by Andy Cox
From the diurnal cycle and circadian rhythms comes our human penchant for redoing everything, including meal times, sleeping patterns, and varied anniversaries. If the zeitgebers of chrono-biology control social behaviours and genetics, why not also include psychology, language, culture, and the fields of art and entertainment? Yes, it’s only the illusion of freewill that is driving filmmakers to remake movies. Whether the projects are seemingly chosen as personal favourites now deemed worthy of revision, neglected classics apparently in need of updating for the modernist pulse of zeitgeist concerns, or simply a money-raking spin-doctoring of re-scripted themes, it often feels like over a century of genre cinema means everything new is just a rehash of something else. The differences between before and after, and between the recent past and the near futures, appear to be closing faster than ever.
A decade after the super-heroics of Stephen Sommers’ Van Helsing, here’s Stuart Beattie’s I, FRANKENSTEIN (Blu-ray/DVD, 26 May), with its urban- gothic/modern fantasy of stoical demon-bashing by the patchwork immortal without a soul. If the comicbook-derived Hellboy can succeed as a monster hunter/slayer following the super-team model, this franchistein variant of the wandering loner and killer seems eager to please as a ‘hell-bloke’ made good. Zombie champion Adam (Aaron Eckhart) is recruited by the sometimes stony-faced matriarch Leonore (Miranda Otto, War of the Worlds remake, Eowyn in Lord of the Rings sequels), the angelic queen of a righteous order of gargoyle vigilantes occupying a besieged cathedral. Adam Frankenstein – as our hero becomes known – is being targeted for experiments by demon prince Naberius (Bill Nighy, doing his level best not to look bored here), conducted in secret labs by a human-pet scientist named Terra Wade (Yvonne Strahovski, co-star of TV’s Chuck), whose re-animation research is destined to enable Nab’s army, ready for possession apocalypse. When evil plans to win the eternal war erupt into fiery battles on the night-city streets, at least the spectacular visual effects provide us with a welcome break from the most horrendously clichéd dialogue scenes of mouldy-prune comicbook-styling we have seen for many a cyclical year. On paper, it looks less like storytelling and more like free-gift origami tat.
I cannot honestly say that I, Frankenstein is essential viewing, even for the most dedicated followers of cinematic fashion, but with its displays of overly commercialised awfulness this is a bizarre treat to behold, and I laughed like a drain at its charismatic authority figures, and its audacious monomythic depiction of Adam as Campbellian hero (not with a thousand faces, but one obviously stitched together from umpteen others). Watch it and chortle with delight, or sigh in disappointment. The choice might well appear to be yours…but I suspect it probably isn’t.
RE-ANIMATOR (limited edition steel-book Blu-ray, 2 June) offers a luxury for all aficionados of comedy horror classics. Now re-mastered in glorious hi-def quality, this two-disc release includes the unrated/uncut/director’s cut (86:30 minutes), and a somewhat padded ‘integral’ (104:32 minutes) version assembled from the US ‘R’ rated cut and other edited footage. It’s one of the greatest cult horrors of the 1980s, with a career-defining and iconic performance by Jeffrey Combs as the modern mad scientist Herbert West. The bright palette of Mac Ahlberg’s vivid cinematography shifts to a gloomy and shadowy worldview as this inevitably tragic story progresses to an insanely violent conclusion, while the richer tones of Richard Band’s jaunty theme music help to elevate Stuart Gordon’s directorial debut from low-budget production values to garish pop-art heights. As this cheerfully macabre Frankensteinian farce switches, via nightmarish breakthrough of zombie mayhem, to a surrealistic delirium in its grotesque finale (“Who’s going to believe a talking head?”), viewers are carried along by the sheer momentum of its crazy invention.
The package boasts a batch of cast and crew interviews, a pair of commentary tracks, and Perry Martin’s excellent retrospective documentary feature Re-Animator Resurrectus (69 minutes, 2007), plus deleted scenes and trailer/adverts. For the uninitiated, I also recommend enjoyable Miskatonic sequel Bride of Re-Animator (aka Re-Animator 2, 1989), as directed by Re-Animator producer Brian Yuzna, and his belated trilogy-closer Beyond Re-Animator (Interzone #234), made in 2003.
“I wanna see if you bin foolin’ around before you shame all of us.” THE PIT (aka Jug Face, DVD, 9 June) is rural horror by Chad Crawford Kinkle. It is about trashy redneck families that eke life from death, eating road-kill and selling moonshine. As this backwoods congregation prep for their arranged marriage of Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter, who previously appeared in Lucky McKee’s The Woman), the impending nuptials rouse a dark spirit from that ceremonial pit in the woods. Butchered remains found scattered about are hardly a worse sight than obnoxiously false piety of the poor girl’s mother. The indie production’s cast are led by Sean Young (recently seen in Attack of the 50ft Cheerleader) and Larry Fessenden. The disturbing delusions of sundry hillbilly characters are linked to the supernaturally guided hands of a local potter, maker of jug faces, in a valiant attempt to evoke a fairytale trope.
However, the scenario never quite convinces from the start, and it all becomes increasingly preposterous, especially when better-directed acting is clearly required for believable developments of this bizarre drama. A full moon rises on a tragedy of incest and the assorted yokels gather for their daylight sacrifice, with subsequent punishments when that doesn’t work in anyone’s favour.
Although noisily stuttering psychic visions punctuate the storyline, the writing fails at the basic grammar of genre-screen traditions (Wicker Man, Deadly Blessing, etc), and the concerns of archaic survivals in conflict with modern ethics and progressive morality are bludgeoned at us without care or any degree of subtlety. Pregnant Ada’s showdown with her shocked throwback parents is (unintentionally?) very funny though.
Current “HBO sensation” Nic Pizzolatto’s TRUE DETECTIVE (DVD/Blu-ray, 9 June) is a crime drama series with some first-rate writing and acting for superb character studies of cops hunting a serial killer in Louisiana, and it has a welcome whiff of southern gothic. It is a great TV show but, despite the best efforts by stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, this narrative has minimal horror content so it’s simply not in the same league as Werner Herzog’s dazzlingly bizarre Bad Lieutenant remake (Black Static #19) or Nancy Miller’s cross-genre series Saving Grace (2007–10), which featured Holly Hunter as a haunted homicide cop on a road to redemption.
True Detective’s leisurely unfolding complexities have only a difference of tone to season-arc plots in CSI and Bones (two of my favourites), both of which have tackled serial killers in equally chilling cases. Whether the cops are pursuing a Leatherface or a Lecter type, crime drama on TV has rarely been half as good as Chris Carter’s Millennium (1996–9), which saw Lance Henriksen redefine dark-world detective work as the iconic Frank Black. In an obvious focus on mainstream TV drama instead of horror themes, True Detective is overly talky, with too much telling-it-like-it-is and not enough show-time. In ten episodes of its storyline, that spans two decades, this is a successful mystery offering plenty of moody atmosphere and ambiguous voodoo, but its subtle terrors are only as effective as wicked rumours, and its tragedy often relies upon suggestion instead of a more confrontational style of modern horror. The supposedly fearsome ‘Yellow King’ haunts the past, and only appears in the flesh for the series’ fairly predictable climax. Perhaps the biggest flaw of True Detective is a seemingly tacked-on epilogue (outside the hospital), wrapping everything up with a sentimental happy ending that feels terribly disappointing and is quite at odds with the rest of this rather interestingly downbeat tale.
For something that delivers more than genre-fringe material, HBO’s ongoing TRUE BLOOD (Season Six, Blu-ray/DVD, 2 June) explores richer if not philosophically deeper affectations of the eerie-bayou style via some increasingly whimsical takes on vampire romance, embracing its attendant folklore assortment of creature-cousins, like the popular Buffy and Twilight franchises. Like butter and cheese, horror is now available in a s
preadable form. Oh dear dairy diary, what have they done now?
Bill appears reborn as Lillith incarnate, and his ‘Billith’ has newfound powers upsetting the delicate balance of this mixed-up mystery scenario’s vampire clans, werewolf pack, and fairy realm with a Louisiana soap opera in tandem. Sheriff Andy is father to fast-growing alien girls. As she’s wary of the killed-Bill’s identity crisis, psychic heroine Sookie prefers to side (for now) with ex-Viking Eric. The governor supports a policing crackdown on vampire trade in the state. A fresh batch of genre in-jokes is spearheaded by guest star Rutger Hauer, who drives around picking up hitchhikers, yet he turns out to be King Niall, a Merlinesque granddad to the Stackhouses.
True Blood maintains its cocktail party of a support-cast mixed from American stereotype ingredients. Rival TV series Lost Girl and Grimm have better quality sidekicks or Scooby gangs but whatever True Blood lacks (if compared to them) in wit, charm and twisty originality, it strives to make up for with emotional intensity and obviously adult, though still not really mature, appeal. Tribal mentalities confront harsh political reality as fang-bangers, ’shifter-groupies and wranglers of outsider weirdness assemble on the treacherous borderlands of supernatural domains. But can personal problems, social unrest or disordered authority ever be solved by following quaintly simplistic homilies delivered with the grinding noise of chug rock?
Top baddie Warlow proves an elusive threat at first. Appearing, with a distinctly feral aspect, from a phantom/negative zone portal, his ancient intentions are masked by a nice-guy subterfuge that doesn’t survive a first date with Sookie. Mongrels and hybrids is a continuing theme and there is a ‘Stackhome syndrome’ which surrounds Billith’s perceived divinity. When scientists are coerced to make hepatitis V, for poisoning vampires drinking bottled Tru Blood products, story developments accrue and accelerate as both villains and innocents die because of indecision, misplaced hope, betrayal, resistance, or vamp glamouring. The avoidable death of Nora (British Lucy Griffiths) has graphic and considerably poignant impact. Top god-botherer Sarah (Anna Camp) makes characteristic fashion statements – all smarty-pants and bossy-boots – and revels in her shining moment with, probably, the greatest ever black-comedy use of the line “Thank you, Jesus!”
Salem’s Lot is again citable as the key influence as Bon Temps town and community are threatened with destruction to satiate the salty tastes. The season’s penultimate episode has many vampires dancing in sunlight, but even invincibility proves a fatal weakness as “forever is a rare thing in this world”. And so, despite the cheerful twists of togetherness that result from pragmatic solutions to supernatural problems, a happy ending for all concerned is unlikely, because humanity might never trust parasites living among them. Well, that’s life after death with orgiastic sex for you. Just not fair.
A proficient, intelligent remake of Thai black comedy 13: Game of Death (Black Static #13), Daniel Stamm’s 13 SINS (DVD, 30 June) is a straightforward horror thriller that’s sometimes at odds with the darker humour of its comicbook source. This American production plays the conspiracy angle more than the original Asian mystery did, while focusing upon political and personal ethics instead of just antisocial dares in the tradition of Japanese game shows.
As in 2006’s game-movie, the challenges of this year’s version have strict rules, enforced off-screen so protagonist Elliot (Mark Webber) never confronts his ultimate tormentor. He is just another above-average under-achiever offered empowerment under threat of abject failure in his already much-troubled lifestyle. This US ‘funny game’ is geared towards escalating law-breaker action rather than delving into increasingly gross humiliations, but the moral bankruptcy of poor Elliot’s wealthy puppet-masters (vaguely identified as the absurdly bored ‘one percent’) promotes the same kind of gleeful manipulation of underdog behaviour as explored in the Thai farce.
In sufficiently desperate straits any man becomes a monster, and it is this “spectacle of transformation” that 13 Sins is largely concerned with.
Instantly recognisable stars Ron Perlman (as a police detective on Elliot’s case) and Pruitt Taylor Vince (playing a doomed conspiracy-theorist) help to boost the mainstream profile of this contender for top cult-movie of the year. Whatever level of financial success this remake attains, it’s certainly a welcome adaptation of death-game sinema that deserves to be seen.
“Did he get you, too?” Vincenzo Natali’s HAUNTER (DVD/Blu-ray, 14 July) finds teenager Lisa (Abigail Breslin, Ender’s Game, Zombieland) wears her Siouxsie shirt every day, solves Rubik puzzles distractedly, and plays the clarinet without any enthusiasm, in a fogbound house where this numbing routine repeats itself, while Lisa’s parents don’t understand her and refuse to face the family’s predicament. She finds a home video stashed away up in the attic, and discovers a secret cellar door – locked, of course – behind the washing machine. Lisa’s Ouija board quizzing prompts some disruptive changes, leading to family rows as her dad (Peter Outerbridge) turns quite menacing – but he’s not half as blatantly scary as the pale visitor (Stephen McHattie), who’s diabolically sinister from his first appearance. One bicycle ride into the unknown later, fresh clues only deepen this mystery of serial-killer reportage when Lisa’s timewarp nightmares escalate domestic oddity into tragic surrealism.
Basically an Elm Street variation, which the heroine cannot wake up from, this doles out spooky acts of measured intrigue with a second family in a different decade facing mirror-world problems. Beyond the suffocating atmosphere and some chilling-character set-pieces, Haunter suggests that Lisa’s only escape is something like oblivion, until the concealed identity of the pale man is unveiled. This is all eminently watchable, just as we might expect from a director of Natali’s calibre, but its lack of sufficiently ghastly horror and on-screen violence (though some is implied) result in a timidly concocted work of barking terror without much bite.
A decade before British director John Guillermin made it big in Hollywood at the helm of mid-1970s blockbusters like The Towering Inferno and that King Kong remake, he filmed RAPTURE (Blu-ray/DVD, 28 July), a variant of that modern fairytale Whistle Down The Wind concerning stranger-in-town themes. Centred on the proverbial old dark house, under perpetually overcast skies of the Brittany coast, this is basically a coming-of-age story about Agnes (Patricia Gozzi), who overcomes her stern father’s objections and builds a scarecrow. Outside the local asylum, a police van crashes and some prisoners escape into the countryside. One stormy night, Agnes sees a fugitive, Joseph (Dean Stockwell), wearing her scarecrow’s black suit. In a blink, her worldview changes, and she helps to hide him from the search by gendarmes.
Agnes’ father Larbaud (Melvyn Douglas), a former judge, proves to be sympathetic to American Joe, and shields him from injustice. But lonely introvert Agnes is reluctantly becoming a young woman, wearing her older sister’s fashionable clothes, but still prone to hysterical outbursts, and she prefers to believe her childish romantic fantasy, wishing away the obvious facts. So, when Agnes’ dreams appear to come true, a tragic ending looks inevitable.
Almost overflowing with beautiful and brooding b&w CinemaScope imagery, Rapture plays a skilful balancing act between gothic traditions of an iconic cliff-top house and character based wonders of mistaken identity found in magic realism. Yet both are served here by slow-brewing conflict between generations, and the compassionate Larbaud’s belated confession about his own dark past. This is not a forgotten Euro-US masterpiece, but it is certainly a neglected work of art, and it’s one that richly deserves this superb HD re-mastering.
DRUDGE WORK: ALSO RECEIVED
THE FORGOTTEN (DVD, 28 April) is a re-title of Falls the Shadow (2011), by novice writer-director Steven Berryessa. It is a depressingly derivative debut feature, attempting to mix post-apocalypse western and survivalist-horror tropes as it meanders from gormless Mad Max clichés (but without any car chases!) on speed-dial, to shameless pretension about one man’s revenge against some grandstanding neo-Nazi villains. Its �
��look’ is terribly dreary, it sounds even worse, and the pace of its supposedly gritty aggro just never gets started.
Josh Stolberg’s domestic terror Crawlspace is re-titled THE ATTIC (DVD, 5 May). With only the currency of economic realities to distinguish it from predecessors Hider in the House (1986) and TV-movie Through the Eyes of a Killer (1992), it posits a yuppie family targeted by a sinister ex-home owner instead of a single woman living alone, and obvious haunted-house type red-herrings waste the estimable talents of such recognisable names as Lori Loughlin and Steven Weber. It’s a property to rent, but not to buy.
As filmmakers are known to view movies as their children, there’s a grimly inevitable sense that our genre’s lower division of DIY products would redo Rosemary’s Baby as reality-TV video diary. With the most obvious nods to paranormal charade/occult cons, novice Brian Netto panders to all fans of pseudocumentary with DELIVERY (DVD, 12 May). It’s 85 minutes but feels like nine months. Zoom. Cut. [Insert bathetic interview.] “It’s fucking ridiculous, okay!” For a genuine horror involving pregnancy watch Bustillo and Maury’s extreme shocker Inside (Black Static #13).
“You were born from death.” DEVIL’S DUE (Blu-ray/DVD, 16 June) is dully composed handycam horror, and another feature that cribs its basics from Rosemary’s Baby. With its wedding video and home surveillance-web set-ups, it documents the newlyweds’ lifestyle trivia in bloated scenes that dogmatically follow a predictable conspiracy-driven storyline. It’s 89 minutes of unwatchable tediumedia for incurable insomniacs only. It’s the second of this month’s evil twins.
SILVER BULLETS
MIKE O’DRISCOLL ON TV NOIR