Category Archives: Canonically Weird (The List)

Canonically Weird (The List)

166. TALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE (1987)

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“That was a strange tale, wasn’t it, Bobby?”–Shirley L. Jones in Tales from the Quadead Zone

Beware

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Keefe L. Turner

PLOT: A woman reads her invisible child two stories from a book entitled “Tales of the Quadead Zone.” In one, a redneck family never has enough food for everyone at the table to eat, until one of the clan figures out a solution. In another, a man retrieves his dead brothers’ corpse in order to ritually abuse it.

Still from Tales from the Quadead Zone (1987)
BACKGROUND:

  • Chester Turner’s 1984 movie Black Devil Doll from Hell was originally written as one of the segments in this anthology film, but was expanded to a full-length feature instead. A remnant of that intention may linger in the theme song, which claims that “dolls will kill…”
  • Although they did almost all of the technical work themselves, Turner and Shirley Jones made up fictitious names for the camera and sound credits so the crew would seem larger than it was. Turner is still credited with direction, writing, music, special effects, and editing.
  • Most of the cast and crew have surnames of either “Jones” or “Turner.”
  • Disappointed after receiving less than $1,000 from the distributor of Black Devil Doll from Hell, Turner and Jones decided to sell copies of Tales from the Quadead Zone themselves. They traveled to every video store they could find within a 25 mile radius of Chicago selling their tapes.
  • After completing Quadead Zone, Turner quit filmmaking (because he hadn’t made any money at it) and started a construction business. For two decades he was unaware that his videotapes were being bootlegged and circulated among a small cult of trash-film devotees. (One original VHS copy of Quadead sold for $1,300). Internet rumors circulated claiming that Turner was dead, but Massacre Video’s Louis Justin eventually tracked him down by calling every Chester Turner for whom he could find a telephone number.
  • Turner has publicly stated he’s interested in making Tales from the Quadead Zone 2 and Black Devil Doll from Hell 2 (for which he’s already written a script—it’s subtitled “The Goddoll” and will be a spoof of The Godfather).

INDELIBLE IMAGE: The corpse dressed up as a clown. Who dresses up a corpse as a clown? What makes the scene especially unforgettable is the basic chroma-key technology used to depict an orangish-red blob of pure spirit entering the dead body.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: What the heck is a “quadead” zone? A zone with four dead people in it? You’ll have no more clue after watching the movie than you did before, but you will at least understand that any film made by the unique Chester Novell Turner deserves a name that doesn’t make sense. Turner’s two-movie horror universe is a world of puppet rapists, killer rednecks, undead clowns and invisible child ghosts, shot through a camcorder lens, acted out by friends and family, and accompanied by a homemade Casio keyboard score that frequently drowns out the dialogue. Of his two brain-damaged films, Tales from the Quadead Zone earns a slight edge over Black Devil Doll from Hell, mainly because it’s a half-hour shorter, and features a broader range of non-actors engaging in awkward pauses in more varied environments.

Scarecrow Video’s trailer for a screening of Tales from the Quadead Zone

COMMENTS: The credits and theme song really tell you what you’re getting into with Tales from the Quadead Zone. With the unmetrical opening Continue reading 166. TALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE (1987) →

Canonically Weird (The List)

165. NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR (1985)

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“When we were approached to do this commentary and you were asking me if I’d seen Night Train to Terror I was thinking back. I’d seen it about ten years ago and I thought, ‘yeah, I remember the wraparound with the New Wave band and I remember the stop-motion insect that’s in the second part coming up,’ and that’s all I could remember. Everything else was it was a bit weird and strange and I didn’t find it all that entertaining. But, I have to say I’ve changed my opinion, I’m a lover of Night Train to Terror.”–horror writer Justin Kerswell, on the Night Train to Terror commentary track

DIRECTED BY: Jay Schlossberg-Cohen, John Carr, Phillip Marshank, Tom McGowan, Gregg C. Tallas

FEATURING: Ferdy Mayne (credited as “Himself”), Tony Giorgio (credited as “Lu Sifer”), Gabriel Whitehouse, , ,

PLOT: God and Satan are riding on a train at midnight. Looking out the window, they watch three stories, and debate the eternal fate of the protagonists. All the while, a teen pop/rock band is acting out a music video in a nearby compartment.

Still from Night Train to Terror (1985)
BACKGROUND:

  • The first segment of this anthology film (“The Case of Harry Billings”) was an unfinished movie shot by John Carr. It was later released, without the director’s knowledge or input, as a feature titled Scream Your Head Off. In 1992 Carr shot additional footage and released his own completed version of the movie (now with Francine York as Marilyn Monroe!) titled Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars.
  • Night Train to Terror‘s second segment is edited down from the 1984 feature The Dark Side to Love [AKA Death Wish Club; AKA Gretta; AKA Carnival of Fools] (also directed by John Carr), which is available in its uncut form on the Vinegar Syndrome DVD as an extra.
  • The third tale is a compressed version of the 1980 horror Cataclysm (co-directed by Phillip Marshank, Tom McGowan, and Gregg C. Tallas).
  • According to Night Train producer/director Jay Schlossberg-Cohen, none of the films used here had found distributors at that time, and some additional scenes were shot for each sequence using stand-ins. The stop motion animation sequences in the second and third segments were also added specifically for Night Train to Terror.
  • Phillip Yordan, who is credited for the screenplay to Johnny Guitar (1954), wrote Night Train (and also wrote each of the three movies edited into this anthology). Yordan was a three-time Academy Award nominee who received a 1954 Best Writing nod for Broken Lance. However, Yordan also worked as a front for blacklisted writers during the McCarthy era, so it is possible that he did not actually write all of the screenplays with which he is credited in the 1950s. His son Byron lip-syncs and breakdances in Night Train to Terror.
  • Some older reviews describe the first and third segments as switched from the order they appear on the DVD/Blu-ray; presumably this is the order the stories were shown on VHS.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: In a movie that’s caked in blood and gore, surprisingly enough the most memorable image is of the wholesome lip-syncing teenage band dressed like extras from Flashdance, hopping around, pretending to play instruments, and breakdancing in a train compartment that looks like a suburban living room, while the impassive conductor silently makes his rounds. Of course, in this case the indelible image is inextricably linked to the indelible sound, as the hormonal minstrels belt out their catchy-but-mocking hook: “Everybody’s got something to do—everybody but you.”

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Inspired by the box-office success of horror anthology movies like Creepshow (1982) and Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Night Train to Terror tries to hop a ride on the omnibus gravy train. Rather than shoot new stories specifically for this movie, however, the producers decided to save time and money by cutting unreleased full-length features they already owned the rights to into twenty-five minute segments. Needless to say, the results of this hacksaw editing, which consistently sacrifices narrative for nudity and gore scenes, are incoherent. The expository sequences with a hammy God (“I shed my mercy on them, as I do the gentle rain”) and hammier Satan (“there is no evil so vile which man will not plunge himself into”) on a cosmic train judging the characters adds an additional layer of bizarreness. But, it’s the upbeat teen New Wave band shooting a music video in the next train compartment that sends the movie off the tracks and plunging into a void of pure weirdness.


Blu-ray trailer for Night Train to Terror

COMMENTS: “I can laugh and cry at the same time,” explains God. He may have learned that trick by watching Night Train to Terror. If you mix Continue reading 165. NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR (1985) →

Canonically Weird (The List)

164. UPSTREAM COLOR (2013)

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“We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies.”–Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“We already know that weird things happen. So let’s just watch something happen, and let that be it. If a worm goes into Kris and then leaves her and then goes into a pig, and we see that there’s a connection and I execute it with music and cinematography and Amy’s performance, in such a way that conveys that transference of some deeply felt kind is taking place, that’s it.”–Shane Carruth on Upstream Color

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Shane Carruth, Andrew Sensenig, Thiago Martins

PLOT: Kris is poisoned by the Thief, who forces her to ingest a worm that sends her into a hypnotic trance, then empties her bank account. Waking up days later, and unable to cut the worm out from under her skin, she is drawn to a man (the Sampler) who surgically removes the organism and places it inside a pig. Suffering from hallucinations and delusions, Kirs then attempts to rebuild her shattered life with the assistance of Jeff, a financial analyst and recovering junkie.

Still from Upstream Color (2013)
BACKGROUND:

  • After scoring an independent hit in 2004 with the time travel puzzler Primer, made for a mere $7,000, director Shane Carruth went silent for nine years. In that time he worked on developing a script entitled A Topiary that never went into production (he referred to that project as “the thing I basically wasted my whole life on”). Carruth tried to get Hollywood backing for the project, but couldn’t get anywhere because he demanded to have final cut and final say on every aspect of the film’s production—conditions that no Hollywood producer would ever agree to.
  • After finally abandoning A Topiary after seven years of attempted development, Carruth conceived and shot Upstream Color in about a year, announcing the project in October 2011 and debuting it at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2103.
  • Besides writing, directing and acting in the film, Carruth is also credited with the music, cinematography and editing. He also handled distribution of the movie himself.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: “I have to apologize. I was born with a disfigurement where my head is made of the same material as the sun,” says the Thief, and a quick shot suggests his statement is true. Of course, you can only glance at the sun for the briefest of moments, and the camera observes this caution, so you may spend the rest of the movie wondering if you saw what you thought you did, or if it was just a result of a hypnotic suggestion.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Upstream Color is the movie that asks the question, “what if there was a psychoactive parasitic worm that could create a psychic link to a person if you surgically removed it and implanted in a pig? What would that be like?” It then proceeds to answer the question.


Shane Carruth discussing Upstream Color for Sundance Film Festival’s “Meet the Artist” promo

COMMENTS: In his negative review of Upstream Color, The Guardian‘s Jeremy Kay prefaced his synopsis with, “here’s the plot, such as it is. It’s Continue reading 164. UPSTREAM COLOR (2013) →

Canonically Weird (The List)

163. 3 WOMEN (1977)

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“I’m trying to reach toward a picture that’s totally emotional, not narrative or intellectual, where an audience walks out and they can’t say anything but what they feel.”–Robert Altman (quoted in David Sterritt’s Criterion Collection essay)

Recommended

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , , Robert Fortier

PLOT: A young girl named Pinky begins working at a spa in California, where she eventually becomes roommates with her idol, Millie, who is a few years older. Millie believes herself to be popular, inviting people over for dinner parties and out on dates, but in reality nearly everyone avoids her except for Pinky. Then, after a near-fatal accident, Pinky undergoes a radical personality change…

Still from 3 Women (1977)
BACKGROUND:

  • Robert Altman conceived the picture after a dream he had while his wife was hospitalized: he dreamed the title of the film, the location, that it involved personality theft, and that it would star Shelly Duvall and Sissy Spacek.
  • 3 Women was made without a traditional screenplay. Instead, together with writer Patricia Resnick, Altman devised a 50 page treatment. The movie was then shot in sequence, with Altman writing out the next day’s scenes the night before, and the actors improvising much of the dialogue. Duvall wrote all of her character’s diary entries herself.
  • The murals were painted by an otherwise nearly unknown hippie artist working under the name “Bodhi Wind.”
  • Duvall’s performance won her a Best Actress nod at the Cannes Film Festival.
  • The movie was not available on home video in any form until 2004, due to the distributors’ failure to negotiate rights for Gerald Busby’s avant-garde musical score.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: The paintings that decorate the swimming pool walls: strange creatures with scaly legs and baboon faces, engaged in bizarre, violent courting rituals. A male stands with his arms outstretched and his stout penis hanging proudly between his legs while females scatter, looking over their shoulders and baring their fangs at him. Shots of these two murals, which inside the movie’s reality are painted by Janice Rule’s character, occur over and over throughout the film, including over the opening and closing credits. Oddly enough, the shot most associated with 3 Women—the one that illustrates the DVD cover and accompanies most reviews—doesn’t even occur in the film. The photograph of Sissy Spacek entwined in Shelly Duval’s arms as they recline against a fresco depicting one simian lizard creature strangling another was a promotional photo. 3 Women is that kind of movie: the type that’s best represented by something lying outside of its own boundaries.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: 3 Women is based on an uneasy dream suffered by Robert Altman, and incredible performances by Sissy Spacek and (especially) Shelly Duvall turn it into a collaborative dream. Although most of the movie is naturalistic, with nothing happening that could not quite happen in our reality, there is nonetheless a dreadful sense of illusoriness, as if we’re seeing events through a gauze.


Original trailer for 3 Women

COMMENTS: Tucked away on the long stretch of nowhere between Persona (1966) and Lost Highway (1997) lies 3 Women, the 1970s iteration Continue reading 163. 3 WOMEN (1977) →

Canonically Weird (The List)

162. THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS (1984)

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Ambavi Suramis Tsikhitsa; Legend of the Surami Fortress (alternate translation)

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“In Ron Holloway’s reverent documentary Paradjanov: A Requiem… an unbowed Paradjanov speaks nonchalantly of being accused of ‘surrealism,’ never pointing out the surreality of a government that views surrealism as a crime.”–Keith Phipps

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Sergei Parajanov, Dodo Abashidze

FEATURING: Leila Alibegashvilli, Sofiko Chiaureli, Zura Kipshidze, Dodo Abashidze, Veriko Andjaparidze

PLOT: On the desolate steppes of Central Asia, a Georgian prince has given slave Durmishkhan his freedom; although he promises to make his fortune and buy her freedom, his lover, Vardo, senses that he will never return. Indeed, in his travels Durmishkhan meets another woman and fathers a child with her, while a bereaved Vardo becomes a celibate fortune teller. Years later, with a Muslim invasion imminent, the czar seeks guidance from Vardo on how to stop the fortress of Suram from collapsing every time his men rebuild it.

The Legend of Suram Fortress (1984)

BACKGROUND:

  • The Legend of Suram Fortress was Sergei Parajanov’s first film after spending 15 years in and out of Soviet prisons on charges ranging from homosexuality, rape, and pornography to bribery and trafficking in religious icons. Many view his persecution as politically motivated. Along with intellectuals and celebrities like , fellow filmmakers , François Truffaut, , , , and all agitated for his release.
  • Parajanov was born in Georgia to Armenian parents, and began his filmmaking career in Ukraine. Each of Parajanov’s major films is built around the folklore of a specific Soviet satellite state: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964) revolved around Ukrainian legends, The Color of Pomegranates (1969) dealt with an Armenian poet, and The Legend of Suram Fortress covered the mythology of his native Georgia. Ashik Kerib (1988) shows an Azerbaijani influence.
  • Although the movie bears all of Parajanov’s stylistic trademarks, Dodo Abashidze (who also plays the role of Osman-Agha in the film) is credited as co-director, as he is also in Parajanov’s final completed film, Ashik Kerib. Abashidze has no solo directing credits but was a popular actor, and his influence is viewed as a major factor in getting Parajanov released from jail and allowed to return to filmmaking.
  • The Legend of Suram Fortress was based on Georgian folktales which had been turned into a novel by the writer Daniel Chonkadze in the 19th century. The story had been made into a silent film in 1922.
  • The Suram (or Surami) fortress still stands in Georgia.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: This is a hard choice indeed: The Legend of Suram Fortress is a work of visual poetry, and picking out a single frame is like picking out the single best line from “The Iliad” or “The Odyssey.” Each scene in Suram is a meticulous exercise in staging, pageantry, and costuming. For our representative moment, we’ll chose the ceremony where the peasants pray to St. George to protect them from the (metaphorical Muslim) dragon: costumed worshipers parade by in a line, led by a prancing white horse decorated with silvery tinsel, before a smoky field, while the Saint’s icon appears as a glittering ball of light. The scene is low-tech but beautiful, literally realized with smoke and mirrors. In a movie with such a rigorously realized formalism, almost any other choice of image would be equally indelible.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Fans of will likely to groove to the vibe of Sergei Parajanov, recognizing the obsessively arranged compositions and the mysticism that hangs like thick clouds of incense over the film. Rather than taking a wide-angle, pan-theistic view like Jodorowsky, however, Parajanov focuses each of his films narrowly and intently on the legends of a single culture. In Suram Fortress he digs deep to uncover fragmentary narrative relics from ancient Georgia, telling of the legendary foundation of a nation in a confused era when Christianity, Islam and paganism all fought for the hearts of her people. Soaking in a bath of exotic medieval sounds and images, you emerge from the movie feeling Georgia in your bones, while at the same time realizing you know next to nothing about the culture Parajanov simultaneously illuminates and obscures. The visions crumble before your eyes as he builds them.


Soviet trailer for The Legend of Suram Fortress

COMMENTS: Although there is a (digressive and fractured) story, the essence of The Legend of Suram Fortress is in its astounding visual tableaux: Continue reading 162. THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS (1984) →