All fur coats and nylon knickers

14 January 2014 (Later that day) Strip Nude for Your Killer.

After that title, do I actually need to say anything else? Apart from, it's Blood and Black Lace if everyone in it, male and female, was a...well, let the Ayatollah of RocknRolla say it for me...

Following a model's death during a botched abortion, who is the motorcycle-helmet-and-black-leathers slasher (looking like if Dario Argento sponsored a MotoGP team) switchblade-ing up vapid trollops and sleazy sexual predators alike in and around the Albatross [no, really] photo modelling agency in never-clearly-specified-but-probably-Milan?  

Can it be the predatory-lesbian agency owner? 

Or her Paul Bearer-looking lech of a husband-in-name-only? 

Or Edwige Fenech and her amazing cropped hairdo and nylon undies combo, as a photographer who secretly just wants to be a model? 

Or her sort-of boyfriend, a photographer introduced picking up a wannabe model at a swimming pool and getting her out of her bikini and into a public sauna room sex scene with an alacrity that would make an 80s New York bathhouse habitue dizzy [my legal team advises me to assure you that this is definitely NOT the Terry Richardson story]? 

Or the other photographer, who 'doesn't have much to do with women'?

Not telling!  Half the fun of these not-Bava films is being absolutely positive the culprit is him (or her, or they), only to have that be the very next victim.  The OTHER half, of course, is swooning over the groovy pads, counting the number of prominently-displayed J and B bottles (four), and grooving on the amazing theme music, which here is never more than 5 seconds away from breaking down and giving in to its urge to become 'Papa Was a Rolling Stone'

Film sets out from the first scene to be as 70s Eurosleaze as possible, with the first shot, and the about-to-be-botched abortion, from between the hapless girl's legs, looking up, with only the careful positioning of the OBGyn's head preventing it from becoming a Jess Franco film ("Why the doctor have an afro? Oh...that's not *his* hair...").  Then we're off through a whirl of switchblade stabbings, attempted rape, domestic abuse, blackmail, voyeurism, aforementioned predatory lesbianism, reckless driving, petty larceny, implied incest, and many 70s-style real breasts and abundant pubic regions, while police bumble along in the background and the actual detecting business is picked up by civilians for no particular reason, and the culprit is identified mainly by being one of the four-or-five speaking roles left alive by the end.  The few survivors seem remarkably untroubled by the grisly murders of almost everyone they know, and the film ends with an unsubtle joke reference to anal sex. Classy!

You'll like this if: You're old enough to remember the 70s, or you wish you were (but not in a tiresome Austin Powers-hangover way; if you're that person, you're an arse, and you're not allowed to watch this film.  Go on, piss off. No-one likes you anyway).

You'll hate this if: you're the chap who complains when the killer shown throughout the film in tight-fitting leather is obviously not remotely the actual culprit unmasked at the end; or you're Andrea Dworkin

This film is as old as your writer, and even more unfashionable and dubious.  Worth another watch? Worth MANY; if you need a reason to rewatch after tracking the plot holes and/or ogling the many implant-free 70s breasts have palled, and the mid-70s Italian interior design and fashions can't persuade you, then I don't know who you are, and we have no way to communicate.

Tomorrow's film has important advice: don't raise your child in an incredibly perverse and repressively religious environment; they'll grow up to have poor hygiene and develop a fungal nail infection.  Also, they'll probably kill people and collect their eyeballs.  Mainly the nail thing, though, because that is just icky.

She does enunciate very clearly, though...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aIoSlM1np1M

Look, she was in Friday the 13th: The Series, so that counts as a horror connection.

Besides, her 'British?' accent made my spouse whimper like a tiny girl, so into the horror blog she comes.

Ill-Advised Remake Monday: The Omen

Scene:

INT, daytime. 20th Century Fox's boardroom, sometime in the mid 2000's:

CORPORATE SCUM #1

...So, we're agreed, gentlemen? Another Alien Tril...Quad...Quintilogy Boxset on DVD? Only this time, the box will be in the shape of an entire lifesize Alien Queen, and the discs themselves will be excreted from its anus? Genius!

Any more business?

CORPORATE SCUM #2

Ah, yes...My Random Remake Suggest-o-tron came up with The Omen the other day, and I couldn't help but notice that it'll be June 2006 soon, so, you know: 06/06/06, so...

CORPORATE SCUM #1

Well, I suppose...Isn't it a bit, you know, old?

CORPORATE SCUM #2

No, it'll be great, honestly; we'll get some slumming actors, like the original did, toss in some in-jokes for the fanboys, and some of that CG blood that the kids love! It'll be awesomes!

CORPORATE SCUM #1

All right...make the leads much younger and duller, chuck in some flashy and pointless dream sequences for shocks, oh, and a gratuitous 9/11 reference and we've got a deal! Now, lunch? [buzz] Marcy, could you send us in the usual six live puppies, garnished with the crushed hopes and aspirations of a generation of film students? And a Pellegrino? Thanks!

END

--------------------

Yes, your correspondent is extemporising somewhat, but it doesn't take a huge imaginative leap to visualise the thinking process behind this film: Exploitable property+built-in marketing opportunity+more blood=PROFIT!! They really only forgot one thing; to actually make it any good. So, what did they stupidly change, what should they have let go, and is that REALLY HIM under that awful plasticky burn makeup? [Short answers: too much, those blasted dream sequences, and yes; hooray!]

To start with the plot...If you need me to describe it, then go away and punch yourself, hard. In the stomach. While you're getting your breath back, read on: Diplomat's wife loses her child at birth, diplomat is persuaded to unofficially 'adopt' an adorable orphan baby, feels no need to inform wife of change. Adorable baby grows up to be adorable tow-headed little boy, acquires insane nannies, Rottweiler; is surrounded by mysterious 'accidents' that plague those who attempt to inform Daddy Diplomat that Dimples may in fact be Satan Jr. (Spoiler! He is.). Everybody dies!

[While the 1976 original didn't start the Evil Child genre (Paging Rhoda Penmark!), it was an early example of the (still popular) Evil Solemn-Faced Little Kid subtype, and was almost-singlehandedly responsible for turning the name Damien (or Damian) from a Saint-that-worked-with-lepers-and-therefore-perfect-for-Catholic-familes baby name, to shorthand-for-Lucifer in within a generation. You think I'm joking? According to the Office for National Statistics, in the UK in 1974 the name Damien (or Damian) was the 64th most popular; by 1984, it was 97th, and by 1994 not even in the top 100.]

This remake doesn't fiddle about with the basic plot points TOO much (baby death - nanny death - new nanny - ominous priest - priest death - mum off balcony - dead mum - gratuitous archaeology - headless photographer - angst dad - nanny fight - dead dad), and is as successful as the original in chucking a splashy death at the audience just when things are getting too fidget-inducingly Bible-y, but it's what they ADDED that's my main problem with it.

The film starts with some priest-y enclave in the (heavily-implied) Vatican, viewing a short film on all of the newsworthy disasters of the last 20-odd years, and doom-and-glooming it about the imminent return of the Antichrist...This is necessary, why? Your writer was raised Methodist, and knows about as much of Catholic priests as I do of Quantum Theory but refuses to believe that none of them have read a newspaper since 1970. Unless the film is assuming that the audience haven't either? Or need to see footage of the Boxing Day Tsunami, 9/11, etc, which they had surely FORGOTTEN ALL ABOUT UP TO THAT MOMENT? It's an arbitrary selection of footage too; oh, so it's natural disasters, because God is angry, but no...here's 9/11 and a civil war. So, it's the evil of people, but...ah, that was an earthquake. NVM then.

The film promptly cuts from this amazingly point-filled opening like it never happened (I'd like to pretend the same thing), and we start the plot proper. It trots along from point to point like a good pony until...well, you see Lee Remick (the mother in the original) could convey her growing paranoia and dread of the little bugger just with facial expression, body posture...you know, ACTING. The new girl...can't. So nuts to subtlety and let's have her dream-sequence some goatskullfaced robed jumpscares (that look nothing like they came off a Dennis Wheatley paperback cover from 1968 or anything)! Yes, let's do THAT!

As for the cast, well...I'm sure Liev Schreiber is a perfectly nice chap, but...charismatic? No. To the extent that...I actually forgot he was in the film while he was off screen. Yes; I'm embarrassed, but I want you to know that never happened with Gregory Peck. The supporting cast of Reliable British Thesps swaps wavering-Irish-accented Patrick Troughton for Pete Postlethwaite, whose accent bounces back and forth across the Irish Sea like the Fishguard ferry in a Force 9-er, and offers us scruffy David Thewlis in lieu of mod David Warner; I do not consider this an acceptable substitute. I suspect the casting of Mia Farrow as the 'nanny from the agency' is a bit of wink-wink gimmick casting for Rosemary's Baby fans, since she's no Billie Whitelaw, and far too mimsy to be convincing as a threat to the large stolid tree that is Liev Schreiber; and is there really any reason except someone's game of Weird Character Name Bingo to have Michael Gambon follow Dumbledore with Bugenhagen?

Still, in each dungheap a diamond, and there's an unexpected treat for all the watching House On the Edge of the Park fans (so, me and Brad Jones, then); yes, it's Giovanni Lombardi Radice, aka John Morgen, as Father Spiletto! Oh Ricky, you can even make a Roman Collar suspect! Don't ever, ever change! While I'm on this positive trend, I should take time to praise the Damien; I have no maternal instinct whatsoever, but this is an adorable, solemn small boy. I definitely felt a small hollow thump in the place where normal women have a biological clock. If I could somehow guarantee that my loins would yield forth something like that (and not, as I secretly fear, some squawking money-sink with a Hannah Montana fixation) then even I might be persuaded to breed.

So, on balance: worth a peek as a curiosity, but don't expect it to be anywhere near as good as the original, and brace yourself for random goatskulls, and the odd crashing misstep of taste, amongst all the lumbering solemness.

Blimey, that's...Brave

Cannibal Holocaust with an 18 cert? I've lived too long!!

Yes, Shameless films apparently spent another 3 months in the BBFC's waiting room, to get Cannibal Holocaust certificated, and only 15 seconds of cuts (replaced by reaction shots of the same length, to avoid jumps in the soundtrack)! I'm surprised that the BBFC had to cut as little as that, given the legal restrictions under which they operate regarding animal cruelty; since I'm the first person to verbally pistol-whip Our Esteemed Classificators for their often daft responses, I have to doff my bonnet to the serious consideration they gave to the film and that they describe here (Well, me with a nice thing to say about a BBFC decision? Maybe these are the End Times after all...).

Now; Cannibal Holcaust, see, was a harder watch than films like Salo, for me; because cheek-to-cheek with the faked rape, staged arson and body-painted extras chewing on ribs, CH has real, unfeigned animal cruelty and death of at least...four (possibly five) live animals, including a pig (kicked, then shot), a river turtle (de-shelled while still alive and piteously flapping its flippers), a spider (business end of a machete, may have been subbed for a rubber spider), a monkey, and some sort of muskrat(?) thing. Perhaps it's hypocrisy, since I'm comfortable with animals dying to fill my belly (yes, it was a delicious beef madras that I had the other day, thanks), but not for my amusement (not planning on a trip to a bullfight any time...ever). We all make our...accommodations with our consciences, and this one's mine. There is a non-animal-cruelty version available; included with the R1 boxset that I have; a sensitive viewer may find that less troublesome; rest assured that the real (pre-existing) atrocity footage of an African civil war has been retained in that version.

On an unrelated point...I'm not entirely convinced that the South American locals playing the anthrophages were ever, you know, PAID for all their running around, rolling in mud, and being pretend-raped and pretend-killed. I start to visualise a 'The Last Movie' situation, and shift awkwardly in my seat; curse you, white liberal post-colonial guilt!

CH is...actually, probably indefensible for a moral human being in the 21st century and just to shrug and say 'oh, them crazy Italians'...yeah, probably not good enough. What it is, among other things, is an indictment of an even worse trend in the Italian cinema of the time; Mondo films which really did traffic in 'real' war crimes footage [including a more-than suspicion that some of it may have been, um...'arranged' for the cameras] or at least, that executions, army-charges, etc were scheduled for the film-makers' convenience. Consequently, there's very little that the filmmaker characters in CH do, that Jacopetti and Prosperi (the directors of Mondo Cane and the fathers of the entire 'Mondo' movement) weren't at least accused of,up to and including real animal death, setting up atrocities, exploitation of native populations, and at the very least culpability in rape and killing. For more background on those charming fellows Signore Jacopetti and Prosperi, and the whole Mondo subgenre, I'd highly recommend Kerekes' and Slater's Killing For Culture, albeit vastly overdue for an updated reprint; I'd particularly like to see them cover the Blair Witch Project; the most successful 'Snuff' film ever made.

So, Cannibal Holocaust; problematic, all right, in more ways than you'd think were possible; still, I'm glad that it's around, and available in as intact a form as possible. Your correspondent urges you, in this as in all situations, to see it for yourself (punt some cash into Shameless Films' pockets, since I'm sure there are still more Sirpa Lane films awaiting their DVDebut), use your own eyes, and make up your own mind.

Please God tell me I'm not dreaming this...

Tell me that you can see it too...please?

I did actually do the cartoon thing where you rub your eyes in disbelief the first time I saw this; my delicate eyes have seen a few strange sights in their time, but...Steve Martin (apparently still in his Little Shop of Horrors persona/character/costume) 'singing' a Beatles song while accompanied by a chorus of high-stepping androgynous brainwashed 'Boy' and 'Girl' Scouts? And then having an optically-enhanced reflex-hammer fight with Peter Frampton? While the Bee Gees get their arses kicked by some kung fu fighting nurses...

Actually, I only wish this was the most headfucking scene in the film; let's just say: Donald Pleasance in a wig as a music mogul; Frankie Howerd (ask your Gran) singing 'When I'm 64'...The Bee Gees (again) in ballsachingly tight satin trousers. Personally, I could comfortably have spent a lifetime without ever being forced to contemplate the exact outlines of Robin Gibb's batch; and I don't think I'm alone in that.

Although...if you think of this scene at least as some kind of lithium-induced mad dream experienced by one of the minor characters in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, then it does have a sort of internal logic to it...However, for the scene where George Burns 'vocalises' (I can't make myself type 'sings') Digging A Hole...I have no excuse.

Director Michael Schultz (who is apparently still working in TV), I salute you, if only for being at the right place at the right time; that precise moment in the 70s where a shitload of money, a never-again cast, some actually-fairly-good songs and a ton of drugs combined to make a perfect storm of 70's-ness.

Overall, it's a film that transcends mere human notions of 'Good' and 'Bad' purely by virtue of leaving my 'Whatthefuck-o-meter' needle buried solidly in the red for the entire running time, and that counts for a lot here at Chamber Towers. It's on DVD (Region 1 NTSC only, sadly); make yourself a triple-bill with 'Tommy' and 'Phantom of the Paradise' (or the Rocky Horror Picture Show if you must), and pretend as though High School Musical never happened...