Deep and Hard

...to watch.

FILM:

On the one hand, I haven't posted in a while.  On the other hand, I've been writing small pieces of stupidly oversized articles, which was stupid.  So here are a couple lowish-budget horror movies with mixed results.

Deep Dark - 2015
Written & Directed by Michael Medaglia

It's best to think of Deep Dark as a fable.  A bleak, bitter fable with a taste for the freaky stuff.

Now on the one hand; I have a taste for the archetypal tales, and Deep Dark knowingly composes itself within classical motifs.  On the other hand, however -- and primarily in the interest of even-handedness -- it is at times so classically grounded that one could construe it as predictable.  It added up to a mostly satisfying fable about desperation and deception, jealousy, betrayal and the cost of success.

Deep Dark also wears its film-making influences openly and proudly.  Moments recall Cronenberg, Lynch, the Coens and others.  First-feature writer/director Michael Medaglia isn't there yet, but he's making the right choices.  The film feels both fresh and timeless.

If it sounds like I'm avoiding discussing the plot, it's because I am.  In brief; Hermann, a failed (terrible as well as unsuccessful) artist (specializing in mobiles made of garbage) desperately turns to his uncle or help when reaches the end of his rope.  The uncle (an equally untalented but commercially successful hack) offers to rent him the apartment where he first "found his inspiration."  The dank, dismal apartment does indeed provide the key to his financial success but at a price Hermann may not be willing to pay.  Faustian type bidness.

In the time since watching Deep Dark, I find I've come to like it more than I did when it first ended.  The experience of watching it was perhaps diluted at the time by my reservations about the lead character, which is a pretty big deal considering he's in pretty much every scene.  Looking back at the film, however, I tend to reflect more on the story and the presentation than my minor annoyances with his persistent dysfunction.  Hermann is consistently unpleasant and self-pitying.  Even when a goldmine falls into his lap, he doesn't pause a beat to acknowledge (much less appreciate) it before he goes to work self-sabotaging.  I feel like I would have had a more powerful connection to the story if I'd had more reason to care about him.

Lesbian Vampire Killers - 2009

I don't want to say that Lesbian Vampire Killers is bad, but when something so completely dodges every opportunity to be good, I don't know what else to call it.  It's meant to be a kitschy, fun vamp on low-budget exploitation films of a bygone time, but where it's should be kitschy; it's bland, where it should be fun; it's self-satisfied, and where it should be exploitative; there's a spout of flour paste.  Wait, what?  Yeah, the many lesbian vampires killed simply explode into some gloppy white goo -- and yet NO ONE in this "comedy" thinks to make a joke about ejaculate.  I mean, come on.

Anyway, add this to the stack of vampire films that deserve cheesy headlines about "lacking bite."

The Monster Mash-Ups - Part 10: El Hombre Lobo Appendix

FILM:

After having published all the monster mash-up movies I'd been able to find, I had moved on to a new, short piece about recent films with vampire women. That was how I stumbled across mention of a movie called The Werewolf vs The Vampire Women (AKA La Noche de Walpurgis) from 1970/71.  This led me to Spanish actor Paul Naschy, which would in short order reveal to me an entire series of films -- TWELVE of them! -- in which he starred as Waldemar Daninsky, El Hombre Lobo, and that virtually ALL of those films were monster mash-ups.  I haven't finished digging through all the information yet, but he may have even had others outside of the series.

Rather than rushing to cram a bunch of "This exists but I haven't seen it" listings into the preceding article, I'm just going to list them here, and then move them into the main article once I get a chance to see them.  I'll be honest with you; it seems unlikely that I will get to that many of them unless I really enjoy the first couple that I see, or I get an offer to expand The Monster Mash-Ups into a book  I'd watch everything if I got a book offer -- including Twilight, Monster Mash and (mwulf) Monster High -- so consider that a dare, book publishers.  Make me really suffer for my art.

Per the nature of grindhouse cinema, many of these were given altered names for American theaters and/or video releases.  As in Godzilla movies, continuity is of only the most marginal importance.  Sometimes there's a reason El Hombre Lobo is back from the dead, and sometimes there isn't.  Sometimes he's already a werewolf, and sometimes he becomes a werewolf all over again.  Don't worry about it.  If they were in business to make sense, they'd open a bank.

Mark of the Wolf Man - 1968
AKA Frankenstein's Bloody Terror
AKA La Marca del Hombre Lobo
Written by Paul Naschy
Directed by Enrique Eguiluz

Featuring: werewolves and vampires

Despite the American retitling of "Frankenstein's Bloody Terror," there is no Frankenstein in this film.

The Monsters of Terror - 1970
AKA Assignment Terror
AKA Dracula vs Frankenstein
AKA Reincarnator
AKA Los Monstruos del Terror

Written by Paul Naschy
Directed by Tulio Demicheli

Featuring: aliens, a werewolf, a mummy, a vampire and Frankenstein's monster

Aliens from space, using a carnival as a front, revive the monsters to better understand human fear in a bid to conquer Earth.

The Fury of the Wolfman - 1972
AKA The Wolfman Never Sleeps
AKA La Furia del Hombre Lobo

Written by Paul Naschy
Directed by JM Zabalza

Featuring: werewolves, a yeti, assorted living dead

Though originally made for a 1970 release, it didn't come out due to a lack of funding and poor quality.  Naschy hated it and blamed director Zabalza.

The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman - 1971
AKA Walpurgis Night
AKA The Werewolf's Shadow
AKA La Noche de Walpurgis

Written by Paul Naschy & Hans Munkel
Directed by Leon Klimovsky

Featuring: a werewolf, vampires and a skeletal knight

This opens with a medical examiner removing two silver bullets from the heart of the late Waldemar Daninsky, just to prove that he wasn't a werewolf.  You can imagine how that turns out for him and his associate.

Then we join Elvira and Genevieve, a couple college girls on a trip to a fairly isolated village in France where they intend to research the notorious Countess Wandessa.  The Countess was found guilty of murder and witchcraft during medieval times and rumored to be a vampire.  When they get lost ('cause, you know, girls) they stumble upon moody loner Waldemar Daninsky who offers them a place to stay and assistance with their research, whatever it is.  He becomes eerily silent when they specifically mention the Countess over dinner.  It turns out that he's not as much of a loner as he appeared when his mentally unbalanced "sister" appears in the girls' bedroom at night, threatening Elvira.  When Waldemar shows up in their room, all of Elvira's misgivings about his strange behavior suddenly go away, despite the fact that they were largely on-point.

The next day they find the countess' unmarked grave, which is marked with a massive slab of marble engraved with specific instructions to stay the hell out.  Naturally they open it.  At that point Elvira decides she's had enough and heads to the ruined abbey to wait for the others while Waldemar and Genevieve go right ahead and open the coffin.  In absolutely no time, Genevieve has removed the silver cross from the skeletal remains, accidentally cut herself, and bled into the mouth of the corpse.  If only she'd been warned!  Meanwhile at the abbey, Elvira is chased in slow motion by a skeletal corpse in knight's robes, and Waldemar shows up just in time to knock it down.

You can pretty much guess most of the rest.  Naturally the more obvious party girl of the pair (as evidenced by her funky hat, ultra sheer babydoll nightie for a research trip and general fun-loving attitude) gets bit by the Countess that night.  She menaces Elvira on subsequent nights.  You probably weren't expecting Elvira to get kidnapped by the village pervert, but that happens.  And then, of course, we've got a full moon every night, so Waldemar is out getting himself into trouble.

It's about what I should have expected from a partly arty, partly exploitation 1970s European horror movie.  Everyone is deeply serious and emotionally intense.  There's both too much and not enough explanation of certain events; deaths in particular.  But there is a nice spookiness to things.  Director Klimovsky uses frequent slow-motion, particularly in vampire sequences, which gives them an unearthly sense.  Unfortunately he uses it so much that it's hard to tell the dreams from the actual events, and I was surprised to figure out after the fact that one scene portrayed real events, when another one just like it had merely been a nightmare.  On the one hand, it contributes to an overall spooky unease, but on the other, don't go into it with high expectations for clarity.  Also lending some nice creepiness are the authentic old ruins, rather than sound stage sets.  To Naschy's credit, despite werewolf make-up not all that much more advanced than Lon Chaney's, he does a pretty good job at selling the ferocity, and I suppose that's why he WAS el hombre lobo.

Naschy considered this one of his favorite Hombre Lobo films and Klimovsky one of his best directors.  It's going to be pretty interesting comparing this with some of the others.

Dr Jekyll & the Wolfman - 1972
AKA Dr Jekyll & the Werewolf
AKA Dr Jekyll y el Hombre Lobo

Written by Paul Naschy
Directed by Leon Klimovsky

Featuring: the werewolf and Mr Hyde

Waldemar Daninsky seeks out Dr Jekyll to find a way to control his lycanthropy.  This seems like a good idea to no one but him.

The Return of Walpurgis - 1973
AKA Curse of the Devil
AKA The Black Harvest of Countess Dracula
AKA El Retorno de Walpurgis

Written by Paul Naschy
Directed by Carlos Aured

Featuring: werewolves, witches

As far as I can tell, despite being released under the title of The Black Harvest of Countess Dracula at one time, there are no vampires in this film.  Also, despite the original Spanish "Walpurgis" title, it's a completely different continuity from La Noche del Walpurgis.  Go fig.

The Curse of the Beast - 1975
AKA Night of the Howling Beast
AKA The Werewolf and the Yeti
AKA Hall of the Mountain King
AKA La Madicion de la Bestia

Written by Paul Naschy
Directed by Miguel Iglesias

Featuring: werewolf, vampires and a yeti

Despite the ever-changing continuity and origins, Naschy continues to play a character named Count Waldemar Daninsky in all the Hombre Lobo films.  In Fury of the Wolfman, it was a yeti's bite that transformed him into a wolfman.  Although he's in Tibet again, seeking the yeti, this time it's a couple of vampire women that turn him.  However that works.

Return of the Wolfman - 1981
AKA Night of the Werewolf
AKA The Craving
AKA El Retorno del Hombre Lobo

Written & Directed by Paul Naschy

Featuring: werewolf, witches, vampires

Essentially a remake of La Noche de Walpurgis, Naschy considered this the best of his Hombre Lobo films.  Some jobs you just gotta do yourself.

The Beast and the Magic Sword - 1983
AKA La Bestia y la Espada Magica

Written & Directed by Paul Naschy

Featuring: werewolf, witches

Notice how this one doesn't have a bunch of extra titles?  That's because it's never been released in English, or indeed anywhere outside of Spain.

Tomb of the Werewolf - 2004

Written & Directed by Fred Olen Ray

Featuring: werewolf, vampire/witch

This final appearance of Naschy as Count Daninsky was produced in Hollywood from a non-Naschy script.  It was intended as a comeback for Naschy (like the non-monster mash-up Licantropo before it), but by most reports, it was essentially softcore porn.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.



Outside of the Count Waldemar Daninsky/El Hombre Lobo films, Naschy made other monster mash-up appearances.

Buenas Noches, Señor Monstruo - 1982

Featuring: werewolf, Dracula, Frankenstein's monster & Quasimodo

This was a Spanish children's special in which he played a non-specific werewolf and took home a paycheck.  Never exported.

El Aullido del Diablo - 1987

Written & Directed by Paul Naschy

Featuring: a werewolf, vampire, zombie, Frankenstein's monster, Mr Hyde, Phantom of the Opera, Quasimodo and the Devil

Naschy made this film for Spanish television, starring in multiple roles as multiple monsters.  It actually sounds pretty brutal and perverse for TV, but then the Inquisition has been over for much longer in Spain than it has in the United States.  Never officially exported.

Paul Naschy (born Jacinto Molina Alvarez) wrote, directed and appeared in numerous horror films in his career, playing virtually every classic monster in one form or another (okay, not Godzilla).  On the one hand, I'm appalled that I didn't come across his films until I had almost finished publishing The Monster Mash-Ups.  On the other hand, however, it seems apt that I should find myself giving him his own entry.  His films embody the spirit of the monster mash-up.  HE embodied the spirit of fun, cheap thrills, goofy seriousness and serious goofiness and of course, buxom damsels in distress.  He may not have been proud of Buenas Noches, Señor Monstruo but I love that it's part of his body of work, because it's clear to me now that cornball monsters for kids are part of the history of monster mash-ups.  This guy WAS Señor Monstruo and I can't think of a better way to cap the series than this.

Come back tomorrow and... read something else on Media Bliss!  There are no more parts to this series, but that doesn't mean there isn't... more!  And consider becoming a follower.  I'm planning more original content for the future and I promise NEVER to care who got pregnant in Hollywood unless I did the impregnating!

Of course if you missed anything, you can read all 10 parts of The Monster Mash-Ups starting from The Monster Mash-Ups - Part 1: the 1940s & 50s!

Speak of The Devil

FILM:

Nothing fancy today.  Just a round-up of horror films with "Devil" in the title.  One or two even have a devil in the movie!

The Devils - 1971
Written & Directed by Ken Russell
from the Play by John Whiting
from the Book by Aldous Huxley

Set in a highly stylized medieval France, The Devils tells the tale of Father Grandier (Oliver Reed at his absolute Oliver Reediest), a highly popular -- and rebellious -- priest who refuses to play but the the Cardinal or the King's rules.  He stands for the protection and independence of Loudon, and if he just happens to fall in love and get married, well that's nobody's business but his own.  It's also the tale of Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave), a nun with a spine as twisted as her heart.  She has a severe star-crush on the beloved Father, and learning that he would fall for a woman other than her, conspires to give the Cardinal and the King exactly the kind of damning accusations that it would take to bring him down.  He's accused of witchcraft, and the Sister and her sisters play the role of the possessed, plunging Loudon into mayhem.  So it's a little bit The Crucible, a little bit The Thornbirds, a little bit Joan of Arc, and a whole lot of LSD.

Oh yeah, don't mistake this for some stuffy historical drama.  This is a super stylish, very trippy melodramatic eye-orgy from Ken Russell of "Tommy" fame.  The scenery has to be strong because the actors are falling all over each other to chew on it.  Redgrave is like a snake.  The King looks like he fronts of T Rex on the weekends.  The witch hunter looks like a punk/wave villain out of a movie at least 15 years more recent.  And Oliver Reed, well, he makes the case and then rules in his own favor for the notion of a big fella as a sexy bad-ass.



The House of The Devil - 2009
Written & Directed by Ti West

In The House of The Devil, writer/director Ti West pays obsessively faithful homage to the low-budget horror of the late 70s and early 80s.  So faithful, in fact, that not only is it set in the time frame and based in the ridiculous fear of satanic cults of the era, with appropriate titles & credits and synthesizer-heavy soundtrack, but he actually had it released on VHS in addition to today's preferred formats.  Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy all this attention to detail, I would have rather had him develop the story a little bit more.  True to the retro vibe, it's about a college student who responds to campus bulletin-board posting for a babysitter which eventually -- very eventually -- turns out badly.  West was behind the creepingly-but-evenly paced horror of 2011's The Innkeepers which worked because it continued to build the tension in both the characters and the audience.  Here, however, we spend most of the movie just watching a snoopy babysitter poke around a big ol' house.  There are two very brief scenes where WE are let in on some obvious causes for concern, but the character isn't, which means she doesn't get to share her fear with us until the last 15-20 minutes or so when things finally ...go to Hell.

Devil - 2010
Written by Brian Nelson; Story by M .Night Shyamalan
Directed by John Erick Dowdle

Five strangers are trapped in an elevator.  One of them is the Devil.  They confront each other and eventually themselves as they grapple with the causes and outcome of their deadly predicament.  Meanwhile, a police detective with a past of his own investigates an apparent jumping suicide in the same building, and its connection to the seemingly unfixable elevator.  It's all meant to create a powerful sense of paranoid tension.  Or it would if it was more cleverly crafted.  The identity of the Devil was telegraphed before anyone even got on the elevator, which really deflated the sense of mystery for me, despite the many red herrings fed to us along the way.  There was enough freshness to the concept to keep in interesting, if not as engaging as it meant to be.  Now me personally, I would hope that the Devil had bigger fish to fry -- if indeed there were such an entity and not just humans acting human.

The Devil's Backbone - 2001
Written by David Munoz, Antonio Trashorras & del Toro
Directed by Guillermo del Toro

I had to watch The Devil's Backbone a second time to figure out why it hadn't quite worked for me the first time around.  So much of it had worked for me, but in the end I felt disappointed by the story.  I now realize that this was because it wasn't exactly a ghost story.  It's a people story, with a ghost in it.  That's not what we're used to, and it threw my expectations out of whack the first time around.

Set in an orphanage in the middle of nowhere (the Spanish nowhere, anyway) amid the Spanish Civil War, a young boy, Carlos, is dumped in an orphanage that takes in the children of Leftists and supports the cause with a secret stash of gold bars.  Despite the gold, which they cannot spend themselves, times are hard for them and resources scarce.  As a constant reminder of the environment, an unexploded bomb stands in the middle of the courtyard.  Soon after his arrival, Carlos encounters the ghost of another boy, and the mystery of his identity becomes something of a fixation.

Ordinarily, one would expect the story to center on Carlos and the ghost, or the ghost and his relationship to the other boys who knew him, and that is certainly here.  Particularly as an American, I'm to blame for not knowing much about the Spanish Civil War or caring about how it applies to the story, other than as a bit of background ephemera, but it is woven tightly into the subsequent goings-on and informs the ideology of the adult characters involved.  No, rather than being Carlos' story, or the ghost's, or even the boys', it's the story of the ghost's killer, who initially seems to be nothing more than a peripheral character, and that's why I missed so much of it in my first viewing.  It, ultimately, tells the killer's whole life story, through connections to all of the other things that make up this haunting and thoughtful film.  I'm still on the fence whether I consider it a good ghost movie, but I am unreserved about considering it an incredible movie, period.

The Devil's Rejects - 2005
Written & Directed by Rob Zombie

The Devil's Rejects is technically the sequel to Rob Zombie's much more divisively reviewed House of 1000 Corpses, but it hardly matters.  Despite the obvious character differences, it could just as easily be viewed as a sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or any number of grindhouse goregasms of the late 70s.  The film opens with a police raid on the home of the Firefly family who fill the role of the mass-murdering backwoods psychopaths here.  Seems they murdered the sheriff's brother in the previous film, so, you know, it's personal.  Again, the sheriff could just as easily be Dennis Hopper from Texas Chainsaw 2, or any cop taking a personal interest in a prompt follow-up sequel.  Given the illogiic of the introductory narrative of TCM2 (Really? There were NO signs of them?), Devil's Rejects seems a much more practical sequel.  To further fill out the homage to Texas Chainsaw, there's even a completely gratuitous callback to the hitchhiker getting smeared by an 18-wheeler; this time with more lurid and believable results.

Following the seemingly all-too-easy escape of Baby and Otis, they're joined by Captain Spaulding and go on a road trip to flee the police... leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind them.  It really kind of beggars imagination how they get away with as much as they do.  They're not remotely smart, and except for Baby, bear no charm whatsoever.  They look like something fished out of the shower drain and it seems like people should be able to smell the threat of them before they even round the corner.  Meanwhile, Sheriff Wydell crosses over to the dark side in his quest for vengeance.

Okay, so it's pretty stupid if you think about it, but this isn't the kind of movie you're supposed to think about.  Like the rickety old rollercoaster in a condemned amusement park, you just strap in and ride that crazy train ...to Hell.



I Saw The Devil - 2010
Written by Hoon-jung Park
Directed by Kim Jee-woon

The Devil's Rejects' Sheriff Wydell ain't got shit on Agent Kim Soo-hyeon!  I Saw The Devil is a two hour and twenty-three minute meditation on Nietzsche's line "One should take care when fighting monsters lest he himself become a monster."

When a fairly prolific rapist/serial killer/probable cannibal kills his fiancee, a South Korean intelligence agent vows to pay him back in kind.  And brother, he ain't kidding.  Thanks to his connections, he has four suspects from previous, similar cases, and wastes no time working his way down the list, brutalizing and torturing the first two suspects until they turn themselves in for the things they did do.  But once he picks up the trail of Kyung-hul, the hunt is on.  Now, ordinarily you'd expect your regular game of cat-and-mouse where he doesn't catch the killer until the end, so I was pretty started when he interrupted him mid-rape about a third of the way into the film and beat him to a bloody pulp.  What could possibly be left, I wondered.  If I was startled then, I was downright shocked when he let the killer go, leaving him to wake up in an open grave with an envelope of money on his chest and a tracking device in his stomach.

Kim tracks and stalks Kyung-hul, interrupting his crimes -- well, some of his crimes -- and letting his fists give voice to his complaint.  That is, until the killer gets wise and the tables turn once again.

I Saw The Devil is a BRUTAL revenge movie, but it also takes an equally harsh look at the price of that revenge.  It's arguably more savage than Rejects, yet infinitely more intelligent, emotional and mature... but, you know, without sacrificing the OMG moments.  In fact, it gives them more impact.  If I had one complaint, it would be the unintentionally implied frequency of of roving murderers in South Korean society.  In reflection of Nietzsche's caution that "when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you," I Saw The Devil ends with the uncertainty of exactly who was the Devil in this scenario.

Then Suddenly...

Having spent my life up until now really not caring about (if not actively repelled by) horror movies, I find that I've developed an interest in them recently.

I chalk this up to a lowered tolerance for gore and an heightened appetite for cheap thrills brought on by a heavy diet of our modern action flicks.

As I reflect upon this, a few more things occur to me... 

One, that many of this generation's filmmakers were heavily influenced by the horror movies of their youth.  Joss Whedon, of course, had 2 major TV series built around vampires and sundry other supernatural beings and co-wrote one of the best horror movies in recent years, the deconstructionist The Cabin in the Woods, which came out the same year as his mega-massive ultra-blockbuster, The Avengers.  Zach Snyder, director of this year's Man of Steel, got his big-boy pants with his remake of zombie classic Dawn of the Dead.

Two, that our special effects have gotten SO much more realistic that the old ways seem pretty quaint anymore.  I watched the notoriously gory Re-Animator the other night, and it played as pure camp.  A severed head with dangling gore was just surgical tubing and stage blood.  It was clear that the head, sitting in a pan, was just an actor poking his head through a hole in the table.  This was just... fun.  Meanwhile, the recent film The Raven included a scene cribbed from The Pit and The Pendulum where they felt obligated to show the ENTIRE slicing-through of a human body, cut by cut.  It wasn't scary.  It wasn't fun.  It was just crass and uncomfortable.  The mind had already pictured what would happen, but had to wait, and wait, as the film caught up in masturbatory detail.  I'd rather watch the old stuff, and not just because The Raven mostly sucked.

Three, that horror stories represent a very fundamental form of storytelling.  They have essential story elements and push specific emotional reactions, like romances and pornography.  Our filmmaking has become MUCH more targeted and manipulative of emotional reactions.  One need look no farther than the commercial success and influence of Michael Bay to see this.  As much as it makes you hate yourself, it's almost impossible not to feel his fingers working your heart-stings like a marionette with schmaltzy slow motion power ballad sequences.  Yeah, you know the one I mean.  Well, horror films are all about the emotional reaction, and obviously some take more evolved approaches to this than others.  There's "BOO! Ha, I GOT you!" and the ever-so-slightly creeping dread or dangerous curiosity, and for good or ill, it seems that the "Boo!" approach has a more direct impact on the safer commercial vehicles.