The Unrepentant Cinephile

by Jason Coffman

  There’s nothing new in From the Dark ‘s setup, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The opening moments are particularly fascinating, with McMahon allowing most of the events to play out quietly as the farmer unearths the monster. This low-key style works to set an effective mood, but once the main action of the film gets going McMahon leans on a handful of tricks too many times. For example, the first time we see a character in the foreground facing the camera while something out of focus in the background suddenly signals a threat is effectively creepy. But McMahon repeats this type of shot several times, dulling its impact.

  McMahon manages to tease out some solid tension in a few scenes, and the leads both give good performances that lend a bit of extra nuance to their thinly sketched characters. The practical effects and makeup are done well. However, other than the Irish accents there’s just not much to set From the Dark apart from countless similar low-budget creature features. Horror completists will want to give this one a look, but anyone looking for something different in their genre cinema can safely take a pass.

  Frontier(s) (2007)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 17 May 2008

  For the last two years, After Dark Films has hosted a horror film “festival” called “8 Films to Die For,” showcasing eight independent and/or foreign films over the course of a weekend in theaters across the US. Last year, Xavier Gens’s Frontier(s) was originally announced as part of the lineup for the fest but was allegedly “banned” from participation–the film was unsurprisingly given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. So, After Dark decided on an unusual release for the film apart from the “horrorfest.” It was released in a small handful of theaters on Friday, May 9th, and released on DVD the following Tuesday, May 13th. This gave time for more buzz to build and added to the film’s reputation for being another in an increasingly gruesome line of French horror films. Now that it’s finally out here, though, we can see it for what it really is: yet another take on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, only this time with backcountry Nazis instead of the usual inbred monsters.

  Frontier(s) opens with its heroine Yasmine (Karina Testa) on the run with her wounded brother Sami (Adel Bencherif) after a bank robbery has gone awry. They’re trying to make their way to a meeting point with Yasmine’s ex-boyfriend Alex (Aurelien Wiik) and the other two thieves Tom (David Saracino) and Farid (Chems Dahmani). These opening scenes take place during intense rioting in Paris following the election of an extreme right-wing president, although whether the robbery is a reaction to this or whether the riots just provided a good opportunity to rob a bank is never addressed. Both groups finally meet only to split up again, with Tom and Farid taking the money out of the city and heading for the border and Yasmine and Alex taking Sami to the hospital. Unfortunately, Tom and Farid choose to stay in a very unfriendly hostel, eventually leading all of the young criminals to confront the depraved, inbred Von Geisler clan: a Nazi officer and his family hiding out deep in the French countryside.

  From this point on, Frontier(s) is extremely familiar. This will hardly be a spoiler to anyone who has seen any similar films: The young people meet horrible deaths at the hands of their captors one at a time, with only Yasmine spared similar treatment so she can be tortured some more before the film is over. The only real difference between Frontier(s) and any other take on the “crazy hillbilly” subgenre is the Nazi imagery and the film’s slick presentation. Gens is without question a stylish director (it’s no surprise this film led to his being hired for the Hollywood Hitman adaptation), but his suggestions that the film are about anything other than gory shock and brutal violence with high production values feel less than justified. The fear of a nation run by an extreme right-wing president is definitely valid given France’s recent political history, but there is little to tie that concept to the film’s formulaic genre story.

  However, hype and nods to political commentary aside, Frontier(s) is a pretty effective horror film. The villains are extremely creepy, and one member of the Von Geisler family, Eva (Maud Forget), compels an unsettling sympathy. The performances otherwise are pretty standard across the board for this type of film, although Karina Testa is particularly convincing as the traumatized Yasmine, giving the film a strong center character to anchor the atrocities. The gore effects are excellent and convincing, although in the same year as the terrifying Inside (A L’interieur) they’re not as shocking as they probably would have been otherwise. The film’s nearly fanatical adherence to the structure of its predecessors actually works in its favor, as opposed to the awkward post-modern “twist” of the very similar High Tension, the film widely regarded as the kick-off of the current French horror boom. Hardcore horror fans will find a lot to like about Frontier(s), but anyone going in expecting another groundbreaking French horror film will likely be disappointed. In the case of Frontier(s), the only thing really innovative about it was its US distribution plan.

  Frostbitten (2006)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 27 April 2008

  Let’s get this out of the way up front: Frostbitten has come to international attention due largely to the fact that it’s the first vampire film from Sweden. While that concept might automatically conjure up images of Bergman doing supernatural horror, Frostbitten is much more Scream than The Seventh Seal. Expectations might run high, but realistically, the best horror fans can hope for is something new to set this version of the well-worn vampire film apart from familiar genre efforts, and in that case, Frostbitten delivers.

  Opening with a group of Nazi soldiers lost behind enemy lines in the last days of World War II, Frostbitten defies expectations right from the start. Freezing and disoriented, the soldiers take shelter in a boarded-up shack deep in a forest where they encounter something demonic and inexplicable. The action soon cuts to present day, where single mother Annika (Petra Nielsen) and her daughter, Saga (Grete Havnesksold), are moving to a new town north of the polar circle. Annika has taken a job at the town’s hospital in order to work with renowned geneticist Gerhard Beckert (Carl-Ake Eriksson). While Saga tries to get used to the months-long night and her new high school, Annika begins to suspect that something is seriously amiss at the hospital.

  The real action starts when Saga’s new friend Vega (Emma T. Aberg) promises to bring some recreational drugs to an upcoming house party, but the only drugs her hospital intern dealer Sebastian (Jonas Karlstrsom) can find are the mysterious red capsules Dr. Beckert keeps in the lab, and Sebastian is wary of handing them over. After taking one himself, he starts to experience some very unusual side effects, just in time for a big dinner where he’s set to meet his girlfriend’s strictly religious parents for the first time–needless to say, their collection of crosses and taste for garlic don’t help matters. Meanwhile, Vega sneaks the pills out of Sebastian’s apartment and into the party, which becomes a completely different sort of get-together once the pills get dumped into the punch bowl.

  One of the best things about Frostbitten is that it doesn’t take itself all that seriously. The scenes with Sebastian becoming a vampire are hilarious and unsettling at the same time, and the whole film has a slick 1980s-style horror sheen. It’s almost like a Swedish vampire version of Night of the Creeps: it’s a fun, weird film that manages to jam Nazi vampires, Swedish schoolgirls, and talking pug dogs into a cheerfully gruesome horror comedy. The special effects are mostly very good, the vampires are appropriately evil, the film beat the adaptation of 30 Days of Night to the polar-circle vampire punch by two years, and the ending rather optimistically paves the way for a sequel. Genre fans looking for more than an enjoyable tweaking of vampire-film expectations might come away a bit disappointed, but it’s undeniable that Frostbitten is highly entertaining on its own terms.

  Frozen (2010)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 23 September 2010

  Adam Green’s first film, Hatchet, was a fun little throwback to the heyday of 80s slasher movies. Meaning more specifically that the film was heavy on the gore and jokes a
nd light on pretty much anything else. If it weren’t for his more character-centered follow-up Spiral, the leap from Hatchet ‘s goofy fun to Frozen‘s heavy reliance on character and dialogue would seem nearly impossible. That’s certainly not to say that Frozen doesn’t offer its share of tension and cringe-worthy moments, however. On the contrary, spending as much time with the characters as we do leads directly to Frozen ‘s most effective moments.

  Best friends Dan (Kevin Zegers) and Lynch (Shawn Ashmore) are on their annual boys’ ski trip, but this year they’re joined by Dan’s girlfriend Parker (Emma Bell). Parker can’t actually ski but Dan tries to help her learn, despite Lynch’s obvious annoyance that she has intruded on their Guys’ Weekend. After nearly calling it a day, Lynch insists on doing one more run down the slopes without having to stop for Parker, but Dan and Parker end up coming along anyway. They find that a storm is on the way and the ski lift is closing down for the week, but manage to get the attendant to allow them to go up for one last run. Due to a series of events at the ski lift operating station, the three friends end up stranded on the lift, hanging high above the ground on a Sunday evening– and the park won’t open again until the following Friday.

  Frozen has been compared to Chris Kentis’s 2003 film Open Water, which is a good reference for the film’s structure. People find themselves trapped in a situation where they are utterly unable to reach help and must figure out how to survive. However, unlike Open Water, which strands its protagonists literally in the middle of nowhere, Frozen ‘s setup immediately lends various escape plans to keen audiences. One of the film’s biggest storytelling missteps is the simple fact that in 2010, it’s almost totally unbelievable that not one of the three has their cell phone on them when the ski lift stops.

  Despite the fact that the entire film hangs on this particular contrivance, Frozen still generates plenty of tension and shocks once it gets up to speed. The characters make some very poor decisions that lead to swift and unpleasant consequences, and the three leads all offer solid performances. Even though they are clearly implicated by their actions in their share of the blame for their predicament, it’s tough not to get invested in their fate. It may not be as airtight (or as blatantly nihilistic) as Open Water, but Frozen still delivers the “survival horror” goods.

  Galaxina (1980)

  Originally published on Criticplanet.org

  Galaxina is one of those rare films blessed/cursed/doomed by a behind-the-scenes story that is infinitely more interesting than the film itself. In this case, it’s the gruesome tragedy of Dorothy Stratten, Playboy Playmate of the Year 1980. Stratten was murdered by her husband the same day that Galaxina premiered, causing Crown International to withdraw the film from release– although they did end up re-releasing the film a few months later. Stratten left behind a very small body of film work, with a few bit parts before Galaxina and a major role in Peter Bogdanovich’s They All Laughed (which was released after Galaxina). The horrible circumstances of her murder have, naturally, led to Galaxina gathering a cult fan base and cast a shadow over the film which it is unlikely to ever escape. In other words, regardless of the actual quality of the film, Galaxina ‘s grim backstory guarantees that it will always have an audience willing to watch it and wonder what might have been had Stratten lived.

  Unfortunately for those morbidly curious filmgoers, Galaxina is just awful. If it didn’t have the Stratten connection, it likely would have been long forgotten by now. Which, actually, is kind of a shame. As bad as it is, Galaxina ‘s director William Sachs (Van Nuys Blvd., The Incredible Melting Man) managed a couple of small technical innovations on his meager budget. One of these, which I’ll detail later, actually almost make the entire film worth watching. Almost.

  Galaxina (Dorothy Stratten) is the humanoid robot pilot of Space Police ship Infinity, captained by incompetent Captain Cornelius Butt (Avery Schreiber). On their way home, the crew gets a message that their tour of duty has been extended. They are sent to a distant point in space to retrieve the Blue Star, a relic of unimaginable power. This trip requires the crew to head a few decades out of their way, which will be spent in suspended animation. Before going into deep freeze, Thor (Stephen Macht) declares his love to Galaxina who cannot answer him because she doesn’t speak. While the crew spends the trip sleeping, Galaxina is left to run the ship herself, during which time she develops both feelings for Thor and a voice. When the crew wakes up, they discover that they have landed on a planet unfriendly to humans, so Galaxina is sent to find the Blue Star and return it to the Infinity. However, because the movie couldn’t just be over already, Galaxina is kidnapped by a cult that worships a Harley Davidson chopper, requiring Thor and Buzz (J.D. Hinton) to set out on a daring rescue mission on the alien world.

  The list of sci-fi films referenced in Galaxina is pretty staggering. They manage to knock out Star Wars before the opening credits are over, and from then on the references come virtually non-stop. There’s the obligatory Alien dinner table scene, and the alien brothel seems to be an early wink at Star Trek‘s style of character design (although, ironically, most of the masks were background leftovers from Star Wars). The aliens don’t fare very well in Galaxina: aside from the grotesques in the alien brothel and saloon, the biggest alien parts are a foul-mouthed rock-eating creature in the Infinity’s holding cell and the “baby” creature from the Alien scene. The film’s main villain Ordric appears to be an android with a pouty face and gets almost all the laughs in the movie. However, at least one is saved for the ship’s humanoid alien handyman Maurice (Lionel Mark Smith), who appears to be a black man with little bat wings, when he refers to Thor as a “Space Honkey.” Yes, in the entire 95 minute running time, that’s the second-funniest line. The rapid-fire comedic approach is enervating, and makes the film a serious chore to sit through.

  Galaxina is a virtual catalog of missed opportunities and inexplicable decisions. Writer/director Sachs admits on the DVD commentary track that Crown couldn’t decide if they wanted Galaxina to be rated R or PG, and the confusion is evident in the film’s odd tone. The standalone DVD release of the film features several different versions of scenes shot to be used in a PG-rated version of the film, or presumably for television edits. Sachs also apparently had a clear idea of what he wanted the film to be, despite the final result: he explains on the film commentary that he hired star Stephen Macht to play Thor because he has a “Heavy Metal” look, which he absolutely does. Sachs wanted Galaxina to be like a live-action Heavy Metal story, and in some ways he succeeds, for better or worse. The scene in which Thor and Buzz attempt to fondle the bared breasts of a holographic woman nicely sums up Galaxina ‘s level of juvenile humor. Well, that and the fact that one of the characters is named “Corny Butt.”

  Stratten’s presence in the film is confounding. She’s undeniably gorgeous, but she doesn’t actually do much of anything for most of the film. Further complicating matters, Galaxina is mute for the first half of the film and when she does speak, her voice is subtly modulated by a vocoder. Sachs says that there isn’t any of Stratten’s dialogue that isn’t subject to this effect, so at no point in the film does the audience actually hear Stratten’s “real” voice. Some viewers will likely wonder why Stratten doesn’t take her clothes off– after all, this is an R-rated bawdy space comedy and she was a Playboy Playmate of the Year. Which, of course, is exactly why Stratten couldn’t appear nude in Galaxina. Her Playboy contract prevented her from appearing nude in any other film or publication for a certain period of time after her Playboy appearances. And so Crown International ended up promoting an R-rated comedy starring a woman most famous for appearing nude who does not actually appear nude at any time in the film.

  So what is there to be said in Galaxina ‘s defense? Well, admittedly, not a whole lot. The primary reason to watch Galaxina, which will likely only appeal to seriously hardcore film nerds, is the fact that most of the scenes on the alien planet were shot on Kodak’s Infrared Ektachrome film. Sachs insisted on sh
ooting with the film despite the protests of the film’s producers and Kodak themselves– the film had never been used in shooting a feature film before, and not even Kodak knew what would happen with the film. It certainly sounds like the film was a pain to work with, but the gamble paid off. The footage Sachs shot with the Ektachrome film has an unreal quality and a look unlike anything else out there. Even today, nearly 30 years after Galaxina was released, only a handful of films have ever used Ektachrome stock. Perhaps the most famous example is David O. Russell’s Three Kings, which used a type of Ektachrome slide film for a very different kind of effect.

  Sachs also explains that an early special effects shot in the film used primitive CGI to erase wires from a miniature. This is much less noticeable, but it makes Galaxina an early example of a film in which computer effects were used. Sachs manages to sneak in a lot of weird little touches throughout the film, including a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo by the Batmobile from the 60s Batman television series in the alien town. The Sergio Leone-style showdown between Galaxina and Ordric and the motorcycle chase scene both successfully incorporate Sachs’s influences and show off the best of his attempts to bring Heavy Metal to life. A scene late in the film where Ordric watches First Spaceship on Venus slyly tips a hat to Crown International’s history of distributing dubbed versions of foreign films, but has the unfortunate side effect of making the viewer wish they were watching First Spaceship on Venus.