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.
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.
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]
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.
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" 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 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.
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.
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