South African director Harold Holscher discusses his movie 8 (reviewed here) with 366 Weird Movies’ Giles Edwards. The film explores folk beliefs about the fate of the dead. Logline: “An old man, fated to collect souls for eternity, seeks atonement after trading his daughter’s soul.”
Category Archives: Capsules
CAPSULE: 8 (2019)
DIRECTED BY: Harold Holscher
FEATURING: Tshamano Sebe, Keita Luna, Inge Beckmann, Chris April
PLOT: A father’s desperation opens him to a demon, dooming him to gather souls; carrying the remnants of his departed daughter in a sack, he is compelled to collect one final payment.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: 8 is a beautiful film that combines elements of South African folklore with Victorian-style scares. As an atypical example of of the horror genre, its only weirdness is how impressively accessible Holscher makes the exotic supernaturality feel onscreen.
COMMENTS: The creative mind has long held a fascination for me, and my experiences at Fantasia have allowed me to casually research this phenomenon. Mingling with dozens of filmmakers over the years, I am always pleased to see the energy they have and their defiance against the odds. This holds particularly true when it comes to new directors presenting their full-blown visions to the world for the first time. It was with this in mind that I approached Harold Hölscher’s debut feature, 8. I spoke with the writer/director before its international premiere, and felt his energy; I felt this same energy in the theater last night.
Lazarus (Tshamano Sebe) bears his heavy spiritual burden in a very literal way in the form of a large leather sack that accompanies him wherever he travels. This weight pins him to the holy ground where he is forced to roam: a plantation on which the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest. He is a shaman, formerly a healer, and has paid a terrible price for the privilege of carrying his load. When he befriends the new owners of the plantation, he shares his spiritual knowledge with Mary (Keita Luna), the plucky young niece of the previous owner’s descendants. As their bond strengthens, Lazarus’ bond with his own daughter frays—but the demon that possesses her and the father demands Mary’s soul.
I anticipated that this movie would amaze me, so I mean it as no criticism that it “merely” met my expectations. Among the things it has going for it is that is features two character archetypes I always enjoy. The first is personified by Mary’s character. She’s an unflappable, inquisitive girl who always seeks knowledge and lets nothing frighten her if it’s new and amazing. Lazarus embodies the second archetype I cannot get enough of: the burdened wise man, tortured but calm. I don’t exaggerate when I say that Tshamano Sebe’s performance carries the film. While there would be no story without Lazarus, there could be no Lazarus without Sebe. He is alternately powerful and peaceful, often within the same scene. Lazarus’ ritual of extracting souls from the dying, despite its grim purpose, feels wholly natural, and strangely believable.
A lurking criticism I heard from others about the film was that it was perhaps “too mainstream.” There is merit to that sentiment, but I am disinclined to view it as a handicap. By framing something as exotic as the folklore and spiritualistic rites of pre-colonial South Africa in a familiar way, Harold Holscher can share its wondrousness with that many more people. At the same time, he has proven that, despite being a neophyte, he has the narrative and technical skills to succeed in the world of cinematic storytelling. I am certain that 8, his freshman piece, will open doors for him, and I look forward to following this storyteller’s career.
Also see our audio interview with director Harold Holshcer.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
CAPSULE: LETTERS TO PAUL MORRISSEY (2018)
DIRECTED BY: Armand Rovira
FEATURING: Xavi Sáez, Joe Dallesandro, María Fajula, Saida Benzal, Almar G. Sato
PLOT: Five cinematic letters to Paul Morrissey are sent by various fans of the experimental director.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: This is an anthology film, and so the format isn’t really what we’re after. In addition, the films lean much more toward “art-house” than “weird”.
COMMENTS: Udo Strauss: This opening letter, appearing in a photographic slide-style frame like all the epistles, is angry and languid. The writer in question is a German who, dismayed at the triumph of a hollow capitalism in his home country, attempts to claw his way toward unquestioning faith in God and Jesus. He attempts to find peace in a Spanish monastery. His doubt in the Church is made manifest by an attractive woman in sunglasses who intellectually parries with him in split-screen philosophizing. His desperation grows until we see him stapling pages from his Bible to his naked body. An obvious stand-in for Udo Kier, whom Morrissey directed in Andy Warhol’s Dracula and Frankenstein, actor Xavi Sáez encapsulates the plight of a man whose new gods disappoint and whose old God has gone silent. Appropriately, this was the most meditative and trying of the bunch, as we watch Udo grind himself down mentally in an attempt to attain a faith that cannot be forced.
Joe Dallessandro: Channeling William S. Burroughs in a junkie monologue over the shots of some nameless city’s denizens scoring heroin and coping with life, this is the briefest of the five films. Dallessandro’s gravelly tone made me feel like I was watching a reel from the author’s own memories.
Olena Wood: A former Chelsea girl waxes nostalgic about working with Andy Warhol and frets over her diminishing fame (“I feel dizzy as I grow old”). To boost her spirits, she responds to a television ad for “Man Connections” (just call 800-453-2800 to rent yourself the perfect man). Her perfect man is a “Steve”, whom she meets at a swinger-karaoke bar after he sings Françoise Hardy’s “Voilà.” After forty-eight hours, he melts—it was only a rental—and the girl gets a phone-call about a special screening of Chelsea Girls she should attend. Dual montages show a “then” and “now” woman dolling herself up. It’s an odd riff on the universal fear of aging (and being forgotten) with undertones of determined hope clawing against the unstoppable time.
Saida Benzal: We find out that she’s a vampire in the closing credits, and that goes great lengths to explain Saida Benzal’s rumination on eternal damnation-through-longing. A cycle of events: a dark hallway, a man drawing in breath—a woman drawing in breath, a man rising toward a doorway—a woman crawling to peer through the crack below. These few minutes capture the furtive desperation endured by lovers who can never meet.
Hiroko Tanaka: The final letter begins with blood and sonic pain but ends with a making of peace, handily wrapping up the entire exercise. Almar Sato plays the a young woman afflicted with “Hoissuru”, a sound in the range of 20 Hz and 20 kHz that is audible in Françoise Hardy’s “Voilà” (again), a song Hiroko Tanaka used to love. She meets a young Spanish woman who works as a sales clerk at a comic book shop, whose voice immediately relieves the pain. Together they enjoy talking to a looming aquarium shark (who could also double as Morrissey’s stand-in as a confessor).
I write this review to try to work out the basics of what has occupied my mind quite a bit since I watched it thirty hours ago. I know little about Paul Morrissey, but plan to use this film as a starting point in my investigation of the iconic filmmaker; and perhaps now you may want to do this, too.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
CAPSULE: LOOK WHAT’S HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY’S BABY (1976)
DIRECTED BY: Sam O’Steen
FEATURING: Stephen McHattie, Ruth Gordon, Ray Milland, Patty Duke, Broderick Crawford
PLOT: Picking up where the slightly more famous original left off, we join young Adrian/Andrew as his mother takes him from his Devil-cult overseers across the country; reaching manhood, the hour of reckoning approaches when the world may see the rebirth of Satan.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Look What’s Happened… is utterly ridiculous, to be sure, but with nothing more than the inherent camp to be found in a ’70s made-for-TV movie (and one that’s a sequel to an established classic, at that), it is “merely” an amusing, benign curio for those lucky enough to find it.
COMMENTS: In case you were wondering, that pantomime fellow behind the hippie chicks in the still is the young man conceived and born in Roman Polanski‘s more famous Rosemary’s Baby. The actor on the stage strutting his stuff is none other than this Fantasia’s special guest, Stephen McHattie, in one of his earliest onscreen appearances. McHattie introduced the movie—still mostly unseen and unknown after all these years—at the 2019 special screening at the Fantasia Film Festival. Let me tell you the story.
Roman and Minnie Castevet make for somewhat inept guardians, as they allow Rosemary to escape with young Andrew (born Adrian, and now age eight) into the world. A violent storm picks up when they leave the Satanic cultist’s lair, and they take refuge in a small storefront used as a synagogue. Rosemary feels that the boy is being sought out, and demands that the assembled Jewish men “Pray! Pray! Pray!” in an attempt to block the probing psychic eye of Minnie Castevet (whose parallels with a stereotypical Jewish grandmother border on the “uncanny”). Rosemary gets dumped somewhere in Nevada after her boy nearly kills some kids for teasing him, and is shuffled off onto a bus… with no driver(!!!). Andrew/Adrian is raised by a hooker in a a gimmicky “Castle Casino.” And… my goodness, I’m feeling like an idiot relaying this plot. Some later highlights: a self-driving car, a big black cake with a pentagram of birthday candles, a hospital for the criminally insane, and much, much more.
The screening was made even more special by the inclusion of mid-’70s advertisements spliced into the feature (including one for the bitchin’ roadster that Adrian drives around pointlessly). It was also preceded by McHattie’s film debut, “Star Spangled Banner”, an antiwar short that won a prize at Cannes back in 1970 (?). It impressed me greatly—I appreciated the irony of a young Canadian actor standing in for a doomed US soldier. With the titular song played in the background (as covered by The Grass Roots, a late 1960s folk-rock band), a young GI runs from enemy fire while quick clips of home, youth, love, and innocence are interspliced with his panic. Hokey-sounding, to be sure, but strangely moving to watch. I just wish I could find it again.
But it was not a night for politics: it was a night for the audience, along with one of Canada’s veteran character actors, to see an impressively awful movie together for the first time. McHattie quipped afterwards, “That looks like it was two-hundred years old.” For all its crumminess, there was an earnestness to Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby, and at the very least, McHattie’s career survived the hit. He’s been in more than 200 roles since.
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING:
Q & A AUDIO
CAPSULE: SHE’S JUST A SHADOW (2019)
DIRECTED BY: Adam Sherman
FEATURING: Tao Okamoto, Kihiro, Kentez Asaka, Marcus Johnson
PLOT: The matriarch of a prostitution empire, married to a violent pimp, leads her gang against a rival band of yakuza while a serial killer preys on her girls and one of her lackeys is caught in a love triangle.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: This super-stylized, candy colored exploitationer with a couple of precognitive hallucination scenes feels like a budget version of Kill Bill insistent on earning an NC-17 rating. It’s well off the beaten path, but still only on the outskirts of the truly weird.
COMMENTS: A movie that opens with a serial killer binding and tying his nude victim to train tracks and then pleasuring himself as the locomotive approaches is a movie that knows the audience it’s after. She’s Just a Shadow gives you all the perverted thrills you could ask for—sushi served off naked hookers, constant coke-sniffing, an infirmary full of shot-up whores —all wrapped up in a slick, arty package with professional lighting, elaborate costuming, and acres of nudes.
Shot mostly in the neon-lit night or carefully controlled interiors, Shadow is a great-looking film, but unfortunately loses points due to acting that is not up to the professionalism of the cinematography. Former Ralph Lauren model Tao Okamoto has had major roles in Hollywood superhero movies I haven’t seen, so I can’t say she’s an amateur, but she could have fooled me with her performance here. Her line deliveries are almost completely drab and inflectionless; the lack of emoting reminds me of nothing more than Madeleine Reynal’s deliberately blank performance in Dr. Caligari. She smokes a lot, so her long drags off her thin black cigarette help explain the frequent pauses in her delivery. Making his acting debut as a flunky whose main duty in the syndicate seems to be drinking and sleeping with a pair of the girls 24/7, J-pop musician Kihiro is a little better, but not quite ready to be a leading man; his role requires him to be strung-out and exhausted most of the time, partly compensating for his lack of passion. With the two leads being so laid back, it’s left to a bodyguard named “Knockout” (Marcus Johnson) to bring the most energy, though only in a small role. Main bad guy Kentez Asaka can act, but not without a distracting accent sported by none of the rest of the cast (some of whom speak the Queen’s English despite playing Japanese gangsters).
The screenplay, too, is not up to the standard set by the visuals. Shadow‘s characters can be insultingly dumb when it advances the plot. The dialogue treads a line between cliched and risible. Trite ideas are rendered in eyebrow-raising prose: “Both Jesus and the garbageman wanted a little more time when they were carrying their loads up their separate hills,” muses one character. Later he gives us the even cringier observation, “Women… no matter how human they seem, they’re not. They’re just shadows. But on the other hand, aren’t we all?” Lines like these give Shadow an extra layer of unintentional (?) camp, something that doesn’t work entirely against the film—and will likely be overlooked, anyway, by those looking for cheap thrills.
Despite its handicaps, Shadow will slay many with its over-the-top grindhouse audacity. Director Adam Sherman has clearly absorbed a Sion Sono and Takashi Miike flick or two, and while the acting is bland and the dialogue may elicit some chuckles, the wild and colorful visuals are up to his influences, and he goes all out to give the audience what they crave, with little filter on the stylish sleaze and depravity. If you’re a fan of modern yakuza exploitation flicks, you’ll probably dig this.
She’s Just a Shadow opens in New York City (and possibly elsewhere) this Friday, July 19; it will probably find a more natural home on VOD soon after.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: