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It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE DEVIL’S CHAIR (2007)

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DIRECTED BY: Adam Mason

FEATURING: Andrew Howard, , Louise Griffiths, Elize du Toit,

PLOT: Having witnessed his girlfriend’s brutalization and disappearance by an evil chair, Nick returns four years later with a group of psychology students to recreate the experience.

COMMENTS: The Devil’s Chair could have been a pretty neat movie: a ’70s / ’80s throwback, telling a tale about evil science intersecting with dark occultism: about a sinister device crafted by a mad psychologist to separate the body from the soul in a manner most horrible. Alternatively, it could have been a decent exploration of criminal insanity, from a skewed perspective maintained up through until the very end, leaving us uncertain about the grisly narrative we’ve endured. Instead, it was a third thing, facetiously tossing aside and spitting on the better possibilities.

Despite this decision, The Devil’s Chair has glimmers of promise and possibility. Nick is hitting well out of his league with Sammy, a gorgeous young woman whom he takes on a date to an abandoned mental institution; the pair drops acid and things go pear-shaped. He convinces himself (and us) that the sinister device bloodily violates her before poofing her out of existence. The psychology department at Cambridge is intrigued both by his condition (it must have been a psychotic vision) and the occult possibilities (Dr. Willard knows more than he initially lets on). They take Nick to the scene of the awful for psycho-supernatural tests and observations.

What the movie does right is mostly in the title. The furniture piece in question is one prop I’d be happy to own. A combination of electric chair and sacrificial restraining device, it springs into action when a hidden needle pierces the skin of any finger foolish enough to rest within a cunningly-placed aperture. The doctor behind this machine is one of those classic “brilliant scientists gone wacky,” and the parallel world (with its requisite flickering lights, endless corridors, and gooey-boney demon thing) is derivative, but delightfully imagined. Matt Berry’s presence as an academic toff—at one point clad in a radiogram-skeleton shirt, long underwear, and cowboy boots—adds a chuckle.

But alas, the whole thing feels as if director Adam Mason watched too many movies. He constantly sabotages the experience through snarky asides and observations, rendering his protagonist not only unsympathetic, but also irritating. (This is only worsened by a tendency to freeze the frame as Nick spits out his dumb little witticisms.) There’s also an odd little tirade arriving at what should have been a stirring demonic climax, admonishing the viewer for watching this kind of thing in the first place. Still, The Devil’s Chair had enough momentum to carry me through the “Ahahah, gotcha!” bloody finale, and makes me hopeful that another filmmaker out there might swipe some of its better elements. Bring unto me the horror throwback about an evil chair and the dark arts behind its manifestations.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…The Devil’s Chair, alas, is dumb sensationalism that trusts blood-buckets dumped on thesps are enough to raise a fright, then undercuts even that via laddish, winking audience asides… The eventual twist only makes the scenario seem more crassly lacking in motivational logic.” — Dennis Harvey, Variety (contemporaneous)

The Devil's Chair (Unrated) [DVD]

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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: DEAD MOUNTAINEER’S HOTEL (1979)

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“Hukkunud Alpinisti” Hotell

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This review includes spoilers.

DIRECTED BY: Grigori Kromanov

FEATURING: Uldis Pūcītis, Jüri Järvet, Lembit Peterson, Mikk Mikiver, Tiit Härm, Nijole Ozelyte

PLOT: Called to an Alpine inn and trapped by an avalanche, a police inspector uncovers a bizarre mix of murder, organized crime, paid assassination, and an unexpected twist that leaves the him in way over his head. 

Still from Dead Mountaineer's Hotel (1979)

COMMENTS: Ronald Knox’s Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction are a handy guide to playing fair with the reader. They are not always scrupulously followed, and shouldn’t be considered  inviolable; some of Agatha Christie’s most popular novels make mincemeat of the rules. But they’re valuable as a guide to what might happen when coloring outside the lines. We turn to this list today because Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel takes a weed whacker to Commandment #2: “All supernatural or prenatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.” The result is a mystery that only the most wildly lucky viewer could possibly solve, so reliant is it upon a massive genre swerve. And it’s all exactly as the creators intended.

Brothers Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky (who also wrote the source material for Stalker) adapted their own book, a formal experiment in pulling a switcheroo on the reader. They envisioned a classic locked-room mystery, one in which a smart detective has to choose between a number of suspects at an isolated location, all of whom arouse suspicion in their own way. Think Murder on the Orient Express. Now imagine that the culprit in that classic whodunit was an invisible octopod who entered the train through a transdimensional rift, and you’ll start to get a sense of the sharpness of the left turn in Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel. Because that’s our solution here. It’s aliens. It’s a thoroughly unexpected twist that makes it a failure as a mystery—and a success as something else entirely.

Long before the truth behind the strange goings-on at this remote mountain inn are revealed, there are the strange goings-on themselves. The hotel is decorated in striking 70s modern décor courtesy of set designer Tõnu Virve, with post-space age lines and lots of mirrored surfaces. (The setting is perfectly matched by Sven Grünberg’s groovy synth-based score.) The source of the lodge’s name is peculiarly mundane: a guest disappeared while out climbing and that was that. The unfortunate sportsman left behind his dog, who now works delivering guests’ luggage when he’s not sitting watch beneath a giant portrait of his lost master. And then there are the guests, a motley crew with odd backgrounds and uncertain futures, including a scientist who climbs the walls of the hotel, a beautiful Lothario who seems incapable of making a bad shot on the billiard table, and an older man who curls up on the snow-covered balcony to escape his many allergies.

In every possible respect, our hero does not fit in with these people or in these surroundings. Glebsky, the by-the-book detective, is utterly incapable of drawing outside the lines, and when it appears that there has been a murder, his unswerving dedication to finding a culprit and meting out justice is unshakable. The movie repeatedly tests him: he is asked questions about fanciful theories of the origins of human intelligence, which he sidesteps because they are outside of a cop’s purview. He cannot change his approach to games to meet an unexpectedly strong foe or adjust his dance style to accommodate a freewheeling partner on the floor. When a newcomer arrives at the lodge, Glebsky’s only concern is how this person is connected to the murder. And most crucially, when the plot makes its ultimate transition from mystery to science fiction, and not only are we introduced to aliens but the murder itself is undone, Glebsky is unable to shift his mindset in any way. (Tellingly, actor Pūcītis was a Latvian in a cast of Estonians; he did not speak the same language, and thus was perpetually isolated amidst the production.) He remains utterly committed to his certainty that he’s in a police procedural, and any facts that don’t fit must not be facts at all.

A film made amidst the Cold War in a republic under Soviet domination will inevitably have a political element, and Glebsky is a serviceable stand-in for a state that was so committed to a point of view that stifled dissent in all its forms, even in the shape of contradictory facts. (Thank goodness that’s behind us.) But the extra layer of commentary is not necessary to deliver the tragedy of Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel. Nearly every character demonstrates the ability to perceive new circumstances and adapt to them, even the late alpinist’s dog. But not our hero. He remains shackled to his orders, enables a tragedy because he knows no other way, and ends the film trying to convince himself of the righteousness of his actions. If only he’d been able to roll with the changes when the mystery dropped out from under him.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“This is another of those movies that’s not really within just one genre as there are elements of mystery / suspense, crime, science fiction, surrealism and horror all weaved in plus lots of flashbacks, nightmares, hallucinations and oddball characters and even some bizarrely-placed b/w newsreel footage showing real people falling to their deaths trying to escape from a burning high rise apartment building. While it’s well-made, handsomely-shot and keeps you guessing, it’s at its best as a visual piece…” – Justin McKinney, The Bloody Pit of Horror

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

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ALABAMA’S GHOST (1973)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Peggy Browne, , , Ken Grantham

PLOT: A janitor-turned-magician gets more than he bargains for after signing up with a mysterious impresario, as a conspiracy unfolds around the greatest magic show ever.

Still from Alabama's Ghost (1973)

COMMENTS: When you see a credit for “Go-Go Dancers,” you know you’re in for a good time. Especially when those credits are front-loaded, and an array of oddities is laid out before the movie hits you. Especially especially when there’s a jaunty Dixieland jazz tune dancing through the speakers while the promises unspool (Doctor Caligula? Mama-Bama? Marilyn Midnight?). Alabama’s Ghost segues into a live performance of that opening tune—with an establishing shot of a foreshortened trombone sliding uncannily toward and away from the camera. Yessir, ma’am, there’s jivin’ style to spare in this extravaganza from the inimitable Fredric Hobbs, dealing out countless exciting genres in this slice of wonderment.

Navigating this variety show is the titular Alabama (who, despite what that title implies, is very much alive), leaning back at a bar, high on something (“it’s like a hundred yellow-haired cats, dancing on jade”) but whose mellow is about to harshed by the boss-man. Alabama’s gotta pack up the band’s gear, and stack it nice. After bringing the gear to the basement, he drives his loaded forklift through a false wall, revealing the collected possessions of Carter, a legendary magician who disappeared in Delhi in 1935. So begins the rise of Alabama: King of the Cosmos!

Hobbs pulls out the genre stops like they were going out of style, and so Alabama’s Ghost has something for everyone. Do you like magic? Got it in spades. Questionable ’70s sci-fi science? Let me tell you about the powers—and dangers—of transmitting raw zeta waves (not to mention the atomically adjacent deadly zeta waves). Is music your thing? A Scottish-accented impresario who goes by Otto Max (well illustrated by the steel business card, with his name stamped in the metal) will ensure there’s plenty of grooviness, man. Vampires? Comely Nazi scientists? Doomsday? An elephant?

Frickin’-A. These far-out goodies hop around the plotline like horseflies at a cosmic rodeo. Otto Max, with all his Puritan fop garb swagger, pitches his vision of a giant magic show to Alabama: “Surrealism’s in—surrealism’s where it’s at.” He might as well be pitching this very movie. Fredric Hobbs gave the film world far too few gifts, but his Godmonster/Ghost double-shot is pam-jacked with strange sights to see, peculiar paths to take, and, in the case of his sophomore feature, a vampire so full of ham that the Go-Go Dancers might gorge on pig flesh for weeks.

(As it stands, they gorge on people. Add “cannibalism” to that earlier mix. Peace out.)

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Whatever you can say about the movie, it does appear that director Fredric Hobbs had a vision of sorts… Believe me, low-budget horror doesn’t come much stranger than this one.” — David Sindelar, Fantastic Movie Musings

Capsules

CAPSULE: TOMIE (1998)

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富江

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DIRECTED BY: Ataru Oikawa

FEATURING: Mami Nakamura, Miho Kanno, Yoriko Dôguchi, , Kôta Kusano

PLOT: Tsukiko undergoes hypnotic therapy to recover lost memories of a recent traumatic event as her downstairs neighbor recorporealizes the living head of a murder victim.

Still from Tomie (1998)

COMMENTS: The creepiest element of this Japanese Horror film must be the title track—not the living head (and its body’s strange developmental trajectory), not the protagonist’s blood-soaked nightmares, not the troubling young fellow with an eye patch living on the floor below. Those are, for sure, all pretty creepy, though I was relieved to discover the cockroach sequence late in the film didn’t go full-on Cage. I was relieved, too, that the depths of creepiness plumbed by the plaintive song to Tomie were the deepest found in Tomie. There is a lot of creep, and it is all most satisfactory.

The plot allows for a solid hanger on which to rest the film’s mysteries and, we learn later, the legend of Kawakami Tomie. Most recently, Tomie’s driven about half of a high school class to either suicide or a mental institution. Tsukiko was a fellow student, and mysteriously (and I’d wager, fortunately) has blocked out a lot of her recent past—though she’s trying to recover memories with the aid of a hypnotherapist. This therapist has an encounter with a chain-smoking detective (a charismatically odd Tomorô Taguchi) who has been burdened with the unenviable task of wrapping up the murder investigation of Kawakami Tomie, with a lack of the victim’s head being among his sundry challenges. Tsukiko’s boyfriend lurks in the background, cheating on his girlfriend, trying to hold a band together, and earning his pay at a rinky-dink café.

This being the kind of movie it is, most of these characters are doomed from the get-go. But while navigating the plot line, Ataru Oikawa keeps things stylish, and refreshingly within the special effects constraints of the late ’90s. (Even those who normally eschew early CGI will have no complaints.) And while exploring the pair of protagonists—Tsukiko and Tomie—there is space for a few interesting ideas: the nature of victimhood, the importance of forgetting, and where lies the responsibility when one person “causes” another to violently lash out? Calmly paced, often unsettling, and capably performed, Tomie is an utter delight—resting head and shoulders above the competition.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a superior slice of modern Japanese horror, and one that benefits from spending a large amount of its running time exploring both its human and inhuman characters, creating a fascinating mythos that gives the film a surreal, almost dreamlike atmosphere.”–James Mudge, Eastern Kicks

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List Candidates

FANTASIA 2024: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: GHOST CAT ANZU (2024)

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化け猫あんずちゃん

Bakeneko anzu-chan

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Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Yôko Kuno,

FEATURING: Voices of Noa Gotô, , Munetaka Aoki

PLOT: Abandoned in the sleepy beach town of Iketeru, 11-year-old Karin finds herself in the care of Anzu: a 37-year-old, human-sized “ghost cat” with a penchant for pachinko and speedy scootering.

Still from Ghost Cat Anzu (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Seeing as we’ve certified a charming tale of someone pulled into realm of the spirits, I’ll suggest we include this differently charming tale of the spirit world slacking around amongst us people. Also, there are too few children’s movies on the list, and never enough giant cats.

COMMENTS:

“Whoa, that’s one big frog.”

Gah! Who are you?

“I’m Anzu, a ghost cat. Who are you?”

I’m a giant frog monster. Ribbet-Ribbet!

And so it goes in Iketeru, the idyllic waterfront village where a young girl finds herself ditched by her deadbeat dad who has some complicated debts he needs to take care of in Tokyo. From this pedestrian kick-off, directors Kuno and Yamashito rise to an impressive challenge: crafting a laid-back, deadpan, almost ‘ world in a whimsical, Ghibli-style animation.

Karin is cynical before her time. Beyond her difficulties arising from the ne’er-do-well father, we learn that she lost her mother at the age of eight, and has been under the guardianship of a grown man barely more mature than she is (perhaps even less so). In many ways, her circumstances don’t change when she is introduced to Anzu, a human-sized—and very human-acting — cat, who can perceive and interact with the spirit world. Anzu helps Karin’s grandfather maintain the small local temple, as well as a taking few odd jobs around town. He travels by scooter, though an early brush with the law strips him of his beloved transport.

Mythical Japanese beings emerge for a cocktail party hosted by Anzu, and Karin meets a Hag, a giant mushroom-man, a stone-form baby Buddha, the “giant frog monster” mentioned earlier, and more. Anzu’s slack sensibilities keep him from ever working too hard (he is a cat, after all), but he is a good friend: he feels bad after gambling away Karin’s earnings at the local pachinko parlor. It’s all so very natural, despite the entities in question. Frog and friends get jobs at the golf course whose woods they inhabit. Karin teases the two local boys (self-proclaimed creators of a “Contrarian” club). Grandfather oversees the temple. And so it goes.

But most of all, Karin misses her mother, and she undertakes a daring escapade into the underworld, with the considerable assistance from the God of Poverty, who is bamboozled into the task by Anzu. Entering through the crematorium’s out-of-order toilet while on a day-trip to Tokyo, Karin, Anzu, and the god visit the underworld hotel, and their capering unleashes demons and the God of Death onto the surface. The film lays on silliness and peculiarity thickly, and the picturesque animation maintains a perfect tension with the near-flippant attitude suffusing Kuno and Yamashito’s collaboration. Strange spirits, it seems, are all around us. And they’re just about as lazy as we are.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Combining live-action filming with frame-by-frame rotoscoping, it crafts a surreal, dream-like world. With its colorful art style and quirky characters, Ghost Cat Anzu explores profound themes of grief, family, and spirituality in an approachable way for both children and adults alike.” – Naser Nahandian, Gazettely (contemporaneous)