With Halloween coming up it only made sense to feature a short in the horror realm. There were many to choose from, but How to Make a Nightmare (2014) came out on top. It is truly the makeup of nightmares.
WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 10/28/2016
Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…
Trailers of new release movies are generally available at the official site links.
SCREENINGS – (Los Angeles, Cinefamily, Sunday, Oct. 30):
The Tingler (1959): Read Shane Wilson’s review. Vincent Price frees the creature that lives in all of our spines that causes the fight response, and also takes LSD (wonder if those two are connected?) This screening will be shown in William Castle‘s original “Percepto” format—i.e., theater patrons seats will be wired for electricity, and random people will receive shocks to the tuckus when the creature escapes the screen and flees into the audience. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, for sure. The Tingler at Cinefamily.
SCREENINGS – (Silver Spring, MD, AFI Silver Theater, Fri., Oct. 28):
Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror (1922): Read the Certified Weird entry! D.C. metro residents can get their Halloween weekend off to a terrifying start with F.W. Murnau‘s essential occult vampire film, with a live score by the Silent Orchestra. Also at AFI Silver this week: Luis Buñuel‘s no-exit masterpiece The Exterminating Angel on Sunday at 3:00 PM. Nosferatu at the AFI Silver Theater.
NEW ON DVD:
“The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast”: Fourteen definitively awful Herschell Gordon Lewis exploitation and gore hits (including, of course, the atrocious Blood Feast and the abysmal The Wizard of Gore) spread across seventeen discs (eight DVDs and nine Blu-rays). Unpacking it all would take a separate article, but suffice it to say there are a few extra bonus features in this sprawling Limited Edition set from Arrow; two Blu-rays and a DVD here are exclusive to this set. Buy “The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast” [DVD/Blu-ray combo Limited Edition]
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
The Exorcist III (1990): Read Eric Young’s review. A 2-disc collector’s edition with both the theatrical and director’s cuts and a legion of supplements. Buy The Exorcist III [Collector’s Edition Blu-ray]
“The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast”: See description in DVD above. Buy “The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast” [DVD/Blu-ray combo Limited Edition]
Manhattan Baby (1982): An evil spirit from an Egyptian tomb possesses a young New York girl and turns her into a murder machine. Another Lucio Fulci horror that straddles the fine line between the surreal and the incompetent; this Limited Edition from Blue Underground includes a disc of extras and the soundtrack CD. Buy Manhattan Baby Limited Edition
FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:
Queer Duck: The Movie (2006): The adventures of anthormorphic gay animals, including the title fowl and his lover, Openly Gator (groan). In this episode, Queer tries to go hetero in this “South Park”-esque “straight”-to-video satirical cartoon, with musical numbers like “Smile, You Bastard, Smile.” Watch Queer Duck: The Movie free on YouTube.
What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.
BORIS KARLOFF’S THRILLER (1960-1962): EPISODE GUIDE AND REVIEWS, PART FOUR
Part I of “Boris Karloff’s Thriller” episode guide is here, part II is here, and part III is here.
“God Grante That She Lye Stille” (directed by Herschel Daugherty and written by Robert Hardy Andrews) has series composer Jerry Goldsmith matching a rousing score to a well-worn plot about a wicked witch named Elspeth Clewer (Sarah Marshall) who is burned at the stake and places a curse upon her lineage, vowing to come back in another Clewer. 300 years later Margaret Clewer (Marshall) apparently has just the right curves and… no prizes for guessing this plot, which is reminiscent of Mario Bava‘s Black Sunday (1960). Marshall is physically reminiscent of Barbara Steele, but stamps the role with her own charisma. Henry Daniell gives a typically steely performance as the local vicar and Victor Buono, per the norm, invests his cameo with gusto. It’s well-lit with impressive ghost FX and sets, which makes for quite the grand guignol episode, despite its conventional narrative.
“Masquerade” (directed by Herschel Daugherty and written by Donald S. Sanford) has familiar actors Elizabeth Montgomery and John Carradine in another Old Dark House thriller that begins on a dark and stormy night. Charlie (Tom Poston) and Rosamond (Montgomery) Denham, celebrating their second honeymoon, depart their southern trailer park (!), get lost in the rain, and come upon the old Carta place. Carta patriarch Jed (Carradine) gives them shelter and… well, the old Carta place just happens to have bats flying around, the corpse of a hog hanging upside down (with a bucket collecting its blood), bars on the windows, secret passages, a rather large number of stuffed birds, and the psychotic old woman Ruthie (Dorothy Neumann) chained to a wall. She begs the honeymooning couple to free her, which they of course do. Ruthie’s first victim is Jed’s eccentric grandson Lem (Jack Lambert), which leads to the discovery that the Carta clan are cannibalistic vampires. “Masquerade” recalls elements of Terence Fisher‘s Brides Of Dracula and Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho, and may be something of a precursor to 1967’s Spider Baby. “Masquerade” is not as good as any of those, however. Although the plot is now overly familiar, it revels in black comedy, and is bookended by an over the top intro by Karloff and a daffy “twist” ending. Another plus is the acerbic Montgomery and a scene stealing, creepy Carradine giving charmingly riotous performances.
“The Last of the Sommervilles” (directed by Ida Lupino, written by Ida and Richard Lupino) is elevated by Karloff’s supporting performance as the amorous Dr. Farnham, who looks like a forgotten cousin of the Three Stooges and steals every scene he is Continue reading BORIS KARLOFF’S THRILLER (1960-1962): EPISODE GUIDE AND REVIEWS, PART FOUR
254. THE FACE OF ANOTHER (1966)
他人の顔; Tanin no kao
“The world in which Abe, Teshigahara, and Takemitsu came of age as expressive artists was not one for which they had been prepared by their forebears or by any social legacy. The values of prewar Japan had been utterly discredited by their nation’s defeat, the society emasculated by foreign occupiers for the first time in Japanese history. The so-called democracy that was being layered onto the Japanese body politic by temporary American rulers seemed ill fitted to a culture that had never valued individualism or freedom of expression. They wandered forth into a strange new world that had no identity of its own and was distorted by poverty and foreign occupation. Everywhere were symptoms of an existential dilemma on a vast national scale. In retrospect, it seems hardly surprising that the compelling themes of Japanese artists of the day were those of alienation, the search for identity, and the struggle for survival in a wasted landscape…”–Peter Grilli, writing for the Criterion Collection
“Yield to the mask.” —The Face of Another
DIRECTED BY: Hiroshi Teshigahara
FEATURING: Tatsuya Nakadai, Mikijirô Hira, Machiko Kyô, Miki Irie
PLOT: Left with a disfigured face after an industrial accident, Okuyama spends his days in bandages while complaining to his wife. Hatching a scheme of questionable ethics with his psychiatrist-surgeon, things change for Okuyama after a cunningly designed mask is crafted to allow him, at least part of the time, to be “normal.” However, the doctor’s warnings of personality shift come true as Okuyama attempts to seduce his own wife to wreak emotional revenge.
BACKGROUND:
- Like 1962’s Pitfall and 1964’s Woman in the Dunes (also Certified Weird), The Face of Another was based on the work of novelist Kôbô Abe. While the psychiatrist appears only passingly in Abe’s book
, his role was greatly expanded in the film to allow for a more tangible counterpart to Okuyama.
- Director Hiroshi Teshigaraha stuck with the classic “academy ratio” and black and white film one last time with this movie, despite the then-current popularity of color and CinemaScope. He surrendered to modernizing pressures with his next movie, The Man Without a Map.
- The incongruous waltz playing in the opening credits (as well as the German night-club song at the biergarten) was written by Teshigahara’s and Abe’s collaborator, composer Tôru Takemitsu, whose score was also instrumental in Pitfall and Woman in the Dunes.
- Despite being commercially and critically well-received in its home country, The Face of Another met with a tepid audience beyond Japan’s borders. A number of critics, it seemed, had had just about enough of the intellectualist, art-house cinema that had been bombarding the movie scene for some years by then.
- Another of Teshigahara’s art buddies — Arata Isozaki — stepped up to the plate, designing the psychiatrist’s morphing, glass-filled office. An architect by vocation, Isozaki went on to design numerous famous buildings, including the MOCA in Los Angeles and the stadium for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
, his role was greatly expanded in the film to allow for a more tangible counterpart to Okuyama.INDELIBLE IMAGE: Though any shot with Okuyama bandaged sticks in the mind, the most jarring scene occurs when he’s fully disguised as a normal person. Having just been released into the custody of his psychiatrist after an arrest for assault, Okuyama and the doctor face a swarm of sack-clay masked citizens descending upon the streets. The doctor looks unnerved by the sight; his patient less so. Before their dramatic “goodbye”, they are utterly enveloped in a sea of faceless faces.
THREE WEIRD THINGS: Ever-mutating doctor’s office; sunbeam cooks incestuous brother; the faceless masses
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: The Face of Another is essentially a Japanese New Wave art-house musing on the nature of identity. But cranking things into the realm of bizarre is a series of sets and scenes—the doctor’s uncannily undefinable office space, mirrored mirrors, and so forth—as well as strange veering between philosophical and vengeful tones. Throw in a second (and even an obliquely referenced third) story line, a German biergarten in downtown Japan, and the occasional symbolist image (among them a Doorway to Whirling Hair and spontaneous transfiguration to slaughtered livestock), and, well, you could say you’re facing something pretty weird.
Trailer for The Face of Another
COMMENTS: The meaninglessness of personal identity is a troublesome thing to ponder. The interchangeability of any given cog in society’s wheel flies in the face of notions of individuality and the Continue reading 254. THE FACE OF ANOTHER (1966)
CAPSULE: CEMETERY OF SPLENDOR (2015)
DIRECTED BY: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
FEATURING: Jenjira Pongpas, Banlop Lomnoi, Jarinpattra Rueangram
PLOT: Soldiers struck with an inexplicable sleeping sickness are housed at an old school, and a housewife volunteer develops an empathic bond with one young victim, which may involve entering his dreams.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Fans of Apichatpong Weerasethakul (who mercifully nicknamed himself “Joe” for the benefit of Western audiences) know exactly what to expect from his latest experiment in dream cinema: long takes, quiet moods, the blurring of the line between the real and unreal, and mundane dramatics that subtly slip into the surreal. Cemetery will please those he’s already won over, but his Palme d’Or winning breakthrough Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives makes for a better representative of his sleepy, spiritually weird style. We wouldn’t rule out adding another of Joe’s movies to the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies down the road, but it will need to venture farther into the bizarre than Cemetery does.
COMMENTS: With four minutes of nearly silent establishing shots—showing sleeping soldiers being shipped by the truckload to the makeshift hospital, and our limping protagonist making her way up the wooden planks of the porch on her way to volunteer duty—Weerasethakul throws down the gauntlet to viewers’s attention spans. This introduction is followed by an initial half-hour that seems composed mostly of long and medium shots of young men sleeping, with middle-aged women quietly sitting by their bedsides watching over them, and a lunch break to introduce the fact that one of them has psychic abilities. (We also, for reasons only Joe could explain, watch a man poop in the woods).
The movie, set in a leafy Thai jungle and scored to the hum of insects and distant rumbling backhoes, lulls us into a peaceful mood. We might be forgiven for wondering if we have fallen asleep ourselves and are dreaming when things start to change. Does the soldier Jen watches over, Itt, briefly wake up and take a meal with her? Maybe, maybe not, but surely two dead princess don’t visit her at a picnic table at the dinosaur park to share fruit and explain a possible origin of the sleeping sickness. And we might doubt that the psychic licks Jen’s deformed leg as a form of therapy. And when amoebas appear drifting among the clouds in the sky, you can be absolutely sure it’s a dream.
Cemetery of Splendor never goes anywhere, so there’s nothing to wrap up. The soldiers, and their caretakers, simply sleep and dream on, and at some point Weerasethakul decides to turn the camera off. A paradoxical offering from a Valium-toned auteur, Cemetery of Splendor is simultaneously minor and profound, inconclusive and whole. It’s a film you’re proud to have seen, but in no rush to watch again.
For those not yet ready to wake up, the 2016 Strand DVD includes a “making of” featurette and deleted scenes.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: