Tag Archives: 1990

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, Shorts

THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: “HEN, HIS WIFE” (1990) / “PÂTÉ” (2001)

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The penny drops. The scales fall from the eyes. The curtain is pulled back. In any deception, there comes that moment when the delusion must be abandoned and the consequences of prevarication must finally be faced. Today we visit a pair of short films that live in that pivotal moment, and we find that exposing one truth can sometime bring another even darker truth to the surface.

The couple in Igor Kovalyov’s “Hen, His Wife” has a secret, although neither partner seems to know it. They seem quite settled and content: the wife runs about the house, cooking and cleaning, tending to their pet giant human-headed tardigrade, and generally seeing to all her blue-faced husband’s needs while he sits slumped in an easy chair. Not a well-balanced relationship, to be sure, but everyone seems quite happy. So it’s quite a spanner in the works when a traveling salesman drops by and, in the course of making his pitch to the sedentary man, feels compelled to whisper the awful truth: the wife is actually an enormous chicken. And wouldn’t you know, it’s kind of obvious when you actually stop and look at her. Evidently, the husband never has, and he suffers a complete meltdown, throwing her out and plunging into an emotional doom spiral. Why, the whole thing is enough to make him forget about the ladybugs crawling all over his face.

Kovalyov’s figures are uniformly grotesque, with misshapen features, huge folds of undulating skin, and unnatural colors. (It turns out to have been perfect training for his later role as co-director of The Rugrats Movie.) In that context, a 6-foot tall hen doesn’t seem such a bad thing to be, and she certainly isn’t the weirdest thing in the apartment. There’s a bitter humor in the way the husband views this whole situation as a terrible betrayal, even though there seems to have been no attempt whatsoever at concealment. That this of all things would be the breaking point is an intriguing conundrum.

It’s reasonable to view “Hen, His Wife” as an unsubtle metaphor for bigotry, as the husband’s outsized reaction would feel just as harsh if she had been outed as Jewish or an escaped criminal or a fan of Nickelback. Indeed, the salesman doesn’t so much leave as vanish in a puff of smoke, like a pernicious rumor. That might be too much to put on the shoulders of this slight, one-joke cartoon. That said, the wife’s return to see the fate of her beloved husband is authentically sad, and reminds us that love might conquer all, but only if we let it.

The truth in “Pâté” is obvious to anyone who cares to see it: the world is destroyed. That much is clear to children Otto and Vera ((Ty Arnold and Samantha Browne-Walters), who are dispatched into the wasteland wearing adult-sized environmental suits to harvest cockroaches as the only available food source. Unfortunately for them, their deeply damaged mother (Jane Culley) is living in a fantastical past where she remains the belle of the ball in costumes borrowed from a Jean-Pierre Jeunet production. Her selfishness is such that she will do anything to win the favor of the only man left alive. She’ll genuflect, she’ll dance, and if there aren’t any cockroaches left to serve for dinner, something else—or someone else—will have to do.

“Pâté” is an accomplished student film, with excellent production values and a well-earned sense of dread. (The short earned attention at Sundance, proving to be the calling card that earned director Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo her sole feature credit, the psychological horror film After.Life.) It doesn’t really rise above its premise, though. For a film set in a future apocalyptic wasteland, there’s surprisingly little satire in “Pâté.” It’s about the dark twist that is foreshadowed early on, but even if you don’t discern where the story will be going (as the quietly grim Otto surely does), you’ll be waiting for that shoe to drop. The vibe is that of a particularly baroque episode of “Tales From the Crypt.” Still, it’s hard to deny that a story about adults reveling in their ill-gotten luxuries while handing the consequences of their sins to their children retains its cultural relevance. You just have to take that walk yourself.

Like the stubborn bigotry of the hen’s husband, the Mother’s selfish complicity in the ongoing cruelty of the world is troubling to behold. The state of denial will always be a suitable subject for drama, because a truth delayed is never a truth dispatched. It will always be waiting to surface, to pay back the damage with interest.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Hen, His Wife”: “This 13-minute animation, while engaging, is disquieting enough that one looks forward to its end even as one remains transfixed by what transpires. We would not advise watching it on acid, for though beautifully drawn and narratively intriguing, it is also queerly disturbing on the visual, emotional, and intellectual levels.” – Abraham, A Wasted Life

“Pâté”: “…a visual tour de force with its no-budget evocation of a once opulent future world.” – Scott Macaulay, Filmmaker Magazine

(“Hen, His Wife” was nominated for review by Jenn; “Paté” was nominated for review by Eric Smith. Suggest a weird movie or two of your own here.)

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: FRANKENHOOKER (1990)

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DIRECTED BY: Frank Henenlotter

FEATURING: , Patty Mullen, Joseph Gonzalez, Shirley Stoler,

PLOT: When sweet Elizabeth dies in a terrible lawnmower accident, her grieving fiancé—power plant technician and amateur scientist Jeffrey Franken—sets out to restore her to life by assembling a new body made from the parts of prostitutes he kills with a new explosive strain of crack cocaine. 

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: If ever there were a film that could make our list just by wishing for it really hard, Frankenhooker is that film. Starting with the decent-enough premise to set Mary Shelley’s classic tale in the waning days of Times Square grunginess, it piles on characters who soar well past cartoonishness, ladles on strange behaviors and absurd reactions, and tops it off with enough coarse sexuality and Guignol-lite gore to make the whole confection gleefully repellent. It knows what it is, and it revels in it.

Still from Frankenhooker (1990)

COMMENTS: Frankenhooker makes me regret that we’ve never created a tag called “On-the-nose Titles.” We’ve talked before about movies where the title does the heavy lifting, and this is one such film. A Frankenstein’s monster made from hookers. Why even bother with a synopsis?

If you were to subject Frankenhooker’s screenplay to intense analysis, you’d find very little at its core. It’s not a one-joke movie, but probably no more than five: the Frankenstein myth set in New Jersey, the mad doctor is an overachieving electrician, his creation is built out of random hooker parts, the Bride is a murderous sex-starved brute, and New York City prostitutes react to crack like desperate parents at a Walmart on Black Friday. Fortunately, those jokes are merely the foundation for what Frankenhooker is really about: silly stereotypes and outrageous gore.  These are things that Frank Henenlotter knows how to deliver, and he doesn’t hold back.

The film has to overcome a significant demerit in the form of our hero himself. Lorinz is a black hole: even when he’s drilling a hole in his own head for a little light trepanning, he has the bland, conventional good looks of Andrew McCarthy and the placid demeanor of a low-energy standup comic. (His voice suggests teaching a yoga class.) He teases a bolder character than we get, which is surprising considering he’s a mad scientist from New Jersey. His refusal to go as over-the-top as the plot that surrounds him may be the strangest thing about Frankenhooker.

Former Penthouse Pet Mullen has a better handle on the material as the unfortunate Elizabeth. Following a brief pre-accident scene in which she dials up the tropes of the bland-but-adoring fiancée, she gets to go full monster, staggering about town with her jaw awkwardly jutting to the side and demanding “Want a date?” in a shrill Jersey accent. (I tried for ages to figure out who Mullen’s demented lady of the night reminded me of until I realized it was Rapunzel from this magnificent “Sesame Street” sketch.) If anything, she inspires the rest of the ensemble to go hard, from the gum-smacking ruffian ladies of the night to thinks-with-his-fists pimp Zorro to recognizable “That Guy” David Lipman’s cameo as Monster-Elizabeth’s overenthusiastic john. In a cast where everyone but the lead is playing to the cheap seats, Mullen is a stand-out.

Not every scene is this extreme, and in fact Henenlotter almost seems to be making a bid to become the genteel Lloyd Kaufman. Long scenes of Lorinz monologuing his plans drag things out, and often the movie opts to run headlong into insanity instead of giving it a minute or two to build. However, Frankenhooker absolutely nails the landing with two separate showcases of wildly inventive craziness in the final 15 minutes: first with a grotesque revenge on behalf of the murdered hookers who have inadvertently been reassembled into hilariously awful human meatballs, and then the ultimate comeuppance for the mad doctor as a repaired Elizabeth saves the day in a most amusing manner. As much as Frankenhooker is out to deliver exactly the eyes-covered, laughing-in-shock amusement you’re expecting, the movie genuinely surpasses itself in the finale. The title may be on the nose, but the tale it tells is a refreshing punch in the groin.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“This film is…well, weird.  With a name like Frankenhooker, I suppose that you expected that.  Even beyond that though, it’s a weird, weird film. …  There’s no ‘normal’ way to do this story, but it still tries hard to be extra insane.  If you’re into the wacky side of Cinema, check this one out. It may blow your mind though..” – Alec Pridgen, Mondo Bizarro         

(This movie was nominated for review by Brian Fahrion. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)         

Frankenhooker (Blu-ray)

Frankenhooker (Blu-ray)
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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER SUGGESTED QUEUE: JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO (1990)

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Recommended

DIRECTED BY: John Patrick Shanley

FEATURING: , , ,

PLOT: A terminally-ill sales executive quits his dreary job and agrees to jump into a volcano.

Still from Joe vs. the Volcano (1990)

COMMENTS: What makes a man give up a career as a firefighter—enthusiastic, feeling good all the time, and casually courageous—to become an administrative drone at the worst factory this side of Staten Island? Apparently it’s three-hundred dollars a week. That’s small change for getting your spirit crushed eight hours a day: working under a foul-tempered boss, drinking arsenic coffee, and feeling your brain fry as you soak up the rays of droning fluorescent lights.

And what makes a man throw everything away and opt to willingly toss himself into a volcano?

This second question makes up the bulk of John Patrick Shanley’s directorial debut, Joe Versus the Volcano. (Which, for the longest time, was the famed screenwriters only directorial outing.) Shanley is at his peak picaresque powers, impressively avoiding the “cutesy trap” as he maneuvers his charming leads—and guest actors—through a well-paced, well-plotted, well-shot adventure, toward a seemingly inevitable end. Indeed, there’s so much buoyancy in the cast and tone that the semi-demi-hemi-twist of fate ends up being, in hindsight, the only viable fate for our passive hero.

Odd and awful, Hedaya steals his ten minutes as a supervisor; despite half his lines being over the telephone—and half of those lines being “I didn’t say that!” Comedy stalwart Lloyd Bridges swans in as a rogue fairy godmother, belittling Joe and his apartment before offering the improbable plot hook, just after opening a canister of salted peanuts and emptying them on the coffee table. And thrice-credited Meg Ryan delights as the three women Joe pursues (well, ends up in the vicinity of by mere happenstance…), showing a playful versatility which mirrors the trajectory of Joe’s self awareness.

Joe Versus the Volcano does more than immolate us in a firewall of charm. Joe’s job at “Parascope” (famed both for its rectal probes and impressive petroleum jelly sales) is a Dantean combination of German Expressionism and grime. The jagged pathway to the godawful factory (which mimicks Parascope’s trade logo while bringing to mind Caligarian sets) delivers us, from the start, into the blurry, grit-sheened hell of industrial living. We meet Joe here, and Joe needs must be Hanks. We need to like this loser, who has fallen from grace (or whatever echelon former-firefighters fall from). His performance is a charismatic variation of Ryan O’Neal’s turn as Barry Lyndon. But whereas O’Neal’s Lyndon was mired in a cynically reactive worldview, Hanks’ Joe is capable of awe and appreciation—which is why Shanley’s fluffy romcom works so well, and why we end up heartily rooting for Joe to overcome the looming trial-by-magma.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Gradually during the opening scenes of Joe Versus the Volcano, my heart began to quicken, until finally I realized a wondrous thing: I had not seen this movie before… Hanks and Ryan … inhabit the logic of this bizarre world and play by its rules. ” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (contemporaneous)

Joe Versus the Volcano [Blu-ray]

Joe Versus the Volcano [Blu-ray]
  • Polish Release, cover may contain Polish text/markings. The disk has English audio.
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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: I BOUGHT A VAMPIRE MOTORCYCLE (1990)

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DIRECTED BY: Dirk Campbell

FEATURING: Neil Morrissey, Amanda Noar, Michael Elphick, Anthony Daniels

PLOT: Slacker motorbike enthusiast Noddy buys a bike, discovering almost too late that evil has infused the machine.

Still from I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990)

COMMENTS: There’s something to admire about movies that get right to the point. In this respect, I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle gets off to an auspicious start: within the first 10 minutes, a Satanic priest calls out to his underworld master, a low-rent biker gang attacks the cult with a crossbow, the cult leader spills his last drops of life-sustaining blood into the tank of a 1974 Norton Commando 850, and a dullard named Noddy overpays for the damaged and now-possessed chopper as a fixer-upper for twice what he’s willing to admit. Action from the jump, with stakes in place and more conflict sure to come… and then the movie takes its foot off the gas. Comedy-horror is a perfectly legitimate mix, but I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle has a hard time getting either of the two to work on their own, let alone coalesce.

The central premise resists a 100% serious approach. After all, the title promises a vampiric motorbike, and it does not exaggerate. The demon hog goes dormant during the day, deploys a pair of piercing tubes that aim unwaveringly at a victim’s jugular, steadfastly steers away from crosses, and has an intense aversion to garlic. (It tries to kill a woman merely for ordering extra-garlicky prawns.) Sound like any undead creatures you know? But that strange notion of a murderous moped is only as successful as the ability to make you think it’s an actual (actual, actual) vampire motorcycle, and the film has absolutely no idea how to make the titular vehicle look menacing. True, the way it evolves to take on more of the characteristics of its supernatural avatars, such as the broken headlight that resembles bloody fangs or the handlebars twisted into devil horns, is somewhat amusing. But then the damnable crotch rocket moves, and the whole illusion falls apart. Even when it’s committing the most deadly atrocities (such as feeding on and then bisecting a candy striper at the hospital), it lumbers around like a lame puppet, in much the manner of a certain hellspawn earthmover I won’t name. Sure, it can spawn spikes and spinning blades whenever it needs to, but when you watch it galumphing through a gymnasium like an underpowered Rascal, it loses a lot of its menace.

If the movie can’t fully commit to its horror, it possibly overcommits to the impulse toward gross-out comedy. In the anything-for-a-joke spirit, we get poles rammed up keisters, we get once of the worst-executed bar fights in cinema history, and most importantly, we get Noddy’s Toilet Nightmare. After imagining and awakening from a terrible dream about a re-animated head, he immediately conjures up a new nightmare in which his own bowel movement first calls out to him, then leaps from the commode and tries to force its way down Noddy’s throat. So that’s a cinematic milestone achieved. For enduring such an indignity, you instinctively want to feel bad for Noddy, except that he’s a real prat. He lies, he cheats, he’s super lazy, and he repeatedly demeans his girlfriend Kim, even as the motorcycle leers at her leather-clad posterior. Incidentally, Kim is played by Morrissey’s actual wife Noar, so there’s some weird relationship issues on display. In addition to the objectification and the verbal abuse, the script calls for draping the Jewish actress in crucifixes. Apropos of nothing, the pair divorced a year later.

I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle has an odd sense of tone, careering from silly to serious in random and unexpected ways. It’s the kind of film that will go for an obvious joke like naming a funeral home “De’Ath and Sons,” and then turn around and hire Anthony Daniels, C-3PO himself as I live and breathe, to play it straight as a biker priest who doesn’t let the loss of all the fingers on his right hand get in the way of a full-throated exorcism. To be clear, it’s completely fine to try for a mix of screams and chuckles, but neither of them work particularly well here—they just call attention to strange choices that fall short of the mark. That’s what makes the film a weird watch, but also a disappointing one. Once you get the bike started, you’ve still got to finish the drive.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“No beating around the bush: this is a weird-ass movie!… The Film also goes off on weird diversions- like a random, gross-out Dream Sequence- and is arguably too silly at times.” – Alec Pridgen, Mondo Bizarro

ADDITIONAL LINKS OF INTEREST: It’s all well and good to hear from movie reviewers like your humble correspondent, but discerning customers like yourselves want to hear from the people whose opinions really matter: motorcycle writers. Enjoy the review from Pete Brissette at Motorcycle.com or take in the analysis by Jason Marker over at RideApart.

(This movie was nominated for review by Karolina. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)     

I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle [Blu-ray]

I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle [Blu-ray]
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