A flower for Tower

Schaumburg's Tower Records, like all the others, is closing very soon. Even though anything I ever wanted to buy there was way overpriced, it was sometimes handy to not have to drive to Chicago or go through mail order, as Tower actually carried stuff I wanted. Add to this Record Breakers moving downtown, and my local album buying options have shrunk considerably this autumn. In Tower's case, at least I fetched some sweet low-budget horror DVDs.

"La Nuit des Traquées"
(aka "The Night of the Hunted," 1980)
The best deal I got was "The Zombie Collection," a set packaging three Image Entertainment Region 1 issues of flicks Salvation Video licensed for British release under their Redemption imprint - a $25 value for a mere $15, or $5 per flick. Two are by French erotic horror auteur Jean Rollin, and the other is "Riti, magie e segrete orge nel trecento...," a silly but sumptous piece of obscure Italian occult hokum. These releases are kind of old, and the Rollin pics have since come out in deluxe PAL multi-DVD sets. Redemption's hideous package art is unreasonably cheesy. Seeing how they specialized in upscale '70s Eurosleaze horror which was only going to be bought by collectors, why didn't they just use vintage poster art instead of these rejected Cradle of Filth t-shirt designs? However, these boxed DVDs come in plastic keep cases as opposed to the cardboard/plastic abominations that housed the original releases, which makes up for the stupid, unrelated cover art - as does the price.

Now, some consider "Traquées" to be Rollin's worst movie, yet it's the one that made me rethink my stance on the guy. He's most famous for a run of sexy vampire pictures that he continues to this day, but this is a departure in that it's about a woman who, like Guy Pearce in "Memento," cannot remember anything for very long and has no idea what is happening to her. The woman is played by French porn actress-turned-sex talk show host Brigitte Lahaie, who is possibly the most beautiful bottle blonde I've ever seen. She's very good here, although her role mostly calls for her to slink about looking lovely and dismayed. Even more than Lahaie and the other bare beauties on display, what really made the film for me was Rollin's obvious attempts to evoke David Cronenberg's early horror films. Sinister doctors, sterile modern structures, pregnant silences, melancholy dread and a somnambulant porn star protagonist alternately bring to mind "Shivers,""Rabid" and "The Brood," and not in a bad way. According to all sources, Rollin's signature move is indulging in dreamlike, wordless sequences where a pair of attractive European ladies wanders a dangerous environment like lost little girls in a fairy tale. That's true for the vampire nudie flicks of his that I've seen (which are kind of boring, honestly), it's true for the other Rollin movie in "The Zombie Collection ("La Morte Vivante," also worth a look), and it's true here. When coupling that continental approach with the Cronenbergian elements and a conspiracy plot that unfolds like a literal nightmare, you get a unique and haunting picture that just happens to include a lot of nudity and blood. What's not to like?

"Slime City"
(1988)
This obscurity really should have been a legend during the golden age of splatter rentals, but as director Gregory Lamberson points out throughout the Shock-O-Rama DVD's generous extras, the production was hamstrung by typical microbudget hassles. It was an era when homegrown grotesqueries like "Basket Case," "The Toxic Avenger" and "Street Trash" had enjoyed extended runs on the vanishing Times Square grindhouse screens, and had subsequently sent their interpretations of NYC squalor to the rest of the world via the new market of home video. Lamberson's vision and execution was on par with these classics, yet his flick languished in post-production and only found distribution once the outrageous gross-out horror video market had bottomed out. The original video distributor went bankrupt and flat-out disappeared. I hear this story with bands and record labels all the time, but it happens in independent cinema, too. The stakes are so much higher when you've poured all your time, attention and money into a project for years, only to see it languish in exile from anyone who would possibly enjoy your effort. It always frustrates me as an audience member, too. This loopy, goopy movie is very entertaining. I know a number of guys (yes, they are all male) who would have also loved "Slime City" if we'd had access to it at age 12 or 13, as we did with the aforementioned titles. The playing field is somewhat more level now thanks to digital video and the Internet, although as Lamberson says in his excellent commentary, the jury is still out as to whether anyone can make money doing it completely by themselves.

The "Slime City" plot is cheese of the Swiss variety: pungent and full of holes. That's OK, because there are supernatural forces involved, an element which once introduced always helps explain away inconsistencies, e.g. "It's the work of the devil, such powers can't be comprehended!" A guy played by a friend of the director moves into an apartment building where a famous Satanist once led his followers to suicide. Their souls now inhabit the tenants, who at least get a low rent payment out of the deal. Our hero is seduced by a girl who looks like something from the cover of a forgotten '80s metal record, who is played by the same girl who plays his girlfriend (a frigid blonde, as opposed to the lusty bad girl sporting a ginormous black curly wig). A punk dude in the building feeds him evil lime Jell-O and "wine" which resembles water with green food coloring in it. Soon, he begins to ooze slime from his pores until he kills someone, which for some reason makes him unslimy. Sometimes his abdomen opens to reveal a limb-chewing vagina dentata, which goes unexplained but was probably inspired by Cronenberg's "Videodrome." All this begins to affect the guy's relationship, leading to a marvelous climax in which he's gradually dismembered by his alarmed girlfriend. I'm talking yellow goop sprayed all over the kitchen and a crawling brain. Although it's very cheap, it's obvious that a lot of effort went into this flick, and it's a good thing that this disc exists. As a bonus, you get Lamberson's third feature, a surprisingly well-constructed thriller about an agoraphobe who gets a psycho killer roommate entitled "Naked Fear." This one looks even cheaper than "Slime City," as it does without the effects onslaught and is mostly shot in one room on Hi8 - all sound was done in post, like the Italians used to do. This Lamberson is an interesting guy. I want to see his other flick, which is (sigh) a vampire love story.

"KatieBird *Certifiable Crazy Person"
(2005)
And now for some of that modern independent horror cinema. This is the product of one Justin Paul Ritter, who worked very hard to see his vision executed and distributed after toiling on projects of varying budgets for about a decade, teaching himself film production in the process. The cast and crew were basically volunteers. On the commentary, the director notes that no more than six or seven people were on set at any time during its ten-day principal shoot, and many of them performed myriad production duties, which makes the closing credits interesting. Created in reaction to the formulaic crap Ritter saw others struggling to complete, "KatieBird" is not another body count picture, but a serious psychological portrait depicted in a potentially alienating style. While pleasingly gruesome, its focus is not on the gore but on the sadomasochistic murderer of the title, differentiating it from today's "extreme torture horror" trend. As a study of a disturbed mind, it's both more detached and more probing than "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer," and as an origin story, the commitment of the filmmakers ensures that it has far greater depth than soulless studio product like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning."

What we mostly see is a lanky bottle blonde, who chains a guy who looks like Ron Silver with long hair to a bed and abuses him. This unstable lady is KatieBird Wilkens, played by Helene Udy, a lesser-known veteran of horror flicks including "The Incubus," "My Bloody Valentine" and Cronenberg's "The Dead Zone." This is intercut with scenes of KatieBird as a little girl and as a teenager, when she committed her first murder under the guidance of her doting father, who comes from a long line of killers. The entire movie is presented in little windows that pop up all over the screen, like that crazy Boston Strangler movie with Tony Curtis. These often present several views of the same scene (simultaneously or otherwise), depict a flashback or break a single image into impressionist fragments. At first, I found Ritter's experimental framing/editing pretentious, then infuriating, and finally, an effective technique. The tension generated by following those little pieces of information around amplifies a viewer's unease about what he or she is learning - or missing. It probably won't blow your mind, but from the acting to the hi-def camera work, the picture meets the director's stated goal: demonstrating that quality is possible in the realm of microbudget horror if sufficient care is taken. He planted subtle set decorations in "KatieBird" so he could set up a sequel in an organic manner - even his dream flick was an investment in the future. Ritter's a big advocate of DIY values, having adopted a mantra of "movies, not excuses" and formed a collective of folks passionate enough about filmmaking to help each other for experience in lieu of pay, sleep, health and other bourgeois comforts. Even if Gregory Lamberson is right and the audience willing to risk cash on new indie horror isn't huge right now, with enough entries like Ritter's out there, that might change.

Recent good listening provided by Devil Doll's massive Sacrilegium, Elvenking's jaunty The Winter Wake, My Dying Bride's miserable A Line of Deathless Kings, Fabio Frizzi's chilly score for Manhattan Baby, Sentenced's groovy Down, G.B.H.'s violent City Baby Attacked By Rats, Septic Flesh's unique Esoptron and Beirut's lovely Lon Gisland. Expect new Xmas tunes before the work week's done. Hey, check this out:

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.