The Horror of It All

by Adam Rockoff

  Jacopetti and Prosperi’s ultimate legacy is not only all the subsequent mondo films that flourished in the wake of Mondo Cane—Mondo Bizarro, Mondo Freudo, Mondo Sex, Mondo Magic, Mondo Erotico, Mondo Candido, Mondo Infame, Mondo Balordo—but the idea of reality as a genre unto itself. In today’s world of Fear Factor, that freakin’ duck family, thousands of reality shows on hundreds of channels, and millions of user-generated YouTube curiosities, it’s nearly impossible to understand just how revolutionary the concept of “reality” once was. Films like Mondo Cane held up a mirror to the dark side of the human condition, and although the reflection was usually messy and sometimes constructed, it was never anything less than compelling.

  Inspired by the mondo films of his homeland, Ruggero Deodato dropped the neutron bomb on unsuspecting audiences with Cannibal Holocaust, generally considered the apex (or nadir, depending on your point of view) of the Italian cannibal subgenre. Using a then-unique narrative device, the film follows the exploits of a New York anthropologist who travels to the depths of the Amazon in order to locate a documentary crew that has gone missing. Half the film is made up of the crew’s “found footage,” which contains some of the most disturbing images ever captured on celluloid. A native adulteress is raped with a stone dildo and then bludgeoned to death. A pregnant woman’s baby is yanked out prematurely and then buried in the mud. The film’s most iconic image—which today adorns T-shirts, books, and the DVD I have in my hand—is of a young woman suspended on a stake that has been forced through her vagina and out her mouth.

  Right after the Italian premiere of Cannibal Holocaust in early February 1980, the film was pulled from theaters by the authorities. Deodato was initially charged with murder. The killing of the documentary film crew as well as the shish kebobbed native looked too real. Allegedly, Deodato compounded the problem by requiring the actors to lie low for a year, allowing him to exploit their “real” disappearance, much like Allan Shackleton had done with his Snuff actress. However, in recent interviews, two of the principals deny they ever signed such an agreement, much less vanished from public view. Deodato also had to prove that the impalement was just a special—albeit gruesome—effect. Like Rambaldi in the courtroom less than a decade before, he demonstrated how the nude actress sat upon a bicycle seat mounted on the end of a metal pole secured in the ground. She then tilted her head backward and held a light piece of balsa wood between her teeth, giving the impression that the stake tore through her lengthwise. For such a simple effect, the result is extraordinarily realistic. Just in case there was any further doubt, Deodato also furnished the court with photos of the actress interacting with the crew—after the scene had been filmed.

  But Cannibal Holocaust was originally banned not because of fake murder but because of actual animal slaughter. The Italian cannibal film has a long history of on-screen critter carnage, initiated by Umberto Lenzi with 1972’s The Man from Deep River, which includes scenes of cockfighting, a mongoose battling with a cobra, and an alligator being sliced open. Lenzi would recycle the exact same footage eight years later in Eaten Alive! His most famous film, the gutmuncher Cannibal Ferox, is best known for the scene in which Zora Kerova is strung up by her breasts with metal hooks, but it also features plenty of animal abuse: some type of constrictor smothers a small mammal, a turtle is decapitated and then dismembered, and in a reprise of his other films, another gator is disemboweled.

  For some incongruous reason, horror fans tend to be animal lovers. Many who watched Cannibal Holocaust really did care about a very graphic turtle beheading, as well as a monkey scalping and the shooting of a small pig tied to a pole. Using an old law against animal cruelty originally created to combat bullfighting, authorities charged Deodato with obscenity and he received a four-month suspended sentence.

  Deodato claims Cannibal Holocaust has made more than $200 million since its original release, even accounting for its prematurely ended Italian run. Although I think this is a wildly inflated estimate, there are no reliable figures for thirty-five-year-old exploitation films, so you can decide if you want to take him at his word. According to an article in Empire magazine, while shooting his upcoming cannibal film, The Green Inferno—greatly inspired by the Italian cannibal genre—director Eli Roth screened Cannibal Holocaust for a group of native Amazonians who had never before seen a movie (not the movie, but any movie). Apparently, they thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen, proving that gore, not love, is the real universal language.

  The ultimate irony is that sometimes realism is achieved solely by accident, in spite of the filmmaker’s best intentions, not because of them.

  In late November 2010, firefighters were called to the George Washington Hotel in the small Western Pennsylvania city of Washington. While checking the building, they came across a surprise in room 405. Pittsburgh police chief J. R. Blyth described it as “the most grisly murder scene in [my] thirty-five years in law enforcement.”

  Empty liquor bottles were strewn across the floor. Vulgar words were scrawled on the wall in blood. There was even a piece of scalp with hair still sticking out of it. “I had no idea what was going on,” said Chief Blyth. “There was blood on the floor, the mattress, the walls, the pillow.” The room was declared a crime scene and detectives were dispatched to investigate the matter. Eight hours later (clearly this wasn’t the crack CSI team of Petersen, Caruso, or Sinise) it was determined that the crime scene was nothing more than the abandoned set from the forgettable horror movie New Terminal Hotel, starring the late Corey Haim and scream queen Tiffany Shepis. The hotel owner had left the set intact in case the crew wanted to return for reshoots.

  Either he was the most accommodating owner in history, or the George Washington Hotel had more than its share of vacancies. And if it was the latter, he could always have rigged the rooms with hidden cameras, murdered his guests, and sold the ensuing snuff films to make a little extra cash—just like in the movie Vacancy.

  Because as the makers of Snuff, Guinea Pig, and Faces of Death learned long ago, the specter of real death—no matter how poorly executed—always pays the bills.

  * * *

  I. For years, the story was that Sheen accidentally shot Preston. This version was reported in hundreds of media outlets and neither party did anything to claim otherwise. However, in 2011, Sheen admitted that Preston was injured when a revolver, left in Sheen’s pants, accidentally discharged, shattering the toilet bowl and injuring Preston with the debris.

  II. Despite all evidence to the contrary—most of all his waiflike body—Axl Rose fashions himself as something of a tough guy. In the GNR song “Get in the Ring,” Rose dares a handful of writers who he feels have wronged him to “get in the ring” so he can kick their “bitchy little ass.” Even as a kid, I found the prospect of Axl Rose kicking anybody’s ass to be laugh-out-loud funny.

  III. There’s good reason to believe that a majority of the protesters were plants hired by Shackleton, who would then tip off his friends at the local news affiliates to ensure the maximum amount of coverage.

  IV. Although this number was undoubtedly made up as a marketing ploy, it’s certainly not inconceivable. After all, any country that did ban movies would have certainly banned Faces of Death.

  V. Le Cilaire is probably referring to the 1975 film Savage Man Savage Beast, as it was made only a few years prior and was also known as The Great Hunting.

  VI. On the DVD commentary, Le Cilaire specifically says “Star Wars.” However, he probably means The Empire Strikes Back, as this was released in Japan around the same time as Faces of Death.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Friends in Low Places

  Jon Kitley knows more about horror films than anyone I know.

  He lives in Aurora, Illinois (made famous by Wayne’s World), with his lovely wife, Dawn, who designs and bakes the most amazing horror-themed cakes you’ll ever see, and twenty-one-year-old son, Nick, who can complete a Rubik’s Cube in less than three minutes. As somebod
y who was obsessed with this puzzle back in the day—but who could never complete more than a single side of the cube—this feat is right up there with splitting the atom. Jon possesses one of the most enviable collections of horror memorabilia I’ve seen. Some of my favorite items of his include a promotional box cutter from Blood Cult (often described, incorrectly, as the first made-for-home-video release), a scale model of the Tingler (I’m trying to convince him to also install Percepto! in his screening room seats), and a gorgeous German poster for I, Madman, the first film I name whenever somebody asks me for a little-seen horror recommendation. Although Jon maintains his own fantastic website, Kitley’s Krypt, and writes a regular column for HorrorHound magazine, it’s an absolute crime he’s not teaching at a university. Not only is his breadth of knowledge unrivaled, but his enthusiasm for the genre is infectious. His website’s tagline is Discover the Horror, and there’s nothing he enjoys more than suggesting obscure gems to those in need of something a little different. At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, I once took a class on Hollywood genres (with an emphasis on horror) taught by an esteemed professor with a long list of letters after his name and an even longer list of publications to his credit. Madison has an excellent film program, especially for a Midwestern university. This guy was the resident “horror expert.” And he couldn’t carry Kitley’s jock.

  Matt Carr is a ridiculously talented local Chicago artist who goes by the name of Putrid. In the days of hand-painted exploitation one-sheets he would have been a legend. Putrid shaves his head, is covered in tattoos (mainly from horror movies), wears his ever-present black leather jacket no matter the weather, and drinks like a fish. He collects vintage horror VHS tapes and his favorite band is NunSlaughter. NunSlaughter! And yet he is one of the absolute nicest guys you will ever meet. By contrast, I know plenty of diehard Deadheads, always babbling on about boxes of rain and how love will see you through, who are some of the biggest jerks in the world.

  To horror fans, Aaron Christensen is better known as Dr. AC, the editor of two indispensable critical guides, Horror 101: The A-List of Horror Films and Monster Movies and Hidden Horror: A Celebration of 101 Underrated and Overlooked Fright Flicks. But aside from his encyclopedic knowledge of the genre, Aaron is a Shakespearian actor who, along with his beautiful and talented actress wife, Michelle Courvais, also performs in independent films. As a rule, I hate the theater. And it’s not for a lack of exposure. I’ve already detailed my family’s annual Christmas pilgrimage into New York City. So by the time I moved to Chicago at age twenty-three, I had seen pretty much every major Broadway musical. As much as I looked forward to the preshow meal with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, I equally dreaded the show itself. Once in college I got so fucked up the night before we saw Carousel that I practically slept through the whole thing, aside from intermission, when I went to the bathroom to vomit. All this is relevant because aside from Les Misérables (the one musical I adore) and, strangely enough, an amateur production of Allan Sherman’s Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh, the only other play I’ve enjoyed was The Quiet Man Tales, an adaptation of Irish novelist Maurice Walsh’s short stories, in which Aaron starred. So this should tell you something about his talent.

  What do these folks have in common and why am I mentioning them at all? They’re all part of Chicago’s robust and vibrant horror community.

  It’s always risky to analyze a specific subculture, whether it’s a fringe political group, motorcycle enthusiasts, swingers, triathletes, bookworms, or lactation fetishists. This is especially true if you’re part of said group. You run the risk of making sweeping generalizations and inevitably manage to alienate the very people with whom you want to ingratiate yourself. Writing about an unrelated topic in the September 2013 issue, Rue Morgue editor-in-chief Dave Alexander admits, “just the term ‘genre community’ is problematic due to the vastly different interests and opinions within it.” He’s exactly right.

  That said, I’ve toiled in the genre long enough that I think I can speak, with at least some authority, about the soul of the horror community.

  In some ways, I’m an outsider in a community of outsiders. I have zero tattoos. I let my three ear piercingsI close up over twenty years ago. Although I proudly wear my New York Ripper T-shirt to horror conventions, in civilian life I own a television production company and attend meetings in a suit. I’m married, have two young children, and am a pretty conservative parent. I love horror films, but they’re not my entire life. On the other hand, I wrote a book about slasher films at a time when most horror writers considered this endeavor beneath them. Furthermore, Wicked Lake won a Mr. Skin Award for Best Lesbian Orgy and the remake of I Spit on Your Grave not only performed well enough to warrant a sequel but earned inclusion in Roger Ebert’s A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length, alongside his other least-favorite movies.

  I like to think my horror cred is unimpeachable, but all subcultures are exclusionary to some degree, and although my horror brethren might be welcoming to the dude with a nail driven through his nasal bridge, I’ve also caught them looking my way with thinly veiled distrust.

  It’s tough to describe a horror convention—at least the major ones—to someone who’s never attended. The best analogy I can think of is trying to explain what a small-town carnival is like to someone who’s only been to Disneyland. Oh, I can paint a picture for you. The rusty amusements set up in a single night by freelance meth heads. Malnourished farm animals pumped full of enough downers to prevent them from biting off the fingers of little children yanking on their tails. Concession stands selling combinations of foodstuff that nature never intended. But unless you’re there, walking through the hay and shit, breathing in that sublime mixture of fried fat, cigarette smoke, and teenage lust, you can never really appreciate the essence of the place.

  But since these conventions are ground zero for the horror faithful, I have to give it a go.

  Gone are the days when the cons were held in church basements and rec centers. The last Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors I attended was in the Los Angeles Convention Center. Usually, there’s a “guest of honor.” The biggest of the big. The kind of personalities who can, and do, command forty bones for an autographed photo. People like John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Dario Argento, and Clive Barker. At one time you could have thrown George Romero or Bruce Campbell into the mix, but they attend conventions so regularly now that the thrill is, if not gone, at least muted. Sometimes there’s a “reunion” of the cast from a beloved film. You might find Re-Animator alumni Stuart Gordon, Barbara Crampton, Jeffrey Combs, and maybe even writer Dennis Paoli making a group appearance. Then you have about a dozen or so minor celebrities. People like Hellraiser’s Ashley Laurence; the Avellan twins from Planet Terror; Lance Henriksen; Danny Trejo; Reggie Bannister; Lloyd Kaufman and whichever Tromettes he can round up; one of the Evil Dead ladies; P. J. Soles; Kane Hodder, or at least someone who played Jason Voorhees; either Michael Berryman or Robert Z’Dar (of The Hills Have Eyes and Maniac Cop fame, respectively); and definitely Danielle Harris. If the crowd is strong there will be a line for all these folks. And you hope so. Because there’s nothing more depressing than watching Z-list horror actors sitting by themselves, looking down at their iPhones and pretending to be busy, while all their signed headshots and lobby cards lie untouched in front of them.

  Every piece of memorabilia seems to beckon as you stroll down the rows and rows of booths. There’s a ton of vendors selling posters, press kits, movie stills, and rare DVDs. The crazy thing is, you’ll gladly pay thirty bucks for the two-disc set of Street Trash when it can be gotten on Amazon for $17.99, simply because it’s there. The instant gratification is well worth the premium, as is the knowledge that the profit is going to a fellow fan, not an online retail behemoth. Horror collectors meet at the intersection of commerce and nostalgia; in some strange way, the cachet of owning Goblin’s Suspiria soundtrack on vinyl is just as important as the prog-rock melodies pressed into the spiral groov
es. There are the whack-job artists selling replicas of classic monsters built from matchsticks. The rare-book peddlers with first editions of Lovecraft, King, Barker, and Straub. I don’t care how many times you’ve read The Shining, it’s just scarier housed in the original dust jacket. The vendor with silk-screened T-shirts of Cannibal Holocaust, Nekromantik, A Cat in the Brain, and Shock Waves, taking the calculated risk that nobody knows who the hell owns the licensing rights to these images. There are the independent filmmakers hawking their low-budget bloodbaths for ten bucks, telling everyone within earshot that they do it for the art while secretly praying that some low-level distribution executive will give their passion project a quick glance. Jewelry makers and mask designers. Comic book collectors and black-metal aficionados. A Zuni fetish doll and a scale model of the Lament Configuration.

  As Obi-Wan once warned Luke, “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” He wasn’t talking about the horror convention floor, but he might as well have been.

  Of course, I mean this not only affectionately but ironically. After all, and this will be evident to anyone who regularly attends cons (but counterintuitive to everyone else), horror fans are some of the nicest and most peaceful people around.

  A couple of years ago I was at a film festival. A movie whose title I don’t recall was playing and there was a scene in which the male lead (and not an unlikeable one, I might add) slaps a woman across her face. Hard. In context, it may have been to calm her down from a bout of hysterics (and just so everybody is clear, only in the movies does this ever work), but nonetheless, all of us men who were not raised by sociopaths and have even a modicum of decency know that there’s never an acceptable time to hit a woman.

  The audience reaction to the slap heard round the theater was not gasps of self-righteous disbelief; it was near-universal laughter. I was sitting next to a female friend, a strong independent woman. I’d call her a modern feminist if I didn’t think that was in some way condescending. Upon hearing the laughter, she muttered under her breath, “Nice, really nice,” calling out the misogynists who seemed to find domestic abuse funny. What she failed to understand was the reason for this reaction. It was precisely because the audience recognized just how blatantly inappropriate this behavior was. Most—and I like to think, all—of the men watching the film would have rather chewed off their own arm than strike a woman. Play this exact same scene in Saudi Arabia (that is, if they had movie theaters), or some other country where spousal abuse is tolerated and tacitly encouraged, and I guarantee you’d get a very different reaction.