Review: Mécanix

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016

Images from the Internet

Mécanix

Written, directed and edited by Rémy Mathieu Larochelle

Ofilms / Avant-Gore Films / IPS Films /

Unearthed Films / MVD Visual

70 minutes, 2003 / 2016

www.unearthedfilms.com

www.mvdvisual.com

Many cities have arthouse theaters. In New York, we’d head down to those like the Film Forum on West Houston Street, occasionally watching real life art going by such seeing rats running down the street as we went into the theater (happened more than once).

Along with the Scandinavian films that would depress a hyena (which SCTV lampooned so well with Whispers of the Wolf), we’d also see films that were certainly not conventional in any way, such as those by Richard Kern, Kenneth Anger and Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man (1964). Occasionally there would be a Canadian entry, and some were quite innovative, like the shorts Pas de Deux (1968) and Neighbors (1952), which we saw together in revival form (hey, I’m not that old).

Human

The genres of avant-garde and transgression are different, but they can overlap, sometimes quite extensively, occasionally blurring the lines. The Montreal-filmed Mécanix can be seen as just such a film. But, of course, it’s open interpretation. In an interview segment included as an extra, the director also mentioned German Expressionism, which was at its height during the silent period with the likes of Nosferatu (1922 by F.W. Murnau) and Metropolis (1927, by Fritz Lang). Similar to that style, there is very little dialog (more on that later) until the final act, though there is a lot going on here, especially visually.

Non-human (goat creature)

Metropolis is actually a good comparison point because of some of the similarities in themes (though the resemblances kind of end there). The story, from what I make out, is about a world split into two strata. The first is the lower class humans who service the overlords. The second is the creatures who rule the humans, which consists of mostly animal-like puppets and pixilated clay beings of a mostly rudimentarily shaped type (though the goat one is quite cool looking). Like Metropolis, part of the plot is the human’s trying to overcome by… well, it is confusing as it’s a bit philosophical, quite fantastical and poetically opaque. It’s also about, as stated during the film, “The desire of all things.” Note that the film is in Quebecois French with English subtitles, though as there is so little speaking, it’s not like the viewer is going to spend much time reading.

Speaking of the story, I’m going to do something I’ve rarely done before, which is repeat what’s on the box (in part), because I had trouble following a narrative:

…The last human beings are forced to be the slaves of the strange creatures that rule this strange world. There is only one thing these beasts fear – the embryo of the universe: the origin of everything … is hidden in the last freeborn man. The scientist helping the beasts must vivisect every human on the planet to stop this embryo from growing and destroying it forever.

What interests me, as a media theorist (that’s right) is the hinting of both the works of French philosopher Jacques Ellul and Toronto professor Marshall McLuhan, whether intentional or not. McLuhan tends to be thought of as dreading the inevitability of the takeover by technology, but it was actually Ellul who posited that theory (beware!) in his seminal book, The Technological Society (1964). He described what he called Technic, or the way things are done; for our film here, the term used is Mécanix.

In Understanding Media (also 1964), McLuhan theorizes how technology is an extension of humans (e.g., cars are extensions of the legs, pens are extensions of the hand). One of the stop-motion creatures even states (whispering soto voce) to the central character: “Mécanix are the extension of your being, like you are an extension of nature.” In actuality, though the humans are here are the extensions of the creatures, helping them get fed (though it seems like they always refuse the food), and to try and find the “embryo.”

Both human and nonhuman

The motion of the creatures is jumpy (you do what you can with your equipment), especially considering this was done with 16mm film rather than digital. There is no computerization used (anti-technology, or just what was available?), which is admirable. In fact they use the same technique/technic for the mixture of animation and living actors that they used in silent films. This is explained in the interview extra.

There are some really nice moments, like a beastie who interrogates the main human character has his snout wrapped in wire, and before he asks any question it unwraps and a ball of wire falls from his maw. After each query, the ball goes back into his mouth, and the wire wraps it up again. Larochelle designed and built all the puppets and animation creations, and also pixilated them, which took about half a decade.

The image of the film is murky, like the Yellow River: muddy dark brown and a bit hazy at times. But it is not as convoluted as the narrative. I’m not saying this as a negative, but if you’re looking for light and airy fare, or a blood feast, this may not be where you want to be searching. However, it is interesting cinema in its artistry, and in its sheer labor (oh, wait, it’s Canadian… labour), considering the filmmaker was just out of college.

Included as its only extra (not counting the chapters) is a single camera 30-minute interview with the director and a producer, Phillippe Chabot. The prewritten (but previously unread by them) questions were handed to them on a sheet of paper that is held during the taping. About 50 percent of it is interesting, but when it is and they are taking it seriously, it had my attention.

I’m glad this is getting a new release, because works like this deserve to be in the film canon, and I certainly hope at some point Larochelle releases a follow-up of some kind (does not have to be directly related to this), because he shows he has a head on his shoulders with this dark almost-poetry and definitely philosophical allegory. That being said, I also hope he actually adds a commentary track on the next reissue to further explain what he was meaning by the actions on the screen.

Review: Don’t You Recognise Me?

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016

Images from the Internet

Don’t You Recognise Me?

Written and directed by Jason Figgis

October Eleven Pictures

80 minutes, 2015 / 2016

www.facebook.com/jason.figgis

In an Amusing Ourselves to Death world, according to Neil Postman in 1985, entertainment becomes our focus, rather than the real world around us, leading to the collapse of culture. Examples of this abound, with some people walking off cliffs in search of non-existent Pokémon Go characters, others drive two-ton machines full speed down a highway or crowded street while texting. There are also those who would rather watch sports than participate in them or other actually important social contract behavior such as voting for a viable leader; they’d rather opinionate without doing the research, or instead watch a woman with three dragons take sword to kings on television. But it runs both ways, as not only are there viewers, but there are also the creators of such distractions.

In Ireland, as we are introduced to this story, is Tony Aiello (Matthew Toman), a slimy Geraldo-style “journalist” with no moral compass, whose purpose in life is to find people to interview, and make them look as foolish in documentaries. With his film crew (Alan Rogers on camera and the cute Emma Dunlop on sound boom), he has lined up his latest victims, obtained from social media contact: the Gallagher family, small-time operators who are willing to let Aiello into their world. But right from the start, the viewer knows that something is rotten in the state of County Dublin. The title of the film even hints at it.

I promise I won’t go into spoiler alert territory, but it soon becomes obvious that while Aiello is playing the Gallaghers for his own gain, the tide will soon turn for ominous reasons.

The Gallaghers and their crew are a nutsy bunch, showing that a level of insanity may run in this family and group, possibly on the Usher level (the EA Poe story, not the singer, so back off). K (Jason Sherlock) is the pretty face that draws the flies to the spider, as it were, but it is brother Daz (Darren Travers) who is in charge of the operation (and it’s Travers who steals just about any scene he’s in). Also aiding them silently in a possible Leatherface nod is Nickey Gallagher, aka Babyface, for reasons that are immediately obvious (played menacingly by the very muscular and intimidating director, Jason Figgis).

If I may pull back and digress here a mo, this documentary style filming is an offshoot of the found footage subgenre, in that those on camera filming the story are actually shooting the film, as well. There is a nice touch as the scenes cut between the two camera, and you hear the differences in the sound from each (the quality changes between the boom and the home videocamera, for example, or those closer to the shooting are louder than those further away). For once, not balancing the sound makes sense.

Starting off slow, the menacing and alarm levels start to kick in at about 15 or 20 minutes (the first of which are used for exposition), and then continue to increase exponentially. By the time everything is explained out, the viewer will cringe, but at the same time has some sense of identification with the retribution-seeking Gallaghers.

Darren Travers as Daz

Joining the family is some friends, including two camera people (video and still), and the hair obsessed Terese (Shauna Ryan), an intense woman who does not take kind to insult and is often saying, “You take that back!” There is actually a lot of repetition of dialog by many of the characters, such as Daz’s insistence to just about everyone, “Are you gettin’ this?!” It actually makes it even more frightening rather than “samey” as you see the level of madness – both in the level of anger and craziness – reaches the crescendo. That aspect also gave it a real feeling, perhaps of improv on the part of the actors. Anyway, it works.

If I could change any one thing in this film, I would add subtitles, as sometimes the accents get a bit thick, but it’s always easy to pick out the oft used “fook.” Perhaps the option will be on the DVD release, but there are parts where I really had no idea what was being said literally, but the intent was loud and clear so I don’t think I really missed anything.

There is little blood in the film, and much of the actual violence is done off-screen, but that does not hinder the level of both malevolence and banality of evil that are present. Bleak has its place in life, and this story certainly lends itself to just that. In fact, it is the quality of the story and the compassion for the characters that actually arises out of that despair, even with the excess violence.

Figgis seems to revel in the bleak, such as in his previous film reviewed on this blog, Children of a Darker Dawn (HERE). That being said, it should be added that he excels in it, as well, even with the feeling that it could have been edited down a bit. However, it is also enhanced by the mostly subtly and dissonant notes of a really fine score by Michael Richard Plowman.

Sure there is no sign of cell phones, nicely making the timing of the film a bit up in the air, but even so the prevalence of technology still manages to make itself felt, as both sides of the table document the situation, including some group shots of both victims and victors, even though in the long run, everybody loses a bit of their own soul, and not just to the image as some religions believe about taking pictures.

Film's Trail to Be Added Shortly...

Review: My Master Satan: 3 Tales of Drug Fueled Violence

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016

Images from the Internet

My Master Satan: 3 Tales of Drug Fueled Violence

Written and directed by Dakota Bailey

R.A. Productions

71 minutes, 2016

www.facebook.com/mymastersatan

There are generally two definitions of “underworld,” and neither of them invokes good images. One is where criminals dwell, and the other is where you go when you die. In Western culture, that usually is the place ruled by the devil (though in ancient Egypt, it was a good place run by Osiris…but I digress…). Here they are kind of simultaneous.

This is an anthology film with three dire and overlapping stories of dealers, criminals, psychopaths and drug users. The running together of the term underworld works in a similar way that the stories all meld, which is a nice touch.

Completely devoid of any kind of humor, these bleak stories rely more on realities – even with the inclusion of the voice-distorted devil, making it cringeworthy (a good thing) to watch these low-lifers react, take actions that would be shocking to most, and often talk while driving around about the motivation for their actions.

While there are three stories here, let’s be honest, who gives a fuck? They are so interconnected, one could just look at it as a series of events without compartmentalizing them into individual “tales” as much as chapters of the same book, and get the same result with the identical outcome. This is not a criticism in any way, shape or form. I actually like that it’s kind of overlapping or overflowing into each other’s messes. Also, I enjoyed that the characters not only remained the same, but kept such a good touch of a feeling of realism.

Dakota Bailey

The group of drug takin’, murderin’ and socially unacceptable people are so vile, and so heinous, that it’s both hard to imagine wanting to remain in their company, yet like watching a train wreck, you’re grateful for the opportunity to do so in the safe haven of your electronic viewing equipment. There is no lead character per se, though one can’t help focus more on Alister, perhaps because he is portrayed by the writer/director, Dakota Bailey, or maybe due to that he’s the one whose name is spoken most often. Others include the despicable Bubba (Matt Marshall), Woody (Wild Willy Wakefield), Charlie (Brian Knapp) and Dealin’ Dick (Larry Bay). The one decent character is a property caretaker (well played by Chuck Frost), who looks like he could have gone either the straight and narrow way or not. The rest just seem to be born bad.

With the exception of two bad, synthetic wigs on Bubba and Woody, these guys all look and sound the part; it’s more like they’re playing themselves than characters, which is quite the compliment. Even the locales are probably more like where these people would live, on the brink of poverty and in most cases, squalor (money going to drugs rather than accommodations and Feng Shui).

As murky as is their lifestyles and living, it is matched by the visuals of the camera. Shot on VHS, it has a look more of 8mm, with mostly a dull sepia tone, scratches, visual and sound noises, and tied up in some sharp and snappingly harsh edits. It’s not always easy to make out what is happening, and the sound quality is variable (purposefully, apparently), much like real life. Oh, and just about the only time we see color, it’s in an extreme oversaturation during LSD visitations by the title character.

We watch as our little band of degenerates steal, dig up the bodies of cheating loved ones (it’s in the film description), chainsaw victims (I did say serial killers, didn’t I?), peep in on the bathing mother of one of our crew, rat each other out, and just get involved in all kinds of mischief. Well, “mischief” is a much kinder word than their actions, but all of it is believable for these characters. The only question I have is about how they almost never wear gloves during any of their actions, like these are just natural day-to-day goings-on. Then again, perhaps it is, or they are too doped up to care.

Bailey directs the film more like a fly on the wall than as a third person, bringing the viewer in on the action rather than merely viewing it. That was a nice touch, and not always easy to achieve without making it into some sort of lost footage thingy; there is no doubt that is not the direction of the camera. This reminds me a bit of early Martin Scorsese films like Mean Streets, but Bailey is no Scorsese (who else is, right?). Then again, even in his grittiest period, Scorsese’s film felt realistic, but the viewer was still removed from the action (i.e., you knew you were watching a film in the classic sense).

While there is definitely blood, most of the action occurs just outside the camera range, and yet Bailey manages to make the suddenness of it shocking. Again, this is a nicely creative touch, keeping with the realism of the setting. Also, it does for Denver what Taxi Driver did for New York City on setting a grittiness level.

As I said, the sound on the film is variable, and in certain parts, even at full blast, I had trouble making out some of the dialog. This is my one key complaint. But this sort of leads me to a quick question, that’s kind of rhetorical, but I’ll ask it anyway. The music in the film is straight-out death metal, mostly by Luciferian Insectus. Now, Bailey’s voice here sounds like he’s talking like death metal singers vocalize. Is that his natural voice, is he also a singer in a DM band, or is he channelling Alister? [Since the publishing of this review, I have been informed by the director that it is, indeed, his natural voice.]

This is a very unusual film in its content, its characters, and its medium (e.g., look, editing, sound). This makes it not necessarily an easy film to snuggle up to like a typical horror or crime drama release, but I believe that if you give it a chance, you may find yourself drawn into a story populated by unlikeable people who you may never associate with in real life (hopefully), but still respect that you have been invited into their world for just a moment.

Review: Winners Tape All: The Henderson Brothers Story

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016

Images from the Internet

Winners Tape All: The Henderson Brothers Story

Directed and edited by Justin Channell

IWC Films / Brainwrap Media

67 minutes, 2016

www.facebook.com/winnerstapeall

www.iwcfilms.com

The timing of this film is very – er – timely. What I mean by that is there is a wave of nostalgia in the genre market for the quickie and cheap films that arose during the 1980s, flooding the hungry retail market for horror films and giving birth to the B-level slashers. Okay, sometimes C- or D-level. Yet, were these films actually any good?

Don’t get me wrong, I was one of those renting and watching as many as my time and money (and occasional schoolwork) would allow. Even then, as now, I preferred the indie, micro-budget films like The Orbitrons (1990), as I do now, and I wallowed in the Foreign releases that glorified (and rightfully so) the likes of Fulci and Argento, but also (and perhaps not as rightfully so) Paul Naschy. It also gave prominence those such as Fred Olen Ray and Jesse Franco. Thankfully it also began the careers of the Scream Queen royalty, such as Brinke, Linnea and (my then-personal fave) Michelle Bauer.

If one were to look back at some of these releases that we enjoyed so much, if we haven’t kept watching them over and over, would we still find them so fascinating? Would The Boogey Man (1980), Creepozoids (1987) and Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988) still retain their charms? That is the premise of this mockumentary.

During the late ‘80s, the fictional West Virginia-based Henderson Brothers, Michael (Zane Crosby) and Richard (Josh Lively), made two straight-to-video films, The Curse of Stabberman and Cannibal Swim Club. And much like Nicholas Garreau did in real life as an obsessed fan of George Romero in Fan of the Dead (2007), the Hendersons also have their own both charming and creepy uber cheerleader in Henry Jacoby (Chris LaMartina).

Richard (Josh Lively) and Michael (Zane Crosby)

Bonded together by their love of horror films at the age of 10 when their parents re-married, the step-brothers took advantage of both the outlet for indie VHS and their lives basically being in the crapper (e.g., dropping out of college), to live their dream.

Mixed in with the talking-head interviews with the brothers (and Henry, of course doing solo “analysis” of their releases), sometimes together and sometimes by themselves, is scenes from the two films, …Stabberman and Cannibal…, with Michael and Richard giving play-by-plays that essentially are like commentary tracks. Of the two, the latter is the more wacky one, and thereby all the more fun. Many of the scenes are joyfully stolen by the horrendous acting of the “swim club owner,” Jerry McElroy. His cackling and on-screen script reading (like Brando in the “Gatfather” [sic] says Michael), kept me more than amused, as well as his tendency to Jay Leno a pun by explaining it, such as, “I don’t see this new job panning out for you. ‘Cause it’s a pan!”

Not only financial constraints darken the Bros filmmaking, but so do the occasional rise of sibling rivalry, or weird choices, such as Richard’s tendency to put on a Quint/Robert Shaw type gruff New England accent when one is not called for the story.

Henry (Chris LaMartina)

A reality of this piece is how one of the main props (a hand) is used in both films. If you tend to listen to as many commentaries as I do, you often hear the directors or SFX people talking about the appropriation of sets, people and paraphernalia in future endeavours. It was a wise choice to do this here, in a bit of a subtle way as they don’t discuss it, though it is prominently placed.

Starting especially in the ‘80s was the use of “themes” (as Michael Henderson might say), which would become tropes used even to this day. There are a bunch of them that are touched on here, such as one camper giving the history of the villain (i.e., Stabberman, whose real name made me laugh hard enough to pause the film) to the others (and us viewers) around a campfire. But there is also taking advantage of the moment scenes that are used (e.g., rain), which often happens in fly-by-seat-of-pants productions.

There is also a bit of reality in this story as well, being this is sort of how Hershell Gordon Lewis became an icon after a series of fun and badly shot films reached a fan, Jim Vraney (d. 2014) who promoted him (and others) via a VHS distribution company called Something Weird Video (I own a number of SWV films; yes, on VHS). Lewis was a direct marketing guru at the time of his re-emergence (and still is), and now his films from the early 1960s and ‘70s are considered horror classics – and rightfully so – even though they are not exactly strong in the writing or acting.

Even now, thanks to digital technology, people are shooting their own films and then editing it on computers, such as then 15-year-old Johnny Dickie’s Slaughter Tales (2013; reviewed HERE).Will Dickie be a future Lewis or Henderson Brothers? Time will tell, but I bet there will be “Henry Jacoby”-type fans to support him and others like him.

So this particular film also looks like it was made on a dime (and the use of a 110 camera, apparently!), but to the better of the result than the hindrance, since that is the look it was going for, in the long run.

Any fan of micro-budget films, be it from the 1980s VHS boom to digi productions now, is going to get the elbow in the ribs humor that runs from beginning to end. If you’re more used to the bigger budget Sinister or Insidious kinds of films, it may be a bit over your head (or under it), but I know I was smirking at the least and laughing at the high-jinx of these three guys (including Henry). The outtakes near the end with Michael and his whistle are particularly enjoyable.

Be sure to stick around and read the credits, as there are little “Easter Eggs” of humor throughout the text and visuals.

Review: Decay

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016

Images from the Internet

Decay

Edited and directed by Joseph Wartnerchaney

Uncork’d Entertainment / Ghost Orchid Films

98 minutes, 2015 / 2016

www.decayproject.com

www.ghostorchidfilms.net

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppoP9vB20Fs

Review: The After Death Project

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016

Live images © Robert Barry Francos, 2016

Other Images from the Internet

The After Death Project: Collector’s Edition 2-DVD Set

Written, produced and directed by Paul Davids

Paul Davids Productions / Yellow Hat Productions

207 minutes, 2013

www.lifeafterdeathproject.com

www.mvdvisual.com

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.

Review: Comin’ at Ya!

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016

Images from the Internet

Comin’ at Ya!

Directed by Fernando Baldi

CAU Productions / Universum Film (UFA) /
Sternco ED Films / MVD Visual

88 minutes, 1981 / 2015

www.mvdvisual.com

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.

By the mid-to-late ‘70s, the style was becoming somewhat passé, but then Fernando Baldi was bold enough to use the most up-to-date technology for colorization and 3D to bring something unique to the field. This was a big hit at the time, and set in motion a wave of 3D releases, including involving and also updating the Jaws and Friday the 13th franchises. The movement toward 3D was actually fronted by a guy named Tony Anthony (aka Roger Pettito, born in West Virginia), who is also the male lead of this film.

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.