Capsules

CAPSULE: THE HOUSE OF LAST THINGS (2013)

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DIRECTED BY: Michael Bartlett

FEATURING: , Blake Berris, Micah Nelson, RJ Mitte, Randy Schulman, Diane Dalton

PLOT: A housesitter, her criminal boyfriend, and her slow brother watch the house of a classical music critic and his depressed wife while the couple vacations in Italy; strange things happen.

Still from House of Last Things (2013)
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It’s a competent psychological horror that provides some weird titillation, but doesn’t go far enough to become a masterpiece.

COMMENTS:The opening montage, featuring a golf game between a pipe-smoking, tweed-wearing representative of the 1950s leisure class and a soldier with a nosebleed, seems to have little to do with the rest of the story of House of Last Things. You will see other golf balls, along with apples, balloons, blood drops, and jesters, however, as the movie juggles a collection of recurring images which initially bewilder, but eventually fall into place. The three main characters, one invited and two squatting, exhibit an equally strange range of behavior as they settle into this ordinary suburban home. Jesse may be a jerk and a small-time crook, but what possesses him to suddenly abduct a small child from a parking lot on a whim? Unexplained occurrences contribute to the unhinged atmosphere. In Italy, a harlequin accosts the vacationing critic. Back home, an army of balloons attack a real estate agent. An apple has an unusual core. For most of the film, confusion reigns, although nearly everything is sorted out by the end.

As hot housesitter Kelly, Lindsey Haun shows more depth than her scream queen résumé might suggest; she’s likable despite her character’s almost inexplicably bad taste in men. As the primary object of her character flaw, Blake Berris ably plays the repulsively suave boyfriend as the kind of douchebag you would expect to see offed early in a slasher movie to cheers from the audience (this movie has other plans for him, however). While the two main leads are effective, the rest of the cast is mostly competent, although kid actor Micah Nelson is good enough considering his age and has a deliberate Danny Torrance quality, right down to his haircut and halting delivery. The script wisely avoids the need for elaborate special effects, building unease instead from confusing sequences and recurring symbols. The visual quality is professional, crisp video and simple camerawork, on the level of an accomplished TV movie. The original music, credited to Alessandro Ponti and Andrew Poole Todd, is above average; the quietly menacing themes add mysterious gravity to the somewhat commonplace imagery. Overall, House of Last Things is a budget mindbender that at times gets a little ambitious for its britches, but still rates as 90 minutes of relatively pleasant confusion and resolution. Among straight-to-streaming horrors, it’s a decent spur-of-the-moment pick for weird fans.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…charts its many twisting paths through dreamscapes and nightmares. Characters, at first, act in irrational and manic ways… the feverish deluge of mesmerizing images that make up House Of Last Things take us further and further down a rabbit hole we’re only too happy to lose ourselves in.”–Ben Umstead, Twitch (festival screening)

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: CULT OF THE DAMNED [AKA ANGEL, ANGEL, DOWN WE GO] (1969)

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DIRECTED BY: Robert Thom

FEATURING: , Holly Near, Jordan Christopher, Charles Aidman, Lou Rawls, Davey Davison,
PLOT:  The travails of Beverly Hills-born Tara Nicole Steele, whose mother is a famous film star still trying to remain in the spotlight and whose father (Charles Aidman) is a closeted homosexual. When she returns home for her debutante party, she falls under the influence of a charismatic rock singer and his band mates, and the influence spreads to the entire household.

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: One of the lesser known products of the culture clash of the Psychedelic 60’s with Old Hollywood, Angel is a sweaty Tennessee Williams fever dream/soap opera on acid, and would make a decent double bill with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls—and give it a run for its money.

COMMENTS: There’s just no description for Angel, Angel, Down We Go, other than to call it another raw look into the (twisted) brain of Robert Thom, writer of Wild in the Streets, Death Race 2000, and The Witch Who Came from the Sea, among others. Angel is the one time that Thom was in the director’s chair, having direct control over his material.

Angel was soundly flogged by critics and ignored by the general public when first released in August 1969, but when the Manson Family made their debut at roughly the same time, the film was given a second go-around under a different title, Cult of the Damned, in hopes that audiences would flock to the carny show. Audiences didn’t, critics still flogged the film, and it fell into obscurity, not even getting a home video release until February 2015. There were some satellite-TV screenings in the 80’s and on Showtime, and it streamed on Netflix (often getting confused with Guyana: Cult of the Damned). The movie gained a small cult of devotees who managed to catch the rare screening or who saw it during its initial run. While the title Cult of the Damned hints at lurid Mansonesque goings-on in upscale Beverly Hills, there is no cathartic massacre of demented hippies tearing down the social order at the end of the film. The original Angel title is more in line with the film’s tone, which is violent, but is mainly emotional/intellectual violence.

Angel would seem to be part of that slew of films made in the late 60’s where Old Hollywood, trying to stay relevant to audiences, collided, J.G. Ballard-style, with the New Counterculture (Valley of the Dolls, The Big Cube, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Myra Breckenridge). It also partakes of the subgenre where a charismatic individual wreaks havoc on a ‘normal’ family (Teorema). It even goes further by actively incorporating aspects of avant-garde/underground film and theater, further exaggerating the camp of Hollywood melodrama. Imagine if some studio had hired to do a narrative feature film.

According to Paul Green’s “Jennifer Jones: The Life and Films,” Angel originally derived from a 1961 play of Robert Thom’s, repurposed as “A far out version of The Green Hat kind of play about a wild girl heading for destruction… a present day type of F. Scott Fitzgerald heroine.” That fits with reading the film as a demented fever dream of its main character/unreliable narrator, Tara Steele (Holly Near): child of neglectful parents and victim of emotional (and quite possibly, sexual) abuse, whose psychology is visualized via a Robert Rauschenberg/Martha Colburn type of collage created by artist Shirley Kaplan.

One can go on about the flaws of this film—and many have—but the main flaw is oddly the thing which makes it fascinating. Angel is overstuffed with themes which occur throughout Thom’s work: the fascination/repulsion with Old Hollywood (The Legend of Lylah Clare, The Phantom of Hollywood), the jaundiced look at the youth culture (Wild in the Streets), the effects of emotional and sexual abuse (The Witch Who Came from the Sea). It’s as though he decided to put in as much as he possibly could, since he was finally directing. The film never registers as being out of control, however; Thom’s direction is very deliberate and he gets excellent performances from the cast.

Recently released on Blu-Ray by Scorpion Releasing/Kino-Lorber (under the Cult of the Damned title), the film has an excellent presentation for home video, including a very informative and insightful commentary by film historians Nathaniel Thompson (from Mondo Digital) and Tim Greer. One quibble is the lack of subtitles;  the film is very dialog-heavy, with a lot of melodramatic word play that you might miss the first time. Subs would definitely help follow the theatrical dialog.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Confusion reigns in this sick film about Hollywood decadence.”–TV Guide

Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 4/17/2015

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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 on the official site links.

FILM FESTIVALS – Tribeca Film Festival (New York City, Apr. 15-26):

With more arthouse, revival and first run theaters per capita than anyplace in the world, every day in New York City is like a film festival, so Tribeca as an event is almost redundant. Still, there are some fine movies making their North American debuts here. We noticed nothing that struck us as a weird movie must-see, but here are some interestingly offbeat films we spotted in the catalog:

  • Aloft – A son searches for his mother, who abandoned the family to become a New Age healer, in a drama described as “dreamlike.” Screens on the 24th & 25th.
  • Come Down Molly – A new mother takes psychedelic mushrooms on vacation in the Rockies. See it Apr 18, 23 or 25.
  • Lucifer – The devil climbs down from a ladder and lands in a paradisaical Mexican peasant village; filmed in a circular aspect ratio. Screens from 21-24.
  • Mojave – A depressed artist wanders into the desert where he meets a strange, violent drifter who claims to be the Devil. Plays the 18th, 19th, 22nd & 24th.
  • “Monty Python” – Four Python events in the festival: screenings of The Holy Grail (4/24), Life of Brian (4/25), The Meaning of Life (4/26), and the new comic-umentary Monty Python and the Meaning of Live (4/25).

Tribeca Film Festival official site.

NEW ON DVD:

All the Devils Aliens [AKA Devils in the Darkness] (2013): This low-budget feature about a med student discovering a baby alien was re-titled to be grammatically incorrect. An IMDB reviewer described it as “a bizarre piece of surreal melodrama.” Buy All the Devils Aliens.

Maps to the Stars (2015): Read Alex Kittle’s review. ‘s Hollywood satire could have been weirder but it’s fun to see a cast that includes , Julianne Moore, John Cusak, and acting nasty. Buy Maps to the Stars.

The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989): See description in Blu-ray below.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Goodbye to Language [Adieu au Langage] (2014): The latest from  , now in his mid 80s, is shot in 3D and features nude women, dogs, philosophical discourses, and experimental visuals. Comes in a Blu-ray/Blu-ray 3D (for those with that rare capability) double pack (no DVD available that we could see). Buy Goodbye to Language [Blu-ray/3D Blu-ray].

Maps to the Stars (2015): See description in DVD above. Buy Maps to the Stars [Blu-ray].

The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989): Read our review. This combo pack with a spare DVD is (we believe) the first time Toxie’s trip to Tokyo has appeared on Blu-ray. Buy The Toxic Avenger Part II [Blu-ray/DVD Combo].

Zardoz (1974): Read the certified weird entry! Not sold in stores! Specialty releaser Twilight Time puts out a limited-edition Blu of ‘s bonkers “-in-a-red-diaper” sci-fi klassick. Only 5,000 will be printed and it’s only available directly from Screen Archives. Buy Zardoz [Limited edition 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

READER POLL FOR ALFRED EAKER VS. THE SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS: THE CANDIDATES

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With summer just around the corner, it is time for the 366 reader base to vote on which four summer blockbusters to send me to review. The candidates below are listed in order of release. Be sure to view the entire post; you will vote at the end.

Poster for Avengers: Age of UltronThe Avengers: Age of Ultron: Director Joss Whedon has a sense of style, produced the cult fave “Firefly,” and is good at managing an ensemble cast. Of course, it’s going to have , who should be playing all the men in-tights characters (but obviously cannot). The best moments in this film’s predecessor were in its first third, before it began wallowing in its excesses, descending into an out-of-control -styled assault on the senses with floating July 4th black snake thingies chasing people in the streets amidst falling glass. I dread the idea of even one man-in-tights saga, let alone a whole cast full of them.

Mad Max: Fury Road: Director sacked the fascistic , which is a promising start. However, Miller’s last Max entry was thirty years ago. Since then, his work has been confined to kiddie fare. Additionally, this film has been described as one long chase scene, as if we needed more of that.

Tomorrowland has a first rate ensemble cast and an equally first rate director in Brad Bird (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and The Iron Giant). This may be the most promising of the summer entries.

Pitch Perfect 2: Features a first time director in Elizabeth Banks, although she did produce the 2012 original, which I have not seen. Although the original garnered some good reviews, the trailer to the sequel looks like a hopelessly adolescent film filled with people all too easy to hate. Unless the film surprises, this may be the nadir of summer releases.

Spy looks almost equally unbearable and obvious. Director Paul Feig was a critical darling with Bridesmaids (2011), but that might prove his one-hit wonder. The Heat (2013) was by the numbers. It starred the female Adam Sandler: Melissa McCarthy. McCarthy, who also was in the insufferable Tammy (2014), returns to collaborate with Fieg.

San Andreas: A disaster film from perennial hack Brad Peyton (Journey 2: Mysterious Island and Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore) starring monosyllabic Dwayne Johnson, who makes  look like a sensitive intellectual actor with range. Has the disaster genre really gone anywhere new since the Towering Inferno (1974)? At least in the Irwin Allen days, one got to see “A” stars burst into flames.

Jurassic World: A third-rate rehash of a film that was not very good to begin with. The plot sounds almost identical to the 1993 Spielberg Continue reading READER POLL FOR ALFRED EAKER VS. THE SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS: THE CANDIDATES →

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