celeb a not atypical sight. Everyone broadcasting all their thoughts 24/7 via social media has made this behavior more visible. A new strata of quasi-celebrity “content creators” who depend on forging parasocial bonds with their followers has only increased disturbing hyper-fixations such as these. It's nothing new though, as the countless stories of celebrity stalkers since the beginning of time make clear. The push and pull between stars and their adoring public has always been a fertile ground for fiction. Eckhart Schmidt's “The Fan” – usually referred to as “Der Fan,” to help distinguish it from the several other movies with that title –  was overlooked and obscure for years. However, fancy Blu-Ray releases and revival screenings have pushed the German movie back into the critical consensus, making this “Fan” a certified cult classic. 

Simone is a disaffected teenage girl living in West Germany. She fights with her parents, skips school, and avoids eating. The only thing in life that matters to her is R., a pop singer that she adores. She writes letters to him daily, listens to his music endlessly, plasters the wall of her room with his pictures, and fantasizes about him non-stop. Eventually, upon hearing R. will be in Munich to record a television appearance, she hitchhikes to the city. Upon meeting him in person outside the studio, Simone faints from excitement. This intrigues the pop star and he invites the teenage girl into his entourage. He thinks Simone is another groupie that he can use and discard. He doesn't know that the girl is in love with him. Nor how dangerous she is.

“Der Fan” is, in some ways, the spitting image of a stereotypical, humorless German art movie. Bernd Heint's cinematography is cold and distant, Simone often appearing as a silent image in the wider tableau of cramped interiors. Notably, the script – which Schmidt adapted from his own novel – does not probe too deeply into the girl's mind. We never learn why she is so lonely that she begins to obsess completely over a pasty, blank-faced Gary Numan wannabe. It's hinted that she has a rough relationship with her parents, getting into a fight with her dad after he changes the channel from one of R.'s music videos. She has no friends in school but boys like her, attention that she rejects. Despite the lack of insight into Simone's psyche, “Der Fan” envelopes us completely in her sad, lonely world. She writes letters in her head to R. constantly, the voiceover playing across many scenes. She kisses the life-sized poster of him she's assembled on his wall. She contemplates suicide when her fan letters go unanswered. The hows and whys of her obsession are less important than the details, the frosty isolation that infects every corner of her world. 

The reason Simone's lonely existence is so compelling is largely thanks to Désirée Nosbusch's performance. She doesn't say much but her face speaks volume. Her wide, expressive eyes are infinite pools in which we can read sadness and an obsessive kind of devotion. Her body language is fragile and delicate, yet precise. The way she reclines and stretches, in a succession of form-fitting and shoulder-padded outfits, brings to mind a ballerina, a wilting flower, but also a venomous spider about to spring. Does she reject other men because she only has eyes for R.? Or is there some trauma in her past we can only speculate about? Either way, she is an endlessly compelling figure. One of the most striking images in the film takes the camera right inside her mouth, a sign of how sucked into her world we are at this point. All the heartbreak and emotion is in her face, the way she holds herself, as we move towards a sickening climax. 

Because, of course, we know what's going to happen when she meets R. The best case scenario is the pop star ignores her, causing the girl to have a mental breakdown. What ends up happening is far worst, the adult lothario taking notice of this pretty but definitely underage girl. From the beginning, there's a tension inside “The Fan,” this unavoidable feeling that all of this is going to end very badly. The minute R. makes contact with Simone, that graduates into a full-blown seasick sensation. The New Wave warbler does not have pure intention towards this starstruck girl, as rock stars rarely did towards the young fan girls at their feet. The audience knows that the rock star sees the groupie as a disposable perk of the job, a release valve he can blow the stresses of touring inside of. Simone doesn't understand that, obviously, which is where the film's quickly disturbing tension comes from.  

As bad as we fear it's going to go, what happens is so much more nightmarish. In its last third, “Der Fan” graduates from uncomfortable thriller about fandom obsession into a full-blown, grotesque horror movie. The bloody events that follow play out as a ritualistic activity, few details spared from the viewer. Without any explanation of her motives, everything Simone does makes perfect sense. She finds a way to be with R. forever, while shedding the image of herself she had created up to that point. The icy visuals, when combined with stylized eroticism and gory special effects, create an absolutely chilling finale that leaves the viewer stunned. That's before a gut punch of a final line. There's only so much one can say about the ending without ruining it. Needless to say, this is a slow burn horror film that certainly doesn't snuff out suddenly but escalates to a sickening wild fire. 

There's so much more to say about “Der Fan.” Simone's rejection of affection from other men in favor of the put-on-a-pedestal perfection she ascribes R. is a sign of a youth eager to escape the systems of control found in modern society. When the rock star turns out to be another symptom of that same system, she unsurprisingly freaks the fuck out. An early shot contrasts a photo of a crowd of people doing the Nazi salute with a poster of R. His band symbol, that Simone decorates herself with, are two stylized lightning bolts that resemble the S.S. insignia. Is Simone's blind devotion to her pop idol a commentary on how easily swayed to fascism people are? The robotic, inhuman perfection projected by so many New Wave acts do, in a sideways sense, reflect Übermensch imagery. The slowly churning soundtrack – made up of synth music from Rheingold, whose lead singer plays R. – further establishes a mood of freezing discomfort. Perhaps I'm not German enough to understand all that stuff. What I do know is that “Der Fan” contains a brilliant central performance, is orchestrated to create maximum anxiety in the viewer, and has a gobsmacking finale that I won't soon forget. I can already tell that this is a movie I'm going to be thinking about a lot in the days to come. [9/10]

Dear Dead Delilah (1972)

If you read Grady Hendrix's indispensable history of the eighties horror literature boom “Paperbacks from Hell,” you might be familiar with the name John Farris. If you're already an aficionado of written words designed to frighten, you probably already know that Farris is a perpetually underrated talent. Farris had his fair share of success, including a few brushes with the mainstream via film adaptations. The most well known of which is Brian DePalma's version of “The Fury.” That wasn't Farris' first encounter with celluloid though. In fact, the author took a hack at directing himself in 1972. “Dear Dead Delilah” would trade in the Southern Gothic tropes that Farris thoroughly explored in his writing, while being the somewhat inglorious final on-screen appearance of Agnes Moorehead. That factoid is what has drawn the film whatever minor attention it's gotten over the years. 

In 1943, in the backwoods of Nashville, a pregnant woman named Luddy would hack her mother to death with an axe. Two and a half decades pass before Luddy is released from a mental institute. A chance encounter has Luddy being hired as a caretaker for Delilah Charles, the wheelchair-bound matriarch of the squabbling Charles clan. Delilah has invited what remains of her bloodline – niece Ellen, junkie brother Alonzo, broke brother Morgan, sister Grace, and Ellen and Morgan's partners – to the decaying family estate. She announces that her passing is imminent and that no one will inherit the house. However, she has hidden 600,000 dollars – money her late father made from selling his race horses – somewhere on the plantation grounds. The infighting increases and it's not long before someone starts chopping people up with an axe. Has Luddy's murderous nature resurfaced or is the Charles brood knocking each other off? 

I don't know how John Farris ended up trying his hand at directing with “Dear Dead Delilah.” He wrote the script too. That makes me wonder if a director dropped out at the last minute, forcing the author to get behind the camera for the first time. This is also, notably, Farris' only credit as a director. It's not too difficult to see why the writer wouldn't make a second feature. Instead of a grand old gothic thriller like “Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte” or “The Spiral Staircase,” the film most resembles a television soap opera. “Dear Dead Delilah” is a uniformly bland looking motion picture. The movie is full of scenes of people standing in rooms, having long conversations. The camera apathetically cuts between them in medium shots, the cinematography doing little to distinguish a setting that should be atmosphere. Long stretches are without music, though the score that does appear is utterly forgettable. “Dear Dead Delilah” carries this made-for-TV feeling through to the end, where the actor's faces appear next to their names in the credits, in a way that recalls a television outro than a typical theatrical film. 

The resemblance to a soap opera doesn't end at the visual presentation either. Plot-wise, “Dear Dead Delilah” feels a lot like a melodramatic television serial. The story is devoted largely to the family members bickering among themselves. The script is full of red herrings, each of the Charleses having good reason to knock each other off. However, the movie foreshadows far in advance who the actual murderer is. It's most assuredly not Luddy. Despite the elderly caretaker always ending up at the site of the killings, sometimes holding a bloody axe, it is immediately apparent that she's being set up to take a fall for someone else. This is a good example of how thinly developed the characters are. Delilah is a hateful old biddy. Morgan is a greedy schemer, his girlfriend Buffy a brainless bimbo, the addict brother defined by nothing but his habit. The bickering is often and not distinct, the characters never proving likable or all that memorable. Naturally, this means the viewer is not all that preoccupied with who lives, who dies, and who is swinging the axe.

As a horror movie, “Dear Dead Delilah” is positioned at an interesting time in the genre. The Southern Gothic setting and the presence of an old guard icon like Moorehead recalls the hag horror thrillers that were somehow still popping up in the early seventies. The exploitation title has the same verve to it as “Baby Jane,” “Auntie Roo,” and countless others. Scenes where Delilah has hallucinations of her dead father or Luddy's slipping sanity certainly fit right in with these grotesque melodramas. However, since the plot is devoted to a large group of characters slowly being killed off, the film is something of an early slasher movie too. If you go in expecting a gore-fest, “Dear Dead Delilah” is likely to disappointed. There's a well done horseback decapitation. The finale features a surprisingly well done shotgun blast to the face. However, packing most of the carnage into the last half-hour gives a definite feeling of too little, too late. 

A clearly exhausted Moorehead hams it up but not enough to make Delilah anything more than a bitchy stereotype. Despite ostensibly being the story's protagonist, Patricia Carmichael as Luddy gives a broad and cartoonish performance. Michael Ansara provides some campy fun as the greediest brother while Robert Gentry – notably, most well known as a soap opera star – has some slimy charisma as the niece's lover. There's an amusingly silly shot of an empty wheelchair rolling out of a mausoleum. “Dear Dead Delilah” needed more ridiculous moments like that if it truly hoped to entertain more often throughout its ninety minute runtime. If you want to see an aging actress swing an axe, watch “Strait-Jacket.” If decapitations in an old building amid relatives arguing over inheritance is your thing, check out “Dementia 13.” And if you're hoping to get into John Farris, read “All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By.” Lurid title and bizarre poster art aside, “Dear Dead Delilah” doesn't have much to offer that hasn't been done better in other sources. [5/10]

Pet Shop of Horrors: Despair

Anime is so accessible today. Hundreds of series are available at your fingertips. When I first became interested in Japanese animation, you had to rely on whatever your local Suncoast had in-stock. A title that was seemingly always on the shelf was "Pet Shop of Horrors." Based on a long-running manga, the series revolves around Count D, the mysterious and androgynous owner of a Chinatown pet shop. He sells his frequently heartbroken customers mythical animals, usually in the form of humans. The buyers always break the rules Count D lays down for the creatures, leading to their own destruction. Though "Pet Shop of Horrors'" title always stuck out to me, I never actually watched the series. Horror anthologies are rare in anime, so given the international theme of my marathon this October, I decided to finally give the OVA a look. 

The most highly regarded of "Pet Shop of Horrors'" four episodes seems to be its third, "Despair." Actor Robin Hendrix became famous for his role in a science fiction blockbuster. However, he was typecast afterwards and has struggled to find further work. After his wife leaves him, he forms an obsession with raising reptiles. While visiting Count D's pet shop, he's sold a very rare creature: A beautiful, blindfolded woman from the waist up but a serpent from the waist down. Robin names her Medusa and soon becomes committed to the silent, alluring serpent. He is warned to never remove her blindfold but, after fumbling a high-profile audition, that's exactly what he does...

Every episode of "Pet Shop of Horrors" follows a formula. Count D's customers are always heartbroken in some way. The "pets" he sells are always human versions of mythological beasts and act as symbols of their owners' strife. Inevitably, the buyers violate the rules Count D provides and doom themselves. In the first episode, it's a pair of grieving parents who spoiled their drug addict daughter to death. In the second, it's the manager of a pop star who recently committed suicide, due to a love triangle. In the fourth, it's an up-and-coming politician and his advisor, a childhood best friend whose fate he's intertwined with. And in "Despair," it's a fading pretty boy actor. The melodrama around each protagonists' lives, and how the mythical beasts they've acquired ties into it, is always meticulously explained. Despite the brief twenty-two minute runtimes of each episode, the backstories are rarely left unelaborated on. The ironic fates their new "pets" send them towards are telegraphed far in advance, with Count D and the clueless detective investigating him often discussing the story's themes during lengthy denouncements. 

The result is a slow-paced, melodramatic series that holds few surprises. The maudlin, smooth jazz score doesn't help the pacing problems. Nor does the stiff animation and gangly, bishonen character designs. This means the show's attempts at horror are often ineffective, veering more towards weepy tragedy than macabre terror. This is also true of "Despair," Robin's obsession with his Medusa playing out more as a doomed romance than an inevitable nightmare. The episode treats their mutual destruction – revealed in the first scene, as "Despair" plays out largely in flashback – as something of a noble end for them both. 

Despite its dragging execution and underwhelming horrors, "Despair" is the best episode of "Pet Shop of Horrors." It's not as choked by melodrama as the other three, Robin coming off as somewhat likable. The finale ruminates on how stars that are considered washed-up often have their legacies secured by tragic ends, a frequently true observation about fame. Robin Hendrix's reevaluation starts at his funeral, a phenomena we observed with Michael Jackson and Paul Walker. As far as Medusas go, this one favors beauty over fear. Yet the sad monster element did appeal to me some, more so than the overcooked entanglements of the other three. The small cult following of "Pet Shop of Horrors" revolves more around the homoerotic rivalry between the effeminate Count D and the macho, blustering – but still very pretty – detective than the monster stuff. (If you're curious, the other creatures featured in the series are a flesh-eating mermaid with a siren song, a kirin that grants political power at a terrible price, and a weird rabbit girl named Alice.) The show's formulaic and heavy-handed writing, mediocre animation, and total lack of chills and thrills makes it hard to recommend. [5/10]

The Addams Family: Lurch, the Teenage Idol

Gomez and Morticia notice that Lurch hums along while playing his harpsichord, finding the melody catchy. Gomez decides to call up a record exec, who immediately loves Lurch's grumbling song. They sign to a contract and, overnight, Lurch becomes a sensation. His song is so popular that a crowd of fans gather outside the Addams mansion and the record company decide to send him on a world tour. However, this means Lurch is neglecting his butler duties, annoying the rest of the family. 

This show has managed to squeeze a surprising amount of comedy out of Lurch's dismayed moaning and corpse-like demeanor. Having the monosyllabic butler become a pop star is obviously meant to further contrast with his Frankensteinian behavior. Ted Cassidy manages to make Lurch simply cracking a weird smile, either while posing for a portrait or greeting his horde of fans, amusing. Naturally, the butler gets a bit of a swollen head about him following his newfound fame, though only Uncle Fester seems genuinely angry about their lack of service. The episode can never quite build this into a complete arc though. The last third involves a sudden case of laryngitis for the manservant-turned-crooner, a desperate bit of drama. Lurch's dilemma between his duty to the Addams and his sudden stardom is resolved abruptly. 

Despite a rushed ending and a somewhat shapeless form, "Lurch the Teenage Idol" is still amusing. Shrieking, fainting fans allow for decent set-ups. Props – like a golf ball, a boiling cauldron of newt soup, and Granmama's stick pin – pay off well enough. Probably the cutest moment has Gomez marking a spot on his wife's arm, so he can pick back up there later, or Wednesday doing the Watusi to Lurch's beat. The Beatles, Freddie and the Dreamers and (fittingly) the Zombies are all referenced, making it clear that this episode was a somewhat backhanded but ultimately harmless response to the British Invasion. Lurch's mumbling being compared to the folk movement is probably more insulting. Still, this episode is probably a little funnier than "The Munsters'" take on a similar premise. And if you don't know, there was an attempt to turn Lurch into a pop star in real life too, though it didn't resemble his in-universe song much. [7/10]