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It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DEAFULA (1975)

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DIRECTED BY: Peter Wechsberg

FEATURING: Peter Wechsberg (as Peter Wolf), Lee Darel, Dudley Hemstreet, James Randall

PLOT: In a universe where everyone communicates via American Sign Language (ASL), theology student Steve Adams discovers that he is the son of Dracula and has been leading a second life as a blood-thirsty vampire with a trail of bodies in his wake.

Still from deafula (1975)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Even if it weren’t one of the first (and, to this day, one of the only) films made exclusively in ASL, Deafula’s imaginative presentation of a world where gestural speech is the lingua franca and its singular interpretation of the Dracula legend make it a movie that truly has no comparison.

COMMENTS: Let’s start with the remarkable durability of the Dracula myth. Vampires have lost none of their fascination even in our modern world (I’ve discussed this phenomenon before), and Dracula lords over them all, appearing in some form in more than 200 films. Unlike most of his classic horror brethren (werewolves, mummies, zombies, Frankenstein monsters, creatures from black lagoons and the like), Dracula is verbal, and even handsome, as likely to use seductive words as violent action to achieve his aims. So when an underrepresented community wants to tap into the mainstream, there’s probably no figure more iconic and adaptable and copyright-free than Dracula, standing by and ready to tell his tale once more. Blacula, anyone?

And so we come to Deafula, in which writer/director/star  Wechsberg endeavored to give the deaf community something they had never had: a popular entertainment of their very own. He conjured up a messily layered version of the story, with the fundamental vampire-kills-people plotline frequently taking a back seat to the hero’s fraught relationship with his father, a police procedural featuring a Van Helsing substitute whom everybody hates, and a substantial commitment to themes of religious devotion and divine punishment. We do get Dracula in this movie (as an appropriately imperious and condescending figure), but he’s not our star. Instead, our hero is a pretty average, milquetoast kind of guy who, when he transforms into a villain, looks less like a demonic force and more like a low-rent Svengoolie with a ridiculous fake nose.

It is impossible to divorce Deafula from the circumstances of its creation. A drama student at Gallaudet University, Wechsberg was drawn to the power of film, and after getting into some production work, he scraped enough money to make a movie his way, with the deaf audience in mind. (He also aspired to give deaf creators their due; the closing credits specifically distinguish the hearing-impaired performers from their hearing colleagues.) His inexperience shows, especially when it comes to action. He crafts a clever introduction to reveal his hero emerging from the vampire state, but afterward gets caught up in disjointed edits and inconsistent pacing. Deafula’s savage mind-control of a would-be robber should be evidence of his Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DEAFULA (1975) →

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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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CAPSULE: PSYCHOSIS (2023)

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Psychosis is currently available fro rental or purchase on-demand.

DIRECTED BY: Pirie Martin

FEATURING: Derryn Amoroso, Kate Holly Hall, James McCluskey-Garcia, Pj van Gyen, voice of Lindsay Dunn

PLOT: Van Aarle, a criminal “fixer” who hears voices (but is not otherwise obviously schizophrenic) reluctantly takes a case involving drug dealers, zombie-like assailants, a vigilante, and a master hypnotist drug kingpin with a connection to his own past.

Still from Psychosis (2023)

COMMENTS: “They said you’d be weird,” observes a dim-witted pusher after Van Aarle explains how his paracusia (auditory hallucinations) give him a “unique perspective” that helps him to tap into “unknowing awareness.” We, the audience, directly experience that auditory condition—sometimes as a murky choir of overlapping advisors who sound quite a bit like those YouTube videos that try to put you inside the head of a schizophrenic, and sometimes in the form of an omniscient narrator, whose commentary may or may not be audible to Van Aarle. The voices are sometimes helpful to our fixer, alerting him to the presence of hidden enemies or whispering clues, but just as often they’re warning that everyone is going to die, or simply reminding him to keep up his psychotic coffee regimen (Van Aarle apparently does not sleep while on a case). Although Derryn Amoroso looks more like than a matinee idol, Van Aarle is in the  lineage of hard-bitten, haunted, and cynical-yet-decent private investigators: the great-grandson of Mike Hammer or Phillip Marlowe or Sam Spade, with an Australian accent. The official narrator, a chatty sort who fills in quiet spaces and is sometimes almost comically redundant (“in the distance, he sees something”), adds another film noir note to a movie already flavored with dashes of action, horror, psychological thriller, and science fiction.

Stylistically, you will immediately notice that Psychosis is (95+%) black and white, and with a boxy 1:1 aspect ratio, the narrowest I’ve ever seen in a feature film. You actually get used to it fairly quickly, but along with odd camera angles and other tricks (one scene is shot upside-down) it puts your mind in an odd space. Unusually for a film of this budget, there are a lot of action scenes, and director Martin compensates for a lack of ace action choreographers and athletic stunt doubles by shooting scenes in disjointed styles: schizophrenic editing, strobe lights, woozy double-vision cam for an under-the-influence melee, the upside-down sequence previously mentioned. The fights aren’t as involving as the movie’s concepts, but their ingenuity allows for a richer and more exciting cinematic experience.

Obviously, there is a lot going on in Psychosis—-we haven’t even gotten into the hypnotically-induced hallucinations, or the Batman-like LoneWolf character prowling about. While there is some “is he hallucinating or not?” ambiguity—heck, the title suggests as much—Psychosis doesn’t lean into that motif, but treats its world as if it were a genuine alternate reality, one where advanced mesmerists have almost magical mind-control powers. This means the struggles of Van Aarle (and LoneWolf) have real stakes—that punch to the gut hurts, that knife slashing at him is no metaphor, and the villain may really kill our hero, or drive him insane. A few scenes drag, and not every stylistic embellishment feels utterly necessary, but overall Psychosis is an insanely ambitious debut film that nails the madness of a man whose mind is in the process of being shattered.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…an insane thriller from the jump… offbeat and surreal, exactly as Martin intended… each cast member works wonderfully to bring this strange tale to life.”–Bobby LePire, Film Threat (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: FREE LSD (2023)

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Free LSD is available for VOD purchase or rental.

DIRECTED BY: Dmitri Coates

FEATURING: Keith Morris, Dmitri Coates, Autry Fulbright II, DH Peligro, David Yow, Chelsea Debo, Chloe Dykstra

PLOT: An aging sex-shop owner takes an experimental erectile dysfunction medication that sends him to an alternate reality where he’s lead singer of the punk band Off!.

Still from Free LSD (2023)

COMMENTS: Free LSD joins a small group of narrative movies made by bands. Not movies that are basically filmed concerts, or movies made by others to exploit the popularity of a band like A Hard Days Night or Head, or big-budget adaptations of prog-rock concept albums like Tommy or The Wall, or even movies written by musicians but directed by professionals (the Foo Fighter’s Studio 666, ‘ This Is Me… Now)—but movies written and directed and performed by the rockers themselves. Successful examples of this subgenre include ‘s 200 Motels, the Talking Heads’ True Stories, and (at least arguably) the Flaming Lips’ Christmas on Mars.

Of course, for every musician-led effort that’s a qualified success, there are many more that are mixed bags at best: the improvised psychedelia of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour, Paul Simon’s box office bomb One Trick Pony, ‘ heartfelt but adolescent K-12. And so it is with punk supergroup Off!’s offering to the genre. Musicians bring a unique perspective to filmmaking, but they aren’t filmmakers. So when they try their hands at this new medium, we hope for something that departs from the usual, but expect something that isn’t overly polished: something raw and ragged and maybe not wholly coherent that nonetheless sustains a level of exotic interest for adventurous viewers. That is exactly what we get with Free LSD.

One of the first problems bands face when making their own movies is that the band members will act in it. Lead guitarist Coates, writing himself an alternate reality role as a coke-sniffing, secretary groping music exec, does the best in front of the camera—but since he also serves as director, it might have been stretching himself too thin to also play the lead. Bassist Fulbright is serviceable as a cult member/ladies’ man. Drummer Peligro has few lines and is in a coma for much of the film, but he had a good excuse—he was undergoing chemotherapy as the movie was being shot. It only seems natural to cast your lead vocalist in the lead role, but that becomes a big problem here, because whatever his talents as a frontman and singer, Keith Morris lacks any emotive qualities as an actor. (At one point the script requires him to do a spit-take; I wasn’t entirely convinced he actually spit, despite seeing the liquid spewing from his mouth). Hidden in a heavy wig and fake beard, Morris plays an aging hippie who runs a sex shop during the day and hosts an Art Bell-style UFO radio show at night, who is also the improbable erotic target of a hot twenty-something barista with pink hair who favors miniskirts and disfavors brassieres, and has a thing for sleazy graying bohemians who can’t act. Unfortunately, Morris’ monotonously-enacted story takes up the entire first act.

On one level, Free LSD serves as a sampler for Off!’s album of the same name: there are a handful of partial performances of album cuts, just enough to tease fans, but not so much that the concert scenes overwhelm the story. As for the plot—it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s not really an issue. It’s not even clear where the bad guys come from—they seem like they should be aliens, but the promotional material claims they’re an “advanced AI species.” Unless I missed a throwaway line, nothing in the actual movie attempts to explain their origins or motives. But Free LSD isn’t a serious hard sci-fi movie, it’s a movie about a group of eccentrics who take an experimental boner medication and find themselves in the region of the multiverse where they’re famous punk musicians. It is loosely structured in three acts—introducing the premise through Morris’ character, getting the band together, triumphing over the baddies at the end—but it wanders all over the place. In this case, the digressiveness is a feature, not a bug; it allows us to take in scenes like popping in for no real reason as a street hustler with pierced nipples and a red cowboy hat, an erectile dysfunction parody ad, stopovers at a never-explained inter-reality beekeeping waystation, and an ending where Off! goes metaphysically platinum by giving away free samples of their Viagra-based psychedelic (delivered via blotter tabs that look indistinguishable from LSD) with their latest album to inaugurate an era of peace and love. Given the level of acting here and the generally low production values, a conventional narrative would have doomed the film to failure for everyone but hardcore Off! fans. Instead, there’s just enough insanity in the mix to hold your interest.

Musician/comedian Jack Black produced, and has a small role in the film (appearing remotely via cellphone). On a sad note, DH Peligro, who stepped in at the last moment to replace Off!’s regular drummer (who had another commitment), died in late 2022, soon after the film was completed.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…this incoherent feature debut from writer-director Dimitri Coats of the punk band Off! is no The Wall.”–Josh Bell, Crooked Marquee (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: HOUSE OF SCREAMING GLASS (2024)

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DIRECTED BY: David R. Williams

FEATURING: Lani Call

PLOT: After her mother’s death, Elizabeth inherits her grandmother’s school building and moves in.

House of Screaming Glass (2024)

COMMENTS: In a story such as this one, told in this particular style, a good deal is left up to the viewer to either figure out—sooner or later—or choose to overlook. It requires a certain ambience, and a compelling lead. She needn’t be a great actor so much as a curious presence (in both meanings of the modifier). Crafting a liminal space as much as a narrative film, in this dreamy wibbly-bit between sleep and waking, between story and mood, there can be a captivating pathway for the viewer to follow along. While Lani Call nails her task as protagonist—indeed, as the only human character—of House of Screaming Glass, at the half-way mark David R. Williams throws a Necronomicon-sized spanner into the work’s erstwhile smoothly-ticking gears, knocking the entire experience into a gooey netherworld of tedium.

What the film does right is feature Lani Call. Her narration is deadpan, sometimes bordering on comatose, lulling the listener into a sort of mental surrender. Her character, Elizabeth, seems done with life before the movie has even begun, and a great deal of the House of Screaming Glass experience is us watching her looking at things in the creepy building she has come to own. (Worry not, she’s as confounded at the turn of events as we are, so we’re in good company.) She tours the abandoned, semi-converted school building in fast-motion, with the camera locked on her face (à la Angst-cam). We enter a daze with her as she builds routines and gets a feel for the place, talking to it in her narration. She plays a bit of piano and a strange entity approaches over her right shoulder. She finds some photo albums, and a child’s book of doodles—which holds a set of nudie photos, quite probably of her grandmother.

So far, David Williams has done well. You probably know the type of thing going on here—something akin to Enys Men, or a less minimalist Skinamarink. It is a meditative and repetitious experience, but summons growing ill-ease. But (oh, but!) at the half-way point, Williams decides this is not what he wants to do any more. Improbably, Elizabeth finds a box full of occult props, tools, liquor, and reading material. The revelation scene, as she drinks the potion from the tentacle bottle and looks over a tome on loan from the Evil Dead museum, is pretty darn cool: colors sicken and glowing text cycles across the screen as she gains understanding.

But it comes at too high a cost, as far as I’m concerned. It is here that House of Screaming Glass stops being interesting and becomes just kind of gross. The thorough gear-shifting wrenched me from the reverie the film had worked so hard to put me under, and I spent the next forty-five minutes Hm-ing, Hrm-ing, and occasionally wishing there were fewer skin lesions. Better luck next time, maybe? I’m certainly interested to see what Lani Call ends up doing. She’s better than what Elizabeth is ultimately obliged to go through.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“In due course we will get to body horror… we enter a world in which hallucination is added to the litany of possible visual and psychological interpretations… The juxtaposition doesn’t quite work, and yet its very oddness signals that we have now crossed over into a different interior space… A lovingly made entry in the tradition of feminine psycho-horror, House Of Screaming Glass pits a stubbornly lifeless vérité against the allure of the Gothic.”—Jennie Kermode, Eye For Film (contemporaneous)

House of Screaming Glass [DVD]

House of Screaming Glass [DVD]
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