PLOT: A girl ventures into unknown territory when she helps her lover, a former torture victim, seek revenge on her one-time captors, in this bloody tale of madness and sadism.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: You may have heard incomplete descriptions of Martyrs in the media or by word of mouth. Hushed references and whispered gossip might make it sound like a snuff movie, a sado-masochistic tableau, or a scandalous exploration of taboos. It is none of these things. While Martyrs is a heavy, very violent film with a grim story, it is not a snuff movie or a sensational expose of torture. It is an offbeat, horrifying thriller, and nothing more.
COMMENTS: When Anna (Alaoui) and her lover Lucie (Jampanoï) embark on a mission of revenge against Lucie’s childhood torturers, the situation quickly spirals out of control. The couple locates Lucie’s alleged abductors, but did they find the right people? Lucie is stalked and victimized by the spectre of the mutilated sister she had to leave behind, and Anna is not so sure where the truth lies. In the process of exacting retribution the landscape changes dramatically and Anna is swept into an incomprehensible morass of hell on earth.
I’m so underwhelmed! I was expecting a real stick of dynamite, but instead, I got one of those Fourth of July smoldering snake novelties. Movie site rumors and an ongoing debate over whether or not Martyrs amounts to little more than “torture porn” made me expect a wild ride. I had hoped to see the ultimate horror movie, or at least something mindlessly vulgar and sensational, but no dice.
What I got was an extremely well-shot, conventionally produced, offbeat story. Unfortunately, it consists of two loosely linked plot sequences which, once combined, don’t amount to a sum greater than their parts. Nor do they deliver any sort of soul stirring revelation. Ho hum.
FEATURING: Carmen Maura, Santaigo Barón, Ana Fernández, Juan Margallo, Evaristo Calvo
PLOT : A devout nanny’s religious convictions are tested when a clairvoyant child implores her to murder his father.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The events in La Promisa unfold in a weird way, making the story bizarre. The nature of these events, however, is no different from those in any occult film; the film is as conventionally produced as any horror movie. While the story is definitely out there, the overall viewing experience is not quite weird enough to be certified as such.
COMMENTS: Solid performances and Santiago de Compostela locations compliment this creepy, offbeat occult tale. Gregoria (Maura) is a modest housewife leading a life of quite desperation. Her marriage is suffocating, her husband (Margallo) is an ogre and her spirit is repressed. When her husband’s abuse takes its toll, Gregoria seeks refuge in the ecclesiastical. Finding solace in religious fervor, she plunges into the deep end of delusional thinking. Or does she? Taken to episodes of brief catatonia, Gregoriia becomes accident prone and paranoid. Every shadow hides a demon and every accident is a sign of manifest evil. Her chosen solution is to pray incessantly.
When a bizarre tragedy leads her to a chance encounter with a dying soothsayer, the doomed man implores Gregoria to fulfill a prophecy at a mysterious church in a remote mountain village. Supernatural voices drive Gregoria to murder her husband, after which she flees to the strange hamlet. There, on a fog enshrouded mountain estate, she takes a job as caretaker to a telepathic boy named Daniel (Barón).
Haunted by voices and fearing that she is losing her mind, Gregoria is drawn into a divine good versus evil enigma. Her snowballing predicament becomes centered around a secret passage, a well that presents a nasty fall hazard, the ghost of her husband, and her young ward’s murderous psychic manipulations. But the answer and her fate are inexplicably intertwined. The key to it all lies grounded in the sinister old church that she is destined to visit. The clairvoyant Daniel will use any means necessary to entice her there to fulfill The Promise.
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Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans has been promoted onto the Apocryphal List of the Best Weird Movies Ever Made. Please read the official Apocrypha entry.
PLOT: While investigating the slaughter of an immigrant family, a pill-popping and coke-sniffing New Orleans cop’s penchant for gambling and for rolling his escort girlfriend’s clients gets him into deep trouble with his department and with dangerous men; to save his life, clear his name, and crack the case, he must pull off several double crosses while strung out and sleep deprived.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: Watched with a doggedly literal mind, this version of Bad Lieutenant could almost be seen as a straightforward thriller/police procedural, but most who check out this flick will come away with the nagging feeling that there’s something exceptionally strange afoot in NOLA these days. Less than a handful of hallucinations dog our drug-soaked antihero through the port, but the visions that do appear pack one hell of a wallop. Cage’s jittery, over-the-top performance and the enigmatic, dreamlike ending Herzog supplies notch two more points in the “weird” column.
COMMENTS: In 1992 underground auteur Abel Ferrara made a notorious movie about a corrupt New York City cop who shoots heroin, smokes crack, molests teenage girls, shakes down criminals for bribes, and tries to solve a case involving a raped nun while hallucinating and dodging a bookie he owes an unpayable debt. Bad Lieutenant was an overwrought, magnificent Christian parable that sought to demonstrate God’s infinite capacity for forgiveness by presenting a character that audiences couldn’t forgive.
In 2009 renowned German auteur Werned Herzog made a movie about a corrupt New Orleans cop who snorts heroin, smokes crack, molests young women over the age of 21, rolls johns for drugs and money, and tries to solve a case involving a murdered family while hallucinating and dodging a mobster he owes an unpayable debt. Herzog defiantly claimed never to have heard of Ferrara or the first Bad Lieutenant movie, but screenwriter William M. Finkelstein notably kept his mouth shut.
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DIRECTOR: James Nguyen
FEATURING: Alan Bagh, Whitney Moore
PLOT: A “romantic thriller” from writer/director James Nguyen, the film explores the impact of widespread eagle attacks on software salesman Rod (Alan Bagh) and up-and-coming model Nathalie (Whitney Moore), whose romance has just begun to blossom. It all plays into writer/director Nguyen’s Tippi Hedren fandom.
span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: It’s so bad it’s good, and it’s a real hoot in a theater with an enthusiastic audience, but Birdemic isn’t actually all that weird. The fusion of workplace drama, eager romance, and disaster movie is well-meaning but heavy-handed, and the strangest (and funniest) thing about the film is seeing grown men and women flailing around in fear of atrociously-animated birds, which end up resembling animated .GIFs.
COMMENTS: With production values worthy of a commercial for your local grocery store and a script riddled with non sequiturs, the story of our boring-as-hell heroes unfolds quite slowly. Yes, it’s true that environmental degradation from humans has caused the area bird population to exact a feathery and surprisingly explosive revenge, but before the carnage hits the audience is treated to a large amount of Rod and Nathalie’s work-related endeavors and tepid early dates. Luckily, their stilted performances and poorly-written conversations are enough to keep anyone laughing merrily along until the anticipated birdpocalypse, at which point the fun continues when they team up with a gun-crazy neighbor and two particularly useless children.
As a movie itself, Birdemic is just awful: the dialogue and acting are equally amateur and laughably awkward. The script is poorly structured, thematically very blunt, and often nonsensical. The effects are the lowest of the low, amounting to bird attackers that resemble animated .gif’s from 1997 and adorably tiny explosions popping up out of nowhere. The score is suspiciously repetitive, there’s a host of randomly-appearing characters who serve little purpose in the story, the visual quality and camera work are noticeably sub-par… there’s quite a long list of negative elements.
Of course, it’s all those things and more that make Birdemic a wholly satisfying film-going experience. The (presumably) unintended comedy of the characters and script are so engaging that the addition of horribly CG-ed birds flapping their way around real-life objects just heighten an already-entertaining movie. There’s something terribly endearing about the whole affair, from Rod’s delayed reactions and extended shots of people driving, to uncoordinated camera movements, completely un-erotic sex scenes, and the most unrealistic forest fire I’ve ever seen.
It may be one of the worst movies ever made, but definitely in the most enjoyable way possible. Plus it’s got an environmentalist message, so that’s heartening. And an anti-bird message. Screw those guys, you know?
FEATURING: Joel Moore, Amber Tamblyn, and Zachary Levi
PLOT: A gregarious young professional befriends a complex loner at work and unleashes
madness when she tries to unravel his convoluted personal secrets.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: While Spiral tells an offbeat story, it contains no outstanding weirdness, aside from the very odd personality of the lead character and the bizarre nature of his relationships. In fact, it is the straightforward way in which the story is told that is responsible for its hypnotic feel and impact.
COMMENTS: Overcast Portland, Oregon locations grace this gloomy and grim, offbeat psychological suspense story about a deeply troubled artist. Spiral spins the whorled, offbeat portrait of a lead character with an odd personality and bizarre personal relationships.
Mason (Moore) is a painter working as an insurance telemarketer. He excels at his job, maintains a nice bachelor pad, and despite his gross social awkwardness and timid appearance he has tremendous luck with the ladies. In fact, he has had a succession of girlfriends who all pose for his oil and canvas portraits.
Despite all that he has going for him, Mason is tortured and confused. A shy loner at work, he feels trapped in his overly bright, sterile, corporate cubicle. The nervous Mason is coiled so tightly that he’s about to spring out of his skin. To make matters worse, he is prone to asthma flare-ups triggered by extreme night terrors and panic attacks.
Mason harbors more than a few skeletons in his inner footlocker and they are especially grim. Like malevolent phantasms, dreadful images of his past girlfriends twirl our of his dreams and splash across his conscience like spatter from a centrifuge. Striking terror, these hit and run specters jar Mason out of deep slumbers, and slap him out of daydreams. The experiences leave him in a cold, sweaty daze, scrambling for his asthma inhaler with a racing heart.
Mason’s only safety net is his cocky, but empathetic boss, Berkeley (Levi)—who is also his only friend and advocate. Willing to act as Mason’s ad-hoc therapist, Berkeley is the closest thing Mason has to some much needed Xanax. Suppressing Mason’s panic with a combination of good-natured ridicule and reassurance, he talks his frightened employee down like Rasputin hypnotically calming Czar Nicholas II’s hemophiliac son. The effect is temporary, however, as Mason seems to be plagued not only by the serpentine hallucinations, but by a wide range of deeply seated personal issues, all indicating a winding, ganglionic tangle of dark, hidden secrets.
Berkely begins to find his role as counselor diminished when a bubbly new employee named Amber (Tamblyn) jumps on board and takes a shine to Mason. Inexplicably attracted to the shy salesman, she is like a schoolgirl rescuing a baby bunny. Intrigued by the dark enigma of Mason’s persona, Amber radiantly circles Mason, determined to unravel his helical psyche by patiently prying away at the repressed layers of his complicated personality.
Mason gradually warms to her efforts and finally admits her to his inner world. Once inside, Amber wreaks havoc like a Trojan horse when she realizes too late that she has opened a Pandora’s box. But how genuine is Amber? Is she really who she appears to be? What does Berkeley know about Mason’s past girlfriends that he isn’t telling Mason? And why the haunting visions? As tensions reach the meniscus, unanswered questions brew a churning swirl of fantasy, reality and bedlam as Mason, Amber and Berkeley cross paths in a twisting maelstrom of truth and lies.
Crisp audio processing of the soundtrack compliments the high definition DVD release of this Santa Barbara Film Festival entry. Spiral is the directorial collaboration of Joel David Moore and Adam Green, who worked as actor and director respectively on the 2006 slasher film, Hatchet. Spiral was co-written by Moore with Jeremy Danial Boreing. Amber Tamblyn may be known to some viewers from her roles in The Grudge II (2006) and The Ring (2001).
