It Follows (2015): written and directed by David Robert Mitchell; starring Maika Monroe (Jay), Lili Sepe (Kelly), Keir Gilchrist (Paul), Olivia Luccardi (Yara), Jake Weary (Hugh/ Jeff), and Daniel Zovatto (Greg) (2015): It Follows is a terrific horror movie with surprising depth, especially for a film written and directed by a newcomer, David Robert Mitchell. It knows when to be subtle. It knows when to be gross. And it knows the iconic, John-Carpenter-related value of a synth-heavy score.
The film takes a horror-movie staple -- the apparent violent punishment of teenagers in slasher movies for having sex -- and makes it the central conceit. Have sex with the wrong person and something terrible will follow you and try to kill you. Escape death by sleeping with someone else and 'passing it on.' Return to a state of danger if the person you 'infected' dies before passing it on. Really, it's a lot like sex in the 1980's.
But the movie works because of its pacing, the fine performances by the young and unknown cast, and some of the finest 'sudden-shock' moments I've got from a horror movie in a long time. The movie looks great as well. It juxtaposes its locations in ways which open up further discussion about just what the movie may be about under the surface: suburbia and the beach play off against deserted, ruined areas in and around Detroit.
There are other things that enrich the subtextual eddies of the film: the voyeurism of our female protagonist's pre-pubescent male neighbour; a visual reference to self-cutting that ties into the protagonist's problems with body image and possible depression; the almost complete absence of parents except as represented visually by the It of the title.
Ah, It. The film gives us a Something while wisely withholding exposition from anyone with authoritative knowledge of what that Something is or does. Everything we learn of It comes from the observations of people whom it follows. It appears to be slow. Is it really? Or is it playing with its victims? It can appear as almost anything human (we think!). Some of the forms it chooses horrify those it pursues because they're the forms of loved ones. But sometimes its appearances are less personal, though sometimes even more horrifying. Is it a ghost? Is it a monster?
One of the fascinating things about the movie is how its protagonists, stuck between high school and college on one hand and adulthood on the other, almost exclusively talk only of the past. "Remember when..." is a constant refrain. Draw your own conclusions as to what this motif means in the broader context of the movie.
This may be a fairly serious, often melancholy horror movie, but it deploys that melancholy with wit and verve, with surprising moments of comedy and empathy. It also stands up to rewatching. I've now seen it five times and found new things to think about with each viewing. Highly recommended.
Rabid (1977): written and directed by David Cronenberg: [Cast and Crew]: Early David Cronenberg film features a fetching and sympathetic soft-core-porn actress Marilyn Chambers (topless a lot here) as a motorcycle crash victim who gets turned into a vampire by plastic surgery gone insanely wrong. And what a vampire!
Chambers feeds on people with what is essentially a sharp-toothed penis that pops out of her armpit. Phallic mother, anyone? All that, and the penis turns its victims (sort of) rabid. Hence the title!
Low-key and creepy in that patented Cronenberg manner, full of body horror galore and a semi-apocalyptic finale set in and around Montreal. Everyone speaks flat Ontario English, though, to a weird extent at times -- filmed in Quebec, the movie nonetheless feels like it's set in Cronenberg's Toronto.
Extremely enjoyable, and with a last twenty minutes that expands upon and deepens the sadness of the fate of the last survivor of George Romero's seminal Night of the Living Dead. Highly recommended.
Cam (2018): written by Isa Mazzel, Daniel Goldhaber, and Isabelle Link-Levy; directed by Daniel Goldhaber; starring Madeline Brewer (Alice/ Lola), Patch Darragh (Tinker), Melora Walters (Lynne), Devin Druid (Jordan), Imani Hakim (Baby), and Michael Dempsey (Barney): Former cam-girl Isa Mazzel co-wrote this horror movie of stolen identities and mysterious online presences (she also cameos as a check-out clerk).
Protagonist Alice, screen-name 'Lola,' finds her attempts to climb the ladder of popularity for cam-girls complicated by the appearance of another cam-girl who looks and sounds exactly like her -- and is willing to do stuff that Lola is not.
Cam takes us into cam-girl culture, an online niche I'm not that familiar with. Alice seems to make a good living from her feed, supplementing it with gifts from some of her more ardent admirers. The ardent admirers are... pretty creepy. Is one of them the source of doppel-Lola? Or is something even weirder going on?
Madeline Brewer makes for an engaging protagonist. The film doesn't condescend to her cam-girl shenanigans -- it's a job, even if it involves nudity and feigned sex acts. And as things escalate both online and in the 'real' world, Alice has to find reserves of character she may not be aware of possessing. All this without a Very Special Ending in which cam-culture is revealed to be The End of the World As We Know It.
Cam is visually interesting, moving between the mundane colours of the day-to-day world and the vibrant f*ck-me colours of Lola's cam-room, other cam-rooms, and the online presences on the cam-girl site. Directot Goldhaber handles both the gradually building weirdness and a couple of explosions of violence with care. There's even a stunner of an 'embarrassment' scene that doesn't pay off later in quite the way the viewer expects it will.
In all, this Netflix film is a solid piece of horror, its characterization of Alice sensitive, its willingness to avoid pat answers a godsend. It even plays fair within the rules of the cam-girl site when it comes to facing the mysterious entity. Highly recommended.
Red State (2011): written and directed by Kevin Smith; starring Michael Angarano (Travis), Nicholas Braun (Billy-Ray), Ronnie Connell (Randy), Stephen Root (Sheriff Wynan), Melissa Leo (Sara), Kerry Bishe (Cheyenne), Michael Parks (Abin Cooper), John Goodman (ATF Agent Keenan), and Kevin Pollak (ASAC Brooks):
Kevin Smith's bleak satire of sex, religion, and politics in America is one of his three or four best films. He's stripped the narrative of all sentimentality, which is simply my way of saying 'Don't get too attached to any of the characters!' This results in a lot of truly shocking moments, but one which does not celebrate or valorize violence or nihilism.
What you have are three randy teen-aged boys, bored with high school and life, and on the lookout for an easy hook-up via the Internet. You've got a virulently hateful local Christian church which spews hatred against pretty much everyone who isn't a member of the church. You've got the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms out for a big law-enforcement score. You've got corrupt, inept, and easily manipulated local law enforcement.
These ingredients make for a heady cocktail of horror and mayhem once they've been stirred.
Smith gets some fine performances out of his cast, especially John Goodman as an increasingly bewildered ATF agent, his good intentions destroyed at every turn by power-hungry superiors, inept local law enforcement, and junior agents following orders. Michael Parks of Twin Peaks plays the cult leader as a disarmingly charming, creepy monster of religious intolerance.
It's a funny movie at points, punctuated by sudden and awful violence. And even some of the violence becomes funny, at times because of its very suddenness and messiness. Hopefully Smith will make more movies like this -- it's a minor classic. Highly recommended.
A Vintage From Atlantis: Volume Three of the Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith (2007); edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger.
Clark Ashton Smith was a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. With those two, he formed what became known as "The Three Musketeers of Weird Tales" in the late 1920's and 1930's. None of them was the most popular writer for Weird Tales -- that was Seabury Quinn. But in time they would become known as the three finest and most influential American fantasists of their era.
Smith is the least well-known because he didn't create a fictional universe that others would adopt after him, as Lovecraft did with the Cthulhu Mythos and as Howard did with the world of Conan the Barbarian. His style and subject matter, however, have an incalculable influence and worth. His poetic prose (and Smith was a very good, published poet long before his short story years) testifies to horror, lushness, irony, and moments of grace.
OK, sometimes it seems like he ate a thesaurus. Maybe three of them. But that's a part of the charm, especially as even Smith's diction can be ironic or satiric, especially when he's just making up words.
Truly remarkable too is that the bulk of Smith's stories were written in a five-year period. It's a burst of creativity almost unrivalled in fantasy literature. Most of the stories he wrote after that burst were based on story ideas he recorded at the time in his Commonplace Book.
In this third volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, Smith has reached the peak of his considerable powers as a prose writer, giving birth to all-time classics that include the horrifying "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" and "The Seed from the Sepulchre" and the brilliant, droll Averoigne novella "The Colossus of Ylourgne." "The Colossus of Ylourgne" and "The Empire of the Necromancers" are two prime examples of Smith's ability to combine horror, irony, humour, and melancholy into one short package.
- Note on bracketed categories:
- Averoigne: Fictional, demon-haunted French province during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
- Zothique: The "last continent" of Earth, uncounted millions or billions of years in the future.
- Hyperborea: The ancient civilized kingdoms of humanity prior to the last Ice Age.
- Poseidonis: Last city of sinking Atlantis.
- Cthulhu Mythos: A number of Smith's stories could be set within H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, especially those set during the time of Hyperborea and those featuring the dark god Tsathoggua. Well, and those mentioning Eibon or The Book of Eibon. Or Ubbo-Sathla. However, only those stories that are definitely Cthulhu Mythos stories are indicated.
- Mars: Science fiction story set on or around Smith's generally terrifying version of Mars.
Contains the following stories and essays (All dates are publication, not composition -- the five volumes are arranged in order of publication)
- Introduction by Michael Dirda
- A Note on the Texts
- The Holiness of Azedarac [Averoigne] (1933): Ironic, erotic. ESSENTIAL.
- The Maker of Gargoyles [Averoigne] (1932): Creepy gargoyles do terrible things. ESSENTIAL.
- Beyond the Singing Flame (1931) Smith returns to the world of the Singing Flame (See Volume 2) in a work of cosmic ecstasy and mystery. ESSENTIAL.
- Seedling of Mars [Mars] (1931) (with E. M. Johnston): Another of Smith's subtle parodies of planetary romances and science fiction of his time, leading to a strange and apocalyptic climax. is this catastrophe or eucatastrophe?
- The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis [Mars] (1932) Absolutely first-rate science-fiction horror set on Smith's dying, dusty, ancient Mars. It's like the prototype for every Alien-style movie and written horror to come. ESSENTIAL.
- The Eternal World (1932) : Odd, engaging bit of cosmic speculation and Sublime play with time and space.
- The Demon of the Flower (1933) : Disturbing tale of metamorphosis and evil plants.
- The Nameless Offspring (1932) : Disturbing contemporary tale of ghouls and implied, quasi-necrophiliac rape.
- A Vintage from Atlantis [Poseidonis] (1933) : Moody prose poem.
- The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan [Hyperborea] (1932) : Strangely hilarious (in almost a Bugs Bunny sort of way) of how a greedy loan shark gets his just desserts.
- The Invisible City (1932) : Fun, odd, contemporary 'Hidden City' adventure.
- The Immortals of Mercury (1932) : Another of Smith's subtle digs at his contemporary science-fiction writers and their planetary romances.
- The Empire of the Necromancers [Zothique] (1932) : Brilliant, affecting, funny tale of a couple of malign necromancers on the world's last continent. ESSENTIAL.
- The Seed from the Sepulcher (1933) Horrifying, creepy tale of an evil plant. An orchid, in this case. ESSENTIAL.
- The Second Interment (1933) : Minor horror.
- Ubbo-Sathla [Hyperborea/ Cthulhu Mythos] (1933): Time-bending tale of metamorphosis and fate. ESSENTIAL.
- The Double Shadow [Poseidonis] (1933) : Witty tale of magics gone wrong. ESSENTIAL.
- The Plutonian Drug (1934) : Minor time-travel piece.
- The Supernumerary Corpse (1932) : Very minor scifi murder.
- The Colossus of Ylourgne (1934) A brilliant novella involving necromancy in medieval French Averoigne. Stands among other things as the lurking precedent for Clive Barker's much-praised "In the Hills, the Cities." ESSENTIAL.
- The God of the Asteroid (1932): Minor, bleak science fiction story.
- Story Notes
- The Flower-Devil (1922) : poem by Clark Ashton Smith
- Bibliography
Virus: adapted from the Dark Horse comic-book series created by Chuck Pfarrer by Chuck Pfarrer and Dennis Feldman; directed by John Bruno; starring Jamie Lee Curtis (Kit Foster), William Baldwin (Steve Baker), Donald Sutherland (Captain Everton), Joanna Pacula (Nadia), Cliff Curtis (Hiko), Sherman Augustus (Richie), and Marshall Bell (Woods) (1999): On the bright side, this first directorial effort from visual effects maestro didn't destroy John Bruno's career... as a visual effects maestro.
The problems with the movie aren't his fault, however -- comic-book adaptation or not, Virus is an insanely derivative piece of work. It is, however, relatively competent in its direction. It's also produced by Gale Ann Hurd, and derivative of many of the other films she produced.
The crew of a salvage ship caught in a hurricane comes across an abandoned Russian science ship. Or is it abandoned? After all, there's blood and destruction everywhere. But kooky Captain Donald Sutherland -- who appears to be acting in another, funnier movie -- wants the giant vessel for the $30 million salvage fee it will bring from the Russians if they want it back. However, there's SOMETHING ON THE SHIP.
Virus might be at least a slightly better movie if the prologue were moved into the centre of the film as a flashback. It's as if Aliens (another Hurd-produced film, and one Virus cribs from shamelessly) showed us what happened to the colonists in the first five minutes of the movie. It's a dumb storytelling decision that suggests that the studio may have thought a prologue-less Virus was too hard for an audience to follow. Given what a colossal bomb Virus turned out to be ($15 million domestic gross on a 'Where did they spend it?' budget of $75 million), maybe they'd like to travel back in time and fix some of the movie's narrative decisions.
Other than trite dialogue and some dodgy visual effects (most of the storm shots of the Russian vessel in the hurricane clearly involve either miniatures or terrible CGI work), Virus also gives the viewer a mostly underwhelming nemesis. Or nemeses. Sometimes the crew has to fight evil versions of the cute robot from Short Circuit, sometimes they have to fight mechanical spiders from about a dozen SF films and TV shows, and sometimes Donald Sutherland gets assimilated by the Borg... and the Borg are nice enough to leave his captain's hat on him. That at least is some funny stuff, and surely a great leap forward in human-cyborg relations.
The actors do what they can with what they've got. Well, except for the aforementioned Sutherland, who clearly said 'To Hell with a naturalistic performance!' on Day One of shooting. He's sort of a hoot, as is Marshall Bell chewing the scenery as an untrustworthy helmsman. William Baldwin and the rest of the male cast members have almost nothing interesting to say.
The Sigourney Weaver 'action woman' part gets split between Joanna Pacula and Jamie Lee Curtis in an almost schematically on/off way -- which is to say, when one is kicking ass, the other is cowering in a corner, and vice versa. Curtis really hated this movie. It's not hard to see why. It's vaguely watchable, and some scenes in the robot abattoir have a sort of cyberpunk-meets-Grand-Guignol thing going on. But it's also relentlessly derivative when it's not just being dumb. Not recommended.
Westworld: written and directed by Michael Crichton; starring Yul Brynner (Robot Gunslinger), Richard Benjamin (Peter Martin), James Brolin (John Blane), Dick Van Patten (Banker), and Majel Barrett (Miss Carrie) (1973): Before Michael Crichton gave us a murderously malfunctioning dinosaur them park in Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton gave us a murderously malfunctioning robot theme park in Westworld.
Yes, this is the Delos Corporation's adult theme park of the near-future in a desert area of the American Southwest. It's divided into three independent sections that intentionally remind one of similar divisions in Disney theme parks: West(ern)world. Medievalworld, and Romanworld. Except for the guests, everyone you meet in a park is a robot.
The fact that you can bang the human-form robots of these three worlds is clearly part of the appeal of these expensive vacations for adults. You can also shoot them, stab them, punch them, and insult them with impunity. They're just robots, albeit incredibly sophisticated sex-doll robots. Nothing can go wrong. Or is that worng?
James Brolin as a beefy American blowhard and Richard Benjamin as his sheepish, emasculated, divorced pal play our two protagonists. Or maybe increasingly cranky robotic gunslinger Yul Brynner is the protagonist. It really depends on where your sympathies lie. The film-makers dress Brynner like his heroic gunslinger in The Magnificent Seven. But in Westworld, he's something of a dink even before his programming goes astray. Then Brynner becomes the unstoppable forerunner of the Terminator, complete with the occasional bit of pounding background music as he pursues his prey through the three worlds and down into the warren of maintenance tunnels and work rooms and labs below the Delos parks.
The movie works pretty well as a recurringly dumb bit of SciFi action with just a tinge of obvious satire. Unable to solve two narrative problems with anything involving cleverness, Crichton just stupids his way through. How do you tell robots from humans? Um, Delos couldn't get the hands quite right. On robots that are indistinguishable otherwise from human and which you can boink away to your heart's content, it's the hands that are the design flaw.
Secondly, how can the bullets be real? Oh, all guns have a sensor that shuts down the gun if it's pointed at a human being. That wouldn't seem to help if one got clipped by a ricochet or a bullet coming from a few hundred yards away, something that seems pretty likely given the giant shoot-outs we hear in the background throughout the first half of the movie. Maybe they're magic bullets.
These are the dumb solutions to problems created by Crichton himself. Surely one could put a small tattoo or mark somewhere prominent and always visible on a robot to distinguish it from a person. And surely you couldn't have real, lethal bullets flying around and maintain a perfect safety record. But Yul Brynner's gunslinger needs real bullets for Crazy Time!
Oh, well. Westworld is still an enjoyable slice of pre-Star Wars Sci Fi movie-making. The suspense in the second half is engaging and competently directed by Crichton. And now HBO will turn Westworld into a series with tons of graphic sex and nudity because that's what HBO does. So look forward to more human/robot sexual shenanigans in 2016. Surely nothing can go worng. Recommended.
Paying for It: written and illustrated by Chester Brown (2011): This autobiographical comic from Toronto's own Chester Brown (Yummy Fur, Ed the Clown, Louis Riel) details more than a decade of Brown paying for 'it' -- 'it' being sex. Paying for It is certainly not salacious: Brown strips his style down to near-minimalism, limiting the eroticism. We observe meetings with more than 25 prostitutes over the years. Worried about 'outing' any of the women, Brown neither shows faces nor, as he notes in the introduction, gets too specific with the details of what they talked about. The conversations with the assorted prostitutes are therefore more of a representative amalgamation of more general observations and opinions offered in different encounters.
The book is really more of a philosophical exploration of Brown's libertarian-based views on prostitution, offered to the reader through both Brown's internal monologues and his conversations with friends that include fellow cartoonists Joe Matt and Seth and former Bob's Your Uncle frontwoman and Muchmusic VJ Sook-Yin Lee, Brown's girlfriend at the beginning of the book, which starts in 1997.
As noted, the graphics are minimalist, and represent some of Brown's cleanest linework. They're also quite funny at times. As Robert Crumb notes in his introduction, Chester Brown the cartoon character has a face that never changes expression regardless of the situation. Over the course of the book this becomes quite droll even as it offers a commentary on Brown's own apparent emotional reserve.
Complete with lengthy notes and an appendix, Paying for It offers a pretty convincing argument for decriminalizing prostitution in Canada without legalizing it (which is to say, without the government regulating it). Brown's sweeping generalizations can become exhausting every once in awhile (he really, really hates romantic love) as certain elements, especially his arguments against romantic love, get stated and re-stated over the course of 300 pages.
The strongest element of Paying for It remains Brown's depictions of the encounters with the prostitutes, all of which have the absolute and minutely observed status of engaging and rewarding verisimilitude regardless of the edits and conflations and omissions Brown chose to make to protect the identity of the women. Highly recommended.
