A technophobic office worker is reluctant to suck on the psylink’s intestine.
CONTENT WARNING: Gore, suffering
Tag Archives: Black Comedy
READER RECOMMENDATION: WHERE THE DEAD GO TO DIE (2012)
Reader Recommendation from Germán Biener
DIRECTED BY: Jimmy ScreamerClauz
FEATURING: Voices of Ruby Larocca, Brandon Slagle, Joey Smack, Victor Bonacore
PLOT: Throughout three loosely connected stories, a demonic dog named Labby talks traumatized individuals into taking revenge on their tormentors before transporting the former to a surreal limbo-like realm.
COMMENTS: It is worth noting from the outset that ScreamerClauz’s infamous underground horror movie Where the Dead Go to Die is usually deemed abominable from both a technical and conceptual point of view, a fitting reputation for a movie he made while frequently under the influence of drugs. Think crude, “Sims”-like computer animation, voiced by adults often pitching up their voices to sound like children. Combine this with nightmarish, hallucinatory visuals, and taboo subjects—including, but not limited to, child abuse and exploitation, domestic violence, and prostitution—and you may begin to understand what watching this film feels like.
Besides its extreme subject matter, the often-glitchy animation and jarring sound effects—like the unsettling speedcore soundtrack—are perhaps its most off-putting aspects. To be fair, however, the creator is a self-taught animator, having learned the craft via YouTube tutorials, animation software, and colleagues’ feedback, and this was his first feature-length film. The choppy animation and discordant effects actually contribute to the creepiness that the movie aims for. Nightmares tend to be disjointed and illogical, and Where the Dead Go to Die is best experienced as a waking nightmare rather than a masterclass in polished filmmaking.
Those capable of turning a blind eye to the animation errors should brace themselves for a wild ride. Consisting of three interconnected shorts, “Tainted Milk,” “Liquid Memories,” and “The Masks that the Monsters Wear,” the movie mostly takes place in a desolate town where cold dark colors prevail. The first of these stories, originally conceived as a ghastly parody of Lassie, concerns unloved child Tommy and his dissatisfied parents. Tommy’s mother is expecting another unwanted baby. On his way to school, the boy suddenly meets Labby, a diabolical dog who, in the name of God, tries to convince Tommy that his sibling-to-be is the Antichrist and should be killed.
The shortest of the three stories, “Tainted Milk” is also the most darkly humorous, despite being rather disturbing in nature (this story contains what is perhaps the most notorious scene in the whole movie—you’ll know when you get there). ScreamerClauz’s questionable sense of humor aside, the story depicts child neglect and the psychological disintegration it breeds. This focus on the warped visions of traumatized children forms a thematic thread throughout the three stories, an aspect of Where the Dead Go to Die
Continue reading READER RECOMMENDATION: WHERE THE DEAD GO TO DIE (2012)
FANTASIA 2026: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: GODHEAD (2026)
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DIRECTED BY: Mark H. Rapaport
FEATURING: Al Warren, Sarah Coffey, Kimball Farley, Luke Speakman
PLOT: Fraternal twins enter a Catholic church and demand the priest shoot one of them so that the Holy Spirit may be set free.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Rapaport again slides an odd one across our desk, as his sophomore effort kicks off Funny Games-style before converting into fully blown mystical madness.
COMMENTS: What is the Holy Ghost? One would think that the metaphysical world is sufficiently inscrutable without theorizing about an entity that lacks substance in a realm that is already beyond the perceivable. A more-vaporous vapor, it travels without constraints in a realm already lacking any constraints mortals might conceive. Though utterly incorporeal, this Ghost can apparently still be trapped in a vessel—a human vessel no less. And although its selfhood cannot be fathomed, even we lowly, three-dimensional meat-and-bone creatures are aware that no one, nothing, wants to be trapped.
This musing is amongst the prerequisite considerations when approaching Mark H. Rapaport’s sophomore feature, Godhead. Creepy twins, named Firstborn (Sarah Coffey, slipping around the screen with serpentine malevolence) and Secondborn (Kimball Farley, trapped in his own spastic discomfiture), seem all too familiar with the “primary” third of the Godhead. The Creator; the twins claim It speaks to them. A small town priest (a mild and exhausted Al Warren) knows the triune Son, and also has an earthly son (Luke Speakman), a boy found as an infant found in a shopping basket on his doorstep and now stowed away in the back rooms of the church. A night-long journey through menace, hope, despair, and impossibility develops between these four characters.
Godhead has a delightful, temporally ambiguous style. Low tech, the story often plays like a classical Hollywood morality tale (and that title font, oh yes). Cinematographer William Babock is on board once more, whipping up stark church imagery to contrast with the occasionally-seen “other” world from whence came the uncanny siblings. There is an odd sense of humor sprinkled about. While the priest is berated by Firstborn, Secondborn earnestly helps him with a dust pan as the priest fretfully sweeps the church. A delightful scene with the boy-in-the-backroom features a static-glowing television; the director slips in an exchange which encapsulates anticipated reactions to his movie: “I’m not sure what this is.” “I do not like it.”
Rapaport and his tight cast alternate between punches of shock (gunplay in the sanctum is frowned upon, I can assure you), feints of deceit (a pair of hearse-bound conversations tip this film into hard-R-rating), and a third act which darts seamlessly, and often, between the mundane and the divine. The climax ratchets from one kind of weird into another. I did not expect Rapaport to be so gracious to his own creations. But that is within the dimension of possibility when you are a filmmaker: you are your own movie’s Godhead.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
FANTASIA 2026: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DANCE FREAK (2025)
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DIRECTED BY: Robby Rackleff, Alan Resnick
FEATURING: Robby Rackleff, Megan Koester, Sheila Mears, Jamel Johnson
PLOT: Obie’s crummy life becomes dangerous when a mysterious freak appears in town to murder those caught up in his hypnotic moves.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: I’ll pitch this as “The Residents Present: Guy Maddin‘s Jekyll & Hide“, to give you an approximate idea what to expect.
COMMENTS: There are few sacks sadder than Obie. He is timid, depressed, seems to own only one sweatshirt, and cannot build a bird house to save his life, no matter how much coaching—both practical and existential—his teacher provides. To add to his woes, his go-getter girlfriend, Dorty, a young woman with a big heart, a big club, and mayoral aspirations, dumps him. And now, enter the Dance Freak: a humanoid entity whose motion and rhythm crushes the heads of anyone who dares gaze upon its wondrous moves.
Dance Freak is a masterful example of the possibilities encountered when creativity slams into the wall of zero resources. Obie’s town is a ghost town, populated by quietly angry people (or, in the case of the Salad Gang, loudly angry). Obviously animated birds attack and peck at the protagonist, and mist permeates the peripheries. Special effects crumble and melt into themselves and into each other, reflecting not only Obie’s fractured mind but also the “just add another layer” attitude that runs throughout the production. The Dance Freak itself is nothing more than co-director, co-screenwriter Robby Rackleff (who, incidentally, was wearing the Dance Freak’s khaki slacks on the film’s opening day); if you’re looking for something below Z-grade for your monster, you can’t do better than have one of the filmmakers just jamming his unchoreographed body onscreen to the unheard strains of a famous piece of pop film music.
The one professional actor (the directors words) is Sheila Mears, playing Dr. Dilly Gorgul. She earns her fee and then some as an evil scientist who exemplifies the excitement that draws someone to expanding knowledge in the first place: science is cool, especially mad science. Her giddiness is a refreshing novelty amidst the trip-wire tempers and hyper-caffeinated visuals. Most importantly, she still fits in with the milieu as a slightly plus-person alongside all the other heightened townsfolk, from father-issues Detective Gittit to Megaman, Obie’s manager who suffered from a filthy childhood that interfered with his one true love of drinking clear water fresh from the tap.
Rackleff and Resnick thread a tricky needle in this microbudget bit of madness: for the story of Dance Freak, there needs to be hyperbolic imagery and acting, but also enough relatability to keep the viewer invested. For the look of Dance Freak, there needs to be consistent “otherness” that doesn’t break the bank. And while not every movie needs to have a moral, Dance Freak opts for one, taking on itself the further task of showcasing the three possible paths we face when our life is in a rut: keep digging in, break something, or build something. We would do well to remember that there is a potential Dance Freak in all of us; will we dance for destruction—or creation?
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
CAPSULE: MOEBIUS (2013)
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DIRECTED BY: Ki-duk Kim
FEATURING: Cho Jae-Hyun, Seo Yeong-ju, Lee Na-ra
PLOT: The wife of an adulterous husband takes revenge on their son.
COMMENTS: Families are dysfunctional in Asian Extreme Cinema. A typical example isTakashi Miike‘s infamous Visitor Q (2001). There are even more transgressive movies to be found, however, like Moebius perhaps the most disturbing piece in Ki-duk Kim’s provocative filmography. Here, the South Korean auteur further develops his pessimist worldview on human relationships and family dynamics. Let’s dare to take a closer look.
The story is divided into three acts. The plot revolves around an archetypal family including the Mother, the Father and the Son. When the Mother can’t stand the Father’s extramarital affair—with a woman played by the same actress—anymore, she takes revenge on their Son, castrating him. The events following this criminal act play out like a symbolic Freudian coming-of-age tale, showcasing the Son’s attempts to cope and the Father’s guilt and attempts to help.
Kid-duk nods to Euripides’ “Medea” from the beginning: Mother uses her child to punish the husband. This is only the beginning, however, not the climax. The events of this perverted family saga and boyhood tale include gang rape, kinky sex, masturbation with rocks and knives, and even a bit of incest. Despite the surrounding chaos there are touching moments of tenderness to be found in the way the altruistic Father tries to support his Son. But the tragic finale cannot be avoided.
Buddhist spirituality is portrayed as a means to redemption. In Ki-Duk’s masterpiece Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and… Spring (2003) an old monk dictates that lust is sinful because it brings jealousy and therefore crime, while a monk’s lifestyle brings comfort. Moebius further develops that thesis through a darker parable, and can be viewed as an origin story of sorts for a monk with similar convictions.
This is Kim Ki- Duk’s boldest piece not only because of the grotuesqueries he presents, but also because of the way he directs the actors. There isn’t a line of dialogue in the whole film. Characters communicate physically, through violent or sexual acts, grunts of pain and pleasure—or both simultaneously—and tremors. They become wild animals and in the most intense moments. When the three characters confront each other, their positions recall sculpturess from the Hellenistic Period, like the famous Laocoön Group.
All in all, this is a difficult film to recommend because of its graphic scenes and heavy subject matter. It is essential, however, for Kim Ki -Duk completionists, and perhaps the work from his late period that stands out the most. Moreover, it will appeal to fans of film parables that aren’t afraid to confront the darker corners of the human psyche and sexuality, in the vein of Lars von Trier‘s Antichrist (2009).
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
“Moebius is almost weird enough to be a creation myth, and that’s no small accomplishment.”–Sherilyn Connelly, The Village Voice (contemporaneous)
