Review: American Guinea Pig: Bouquet of Guts and Gore

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2015
Images from the Internet

American Guinea Pig: Bouquet of Guts and Gore

Written, directed and edited by Stephen Biro
Unearthed Films
73 minutes, 2014 / 2015
www.unearthedfilms.com
www.mvdvisual.com

If you are looking for a complex and deep storyline about searching one’s soul and the meaning of life, well, you’ve come to the wrong place. The premise is that two women are kidnapped, given a nerve inhibitor drug so that they can’t move, a shit load of LSD, and then are systematically tortured and eviscerated until dead. Except for a brief prologue and coda, all the action takes place in one room, and filmed mostly in real time and chronological order. Yep, what is promised and that is what is delivered.



The Director, Second Unit, The Actor, the first Victim

The cruelty is perpetrated by a bunch of guys: The Director (Scott Gabby) on 8mm camera, another camera person with a VHS camcorder (David Hood), a Second Unit on 8mm (Rogan Russell Marshall), and the bulky guy with the “Hard Times” tattoo on his pecs, credited as The Actor (Eight the Chosen One) who does all the dirty work. All the men wear masks, as the Director tells the Actor what to do (“Always start on the left, never on the right!” he commands repeatedly). We see the action through the lens of those cameras. This is supposed to be the 1980s, and that’s why the old equipment.

 

This is certainly a minimalist film just as the premise is a single note struck over and over again. That’s not to say it’s redundant, but it is pretty straightforward, making it less of a distraction from the hacking and sawing and poking and pulling. There is a kind of Zen to it all, I suppose. Look, I’m going to admit that I like a good story with my gore, even with something like A Serbian Film (2010) or Collar (2014), but the core of the matter is the look of the gore¸ which I will get to shortly.

First of all, the actresses who play the victims (Caitlyn Dailey and Ashley Lynn Caputo) are in films after that, so it’s a story of a snuff film, not an actual one. I say that specifically because of two reasons. First, it’s all “found footage” of a sort, as the film is shot by the actors in the story. There is the occasional break while the 8mm stock is replaced, and then it goes on. Second, I have to commend the SFX people, Oddtopsy, because the body parts look real, with the right flexibility and tone. I watched the whole bit-by-bit vivisecting things without turning away…okay that’s a lie. I did turn my head with the eyeball stuff, one of my admitted Achilles heels with this kind of thing.

Of course, the questions that arises through this is the why they are doing this. It’s obvious the VHS guy is being blackmailed (“Remember, we have your kids, so don’t fuck it up!”) into it about a third through, which further, again, the reason for the extremity of the torture. Early on, the Director mentions that the women were specifically chosen for their “role,” and I wondered if that could be a further clue to the reason for the actions. It feels like this is just the first of a series, but according the one of the commentary tracks, it is not. I was hoping it was so perhaps we’d learn piece by piece (pun intended), sort of like the conspiracy arc of Lost or The X-Files, more of the background story over time.

For me, the major problem is not that this is a gorefest, and superbly done at that. Okay, it’s partly that it is two women who are tortured, not a male, but that’s not the biggest issue I had though it made me uncomfortable, nor that the characters live way past the level of what a human body can actually endure. It is as follows (this is my issue which is mine, too; aheeeem): When you just have splatter that is one tone and consistent, without a context for the action, it gets kind of, well, mind-numbing. I’m not saying this is a boring film, I’m saying it becomes a little bit tedious. Chop, saw, poke. Saw, saw, poke, chop. Chop, chop, poke, saw, chop. Spam eggs sausage and spam (oh, what a giveaway; sorry…).   

I do understand that this is part of a homage to the Japanese underground Guinea Pig series that had bootleg tapes passed around, and was infamous for its unprecedented levels of unrelenting violence and graphic sadism, especially the second of the series, Guinea Pig: Flowers of Flesh and Blood (1985); there is an indirect mention in this film when the Director comments, “Let’s bleed this flower out.” It makes sense, too, as Unearthed Films also released all seven of the Guinea Pig films in a deluxe DVD box set. It’s also probably part of the reason the film is set in that decade.



The Actor

This DVD is also loaded with extras. To start, there is the trailer, which I have not included below due to its extremity (the one I've linked was supplied by MVD and stars Eight the Chosen One, and can lead you to the actual trailer, which as the words "Series 2" in the title). The next one I watched was the 40 minute single-camera interview with two cast member who are also aficionados in their own right: Pete Townsend look-alike Jim Van Bebber (The Editor), who is the director of films including Dead Beat at Dawn (1988) and The Manson Family (2003), and Scott Gabbey (The Director), who is also president of Ultra Violent Magazine, as well as an actor. While a bit long, it is chocked full of interesting stories and back-stage anecdotes, so it mostly kept my interest. The only thing I found annoying, and I may get picked on for this, is the constant calling of the two actresses as “the girls.” None of the rest of the cast and crew is called “the boys,” but the N-word does make its presence.

 

An almost 5-minute music video of “Chambers of Perdation” (appropriately meaning "Chambers where there are attacks") by the band Perdition Temple (for those that don’t know, “Perdition” is the time spent in hell). The song is classic death metal with the chucka-chucka guitar sound and the solos, and the growling, distorted voice where you can’t make out a single word (captions, please!). It is interspersed with graphic clips from the film, so don’t look for it on VH1, but perhaps in a future Metal Retardation release from director Bill Zebub?

I was looking forward to seeing the 21-1/2 minute “Preproduction Video,” to see some of the behind the scenes work, and wasn’t disappointed. We see the face masks being made, Gabbey rehearsing his lines, and the full body casts. They don’t show how they do the internal body gore, I’m sorry to say, but still very enlightening.

The first commentary I watched was of director Steve Biro and fellow director / actor / director of photography of this film, Jim Van Bebber, who contributed to the interview segment above. Van Bebber tends to commandeer the conversation, often loudly interrupting Biro to the point of annoyance, but there is also a fuck of a lot of information that I didn’t get from the film that I learned from this commentary, including some religious significance, and the relationship of the two women. It is also the closest that it comes to explaining motive (just the fact that the two women were named after Biro’s ex-wives says a bit).

The final commentary is Biro again, but this time with main person who did the SFX for the film, Marcus Koch (pronounced “cook”). I always start at the end of the extras and work my way through to the one I’m looking forward to the most. However, though there is some info, this commentary was particularly a letdown as there was hardly any talk about the effects, and a lot of it was repetitious from the other extras. At the end, Biro mentions that Koch will direct the next American Guinea Pig, which should be interesting as he knows what he is capable of doing, SFX-wise. Brio also disses commentaries, saying how only the fanatical watch them. Yes, but it is precisely those enthusiasts who are the fans of this kind of extreme fare.

Between the film and its two commentaries, I essentially sat through the film three times, not counting the clips included in the likes of the music video. What is the end result? Yes, this is an extremely brutal film for both the characters, and the audience. But it is bound to reach the audience who it is directed at, which is the point, so in that way, it is very successful. It has an interesting look via the mix of 8mm, 16mm, and VHS, and if you can keep your eyes on the screen, it will keep your attention, in the same way a magic trick is performed. I guarantee there will be moments of “How the fuck did they do that?!?!?!” To me, that screams achievement.

I’m also curious to see how they top this one.

 

 

Review: Spider Baby

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2015
Images from the Internet

Spider Baby (or The Maddest Story Ever Told)

Directed by Jack Hill
Arrow Films
MVD Visual
85 minutes, (filmed in 1964) released in 1967 / this version released in 2015
www.mvdvisual.com

I pride myself in my knowledge of classic horror films, as I grew up watching them either in theaters or on television. In that way, I’ve seen most of the classics, but due to lack of distribution, Spider Baby, which was shot in 1964 and finally released in 1967, is one I have missed; for years I have wanted to get a gander. Luckily, the opportunity has arisen, in a bee-utiful restored deluxe edition.

A very, very, very dark comedy, Spider Baby belongs more in the subgenre among the likes of the less than humorous Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962), Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964), Strait-Jacket (1964), and the similarly black absurdity of Hershall Gordon Lewis’s Two Thousand Maniacs (1964), where the maniacs that should be hanging out with Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) at best, or Arkham Asylum at worst, are out running around, with knives in hand.

Through a fourth-wall breaking expository introduction and conclusion, we are informed about the Merrye (get it?) family, who as they approach puberty, the older they get the more they mentally regress to the point of violence and cannibalism (it’s not for nothing that this film was also named at different points as Attack of the Liver Eaters and Cannibal Orgy). Also, I’m sure the secondary title is a play on the 1965 film about Jebbus, The Greatest Story Ever Told, which was possibly still playing around in some theaters around that time, especially in Dix-say. (Note: this is confirmed in one of the included extras, which I saw after I wrote this part.)

We are initially introduced to the Merrye clan through the eyes of a messenger, played by Mantan Moreland (he infamously had a recurring role in the Charlie Chan films as the always loyal-yet-scared helper who, along with Stepin Fetchit, famously said, “Feet, don’t fail me now!”). Of course, it doesn’t end well for him, but his cameo is sympathetic to both his career and the man as an actor.



The Merrye Children: Sid Haig, Jill Banner, Beverly Washburn

The isolated Merrye estate (on a busy street in real life) is in sharp disrepair. They never explain where the money came from, but it is certainly near the end of the dynasty. Poppa has died a number of years ago, leaving the caretaker in charge of the remaining family, since they are not up to it themselves. The oldest is Ralph, a rapacious lad played by a young Sid Haig (!) who dresses like a little boy in rags, drools, leers and snarls, but has already regressed to the point past speech, in some sense on the level of the family dog. Haig, who always seems to be in the moment, has had a long career, but to modern audiences is mostly known for his role of the head of another killer clan in Rob Zombie’s House of a Thousand Corpses (2003) and The Devil’s Rejects (2005). The middle child is Elizabeth, who is obsessed with the idea of hating and anger (“He’s gonna hate you for that!” she spits out joyfully). She’s played by previous child star Beverly Washburn, who Trekkers will know more from “The Deadly Years” episode. The youngest sibling is Virginia, played by the very cute Jill Banner (d. 1982 in a car accident); rumor was that the Beatles had a thing for her around this time. She is the title character, named so because of her love of spiders – be it as pets, or as food. From her first introduction onscreen it’s pretty easy to see you don’t want to be stuck in her “web.” Even Peter Parker should be afraid. Oh, and in the basement are their two aunts and an uncle who have regressed so far they are the cannibals discussed earlier.




Lon

Watching over them all is said caretaker / chauffeur named Bruno, and star of the film, Creighton Cha…I mean Larry Talbo…I mean Lon Chaney (sans the Jr.). He arguably gives one of the most heartfelt readings of the films of his later career. You can see his slow boil desperation grow to a breaking point as it becomes harder and harder to control the feral nature of these three young adults, that he called “The Children,” and the current state of affairs.

Part of the problem is that some distant relatives have come to claim their property, as technically they are the next in line to inherit the Merrye fortune (from where?!), and they want to take position with the help of their shyster lawyer and his secretary. The plan is to put the children into a mental facility and then sell the property for development. Sounds a bit like an adult version of The Little Rascals, doesn’t it (“We gotta save grandma from getting evicted, Stymie!” “Mmm-Hmm!”)?

The relatives are a brother and sister, who arrive together. She is the voracious and greedy Emily, played by Carol Ohmart, possibly typecast as a similar character from when she was Vincent Price’s wife who takes the acid bath in The House on Haunted Hill (1959). At one point, she even wears similar sheer night clothes with a black bra showing ample cleavage for its day, stockings and garter belt that would make Bettie Page proud. It’s dismaying to know that she’s a Tea Party Conservative in real life now (then again, Bettie Page was a Born Again Christian for a large number of years, though she embraced her past before she passed on in 2008). Then, even in her 40s, she was pretty hot.

The brother, played with laisse faire finesse in a suit and tie is Peter, ambley brought to life by 1950s-sit-com-handsome Quinn Redeker. Peter is fine with either eating cat (he guesses rabbit), or the children’s antics. He’s likeable and it’s no surprise that Ann, the assistant to Emily’s lawyer, played by the lovely Mary Mitchel (yes, with one “l”, who was married to the Assistant Director here, and would later do a lot of behind the camera work for Coppola), goes a bit gaga for him; the attraction is mutual. The last of the characters is the shady and, yes, greedy lawyer, who is aptly named Mr. Schlocker. He is humorously embodied by the diminutive Karl Schanzer (d. 2014), who helped director Jack Hill find the moneymen and some of the cast; in real life he was a real-life PI!

The trouble truly begins as they all spend the night in the old dark house, with people traipsing around looking for clues, searching for things of value, and avoiding murderous intent. There are a couple of gruesome scenes, but it certainly is a case of eat or be eaten, both figuratively and, well…

Mary Mitchel wolfing up Quinn  Redeker

Did I mention this was a comedy? My favorite moment is at a dinner table where Peter and Ann are discussing their enjoyment of the Universal classic horror films, and at one point they mention the mummy, and it’s clear from the body language that they are not talking about the Imhotep (Karloff, 1932) version but rather the 1940s Kharis (Chaney) ones. Of course, they mention Frankenstein, meaning the monster, which Chaney played in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Dracula which he played in Son of Dracula (1943), and of course his most known character, The Wolfman [yes, Chaney is the only one to play all four of the classic monsters onscreen]. What makes it even funnier is Ann stops before actually saying the full creature’s name and looks over at Chaney, who summarily looks up at an angle and says in a perfect Lawrence Talbot worry-voice, “There’s going to be a full moon tonight!” I had to stop the film and go, “wow!” and then realize that I haven’t seen Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) in a really long time. Oh, and by his mentioning the full moon, perhaps they were also covering the shadows during the day-for-night shots?

I would like to share a special nod and raise a glass of a Virgin Shirley Temple to cinematographer Alfred Taylor, who does one of the more amazing lighting jobs I have seen in a black and white film, arguably equal to Gregg Toland’s handiwork in Citizen Kane (1941). Taylor gives amazing depth to the basement, the back ends of the rooms, and in the outdoor scenes. Some of the bootleg and VHS copies are quite murky from what I understand, but this remastering is just jaw-droopingly beautiful.

With Spider Baby taking on the American International Pictures style (Roger Corman mentored Hill) and mixing it with the even more absurd (but not as silly) The Raven (1963), over the early years of its existence this film had been pretty maligned. But it is due in part to bankruptcy of the producers and a legal issue with ownership of the negative, which is why it didn’t play on late night television like some of the others mentioned above. I’m not sure it would have been shown on television anyway without being cut to ribbons by censors because this film is quite wonderfully bizarre in its creepiness, and unique in its story, written by the director, Jack Hill. He would go on to write and direct such exploitation classics as The Big Doll House (1971), The Big Bird Cage (1972), Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974, which received a big pictorial write-up in Penthouse), and The Jezebels (1975; this would arguably be an influence on 1979’s The Warriors).

Over the years, however, as these kinds of things do, there has been an ever growing fan base (Marshall McLuhan’s “Rear View Mirror Thinking”) that has come to realize what a stunning work of dark fiction it actually is, and deserving of the praise it now receives.  This notice has even taken its director, Hill, buy surprise, as it was his first feature on a small budget of $60,000 (that’s $456,000 in 2015 currency).

This release abounds in extras. Not in order of sequence of the menu, of course there is the trailer, but that is only the breadcrumbs before the feast. There is an additional 30-minute black and white short Western called the Host from 1960, listed as Sid Haig’s first film. Looking like a cross between an old Twilight Zone episode and a college film (it was Jack Hill’s student project), we meet an escaped robber (Haig with hair!) who comes across a mysterious religious Mission in the middle of the desert. He is called upon to complete a task, and though you can see the ending coming, it’s quite well done.

There is a 33-minute panel discussion (2012?) from the American Film Archive, who had a showing after preserving the release from the original negatives. The panel is Jack Hill, Beverly Washburn, and a bizarre turn by an interruptive and muddled Quinn Redeker. It’s funny, fact-filled, and with Quinn’s part, a bit sad as he tries to tell a number of stories about working with Chaney, but hardly ever gets there.

Another 2006 short is nearly 8 minutes of filmmaker Elijah Drenner (who directed “The Hatching of Spider Baby,” discussed below) and Jack Hill returning to the since-restored Smith Estate in Los Angeles, which stood in for the Merrye Mansion. We never see the inside, but the tour of the grounds help you realize how creative they had to be to make it appear isolated.

Getting back to the film, there is an alternative credits (under the title of Cannibal Orgy) and an extended scene as we all get to meet Schlocker and Ann. These are more historical references than anything actually necessary. Though the backstage stills collection is nice and telling, especially about Ohmart, who looks like she’s not having much fun (the look she gives directly at the camera made me shudder; in the commentary, however, Hill said she had a lot of fun). The 11-minute “Spider Stravinsky: The Cinema Sounds of Ronald Stein,” focuses on the man who composed the music to this and many other Corman films. It kept my interest throughout.

The penultimate is a 30-minute, “The Hatching of Spider Baby, or the Making of the Maddest Story Every Told,” with interviews of most of the living cast, and other filmmakers such as Joe Dante. Not dull for a second, this is what “Making Of” featurettes should be like: a little bit technical, a little bit of anecdote, and a fast pace without being maudlin.

The cherry on the cake, though, is the full-length commentary with Jack Hill and Sid Haig. One of the better commentaries I’ve heard in a while, it really is a nice mix of filmmaking and personality discussion. They are both open to express what worked, how they did it, giving proper due to the cast and crew, being open about their reactions at the time, e.g., Haig explaining how he had the flu during one sequence, making it the hardest work he did in his then-45 year career (again, around 2006 when this must have been recorded). It was also nice to have the English captioning for when I was listening to this track.

I am definitely a convert to the film, and will take pleasure in repeated viewings. I believe that says it all.

 

Review: Clive Barker Origins: Salome; The Forbidden

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2015
Images from the Internet

Clive Barker Origins: Salome; The Forbidden

Directed by Clive Barker
Seraphim Films
www.mvdvisual.com          

Here is what I can tell you of what I know about Clive Barker: (1) he’s British; (2) yes, he does look a bit like the love child of Seth Meyers and Paul McCartney, especially when he was younger; (3) he is gay and a champion for gay rights; and (4) in my opinion, he is a far superior horror writer than Stephen King, just not as prolific.

There is always a debate about the two, but simply put, King is more populist, and Barker is more intellectual. You don’t really have to think during a King book, as massive as it is and full of pop culture buzzwords (e.g., The Ramones come up on occasion), identifiable characters and small words. Barker’s books are intricate worlds filled with arcane and wondrous details. Both are enjoyable, but as writing skill and use of imagery goes, Barker wins hands (on word processor) down.

That being said, there are probably more who know Barker by his film directing, especially the gore-fest Hellraiser (1987, based on his own Novella “The Hellbound Heart”), where he brings into being the now cultural iconographic Lament Configuration box and the Cenobites from hell, especially Pinhead, so perfectly brought to life by Doug Bradley.

Before Hellraiser, Barker also directed two short, experimental films, which have again been collected together, along with an undated 16-minute short of interviews with Clive Barker, Doug Bradley and screenwriter/novelist Peter Atkins. My guess is it’s from 1998, the first time these two shorts were released together for home consumption.

Salome

18 minutes, 1973 / 2015
Based on Oscar Wilde’s infamous 1891 French play, this version could almost be grouped into the Nick Zedd / Richard Kern / Lydia Lunch / Beth B (et.al) school of the Cinema of Transgression that would be taking off a few years after this was filmed.

Shot in black and white in what I’m guessing is 16mm (but could be 8mm), the images are murky, grainy, shakily hand-held, and sometimes using extremely high contrasts. Oh, and did I mention the speeds occasionally slow down, such as during the title character’s Dance of the Seven Veils?

Generally, the Biblical story goes that Salome (Anne Taylor) is influenced by her mother to seduce King Herod (an unrecognizable Doug Bradley in strange make-up) into cutting off the head of John the Baptist (a very pretty young man who is not identified), as there are no credits in the film; I am going by the info on IMDB.

There is full frontals of both genders, which was extremely rare at the time (the first nude male I ever saw onscreen was Don Johnson in The Harrad Experiment, which came out the same year as Salome). Shown over some plinking music, the film is essentially silent whereas there is no dialogue, but there are Foley additions to the soundtrack. While kept at a level of surreal, if you know the Biblical story, it isn’t too hard to figure out the essential story.

This is a film of patience, meaning if the viewer has some, there is some interesting work here. The acting is stage level, meaning a bit overblown (purposefully, I’m guessing, as they are essentially making a silent film, and that was the trend back in the pre-sound days, and further along), but it gives a better idea of what is happening, considering the visuals and the editing. On the other hand, I couldn’t make heads or tails out of much of the visuals of Transformers (2007), either.

I would consider this a successful film, but don’t think it’s necessarily for mass consumption.

The Forbidden

35 minutes, 1978 / 2015
Also based on a classic tale, this time we are given a version of Faust, who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for power and beauty in the form of Gretchen (Lyn Darnell), but of course, life is fleeting and eternity isn’t, so the devil always wins.

We meet the bearded Faust (Peter Atkins) as he conjures up some runes to raise Mephistopheles (Clive Barker), who first appears to be some kind of Asian version of a demon with exaggerated mask and kimono-type outfit.

Filmed half a decade after Salome, again, there is no dialogue, but there is music and sound effects. This time, however, most of the film is shown in the negative. As annoying as that may sound, it actually looks good, especially when you think that the black ink on white paper was most likely white ink on black paper. A lot of thought must have gone into the look of it.

Through most of the second act, Barker is not only nude, but sporting a “Mr. Happy” (which I don’t think I remember seeing in a straight film until either 2003’s The Brown Bunny or 2006’s Shortbus). He dances and it waggles while he performs a spell for Faust.

Possibly influenced by the works of Kenneth Anger (confirmed by the interviews in the extra section), the film has a dark side that the actors seem to revel in, which is no surprise, as Atkins, Barker and Bradley all belonged to the British avant-garde theater group, the Dog Company; their connection was made then and stayed around well into the Hellraiser years.

There’s a bit of an extended gruesome scene in the third act where our protagonist’s skin is sliced and peeled off by women with scalpels (separation of body and soul, perhaps, or maybe this is his torture for eternity in hell), which isn’t quite as wow as the fishhooks ripping Andrew Robinson apart in Hellraiser, but definitely a nascent idea that came to fruition later. Again, as this is shot is negative, so the blood must be a white fluid because it comes out as black, and similarly, everyone must have been in dark make-up because they all appear as white; or maybe they all had really good tans? Oh, wait, it’s England. Never mind.

Like Hellraiser, which deals with the complete giving of yourself for solving the Lament Configuration, both these films are based on making bargains and getting punished for it: Salome is about sex in exchange for John the Baptist’s head, and The Forbidden about a deal with the devil.

Philosophically, can one actually go wrong on an experimental film? The same question can be raised (pun intended) about abstract paintings. There are going to be those who will be either bored or disgusted (or both) by these films. Others – you Stan Brakkage fan stand up – who will analyze it frame by frame and see the beauty of it. For me, yeah, I liked Hellraiser better and found it more accessible, but I also respect what Barker and crew were trying to do, and give them a nod. Not for everyone, certainly, especially those who expect a body count or a linear storyline, but for those who study cinema, it’s an interesting opening pawn move for Barker at the beginning of his career.

Two Reviews: Reminiscence: The Beginning; Memory Lane

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2015
Images from the Internet

I am putting both these reviews together because they both deal with the distortion of time in various forms. The trailers for both films are at the bottom of the blog.

Reminiscence: The Beginning

Written cinematography, music, makeup and effects, and directed by Akcay Karaazmak
SGL Entertainment
107 minutes, 2014 / 2015
www.reminiscence-movie.com
www.facebook.com/reminiscencemovie
www.sglentertainment.com
www.mvdvisual.com

It’s nice to see a new twist on the whole Based on the True Story framework, as the opening of this arthouse style film states that it is “Based on true physics events and black hole theories.” Starting off with a Slovakian couple on their way to set up camp on a stone beach in Cesme, on the west coast of Turkey, this indie comes from that country, though the dialog is in English.

Miska (Michaela Rexova) seems to be some kind of theoretical physicist who studies other dimensions, and her companion (husband? boyfriend?), Akcay (played by the director, pronounced Ak-chai), start having strange experiences. They keep running into each other, but it appears not to be the same person, as if there were more than one of each of them. Plus, time occasionally stops, or goes backwards, or they see strange people – referred in the credits as The Others – such as a mysterious version of Akcay’s mom (Yasar Karaazmak, who I am assuming is the director’s real mother).

All this is happening while the same musical theme plays throughout most of the film, with strikingly sharp piano chords; the director is also a musician. With quick editing, little dialog (the most commonly used words are “darling” and “baby”) that tends to be lower than the soundtrack and arty shots, sometimes I wasn’t quite sure what was happening. Ironically and probably purposefully, it’s hard to follow a linear storyline with people popping in and out with regular occurrence.

It seems not just that “Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time,” but here it’s rather unstuck in dimension as well. One minute someone/-thing is lifting a rock to crush a head, the next, with head intact, the person is sitting on a beach. Another person is half face-half skull (really nice effect, by the way), but the explanation? Well…

The visuals are stunning and beautiful. The natural rocks and beach of Cesme become a character unto themselves, as the camera tends to look like selfie-style angles with either long shots or very close-ups of people accompanied by the images being shaky. While it tends to be way more artsy than (in my opinion) needs to be, i.e., it feels more like showing off than anything else, I will also add there are moments that are creepy as all hell, but would be more so if I understood what I was looking at. I found the best way for me to address it was to take it scene by scene, rather than a whole zeitgeist.

At times, it seems like it’s the same people, but the consciousness of our two protagonists jump from dimension to dimension in sharp jump cuts, which of course doesn’t explain the malevolence or body distortions (scars, whited out eyes, missing eyes, and the like). Is it a dream? A premonition? Hell? I’m not sure, but I will say that “World are colliding, Jerry; world are colliding!”

There is also a meta-story happening as we watch Akcay observing himself on the video playback on his camera. He kind of figures out what is happening, even if it remains somewhat unclear to the viewer (well, this viewer anyway). I’m also glad that I saw this on a small screen, because if I saw it at a theater, I can imagine it inducing the same kind of motion sickness inspired by the likes of Cloverfield (2008).

The effects and make-up are really well done, both digitally and appliance, giving some parts an effectively creepy overlay, even with the jumpy edits. Also, some of the scenarios, especially those in a not-so vacant house are especially unnerving.

Included extras are two trailers for this film and something called a “Full Motion Menu,” but I’m not sure what that is (perhaps an Easter egg, something I’ve always been miserable at finding?). My one wish would be for captions.

Memory Lane

Directed by Shawn Holmes
553AM Creative Group / Wild Eye Releasing
71 minutes, 2012 / 2015
http://thatshawnholmes.wix.com
www.wildeyereleasing.com
www.mvdvisual.com

Poor Nick Boxer (as in fighter; Michael Guy Allen) is a returning war veteran with a hard case of PTSD, as do so many others (thank you George W. Bush for spiritually raping a generation by putting them into an unnecessary war to feed your daddy and Dickie’s wallets, and you sit around and paint; but I digress…). As we meet Nick and his sister Hannah (unconventional cutie Anna Szyszkiewicz), we are only given hints early on as to why the stress for this particular GI. What does the snail-mail letter he receives mean? What does a finger on a tube mean? Relax; it’s all in the first 3 minutes so I’m not giving away anything.

Nick needs to find a way to get past the psychological pain, and his way is certainly unorthodox: it involves a bathtub and a plugged in radio. There is actually is a high level of suicide among returning GIs after the things they have needed to do, and the sights before them. It is not an easy life coming back traumatized. But what is the cause? Ahhh, in there waits Memory Lane.

Through a series of sometimes disjointed events, he meets Kayla M. (Meg Barrick, who would soon go on to be a regular in the Cinemax series, “The Girl’s Guide to Depravity,” with the name change of Meg Braden) who is (possibly) about to jump off a bridge. Nick is hard to resist with his Ryan Reynolds vibe, and Kayla is trouble(d), sexy and a touch dangerous, making her irresistible as well.

After a brief (?) relationship, he buys her a house (from what money, I wonder) and then a ring, flashing back to an earlier subtle reference. As he brings it to her, he finds her deceased in their bathtub. He freaks out, of course, and through a further series of fragmented events, finds that if he electrocutes himself and has his two best buds (Julian Curi and Zac Snyder) bring him back through a second shock, he can retrace some of his steps and see things he hadn’t noticed the first time, which leads him to believe she was done in by another than herself.

Well, you can find most of that out from reading the box, IMDB, or even Wikipedia, so I’m not giving anything away, I promise. This is all in the first 10-15 minutes of expository, so the story really starts to take off from this moment.

What Nick is doing is obviously dangerous, but his two loyal pals stand by him as he is shocked to and from what they call Memory Lane, break into Hannah’s veterinary (he’s a vet and she’s a vet; coincidence?) lab for equipment, and other acts that could put them all in jail. After all, the dudes are literally killing their friend on purpose; think the police are really going to say, “Oh, it’s okay, you were just helping yer bud talk to his dead girlfriend”?

Self-considered more sci-fi than horror, this was shot for a reported $300 (mostly spent on food) in Wheeling, WV and across in Ohio, the film definitely has a good look to it, with muted colors to represent the moodiness and angst. Shot on a Cannon T2i and edited on a MacBook Pro, director Shawn Holmes makes the most of what he has, such as talented acting roommates and friends who were willing to devote their time and efforts into a project of which they could definitely be proud. It’s no surprise it’s played at a number of festival, and even won some prizes (including Best Director).

Honestly, I watched the film three times, and I recommend that as well for the following reasons: the first time through, I had a bit of trouble following the story here and there, such as, how did he know she was murdered by the events he saw? And how did he come to know who the murderer was? Perhaps I’m thick, but I seemed to have missed these imperative pieces of information. Because of questions and what felt like some holes in the story, I found myself getting a tad antsy.

The story and editing jumps a bit here and there, the latter being on purpose for a reason that I came to understand through the second sit-through. The rerun was with the director’s commentary turned on; Holmes does it solo (thank you) and manages to do a magnificent job of it. He tells anecdotes, motives, and explains some things about the plotline that I totally did not get the first time through. It cleared up a lot for me, to the point where it made me happy (and no longer antsy).

With this knowledge in hand, I sat through it again, and a lot of pieces fell into place that I had missed the first time (e.g., the ring I mentioned earlier). The third time was actually more enjoyable than the first, even with the same computer program created music droning through the whole film.

What we learn through it all it that by whatever means necessary (realistically; I would not recommend through self-electro-death therapy), it’s important to face what you have done, even if it’s hard (such as Hawkeye did with the Vietnamese baby on the bus during the last episode of M*A*S*H).

Lots of extras abound, including the fact-filled commentary track. There is a take-it-or-leave-it “Deleted Scenes,” “Memory Lane Short Films” that is a series of kind of “Making Ofs,” “Promotional Videos,” and a couple of interesting “Screen Tests.” Being a Wild Eye Releasing product, there’s also a few fun trailers of their other releases.

The film has been compared to Pi and a couple of others that play with some aspect of time, but this is actually a nice, mostly original piece that is well-written as a premise (even with some problem areas). The cast is suburb, especially Allen and Curi, and I can see a possible future for much of the top of the crew, such as the director and co-writer Hari Sathappan, though this is his only IMDB credit so far.

 

 

Review: Throwback

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2015
Images from the Internet

Throwback

Written and directed by Travis Bain
Multi Visionnaire Films / Sapphire Pictures
93 minutes, 2013 / 2014
www.travisbain.com.au/throwback.htm
www.mvdvisual.com

It has been a while since I saw a beastie film, let alone a Bigfoot one. This one is from northern Australia, so the great hairy one is known as Yowie (as opposed to Yeti), as in what you say when it steps on your foot. Sorry, didn’t mean to start off with a bad joke, but there ya go. After all, the film actually says “Filmed in Yowiescope,” so I think my gag is okay.

Which leads me to the first point of this film: It is definitely not what might be considered a comedy, but there is a very dry sense of humor that definitely runs throughout. That is if you’ll notice that over the absolutely stunning cinematography of the director, Travis Bain. It’s not just the wide(Yowie)screen, it’s the lighting, the texture of, well, everything. There is a flow in the movement, and the richest of the forest feels like it’s alive. There is almost a travelogue-ness to the way he shows leaves, water and rocks. The background is as arresting as the action happening within it.

Now, back to that action. After a really fun prologue set a century ago, we are introduced to two explorers, looking for the lost treasure of an infamous robber by the name – I kid you not – Thunderclap Newman (no, not the band who sang “There’s Something In the Air,” but it’s definitely a prescient hint of trouble; in all honesty, I am not a fan of that song, but I digress…), deep in the steamy back jungles of northern Oz. exterminators by trade Jack (Shawn Brack) and Kent (as in Nick Kent, keeping up the classic rock nods?; Anthony Ring) are joined, thanks to bad citizenship trough a campfire hazard, by short-pants’d ranger Rhiannon (Melanie Serafin, whose character is named after yet another classic rock reference).

With a nod to The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948), there are double- and triple-crosses, as if a hairy brute weren’t enough of a tension driver. Human animals can be as bad as the dangers in the forest. Especially ones that can’t seem to keep a bullet count (i.e., how many they have shot). Or that two strikes of a rock to the back of the head are probably more effective than one. Although thighs seem to be in the most danger in this film!

The beastie makes its presence felt, but it’s more a secondary character, which actually works well for this story of greed, desperation, and foliage. We rarely get to see the Yowie’s face, just close ups of hands and other furry body parts, and that’s okay too. And while the gore is kept at a minimum, there are bound to be some squeamish parts for some.

And in the middle of it all, giving a hand in a cameo, is Vernon Wells, who played the mohawk’d Wez, the most memorable character from the original Mad Max II: The Road Warrior (1981, so good it’s the only Mel Gibson movie I can still watch). However, unlike the original Mad Max (1979), this one is not dubbed over for North American audiences, thankfully, and the director trusts we’ll understand the lingo, which is not any harder than watching Masterpiece Theatre. Just more fun.

With a relatively small cast and a big jungle, this release is pretty effective in making a big ado. It’s pretty obvious that nearly   the entire film was shot in one small area from different angles (confirmed during the “Making Of…”), but it still looks amazing. After all, there is a reason it has won so many Festival awards considering its relatively low budget (listed as $200,000).

There are quite a lot of extras in this. For example, it starts with a 15-minute “alternative ending,” which of course was the original ending before test marketing. I understand taken as a whole why they made the change, but personally, I like the first half of the alt/original, and the second half of the one used, because the original plays against a stereotypical trope. However, one change I would have made is rather than throwing in a quick flashback which would make the old ending obvious, just show the action of the object being left. As it stands, though, they made the right choice of the two.

We are given a 3-minute and 15 second deleted scenes that were totally right to take out, and superfluous even for the extras as it didn’t add anything. However, there is a 44 minute Behind the Scenes featurette broken up into 6 parts to make up for it. It’s more of a shooting diary, focusing mostly on Travis, Shawn and Nick, and almost nothing with Melanie. It’s pretty interesting, especially the technical details, and probably longer than it needs to be.

Also included are a couple of trailers for this film, and some video blogs (23 minutes) of traveling to a film festival in California. Honestly, the travel part of going from Australia to California is kind of boring, but it picks up once they finally reach the Con at 14 minutes in. Travis and Anthony meet up with Vernon, who by I once met at a Chiller Theater con in New Jersey, back in the 1990s. Yes, he came across as a nice guy who let me take his picture without charging me. In one part they’re trying to convince three people to come to the screening, and I’m relatively sure, by coincidence, one of them is Ryan E. Francis, one of the stars of ThanksKilling (2009). It’s great to see them win the award for Best Foreign Film, and I’m just sorry they didn’t include the Q&A after the film screening here.

At almost 6 minutes in length, there is the 1999 16mm short film directed by Travis called “Daniel’s Jack” about the internal monolog by a guy, Daniel, who gets a flat tire and doesn’t have a, well, the title says it. It’s based on an old joke, but it’s very effective here (Groucho does the same thing in 1933’s Duck Soup, for example). At just over 8 minutes, we are given the well-made “Full Moon, Dirty Laundry” from 1998, the story of two lonely people who meet in a laundromat. At nearly 5 minutes, there’s the very amusing “Parrot Ice Tours” from 2014, about two cheeky kids trying to raise money to fix a broken window by taking advantage of Asian tourists.

The next extra is a series of local Cairns, Australia radio interviews. The first three are with Shawn Brack, two with Anthony Ring, and one with Travis. All are interesting. The very last extra is a 1 minute video clip of Wells reading an excerpt of a 1916 story called “The Hairy Man.”

For his second full length feature, Travis did a great job. While this film could use a bit more tightening up, it’s an incredibly decent release deserving of the praise it’s been given at all the festivals it’s been accepted at, and worthy of checking out.

 

BONUS:

 

Review: Angel Maker: Serial Killer Queen

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2015
Images from the Internet

Angel Maker: Serial Killer Queen

Directed by O.H. Krill
Reality Films / Alchemy Werks
World Wide Multi Media
57 minutes, 2014 / 2015
www.reality-entertainment.com
www.Sector5films.net
www.mvdvisual.com

 

Next to Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614), Britain’s Amelia Dyer (1837-1896) is considered the most prolific serial killer known, with an estimated 400 infant deaths by her hands during the last quarter of the 19th century (an average of 20 per year). Living in poverty, this matronly granny started taking care of babies – mostly illegitimate – and either starved or strangled (via a cloth cord) them to get more, dumping the bodies in the Thames.

 

You see, there was a process called Baby Farming, where you gave up your infant by paying someone to be sure that the child was taken care of (we now call that having a full-time nanny as many celebrities and those very rich are known to do), or adopted out. A flat fee was paid, so if more money was to be found, there had to be a turnover (aka free market capitalism). The more children, the more money.

 

This extremely slow moving documentary tells us a bit about the culture that led to this practice as a whole, and Dyer individually. A narrator tells the story in bits and pieces over mostly black and white public domain film clips, or over vintage photos, mostly of dead babies; taking pictures of dead children either alone or as a whole family was a “thing” early in photography to help remember those who passed on. Many of these images are used over and over and over and over again.

 

While I found the information itself interesting, as I knew a smattering about her and it was good to learn more, this is not a very good documentary as a whole. After all if the discussion is about a serial killer I really shouldn’t be bored by 15 minutes in. The problem is trifold. First, as I stated, images are used multiple times, so there really isn’t much to look at other than trying to guess the origin of the film clips (they are listed in the end credits if you want to check them off); one has Victor Mature talking to Aunt Bea (Frances Bavier), who actually is physically somewhat close to our Ms. Dyer, perhaps why they used this clip as its otherwise unconnected. Second, I can understand that the story of Dyer is dire, but the monotone clipped tone of the narrator is more drone that anything else.

 

But the biggest problem with the film is that it’s a two-pound potato in a 25-pound bag. In other words, the film is actually about 20 minutes long, tops, but there are so many extended and unnecessary gaps between most sentences for the purpose of lengthening, that it starts to get really annoying in short order. Imagine if this review was written with one or two sentences per page, and you knew you had to be on each page for a minute or two, that could give you some idea of what I am talking about. If the script was read at a normal pace, that would mean less repetition of images, and a quicker and more interesting pace.

 

The text for the story is fine; the poison in the pudding really is the pacing. In fact, you can get just about all the core info you need, including Dyer fate, from the trailer (below). That is not accomplished filmmaking, it is (owl) stretching time. Perhaps this was a telly show over the Pond and it needed to be this length? That’s the only reason I can think of other than the greed of trying to get this into theaters or festivals as a feature rather than a short. Not worth it for the viewer.

 

The redeeming feature of the film is pointing out the social politics of pure capitalism, with the wide divide between rich and poor and the latter getting royally screwed (pun intended). Pre-union, there was no way for people to thrive without some regulation, and a large share were literally worked to death. Baby farming became a reality because people could not financially care for their own children. And this is an aside, but this is also what the Republicans are trying to bring back. The lack of care of the mental ill under this type of social structure is also discussed, though not deeply enough. Focusing more on these as a bookend to Dyer’s story would have certainly filled up those time gaps, but this is just lazy.

 

The trailers for other documentaries on the DVD look equally dismal, including one explaining how the Loch Ness monster is actually a space alien, and another exposing that the United States is being run by the Masons; I almost expected it to be about the supposed Illuminati when the trailer began.

 

Do yourself a favor and look up the info about Dyer on a Serial Killer fan site, or even on Wikipedia, from which this film is almost rewritten point by point. You’ll definitely get the same image of her. Or, if you have the time and patience, there is this documentary.