Tag Archives: 1996

CAPSULE: JACKER 2: DESCENT TO HELL (1996)

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DIRECTED BY: Barry Gaines

FEATURING: Phil Herman, Barry Gaines, Ben Stanski

PLOT: After being thrown off a cliff Mike, the carjacker-cum-serial killer from Jacker, becomes an invulnerable supernatural entity.

Still from Jacker 2: Descent Into Hell

COMMENTS: Where to start with Jacker 2? Well, maybe start with Jacker, the senseless story of a serial-killing carjacker who likes to put blood in his Wheaties and who easily outwits some of the stupidest cops in the world, who can’t figure out he killed his girlfriend because they never think to check the handwriting on her suicide note and can’t figure out he killed the investigating detective’s sister despite his basically threatening to do so in front of a group of police witnesses. It features dingy VHS camcorder videography often lit by streetlights, some less-than-thrilling taking-an-elevator-to-your-apartment scenes, lobotomized acting, sound that ranges from inconsistent to inaudible, and a reasonable amount of violence, but almost no gore or special effects. (To be fair, the script for Jacker was written in a reported four days.)

Jacker 2 picks up exactly where Jacker left off, and most of Jacker‘s characters—including the dead ones—show up again. This fact might give you some reason to watch Jacker, but the main reason to watch Jacker is because it makes Jacker 2 look so much better by comparison. Although the sequel’s story is even more nonsensical—a positive, since the whackadoodle plot is the only real reason to watch this—everything else is much improved. There are a greater variety of creative camera shots, more effective attempts at deliberate comedy, sleazier sex scenes, goofier supporting characters, better (though still not good) sound, occasional lighting for scenes, more non-sequiturs, a bigger ketchup budget, and a trip to Hell (which, as you might have suspected, is actually a basement in New Jersey)—complete with demonic costumes that might have looked silly except for the fact that you can barely make them out through the heavy yellow filter and solarization haze. The editing is actually impressive, given the low quality of the raw footage they had to work with. While Jacker 2 likely would have earned a “Beware” rating if I had seen it first, in contrast to Jacker, it’s a near masterpiece—the Citizen Kane of New Jersey-shot microbudget invulnerable supernatural carjacker flicks.

Of course, it’s a rough ride for the average viewer accustomed to movies with more polish, but Jacker 2 is—if not actually good—at least memorable. The 90s no-budget shot-on-video aesthetic is a real one (heck, Harmony Korine even deliberately aped it). In fact, with all of its technical deficiencies, the biggest complaint against the film is that, at 105 minutes, it’s way too long. Trim out a few of the carjackings that went nowhere, and it would almost be a strong little indie.

Falcon Video was (is?) a New Jersey-based team of zero-budget horror film makers who originally sold most of their movies through mail order. They take turns directing, writing and producing films, but Phil Herman (who stars as Mike the Jacker, wrote both films, and directed the first one) is the central figure. They’re a fascinating collective: a group of friends who break out the camcorder and make feature films in their spare time while holding down day jobs. We should all be so lucky. There are lots of references to Falcon Video and other FV films spread throughout Jacker and Jacker 2, including a running joke that whenever someone’s TV is on, there’s an FV production onscreen.

Semi-star alert: Marilyn Ghigliotti had a major role a few years earlier in cult classic Clerks (she played Dante’s girlfriend, Veronica), but accepts a much smaller role here; talk about climbing down the ladder! (Don’t worry, Marilyn rebounded and is doing just fine today, having accumulated 42 IMDb credits and counting.)

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…it doesn’t just repeat the earlier movie’s formula but adds horror and the supernatural to the mix in a way that comes across as properly creepy, and it’s clear to see the filmmakers made the most out of what little they had. And the result … may not be a masterpiece, objectively speaking, but if you’re into shot-on-video movies from the era, there’s a good chance you might like this one.”–Michael Haberfelner, (Re)search My Trash

CAPSULE: TRAINSPOTTING (1996)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , , Jonny Lee Miller, , Kelly Macdonald

PLOT: Renton, a heroin addict struggling to get his life under control, is just one of a collection of misfit 20-somethings puttering around Edinburgh, Scotland, in this stark and blackly-comedic examination of the underworld.

Still from Trainspotting (1996)

COMMENTS: A commonly requested movie in our reader request queue, Trainspotting holds the ranks of cult classic, box office smash (relative to its budget), and critical hit. Not only is the movie itself enshrined by fans, but the soundtrack—one of the biggest reasons why this is a cult film to begin with—was a worldwide multi-platinum seller. To make sure that I don’t go off on anymore tangents about the soundtrack (because I adore it, natch), here’s my coverage over at my music blog gig so I can focus here on the movie; later, I’ll climb on my soapbox about drug legalization/awareness/safety. When it comes to this movie’s themes, I find myself almost distressingly overqualified to discuss it.

I trust that after almost three decades almost everybody interested has seen (or at least heard about) the film, so I’ll just fill in some light non-spoily details. Trainspotting has a Pulp-Fiction-like structure, with several intersecting lives on various trajectories, some headed up and some headed down, verily, to the gutter or the grave. At the center of this busy rat’s nest of urban squalor is antihero Renton (McGregor), heroin addict trying to get his life on track. His mates are Sick Boy (Miller), a blond pimp, co-junkie, and charming sociopath; Spud (Bremner), a luckless underdog with the personality (and IQ) of a Labrador puppy; Begbie (Carlyle), a brawling psychopath with a hair-trigger temper that even scares his closest friends; and Tommy (McKidd), a squeaky-clean and very self-righteous jock. Renton is trying his best to straighten out and fly right. But first he has to overcome his addiction, and then the gravitational pull of urban poverty. Renton stands at the threshold of a bleak and joyless existence, wondering if his own future is worth salvaging.

When it comes to weird-movie credentials, everyone seems to remember the toilet where Renton dives after his precious suppositories—a shot of it is in every trailer. Some recall the dead baby crawling on the ceiling, turning his head Exorcist-style before falling down on Renton, just one of many hallucinations the addict experiences during extreme withdrawal. But let’s not forget the overdose scene, where Renton nods off so hard that he physically sinks into the carpet about six feet deep… and we’re stuck in that POV all the way to the hospital, when a shot brings him bolting out of his drug coma (and return to wide-screen). His dealer, Mother Superior (“jumped the gun”), stuffs Renton’s limp body into a cab, and the cab driver in turn dumps him on the street in front of the emergency room like a Continue reading CAPSULE: TRAINSPOTTING (1996)

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: KILLER CONDOM (1996)

Kondom des Grauens

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DIRECTED BY: Martin Walz 

FEATURING: Udo Samel, Peter Lohmeyer, Marc Richter, Leonard Lansink, Iris Berben

PLOT: Hard-boiled detective Luigi Mackeroni sets out to stop a  malevolent predator resembling a prophylactic that uses its razor-sharp teeth to perform impromptu penectomies on the patrons of sex workers at a grungy New York flophouse.

Still from Killer Condom (1996)

COMMENTS: Does anyone go into a movie titled Killer Condom with high expectations? Before you’ve seen a frame, you’re already primed for an experience that will be trashy fun at best, exploitative and gross at worst. And your reservations will only be reinforced when you learn that the title is in no way metaphorical; the movie really is about a killer condom. 

Reality turns out to be much better than expectation, because that title monster—a ravenous rubber that looks like a Snapchat logo but with the teeth of a fluke—is an ideal metaphor for the movie itself. So much of Kondom des Grauens is about misleading appearances. For one thing, it’s distributed (though not made) by , with all the crudeness, grotesquerie, and DGAF attitude attached to that label, and yet it has a sweetness and enlightened viewpoint not often found in films produced by the studio. For another, it’s a movie about the seedy side of gay culture that is decidedly pro-gay, complete with a central romance and an unexpected level of empathy for a trans character. Most significantly, it’s a typical New York police procedural that’s distinguished by the fact that everyone in the film is speaking German.

It’s a measure of how much Western audiences have been trained to accept their stories in English, regardless of time or setting, that the language is the part that feels most bizarre about the film. And while turnabout is fair play, the lengths to which the filmmakers go to provide some verisimilitude only adds to the confusion of seeing this parade of New Yorkers delivering their lines in German. Ample Manhattan location shooting magnifies the many tropes that die Deutschen leave intact: the gruff black police chief who frequently threatens to take the hero’s badge, the tough-as-nails medical examiner with a blindness for social niceties, the parade of undesirables who wander through the fleabag flophouse (bearing the name “Hotel Quickie”). Killer Condom could pass for a low-budget Charles Bronson flick, if not for the Teutonic dialogue. 

Foremost among the required elements is our hero, the impeccably named Luigi Mackeroni. Like many a downtrodden movie cop, he spends his days wandering the streets of the Big Apple, monologuing in voiceover about what a dump it is and how he would maybe be better off in his native Sicily (again, this is all in German). He’s pretty Continue reading IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: KILLER CONDOM (1996)