An elaborate network of machinery emerges from a body as it’s being dissected.
CONTENT WARNING: Grotesque cadaver mutilation.
All posts by Gregory J. Smalley (366weirdmovies)
CAPSULE: “FROM HOLLYWOOD TO HEAVEN: THE LOST AND SAVED FILMS OF THE ORMOND FAMILY”
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Indicator’s expansive Blu-ray box set “From Hollywood to Heaven: The Lost and Saved Films of the Ormond Family,” released in conjunction with Nicolas Winding Refn‘s “byNWR” project, collects a remarkable 13 films produced by the incredible Ormond family, split about halfway between their secular and their Christian exploitation films. When I first learned of the existence of this set, I wished that the late 366 collaborator Alfred Eaker had lived to see it. After all, he had endured at least one of Ormond’s proselytizing scare films projected on the wall of a basement of a Pentecostal church as an impressionable child in the 1980s; the experience scarred him emotionally, and was part of an abusive evangelical upbringing that led him to a lifelong crusade against Christian fundamentalism. Alfred reviewed several of Ron Ormond‘s films for this site, a job absolutely no one else volunteered for, and clearly relished trashing this godly man’s reputation (not that Ormond had much of a reputation as a filmmaker to tarnish). I can’t help but believe that Alfred would be tickled by this hi-def testament to his old nemesis’ film legacy, and would have been the first to volunteer to cover it in all its icky, gooey, sanctimonious glory. I imagine he would have been far more gleefully savage in his assessment than my level-headed remarks, but that was always his role as the 366 gadfly.
Historically speaking, the Ormond empire rightfully begins with June Carr, a lovely and talented vaudevillian comic foil who appeared onscreen with Bob Hope, among other luminaries, and who even headlined at the London Palladium for a short time. For some reason, June was smitten with a handsome but unsuccessful stage magician named Ron Ormond. Per June, they tied the knot two weeks after she first laid eyes on him onstage in 1935 and declared she would marry him one day. Thus began a dynasty. It’s difficult to watch June Carr’s early performances without concluding that she married beneath her Hollywood standing, but the couple remained hitched for four decades, through better and (usually) worse films, and richer and (usually) poorer receipts. By all accounts, it was a happy union.
The first stage in the Ormond film saga consists of the eleven B-westerns Ron directed (with June handling the distribution) starring bullwhip expert Lash Larue. To anyone who’s not a fan of the Lash, these are generally considered competent and uninteresting pictures, and are not included in the set before us. Also not appearing in this collection is one early “classic” bad movie co-directed by Ormond, Mesa of Lost Women (1952), about a mad scientist seeking to create a race of superwomen by injecting them with spider venom.
Ron and June continued to make undistinguished exploitation movies. But let us fast-forward to 1955, when the Ormonds set out on their own as independent producers, and where this set begins its comprehensive coverage. Our journey begins with Untamed Mistress. Three men travel into the jungle on a “safairy” (as they insist on calling their safari), accompanied by a woman raised by gorillas; when they get into gorilla country, the apes want her back—carnally. It’s a badly stitched together story with some padded narrative added to flesh out stock footage and parts of a Sabu movie Ron had directed-for-hire. “National Geographic”-style nudity in the form of home movie footage (taken by Mickey Rooney’s doctor!) of topless African women performing authentic tribal dances, alongside newly-shot scenes of half-naked “native” dancers entertaining men wearing gorilla suits, explains why this was made. Despite the salacious material, rife with bestiality and racism, the film crawls at a snail’s pace, but it is more tolerable than some of the Ormond’s hicksploitation programmers to follow. It made money, and the Ormond’s homegrown business (eventually dubbed “the Ormond Organization”) was off.
After this, Ron did about four other (now lost?) low budget movies before the box set picks up again in 1963 with the unusual Please Don’t Touch Me, starring one Vicki Caron, a pneumatic redhead who would have immediately been the headliner at any burlesque joint she walked into. Caron was never seen or heard from again, but her frequent lingerie changes and a brief Continue reading CAPSULE: “FROM HOLLYWOOD TO HEAVEN: THE LOST AND SAVED FILMS OF THE ORMOND FAMILY”
SATURDAY SHORT: NIGHT OWL (2016)
Quentin Dupieux ‘s video for the electronic pop song “Night Owl” by Metronomy includes a crawling brain and multiple murders, naturally.
APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: I SAW THE TV GLOW (2024)
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I Saw the TV Glow is currently available for VOD rental (premium pricing) or purchase.
DIRECTED BY: Jane Schoenbrun
FEATURING: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman
PLOT: Two misfit teenagers become obsessed with a paranormal TV show, leading them into delusions that persist into adulthood.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Glossy yet staticky, ever-glowing with pinks and purples, I Saw the TV Glow broadcasts lo- and hi-fi visuals that always threaten to drift away into dreams and nightmares. Paired with its melancholy psychological depth and extreme narrative ambiguity, Schoenbrun‘s plucky hallucination is a clear contender for one of the weirdest low-budget, high-impact films of 2024.
COMMENTS: To sophisticated eyes, “The Pink Opaque” doesn’t seem too entrancing; but when you’re a teenage outcast yearning for an escape from reality, you cleave to any alternate reality you can. The fake TV show within the movie is about two teenage girls who communicate through a psychic bond; in each episode they fight a different “monster of the week” sent by the “big bad,” Mr. Melancholy, who is also the Man in the Moon. The show’s theatrical character designs are culled from “Pee Wee’s Playhouse,” Nightbreed, and A Trip to the Moon, and the mythology and general vibe resemble “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or a juvenile version of “X-Files.” Or does it? Owen’s memory may be unreliable. The show’s stylistic characteristics aren’t stable, but get jumbled up in his mind. The series finale he remembers seeing—or maybe which Maddy only convinces him he saw—includes the main characters being drugged with amnesia-inducing “luna juice.” It has a much darker tone than the rest of the series, more indigo than pink and more murky than opaque. It seems highly unlikely the Young Adult Network would greenlight this disturbing “Twin Peaks“-adjacent finale.
Owen is drawn to the program for several reasons, the most important of which is that he has trouble making, and keeping, friends, and Maddy is so obsessed with the show that she showers anyone who expresses the slightest interest in it with attention. “The Pink Opaque” also has a forbidden allure for Owen: it airs in the latest original programming slot on the Young Adult network, after his strictly-enforced bedtime, and his stern father disapproves of it, scoffing that it’s a “show for girls.” Sneaking over to Maddy’s house to watch it, or secretly watching the clandestine VHS copies Maddy leaves for him, is an adventure. Maddy’s attachment to “The Pink Opaque” is even unhealthier: although we are spared direct evidence, there’s a strong implication of abuse and neglect in her home life. The show is the most escapist form of escapism for her—that is, until she decides to actually run away from home, leaving a burning husk of a TV on the lawn in the wake of her disappearance. Coincidentally, “The Pink Opaque” is canceled when Maddy leaves town.
While the following paragraph may be spoiler-ish—so zip out of here if you wish to go in blind—it is likely you’ve already heard that I Saw the TV Glow is a metaphor for gender dysphoria. The allegory, however, is not too on-the-nose. If I didn’t know writer/director Schoenbrun was trans1, would I even pick it up? Given the clues scattered about, I think I probably would, but I can’t say for sure. Owen’s backstory is only revealed in hallucinations and hallucinatory flashbacks. All we really know is that he feels like he doesn’t fit in—that pervasive teenage affliction that, in his and Maddy’s cases, is simply more pathological than their peers. Meanwhile, the theme of the effect of media on vulnerable populations—which was also explored in Schoenbrun’s debut, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, wherein a similarly alienated teenage protagonist gets delusionally swept up in a viral Internet phenomenon—is more at the forefront. By the film’s end, imagery merging humans and TVs, reminiscent of Videodrome, reinforces the focus on pathological fandom in the face of pervasive media—but leaves a crack for Schoenbrun’s underlying metaphor to shine through.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
- The original text of this review read “Shoenbrun was a trans woman.” Further research, inspired by a reader, showed that Schoenbrun does not specifically identify as a “trans woman.” Most common they refer to themselves as “nonbinary, using they/them pronouns.” However, in interviews Schoenbrun does identify as “trans” or “transfeminine,” though not specifically as a “trans woman.” Since “transness” is so essential to the movie’s theme, I have chosen to use the word “trans” here. ↩︎
SATURDAY SHORT: A SMALL GARDEN BY THE WINDOW (2024)
Small green globules help a man clean up a time-stopped forest fire, then enjoy a picnic with forest creatures in this chill and bucolic animation.