Miscellanea

WEIRD HORIZON FOR THE WEEK OF 9/28/2012

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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.

IN THEATERS (LIMITED RELEASE):

The Yakuza and the Mermaid (2010): The story of a writer who meets a mysterious woman who brings the characters in his story—a yakuza and a mermaid, natch—to life. Opening at Cinema Village in NYC. The Yakuza and the Mermaid Facebook page.

FILM FESTIVALS (Sitges Film Festival, Oct. 4-14, Sitges, Spain):

Sitges is a huge (more than 100 films) European festival focusing on genre films (mainly science fiction, horror and fantasy). Because it’s held at the tail end of the festival season, many of the films featured here have previously played at Cannes or other venues or are even out on DVD here in the States. We’ve even reviewed some already: Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Cabin in the Woods, Caterpillar, Keyhole. Still, there are plenty of intriguing movies that are either new or that have somehow escaped our notice until now. Here’s what we’ll be looking out for:

  • American Mary – A medical student makes extra money by performing dangerous, illegal body modification surgeries. Screening Oct. 4 & 6.
  • Barcelonorra – A sick anthology film containing ten sexually perverse stories set in Barcelona. Dates unknown.
  • Blue Bird – Two African children go searching for their lost pet bird and encounter ghosts and spirits along the way; the entire movie is tinted blue. Oct. 11.
  • The Expanse of Heaven [La extensión del cielo] – Six random people become subjects of a survival experiment in the desert in a film the festival programmers compare to the works of Alejandro Jodorowsky. Oct 12.
  • El fantástico mundo de Juan Orol  – Biopic of director Juan Orol, who was known for his gangster films with negligible budgets and incomprehensible plots and was something like the Ed Wood of Mexico. Very few of Orol’s movies have been translated into English, so we’re doubtful this tribute will ever reach these shores, either. Oct. 10.
  • Junkie – Fantastical allegory about two heroin addicts living in a mansion; one of them decides to quit junk, but his buddy isn’t about to let his pal go straight without a fight. Debuting at Sitges. Oct. 5.
  • The Legend of Kaspar Hauser [La leggenda di Kaspar Hauser] – Not to be confused with ‘s The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, this surrealistic take on the Hauser story involves UFOs and industrial dance music. Oct 11.
  • Rape Zombie: Lust of the Dead – What modern film festival would be complete without a tasteless, gory B-movie spoof from the Japanese? This one is from the director of Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl. Dates unknown.

Sitges Film Festival homepage.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Anomalisa (est. 2013): A 40 minute stop-motion animated film penned by weird screenwriting icon . No word on the plot except that it involves “a man crippled by the mundanity of his life.” This Kickstarter-based, crowdfunded project is not only fully funded, it actually doubled its pledge goal—Charlie does have his fans. Anomalisa Kickstarter page.

NEW ON DVD:

“American Horror Story: The Complete First Season” (2011): An FX network cable series about a family that moves into a haunted house and slowly uncovers the secrets of the spirits therein. We wouldn’t have even noticed this one if not for a couple of the review titles on the Amazon page: “weird, warped, wacky,” and “weird, creapy [sic], scary.” Maybe we should tune in? Buy “American Horror Story: The Complete First Season”.

Blood Tea and Red String (2006): Read the Certified Weird entry! It appears that Cinema Epoch’s rights to this dark animated fairy tale have reverted back to author/director/one-woman-show Christiane Cegavske, who is putting the recently out-of-print bizarro classic out on a region free DV-R. It’s also available for online purchase or rental. Buy Blood Tea and Red String.

Damsels in Distress (2011): Comedy/satire about a clique of women at a chic East Coast university who make it a point to “improve” the lives of their fellow students, sometimes through musical numbers. From Whit Stillman (Metropolitan), whose previous work was urbane and clever but defiantly unweird; the press release, however, describes this departure as “distinctly offbeat, even manic,” “often-surreal,” and “delightfully weird.” Buy Damsels in Distress.

Eating Raoul (1982): A bland and prudish suburban couple stumble upon a way to raise money for their dream of opening a restaurant: they advertise themselves as swingers and knock off the perverts who answer their ads. As an excellent bonus to this cult black comedy, the disc includes director ‘s seldom seen early shorts The Secret Cinema and Naughty Nurse. We’re glad to see the Criterion Collection is finally acknowledging Bartel’s genius, and look forward to their deluxe edition of Lust in the Dust. Buy Eating Raoul (Criterion Collection).

FDR: American Badass (2012): Franklin Delano Roosevelt fights Nazi werewolves from his wheelchair. Next up in the Presidential action fantasy sweepstakes: Herbert Hoover: The Shark-Hunting Years (2013). Buy FDR: American Badass.

The Game (1997): A disconnected loner banker (Michael Douglas) accepts an invitation from his profligate brother (Sean Penn) to participate in a mysterious live-action game in this mindbender made by David Fincher between his hits Se7en and Fight Club. Another unexpected pickup by the Criterion Collection. Buy The Game (Criterion Collection).

The Letter (2012): A playwright cracks under the stress and has a hallucinatory breakdown on opening night. Not only does it borrow Black Swan‘s plot, it also helps itself to one of that movie’s stars (Winona Ryder). Buy The Letter.

Pig (1999)/1334 (2012): Pig was a 1999 punk short about a man who hallucinates to escape the pain as he’s being tortured by a man in a pig mask. 1334 appears to be a followup involving the same man in Hell. Buy Pig/1334.

Post-Mortem (2010): A serial killer befriends a suicidal teen, who descends into madness. This is the third part of a trilogy of films (previous entries were Head Case and The Ritual) that describes itself as a “surrealistic nightmare,” but what really caught our eye was the brings-back-b-movie-memories casting of Robert Z’dar and Brinke Stevens. Buy Post-Mortem.

“Six Weird-Noir B-Movies”: We’re trusting the titling here, although we suspect these six incredibly obscure 50s and 60s noirs are more sleazy and incompetent than weird. The unearthed films are Girl on the Run (1953), The Naked Road (1959), The 7th Commandment (1961), Fear No More (1961), Fallguy (1962) and Stark Fear (1962, with Beverly Garland). Buy “Six Weird-Noir B-Movies” .

The Tall Man (2012): When her own son goes missing a skeptical nurse (Jessica Biel) investigates child disappearances blamed on a legendary figure called “the Tall Man.” This genre-busting entry from the director of Martyrs earned mediocre marks from both critics and audiences. Buy The Tall Man.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

“American Horror Story: The Complete First Season” (2011): See description in DVD above. Buy American Horror Story [Blu-ray].

Damsels in Distress (2011): See description in DVD above. Buy Damsels in Distress [Blu-ray].

Eating Raoul (1982): See description in DVD above. Buy Eating Raoul (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray].

The Game (1997): See description in DVD above. Buy The Game (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray].

The Tall Man (2012): See description in DVD above. Buy The Tall Man [Blu-ray].

FREE (LEGITIMATE RELEASE) MOVIES ON YOUTUBE:

Luther the Geek (1990): A carnival geek (that is, a sideshow attraction who bites the heads of live chickens) develops a homicidal streak, outfits himself with steel dentures and goes around biting the heads off people while clucking like poultry. Cheap, nasty, weirdish sleaze from the post-grindhouse era. Watch Luther the Geek 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.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

EDGAR G. ULMER’S THE MAN FROM PLANET X (1951)

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‘s The Man From Planet X (1951) was the first released movie depicting an extraterrestrial visitation. Although it was shot for peanuts, this Mid Century Films production is a lesser known cult entry in the sci-fi genre. Being the first of its kind, The Man From Plant X established many archetypes to come.

The studio wanted an exploitative film, tagging their alien invasion opus as “the weirdest visitor the earth has even seen!”  True to his nature, Ulmer instead delivered a tight little mood piece. It does have a (considerably) weird alien, but the finished film is probably not what the studio anticipated. Ulmer douses the film in glowing mist, dim lights and masterful compositions (his expressionist roots are still intact).

Professor Elliot (Raymond Bond) and his daughter, Enid (Margaret Field, mother of actress Sally Field) have set up shop in a Scottish castle to monitor UFO sightings. Journalist John Lawrence () is on hand when an alien craft lands on the moors (the ship is patterned after much in 1930s modernism).

Still from The Man from Planet X (1951)The first appearance of the E.T. is a jolter. Ulmer’s eerily mute, Bauhaus alien looks like it might have been designed by Oscar Schlemmer. It is a masterfully surreal design; a gnomelike child that is simultaneously benign, fragile, and aggressive. The alien from a dying, freezing planet pre-dates Nicolas Roeg‘s The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976).  Sci-fi fans may see the influence Planet X had on later films like Invaders From Mars (1953), War of the Worlds (1953), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), to name a few. The alien is vulnerable, falling prey to a faulty breathing apparatus, which puts him at the mercy of the quietly malevolent Dr. Mears (dependable character actor William Schallert). Human avarice rears its ugly head and reaps havoc. The alien is exploited and provoked, the military called in, and…

Plot-wise we have seen it a hundred times, but it was done first here. The main difference is that Ulmer tells his tale without bells and whistles. With the exception of Schallert, the cast is unexceptional. However, Ulmer’s protagonist (Clark) is commendably intelligent and genuinely moral.

There is no cinematic chest-beating here. With meager shells, Ulmer and company produce a film adorned in his usual themes of ambiguity and self-destruction. Stylistically, The Man From Planet X  is dreamy and understated. Perhaps too understated. Despite some beautiful shots (alien in the moors, intense close-ups) and (now) familiar elements (the alien can only communicate via musical sounds, can control minds, and plots an invasion) The Man From Planet X is a commendable, atmospheric entry in the science fiction genre, but little more. Ulmer does wonders without a budget to speak of, but is clearly hampered by the six day shooting schedule. Pacing issues are not resolved and the film has little flow.

Next Week: Ida Lupino’s noir The Hitch-Hiker (1953).

Canonically Weird (The List)

126. THE RED SQUIRREL [LA ADRILLA ROJA] (1993)

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“They are also cunning, humble and light, like flies. Liars, shy but strategic, sinuous, and very capable of weaving clever plots behind men’s backs.”–TV commentator describing red squirrels in a dream in The Red Squirrel

Recommended

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Nancho Novo, Emma Suárez, Carmelo Gómez

PLOT: A despondent musician is working up the courage to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge when suddenly a motorcycle crashes through the railing next to him. Going down to the beach to investigate he finds the victim is a beautiful woman who has survived the fall with no lasting damage, but is suffering from amnesia. He convinces her that they are lovers and takes her to a campground to continue the charade; but does she have a secret past that may come back to haunt them both?

Still from The Red Squirrel [La Ardilla Roja] (1993)

BACKGROUND:

  • The Red Squirrel played out-of-competition in Cannes, but won the “Award of the Youth” (an award given by jurors who are 18-23 years old).
  • Stanley Kubrick was an admirer of the film and, according to rumor, recommended Medem to Stephen Spielberg to direct The Mask of Zorro; Medem rejected the opportunity.
  • The Red Squirrel did not find a theatrical distributor in North America, and might have remained nearly unknown if the arthouse successes of Lovers of the Arctic Circle and Sex and Lucia hadn’t sparked interest in Medem’s earlier movies. The film was released on VHS in the US, but although it was released in Europe it did not appear on Region 1 DVD until 2012.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: We won’t reveal the precise moment we’ve selected as The Red Squirrel‘s indelible image, because we think it will hit you harder if it comes as a surprise. We will say that it takes place in a dream confrontation on a barren windswept plain, and point out that we love it because it’s representative of the way that Medem builds up an almost unbearable tension, then breaks it with the unexpected interjection of absurd comedy.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: With its tragically creepy protagonist seeking to recreate a woman who may not be what she seems into his idealized love, The Red Squirrel plays like a postmodern Spanish version of Vertigo, only with obscure portents of squirrelly doom and comically absurd dream sequences.


Brief clip from The Red Squirrel

COMMENTS: Obsession is always a promising starting place for a movie plot; so is mystery. If Continue reading 126. THE RED SQUIRREL [LA ADRILLA ROJA] (1993) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: THE CORRIDOR (2010)

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DIRECTED BY: Evan Kelly

FEATURING: Stephen Chambers, David Patrick Flemming, James Gilbert, Glen Matthews, Matthew Amyotte

PLOT: A young man is released from a psychiatric hospital and invites his childhood buddies for a weekend in a cabin in the woods to commemorate his mother’s passing.

Still from The Corridor (2010)


WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The Corridor leads to a weirdly horrific place, but the word that comes to mind when thinking of it is “solid.” Watching it won’t waste your time if your tastes run towards the uncanny, but it doesn’t belong on any “best of all time” lists.

COMMENTS: A lot of bizarre things happen in The Corridor, but the strangest of all may be when mad Tyler, who stabbed his friend Everett in the hand during a psychotic break after his mother’s apparent suicide, is released from the mental hospital and invites his victim and three other friends to a snowbound cabin in the middle of nowhere for a memorial service for the deceased woman—and they accept. If you buy that, you’ll probably have no problem accepting the notion of a mystical corridor with rippling aurora borealis style walls that descends over the forest and grants a muddled omnipotence to anyone who enters it. The convention of the “cabin” genre is to isolate a small core of actors in the titular location and allow them to party and grate on one another’s nerves for thirty minutes before the carnage starts. Usually, the victims are quickly sketched stereotypes (or archetypes, as The Cabin in the Woods would have it), and here, too, we get the expected division between the social haves and have-nots: the jock and the jerk musician are the cool kids, picking on the brain and the dweeb, with the “nice guy” running interference between the two camps. The Corridor‘s characters, however, are a more grown-up gang of cabin fodder—rather than typical teens just trying to get laid and get blotto, they’re dealing with adult problems like stalled careers, starting a family, and the onset of male pattern baldness. The age shift results in richer dramatic context; the characters are better rounded, with more at stake and deeper histories that make the pranks and jibes they throw at each other reverberate with buried resentments. The opening is drawn well enough that you shouldn’t mind that the movie takes its time setting up the dynamic between the five men before beginning its descent into madness. When Tyler discovers the mystical hallway in the woods and starts seeing visions of his dead mother, the question arises: is his sanity backsliding because his meds are mixing badly with the booze his pals slipped into his juice, or are the voices he’s hearing really emissaries from another world? Don’t expect any unambiguous answers from the determinedly weird third act, where the Corridor grants those who stand within its halls strange powers, like synchronized nosebleeds, super hearing, and, most memorably, unsurpassed skill at rock-paper-scissors. The blood starts to flow and the script pulls a sanity switcheroo or two as the pace accelerates on the way to a reality-busting finale. On the whole The Corridor is a well written and acted affair that delivers a satisfying wallop of schizoid horror, and benefits from a low-to-mid budget that forces it to substitute psychological depth and narrative invention for special effects.

The Corridor is one of those movies that so far has divided audiences and critics. Festival reviewers were almost universally positive, contributing to IFC’s decision to pick up the film for its “Midnight” line of smart horror. Fright flick fans, on the other hand, showed a tepid reception to the film, perhaps because they were hoping for something with a little more gore and a lot less confusion from a “cabin” movie.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“There is a bit of Donnie Darko here and a bit of Stephen King – but more than anything there is a solid character based thriller that leaves you feeling pretty damn satisfied.”–Ryan Aldrich, Twitch (contemporaneous)

Capsules

CAPSULE: THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1988)

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DIRECTED BY: Terry Gilliam

FEATURING: , , , , Oliver Reed, , , ,

PLOT: As a medieval European city prepares for invasion from a mysterious Sultan, a local theater troupe stages a play about the legendary fabulist Baron Munchausen. Midway into the show, an elderly audience member (Neville) proclaims that the play is all lies and he, the real Munchausen, will explain why. The story that  follows jumps back and forth between fantasy and reality, and flirts with time travel.

Still from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: Despite being directed by the weird and wonderful Terry Gilliam, responsible for one baroque fantasy film after another–Twelve Monkeys, The Brothers Grimm, The Fisher King, etc.–The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is wonderful, but not all that weird, at least not for a fantasy film. Like The Wizard of Oz, not every cinematic flight of fancy is necessarily bizarre.

COMMENTS: The hugely expensive Baron Munchausen, which despite being given a very limited theatrical release by its studio (Columbia) and subsequently becoming one of the biggest box-office flops of all time, received critical raves upon its initial release, went on to find the audience it deserved on VHS and DVD. This visually stunning fantasia, like all Gilliam films, is about the line separating fantasy and reality, and—SPOILER ALERT—unlike Gilliam’s much-loved Brazil and Time Bandits, Munchausen manages to pull a surprise happy ending out of its hat at the last moment, which really makes one think this could have been a hit if Columbia had given it a chance. Munchausen is an admittedly episodic adventure that is at times unwieldy and over-the-top, but only in the sense that every penny of its then gigantic $46 million budget is up on the screen. The director’s usual visual invention is complemented by his legendary sense of humor, and by stellar performances all around. Of particular note is Williams’ out-of-control King of the Moon, Reed’s hot-tempered Vulcan, and an 18-year-old Thurman ideally cast as Venus on the half shell (previously the subject of a memorable “Monty Python” animation by Gilliam). The PG-rated Munchausen is a much more family-friendly, accessible and upbeat fantasy than Brazil and makes a fine companion piece to Time Bandits. The movie is such fun that there are little to no on-screen signs that the film was a notoriously troubled production. Any epic picture is undoubtedly difficult to make, but the legendary problems affecting Munchausen are thoroughly and entertainingly explained on the DVD’s 70-minute “behind the scenes” documentary. Also on the DVD is an enlightening commentary with Gilliam and actor/co-writer Charles McKeown, storyboards, a handful of deleted scenes, and, on the Blu-ray, an on-screen “Trivia Track.” The film itself looks and sounds just fine.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“..the movie’s overall movement often seems closer to that of a boiling cauldron than to any logical progression. But this wild spectacle has an energy, a wealth of invention, and an intensity that for my money still puts most of the streamlined romps of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to shame..”–Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader (contemporaneous)

Celebrating the cinematically surreal, bizarre, cult, oddball, fantastique, strange, psychedelic, and the just plain WEIRD!