It’s Halloween weekend again, and we went out of our way to select an extra special treat this year. Bennett Cain’s “Seed” is the most horrifying short we’ve had the privilege of introducing you to since our first Saturday Short, “Crooked Rot“. Enjoy.
Seed from Ben Cain / Negative Spaces on Vimeo.
DIRECTED BY: Héctor Carré
FEATURING: Carmen Maura, Santaigo Barón, Ana Fernández, Juan Margallo, Evaristo Calvo
PLOT : A devout nanny’s religious convictions are tested when a clairvoyant child implores
her to murder his father.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The events in La Promisa unfold in a weird way, making the story bizarre. The nature of these events, however, is no different from those in any occult film; the film is as conventionally produced as any horror movie. While the story is definitely out there, the overall viewing experience is not quite weird enough to be certified as such.
COMMENTS: Solid performances and Santiago de Compostela locations compliment this creepy, offbeat occult tale. Gregoria (Maura) is a modest housewife leading a life of quite desperation. Her marriage is suffocating, her husband (Margallo) is an ogre and her spirit is repressed. When her husband’s abuse takes its toll, Gregoria seeks refuge in the ecclesiastical. Finding solace in religious fervor, she plunges into the deep end of delusional thinking. Or does she? Taken to episodes of brief catatonia, Gregoriia becomes accident prone and paranoid. Every shadow hides a demon and every accident is a sign of manifest evil. Her chosen solution is to pray incessantly.
When a bizarre tragedy leads her to a chance encounter with a dying soothsayer, the doomed man implores Gregoria to fulfill a prophecy at a mysterious church in a remote mountain village. Supernatural voices drive Gregoria to murder her husband, after which she flees to the strange hamlet. There, on a fog enshrouded mountain estate, she takes a job as caretaker to a telepathic boy named Daniel (Barón).
Haunted by voices and fearing that she is losing her mind, Gregoria is drawn into a divine good versus evil enigma. Her snowballing predicament becomes centered around a secret passage, a well that presents a nasty fall hazard, the ghost of her husband, and her young ward’s murderous psychic manipulations. But the answer and her fate are inexplicably intertwined. The key to it all lies grounded in the sinister old church that she is destined to visit. The clairvoyant Daniel will use any means necessary to entice her there to fulfill The Promise.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
Sheila Franklin’s 2004 documentary, The King of Pluto (2004) focuses on the art of Michigan politico Mike Wrathell. From the outset, it is immediately apparent that Wrathell is a genuine oddball. I say the film is about Wrathell’s art because it is not really about his life at all. He and Franklin do not delve into the why of his art, what drives him, or where he came from and that’s just fine because this approach renders the film as quirky, vague, and enigmatic as Wrathell’s art.
Wrathell considers himself a Warhol-inspired dadaist who is obsessed with the planet Pluto. He recollects that when he met president George W. Bush, he asked Bush to support a mission to Pluto. Bush replied “I’m going to send you to Pluto!” Wrathell (in 2004) predicts the mission to Pluto will be a reality by 2006.
Wrathell’s art can be seen on film can be purchased there as well. Wrathell’s silk-screen art, not surprisingly, often deals with Pluto, but he also covers celebrities, such as Maurren O’ Sullivan, John Travolta’s “Pluto Night Fever,” Ted Koppell as an Orwellian Micky Mouse, and Gilligan (as a Plutonian). Wrathell also covers events and topics such as 911, images of Saturn, Venus, Neptunians, Blue Dracula, and why he prefers Martha Stewart to Barbara Walters.
Wrathell is a Republican and has run for various offices, unsuccessfully. He tells us about buying a CIA baseball cap while he was in New York City near ground zero. He buys it so potential terrorists will think he is CIA. Or, they will think he is not CIA since an agent would not wear a cap reading “CIA”; or, a CIA man might buy a cap reading CIA to make us think he is not with the CIA, when in actuality he is. Who knows? But, on reflection Wrathell admits the cap was worth five bucks.
He takes us to Burger King where he describes the perfect Whopper as having two tomatoes, or three, if you order extra tomato, which is what he orders. Wrathell sits down with his Whopper and explains that it should have three tomatoes. When he unwraps his sandwich, he discovers it to be a Chicken Whopper. He returns the sandwich and hums, masking his displeasure, as they make him a new Whopper. They do it right this time and the world is good again.
Back to the art. Wrathell shows us watercolors on postcards and on lined notebook paper. He has started a movement, he says. It is the Ultra-Renaissance art movement, of which he is the sole member.
In the end, I am not sure who Mike Wrathell really is, but then I don’t know much about Pluto either, other than that the idea of it seems pretty cool, and that is good enough. In the end, I would say Wrathell flies the freak flag high. He is the kind of artist to sit down and have a couple of beers with, let him talk as you drink, and the more you drink, the better and better his talk sounds. That is a recommendation.
DIRECTED BY: Brad Anderson
FEATURING: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, John Sharian
PLOT: A troubled man tries to solve the riddle of his fragmented existence as he becomes
increasingly tormented by strange visions and apparitions.
WHY IT ‘S ON THE BORDERLINE: The events which unfold in The Machinist are hard to wrap one’s mind around. It is difficult to ascertain what is real and what is unreal. Other, more cleverly thought-out films, have handled this same premise with more finesse, however.
COMMENTS: Honestly? I liked this movie much better THE FIRST NINE TIMES I SAW IT! When it was called:
Dead and Buried (1981), and
Final Approach (1991), and
The Sixth Sense (1991), and
Crazy As Hell (2002), and
The Return (2003), and
Stay (2005), and
Dark Corners (2006), and
Salvage (2006), and
Cold Storage (2006).
The Machinist is a well made Spanish puzzler that waxes somewhat melodramatic. However, the triggering event for its basic premise, while not overly preachy, is well, kinda damn preachy. Additionally, somebody should have told the filmmakers that this plot has been produced before (OK, nearly every plot has been previously used one way or another. To wit: Brett Sullivan’s The Chair is basically The Skeleton Key or Child’s Play repackaged, but the premise of The Machinist has been done a LOT. As such, redoing it yet again demands a very fresh take, and an unconventional handling of the idea).
In The Machinist Christian Bale plays, you guessed it, an industrial machinist who lives and works in a creepy industrial park (the movie was filmed in Barcelona, so you bet they found an imposing-looking one, although a similar location in Bilbao might have been even more grim.) Continue reading BORDERLINE WEIRD: THE MACHINIST (2004)
The fourth submission in the June review writing contest: by “Billy.”
DIRECTED BY: Zack Braff
FEATURING: Starring Zack Braff and Natalie Portman with Peter Sarsgaard, Gideon Largeman and Method Man
PLOT: Andrew Largeman (Zack Braff) returns home to New Jersey to attend his mother’s
funeral. While there, he realizes the funeral was only the beginning.
WHY IT DESERVES TO MAKE THE LIST: There is a family who repeatedly kills hamsters, grave robbing, argumentative spin the bottle, conversations in Klingon, marijuana, ecstacy and a man dressed up as a knight in shining armor. Random moments through out the movie shine of weirdness and that alone will keep you glued to your seat.
COMMENTS: When you’ve finish watching this movie you may be puzzled. I can see you now with that tilted head and unsure expression. You will probably want to take a moment and allow the movie to ferment in your mind. However, that doesn’t make a movie “weird” by itself. But, considering the flashes of nearly 2 hours of surprise and complexity… I’m not sure if I have a better adjective to describe the movie.
Also, not to mention, the cinematography is amazing and the soundtrack is absolutely perfect. It fits clip by clip and moment by moment with the movie and I recommend it to anyone. The movie, from beginning to end is strange and odd in the purest sense of the words. All in all it is a really a great movie.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: