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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: CAT SICK BLUES (2015)

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DIRECTED BY: Dave Jackson

FEATURING: Matthew C. Vaughan, Shian Denovan, Meg Spencer, Jeni Bezuidenhout

PLOT: A former Internet celebrity whose life revolved around her cat’s  viral video performances and a fellow with a fetish for defiling and murdering women while dressed as a cat meet at a pet-loss support group. This is not a love story.

Still from Cat Sick Blues (2015)

COMMENTS: Within the first five minutes, Cat Sick Blues had already checked all my boxes for my favorite kinda horror movie: sick, dark humor on the /Full Moon spectrum (check), faithful adherence to horror movie protocol that the first two characters we meet die in minutes (check), a punk rock/screamo soundtrack that evokes the nihilist spirit of the story about to unfold (check), smirky social satire (check), a roller-coaster pace where you can’t possibly predict the next swerve (check), and a camera shot (pictured) with a head on a table, perfect to add to your decapitation scrapbook alongside Frankenhooker (check-a-roonie). By the time the first victim’s head had bounced gaily down the stairs, the movie had already bounced purring into my lap. Cat Sick Blues takes turns affectionately nuzzling your face and playfully clawing you hard enough to draw blood. Just when you think you can let your guard down, it bites your hand again, lest you get too comfortable. Many will be turned off by it, but for the rest of us horror/sicko freaks, this is our cup of catnip tea.

Claire (Shian Denovan) is the owner of Imelda, a fluffy white cat whose videos have taken on a viral life of their own. Sadly, Imelda’s fandom is a little too fanatic, as one obsessed fan shows up at her door and bluffs his way inside, only to summarily murder her cat and rape her. Broken, Claire ends up at a support group for bereaved pet owners (if you liked Fight Club’s satire of support-group culture, here’s another dose of that). There, she meets Ted (Matthew C. Vaughan), a towering and imposing fellow who’s also shy and antisocial. Ted is going through some things, to put it mildly. He has sought a support group way too late in life, having already converted himself by night into a serial killer in a cat mask. He even enlists the help of a local leather-crafter to fashion a set of sharp-clawed gloves, and a monster-sized strap-on spiked dildo to complete the ensemble. In this costume, he dispatches victims and, more than once, has a very dramatic orgasm while doing so, spasming on the floor in his cat mask and floppy dildo. All of this turns out to have a second purpose for Ted: he is collecting the blood of victims in a bucket in anticipation of re-animating his own dead black cat, Patrick. (Note to A Bucket of Blood: this is what a whole bucket of blood looks like!)

Claire and Ted hook up, after Ted makes a whirlwind cleaning tour of his apartment to hide the serial killer paraphernalia and trophies. So the question becomes, will Claire figure out that she’s dating a killer before Ted fulfills his body count? What happens from here becomes less clear as the story proceeds, until act three, where the director decides to let the story-logic slide into territory, with dream sequences and hallucinations clouding the narrative enough that we can pick our own ending. The one thing that’s clear is that this movie will have no shortage of indelible images right up to the end credits, including some genuine gross-outs.

For a small budget picture, it’s a pleasure seeing such attention to detail. The chaos is sharply filmed, framed, and hemmed in by a tight production all around. The set is filled with familiar cat-themed gift shop kitsch like cat mugs, cat T-shirts, and cat bongs. One scene has Claire sorting through her mail; the pile of envelopes has some custom-printed mailers relevant to the plot, with text you’ll want to freeze-frame so its carefully spread satire may be read and appreciated in full. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene has Ted visiting a rave where teenagers in glowing jewelry wave their phones in the air and the DJ raises a squirt-gun to his lips. Most impressive of all, Cat Sick Blues was released in 2015, and yet has not aged a single day. We’re still a culture obsessed with Internet fame and cats, wallowing in bizarre fetishes and shallow morals. Claire’s fans, adoring the content yet lacking empathy for its creator, flock to ridicule her situation, or steal clicks by posting reaction videos to her plight.

It’s remarkable that this film isn’t better known (or at least didn’t cross our radar sooner), but we can chalk that up to an Australian production by a director who seems to live entirely at film festivals down under. Reading the IMDB reviews, I see commenters practically coughing up hairballs as they remark how upsetting, offensive, and disturbing this movie is. Let the poor little kittens lap their safe milk. For us fans of feral film, Cat Sick Blues is the kitty that roars like a lion.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…sometimes movies just leave you completely confused and unsure of what it is that you just watched. That basically sums up how I felt once I had finished watching the bizarre Australian horror film, Cat Sick Blues.”–Chris Coffel, Bloody Disgusting (DVD)

(This movie was nominated for review by Bradley, who called it “one odd movie.”. Suggest a weird movie or two of your own here.)

 

 

Cat Sick Blues

Cat Sick Blues

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IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: LFO (2013)

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DIRECTED BY: Antonio Tublen

FEATURING: Patrik Karlson, Izabella Jo Tschig, , Ahnna Rasch

PLOT: An acoustical engineer discovers a technology to implant hypnotic suggestion and tests out his new-found skills on his neighbors.Still from LFO (2013)

COMMENTS: Fundamental to science fiction is not only its ability to predict the future, but to anticipate the otherwise unforeseen consequences that the future will bring. As Isaac Asimov noted, “It is easy to predict an automobile in 1880; it is very hard to predict a traffic problem.” So it goes with LFO, which starts with a tried-and-true premise—what if we could bend others to our will?—and then dives into the havoc that could be wreaked if someone with highly questionable morals wielded this ability. It could easily be a “Black Mirror” episode, but writer/director/composer Tublen has something more specific in mind. Beyond the dangers of trying to control other people’s minds, he’s interested in the kind of person who would be inclined to misuse this power.

It’s hardly accidental that the camera never leaves the tiny, cramped house of Robert, the quiet loner who immediately applies his discovery to manipulating the couple that just moved in across the street. While Robert’s ambitions might be large (he practices an anticipated Nobel Prize acceptance speech), he’s a very small man, and his home serves as a mirror for his chaotic mind. He is insular both by fate and by choice, choosing to interact only with those whose responses he can predict. A spiritual descendant of The Conversation’s Harry Caul, Robert is mystified and frightened by others’ emotional needs. Unlike Harry, though, Robert finds a way to interact with others on his own terms, which is how he can embark on a manipulative and even cruel path without an ounce of malevolence in his heart.

There’s an unsettling humor to how Robert pursues his research. We don’t know much about Linn and Simon, the new neighbors, and Robert doesn’t really care about them except for how he can use them (Linn as a mindless sex object, Simon to wash his windows and rob banks). When we do learn something about the couple’s personal life, Robert feeds that back through his own personal filter, inserting himself as an ersatz therapist and finding new ways to maneuver their lives for his benefit. There’s even an element of screwball comedy as more interlopers—a rival acoustician, a dogged investigator, even Robert’s ex-wife—show up to turn the screws and threaten the world he has made for himself, forcing him to use his mind-control tactics more widely and urgently. But Tublen never loses sight of the essential horror at the story’s foundation: people are having their freedom destroyed by someone only interested in himself.

Karlson expertly taps into the confident ignorance of Robert, who follows in the great tradition of cinematic nerds whose buttoned-up exterior conceals black motives. Even if he weren’t using his technological breakthrough to manipulate others for personal interest, we’d be wary of him. Wearing horn-rimmed glasses and short-sleeved dress shirts with neckties that invariably have a mustard stain somewhere on them, rocking a perpetual 10 o’clock shadow, and radiating an uncomfortable intensity, he’s off-putting before he’s even said a word. We’re not surprised to see his home in a state of disarray, nor are we taken aback by the dark, equipment-littered basement in which he squirrels himself away. He’s the Dangerous Nerd, the dark Dilbert scorned by society, whose intelligence will only be magnify his revenge.

LFO is a simple but smart little piece of sci-fi horror, a worthy companion piece to other low-budget successes like Coherence that pack a lot of ideas into a compact space. Even its whirlwind final minutes, when the global scope of Robert’s terrible ambition is revealed, it stays focused on his sadly isolated, blithely arrogant mind. The traffic was never the fault of the cars, but of the people driving them.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… a quirky and altogether memorable adventure that maintains a sense of mystery far longer than one might expect… Most movies have one unique idea that the filmmaker hopes will help set their project apart from their competition. LFO actually has a number of crazy ideas at work at any given time… In all my years of writing about films I can honestly say I have never seen anything quite like this film.”–James Shotwell, Under the Gun

(This movie was nominated for review by WithoutTheA, who said “there was a fair amount going on that was strange throughout the entire movie. The ending was pretty bizarre too.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)         

LFO

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CAPSULE: LUTHER THE GEEK (1989)

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DIRECTED BY: Carlton J. Albright

FEATURING: Edward Terry, Joan Roth, Stacy Haiduk

PLOT: Imprisoned as a juvenile for a murder spree, Luther is released on parole and terrorizes a family in a remote Illinois farmhouse.

Still from Luther the Geek (1989)

 

COMMENTS: What is the goal of imprisonment? Some argue deterrence. Others rehabilitation. A few would make the case for vengeance. Or perhaps it’s some combination of these. Carlton J. Albright and his team put these socio-philosophical concerns aside in their chronicle of Luther the Geek: a madman who began as a mad lad, murdering three people after a formative encounter with a circus performer who ripped open the necks of chickens for the amusement of the crowds (and to earn his much-needed liquor).

Amongst that crowd, Young Luther is thrown to the floor in a scuffle—smashing out his front teeth in the process. Fast-forward twenty years (all of them in prison), and his parole is reviewed by five prison officials, among them a “bleeding-heart” female who notes Luther’s commendable behavior prison, his lack of speech notwithstanding. Luther, you see, merely clucks. By a vote of three-to-two, he’s set loose, and the inevitable ensues.

Albright lucked out finding a performer like Edward Terry, since to whatever degree it may be argued that Luther the Geek works, it could not work without Terry’s all-in performance. His Luther is not fit for society, and quickly murders again. An hour or so of this eighty-minute movie takes place in an out of the way farm, during which—through a series of commendably paced, shot, and edited chase, scuffle & violence set-pieces—various victims are bloodily dispatched by the titular geek.

Why are we here, though? The pay-offs will interest slasher fans. Titillation seekers get their thrills from the buxom daughter. The rest of us may find Luther the Geek an oddity (if not a weird-ity) worth checking out. Through much of the dialogue-free performance from Terry, I was reminded of 183’s Angst. Luther the Geek sort of plays out like that German film’s American hick cousin. Indeed, one weakness I found in Angst is not present in Luther: there is no inner monologue. We have no real idea why this nut is doing what he’s doing; and Luther is all the more terrible and, perhaps, sympathetic for this lack of elucidation. As a violence picture that goes for the throat, there’s a strange undercurrent of pathos—and a remarkable finale that doesn’t chicken out.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“What happens when a horror film refuses to dampen its premise with humor, even when the premise itself borders on the absurd? LUTHER THE GEEK answers that question by committing, sometimes uncomfortably, to a nightmare that never pauses to reassure the audience it’s in on the joke. This is not a standard slasher, nor a self-aware cult oddity; it’s a blunt, regional exploitation film that believes in its monster completely, for better and for worse.” — Chris Jones, Overly Honest Reviews

Luther The Geek (Tromatic Special Edition)

Luther The Geek (Tromatic Special Edition)

  • A young country boy is plunged into the depths of homicidal madness after witnessing the strange exploits of a carnival “geek.”

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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: TURBO KID (2015)

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DIRECTED BY: François Simard, Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell

FEATURING: Munro Chambers, Laurence Leboeuf, Aaron Jeffrey, Edwin Wright, Michael Ironside

PLOT: In a post-apocalyptic future, a young kid discovers the fighting gear of the legendary Turbo Rider and sets out to topple the tyrannical overlord Zeus.

Still from Turbo Kid (2015)

COMMENTS: Turbo Kid lays down its ace right from the get-go, as a gravel-voiced narrator describes the grim vista of a tomorrow carved out by nuclear winter and acid rain. “This is the future,” he intones, as a boy on a BMX bike pedals into frame. “This is the year 1997.” Time for a quick double-check on the year this came out… yep, and we are truly underway.

The 366 Weird Movies archive does not lack for films from four decades ago that employed a low budget and suitably barren locations to depict the world-after-the-end-of-the-world to audiences. (Just off the top of my head, I can think of three such movies that I myself have reviewed.) Recent years have seen several attempts at nostalgic pastiche, but Turbo Kid stands alone for setting “80s desolation romp” as a target. In particular, it’s the product of the serial nostalgist collective Road Kill Super Stars (aka RKSS, which consisted of this film’s three writer-directors, until Simard was booted last year for criminal sex charges); when their proposed contribution to the anthology The ABCs of Death was rejected, they had more than enough ideas to expand the concept into a feature.

Considering that Turbo Kid’s sole objective is to recapture that special 1980s mix of futuristic nihilism and naïve can-do spirit, the effort is remarkably successful. The empty fields and gravel pits in Quebec that stand in for the future’s wastelands are suitably desolate. Costuming and production design tap into the mixed milieu of flashy colors and big hair roaming around what look like abandoned sewage treatment plants. Plenty of props serve as icons of the era, from Rubik’s cubes and Nintendo Power Gloves to the ubiquitous BMX bikes that serve as everyone’s transportation around the barren wasteland. (Not that bicycles would be the most unusual form of transport to dominate the coming hellscape.) Plus, the synth-fueled musical score by Le Matos is both pitch-perfect and tiresome in a way that’s era-appropriate, and is supplemented in the font-of-the-future opening credits with the most fitting rock song choice imaginable, a fist-pumping anthem from Stan Bush (of “The Touch” fame). If you’re fooled for a moment into thinking that this was churned out in 1985, that’s fully intended, because Turbo Kid doesn’t want to just capture the feel of these 80s low-budget sci-fi epics; it wants to be one of them.

This commitment to verisimilitude extends to the film’s cast, who play everything straight enough to sell the movie’s central joke. Chambers is just the right kind of bland hero, not looking anywhere as young as his outward level of maturity, but fully selling The Kid’s sweet ignorance. As his sidekick and love interest, Leboeuf’s perky Apple turns out to be the most delightful, refreshing thing that Turbo Kid brings to the party. Her indefatigably chipper vibe initially seems like it’s going to become annoying fast but quickly becomes the animating force in the film, with a naively joyful spirit that makes a crucial revelation about her character land with a nod of approval instead of a roll of the eyes. And then there’s the filmmakers’ most crucial piece of casting, landing master of scene-chewing villainy Michael freaking Ironside to do the thing he does. Undoubtedly, he could play this part in his sleep, but while his work here is effortless, he’s in no way phoning it in. He plays the heel with all the acid-tongued vigor of his younger days, in which he no doubt celebrated getting cast over Kurtwood Smith. Ironside even makes a virtue of the directors’ most questionable choice, surrounding Zeus with a less-than-skillful set of minions who leave the overlord shy of his most supervillainous aspirations. It’s a bit of postmodern irony that’s out of place in Turbo Kid’s otherwise resolute commitment to the homage.

Perhaps the thing that most distinguishes Turbo Kid from its ancestors is the remarkable level of gore. It’s not as though these films are devoid of viscera, as any Mad Max entry will demonstrate, but RKSS is relentless, with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of fake blood spewed via every manner of stabbing, decapitation, and explosion. This festival of fluid is impossible to take seriously, presented in an extremely cartoonish manner, and resembling nothing so much as Sam Peckinpah’s Salad Days. It can be outright funny at times, like a sawblade on a helmet that turns its victim into a screw top, or a body that lands squarely atop another person like the most unwieldy hat. So it’s one of Turbo Kid’s better surprises that the orgy of violence ends up showcasing the film’s sweetest moment, a romantic tableau that’s only enhanced by the surrounding rain of blood.

Given the opportunity for parody, Turbo Kid opts instead for direct mimicry, an odd choice by itself, but one that makes the finished film more earnest than weird. That does make the film a charming watch, if a weightless one. That 80s trash was pretty fun, and this re-creation is pretty fun, too. It’s a low bar, but clearing it is a decent way to spend an hour or two.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a wildly discordant, schizophrenically adorable, gore-soaked fantasy set in an deserted industrial wasteland… Add in the other nutso, hilarious touches, and you have the garnish you need to turn your sweet tale of friendship into a Friday night blood feast.” – Patrick Feutz, Inside the Blue Paint

(This movie was nominated for review by film izle. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.) 

Turbo kid

Turbo kid

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    It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

    APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: FRANKENHOOKER (1990)

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    DIRECTED BY: Frank Henenlotter

    FEATURING: , Patty Mullen, Joseph Gonzalez, Shirley Stoler,

    PLOT: When sweet Elizabeth dies in a terrible lawnmower accident, her grieving fiancé—power plant technician and amateur scientist Jeffrey Franken—sets out to restore her to life by assembling a new body made from the parts of prostitutes he kills with a new explosive strain of crack cocaine. 

    WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: If ever there were a film that could make our list just by wishing for it really hard, Frankenhooker is that film. Starting with the decent-enough premise to set Mary Shelley’s classic tale in the waning days of Times Square grunginess, it piles on characters who soar well past cartoonishness, ladles on strange behaviors and absurd reactions, and tops it off with enough coarse sexuality and Guignol-lite gore to make the whole confection gleefully repellent. It knows what it is, and it revels in it.

    Still from Frankenhooker (1990)

    COMMENTS: Frankenhooker makes me regret that we’ve never created a tag called “On-the-nose Titles.” We’ve talked before about movies where the title does the heavy lifting, and this is one such film. A Frankenstein’s monster made from hookers. Why even bother with a synopsis?

    If you were to subject Frankenhooker’s screenplay to intense analysis, you’d find very little at its core. It’s not a one-joke movie, but probably no more than five: the Frankenstein myth set in New Jersey, the mad doctor is an overachieving electrician, his creation is built out of random hooker parts, the Bride is a murderous sex-starved brute, and New York City prostitutes react to crack like desperate parents at a Walmart on Black Friday. Fortunately, those jokes are merely the foundation for what Frankenhooker is really about: silly stereotypes and outrageous gore.  These are things that Frank Henenlotter knows how to deliver, and he doesn’t hold back.

    The film has to overcome a significant demerit in the form of our hero himself. Lorinz is a black hole: even when he’s drilling a hole in his own head for a little light trepanning, he has the bland, conventional good looks of Andrew McCarthy and the placid demeanor of a low-energy standup comic. (His voice suggests teaching a yoga class.) He teases a bolder character than we get, which is surprising considering he’s a mad scientist from New Jersey. His refusal to go as over-the-top as the plot that surrounds him may be the strangest thing about Frankenhooker.

    Former Penthouse Pet Mullen has a better handle on the material as the unfortunate Elizabeth. Following a brief pre-accident scene in which she dials up the tropes of the bland-but-adoring fiancée, she gets to go full monster, staggering about town with her jaw awkwardly jutting to the side and demanding “Want a date?” in a shrill Jersey accent. (I tried for ages to figure out who Mullen’s demented lady of the night reminded me of until I realized it was Rapunzel from this magnificent “Sesame Street” sketch.) If anything, she inspires the rest of the ensemble to go hard, from the gum-smacking ruffian ladies of the night to thinks-with-his-fists pimp Zorro to recognizable “That Guy” David Lipman’s cameo as Monster-Elizabeth’s overenthusiastic john. In a cast where everyone but the lead is playing to the cheap seats, Mullen is a stand-out.

    Not every scene is this extreme, and in fact Henenlotter almost seems to be making a bid to become the genteel Lloyd Kaufman. Long scenes of Lorinz monologuing his plans drag things out, and often the movie opts to run headlong into insanity instead of giving it a minute or two to build. However, Frankenhooker absolutely nails the landing with two separate showcases of wildly inventive craziness in the final 15 minutes: first with a grotesque revenge on behalf of the murdered hookers who have inadvertently been reassembled into hilariously awful human meatballs, and then the ultimate comeuppance for the mad doctor as a repaired Elizabeth saves the day in a most amusing manner. As much as Frankenhooker is out to deliver exactly the eyes-covered, laughing-in-shock amusement you’re expecting, the movie genuinely surpasses itself in the finale. The title may be on the nose, but the tale it tells is a refreshing punch in the groin.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “This film is…well, weird.  With a name like Frankenhooker, I suppose that you expected that.  Even beyond that though, it’s a weird, weird film. …  There’s no ‘normal’ way to do this story, but it still tries hard to be extra insane.  If you’re into the wacky side of Cinema, check this one out. It may blow your mind though..” – Alec Pridgen, Mondo Bizarro         

    (This movie was nominated for review by Brian Fahrion. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)         

    Frankenhooker (Blu-ray)

    Frankenhooker (Blu-ray)
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