Tag Archives: Horror

Canonically Weird (The List)

214. DER SAMURAI (2014)

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“…there seems to be some sort of secret anarchic urge within me to see the monsters set loose and rampantly reclaim what’s theirs, to witness them bringing back some wonder and excitement into a world so controlled by order and reason that it at times threatens to suffocate all sense of joy and opportunity.”–Till Kleinert

DIRECTED BY: Till Kleinert

FEATURING: Michel Diercks, 

PLOT: Young policeman Jakob deals with a wolf menacing his rural east German village by placing bags of butcher scraps in the woods, hoping to lure the predator away from inhabited areas. One night he receives a mysterious package which he is instructed to deliver to an abandoned house; inside the home is a man in a dress who unwraps the package to reveal a samurai’s katana. The transvestite then runs into the night, where he embarks on a campaign of murder and mayhem which Jakob must put to an end.

Still from Der Samurai (2014)

BACKGROUND:

  • Der Samurai is Till Kleinert’s directorial debut, and his graduation project for the German Film and Television Academy.
  • The film was denied a government funding grant because it was deemed “incompatible with the taste guidelines of German public television.” Much of the budget was instead raised through a crowdfunding campaign.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: When your movie stars a blond-haired samurai in a floor length backless white party dress, you have a good idea what the indelible image is going to be.

THREE WEIRD THINGS: Transvestite samurai; flamingo punch; explosive decapitation

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Exploring the weirdness in queerness, Der Samurai is a primal confrontation with the Other, embodied in the person of a wolf man come to life as a dress-wearing, sword-wielding maniac who taunts a repressed country policeman into a confrontation with his own desires.


Original trailer for Der Samurai

COMMENTS: Jakob’s long duel with a mysterious cross-dressing Continue reading 214. DER SAMURAI (2014) →

Canonically Weird (The List)

213. DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS (1977)

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“People have asked me if I realized how odd or strange the story was. Then and now, I never thought of it [that way]—as a slightly offbeat story, perhaps—but I’ve always thought of it as a normal story.”–George Barry, 2003 DVD introduction to Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

DIRECTED BY:  George Barry

FEATURING: Rosa Luxemburg, William Russ (as Rusty Russ), Dave Marsh, voice of Patrick Spence-Thomas

PLOT: A ghost trapped in a chamber behind a painting relates the story of his companion, a bed who eats all those who lie on it. The bed was brought to life by a demon’s tears and is tied to the spirit that birthed it. Several young people stumble upon the bed and are consumed by it, until one girl arrives who, with the ghost’s help, has the power to defeat it.

Still from Death Bed: the Bed That Eats (1977)

BACKGROUND:

  • George Barry began shooting Death Bed in 1972, but did not complete the film until 1977.
  • Death Bed was the only move credit for most of the cast and crew, including director Barry. One notable exception is William Russ (billed here as Rusty Russ), who went on to a long career as a character actor, with over 100 appearances in movies and TV shows.
  • Barry tried to sell the completed film but could not find a distributor willing to shoulder the expense of blowing the film up from 16 millimeter to 32 millimeter. He gave up his attempts to find a distributor in the early 1980s and opened a bookstore instead. Then, while surfing a horror fan forum one night in the early 2000s, he discovered people discussing his forgotten film. Barry learned that an unscrupulous English company had screened the film and released an unlicensed VHS tape, which was then bootlegged and circulated by collectors. Discovering there was now some interest in Death Bed as a cult item, Barry was able to secure an actual official premiere and a DVD release in 2004, more than 25 years after the film had been completed.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: While shots of the bed’s digestive system in action are certainly tempting, the take home image involves the man whose hands are reduced to Halloween props after he unwisely digs into the hungry mattress.

THREE WEIRD THINGS: Man behind the painting; Pepto Bismal in a bed’s belly; fleshless phalanges

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: A horror movie where the antagonist is a bed would be strange enough. Death Bed, however, is even stranger; a mix of exploitation tropes, fairy tale poetry, black comedy gags, and arthouse pretensions, with deadpan amateur actors sleepwalking their way through a script that takes as many weird turns as that dyspeptic dream you had when you feel asleep after eating too much fried chicken and drinking too much red wine.


Clips from Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

COMMENTS: began filming Eraserhead in California in Continue reading 213. DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS (1977) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: NEKROMANTIK 2 (1991)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Mark Reeder

PLOT: A young woman digs up a corpse with the intention of making him her lover; romantic complications arise when she falls for a living man.

Still from Nekromantik 2 (1990)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Nekromantik 2 is disconcerting, at times graphic and difficult to look at, but it is not that weird.

COMMENTS: According to Wikipedia, “necrophilia, also called thanatophilia, is a sexual attraction or sexual act involving corpses. The attraction is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association. The term was coined by the Belgian alienist Joseph Guislain, who first used it in a lecture in 1850. It derives from the Greek words nekros; ‘dead’ and philia; ‘love’.” Even Disney would have difficulty making family-friendly fare based on the subject of “dead love.” German director Jörg Buttgereit had no intention of making a family film, of course. The original Nekromantik was banned in several countries.

Nekromantik 2 begins where the first one ended. Robert Schmadtke’s graphic and gruesome suicide is replayed during the credits. He stabs himself repeatedly in the stomach as his exposed erection ejaculates fountains of semen. We are then taken to a graveyard where we see a young woman digging up Robert’s corpse. She is a nurse named Monica who intends to make Robert her lover. No time is wasted establishing the premise. Monica, eluding detection, wheels Robert’s rotting corpse into her apartment. Once in the privacy of her abode she begins to fondle, kiss and undress Robert before mounting him.

The viewer is treated to a trippy slow motion scene of Monica’s coital experience. Soon she is running to the bathroom to vomit. Could it be her aversion to her own depravity making her physically ill? It seems unlikely. Monica’s character makes no apologies for her actions throughout the film. The character is not empathetic, she is a strong, independent woman obsessed with death, who also happens to have an affinity for sex with corpses. It is more likely the licking, sucking and kissing of a rotting, oozing, embalming fluid-filled corpse that is making her vomit. Robert is one nasty, icky looking corpse! The gore effects across the board were all properly gag-worthy and effective.

Enter Mark: a shy, awkward loner who does voiceovers for adult films. When a friend fails to meet him at the theater he offers the extra ticket to Monika as she happens by. The two see a black and white art film where a naked couple sit at a table covered in hard boiled eggs discussing birds. (This is apparently a cheeky wink to ‘s My Dinner with Andre). Mark and Monica hit it off and are soon dating. Mark falls hard for Monica, and tries to ignore her Continue reading CAPSULE: NEKROMANTIK 2 (1991) →

Canonically Weird (The List)

211. SOCIETY (1989)

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“It was so weird… it was probably one of the weirdest movies ever made!”–Devin DeVasquez reflecting on Society

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Evan Richards, Charles Lucia, Patrice Jennings, Ben Meyerson, Tim Bartell, Ben Slack, David Wiley, Connie Danese

PLOT: Despite being a star basketball player and candidate for president of Beverly Hills High, Billy feels like an outcast in his own high society family. He misses his sister’s coming out party due to a basketball game, but her creepy ex-boyfriend plays him a very disturbing recording from the event that causes him to investigate his own family secrets more closely. It seems that there is a secret society of upper-crust residents in Beverly Hills which even privileged Billy is not (yet) a part of; his investigations lead him to a secret party where the elites engage in a practice they call “shunting”…

Still from Society (1989)
BACKGROUND:

  • Brian Yuzna began his filmmaking career as a producer, teaming with director Stuart Gordon in 1985 to launch the hit Re-Animator series. Society was his first credit as director. To convince the producers to allow him to direct, Yuzna promised to make two movies, the other being the pre-sold sequel Bride of Re-Animator.
  • Makeup expert Screaming Mad George used paintings (specifically “The Great Masturbator” and “Soft Construction with Boiled Beans“) as inspiration for constructing the “shunting” scenes.
  • Although it saw some mild success overseas, the climax of Society had to be cut by four minutes in the U.S. to secure an R rating, and the film was not released to American screens until 1992, when it disappeared from theaters quickly.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Something—anything—from the last 20 minutes, a non-stop body-morphing orgy that would put off his lunch. If forced to whittle down the choice to a single image we’d have to go with “butthead,” a creation both juvenile and frightening.

THREE WEIRD THINGS: Twisted sister; hair eating; “shunting” in general.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Brian Yuzna’s mixture of horror, satire, and teen sex comedy is clumsy and unsure at times, and bizarre in both theory and execution, but the drawn-out finale, a masterpiece of Dali-esque designs rendered in rubbery goo, puts it far over the top.


Original trailer for Society

COMMENTS: As satire and allegory, Society is obvious; but I believe Continue reading 211. SOCIETY (1989) →

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: DER TODESKING [THE DEATH KING] (1990)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Due to the episodic nature of the film, too many to list

PLOT: The Death King is a seven-part film with no overarching plot—each of the episodes is a vignette involving suicide, murder, and sometimes both. The events may take place over the course of a week (Monday through Sunday), with some tied together by the letters sent through the post by Monday’s suicide victim.

Still from Der Todesking (The Death King) (1990)

WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: Der Todesking‘s qualifications as a weird movie stem from its utter unclassifiability as any other kind of movie. It’s too grisly for the arthouse and too philosophical for the grindhouse. Its lack of a single narrative makes it awkwardly describable as a film essay. That in mind, it is tremendously well executed, with moments of despair, surrealism, and beauty.

COMMENTS: In the film’s introduction (included as a bonus feature), Jörg Buttgereit assures the audience, “Don’t get me wrong here: it’s a movie against suicide.” It says something of either the kind of person who would watch this movie or, more likely, the kind who would refuse to watch it but still condemn it, that this explanation is necessary. To be fair, Der Todesking is at times a difficult movie, but that is due to the unpleasant subject matter (suicide), not the director’s handling of it.

The suicide-centered set-pieces are framed by a time-lapse image of a decomposing corpse. Within this framing structure is another one: an over-the-shoulder view of a young girl writing in a journal, beginning with the title for a drawing (“der Todesking”, in cute, loopy cursive), and ending with her finishing a drawing of a skeleton with a crown. She explains to the camera, “This is the King of Death. He makes people want to die.” Now already at two levels of framedness, the seven (largely) separate suicide sketches are each further framed by the days of the week, sometimes overlapping with each other. Got that?

Even beyond the framing cantrip, the film’s style is a showcase for low budget inventiveness. The first episode has a montage scene accomplished by a (seemingly?) uncut shot of a camera rotating several times full circle around a small apartment room, showing a man going through mundane tasks shortly after resigning from a well-paying job. Background items reveal his character. His only companion seems to be a goldfish, who joins him in death once he’s downed dozens of pills while in the bathtub. Or is it his only companion? Before his resignation and suicide, he writes and sends off about half a dozen letters.

On Tuesday, one is received by a friend, informing him of the sender’s suicide. He carries this note to a video rental place where, almost choosing My Dinner with André, instead opts for Vera: the Death-Angel of the Gestapo. The clerk is surprised he’s only renting one movie: the fellow explains he only has time for one—he’s got a birthday party to go to. Or so he thought. Despite the letter, his rental needs watching; and it’s a real pity that his girlfriend interrupts his viewing…

Of the seven days, Thursday is perhaps the most haunting. Using camera shots reminiscent of Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog, the bit is virtually silent: just various angles and journeys through, above, in, and around a large overpass. Title cards appear, indicating the name, age, and profession of random individuals. These are all recorded suicides from that location.

Buttgereit’s movie is fairly brief, but that is due to his efficiency as a director and storyteller. Some very bleak ideas are explored here, and despite the director’s reputation, the movie never falls into the realm of the tasteless.

NOTE ON THE LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY: So carefully was this little gem packaged that I was somewhat loath to break the seal and open it. The cover sleeve, unlike so many releases, was actually different from the box art. Within, not only was there a fully packed disc (trailers for the director’s oeuvre, a documentary, and a soundtrack-only option, as well as a film introduction and commentary) but also a graphic postcard; limited in quantity, like the disc. If you get your hands on on it, you’ll have one of only 3,000 copies.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The end result is oddly beautiful and perhaps Buttgereit’s finest achievement as a director…”–Nathaniel Thompson, Mondo Digital (Blu-ray)