Essays

REPORT FROM FANTASTIC FEST 2015

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See also: Alex Kittle’s Top 5 Weird Movies of Fantastic Fest 2015

Fantastic Fest is an experience like no other. I say that not to shill, just to state a simple fact. This was my first time attending the now-storied genre film festival, hosted by the famous Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, and it’s safe to describe the event as “something else.” Over the course of eight days I saw over 30 films—primarily new releases but also repertory screenings of Turkish pop-cinema, Shaw Brothers classics, 80s horror, and two secret screenings—and attended karaoke performances, video game demonstrations, and a Wild West-themed party. I missed some of the night-time shenanigans either because of exhaustion or conflict with screenings, but I do know that the hardest question in the Fantastic Feud game was (to me) a no-brainer concerning the aliens in Earth Girls Are Easy. I made friends with locals and critics while waiting for my films to start. I ate a decidedly inappropriate amount of fried food. I danced the chicken dance along with Alamo director Tim League. I watched DJs in animal costumes rap about reincarnation. I learned all about the “Satanic Panic” of the 80s and 90s from authors who were connected to it. I bumped elbows with festival attendees , Kumail Nanjiani, and Karyn Kusama (but was too shy to talk to any of them). I had, for lack of a better word, a fantastic time.

Fantastic Fest 2015Throughout the week I saw almost everything I wanted see, including recent festival hits like The Lobster, The Witch, and Victoria, as well as new efforts from filmmakers I admire such as Sean Byrne’s The Devil’s Candy, Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation, and Mamoru Hosoda’s The Boy and the Beast. From the documentary Remake, Remix, Rip-Off, I learned about the remarkably resourceful filmmakers working in Turkey during the 1970s-80s, who took advantage of the country’s lax copyright laws and created hundreds of weird, pastiche remakes. And while I missed The Man Who Saves the World (aka “Turkish Star Wars”), I did catch The Deathless Devil, a highly enjoyable caper that combines elements of superhero serials, James Bond, and killer robots—plus the star of the film was there to tell us silly behind-the-scenes stories. After joking that I wished the secret screening would be Crimson Peak, I was elated to discover it in fact WAS Crimson Peak and I just about lost it when walked out on stage! Everyone received a complimentary pint glass and I’m still riding kind of high from the whole experience. The second secret screening was one of Drafthouse’s “unearthed” cult films, a haphazard action movie called Dangerous Men that doesn’t quite reach the enjoyably campy heights of personal favorites like Miami Connection or Hard Ticket to Hawaii, but certainly had its ridiculous moments. The most-hyped film was Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room, which I saw only after hearing nearly every single fest attendee sing its praises, and while it is a very good, brutal thriller, it is, in fact, not the greatest thing ever, Continue reading REPORT FROM FANTASTIC FEST 2015 →

Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 10/9/2015

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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.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

The Forbidden Room (2015): ‘s latest (co-directed with ) is a series of absurd early-talkie, two-strip Technicolor shorts, set in dreamlike submarines, caves, trains, and other locales out of 1920s melodramas. Every Maddin movie is an event. Room is being released to theaters from Toronto to Winnipeg this fall, but no U.S. dates announced—yet. The Forbidden Room official site.

Yakuza Apocalypse (2015): ‘s latest (now there’s a referent we have to refresh every couple of months) is about a new yakuza boss who finds his rival is a vampire. It is rare that a Miike film gets even a limited theatrical release on these shores, but there it, is in a few East coast theaters. Yakuza Apocalypse official site (in Japanese).

SCREENINGS – (Denver, CO., Glitterdome, Oct 8-31):

The Portal (2015): A multimedia psychedelic rock opera version of Dante’s Inferno. Until Halloween, a live onstage band will supply the score as the movie plays. Most of us will have to wait for the DVD version. No surprise that this project pops up in Colorado; recreational marijuana legalization is already paying cultural dividends. The Portal official site.

SCREENINGS – (Los Angeles, Cinefamily, Sat, Oct 10):

The Mask (1961): Don’t miss a rare chance to see this otherwise drab B-movie about a magical mask that gives the audience bizarre 3-D color hallucinations when instructed to put on their anaglyph glasses, projected in vintage 3-D. Part of an overlooked horror movie series Cinefamily has entitled UNSEEN! UNSCREENED!! OBSCENE!!! Check the link for a full schedule. UNSEEN! UNSCREENED!! OBSCENE!!! at Cinefamily.

FILM FESTIVALS – SITGES FILM FESTIVAL (Sitges, Spain, Oct. 9-18):

Although Sitges as always has a fine slate of fantastic films, they’re more into quantity than exclusivity. We’ve seen most of the offerings at other film festivals. Here are a few notable films we noticed that appear to be debuting there (along with some special screenings of older cult films):

  • The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Maddin – As far as we know, the only feature length documentary on the work of Guy Maddin. Screens Oct 12.
  • Arcana – The least seen of B-surrealist ‘s three major features is a supernatural horror about a non-psychic fortune teller and her psychic son. Screens Oct. 16.
  • Cosmos – ‘s first film in 15 years is a metaphysical farce about a law school flunkout vacationing in a strange house. Screens twice on Oct 16.
  • Dyke Hard – Colorful spoof about a lesbian rock band fighting an army of ninjas and robots. Oct. 11 & 17.
  • Female Werewolf – A mentally ill woman believe she is turning into a werewolf in this Canadian film described as “1 moody, sensual and surreal psychological thriller.” Oct. 16.
  • Ink/The Frame – A double feature; the 2009 Certified Weird allegorical dream fantasy matched with the “Twilight Zone”-ish 2014 followup, both on Oct. 17.

Sitges Film Festival official site.

NEW ON DVD:

Burnt Offerings (1976): A couple rent an old house for the summer on condition that they leave out food for a decrepit grandma who never leaves her room. This haunted house chiller made quite an impression on folks who caught it during its initial run, so much so that it made its way into our reader-suggested review queue. Buy Burnt Offerings.

Children of the Night [AKA Limbo] (2014): Argentinian horror about a colony of child vampires being indoctrinated into believing they are a master race. Artsploitation Films’ contribution to the Halloween season. Buy Children of the Night.

The Falling (2014): An unexplained plague of fainting spells strikes at a British girls’ school in the 1960s. Picnic at Hanging Rock fans are sure to swoon at this one. Buy The Falling.

Gravy (2015): Costumed cannibals hold the patrons of a Mexican restaurant hostage on Halloween. Shout! Factory is now picking up current releases; not sure how weird this one is but it has clear cult intentions. Buy Gravy.

“Masterworks of American Avant-garde Experimental Film 1920-1970”: 36 short films meriting the titular description; the 4-disc (2 DVD/2 Blu-ray) set includes a “unique” version of the Certified Weird classic “Meshes of the Afternoon,” as well as shorts from Marcel Duchamp, , Stan Brakhage, and other names familiar to anyone with an interest in the avant-garde. A major release from specialty label Flicker Alley, and a major investment. Buy “Masterworks of American Avant-garde Experimental Film 1920-1970” [DVD/Blu-ray Combo].

Roar (1981): A gang of lions, leopards and tigers attack African homesteaders in a nonstop barrage of fangs and claws. The danger was very real; the ad copy brags that over 70 members of the cast and crew were injured making this insane feature! Not necessarily “weird” but definitely out-there and hard-to-believe. Buy Roar.

Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015): Sharks rain down on over-the-hill actors in this third (!) installment of the toothy, spoofy series. We didn’t much like the first Sharknado‘s low-grade brand of idiot camp, but feel obligated to at least acknowledge this one’s existence. Maybe it’s “better.” Buy Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992): Read our review! This deluxe Blu-ray release contains a number of extra features, including an (old) commentary track featuring . We have seen reports saying that the framing is off; we consider them unconfirmed (but credible). Also available in limited-edition “clear case” packaging with a 24-page booklet. Buy Bram Stoker’s Dracula [Blu-ray].

Burnt Offerings (1976): See description in DVD above. Buy Burnt Offerings [Blu-ray].

Gravy (2015): See description in DVD above. Buy Gravy [Blu-ray].

“Masterworks of American Avant-garde Experimental Film 1920-1970”: See description in DVD above. Buy “Masterworks of American Avant-garde Experimental Film 1920-1970” [DVD/Blu-ray Combo].

My Own Private Idaho (1991): River Phoenix and play two gay street hustlers in ‘s loose and hallucinatory adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV.” From the Criterion Collection, so there are a wealth of extras (Criterion’s 2005 DVD release spanned two discs; it all fits on one Blu). Buy My Own Private Idaho [Blu-ray].

Roar (1981): See description in DVD above. Buy Roar [Blu-ray].

Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015): See description in DVD above. Buy Sharknado 3: Oh Hell no! [Blu-ray].

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.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

NIGHT OF THE LEPUS (1972)

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“Attention! Attention! Ladies and gentlemen, attention! There is a herd of killer rabbits headed this way and we desperately need your help!”

Cinematic horror had come a long way since its primitive infancy as part of the 1920s German Expressionist movement. The 1930s Gothic comedies of , the art deco perversity of , ‘s outsiders, and the 1940s literary subtleties of represented the genre in its adolescence. Of course, we are assured that each preceding generation, especially its artists, are comparatively naive—akin to cave painters. So, it should be no surprise that the genre evolved, by leaps and bounds, beginning in the modern era of the 1950s, which brought us the atomic Deadly Mantis in 1958 and topped that within a mere fifteen years: killer bunnies, in a certified classic with “Star Trek”‘s Dr. McCoy starring in his version of the “Wrath of Donnie Darko.” Yes, it’s Night of the Lepus.

This opus of oversized, rabid jackrabbits is such an abomination that star DeForest Kelley (whose career began with 1947’s suspenseful noir Fear In the Night) never made another film outside of the Star Trek franchise. This was at least a guarantee of superior mediocrity. Actually,  despite glued-on porn mustache accompanied by lamb chop sideburns and his polyester suit decorated with a necktie that threatens to swallow him whole long before the Jurassic hares escape the garden, Kelley embarrasses himself the least. Faring worse are former heroine Janet Leigh, “B” western star , Paul Fix, and Stuart Whitman. MGM (!?!) apparently never read the script, and later placed the entire blame on Director William F. Claxton, a veteran of anonymous westerns and television episodes (including the immortal “Love, American Style”). Unsurprisingly, Claxton never made another theatrical film after this ( the same fate met first and last time screenwriter Don Holliday).

Still from Night of the Lepus (1972)As mind-numbing and unfathomable as it may seem, Claxton and the cast and crew play it straight, despite Saber-toothed domestic bunnies, grown men dressed as a Jason Vorhees version of a Chuck Jones toon, and lotza red corn syrup. Predictably, the four legged critters are the only ones who seem to get it, being clearly annoyed by the FX hacks squirting dyed molasses into their eyes.

There is a degree of charm to be found in something so ludicrous being made by such a large, clueless team. Unfortunately, there is no Vincent Price as Irontail to save it from being a crashing bore. The plot is based on the standard Hollywood idea of atomic mutation. A pair of scientists (Whitman and a bell-bottomed Leigh) are solicited by Calhoun. Apparently,  Roger and Jessica Rabbit have been working overtime between the lettuce leafs. Calhoun is sick and tired “of them critters raiding my carrot patch.” Instead of calling Elmer Fudd, the scientists, with help from “Bones,” experiment with harmones! Their daughter (a good argument for birth control) releases the herd of photographically blown-up hares running in slow mo and…Strange things begin to happen at the Arizona Ranch indeed when “COTTONTAIL CANNIBALS” go a-stampeding. Outlining the plot further would only waste precious time.

It is not the yawn-inducing, pedestrian story, but rather the astoundingly slipshod execution (including woefully amateurish editing by John McSweeney) that makes it a movie that can only go well with store bought cardboard pizza. If only this film could have had a director and studio with a taste for rabbit pellets. One can only image what Ed Wood, , or could have done with this. Even more unforgivable than the film itself is the “special edition” DVD, which excised a classic scene of a victim engaged in a bit of sumo wrestling with an extra dressed in Ralphie’s Christmas suit.

The quoted dialogue in the opening above is delivered by a deputy sheriff to a crowd at the drive-in cinema watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon. No one is surprised.

The only authentic surprise is the amount of gore: multifarious scenes of severed limbs doused in gallons of tinted Aunt Jemima and extreme close ups of old Peter Cottontail munching away (but it ain’t marshmallow stuck in his teeth).

Actually, Night of the Lepus is probably better suited for Easter than Halloween viewing. It could potentially enliven that hopelessly dull holiday far more than any of those sanctimonious Bible pics always being shown while all the rugrats are out looking for eggs (after the obligatory once-a-year church service). Predictably, Lepus wound up as a so-bad-it’s-good list perennial. While I could think of far better candidates (like any of the Friday the 13th movies), it at least established a slightly hipper tradition.

Capsules

LIST CANDIDATE: THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (1980)

The Ninth Configuration has been promoted onto the List of the 366 Weirdest Movies of All Time. Please post any comments on the official Certified Weird entry. This post is closed to comments.

AKA Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane

Recommended

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Scott Wilson

PLOT: A U.S. Marines psychiatrist is assigned to an experimental program in a castle housing soldiers who are suffering delusions; he bonds with a militantly atheist and misanthropic astronaut, but harbors a deep secret of his own.

The Ninth Configuration

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: Obsession is fertile soil for a weird movie. The Ninth Configuration is a movie set in a madhouse that sets out to do nothing less than to prove the existence of God; it doesn’t, naturally, but the ambition involved makes for some strange choices, and invokes a passion that carries the story over some rough patches.

COMMENTS: The Ninth Configuration posits that a world without God is a madhouse. An unexplained epidemic of apparent insanity strikes Vietnam War vets and other military types, including a NASA astronaut who’s now afraid to go to the Moon. The suspected malingerers are sent, naturally, to a castle in the Pacific Northwest, where they await the arrival of one Colonel Kane, a military psychiatrist with some odd ideas of his own. By the end of the film, Kane’s unorthodox therapeutic methods involve the inmates putting on a Shakespeare play cast entirely with dogs, roleplaying that they are prisoners of war and the hospital staff Nazi concentration camp officers, and inexplicably flying through the castle corridors in a jet pack. In other words, it’s sort of a wacky combination of M*A*S*H* and the early reels of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with a touch of Spellbound (a movie which is explicitly referenced—whether as a hint or a red herring, you’ll have to watch to find out).

That outline makes Configuration sound like an anti-authoritarian satire—which it is, at times. The main point of departure is that the comedy is tinged with a very melancholy performance from a world-weary Stacy Keach, and the characters argue a lot about the existence of God. The movie itself is, in fact, more schizophrenic than its Corporal Kliner-esque caricature patients, bouncing around from mood to mood and finding time to shoehorn in a hallucination where the astronaut encounters a crucifixion on the Moon and a barroom brawl that pits a single Marine against a motorcycle gang. The origin of the plague of mental illness is never explained, although we can presume it’s a metaphor for the situation of men who have lost faith in something larger than themselves.

It’s no spoiler to point out that the argument that Blatty advances for God’s existence here is that a seed of universal love can be the only explanation for a man taking the irrational action of sacrificing his life for his fellow men. It seems to me that there is a fatal logical paradox with this argument from altruism, however. If someone wants to commit a selfless act—say, to quiet their own doubts, or assuage their own guilt—then by definition, the act will not be selfless. In his defense, I don’t think Blatty is naive enough to suggest that he has discovered the magic bullet proof of God’s existence with The Ninth Configuration; he merely finds that the existence of altruistic love suggests and supports the idea of a created universe. Whether you agree or not, you have to admit it’s the kind of subject that doesn’t get addressed often in movies, even weird ones. As the work of a passionate first time director shooting for the moon, The Ninth Configuration is recommended, but more for what it attempts than for what it achieves.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“I’ve got a weakness for a certain kind of wacky personal filmmaking—movies… that aren’t ‘well made’ by any standard but clearly mean so much to their creators that all aesthetic rules crumble in the face of their bizarre, unaccountable intensity. William Peter Blatty’s The Ninth Configuration may be a classic of this peculiar genre…”–Dave Kehr, The Chicago Reader

(This movie was nominated for review by Kat, who said that there was an “atmosphere of overwrought emotion and barely concealed hysteria about the whole thing that left me feeling a bit creeped out.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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