CHUCK'S ROUNDHOUSE: Invasion U.S.A. (1985)

There are, interestingly enough, two different movies entitled "Invasion U.S.A." Both are about forces from Communist countries attempting a mass attack on the United States. The first is a terse melodrama from 1952, that depicts this situation as an all-too-possible hypothetical that Americans must be vigilant to guard against. The second "Invasion U.S.A.," on the other hand, is an exaggerated action movie from 1985 in which one super-tough, all-American bad-ass is nearly enough to defeat the Communist forces single-handedly. The contrast says a lot about the difference in how America was feeling about itself in the two eras. In the fifties, shortly after the end of World War II, atomic bombardment and invasion by Soviet forces was horrifyingly plausible. Knee-deep in the Reagan era, America was secure in its position as a superpower and extremely confident that its hyper-macho strength was more than enough to repel any challengers. Both films are propaganda but with pointedly different reactions expected from the viewer. Let's delve into the latter some more, as the 1952 film has a distressing lack of high kicks in it. 

After gunning down a raft of Cuban refugees, a Soviet-backed guerilla named Rostov arrives in Florida. He trades smuggled drugs for heavy artillery, with which he arms a small army of Russian, Latin American, and Asian solders. Rostov's forces begin a full-scale campaign of terror against the Southern United States, annihilating a suburban town and attacking crowded public spaces. While Rostov hopes to dismantled democracy, his scheme has another purpose: To find and destroy his old arch-nemesis, CIA agent Matt Hunter. Hunter, having already lost his best friend and gator farm to the terrorists, personally takes on the invading army. As chaos breaks out throughout the country, only his twin Uzis, indestructible pick-up truck, and extremely tight blue jeans may be enough to stop the violence. 

Norris and his brother, Aaron, would conceive "Invasion U.S.A.'s" screenplay with "Missing in Action" and "An Eye for an Eye" co-writer, James Bruner. It was the first of six films the star would make under a newly minted contract with the Cannon Film Group, commanding the biggest budget of his career. (Two million of which went to Chuck himself.) If any of Norris' eighties films can be said to have emerged directly from his mind, it's this one. The story was inspired by Norris' own fears that America was vulnerable to terrorist attacks backed by hostile superpowers. The villains in "Invasion U.S.A." do not represent a merely tactical threat to this country. They dress as cops and gun down Latin-American businesses, with the intended goal of turning Americans against the police and each other. We hear off-screen mentions of race riots and wide-spread chaos breaking out as a result, martial law being put into effect. These Red Commie Bastards are not only attacking America's infrastructure but attempting to destroy the ideas that build this country as well. 

This is evident in the movie's most histrionic sequences. The villains strike in common places, targeting families and children. They blow up a peaceful suburb and we see children injured in the aftermath. Key sequences have them attempting to destroy a church full of praying Christians and a school bus packed with singing kids. The film is set around Christmas, carols and festive decorations contrasting with the mass violence that ensues. This is done not only because it means shopping malls are full of shoppers but also to demoralize us by destroying a holly, jolly celebration. The terrorists – who are depicted as Soviet, foreign, and directly involved in drug and sex trafficking – in "Invasion U.S.A." are an existential threat to American identity. An identity which is pointedly Christian, capitalistic and submissive to authority. (And, to give Chuck and his team some credit, multiracial. Though the bad guys also being made up of different skin colors, and the local Latin community being so easily invited towards violence, kind of muddies any intentional message there.) "Invasion U.S.A." directly reflects the paranoid, right-wing viewpoint of its leading man, in which innocent red-bloodied Americans who only want to shop and pray to Jesus are under threat by Marxist lunatics determined to undermine everything we hold dear. 

Many people believe these things utterly sincerely, now as then. However, it is difficult to take “Invasion U.S.A.” too seriously. Part of this is because of budgetary restraint. Golan and Globus spent twelve million dollars on the film, quite a lot by Cannon standards. You can certainly see that money up on the screen. The final act features an entire fleet of tanks clogging the streets of Atlanta. When the explosion arrive, they usually of an impressively massive size. At the same time, this siege still seems rather quint by international standards. This is less an invasion of the entire United States than it is several parts of Florida and Georgia. The only credits play out over Chuck sailing across the Everglades in an air boat, his glorious locks blowing in the breeze. This clarifies early on that, by “U.S.A.,” the title is referring more to the rural corners of this country, rather than the centers of its economic and political power. The final battle takes place mostly inside a non-descriptive office building, with some bloody squabbling on the street below. In many regards, “Invasion U.S.A.” got a proper amount of bang for the buck expended. At the same time, the film's scope falls far short of what it is clearly meaning to intend. 

The other reason one can laugh at such blatant, fairly unhinged propaganda is the degree of ridiculousness that infest every aspect of it. Joseph Zito is back in the director's chair again, after “Missing in Action,” and he indulges in even more orgiastic displays of pyrotechnics. The suburban neighborhood and shopping malls were real locations about to be demolished and refurbished, meaning the production team were allowed to truly blow them up. The fireballs are massive, the debris tossed into the air generous, the flames consuming a helicopter and multiple embankments. One notable blasts has a burst of flame coming through a wall and right at the viewer. Every time Chuck fires his machine guns, there's a spray of bullets, sparks, and bloody squibs. At one point, he blows through an entire wall with some bullets. Lots of stuntmen earned their pay by tumbling through the air. Multiple car chases and crashes ensue, the camera often attached right to the sides of the careening vehicles and proudly displaying the twisted wreckage hurdling towards us. The film's mayhem is so excessive that it leaves reality far behind, rising to a level of cartoonish carnage. 

What truly makes “Invasion U.S.A.” a display of delirious camp is Mr. Norris himself. His previous heroes usually had romantic subplots or family members to add some degree of humanity to him. “Code of Silence” and “Missing in Action 2” both showed the star playing fallible men capable of being injured and humbled. Not so in “Invasion U.S.A.” Matt Hunter wears skin-tight denim that often leaves his chest hair fully displayed but it seems to be the most effective armor of all. He rarely has to reload his firearms. Not that he needs guns, as his equally impervious pick-up truck smashes through enemies on multiple occurrences. At two separate points, the film seemingly depicts Hunter as able to teleport, disappearing from the enemy's line-of-sight and reappearing on the opposite of them. Chuck is never anything but a steely-eyed murder machine here, croaking incredibly goofy one-liners like “I'll hit you with some many rights you'll be begging for a left.” He doesn't even kick people that often, though when he does the film treats it as a visual punchline. He's more brutal than Braddock and more of a Lone Wolf than J.J. McQuade. 

Some token attempt is made to provide Matt Hunter with identifiable human emotions. He banters with his alligator hunter friend for two scenes before he's killed. He gets annoyed with the CIA recruiter who reaches out to him and occasionally expresses grief over the senseless destruction he witnesses. Melissa Prophet appears as the reporter who seemingly follows Hunter from action scene to action, a character that would be a love interest in a less insane movie but merely bugs him here. (Chuck wanted Whoopi Goldberg to play this part and was so annoyed that Zito wouldn't cast her that he refused to work with the director ever again.) Instead, the only truly meaningful relationship Hunter seems to have with anyone is with Rostov. The promise Hunter made to him that it's 'time to death” is repeated over and over, like an echo the two men can't escape. The guys are so obsessed with destroying each other that it seems to drive them more than any political ideology. Destroying capitalism is a bonus for Rostov and saving America is a side gig for Hunter on the way to finishing the business he started. If Norris' performance is one of steely faced, macho determination, Richard Lynch plays the villain as a wide-eyed, teeth-gritting lunatic. 

The mere thought of Hunter is enough to drive the already unhinged Rostov to uncontrollable acts of violence. Such as slamming a coke sniffing straw into a woman's nose before throwing her out a window or shooting Billy Drago in the dick. Upon dictating that Hunter is in the same room as him, Rostov begins blasting wildly and erratically with a machine gun. It's as if he has no control over his passions. Neither Rostov nor Hunter have any interest in the women. When they finally prepare for their final confrontation, Hunter extends a phallic rocket launcher and Rostov's raging face seemingly shows a moment of satisfaction. That is before exploding in an orgasmic fireball, body parts fluttering out a window as the smoke and flames fade. And then “Invasion U.S.A.” abruptly ends, its purpose complete. 

In other words, “Invasion U.S.A.” is a film that one can either dismiss as totally brain-dead nonsense, vulgar popular propaganda with little redeeming value, or action entertainment so absurd as to become ecstatic. If “Missing in Action” was Chuck Norris' “Rambo” moment, then this is his “Commando” moment, playing a practically amoral ubermensch that slaughters a tidal wave of thugs on the way to dispatching his homoerotically obsessed nemesis. It's not as brilliant as that camp masterpiece, because Norris only has a fraction of the charisma of Arnold. However, it is a hysterically goofy piece of excessive explosion cheese that must be treasured by fans of things such as these. Norris would later say he regretted the movie a bit, finding it a little excessive for his taste. Cannon would try to make a sequel, recasting Matt Hunter with Michael Dudikoff and basically making an unrelated film. It's not Chuck's best movie but it is one of his most ludicrous and that itself is an achievement. [8/10]

[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 4 outta 5]
[X] Facial Hair
[X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup*

*The female lead repeatedly refers to Chuck as “cowboy” but only the oversized belt buckle screams giddy-up to me. 

Director Report Card: Danny Boyle (1996)

 

4. Trainspotting

 

In at least one interview, Danny Boyle has described himself as a punk when he was a kid, which greatly informed the kind of stories he'd go on to tell. I have no idea how insular or wide-ranging the Scottish punk scene is but it produced another notable luminary. Irvine Welsh played in bands with names like The Pubic Lice and Stairway 13 before some run-ins with the law had him changing his way. He published his first novel in 1993, a non-linear collection of episodic incident in the lives of Scottish heroin addicts called “Trainspotting.” Andrew Macdonald read the book shortly after publication. Coming right off the success of “Shallow Grave,” he quickly lined it up as the next project for Boyle and John Hodge. Welsh and Boyle had complimentary sensibilities, it turned out. “Trainspotting” would become an even bigger critical and commercial success than the director's previous film.

In the Scottish city of Leith resides Mark Renton, a full-time drug addict and part-time petty thief who steals entirely to support his heroin habit. He calls a group of junkies and lunatics his only friends: The strangely suave but didactic Sick Boy, the child-like fool Spud, the violent and unpredictable Begbie, and the straight-laced Tommy. What follows is a series of attempts by Renton to kick his addiction, none of which prove especially successful. Renton's misadventures – which includes accidentally romancing a school girl – are soon interrupted by death, a run-in with the law, a nearly fatal overdoes, and a HIV scare. After finally getting clean, Renton ends up reunited with his old pack of pals to orchestrate a drug deal that could change all their lives.

If you're an obsessive film nerd in your thirties, you probably started getting into movies in the 2000s. That's right about when “Trainspotting” cult following burned its brightest. If you were inside a dorm room between the years 2000 and 2011, you probably saw the “Choose life!” poster on a wall or two. It's not too difficult to dictate why this motion picture was popular among the same crowd that sang the praises of “A Clockwork Orange,” the films of Quentin Tarantino, “Donnie Darko,” “The Boondock Saints,” and the like. Most of the characters in “Trainspotting” are well into their twenties and thirties but, narratively, the film still functions as a coming-of-age story. Renton is a self-obsessed man-child, held in a state of arrested development by his drug dependency. He quite literally lives with his parents for long stretches of the film. The title – left unexplained in the film – refers to the kind of niche hobby mostly practiced by unemployed men with a lot of free time on their hands. He begins the film dismissing the merits of maturity before coming around to embrace it at the end. Through the course of the story, he overcomes his addiction and grows up, which includes leaving behind his band of friends. That's a universal story and one that a lot of movie-watching twenty-somethings would relate to... 

But the so-called “Film Bro” crowd probably more responded to the litany of bad behavior the gang gets into. Upon release, some critics dismissed “Trainspotting” as another indie art house flick that was simply trying to be transgressive as possible. It's a somewhat understandable instinct. Obviously, this is a movie about drug addiction but it does not approach heroin only as a life-destroying disease. Instead of operating as a dour moral lesson on why you shouldn't do drugs, it also acknowledge that, ya know, doing heroin feels nice. That's why addicts start using in the first place, something Renton acknowledges in dialogue. That's far from the only streak of antisocial behavior in a movie spattered with human excrement, random acts of extreme violence, homemade pornography, accidentally becoming a statutory rapist, a dead baby, and shooting a dog in the balls with a B.B. gun. Dismissing “Trainspotting” as only a shock value movie is ridiculously short-sighted but I do think the movie is trying to provoke a reaction a number of times. 

There's no denying that “Trainspotting” is a grimy film. It does feature the nastiest bathroom ever put to celluloid. There are close-ups of needles going into arms and detailed depictions of how heroin is cooked and injected. The squalor of a junkie's den is on-screen multiple times. However, “Trainspotting” never wastes time moralizing about its topic. Addiction informs every minute of the film yet “Trainspotting” is not that concerned with the psychology of drug abuse, about the complicated economic and social factors that push someone to use junk. It's an extremely cruel statement to say that drug addicts use because they are selfish... Mark Renton is selfish though. “Trainspotting” is, in many ways, a movie about the main character repeatedly abusing himself and those around him. He steals a home-made sex tape of Tommy and his girlfriend, directly leading to the relationship falling apart. In his despair, when Tommy asks to try heroin, Renton provides it. He steals, he lets friends take the fall for him, he does pointedly bad things for little to no reason. The main thesis of the character is summed up during a moment where he clarifies that he cooked up some horse for a friend but only after making himself a needle full first. “Trainspotting” pointedly avoids making any grand statements about addiction or drugs. It certainly acknowledges that different people do drugs for many different reasons. The film doesn't say that drug abuse is selfish but it does suggest that drug abuse makes selfish people far more selfish. 

Alright, if Mark Renton is such an asshole, then why do we like him? There's a few reasons why but the primary one is that Irvin Walsh's prose – from which “Trainspotting: The Movie” draws a good deal of its memorable lines – is so invigorating. The “Choose Life” monologue became iconic for a reason. It's a poetic chunk of dialogue that flows almost like music, book-ending the film and reprised like a song's chorus. The thick Scottish brogues all throughout – sometimes they are so thick that it becomes almost impossible to understand what is being said – certainly go a long way towards making the dialogue sounds especially musical. The dialogue is stylized, with winding discussion about Sean Connery era James Bond movies or a drug deal being described as a restaurant order. It all has such a viable spark to it, an energy that propels the entire motion picture and is impossible for the audience to resist. 

That kind of cinematic dynamism is present in almost every aspect of the movie, largely because Danny Boyle and his team make sure of it. Much like his theatrical debut, the director makes sure “Trainspotting” hits the ground running. Rather literally, as the opening scene involves the protagonists running through the streets to the tune of Iggy Pop. An utterly hip soundtrack of classic pre-punk and electronic dance music propels nearly the entire film, giving it that youthful buzz that probably isn't dissimilar to a drug high of some sort. Masahiro Hirakubo's editing is fast-paced and kinetic, often scored to the musical choices. Brian Tufano's cinematography often approaches scenes from uncommon angles, further adding to the punk rock electricity that is evident all throughout. Part of why “Trainspotting” has attracted the cult following it has is exactly because it has such a powerful youthful drive from the opening minutes.

That kind of dynamite sense of movement was present in “Shallow Grave,” where it was often contrasted with distinctive architectural touches and perfectly composed frames. The director doubles down on this approach here. Individual shots in “Trainspotting” are works of art. Renton running below an apartment building painted in multiple bright shades or standing outside the Volcano nightclub with Diane show flashes of colors in the grey, industrial sprawl of the urban setting. This is contrasted, in an important sequence, with the width and flatness of the green Scottish countryside. That kind of vastness is apparent even within the tight interiors of the film, a kitten sitting alone on an apartment floor having the same sense of stillness as the other images in the movie. 

Being a movie about drug addicts that barely function within polite society also gives Boyle and his team permission to go on several elaborate flights of fancy. The first of which occurs early-on in “Trainspotting,” when Renton notoriously dives into the worst toilet in Scotland to retrieve some opium suppositories from an expansive ocean within. Up to that point, “Trainspotting” exists in mostly realistic setting up to that point, making this first imaginative burst totally unexpected. This opens the movie up to feature further unexpected bits of visual playfulness. Such as Renton's overdose being brilliantly portrayed by him actually sinking into the floor, the audience granted his perspective from within the ground multiple times. These are not merely examples of the filmmakers flexing their muscles to show off the quirky and cool visuals they can pull off. They also put us directly into the headspace of the characters, capturing feelings that can easily be expressed on the page on the big screen instead. 

These elaborate fantasy sequences are not only used to capture drug-fueled feelings of weightlessness. “Trainspotting” also features one of the more unnerving sequences I've seen outside of a horror movie before. Scored against a thumping electronic soundtrack, that goes a long way of elevating the sense of nervous unease, the audience suffers through Renton's detox fever dreams alongside him. A single bedroom becomes a prison, Renton screaming and raving against helpless messages from friends that can't reach him. This cuts back to a game show, previously defined as the ultimate example of banality (a comparison Boyle previously made in “Shallow Grave” too) that has become reflective of Renton's fears and anxieties. All the while, a dead infant – looking and moving like an awkward puppet and all the more uncanny because of it – crawls closer and closer. It's a moment that makes me squirm in the worst way, another example of how masterfully assembled “Trainspotting” is.

Sealing “Trainspotting's” status as a modern classic are a collection of unforgettable performances. Ewan McGregor makes this shit look easy as Renton, embodying the physical squalor the character lives in. Yet McGregor is uniquely gifted in making the rambling, musical inner monologue come across as especially engrossing and unforgettable. His charm goes a long way towards making us like a character that is otherwise despicable in a natural and sympathetic manner. Jonny Lee Miller makes meandering diatribes about the James Bond franchise surprisingly engrossing, displaying a kind of easy-going charm that still can't overcome the character's obvious unseemly side. Robert Carlyle is a terrifying, raging force of violence and intimidating that still seems like an actual human being that could exist. Ewen Bremner's unforgettable physicality as Spud defines the squirrely, off-beat character. If there's any flaw in “Trainspotting,” it's that the role of women are downplayed in a disappointing way. Kelly MacDonald as Diane has an immediate magnetism that demands your attention but the character never comes to life. 

But let's go back to that scene of Renton and the gang on the Scottish moors, gasping for breath when they are being prompted to bask in the natural beauty of it all. In this scene, Renton dispels any scene of pride in his own nationality. It proceeds the characters deciding to give up on going clean and getting back on heroin. I'm not Scottish, obviously, and have hopefully made it apparent by now that I'm woefully ignorant of what makes up the Scottish national identity. However, this moment certainly does seem significant. Is “Trainspotting” a contemplation on the Scottish state of being, some sort of commentary on life in the country during the drug-fueled eighties? Perhaps. Or maybe the overwhelming Scottishness of the cast, crew, and authorial voice simply makes it reflection of intrinsically Scottish ideas. Being something like the unloved middle child of the British Isles reflects in a national identity full of self-loathing and self-destruction. Or maybe it's like that everywhere. 
 

All of which is to say that “Trainspotting's” reputation as a film school favorite is largely entirely justified. It is still a powerful piece of filmmaking, propelled by a cinematic energy that is difficult denied. The script is sharp, darkly hilarious, endlessly clever, and a keen observation on human behavior. The performances are an incredible display of talent from all involved. The soundtrack is pretty damn great and the movie chugs along with an infectious drive that is equal parts grimy and intoxicating. I've never done heroin and, from what I've read, it's a high better described as euphoric and dream-like. “Trainspotting” isn't like that at all. It's a jolt, somehow still feeling fresh and exciting nearly thirty years after it was released. [Grade: A]

Director Report Card: Danny Boyle (1994)

3. Shallow Grave

Nearly 600 years before, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote “The Pardoner's Tale” as part of an unfinished little project known as “The Canterbury Tales.” The story – of travelers setting out to find Death, uncovering a treasure chest, murdering each other in their greed, and ironically fulfilling their original mission statement – would set in place one of the most timeless morals in all of literature: The love of money is the root of all evil. Countless authors have been inspired by the same premise over the centuries. One such example was John Hodge, a med student from Glasgow with ambitions of becoming a screenwriter. After running into producer Kevin Macdonald at the Edinburgh Film Festival, Hodge whipped up a script called “Shallow Grave.” The manuscript found its way to Danny Boyle, who quickly decided that this was the project that would allow him to make the leap from television to film. Upon release in 1994, “Shallow Grave” would become the highest grossing British-made film of that year, creating the foundations for the careers of its director, its stars, and its screenwriter.

In a spacious flat in Edinburgh lives three young professionals: Journalist Alex, doctor Juliet, and accountant David. They review applicants for a fourth flat mate, almost as a joke, before Juliet is charmed by the mysterious Hugo. Not long after moving in, the others find Hugo dead of a heroin overdose. They also find a large suitcase full of millions of dollars. After much debate, the decision is made to keep the money and split it amongst themselves. David is given the grisly task of dismembering Hugo's body, which is then buried in the woods. Alex and Juliet enjoy their newfound loot, while David grows increasingly paranoid about the money. He's right to be concerned, as a pair of ruthless criminals are on the trail of the cash. It's only a matter of time before the flat mates are found by the crooks, the first of several violent incidents that will tear the three friends apart and see them scheming against each other.

A year before "Shallow Grave" was released, a novel with a similar premise would be published. Scott Smith's "A Simple Plan" also concerns a trio of friends who come across millions of ill-gotten gains, their decision to share the money soon going horribly wrong. I'm not suggesting Hodge and MacDonald were ripping off Smith's book and doubt "Shallow Grave" had much influence on Sam Raimi's film adaptation four years later. Both are variations on the aforementioned themes set forth by Chaucer and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," a likelier inspiration for both. However, Boyle and Raimi's films are connected by a similar approach to the discovered caches of money. In a classic film noir tradition, the millions are treated almost as a cursed artifact, an object that introduces a malignant force into an otherwise functional relationship. David immediately knows the money is bad news and is reluctant to take it. The other two see an opportunity and it's a tempting one. There aren't many among us who wouldn't benefit from a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills to dropping in our laps. Money makes people do insane things and that is where the true power of stories like "Shallow Grave" or "A Simple Plan" lie. It's easy to daydream about suddenly becoming rich but it's just as easy to imagine how badly it can fuck your life up too. They say money changes people and, when combined with shaky secrets and criminal pressures, it's inevitable that this situation will go badly. 

At the same time, the stolen cash is not the Apple in the Garden of Eden, a sudden intrusion of corruption into an otherwise balanced, innocent situation. In another amusing coincidence, "Shallow Grave" would debut at festivals a few months before another program about photogenic young people somehow able to afford an improbably roomy apartment began airing. "Friends" would definitely focus more on the wish fulfilment aspect of the fantasy of being young, attractive, and living in the city with your best pals but "Shallow Graves" feels almost as unlikely at first. I don't know what rent was like in Edinburgh in the nineties but the film's central location strikes modern eyes as absurdly nice for a starter apartment. Would a journalist, an accountant, and a recent med school grad be able to afford such a place? This flat has a loft, for God's sake. That a big bundle of discovered cash is what drives the plot certainly suggests economic pressures are weighing on these three. At the same time, they treat the possibility of a fourth flat mate moving in as a grand jape. The opening montage shows the characters using the interview process more as an opportunity to mock strangers than as a chance to split the bills more evenly.

That's an establishing character moment for another reason too: These three are kind of assholes. All throughout the first act, Juliet ignores incessant phone calls from someone, the suggestion that this is some past romantic partner she's trying to avoid. The three attend a doctor's ball, Alex seeing it as a chance to raise a little hell in public. David is much, much more reserved by the other two bring out his impish side as well. Being young and hot brings with it a certain cockiness. "Shallow Grave" uses that youthful energy to skirt the misbehavior of its protagonists, allowing the film to tactilely acknowledge that these three are jerks without making them horribly unpleasant to be around the whole time. After all, if the main characters where good people, they probably wouldn't chop up a body and dump it in a freshly dug hole somewhere. The knowledge that these three are all ready willing to compromise whatever morals they have, that they mostly see other people as means to an ends, adds to the tension later in the film. 

There's another kind of tension throughout "Shallow Grave," that gives it a little more in-common with its benevolent American sitcom counterpart. The moment we are introduced to our three leads, the question hangs in the air about what kind of relationship they share exactly. There's an evident sexual tension between Alex and Juliet. She teases him by flashing her breast before taking a shower or with an enticing dance at the ball. At the same time, there are suggestions of an attraction between David and Juliet as well, her feminine wiles being used more than once to push him around. It's not only a sense of competition between the men over the sole female in the house. One scene sees Alex lounging about in a dress and make-up, showing his attitude towards his own sexuality and gender is relaxed, at the very least. Alex and David share more than a few intense looks of their own. It quickly becomes apparent that everyone in the house wants to fuck each other, with some more aware – and more willing to use that information to their advantage – than others. If the dead body and bag of money had never shown up, this situation probably would've been more like any messy roommates break-up, with lots of sexual tension and romantic entanglements. That set-up already adds a sense of suspense to the story before things start to get grisly. 

And things certainly do get grisly. Like many glossy thrillers to come out in the nineties, "Shallow Grave" hovers between the realm of Hitcockian suspense and a more blatant form of horror. From early on, the story generates the feeling of a series of chain reactions that will soon spin out of control. Small choices – opening the flat to a fourth roommate, deciding to keep the money, drawing straws to dismember the body – build atop each other until the characters find themselves in a nightmarish situation that they built for themselves with their own greed and selfishness. Tight pacing goes a long way towards making the viewer feel caught up in this cycle too. By the time the criminals have tracked down the three protagonists, terrorizing them in their own home while David lurks ominously in the shadowy loft, "Shallow Grave" has comfortably moved beyond the polite categorization of thriller and into the nastier borders of horror. There are lingering close-ups of bloody saws in the tub, frantic nightmare sequences, and red backlighting right out of a Bava movie. 

The most bracing scene in "Shallow Graves" involves the disposal of the body. The drawing of the straws is fraught with seasick tension as David, the meekest of the trio, gets stuck with doing the nastiest work. While the most graphic violence is kept off-screen, the sound of the saw working through the bones – a high-pitched squeal, like glass on glass – is grosser than any gory effects ever could be. That speaks to the level of technical skill that was put into "Shallow Grave." Boyle was clearly determined to take everything he learned from his years in television and apply it to his big screen debut. He clearly sought out the best collaborators. Nigel Galt, Colin Nicholson, and Paul Conway led the sound department so I'm going to give them credit for creating that distressing sound effect during the burial scene. It's far from the only upsetting folly work on the film. An electric drill boring through a ceiling, a whack on the kneecaps with a crowbar, a knife slicing into a body: All make you cringe, going a long way towards making "Shallow Grave" a far more disturbing picture than it probably would've been otherwise. 

While the film makes a deliberate choice on how much violence it shows you, that doesn't make it a reserved film. The first shot of "Shallow Grave" is a racing close-up of asphalt as the road speeds by. Boyle brings the same kinetic energy to the film that was notable in his later TV work, with energetic editing and a propulsive soundtrack. (Including the solid score from Simon Boswell, though electro band Leftfield contributes the propulsive main title theme.) Cinematographer Brian Tufano fills the movie with constantly surprising shots. A face thrust into a tub of red water makes for a sudden shot. The spiral staircase inside the flat becomes a shadowy, bottomless pit in one sequence. As much as "Shallow Grave" constantly feels like it is moving, there's a scene of stillness and contemplation to many of its shots as well. Colors are used exquisitely throughout, the flat being painted in bold yellows and blues that are increasingly encroached upon by blood reds and ominous darkness. The discovery of Hugo's corpse is accompanied by a shot, carefully lit and colored with a precise depth to it, that recalls classical paintings like "The Death of Chatterton." It's clear that a careful consideration was taken into every shot, every camera movement, every placement in the frame to ensure that the film made as much of an impact on its viewer as possible. 

I feel like someone who knows more about classical art history than myself would have a lot to say about "Shallow Grave." The use of architecture seems significant as well. The building chosen for the exterior shots of the flat makes it look like a medieval tower or prison. While the shape and form of the sets create a casket-like sense of enclosure, hinting at the metaphorical prison the gang will soon be building for themselves before the shit hits the fan. Close doors reoccur throughout the film as a symbol, bringing to mind the final closed door of our lives, the casket lid shutting tight before we go in the ground. Or maybe Boyle and his team were just trying their dumbest to ensure "Shallow Grave" didn't feel like a stage play. Boyle and Hodge got their start in the theater. Considering most of the film takes place in one setting and a few shots position the characters in front of the precisely designed walls, as if we are looking at the actors in stage before a backdrop, the temptation to compare "Shallow Grave" to a stage show is there. Intense editing and carefully constructed visuals ensures that the film never feels stage bound, perhaps a deliberate move by Boyle to prove that he has grown past his theatrical and television roots.

Obviously, a well chosen cast was another element to the film's success. This was only Ewan McGregor's second film credit but he already knows how to get the viewer's attention. There's a mischievous glint in McGregor's face as Alex, the character feeling like an almost fey-like mythical creature dropped into a modern setting. This is further evident in his gender fluidity and the way he repeatedly refers to everything around him as a game. He reduces the gnarly task of cutting up the body to a game of straws. He watches and guffaws at an idiotic game show in another scene. That he insists on goofing around even when things get increasingly grim further shows this aspect of the character. Alex isn't a modern Puck though. Transferring those same aspects into a regular human being reveals a charismatic and energetic troublemaker who is also a borderline sociopath, someone who is happy to screw over anyone if it amuses him and only sees other people as pawns to toy with. 

Not that Alex is alone in manipulating the people around him for his own gains. If "Shallow Grave" is a noir, then Kerry Fox as Juliet is our femme fatale. While not a classical screen bombshell, Fox has an alluring and enticing sexuality to her throughout. Her little smirks or a tilt of a head, a teasing of a sexual availability that is never actually fulfilled, makes her exactly the kind of woman that drives men crazy. Notably, the only time she actually sleeps with anyone is a blatant act of manipulation, drawing attention to the skillful way she is playing the men against each other. Caught between these two manipulators is Christopher Eccleston as the mild mannered, neurotic David. He looks the part with his pale complexion and Herbert West glasses. While Eccleston is excellent as a stiff nerd pulled around by two schemers, he is less convincing as someone who snaps and becomes a brutal killer. That represents the weakest aspect of "Shallow Grave." I never quite buy the character's transformation. It's as if the act of slicing up one body is enough to break his mind totally. It plays like a narrative shortcut, to ramp up the tension for the final act, and is one of the few artificial moves in a script that is otherwise very natural feeling. 

Considering the nineties was a boom period for classy thrillers and indie cinema, "Shallow Grave" came along at just the right time. The film was successful in theaters but would reach its true audience on video and cable television. That's where I first saw it and I imagine that's true for a lot of people. It's the kind of film with a premise that invites humble expectations, which makes it all the more impressive when it ends up punching far above its weight class. I think certain elements of the film hold up better than others. The cast works fantastically, the script is sharp, and the director brings an astonishing amount of style to the execution. I do wish some of the dramatic changes in the second half were a little less sudden. Nevertheless, "Shallow Grave" still leaves the viewer with the right kind of morbid brain rush today as it did when brand new. [Grade: A-]

Director Report Card: James Wan (2007) - Part One

2. Dead Silence

“Saw” generated a lot of buzz at the Sundance Film Festival, packing a theater full three nights in a row. After Lions Gate picked it up, James Wan and Leigh Whannell's agents insisted they have another production ready to go before “Saw” hit theaters. The idea being, if their debut flopped, they would already have their second chance in the pot. It was sound advice but Wan and Whannell were burnt-out from “Saw's” speedy production. Nevertheless, the duo put their heads together and pitched a haunted ventriloquist dummy movie to Universal. Wan must have sensed that “Saw's” hyper-violent reputation was already building infamy and was the kind of thing that could easily derail his career. He hoped a moody ghost story would prove his versatility. Unfortunately, the studio demanded rewrites and eventually brought in script doctors to tinker with Whannell's script. After cycling through several clunky working titles – “Shhhh...,” “Mary Shaw,” “The Doll” – and the film would be released as “Dead Silence.” It was not especially well received, commercially or critically, in 2007 but has gathered a cult following since then. 

Jamie and his wife, Lisa, have their domestic bliss interrupted when they receive a bizarre package: A vintage ventriloquist dummy with the name “Billy.” Jamie's home town of Raven's Fair had an urban legend attached to it: Mary Shaw, a popular ventriloquist in the thirties, died following the disappearance of a young boy. She was buried with her dummies. Her ghost is said to abduct people, test subjects for her quest to build the perfect doll. If you scream around her, she'll rip your tongue out. Jamie thinks it's only a legend but, while away from the apartment, Lisa is murdered in bizarre fashion. Under investigation from the cops, he returns to Raven's Fair, finding the town all but abandoned. He seeks out his rich father and new stepmom, before digging deeper into the mystery of Mary Shaw. Turns out, it is not merely a story. The ghost is real, plans to be reunited with her puppets, and have her revenge on the town.

It's an evergreen horror trope. We seemingly can all agree that ventriloquist dummies are kind of weird. Dolls already straddle the line between cute and creepy for many people, their plastic skin and painted irises venturing into the uncanny valley. They look a lot like something that is alive but most assuredly are not. (We hope.) The ventriloquist's tool takes this further, given still not quite life-like movement and voice by a puppeteer. Since at least 1929's “The Great Gabbo,” films have been making the suggestion that ventriloquists share an unhealthy link with their partners in performance. Horror films have certainly seen their share of living, or otherwise unsettling, dummies and dolls. We already knew James Wan had a fascination with puppets, having already used one as Jigsaw's mascot in “Saw.” “Dead Silence” sees him fully embracing the concept, making another Billy the Puppet one of the main stars of the show.

Whether Wan and his team did anything new with the idea of a creepy ventriloquist dummy is another question. “Dead Silence” rests heavily on the inherent spookiness of dummies by themselves. It works best when the camera gazes into Billy's painted eyes, before they start to slowly move. A flash-back to one of Mary Shaw's actual performances, wherein Billy takes personal offense to a heckler, acting seemingly on its own will beyond Mary's control, is exactly the kind of stuff that makes this a fruitful trope. The idea that the ventriloquist is expressing some suppressed emotion or the doll is an extension of their own hang-ups is fascinating. “Dead Silence” never runs much with those ideas afterwards though. It starts and stops with Mary seeing her puppets as her children, never seeking to explore any particular meaning or psychology in its set-up. “Magic,” this definitely is not.

“Dead Silence's” objective is far more humble than that. Wan and Whannell clearly set out to make an old fashion ghost story. The film clearly pays tribute to a number of predecessors in the genre. Wan uses the 1930s version of the Universal Studios logo at the beginning, showing his classic horror fan credentials. There's some Hammer horror vibes in the elaborate sets and misty graveyards of the small town. Mary Shaw resembles both Susan Hill's "The Woman in Black" and the stiffened corpse at the center of “Black Sabbath's” "The Drop of Water" segment. A corridor of billowing curtains while lightning flashes and thunder rolls outside reminds me of “The Cat and the Canary” and any number of other classic gothic chillers. In its best moments, “Dead Silence” successfully captures some of the ambiance of these earlier movies. There's a lot of billowing fog in the film, lots of shadowy hallways. The headlights from a car passing down a darkened road and through a mansion's gates scratches that itch. A shot of a clown doll in a rocking chair, its face passing in and out of darkness, is easily the coolest in the entire film. “Dead Silence” is never as scary or creepy as it wants to be but, when the mist rolls in and the cobwebs build up on the tombstones, it comes closest to achieving its goals. 

“Dead Silence” is trying very hard to be scary too. In accordance with the title, the film falls eerily silently right before Mary Shaw appears. This goes to show that more attention was paid to the sound design here than you'd expect from a quickie horror movie. Popcorn munching boo-shows is what Wan would come to specialize in. Meaning these silent stretches usually proceeds a loud shrieks on the soundtrack. However, "Dead Silence" is not as reliant on jump scares as you might think. A nightmare sequence, which otherwise serves no purpose to the story, has Billy appearing at Jamie's bedside in a red-tinted hotel room. The build-up actually works decently, before the visage of Shaw's ghost bursts into the room. This is true all throughout "Dead Silence," a movie that often goes for loudness when its quieter moments are way more effective. 

We know that "Dead Silence" was Wan's attempt to prove himself capable of more than merely tossing severed body parts and blood and guts around. With "Saw II" already in production, he must have foreseen the wave of torture-heavy flicks he had unleashed. However, you can definitely still tell that the same team who made "Saw" is behind "Dead Silence." This was Wan's first collaboration with cinematographer John R. Leonetti and editor Michael N. Knue, both veterans of the horror genre. Despite an expert team, the manic montages from "Saw" reappear here with a little less frequency. Usually, they are used during scene transition, which is less distracting. In fact, some of the camera movements or visual choices – such as a flashback beginning as a scratchy, black-and-white newsreel – aren't bad. At times, this is a really nice looking movie with a creepy atmosphere around it. 

That tension – between a desire to make a moodier film and the need to repeat "Saw's" big, dumb, loud success – is present all throughout. Close-ups of mutilated faces occur often, the film packing in enough gore to earn its R-rating. The script contains a surprise ending, one far more nonsensical and meaningless than "Saw's" climatic twist. Mary Shaw is give an elongated CGI tongue that extends out from her mouth and menacingly licks people's faces. I guess the idea is that her own tongue is extra-long from stitching her victims' tongue to her own? It looks goofy and isn't the only instance of subpar digital effects in the movie. As the film goes on, it gets a lot sillier. There are action movie worthy stunts, of people tossed through the air. All the while, another score from Charlie Clouser blares and hammers your ears, ignoring that the quieter, music box-like melody is actually its best touch. 

That "Dead Silence" is often derailed by a need to be bigger and flashier than a ghost story should be is frustrating. I think there was a lot of potential here. "Dead Silence" is ultimately a story about how you can't go back home. When Jamie returns to Raven's Fair, it's practically a ghost town. The town mortician, his mentally ill partner, Jamie's rich dad and his trophy wife are seemingly the only people left in the whole area. When Jamie is arguing with his father, he points out that his mother has been painted out of the family portrait. Familial resentment is the bread and butter of the ghost genre, the spirits of the dead representing bad memories that can never be put to rest. The film also resides soundly in the "Small Town with a Dark Secret" trope, another favorite of mine, as Mary Shaw's wrath was brought down on the community for the vigilante slaying of her. 

I'll go so far as to say I believe Mary Shaw had the potential to become an iconic horror villain. Her pale face, mouth carved up like a ventriloquist's dummy, and black gown is striking. The urban legend invented around her follows a classical mythological premise. Much like La Llorona or Lilith before her, Shaw is a child snatching she-spectre. She had no children of her own, filling that void with her countless dolls. Her evil action was born out of this desire for a child. The script never questions the sexist intent behind this legend. That being a mother is so important to a woman, she'll go mad without it and become a twisted inversion of the life-birthing Gaea, instead taking children away. Whannell's script undermines this point, actually, by having Shaw target adults more often than kids. The only implication that she preys on children is that the catchy nursery rhyme about her is clearly the kind of thing that would spread around the playground. All of this could've been developed more, resulting in a much smarter and sturdier film.

However, that speaks to another problem with "Dead Silence." Its story is actually shockingly thin. Once the inciting incident of Jamie and his wife receiving the dummy kicks off, there's truly only a handful of plot points that follow. He heads to his home town, buries Billy in Shaw's graveyard for her puppets – another near element – and argues with his dad. The rest of the film is more-or-less composed of our protagonist trying to dig up clues, getting attacked by the ghost, and running into an incompetent, always-shaving private detective. I'm not sure how much of this is Leigh Whannell's fault. The film repeatedly pauses for lengthy exposition dumps, from the town mortician, Jamie's dad, or even one of Shaw's dummies. He would criticize script doctors for fulfilling the studio's request for more clarified "rules" around the ghost. It's easy to assume that these sequences are what he was referring to. I agree, it's dumb to simply blankly state the backstory of your villain, to have someone just tell it to the main character. Wouldn't watching the hero uncover this information on his own have been a lot more compelling?

Then again, it's not like the protagonist is especially interesting either. There have been repeated attempts over the years to make Australian hunk Ryan Kwaten into a movie star and they have never stuck. Kwaten is blandly handsome but doesn't have much in the way of presence. Not that the character of Jamie, lacking any emotional center at all, gave him much to work with. He never seems especially haunted by the death of his wife. (Played by underrated Canadian scream queen Laura Regan, who probably should've been the star of the movie instead.) Donnie Wahlberg, as Detective Lipton, is really the only other consistent character in the film. He shows up repeatedly to hassle the hero before slinking off until it's decided he should appear again, ultimately getting the silliest death in the movie. Wahlberg convincingly mugs in his scenes but it would never be mistaken for meaningful acting. It's hard to say if any of these characters have much of an inner life at all. 

To learn that "Dead Silence" was a rush job for Whannell and Wan is not horribly surprising. The movie often feels half-formed, with a story seriously lacking in any narrative meat and totally blank characters. However, Wan's instinct to focus more on the foggy ambiance over foot-slicing gore was a smart one. There's enough spooky atmosphere in "Dead Silence" for me to almost like it. Mary Shaw is kind of a cool horror movie monster. The dummies are mostly creepy. The film exists in that half-way point between churned-out mainstream horror sludge and something a little cooler and smarter. That genre fans, always one to seize on some chilly scenery or a decent villain, would dig this one back up and make it a minor cult classic makes sense. A sequel was considered at one point, before the below-par box office came in. It's not hard to imagine an alternate timeline where Mary Shaw became a reoccurring cinematic baddie, with the Halloween masks and action figures to go with it. (A fitting fate for a doll-obsessed ghost.) At the same time, I can't recommend it myself. It's better than the similar but much dumber "Darkness Falls," for whatever that is worth. [Grade: C+]

Halloween 2024: October 23rd

Oddity (2024)

You'll have to excuse my cynicism but I am skeptical any time a new horror film comes out and is declared to be extremely scary. Especially when it's going to be a Shudder exclusive. Nothing against the horror streaming service, which I like a lot. It's certainly one of the best curated streamers and features lots of goodies for long time genre fans. However, the network's "original" productions tend to be rather forgettable. The kind of well made but rarely excellent indie films that don't often become genre defining classics. No offense to "Anything for Jackson" or "The Beach House" but are they going to be remembered as landmarks in horror? When "Oddity" was hitting the festivals earlier this year and picking up raves, folks calling it terrifying and all that, I didn't read anything that truly stuck out to me. I'm always willing to judge for myself and eat some crow though. Which means it is time to sit down and watch "Oddity" and see if it raises above the pack. 

Ted Timmis, a psychiatrist at a mental institute, and his wife Dani buy a grand home in the secluded countryside. While renovating it, and while the husband is at work, a former patient of Ted's comes to the door. Dani is murdered that night. One later, Ted is dating a woman named Yana. This is when Darcy, Dani's blind twin sister, visits the home. She brings with her a disturbing wooden sculpture of a screaming man. Darcy claims to be a medium, able to "read" an object's history simply by touching it. Darcy's peculiar behavior and the freaky wooden man start to frighten Yana. She doesn't know that Darcy is there with a specific purpose in mind: To find out what actually happened to her sister and take revenge on those responsible. 

It's a cliché by now that medium budget indie horror films – especially those made in the foggier parts of Europe, such as Ireland – all have low-key ambiances that focus more on creating tension and unease. Usually punctuated with loud jump scares or weird, unexplained imagery while discussing themes of trauma or familiar resentment. "Oddity" doesn't truly defy any of these assumptions but ends up being quite effective anyway. The isolated country house setting goes a long way towards establishing a creepy mood. The film is set in the modern day – Wifi and cell phones are plot points – but the shadowy, drafty cinematography still creates the feeling of a Victorian ghost story. Writer/director Damian McCarthy knows how to build eerie anticipation for the shocking moments. Which prove all the scarier because of that patience. The sudden appearance of a masked killer, a decayed and ghostly face, a glaring madman, or that fuckin' creepy wooden figure might sound like standard jump scares but "Oddity" properly draws the viewer before deploying shocks like that, making them genuinely unnerving. 

That wooden mannequin has factored into most of "Oddity's" marketing. And for good reason. The damn thing is simply freaky. The harsh, splintering material contrasts with the overly expressive, all too human deeming face and proportions. The result is a horror prop that takes up full-time residence in the uncanny valley, making an ideal image to build a large chunk of your movie around. When the figure springs to life in the last act, it's a proper payoff to a whole movie of anticipation. McCarthy seems to have quite a grasp on how to make something look unsettling, as "Oddity" packs in visuals like that. A home invader wears a porcelain doll-like mask which, much like the wooden dummy, looks human enough at a glance but a longer look reveals its glassy eyes and smooth features. A hospital setting is full of antiquated medical equipment, strapped to people's faces, or a distinctive square opening in the floor tap into a similarly subconscious type of surrealism. "Oddity" is a film full of dusty old objects that feel familiar but foreign at the same time, invoking a fittingly uncanny feeling. 

McCarthy pairs an above-average handling on scares and some creepy atmosphere with a story with that draws the viewer in. "Oddity" is told in slightly non-linear fashion, enough to throw me off a handful of times. This is probably because the story is a straightforward enough tale of infidelity, murder, and supernatural revenge. However, the out-of-order construction does a good job of giving the audience information we need only when we need it. All of this moves towards a plot with enough twists to keep us guessing. Ultimately, "Oddity" has an off-beat heroine to follow, in the form of Carolyn Bracken's Darcy. Bracken is strange enough that we are initially unsure of her motivations before slowly revealing herself to be a proactive lead we can trust. Steve Wall, with his very squirrelly facial features, is nicely cast as the physical villainous force in the film. This leads to an unnerving showdown between morally gray adversaries that makes excellent use of everything the film has built before that point. In other words, "Oddity" gives us a bad guy to root against that we, the audience, can relate to enough to feel the same level of fear he does during the final act. 

Sometimes, all a horror film truly needs to stick in the viewers' memory is one or two out there images or a decent scare. "Oddity" definitely has that much, not to mention some decent performances, a narrative with a few right turns, and a sound design that helps turns the creepy vibes up. Truthfully, I can't undersell how effectively spooky the "wooden man" sculpture is. I want a direct-to-video sequel where that thing hacks up teenagers in the woods. McCarthy's previous film, "Caveat," also had a central totem in the shape of a raggedy bunny toy, which gets a cameo here. (The director has hinted at a shared universe of some sort between his films but let's not get ahead of ourselves.) I dismissed that movie as your typical Shuddercore but maybe I should give it a shot now. "Oddity" is damn good, with more than a few startling jumps and some interesting ideas. [8/10]

Singapore Sling (1990)

Singapore Sling: Ο άνθρωπος που αγάπησε ένα πτώμα

The exploitation movie maker includes shocking imagery in their product in order to draw publicity, to bring in an audience eager to see what all the hype is about and to prove their bravery against something forbidden. The artistic auteur includes shocking imagery in their films in order to startle the public out of compliancy and make grandiose points about human nature. Eventually, the two goals become indistinguishable from each other. How low brow and high brow ambitions intersect have been noticed before. "I Am Curious (Yellow)" played grindhouses, Cannon put out Goddard and Cassavetes, Cornan released Fellini and Bergman. Likewise, the director of "Bad Taste" won Oscars, "Godzilla Vs. Megalon" is in the Criterion Collection, and John Waters had an exhibit at MoMA. A good example of how these two opposing instincts can crossover is Nikos Nikolaidis' 1990 film, "Singapore Sling." Nikolaidis, an acclaimed director of experimental films in his homeland of Greece, described it as a "comedy with elements taken from ancient Greek tragedy." When released aboard, the movie was called "one of the most disturbing films of all time," becoming notorious for its perverse sexual content. Having matured enough that a movie's content no longer upsets me, I decided to sate my curiosity about "Singapore Sling" and make it my official Greek choice for this year's Horror Around the World trip. 

On a dreary rainy night, a mother and daughter bury the disemboweled body of their chauffeur in the garden. The two enact elaborate sadomasochistic sexual games between each other, often murdering their servants as part of the roleplay. A car is parked outside their mansion, a private detective with a bullet in his shoulder inside. He is searching for his long lost love, Laura, who disappeared three years ago. She was a previous victim of the mother and daughter, the younger girl resembling her. The two women quickly find the man and call him Singapore Sling, after the cocktail recipe in his pocket. They drag him inside and immediately make him a part of their twisted rituals, torturing him, forcing him to torture others, and using him as a sex slave. The daughter has begun to resent her "mummy." (Not to be confused with the mummified corpse of her father in the attic, that she also has sex with.) Singapore Sling, slowly regaining his strength, becomes an unwilling participant in the rivalry between these two deranged femme fatales.

At its most surface level reading, "Singapore Sling" is a self-consciously artsy blending of film noir stereotypes, classic horror atmosphere, and frank depictions of kinky sex. The film is shot in moody black-and-white, set in a decaying old manor full of dusty chambers and dead bodies. "Laura" and the gothic traditions of both classic horror and noir are the immediate influences. The minute the title character appears on-screen, he is delivering melodramatic monologues about his past, his failures, his lost Laura, his alcoholism. (He is also, it must be said, not a very good detective, as pretending to tie his shoes seems to be his only strategy.) The characters of Mother and Daughter are patently absurd. The daughter is played by a helium-voiced Meredyth Herold, who seems driven into a sexual frenzy by any stimuli whatsoever. The mother speaks with a deep French accent, peppering her dialogue with poetry and waving a cigarette holder around. It's all very stylized, a knowing pastiche of cinematic clichés with its tongue firmly in cheek. To add to the intentional artificiality of it all, the women often directly address the audience. All of these ideas are in service of a parody of family roles, social boundaries, and gender norms. Where a permanently teenage daughter plans to murder her mother because she won't let her smoke, the rich disregard their servants like compost, and women are sexually voracious monsters that easily prey on men.

One assumes that any critic worth their salt would have picked up on "Singapore Sling's" playful invoking of filmic tropes and many absurd touches. I guess they got distracted by all the incest, S&M, and bodily fluids. The movie's reputation for being "disturbing" surely is owed to its graphic depiction of what I'll simply call non-mainstream sexual tastes. Mother and daughter fucking is treated as a matter-of-fact act. The daughter recalls her sexual abuse by her father with fond nostalgia, while often humping his corpse. Consent is not a concern in this household and murder is similarly no big deal. The two women usually wear revealing lingerie, when they aren't wearing leather straps. Bondage, elaborate blindfolds, whipping, electric shock therapy, and a casual swapping of partners are common place in their world. I would guess the part that grossed people out the most is the apparent fetish the women have for vomit, forcing both themselves and their victim to do it, with and onto each other. That's not the only bodily fluid involved in their coupling. I guess I'm freakier than the average nineties cult movie writer, as none of these simulations upset me. Honestly, what grossed me out far more was the unidentifiable, seemingly rancid food the family messily devour throughout. There's lots of flesh being ripped from bones and morsels being dug out of shells. Inevitably, this interacts with the daughter's sexual appetite, during an extended sequence involving what I think was a potato. Maybe I can handle kinky sex but sloppy eating is a serious no-no for me... 

Another factor that makes "Singapore Sling's" non-stop depravity more than thoughtless provocations is that it immerses us in this fantastical world. The dreamy cinematography and set design and frequent fourth wall breaks mark the film as an elaborate game being played with the audience. Which is fitting, as the women are always enacting some sort of weird roleplay themselves. They frequently roleplay the seduction and murder of Laura as one of their sexual acts. I'm not convinced that they are literally mother and daughter, honestly, merely assuming those roles. Especially with the frequent implication that "daughter" is a brain-washed Laura, as the two are played by the same actress. In this taboo free world, the limits of mortality does not concern the participants. The women kill their sexual partners, as if they are easily broken toys that as then quickly discarded. One scene sees the mummified corpse of "Daddy" seemingly springing life, further mudding the line between life and death. The daughter plays the role of "Laura" to goad Singapore Sling into their extended fuckery. Before long, it's impossible to know when he's a willing participant or not. The line where reality ends and where roleplay begins vanishes. They are living their roles, the way an actor lives their roles. The way a film's reality exists as long as we're watching it, further emphasizing the absurd use of cinematic hallmarks. 

Once everyone is thoroughly immersed in their parts – the mother, the daughter, the living sex toy – "Singapore Sling" becomes a film about who is in control. No matter what "daughter" does to her "mummy," the older woman is always the one with the power. This is best displayed in the way she bosses the girl around, telling her to only plant certain flowers on the grave or not to smoke. Other times, when speaking directly to the camera, the women seem to drop the act and refer to the other as "bitches." This is a satirical take on parent/child arguments but it's also an example of the interlocking levels of play here. The two are roleplaying as incestuous mother and daughter, who sometimes roleplay separate roles within those games. Sex and violation is always accepted within these games, with the understanding of who the ultimate dom is. As a child attempts to escape their parent's rule and find their own independence, Herold's character wants to be in control. She thinks she can use Singapore Sling as a pawn in her scheme but he has plans of his own that the impetuous girl can't foresee. In other words, "Singapore Sling" is one of the best films I've seen about kink and the layers of fiction and truth, control and submission, and the interactions between them. Though I don't think the blurring of sex and violence seen here – that climaxes with the utterly lurid finale – qualifies as safe or sane...

Much like all the different types of kink in general, "Singapore Sling" isn't going to be for everyone. I'm not surprised that many viewers are simply overwhelmed by the non-stop deluge of paraphilias in the film, becoming unable to engage with its deeper ideas. However, this is such a smart movie that operates on multiple different levels. The performances have the kind of over-the-top theatricality that, once you accept it, is difficult to resist. The immense stylization is an invitation to play in this twisted, nasty world, an invitation many will be too vanilla to accept. However, if you match its freak, "Singapore Sling" is an intoxicating odyssey that, by blatantly emulating cinema of the past, becomes a unique experience all of its own. I'm begging some boutique label to pick up more of Nikos Nikolaidis' work. If this is any indication, I need to see more of what this lunatic has to offer. Now, everyone reading this is free to speculate on my own sexual tastes however they want... [9/10]

Lore: Unboxed

I've been listening to Aaron Mahnke's "Lore" podcast for a few years now. As a retelling of myths, legends, and bizarre true crime stories from throughout history, it can be relatively compelling. Despite finding Mahnke's delivery melodramatic at times and wishing he sometimes approached the topics from a more skeptical perspective. Nevertheless, Mahnke has built a little empire off the popularity of his show, with a whole podcast network and a number of spin-offs. The most ambitious of which would be a television series, which aired for two seasons on Amazon Prime from 2017 to 2019. Though the show was fairly short-lived compared to the podcast, Mahnke still mentions it at the end of every episode. I suppose it's time I check it out. 

Like the podcast, Amazon's "Lore" features several stories an episode, linked by a theme. "Unboxed" is about our sometimes disturbing relationships with dolls. The focus is on the story of Robert the Doll from Key West, Florida. If you don't know that one: When artist Robert Eugene Otto was a lonely boy in 1904, a relative bought him a doll in a little sailor suit that he named Robert, after himself. Boy and doll soon became distressingly inseparable, with his parents reporting poltergeist activity centered around the plaything. When Robert Eugene went off to boarding school, Robert the Doll was locked away. As he returned home as a man, with his new wife in tow, he unboxed Robert and the obsession began again. 

"Lore: The TV Show" is indecisively positioned between being a recreation of the podcast, something akin to a cable channel paranormal documentary series, and a traditional horror anthology program. Mahnke's narration – which somehow sounds less lively here, when compared to the podcast – still provides historical and cultural context. Several other tales interrupt the telling of the Robert story. A cheesy, infographic style opening is about Mexico City's Island of the Dead Dolls. More video essay-like segments concern Frances Glessner Lee's dollhouse recreations of crime scenes, the Russian grave robber who filled his apartment with dolls made from corpses, and Edger Bergen's weird relationship with Charlie McCarthy. The episode then ends with documentary footage of Robert today, in the museum where he currently resides. (And is said to deliver a curse to anyone who takes a photo of him without asking permission first.) All of these segments are fairly well done. I simply wish they didn't disrupt the pacing of the primary story. 

Because the dramatic re-enactment that takes up the majority of the episode, "Unboxed" needs all the help it can get. The period costumes and sets are fairly well done. The cast is convincing enough. However, "Unboxed" is heavy on the melodrama. Eugene's mother wails in hysterics as she hammers nails into the box holding Robert. A sequence in which the death of the boy's grandmother is linked to the doll, as well as the later scene where his wife tries to burn the toy, are extremely overdone. The music is heavy-handed. The script is didactic. The entire approach seems a bit self-important for a ghost story about a creepy doll. This is a bummer, as there's a decent scene where Mrs. Otto gets locked out of a room and seemingly hears Robert moving on the other side. Perhaps this displays something essential about the scary doll subgenre: Sometimes they are spookier when we don't see them move. I'm of the opinion that, whatever truth there was to the story of Eugene Otto and his possessive plaything, it has long since been eclipsed by legend. It is a good legend though and a decent movie or TV episode could be made from it. "Unboxed" doesn't hit the mark though. [5/10]

The Alien Autopsy (1995)

I lived through it and can only barely answer the question of “why” myself. In the nineties, the world had alien fever. While conspiracies of UFO sightings, alien abductions, the Roswell incident, and government cover-ups had circulated since the fifties, the decade of my youth represented a high-water mark for the public's fascination for this topic. Concrete evidence for the existence of extraterrestrials – much less the claim the United States government knew about them – has yet to emerge... Not that this has stopped people from trying to capitalize on the trend. British music producer Ray Santilli claims, in 1992, to have seen a recording of an alien lifeform being autopsied by government agents, supposedly recorded in the aftermath of a spacecraft crash-landing in Roswell, New Mexico. This supposedly inspired Santilli, for reasons I'm sure he could elaborate upon, to team up with producer Gary Shoefield, special effects artist John Humphreys, filmmaker Spyros Melaris, and a small crew of actors and assistants to make a “re-creation” of this obscure footage. That “re-creation” is what was released to the press in 1995, the claimed back story of the footage being a staged re-enactment of real footage conveniently left out. 

Shortly afterwards, the Fox television network would acquire the rights to this mysterious recording. They built a prime time documentary around it, entitled “Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?,” which aired to massive ratings. Jonathan Frakes was recruited to host and narrate. Many apparent experts and professed witnesses of the mythical Roswell story were interviewed, alongside a narrative built around how the film was supposedly found. A cut down version of the original footage was shown, experts in science, photography, and special effects – such as Stan Winston – being interviewed and seemingly impressed. The footage was quickly identified as a hoax, with the professionals interviewed emphasizing that their comments were taken out of context. Santilli would eventually come clean about the origins. Three years later, Fox aired a second documentary called “The World's Greatest Hoaxes and Secrets Revealed!,” in which narrator Lance Henriksen explained how the whole thing was faked. In other words, Fox got 'em coming and going. 

The twenty minutes of phony footage, as well as both of the Fox docs, can now be easily found online. Nearly thirty years after the fact, with all of us being well aware that it's bullshit, what do we make of this now? Santilli and Melaris' film is unconvincing as a hoax. The doctors in the video seem to thoughtlessly fumble around the corpse, cutting it up and open without much cause. For what is supposed to be a government record of real events, the footage is grainy, unfocused, and never gives us a good look at what we're looking at it. Nor do the sets and costumes look all that realistic. One must say that the fake alien corpse is well done. The bloated belly, engorged head, ambiguous genitalia, floppy limbs, and strangely human-like face certainly look real. The autopsy itself – animal guts and raspberry jam is what was inside – are blurrily recorded. In the “World's Greatest Hoaxes” documentary, it's claimed that Nacho Cerdá's “Aftermath” inspired the film. “The Alien Autopsy” certainly doesn't have the eerie power or artfulness of Cerdá's film. Without any sound or further context, the footage itself is quite dull. The shots of clumps of bloody offal laying on treys or unidentified objects being handled do not give us much to talk about.

In our modern age, when hoaxes and disinformation spread readily over the internet, “The Alien Autopsy” and everything that happened around it can be seen as how easily some can be fooled. At the same time, taken as a predecessor to the modern found footage movie, “Alien Autopsy” does represent a surprising amount of effort. I'm not totally surprised some bought into it. People have been tricked by a lot less, Santilli and the others putting quite a lot of effort into this confidence job. If nothing else, that rubber alien corpse looks cool. The hoaxed footage remains a curious cultural phenomenon, with little to offer divorced of that context. As for the “Fact or Fiction?” TV special, it's valuable mostly as camp and example of how editing can change everything. Jonathan Frakes – clearly doing a test-run for the “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction” series he would host on the same network shortly afterwards – wears a whimsical smirk the whole time, letting us know he doesn't take this crap seriously. I've got nostalgia for sensationalist prime time specials like this but I can't claim “The Alien Autopsy” or “Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?” have much value when taken on their own. But, ya know, it's all certainly something. Weird that any of this shit happened, right? [6/10]