Review: Demented

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2021
Images from the Internet

Demented (aka The Demented)
Directed by Nigel Hartwell
New Blood Entertainment; Flawless Video Creations;
Gate Three Films; Homemade Pie Productions; KBI Productions
96 minutes, 2021
www.newbloodentertainment.com/newblood_demented.html

Just before its release, the film made a subtle title change, from The Demented, as it is currently listed on IMDB, to just Demented, so as not to be confused with another film dealing with zombies with the same name released in 2013. This should also not be confused with the I Spit on Your Grave-ish cult classic Demented (1980, co-starring Harry Reams). So ends the history lesson.

This Canadian film is quite different that those others in that this falls well into the category of torture porn, with a supernatural touch. And in an extremely micro-budget way.

Cheyenne Ennis

Lovebirds Senica (Dakota House) and Amanda (Cheyenne Ennis, giving a brave performance) go up to Senica’s cottage on the lake (filmed at Parry Sound, Ontario, about 2 hours north of Toronto). After dropping a ring on her, they spend the night. When Senica awakes, Amanda is gone. According to a police detective (the ever-fun Felissa Rose), so are her parents, and he’s the central person of interest.

Meanwhile, somewhere there is a room where women are systematically tortured and snuffed for the Dark Web (it’s always the Dark Web, right?) by a burly guy dressed in black, including a bullet-proof vest, and a leather hood. His voice is digitally manipulated, and honestly, I can only make out about half of what he says.

Dakota House

We watch as he’s a-rapin’ (with his pants all the way on and her underwear intact) and a-chokin’ and a-tauntin’ his chained-to-a-bed victims. We see the room through his video camera, a fuzzy black-and-white CCTV on a celling corner, and whichever lens the film’s cameraperson is using to fill in the gaps and keep these scenes from being “found footage” style.

There is also some playing with time, with numerous flashbacks to various periods and present day, making the narrative timeline a bit confusing for a while. In one of these vignettes (past? present? future?), Amanda is a chainee, abused by the dark and mysterious man (though at 30 minutes in, I have a guess on who it may be; I’ll let you know if I’m right, but not who it is, okay? No spoilers).

Between the patterns of abuse, Amanda is visited by knowing spirits (including one played by wrestler Angel Williams), who are helpless to aid her, but communicate quite easily. Don’t get me wrong, this supernatural element is actually what made the film for me. The violence compared to most torture porn is relatively mild and mostly threats (and yes, much full-dressed raping).

But the rules of the film change with Amanda. Her accomplishments are the closest this comes to empowering women (not counting that the main authority figure is the police detective). Women generally are seen as torture victims and strippers. Misogyny? Maybe, but it felt good to have these women get some of their umph back, a lot of good it will do them in the long run.

Nigel Hartwell and Felissa Rose
doing her iconic Angela face

There is a lot of topless women (did I mention the strippers?), and nothing real to talk about in the blood department. There are some cheesy CGI effects at a point, but I believe it was meant to be that way. Y’see, from the way they use scratchy rolling noise on some of the camera images (though new equipment) made to look like VHS in the 1980s would explain the ‘80s look of the company’s logo at the beginning of the film.

The film is overlong at 96 minutes, but there is easily quite a bit that could be excised and not lose any of the story. For example, the “torment” scenes are incredibly mild considered next to something like the Hostel or Saw franchises, but they are on for what feels like a really long time of just the killer yakking away in his hard to make out digitized voice. Too many of the scenes and shots – especially the punishment ones – just seem too “samey,” in part due to the static cameras in the torture room

The acting is okay, but nothing to write home to mother about, though as always, Rose easily holds her own; the two main leads often don’t look like they are trying too hard, especially House, from whom I was expecting more. There are some really well-done shots, including some drone work, which was refreshing after the obvious green screen parts.

Ari Lehman, whose band performs during the final credits

The production pattern is a bit different, but I’m not sure if some of it is intentional on the director’s part, a stylistic choice, or just a distance necessity (i.e., people recorded in different places made to look like they are together). Many times, especially in the police station scenes with Rose, it is pretty obvious that – despite some similar motifs on the walls that I am pretty sure are green-screened – the detective and two of the people she is interviewing are single shots and not in the same room. It seems like House doesn’t know which direction to look, often off to the wrong side of where the Detective would be standing. When she interviews a porn/snuff provider, Brad (Canadian wrestling champion Bret Hart), his acoustical tone is different than hers, and he also looks in the wrong direction. This “separation” with green screen and different sound is also employed with a bartender (by cameo-king Ari Lehman). When Amanda and Senica are introduced as a couple on the drive north, at first this single shot method was used in the car, but then finally a double shot.

One weird plot point to me is that Amanda’s parents are also missing, as it is a family thing with the bad guys. But this is not shown for any other victims. It feels like a pretty big plot can of worms hole that did not need to be opened in the first place.

Speaking of sound, there is an almost amusing moment when we hear a character’s thinking processes, and it was obviously recorded later in a studio by how well it sounds, but also that there is a comment when the actor obviously accidentally falls during the filming, and the narration goes, “Oh, that hurt.” I am so glad they put that in.

The extras are three music videos and three company trailers (including this film).

If I had my druthers, I would like to see them take this film, re-edit it or have third party do it, and see where it goes. It has some nice potential, and I would like to see that fulfilled. And for the record, I was way off on who was the killer.

 

Review: American Antichrist

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2018

Images from the Internet

 

American Antichrist

Written, cinematography, directed and edited by Dakota Ray

RA Productions

50 minutes, 2018

https://dakotarayfilmmaker.wordpress.com/

www.facebook.com/American-Antichrist-350101585480631/

 

It’s always interesting to get a view into the creepy, nihilistic underworld vision of Dakota Ray. None of his characters are likeable; they are all human monsters in their own way, and it presents a Denver perspective of street trash that most people will (hopefully) never truly encounter in this intimate detail. But again, that’s also what makes Ray’s work also so compelling.

 

Dakota Ray

In this, his most moody piece to date, we meet a delusional serial killer named “Smoke” (Ray) who thinks he’s god; however, through an accidental drug overdose, dies and is buried. But as the narration by him states, “Evil never dies, it just grows stronger.” Needless to say he returns from the dead (after three days, I’m assuming) as The Antichrist, of the film’s title. There is a lot of mixing of good/evil – God/Devil, which I find interesting.

 

It’s always easy to tell a Ray film because he has developed his own style, which is rare these days. He uses monochrome filters in primary colors, title cards to separate segments that overlap in the stories anyway, non-populist religious symbolisms, highway underpass walkways, and blasts of death metal. But with each passing film, he has honed his camera’s eye to be a bit more artistic without losing the grip of presenting human suffering, either by their own hands or to others. His editing is worth noting as well; for what I am assuming is a single-camera shoot, he manages to use the footage to show motion and even more important, agitation, aggression, and transgression.

 

Another auteurism of Ray’s that I have come to appreciate is that there is more audio commentary to show the inner thoughts of the characters than actual dialog, which shows an even darker side of the skel mentality. Mostly it’s Smoke at the beginning, but then we get introduced to other characters, each one like someone we pass on the street every day, yet their inner thoughts are exposed to us, and we hear what we cannot see: the dark side of human nature, and that’s part of what makes Ray’s films so fascinating, story-wise.

 

There is very little when it comes to back stories; we just meet these people as they are, and it’s scary for me because if you’re as straight as I am (a no smoking, no drugs, no hard booze nerd), it’s an exposure to a world that, well, as I’ve said in an earlier review of a Ray film, I’d rather be a fly on the wall, as it were, than actually present in the company of any of these characters.

 

Meg Lacie Brown

As usual, it’s not a huge cast, but the characters are quite defined, and each shares their own thoughts with the viewer. There’s Crystal, a desperate drug addict who is willing to do nearly anything (Meg Lacie Brown), a drug dealer/addict named Chris who is into rough sex and snuff films (Nick Benning), Sid (Damien Rimmon) who makes said films, and Benjamin (a for once clean-shaven L.B., aka Larry Bay, one of my fave Ray regulars), a hooded religiousnik who stands on corners preaching against sins and is getting messages from…God? Satan? He takes his crusade to a whole ‘nother level.

 

One of the odd things about this film is that characters rarely interact with each other, with the exception of Crystal. Most seem to be in their own world of decay and despair, not to mention delusion. There were two that I was hoping would cross paths as they are both so opposite, yet alike in their fashion. Perhaps a sequel? I would be up for that.

 

As for the cast, it is filled with non-professional actors who are friends of the director, and rather than being stilted and wooden, in most cases Ray manages to get them to be more natural, sort of playing to themselves – though I honestly hope that the characters don’t represent the personalities of the actors in real life; that would be… sad? scary? As a person who hung out at CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City in the second half of the ‘70s, I’ve seen some strong addictive personalities, and while I admire the musicianship of some, the lifestyle is one of desperation, looking for that next hit of…anything.

 

Nick Benning

Ray has stated (on IMDB) that he considers himself an artist more than a filmmaker, and I can understand why. With each film, he gets stronger. What I would like to see is more of the background story to some of Ray’s characters to understand further motivation of how and why, for example, Smoke became a serial killer other than being drug induced, even if it’s as thoughts narrations overlaid on the soundtrack.

 

If you’re tired of seeing the same old kinds of films, and want to stick your toes into something that’s avant-garde enough to be artistic and open ended, but not so opaque that you get lost in the miasma of arty masturbation, it may be time to try one of Ray’s films.

 

And Ray, thanks for the shout out in the “Thank you” section at the end!

 

 

Review: True Love Ways

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2018

Images from the Internet

True Love Ways

Directed by Mathieu Seiler

Grand Hotel Pictures; Klusfilm Berlin;
ARRI Film and TV Services; Synergetic Distribution; MVD Visual

95 minutes, 2015

www.mvdvisual.com

Germany is familiar with cinema of the strange in the past few decades. Just look at the likes of the extremely other-there Nekromantic (1987), or even Run Lola Run (1998) as examples.

Anna Hausburg and Kai Michael Muller

For this film, named after a Buddy Holly posthumous rock’n’roll romantic classic from 1960 (which we hear more than once in the film), it opens on the strained relationship between our heroine, Séverine (the lovely Anna Hausburg) and her boyfriend Tom (Kai Michael Müller), with the former telling the latter that she doesn’t love him, but rather has given her heart to someone of whom that she dreamed; to me, his reactions says a lot about why she needs to dump his ass.

Speaking of reactions, the first couple of acts of the film are set at a very languid pace, like being on a rowboat meandering down a river, with little dialog, as Séverine sits in a park watching people, spending the night by herself, or driving down the road chewing both her hair and gum with the camera mainly focused on her face. Within those times, however, there are some disturbing moments of her wondering, “okay, who should I trust?” This paranoia also is placed on the audience by some creepy goings-on that I will very lightly touch on to not give too much away.

Muller and David C. Bunners

At a bar, after Séverine chucks Tom outta da co-joint for a few days, he goes to a bar where he meets Chef (David C. Bunners), who suggests that he will kidnap Séverine and then Tom would come to the rescue and be her “Tarzan.” With other events that happen in the meanwhile, during the ebb and flow of the day mentioned above, the audience can’t help wonder if this is part of a larger event.

About half way through the film, the pieces of some of the events that happened before and why the Chef is so interested in Séverine start to become clearer. And yes, it’s even creepier than you’d expect. We get to figure it out the same time as her, and that’s when the film shifts gears into overdrive. Yet, and this is where I find the film is playing with us, there are still moments of long silence and little movement, that in the heightened state of tension and adrenaline, are nail-biting thriller moments. Again, you know Séverine is feeling the same. It’s really well written that the audience gets to not just sympathize, but empathize, because you’re feeling a bit of what she is experiencing (without us being in real danger).

While definitely a sharp (and occasionally darkly humorous) thriller, some have referred to this as a kunstfilm (art film), and not just because it’s in black-and-white. It’s the pacing, the way the music works with the film beyond jump scares, but it’s not obnoxiously so. In other words, most art films try so hard to be ar-tay, that they become obtuse and confusing. There is none of that here. There are also few weird angles, other than multiple long close-ups of Séverine’s face.

The good news is that Hausburg is talented enough that with the extreme close-ups and lack of dialogue, it still is easy to read the broad emotional range she expresses (i.e., no “Blue Steel” vs. “Magnum”).

As always, the bad guys underestimate Séverine; while she’s no hired assassin like in the predictable and ordinary Final Girl (2015), she is extremely resourceful and works her way through situations (which we get to watch, step by step by facial expression).

The one cliché that is easy to predict in the film regards a tavern owner. I actually said, out loud as soon as she walked into the bar, “Oh, really?! C’mon!” But in a film that’s over 90 minutes, I can forgive it considering how much else is going on.

What really drove me crazy is the Tom character. Hero? Villian? No matter, he’s an asshole, that’s for sure. I’m not going to go into details, but like the male protagonist in Run Lola Run, I have no respect for him.

Sometimes arty films can be especially bloody, such as with Nekromantik, or Miike’s Audition (1999), and while it’s not overly done or in super-graphic detail like many Euro-body horror releases, there is definitely a spurting of the stuff. That being said, there will be a contingent with whom I agree to some level, who will argue that the males are killed pretty quickly, but it’s the women who receive the brunt of the brutality.

Okay, I know I’ve made a couple of complaints, and they seem valid to me, but overall this is quite the stunning picture. Sure, not necessarily a date flick (depending on your companion, of course), but it really is a beautiful piece of cinema, and much of that is directly is in the lap of Hausburg and her mighty-fine acting. My fear is that it will be remade in the Western Hemisphere, and the Séverine character will be played by someone like Chloë Grace Moretz or Abigail Breslin (who’s IMDB’s bio laughingly states is one of the “most sought after actors of her generation”), who cannot really do the heavy lifting acting that would be necessary to match Hausburg.

The only extra on this DVD is the chapters; the captions are imprinted onto the film.

Séverine certainly lives up to her name. Loving her would be severe, and threatening her would be even more so, judging by the actions here. She’s a bit nuts, but borderline enough that you’d have to be intimate with her to see just how around the bend she is. Part of the explanation and what is interesting on a few levels is that the ending is both a WTF and an Ohhhh-I-see moment. You certainly don’t see that occur much anymore.

Review: Effects

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2017

Images from the Internet

Effects

Directed by Dusty Nelson

AGFA / Something Weird Video / Bududa Inc. / MVD Visual

84 minutes, 1980 / 2005 / 2017

https://www.americangenrefilm.com

www.mvdvisual.com

So-called snuff films became a focus in American culture during the late 1970s and early ‘80s, in large part, for two reasons. The first was due to some pretty bad films such as Snuff (1975), which supposedly had a real snuff scene at the end (any seasoned SFX fan could see that it was fake), and the Faces of Death series (which was also bogus when concerning humans). The other was the rising video boom that was desperately in need for film fodder for fans, and would take anything they could find and put it out there in the exploding video store market. Snuff, a film that probably would have easily passed into the mire of bad cinema along with the Face of Death, found new life and became shocking sensations that made national news.

This led to a series of “realistic” releases trying to ride the wave. Hell, no one would have probably even heard the word “snuff” if it weren’t for those reasons. But it did lead us to Dusty Nelson’s film, Effects. Thanks to a revival of the VHS craze from that period, which has now passed into the nostalgia phase, companies like American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) are putting out hi-def, Blu-ray versions of these very same films. In this case, thanks to distribution and legal issues, this film was not actually released until 2005 on DVD, and now this Blu-ray from a rare print (more on the quality later). Thing is, as bad as some of these releases are, I’m glad they are given new – err – life.

Joseph Pilato, Tom Savini

Essentially, in a convoluted way, the film plays with the notions of what is real, what is pretend, and what happens when they mix in the world of film (although there are some moments that seem like it’s television). This is what is facing the dating couple of special effects expert/cameraman Dom (Joseph Pilato) and actress Celeste (Susan Chapek); they – and others – are caught in a web of confusion, like the audience. How will this effect the director, Lacey (John Harrison), fellow actors Barney (Bernard McKenna), Rita (Debra Gordon) and Nicky (SFX wizard Tom Savini in one of his early acting roles)? The big question, however, appears to be how far would/should/could one go to make a film?

Though I’m certain they were just trying to keep current, it’s interesting to me how many then-current cultural signifiers they use throughout the film, such as someone playing the electronic game Simon, or all the drug references (e.g., lines of coke and Maryjane). Then there’s the clothing, such as the common place jeans-and-tees (with images like The Rocky Horror Picture Show logo from 1977). There are other small touchstones, similar to a take-off of the Bill Saluga classic, “You doesn’thave to call me Johnson” bit.  There are more references in here than in a Family Guy episode. Heck, there’s even a bit of a soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Richard II.

Susan Chapek

Speaking of the “looks of then,” it’s amazing how the look and pacing of the film is like porn films of the period. Yeah, there’s a couple of (female) nudie scenes, such as the then-obligatory and totally unnecessary-to-the-story shower scene that opens up the pic, but nothing that would really qualify as even softcore. And yet, the feel of the film, the pacing, acting and ambiance screams late ‘70s adult cinema.

That being said, much of the cast and crew are part of the Pittsburgh area film group, which included George A. Romero (RIP). Many of the cast and crew were in front or behind (or both) the camera on numerous Romero releases. In fact, one of the lead actors, Pilato, would play a pivotal role (and have an iconic scene) in Day of the Dead (1985).

Filmed in a pre-MTV period, by the standards of even a couple of years later, the camera is quite static, with long shots and dialogue that keeps the story at a steady pace, as we get to know, although not necessarily like (which is the point), most of the main characters. The camera pretty much sits there, or just lazily cuts from character to character.

Debra Gordon (Bernard McKenna in mirror)

Along with the languid pace until the last 15 minutes, even though there are some decent moments of tension throughout, the film bleeds out rather than spurts. I wish the story was a bit clearer as it was happening, but even with all the character build-up, there isn’t much to connect to with hardly anyone. This is not helped by the very grainy visuals (shot in 16mm) and spotty sound, but I’m glad to have had a chance to see this almost-lost piece of cinema history from a very specific period of time.

The first extra is the 59-minutes documentary After Effects: Memories of Pittsburgh Filmmaking (2005; Red Shirt Pictures), directed by Michael Felsher, in which Felsher interviews the cast and crew 27 years later in Los Angeles. The arc is how the director and his team first got into making indie films (then called guerilla filmmaking) including and documentaries and commercials, and grew into raising the funds and gathering all the threads with enough cojones to make Effects. Also featured and interviewed is the late, great Romero (d. 2017). There are also some cleaned-up clips both visually and audibly from the film that I wish had been the whole film proper. Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of watching this long featurette because I thought I was going to be bored by it for the hour, but it’s actually quite well done and kept my interest throughout. There is an additional After Effects full-length commentary with the director. Much of the talking is about the distribution deal that squashed the original film, and how it eventually came out. It’s also the link between Effects and After Effects. Not overly exciting stuff, honestly, but somewhat interesting in its historical perspective. To be truthful, I made it through about the first 20 minutes.

Next up are two rare shorts. The first is the 12-minute Ubu (1973), an experimental picture directed by John Harrison, who plays the director in Effects. He actually has a few really nice credits under his belt, including the 2000 mini-series version of Dune. Here, we meet the titular Ubu, who is the tyrant of a Dark Ages version of Poland (or, as the marionette narrator states, “that is to say, nowhere”). It’s definitely a piece for its time, in a period of paranoia about the Nixon Administration. This is followed by Dusty Nelson’s 15-minute Beastie. Chris (Paula Swart) is hitchhiking and gets picked up by George (Steve Pearson). They instantly start a relationship, and we follow it until… well, I’ll not give it away. It’s also a story of its generation, which seems to be just-post-hippie.

Last up is the 2005 full-length commentary with Nelson, Harrison and Pasquale Buba, who all make up the production company, Bududa Inc. It’s a quite decent combination of technical matters, anecdotes and intentions. They work really well together, and it shows in the way they respectfully let each other finish their own bits, such as positing what the film is actually about: “…What’s real and what’s not, and if you don’t know the difference, does it matter?” Even though it’s hard to tell who is telling what story, it really isn’t important because it’s the content of the tale that matters. It was interesting throughout.

In some ways Effects reminds me of Maniac (also 1980, and name checked in one form or another in the documentary sides, which is not surprising considering Savini also worked on that one), which also had an appearance and – err – effects by Savini. I would recommend any fan of the VHS or Pittsburgh film school to see Effects, because it is an important piece of work, even with its occasional wonkiness.