All genres of suspense, terror, and horror will be reviewed by Richard Gary. His address to send preview copies supplied upon request to rbf55@msn.com.
On a
subtextual level, this psychologically unnerving film asks the question, how
far would you go for company if you were lonely? Add some mental instability
into the mix, and the margin of extremity is certainly sure to rise, especially
in genre cinema.
Rob Zabrecky as Jonathan
Jonathan
(Rob Zabrecky, who was also the singer/bassist for the group Possum Dixon in
the 1990s) has a case of OCD, where he has to line up everything just right
most of the time, opens and closes things twice, and has a series of locks on
his door that would make one of the old ladies in The Producers (1967) jealous. He definitely has a bit of a Norman
Bates vibe to him, with his tall, lanky appearance and self-uncomfortableness.
Lisa Howard as Mother
Part
of this, though, is a form of PTSD after growing up with an uber religious and mentally unstable
(bi-polar or depressive, is my guess) mom (Lisa Howard). She is extremely possessive
of her son, and will not let him be himself (i.e., a little boy). She mocks and
punishes him severely for the slightest mistake. She rebukes him with lines
like, “An unlocked door is an evil door.” Part of this begs the question of whether
his – well, let’s call it insanity – is nature (hereditary) or nurture
(trauma).
Jackie Hoffman as the Neighbor
There
are some definite correlations between them, such as his while mother
collecting those little spoons you can buy at gift shops, he gathers lost keys
and uses them for art projects in his basement, where he also grows and
obsessively photographs orchids. During daytime he works as a groundskeeper at
an amusement park in Aurora, Colorado (a suburb of Denver where a shooter
killed people in a theatre showing a Batman
film in 2012), that is preparing to open for the season. There, he shares his
lunch with his exact opposite: a loud-mouthed and boorish womanizer (Elisha
Yaffe) who is always talking about his conquests. The last person in his life
is a neighbor (Jackie Hoffman, who you are bound to recognize as she is often
cast as the nosy Jewish neighbor or law professional in television shows).
Hannah Barron as Katlyn
Well,
that is only partially true. There is another person who intrudes and has a
major effect on his life. A teenage neighbor, Trish (Whitney Hayes) and her
visiting friend Katlyn (Hannah Barron) break into Jonathan’s basement to look
around and check out the weirdo (the actual motive is either not give or I just
missed it), and thanks to some unfortunate circumstances in the first five
minutes of the film so I’m not giving anything away, Katlyn ends up dead on his
basement floor.
In
his own twisted way, he now has a friend of sorts, similarly to Creep Creepersin’s Frankenstein (2009). But
corpses rot, and he’s into neatness. Will his delusions trump his OCD, or vice
versa? And will it calm him down or lead him to manic phases and do more harm
to himself and others? All these questions and more are addressed in
interesting and imaginative ways that impressed me, writing wise.
Many
of the characters echo each other, such as the neighbor talking trash about
other neighbors in a similar way that his mom warned him as a child (well
played by Reese Elingher), or his co-worker proving his mother right about wild
women, and I really wanted to punch that guy out; I’ve actually worked with
people like that, and it’s both annoying and depressing to talk (or have to listen)
to someone that shallow.
Much
of this mirroring is part of how well the script is written, but I’ll get back
to that shortly. The whole cast is excellent, with Zabrecky giving Jonathan a
really nice and somber tone, without depressing this viewer, or making me tired
of the character. There was just the right amount of pathos and creep factor to
keep the attention sharp. Zabrecky is a good looking guy, so the dichotomy of
the outside and inside makes it even more intriguing.
It
takes a while (and worth the wait), but eventually the gore level starts to
increase as time and rot becomes more noticeable. There is some excruciatingly unnerving
visuals as the physical decay progresses. She’s the yin of the physical decay,
and he’s the yang of the mental one, balancing nicely as they both slide into a
kind of sludge. Really nice SFX match the beautiful way it is lovingly shot,
including an occasional artistic edge that enhances rather than overdoes the
events. There are a number of really decent jump-scares as well.
At
probably about 10-15 minutes too long, that’s my only “complaint.” The film has
a beautiful look to it, the editing and lighting are sharp, and it is very well
written. The ending was an extremely nice touch, and did not go for the obvious
out, and I am extremely happy about that.
I
have to say, I really enjoyed this film, and so if you get the chance, it’s a solid
excursion. And realizing that it is the director’s first solo feature effort,
well, wow.
So,
we all know there is death after life, which is physical reality. But the more philosophical
one is whether there life after death. If there is, what is the form it takes?
Do we go to heaven or hell, meet 72 virgins, get to sit with Ra or Osiris (or
the god of your choice), or do we just….fffffttt
out?
In
my opinion, this is a prospect based on the fear of begin gone and forgotten.
There is also somewhat of an ego aspect, as in, I must go on! Most religions tell us that we suffer in this world
to be rewarded in the next, but in so many of the ghost stories we are told
that the souls that wander the Earth are tormented, either seeking justice, or
reliving the nightmare of their death over and over. Or, in some cases, seeking
revenge against the living. Every culture has their version of ghosts, from
Casper-ish wisps, to see-through people, or the stringier, long-haired and
dark-eyed Asian version.
I’ve
had my own experiences, as have had most, though I’m still not sure what it
was. In my early twenties, I stayed at a friend’s parent’s house where she were
still living. They had a full suite downstairs and I snuggled in at some late
hour after hanging out with the family. I was just falling asleep when I felt
something sit on the bed. I assumed it was my friend to talk more, but I turned
on the light and there was no one there. Needless to say, I did not sleep the
rest of the night. In the morning, at the breakfast table, I shared my
experience. Very calmly, she said, “Oh, that’s just my grandmother. She used to
live down there until she died in the bed. She comes back to visit sometimes; she’s
harmless. I was furious for not being warned (I would have driven the two hours
to get home). We’re still friends now.
This
documentary seeks to discover what happens afterwards, especially since there
is an entire market of people who are fascinated by the topic, or claim they
can be in touch with those “beyond.” I’m not saying I believe it’s true or not,
simply because I know that I don’t know. Experts, whatever that means, also
take extreme camps on their side of the argument. There was a time in my life that
I dated the assistant of a well-known professional psychic. I’m still not
convinced, though (part of why she chose to be an ex-).
Forrest J Ackerman / pic by Robert Barry Francos
The
first disc has two central characters, one living, and one ethereal. The person
still suckin’ air is the director, Paul Davids. The premise is that he has a printed
out piece paper from a computer that has a mysterious smudge on it, and he’s
convinced it’s a message from the dear departed, writer / Famous Monsters of Filmland publisher and genre promoter Forrest J
Ackerman (a man I greatly admire and have seen talk at a few conventions in the
early 1990s), who had rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible in
2008.
The
documentary is kind of a frenetic road trip attempting to prove that Forry, as
he is commonly referred by fans, has been quite active since he’s been bereft
of life by throwing down papers, moving objects, filling masks with electric
energy, and making coincidences happen around puns.
There
is more than a hint of skepticism present, I’m happy to say, by scientists. Again,
I don’t have an opinion about an afterlife (though the thought of real ghosts
as opposed to cinematic ones still make me unconformable), I’m just against
arguments that are only one-sided. For example, one psychologist here states
that the human brain tends to put things into patterns to help them make sense,
and may see them where they are not, such as seeing shapes by combining stars
(e.g., the belt of Orion).
Thing
is, everybody loved Forry, and not surprising as he was a genuinely sweet man-child
with a pun-loving humor – the worse the better – who touched so many people’s
lives, even if you’ve never heard of
him. Well, if you’re reading this, you probably have, but I digress… Getting
back on point, because he was so beloved, people understandably want it to be true, to keep contact with
someone important to them. Again, I’m not
saying it isn’t so, but…
Through
the length of the disc, we meet scientists, psychics, people who knew Forry intimately
(such as his caretaker over the last years of his life, Joe Moe), and even ink
specialists who try to diagnose the smudge on Davids’ paper, to try and figure
out if it’s supernatural in origin. The filmmakers look at it both from
spiritually and as a scientific phenomenon.
There
are two ways to look at this body of information, the first being that it’s a
lot of coincidences that people see what they want to see (for example, the clock on the wall behind the drawing
of Forry on the DVD cover, done a few years before his death, supposedly shows
the exact time he passed), or that there is a lot of these events. Either way, they are catalogued and shown in
great detail.
While
fun to some extent, especially since so much of it is about Forry, who I
believe would have be greatly bemused by this kind of attention. It does seem
to go on for a long time and over 106 minutes for this disc alone. Which brings
us to…
The
second disc, at 101 minutes, is titled “Life After Death Project 2: Personal
Encounters.” This one takes a bit of a different approach than the first disc; this
is more of an investigation of the separation of the spirit from the body in a
few different forms.
For
example, we meet a number of people, most in the Southwest between California
and Texas, talking about seeing ghosts in retirement homes, ERs, and hotels,
among others. Some discuss seeing the spirit actually leaving the body in the
form of a wisp of smoke out of the mouth, or a gold orb from the chest. We also
meet a team of ghost hunters, but the camera stays focused on Davids as he “plays
poker” with a spirit, calmly making bets depending on an electronic reader that
supposedly reacts to the spirits desires. I’m a bit skeptical about that one.
An
interesting segment to me is more about out-of-body experiences, where e person
has died and left the body, observing his/her surroundings, and/or talking to
spirits (angels?) discussing the situation. No mention of seeing a religious
entity, I’m happy to say. If I heard one person saying they saw Jesus, Moses or
Mohammed, they would have lost me completely.
One
scientist / philosopher states that many who have had these near death experiences
gain psychic abilities, which sounds a bit too Stephen King / The Dead Zone to me, though who knows,
perhaps that’s true.
My
biggest issue with the content is everything is either post-fact or unprovable.
Four people say 0ne of them received a phone call from someone who had just
died. Okay. Why should I take their word for it? Others talk about how they
left their house and an object was moved while they were gone. Okay, how much
is being read into it? In another case, a mask flew off a wall (there’s a lot
of mask action going on in these films) during a party and lands a couple of
feet away from the wall. One person discusses it (the director), claiming there
were others in the room, but no word from them.
Forrest J Ackerman / pic by Robert Barry Francos
As
with the first film/disc, there is an awful lot of conjecture based on
coincidence, which is like sending someone to prison on circumstantial evidence.
Does a distorted video recording a ghost sighting make? If I may digress for a
second, this all reminds me that there is a brilliant book from 1976 by Julian
Jaynes (d. 1997) called The Origin of
Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. It’s a fascinating
study about what is “consciousness,” and when it first came to humans as a
species. The problem with the book, and why some of it was hard to fathom for
me – and this goes to these films – is that if certainly feels like the premise
came first, and the evidence is used to prove the premise, rather than the proof
bringing a conclusion. This film, unlike the first, is more one sided, which
was a bit disappointing to me. The first had some skeptics “experts,” but here
it’s everyone on the same page.
Oh,
this is certainly a fun ride, and despite my own agnosticism about the topic,
it was a fun watch, even though, again, much of it felt quite self-serving, as
in let’s make a film about this topic and
then make me the focus! It’s a well put together work in its narrative
framework, but I had more moments of c’mon
than I should have.
There
were only two secondary but real annoyances though. The first was that the
descriptor captions for the talkers went by too fast for the amount of text
(two or three seconds), and I had to keep going back and pausing. On the other
hand, I appreciate that the titles were repeated when the speakers came back;
not enough documentaries do that. The other thing that I found grating was due
to the single-camera filming, there were a lot of jump cuts in each segment.
One of the director near the end jumps every few seconds. Perhaps most people
would not notice it much, but I found it distracting.
There
are about 40 minutes of extras included with the DVDs (on the first disc),
which I thoroughly enjoyed. There is a Play
All button, which I engaged, and sat through them, happily. The only one
that came close to being whatever was
the last one. The others, mostly about Forry, including his friendships with
the likes of Ray Harryhausen and Ray Bradbury dating back to the 1930s (and
initiating their careers), are great stuff. Also, more info about his wife and
his house (the Ackermansion) which was infamous for its collection of sci-fi (a
term Forry is credited with creating) and horror. The extras are:
Forrest J Ackerman: He Coined the Term ‘Sci-Fi’
Uncle Forry, Joe Moe and the Demise of the Ackermansion
The Director’s Relationship with Forrest J.
Ackerman
Ray Bradbury, Rick Baker and Paul Davids Speaking at the Ackerman Tribute
Jacob McMurray, Senior Curator of the Science
Fiction Museum
Dr. John Allison, 3 Years After the Inkblot
Incident
I
have no doubt that there is an audience for these two discs, and I do recommend
it for them. There is a lot of good information among the peacocking, so
definitely check it out if this is your speed of a topic. Off the top of my
head, I can think of about half a dozen friends and acquaintances who would get
a kick out of this, and will tell them about it, without hesitation.
Arguably,
there were three people that set off the whole Spaghetti Western genre:
director Sergio Leone, actor Clint Eastwood and composer Ennio Morricone. Once
created, the synergy kept the style going, and was often copied. Other big ones
at the time included the likes of the They
Call Me… / My Name Is… series starring Terrance Stamp, but even as late as 1995,
Sam Raimi used the style for his The
Quick and the Dead, and there is a lot of it in Quentin Tarantino’s 2004
release Kill Bill: Vol. 2, even
though the setting is more contemporary.
Right
from the beginning of this cine, you
can spot both the familiar and the new. For the old, it’s both the hint of
similar but not quite as memorable music with high operatic vocals, and a
copious mixing of distant landscape shots with beautiful sunsets and vistas,
and extreme close-ups of faces. Many of the medium views are of people being shot,
often in slo-mo, of course.
Tony Anthony and Victoria Abril
For
the new, there is the 3D, but I’ll get to that later. The quality this film brings
to the table is the use of both color and black and white. Why is this so
unusual? Well, sometimes scenes will switch from one to the other between
edits, others within its own shot, seemingly random change from color to
monochrome. But even more interestingly, occasionally it will be black and
white with color elements (blood, a dress, a snake), or the scene will be it
color, and one person or persons will be in black and white; this is often used
to symbolize death, both real and spiritual.
Often,
this mixing of hues is just part of the intermingling of both beauty and cheese.
The landscape shots are gorgeous, with golden hour sun or spectacular clouds
against the background mountains. Even the broken down ghost towns look lovely
in their own, decrepit way (I have always had a hankering for taking pictures
of falling down barns, abandoned towns and other structures). As for cheese, it
comes in two varieties, though both for the same purpose. An example is in one
scene where a group of women are attacked by very obvious rubber bats on strings,
which are there merely for the purpose of flying into the camera for the 3D.
Abril in 3D
Ah,
yes, the 3D. This is your father’s 3D
one must remember, even though at the time it was cutting edge. It wasn’t like
they could digitally have the background look further than the foreground as
they do now, but rather objects needed to be thrust into the camera, and then the
color was separated so that it would be effective with two-tone glasses. They
do that a lot in this film. Previous ones during the first generation, such as House of Wax (1953) or 13 Ghosts (1960), had specific scenes
that were 3D rather than the whole film, and we were told when to put on the glasses.
Usually it was about 10 minutes in total in the whole film, though we wore the
green (or blue) / red glasses throughout. If you lost the glasses, the film
seemed blurry; usually you left the theater with a headache.
Techniques
had improved greatly by the time of this film, so they take every chance they
can to point guns at the camera, throw objects (such as spears and arrows), and
have things crawling or flying at it (the fake bats or real rats – but no cats).
Many times the cast looks right at the camera as they flick playing cards,
yo-yos (there were no yo-yos in the old west, by the way, as the first factory to
produce the toy opened in the late 1920s). They definitely overdo it though,
taking every single opportunity, even when not in the promotion of the story,
to have things either fly into the camera, or just as often dangle over it as
the camera looks up. My favorite shot is of a baby’s bare behind being lowered
into the camera. I literally said out loud, “Really? You’re going there?”
But what about the story? Oh,
yeah, the story… On their wedding day (a scene that would be borrowed from quite
liberally – I mean honored – in Kill
Bill: Vol. 2) of H.H. Hart (Tony Anthony) and the lovely Abilene (Spanish born
Victoria Abril, who would go on to star in many telenovas), he is wounded and she is kidnapped by two brothers, Poke
(Richard Palacios, d. 2015), who is self-conscious about his weight, and the
ringleader Pike (Gene Quintano, who also co-wrote the film, as well as a couple
of the Police Academy sequels).
Abilene is just one of a couple of dozen women who are held Boko Haram style to
be sold at auction and sent to Mexico for the sex trade.
Anthony in 2D
While
the women are mistreated, natch (I’m taking about the genre, not a preference),
so is just about everyone else in the film, including the hero and the
brothers. They all get the tar scraped off of ‘em, if’n ya know what I mean.
They’re definitely going for the gritty end of the stick (which will eventually
be shoved at the camea). Hart goes to get his wife back, no matter what, and
there is a tug of war for power among Hart and the brothers, as the women slip
in and out of their hands, so to speak.
Even
though it was filmed in English, in some cases it’s pretty obvious that it was
overdubbed with (better) English-speaking voice actors. That means that even
though there is still a difference between the lips and the words spoken, it is
much closer than when dubbed from another language. This is a very emotionally
charged film, so the women tend to be hysterical and the men get to be mucho
angry and violent. A nice touch, though, is that unlike the Man with No Name (Eastwood)
or Trinity (Stamp), rather than just squinting to show emotion, Anthony shows his
fear, his anger, and pain when he’s beaten. I think it makes for a great hero
that is easy for the audience to identify.
One question
I have is that many of the villains in the piece, including the gang and one of
the brothers, wear Union uniforms (that’s why I know the yo-yos are anachronistic).
In the States, usually the bad guys would wear the gray, Reb garb, but not
being filmed in North America, it leaves it more open to being either side
(i.e., perhaps the costume one could find). I could go into the whole cultural
racism of Native Americans and Mexican, who are portrayed in stereotypical dress, but considering the
time period this was film, it was pre-Enlightenment for European filmmaking –
and most of North America, as this still goes on; for example, many First
Nations actors refused to be in The
Revenant (2015) for this reason.
Now,
the 3D effects are definitely cool, albeit overdone to the point of (as I said)
being a bit cheesy. Though I saw the 2D version, honestly, it’s enjoyable
either way. Especially impressive were the opening credits are revealed. The
look of the film is spectacular, especially in Blu-Ray HD.
There are so many genres and subgenres
that it is interesting to look at them over time. For example, there was and is
plenty of Hillbilly stuff, especially in the 1970s. Hell, even Opie (aka Ron
Howard) started by directing in that field (for Roger Corman) with Grand Theft Auto (1977); and Burt
Reynold’s whole beginning oeuvre was
steeped in it.
Redneck horror is also a
sub-subgenre, with the likes of Redneck
Zombies (1989), Bloodsucking Redneck
Vampires (2004), I Spit Chew on Your
Grave (2008), The Legend of the Hillbilly
Butcher, and the short-film compilation The
Hillbilly Horror Show, Vol. 1 (2014), to name just a small amount.
But there is also a horny human-like fish-monster
subgenre as well, with the likes of
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954, for which this film is named), The Horror of Party Beach (1964), and Humanoids from the Deep (1980; remade in
1996). Yes, I’ve seen nearly every one of those I’ve mentioned in the last two
paragraphs, I’m proud to say.
Most of the films I’ve cited, with
rare exceptions, are either comedies or unintentionally funny in a campy way
(e.g., Humanoids…). But beyond humorous, they tend to be outrageously so, because if you mock
someone’s culture, such as the white Deep South, you better make it obvious
that it is poking an elbow rather than pointing a finger, if you want to keep
your audience (commented on, somewhat, in the 2014 Bigfoot film, Stomping Ground). This is in the same
way that films like Car Wash (1976) or
Beauty Shop (2005) are presented,
with over-the-top stereotypical characters that are broad enough that many can
identify with and mock, rather than are being mocked directly (again, socially
commented on in Spike Lee’s 2000 social commentary, Bamboozled).
But I suppose that I should start
talking about the film at hand, shouldn’t I? Despite it being filmed in Connecticut (except for a coda scene in Rhode Island), director Richard
Griffin tackles the Redneck/Horny Man-Fish genres by wisely combining them into
an outrageous and profane comedy Seth Rogan would probably kill to be able to
do adequately (he would fail, though still attract an audience for some reason).
The acting is wooden, as usually is in backwoods low-comedy style, but nowhere
near as forceful and purposefully as it is in his last film, Seven Dorms of Death (2016). Considering
the decade-plus time difference of release, it’s interesting to compare them,
but I’m jumping ahead of myself.
Hillbillies gone huntin'
In a bayou area of the Deep South,
the trope of spilling toxic chemicals (e.g., 2007’s Wasting Away [aka Ahh!!
Zombies!] and 2011’s Exit 101)
into the water is used to produce a hybrid human-fish (that is, man-into-fish,
not fish-into-man, or in today’s terminology, perhaps M2F[ish]). This brings four
factions contentiously colliding together: (a) a group of young science
students who are doing tests on the water (yet still skinny-dip in it); (b) a
gaggle of rednecks (two are named Bubba and Cooter) out huntin’, (c) the hitmen from a pharma company responsible for the
dumping who are trying to keep it all contained
by trying to kill everyone involved (as a reference point, there is The Crazies, both in 1973 and 2010); and
(d) the mutant/mutating fish people who have a hunger for human flesh, of
course.
There is certainly a – er – certain level
a cheesiness present, such as there always seems to be some fog around as
people are skulking about, even in a basement. Also, a hillneck (redbilly?) gal
in classic daisy dukes and a red checkered Italian restaurant tablecloth design
top tied in front falls for a mutant-to-be, a student ends up being an escapee
from the evil corporation, and there are hair curlers, beers, and white hazmat
suits, along with nudity and lots of decent gore, giving an overall nice scaly
shine.
The creatures are definitely a guy(s)
in rubber suits – and considering you never see more than one of the monsters
at a time, I guessing the same suit –
but actually it looks pretty decent for its budget, and I was impressed by
them. Truthfully, it looks better than many I’ve seen on shoots with a much
larger financial backing.
If you’re not used to these kinds of films,
the dialogue may sound a bit, well, stupid, but if you listen carefully with
heavy dose of humor, it’s hysterical. For example, when one character sees the
dead body of someone he knows, he yells, “Fuck me sideways! Noooooo!” There are
also a lot of racial and ethnic comments, and including pointed towards the
LGBTQQ+ demographic. This is, however, meant more to shine on the fallibilities
of those who are homophobic rather
than promoting it.
It’s interesting to see one of
Richard Griffin’s earliest releases (which I haven’t seen many) and compare
them with his latest (of which I have viewed a few). In this one, it was before
he had his revolving company of actors and crew that show up in many/most of
the later works. No Michael Thurber, no Sarah Nicklin or Michael Reed, and especially
no cinematography by Jill Poisson. His later works have a “look” that this one
does not. That’s not to say this film doesn’t look great, because it does, it’s
just… different. Good different.
Over the years, there is more
confidence built into a final product, and this one is definitely a growth
work. What I mean by that is as one learns a craft, one gets better at it (one
would hope), and not just in directorial skill, but in fashioning one’s own
style and look. On one hand, I think I would say that this looks like a
beginning film (it was his fourth) that one learns what’s possible and how to
do things more efficiently and effectively. That being said, even with that, it’s
actually above most early works of some bigger names (so far). I mean, compare
Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1993)
with The H8ful Eight (2016), or Cronenberg’s
Rabid (1977)with Eastern Promises (2007).
The viewer can see the skill set growth comparing them. The spark is definitely
there, as it is here, but the early films have a certain clunkiness to them
compared to their more advanced counterparts. There is certainly a clunky, amateurishness to this one, but
it definitely has that umph that
would make Griffin so good at what he does.
