Gals, guns and guts
Awright, so I didn't update the next day. Big surprise. Among a few other activities (doing mortagey stuff, trying to figure out how and when I'm going to die, packing, chilling at a hard-to-find but friendly bar and finally lifting my karaoke hiatus with the Good Little Bad Girl and kin, carving a pumpkin and eating its seeds, enjoying the Queen of Mediocrity's much-appreciated alternate Halloween gathering, getting my fucking transmission rebuilt, etc.), I seen some good and bad pictures lately, plus the first season of "The Wire". Among the notables:
"Dead & Breakfast" - This is what a horror comedy should be. I've seen too many half-assed ones made in the last 20 or so years, but "D&B" is as goofy, bloody, surreal and memorable a flick as you could ask for. Some semi-famous faces are in this indie flick, including the immortal David Carradine and his daughter Ever, "ER"'s Erik Palladino, Diedrich Bader of "Office Space," "Bones" babe Bianca Lawson, Portia de Rossi of "Arrested Development" and, of course, Sisto (not Brak's brother, Jeremy from "May" and "Six Feet Under"). These are not proper zombies, more of a general "infestation" thing that pretty much works the same way. A musical narrator shows up a little bit into the movie; at first he's a country singer, but after he gets possessed/zombified, he starts rapping. And, saints be praised, he raps the entire storyline in hilariously truncated detail over the end credits. Plus, there's a really sweet gore shot where a chainsaw falls on the back of this dude's neck, and he just stands there jittering around while gravity works the blades through his spine, a mess of stringy grue dangling and flailing about. Marvelous!
"Ginger Snaps" - I've wanted to see this forever, and it's as good as I'd been lead to believe. Having inspired two follow-ups, a cult following and even academic discourse (click that link), this Canadian job is essentially about two close sisters who are growing up and apart. At 16, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle, later cast because of this film in "Freddy vs. Jason") is a year older than Brigitte but neither of them have begun menstruating. Then, one night while they're out walking, Ginger gets her period and is immediately attacked by a werewolf - so she gets "the curse." Soon her hormones are out of control: she's making out with boys, sprouting hair in weird places and generally being distanced from Brigitte, her best friend, because of the changes this has wrought. It's a pretty smart and resonant allegory with the right sense of humor and poignancy about the subject. I found it interesting that the sisters' arrested physical development freaks out their mother, who's your typical niggling horror flick mom except that the body issues and complexes she's stuffing down her daughters' throats causes a different sort of inadequacy than you usually get in a mother-dominated male horror character. And it's funny, too. Glad to have finally seen "Ginger Snaps," I'm going to hunt down the sequel and prequel.
"The Screaming Dead" - Now for something a bit more salacious. Not to be confused with "Curse of the Screaming Dead" or "Revenge of the Screaming Dead", this is an original from eiCinema, the DIY cottage that gave us the excellent "Suburban Nightmare", the whacko German import "Premutos - Lord of the Living Dead" and a mess of movie parody nudies including the utterly-insane-looking "TITanic 2000". This, like most of their fare, stars comely young scream queen Misty Mundae. The drector, Brett Piper, is well-known for indie genre stuff; his sarcastic commentary on Troma's DVD of his "A Nymphoid Barbarian In Dinosaur Hell" is utterly brilliant, although his movies are never that hot. This one starts off kind of promising, as Misty joins a bunch of models and a sadistic photographer in an old house where legendary tortures once happened. Most of the movie plays out as a mental S&M session, a slowly building series of interpersonal power struggles that makes the movie seem a lot smarter than it ultimately turns out. A cheesy ghost shows up in the fourth reel, and the terrible effects are only marginally lamer than the explanation that he appeared because the photog was videotaping Misty's anguish. It's later explained that digital code is just like runic symbols or something and can therefore affect supernatural occurences. But why was the ghost vanquished when the hilarious hero just rewound the video? Stupid, stupid, stupid. If it had stayed in the psychological mind-game arena, this might have turned out surprisingly better than the average boobs-and-blood parade. Instead, I wish I'd just watched "SpiderBabe" instead.
"Vigilante" - William Lustig's follow-up to the infamous "Maniac" - one of the few slasher movies I'll go to bat for - is nearly as unpleasant as that ugly masterpiece. Often compared to "Death Wish" or its Italian street justice knockoffs that proliferated in the '70s, it takes more of an exploitation movie approach and is thus far more in-your-face. The immortal Fred Williamson, star of quite a few Italian grimefests himself, starts off with a great reactionary speech about taking the law into your own hands, directly addressing the camera at first before you realize he's got an audience of aspiring vigilantes. With violence worthy of a gore flick, he and his gang of PBR-guzzling blue collar Lancelots dispose of criminal scum, both at street and higher levels, getting particularly vicious with the gang who fucks with Robert Forster's family. This movie was heavily edited when it first came out, and I'm sure that when it thrilled audiences during its long run in Times Square's grindhouses it didn't include the amazing shot of Forster's son's brains being blasted out of a window. As a well-made slice of morally dubious Reagan-era paranoia, "Vigilante" is one of the sleaziest American action movies I can think of, with Lustig's keen sense of building tension through taut editing. Lustig continued to explore his disenfranchisement with the law in the more cartoonish "Maniac Cop" series and the transgressive, underrated "Uncle Sam," but finally seeing this makes me realize he's been MIA for too long.
"High Tension" (aka "Haute Tension") - As could be expected, this popular French thriller was sanitized of its most gruesome moments for American theaters, so I'm glad that the DVD includes the unrated French version. The effects are by Gianetto De Rossi (any relation to Portia?), who worked on "The Beyond" and "Cannibal Apocalypse," and the gore is worthy of his vintage Italian splatter days. There's some nasty stuff in this, which is basically a retread of the '70s "dangerous redneck" trend. Director Alexandre Aja so convincingly pulled off his homage that he's been tapped for the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes," due in March. But while it certainly beats "Wrong Turn" or that stupid "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake in the low-rent suspense department, it shares a problem with "The Screaming Dead": a late-act shift of focus that's too ludicrous to swallow. I'm all for a good twist, but if it had remained the same movie it began as, it could be a better genre exercise than "The Devil's Rejects." Instead, without giving anything away, it turns out a complete cheat, and possibly anti-lesbian to boot. Until the crap ending, however, it's a well-crafted thriller, refreshingly headlined by a butch, buff "final girl." I suggest turning it off after about an hour.
I could not, however, sit through all of "Fat Albert", which I was hoping would be as appallingly stupid as the immortal "From Justin To Kelly" but turned out too similar for comfort, in all the wrong ways. Here, let's get you in the holiday spirit: listen to "Christmas" from the semi-new Ulver album. The ever-changing Norsemen stayed a sort of experimental electronic act this time, but now seem to be writing something resembling "songs." If you're like me, you'll like them all. And if you're exactly like me, this week you've also frequently enjoyed Grave's classic debut "Into the Grave", Sigh's criminally underproduced "Gallows Gallery", Dangerdoom's bangin' "The Mouse and the Mask", Arsis' addictive "A Celebration of Guilt", and the lovely Calexico/Iron & Wine collaboration EP "In the Reins".
"Dead & Breakfast" - This is what a horror comedy should be. I've seen too many half-assed ones made in the last 20 or so years, but "D&B" is as goofy, bloody, surreal and memorable a flick as you could ask for. Some semi-famous faces are in this indie flick, including the immortal David Carradine and his daughter Ever, "ER"'s Erik Palladino, Diedrich Bader of "Office Space," "Bones" babe Bianca Lawson, Portia de Rossi of "Arrested Development" and, of course, Sisto (not Brak's brother, Jeremy from "May" and "Six Feet Under"). These are not proper zombies, more of a general "infestation" thing that pretty much works the same way. A musical narrator shows up a little bit into the movie; at first he's a country singer, but after he gets possessed/zombified, he starts rapping. And, saints be praised, he raps the entire storyline in hilariously truncated detail over the end credits. Plus, there's a really sweet gore shot where a chainsaw falls on the back of this dude's neck, and he just stands there jittering around while gravity works the blades through his spine, a mess of stringy grue dangling and flailing about. Marvelous!
"Ginger Snaps" - I've wanted to see this forever, and it's as good as I'd been lead to believe. Having inspired two follow-ups, a cult following and even academic discourse (click that link), this Canadian job is essentially about two close sisters who are growing up and apart. At 16, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle, later cast because of this film in "Freddy vs. Jason") is a year older than Brigitte but neither of them have begun menstruating. Then, one night while they're out walking, Ginger gets her period and is immediately attacked by a werewolf - so she gets "the curse." Soon her hormones are out of control: she's making out with boys, sprouting hair in weird places and generally being distanced from Brigitte, her best friend, because of the changes this has wrought. It's a pretty smart and resonant allegory with the right sense of humor and poignancy about the subject. I found it interesting that the sisters' arrested physical development freaks out their mother, who's your typical niggling horror flick mom except that the body issues and complexes she's stuffing down her daughters' throats causes a different sort of inadequacy than you usually get in a mother-dominated male horror character. And it's funny, too. Glad to have finally seen "Ginger Snaps," I'm going to hunt down the sequel and prequel.
"The Screaming Dead" - Now for something a bit more salacious. Not to be confused with "Curse of the Screaming Dead" or "Revenge of the Screaming Dead", this is an original from eiCinema, the DIY cottage that gave us the excellent "Suburban Nightmare", the whacko German import "Premutos - Lord of the Living Dead" and a mess of movie parody nudies including the utterly-insane-looking "TITanic 2000". This, like most of their fare, stars comely young scream queen Misty Mundae. The drector, Brett Piper, is well-known for indie genre stuff; his sarcastic commentary on Troma's DVD of his "A Nymphoid Barbarian In Dinosaur Hell" is utterly brilliant, although his movies are never that hot. This one starts off kind of promising, as Misty joins a bunch of models and a sadistic photographer in an old house where legendary tortures once happened. Most of the movie plays out as a mental S&M session, a slowly building series of interpersonal power struggles that makes the movie seem a lot smarter than it ultimately turns out. A cheesy ghost shows up in the fourth reel, and the terrible effects are only marginally lamer than the explanation that he appeared because the photog was videotaping Misty's anguish. It's later explained that digital code is just like runic symbols or something and can therefore affect supernatural occurences. But why was the ghost vanquished when the hilarious hero just rewound the video? Stupid, stupid, stupid. If it had stayed in the psychological mind-game arena, this might have turned out surprisingly better than the average boobs-and-blood parade. Instead, I wish I'd just watched "SpiderBabe" instead.
"Vigilante" - William Lustig's follow-up to the infamous "Maniac" - one of the few slasher movies I'll go to bat for - is nearly as unpleasant as that ugly masterpiece. Often compared to "Death Wish" or its Italian street justice knockoffs that proliferated in the '70s, it takes more of an exploitation movie approach and is thus far more in-your-face. The immortal Fred Williamson, star of quite a few Italian grimefests himself, starts off with a great reactionary speech about taking the law into your own hands, directly addressing the camera at first before you realize he's got an audience of aspiring vigilantes. With violence worthy of a gore flick, he and his gang of PBR-guzzling blue collar Lancelots dispose of criminal scum, both at street and higher levels, getting particularly vicious with the gang who fucks with Robert Forster's family. This movie was heavily edited when it first came out, and I'm sure that when it thrilled audiences during its long run in Times Square's grindhouses it didn't include the amazing shot of Forster's son's brains being blasted out of a window. As a well-made slice of morally dubious Reagan-era paranoia, "Vigilante" is one of the sleaziest American action movies I can think of, with Lustig's keen sense of building tension through taut editing. Lustig continued to explore his disenfranchisement with the law in the more cartoonish "Maniac Cop" series and the transgressive, underrated "Uncle Sam," but finally seeing this makes me realize he's been MIA for too long.
"High Tension" (aka "Haute Tension") - As could be expected, this popular French thriller was sanitized of its most gruesome moments for American theaters, so I'm glad that the DVD includes the unrated French version. The effects are by Gianetto De Rossi (any relation to Portia?), who worked on "The Beyond" and "Cannibal Apocalypse," and the gore is worthy of his vintage Italian splatter days. There's some nasty stuff in this, which is basically a retread of the '70s "dangerous redneck" trend. Director Alexandre Aja so convincingly pulled off his homage that he's been tapped for the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes," due in March. But while it certainly beats "Wrong Turn" or that stupid "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake in the low-rent suspense department, it shares a problem with "The Screaming Dead": a late-act shift of focus that's too ludicrous to swallow. I'm all for a good twist, but if it had remained the same movie it began as, it could be a better genre exercise than "The Devil's Rejects." Instead, without giving anything away, it turns out a complete cheat, and possibly anti-lesbian to boot. Until the crap ending, however, it's a well-crafted thriller, refreshingly headlined by a butch, buff "final girl." I suggest turning it off after about an hour.
I could not, however, sit through all of "Fat Albert", which I was hoping would be as appallingly stupid as the immortal "From Justin To Kelly" but turned out too similar for comfort, in all the wrong ways. Here, let's get you in the holiday spirit: listen to "Christmas" from the semi-new Ulver album. The ever-changing Norsemen stayed a sort of experimental electronic act this time, but now seem to be writing something resembling "songs." If you're like me, you'll like them all. And if you're exactly like me, this week you've also frequently enjoyed Grave's classic debut "Into the Grave", Sigh's criminally underproduced "Gallows Gallery", Dangerdoom's bangin' "The Mouse and the Mask", Arsis' addictive "A Celebration of Guilt", and the lovely Calexico/Iron & Wine collaboration EP "In the Reins".
posted by SoulReaper at 9:09 PM
1 Comments:
"How am I gonna die?"
I guess I’m just a morbid person.
It’s as good an answer as any when someone asks why I watch so many horror movies, why I enjoy such “evil” music or why I wear so much black clothing. That’s for goth teenagers, right? Aren’t these things normal people outgrow?
Yes, but I’m not normal, and I’m okay with that. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been curious about things you’re not supposed to question. Arcane, uncanny, sometimes scary things. By now, I’m used to disapproving looks from normal folks.
Still, I didn’t expect the reaction of my co-workers when I suggested something new for our annual Halloween story: I would try to uncover some info about my own death.
Jaws gaped. Eyes popped. If they were holding teaspoons, my normally composed colleagues would have dropped them clattering into their saucers. They may as well have fainted.
But it made sense to me. Being my favorite holiday, Halloween is to me a time for more than plastic Dracula capes, midnight hayrides and tiny Snickers bars. It can be occasion for a personal harvest, a time of reflection before the coming frost, so to speak. A time to take stock of all that has passed recently before the next cycle of growth.
I’m 30, slowly losing my hair, about to enter the world of property ownership. People keep telling me I’m at a crossroads, taking a big step and all. And I’ve always believed that old Dark Angel song which asserts, “Death is certain, life is not.” So, really, why wouldn’t I also wonder about the end?
“Are you sure you want to find out?” was the most frequent question I got when I talked about this at work or with friends.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s not like I’m going to believe it.” Yes, the old cynical self-defense. Having read most of the “Harry Potter” books, I can honestly say I don’t have anything against the supernatural. On the contrary, I would likely be excited to discover proof of spiritual intercession and life beyond. But I’ve never also never had an experience that confirmed its existence to me.
I embarked on this project with that defense at the ready, but wasn’t about to let it get in the way. While I might not automatically believe what I found out about my inevitable demise, I might not disbelieve it, either.
Behind the 8-Ball
One thing is for sure: the Magic 8-Ball is a method for telling the future that should never be trusted. If you want the definition of random, look no further than this plastic sphere, its guts filled with an inky black liquid and a twenty-sided message generator which resembles a Dungeons & Dragons die.
Yet every experiment needs a control. Suspicion looming, I consulted an 8-Ball first, just to prove to myself how inaccurate its predictions could be. Starting with something obvious, I ask it, “Do you know when I’m going to die?” I turned the ball over, gave it a little shake, then upended it and waited for its answer.
“Outlook not so good,” it read, perhaps showing more intuition than I’d given it credit for. Asking if it instead knew how I was going to die, I gave the 8-Ball another shake and flipped it over.
“You may bet on it,” came the re-play. May? What did that mean? That I should or that I would believe it? Then those morbid instincts took over and I asked if I will die violently.
“Yes, definitely.” Really? Sweet! Will someone kill me? It tells me, “Ask again later.”
What the…? How much later is later? Sensing the 8-Ball trying to stall, I innocently ask if I will die of natural causes, to which it naturally answers “Outlook good.”
Aha! Okay, it refuted its own claim that I would die in a violent manner, since no natural cause of death can be considered violent. Getting fed up, I decided that it was “later” enough, so I asked again if someone would kill me.
“Reply hazy, try again.” Flip, shake, flip. “Ask again later.”
This was too impossibly vague, as I had known it would be. Confident that I had exhausted the Magic 8-Ball as a source of reliable info, I decided to move on to something with a better occult reputation.
Board stiff
For about $20, you can get a factory-produced Ouija board at your favorite toy retailer. Mine glows in the dark and has the word “game” stamped all over its box. That makes me envision some poor millionaire toymaker mopping his brow and trying to appease some hysterical parents who claim the board made their kid attempt to wake the family cat from its eternal sleep in the yard.
Seriously, among the questions this thing suggests you ask are “Will I star in my own music video?” and “Does Taylor like me?” Even if the latter alludes to “like liking,” these are not substantial matters when compared with the nature of one’s own mortality. Would this incandescent Ouija board be able to handle such a heavy inquiry as mine?
I doubted it, but it was hopefully going to be better than the 8-Ball. Since you need another person to work the planchette (that triangular piece that moves around), I enlisted my friend Ping. We sat opposite one another, each touching the plastic planchette with two fingers, and concentrated on my spoken ques-tion: “When am I going to die?”
We waited. And waited. The only movement came when one of our fingers twitched. Perhaps that was too intense of a question to start with. Ping and her fiancé have a running joke about suspecting a ghost of hiding their bottle of glass cleaner, so she asked where it had gone.
After several more minutes, no reply came, and we were starting to lose concentration. Nearly convinced that the only time Ouija boards work is when people move the planchette themselves, I asked, “How am I going to die?” When we got no answer, I asked it if Taylor liked me. Silence. This board was a waste of $20 and half an hour.
Seeing visions
Deadline was approaching, and I still had nothing resembling an answer. It became clear that I would be better off with professional help. At the very least, I needed something more personal.
That gave me perfect reason to make an appointment with the psychic who had been advertising outside her home since I moved to Palatine in 1987, and probably well before that. I had always been curious while driving past the Dundee Road residence adorned with a sign touting “Psychic Visions” and a “$10 Special.” How could I not be?
Marie was kind and friendly, describing her range of readings and their associated fees before telling me to think it over while she made lunch for her grandson. She was dressed casually, with none of the stereotypical “fortune teller” garb, and delivered my reading with an affable, matter-of-fact demeanor instead of theatrical flourishes.
I had decided on the general reading, hoping to squeeze some of my mortality questions into that rather than just come right out with it. Concerned that Marie might be offended if I just started up with the death talk, I needed to couch my ultimate purpose. (I also didn’t want to tip her off that I was writing a story, so as not to affect the reading.)
Her advice flowed freely on my career and romantic prospects; both seemed positive but tempered with tough decisions I would face. “I’m curious as to where I’m going,” I said, trying to nudge her predictions toward the final stages of life. “My parents are getting older, I’m starting to think about what’s going to happen to them, what’s going to happen to me...”
Marie smiled. After a stunningly accurate description of my parents’ personalities and a forecast about their lifespans, she advised me to live healthier but confided, “You will live to be 90, 91, 92.” Natural causes, healthy old age, all that. When I left, I was more peaceful and content than I had entered.
Yet her advice was still too general for my purposes. Because of the type of reading I chose, she had only consulted my “vibrations.” So I contacted another psychic, Ruth, who welcomed me into her Arlington Heights home for a more in-depth reading. Just as Marie’s manner had been reassuring, Ruth was also very genial, soft-spoken and normal-looking.
This one included examinations of my palms (I was to hold them together and upright) and my face (a new method to me), in addition to my aura. Without prompting, upon examining my palms she immediately told me what I wanted to know – that I would live a long life and die of natural causes.
She went on to address other concerns, some which I suppose are natural for anyone at my stage in life, some which were very specific to me. Her reading of my palms revealed a “darkness” which is affecting my happiness, one which comes from outside sources and not from within. Ruth suggested steps I could take to eliminate this and invited me to return anytime to discuss the options at no charge. At any rate, this “darkness,” influential though it may be, would have no bearing on my career advancement, strong marriage and long life. Her greater detail contributed to a sense of relief.
When compared with the Web site The Death Psychic, where a randomly generated message said my next door neighbor would beat me to death with a shovel, the psychics’ predictions were certainly comforting. Looking someone in the face as you serenely describe their private life in intimate detail goes a long way toward winning your trust, and I certainly trusted both of these psychics while I was with them.
But do I believe them? I don’t know. After all, they both seemed to know a great deal about the important people in my life, but were less accurate when describing me to myself. Although I didn’t set out to prove or disprove the accuracy of their fortune-telling methods, skepticism dictates that the psychics’ answers were the sort of thing everybody wants to hear.
Yet, while doubt still lingers, I would like to believe that they were right about my end. I still don’t think of death as frightening or horrible, but as something that just is. And more than ever, I understand that it is within my power alone to transform predictions of a long, fulfilling life into reality.
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