SCUM-Auxiliary Reviews

Hard Candy (2005)

An effective, amoral variation on the classic horror film...

[10/10 · 2 May 2006]

Though most horror films, specifically those easily classified into this sometimes limiting genre, deal with a "monster" and "victim" (or, to be less simplistically specific, "predator" and "prey"), but rarely are these roles so effectively amorphis, and in such a way that allows the film to retain these antithetical distinctions between characters and the archetypes they subsequently come to embody.

******Spoilers******

On this psychological battlefield, the "monster," in traditional fashion, is seemingly invincible, implacable and difficult, if not impossible, to elude. She is a 14 year old girl, endowed with the intellect and patience of an adult, but driven by the fantastical idealism, the unchecked passion and, most importantly (if it is to be interpreted as a horror film), the giddy sadism of a child. This "monster" is deaf to the pleas of her "victim," who occupies this status because of his perceived (and, at this point, former) role as "monster," in the form of a sex offender and probable murderer. While "Haley" (her name a fabrication like all other information Jeff has come to know about her, thus adding to her terrifying mystique. All he is able to know definitively is the pain she inflicts and the end she has devised for him) lacks the physical prowess of her male counterpart (equivalent?), she must compensate with cunning, the almost supernatural like of which Jeff could never have imagined, and it is this fatal assumption that proves his tragic flaw, akin to the unexpected detour taken by a car-load of impending corpses in standard horror fare. Yes, she has a "reason" for what she does, but does not even the most savage serial killer have some arbitrary justification to which s/he might lay claim? In this case, her reasons lie only in hearsay and inference, like those of the paranoiac confusing all women with his abusive mother, and the director only serves to increase the horror of Jeff's plight.

Is Jeff a rapist and murderer guilty of preying on innocence? Obviously. From a standpoint of pure judicial evaluation, there is "justice," but as this is a horror film, concerned not with form but on content, we are presented with an unrelenting reversal of the torture killing we've come to expect from Jeff's character, with no visceral depiction of the latter's guilt to check and balance the onslaught. We never SEE him harm anyone (save through minor acts of dubious self-defense long after he has endured the gauntlet), but we are offered no respite from the methodical destruction of HIS life, on every level (including the destruction of his bond with the one person for whom he has human feelings). Never is he allowed to inflict the agony to which we've seen him subjected on this near-mythic avenger of children (who, like most horror-movie killers, has lost moral high-ground in her descent to the level of the abuser), and he is denied redemption as well as reprieve, in the uncompromising fashion more becoming a snuff film than a psychological revenge treatise.

In the end, we are not left with a balanced conflict, but rather an appropriately one-sided display of weakness taunted, battered and ultimately destroyed at the hands of the strong, who killed out of pleasure.

Wolf Creek (2005)

We've got Heads on sticks...

[10/10 · 27 December 2005]

Spoilers!!!!

Early in the film, the two females and their ultimately ineffectual male cohort are sexually harassed by hulking, hideous men from the outback more akin to "animals" than the curious, civilized folk that stray where they don't belong. The tense situation is diffused, but only due to the lack of genuine malice (or over-abundance of sloth) on the part of the potential attackers. For a moment, we are confronted with the unsettling helplessness of the physically inferior at the hands and diseased minds of attackers against whom there is simply no real defense.

Thus, we are given a taste of the impending horror of "Wolf Creek." This film does things for which films of this genre are often reviled, but these very traits are why those seeking art that resonates attend said screenings. We are not given predictable outcomes and demi-god characters, nor are we even succored by happy endings or compassionate cuts that only allude to the terror. The audience is made to watch torture, much like the film's would-be heroine, and simply accept the grim proceedings, as there is no available recourse with which to stop them...

That'll do, Ebert... The same moment that instilled in him the impulse to vacate the theatre was the one in which I became fully, happily engaged in the uncharacteristically REALISTIC horror film, which eschews PC fantasies of the average, fear-fueled everywoman triumphing in the face of a physically stronger, well-trained killer in favor of a truly unrelenting exploration of extremity people would rather forget exists. Sometimes, there is no hope, and in a godless world, might does prevail. The protagonist of this film is a marksman, outback survivalist who, in a down-under equivalent to the American, TCM slaughterhouse/butcher industry, pursues humans(specifically "tourists" and "foreigners" stupid enough to invade his territory while lacking his necessary survival skills) exactly as he does the other animals he is paid to hunt for a living... I doubt he rapes the kangaroos, but one must adapt to the inherent inequality of differing kinds of quarry (he provides an unsettling, impromptu lecture on the unique methods required for killing various game (stabbing pigs, shooting kangaroos, etc.)) and savor the subsequent spoils of each... It would be irresponsible and inconsistent, I argue, to defy the circumstances of the film's microcosm to simply produce a "feel good" ending. If thrusting viewers into a world from which they would not escape were such unfortunate events to befall them in real life is "misogynist," then nature is the biggest f--king woman-hater of all...

Steal This Movie (2000)

Unflattering portrayal of a selfish hypocrite...

[5/10 · 27 November 2005]

While the film itself is an unbalanced and tepid depiction of this "revolutionary" anti-war personality, filled with mediocre performances and at times incoherent composition, I found its content to be the most off-putting aspect of this work. As a self-professed (though anarchist-leaning) nihilist, I know unfortunately little about this figure highly relevant to the politics to which I most closely adhere, and the subject of this film hardly merits the accolades attributed to the late, now fabled Mr. Hoffman (unless, of course, this movie provides an accurate presentation of someone by which the Leftist community has been ultimately duped).

All the while professing a love of humanity and hatred of the power-mongers that would hold nations (such as Vietnam) in thrall for their own egoistic ends, this man subjected his wife, child, girlfriend (with whom he knew great happiness while the family he abandoned barely scraped by), comrades and politically-sympathetic donors to great hardship, financial and otherwise, to keep him out of prison and away from the misery that the many for which he supposedly fought knew only too well. He and his band of Yippies propelled themselves to the forefront of history and celebrity with seemingly enjoyable, iconoclastic guerilla theatre, and other pranks that served to increase the popularity and egos of the socially conscious participants, but to what end? The Vietnam war raged on amidst their gamboling, and the poor and oppressed continued (and continue) to languish under the same system of capitalism that existed before such bright ideas were engendered in the minds of these fighters. At least, his name will go down in history, as a man that achieved great renown, under the guise of fighting a system in which he ultimately made no dents, while his two mistresses suffered and a group of privileged, Jewish intellectuals thought they were making difference by getting high and getting mad...

August Underground's Mordum (2003 Video)

The logical consequences of suburban dissociation...

[10/10 · 23 October 2005]

The form of this film, I would assert, is modeled after its content, and serves to better convey the extremity and paradoxical ennui underlying both the ultimately empty lives of these amoral youths and their subsequent atrocities (through which they seem to achieve the individuality and jubilant catharsis they are otherwise denied), leaving the viewer immersed, on a meta-level, in the world of the carnage purveyors...

These inarticulate, alienated, consequential nihilists differ from other angry and aimless metal aficionados only through their violent exploits, without which their tape would be no different than those of countless black-clad suburban inmates who film their daily attempts at alleviating boredom and frustration (sexual and otherwise). The realistic portrayals of said folk (which so accurately depict this kind of person that I often found myself as uninterested in the performance as I am by this kind of person, whom I encounter with frequency), both in and out of their makeshift, literal cutting-rooms, remind this viewer of the ease with which one could translate the misanthropic thrill-seeking common to our perpetually indifferent, horror-worshiping, post-modern generation/subculture into the very deeds about which we secretly dream and that which we, where possible, exercise indirectly and legally within the realm of art. This film is, essentially, would-be snuff pornography for and by those that (can only?) connect with others in the supposedly aberrant way the folk played by those at Toe Tag do (when they are not struggling to maintain tenuous, seemingly sexual friendships). The artistry of this work lies, for me, in its LACK of blatantly discernible artistry, which makes for a difficult viewing experience (as the monotonous pace and repetitive nature of the movie required that I pause it once to escape the boredom for which I sought this film as remedy), but one worthy of greater respect, on the academic, intellectual and non- experiential level, because of this dubious deficiency.

I found the work uncomfortable in how private it felt (especially the scenes bereft of destructive physical communication), and sad in reference to the dysfunctional relationship of the triumvirate central to the action (and their ignorant attempts at dealing with their various sexuality/body issues). That a female played an integral role in the killings, and that males were often victims leant a non-chauvinist feel to the protagonists and their macabre hobbies, which I appreciated in a political way, but served to diminish the ugliness of the violence for me (I am less afraid of a gang that seemingly anyone can join than one with which I, or the victims with which I would come to sympathize, could not identify). While the incessant din of screaming also decimated the impact of the slaughter, I found the admittedly unrealistic passivity and seeming stoicism of the victims to heighten the disturbing quality of their fate. The contrast of the camaraderie between the predators and their cruelty toward their quarry created a nice atmosphere of chaos, and reiterates the skewed (by common conceptions of acceptable behavior) priorities/values of our disaffected heroes (note the despair with which the female is plagued when her lover cuts his "beautiful" hair, and her child-like glee when cutting flesh (her own, or that of a victim)). I found the image of the bearded killer raping the child's corpse with said toddler's berets in his hair to be both beautiful and terrible...

In the end, I would consider this work an experiment in video-art, a non-linear exploration, in documentary form, of what happens when our massive American cult of death-fetishists, murder-artists/homicidal sadists and extreme body modifiers finally behave in a logical manner consistent with their own values...

Bully (2001)

Anarchic Justice

[10/10 · 6 July 2005]

Perhaps unconsciously, Larry Clark's exploration of teenage degeneracy and de-facto nihilism does a brilliant job of depicting the nihilistic consequences of life in an absurd world bereft of value...

Spoilers: This stark and appropriately gritty film presents, in a delightfully ungilded manner that keeps with the exploitation film genre, the last chapter in the lives of titular bully Bobby, his supposed "best friend" Marty, and the other disaffected, suburban youth that become involved in an eventually successful conspiracy to murder the aforementioned personification of all the problems with which these teens, and society in general, are grappling. The fitting focus of the characters' collective derision is a member of the upper class (as his domineering father, while firmly rooted in the same upper-middle income bracket as the rest of the community, affects a supercilious attitude toward his son's seemingly directionless, that is to say non-business-driven surfer cohort), whose future in the aristocracy can in no way be jeopardized by his brutal acts toward his peers, whom he keeps in a thrall of impotent fear akin to that in which his father holds him. While his father plans for college and a future in stereo sales (entirely disregarding any differing, autonomous desires his offspring may have about his own life), Marty, a high school drop-out and father-to-be (though the paternity of the fetus is questionable, possibly the product of Bobby, who raped Marty's girlfriend Lisa), must languish in a seemingly empty career in pizza delivery, or some other dead-end job symptomatic of suburban life. When Lisa's best friend is also raped by this reptilian sociopath content to use all people as objects of his perverted, ultimately homo-erotic lust (alluded to in less than subtle terms), a posse of random strip-mall archetypes are assembled to help Marty and Lisa rise up and exact vengeance for which they would pay with their already wasted lives. These accomplices include an obese, video-game obsessed virgin afflicted seemingly with arrested development, an aspiring Mafioso poseur, the drug-addled, kinky pretty-boy lover of Alli (the hardened best friend of Lisa and one of Bobby's literal rape victims), and the latter's waif-like friend who embarks on this mission right out of rehab. Each of these well-played characters contributes something, either helpful or otherwise, to the caper, and lends the potentially simple murder a revolutionary quality, as these oppressed, abandoned punks take back their formerly unused agency and end the life of he who ruined theirs (if not he himself, his class and kind)...

The communal, cooperative event of the murder claims one of the more deserving (if anyone can be said to "deserve" death (whatever "deserve" means)) characters in recent cinema history, in spite of his obvious humanity and occasional poignancy, though the law only serves to punish further these scarred children who were just doing what the video games, gangsta rap and class-war violence in general had conditioned and divided them to do. However, their underlying nihilism (which created the lack of unity that resulted in their apprehension (and got them apprehended)) turned what could have been a beauteous act of empowering activism into yet another f**k-up in a life full of them...

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

LGBT Agit-prop?

[8 June 2004]

This film, unlike many others of this genre, provides queer/trans/generally gender disaffected folk with the cathartic vengeance that films such as "Death Wish" and "Dirty Harry" provide straight white conservative males. It is also a well-crafted, disturbing horror film of Shakespearean-scope that our cynical generation fails to appreciate.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS The film, I believe, serves to elucidate the malignancy of gender roles, as these arbitrary distinctions, when enforced by the unhealthy, psychotically coercive family and equally pernicious, Lord-of-the-Flies-esque, Hobbesean society found in the titular vacation spot, lead to mental illness which often has a profoundly negative effect on the entire community (eg., Many murders of relative social utility) as well as the oppressed person in question (who's sole attempt at physical connection results in decapitation and complete catatonia for these would-be lovers forced, like all of us, to be something that they are not). Sex is used as a weapon, and is the driving force of any and all decisions made by the dubious (often depraved) authority figures as well as the brutal and pack-like children. Those that work to tolerance and change emerge relatively unscathed, while those that provide venom, and staunchly narrow minded opposition meet with the violence and "insanity" that is the most logical product of their handiwork (though the Aunt-cum-abusive-mother exists only as a catalyst and receives no comeuppence, hammering home the nihilistic nature of the whole film (though, as all people in the film are seen to be products of their environment and therefore devoid of blame).

See it, great violence and social commentary abound in this finefine film...

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Horror/comedy/exploitation at its finest!

[18 August 2003]

SPOILERS GALORE!!!!

Someone has to defend this movie!

The meta-revenge in this film was brilliant (Freddy's a child molestor/murderer, is killed for killing, kills the children of those who kill him for killing, commands Jason [who kills those who indirectly killed him and contribute to the callousness that led to his death] to kill, becomes annoyed and exacts vengeance on Jason, who, in turns takes vengeance on Freddy for toruting the s**t out of his already retarded mind).

I had a great time, and thought it was well written/directed, both on its own and relativized to the genre.

I found it genuinely creative while working within a certain form with established conventions. It was the best example of conscious camp, with the occasional genuinely shocking scene to throw us off (the torture of the retarded, deformed, 11 year old Jason, while Freddy calls him an "Ugly piece of s**t" was truely awesome in its sadism and poor taste, the re-enactment of the drowning was extremely stylish and effecting, using alienation techniques (the slow motion fall into the water, followed quickly by a cut to counselors having absurdly explicit sex in full view of the drowning, etc.).

If one can appreciate absurdism and exploitation (Yes!!! The finally play up the child MOLESTOR angle of Freddy), and acknowledge that the film is not a reflection of reality (the stoner, at one point, remarks that reality does not apply anymore, or something to that affect) and that it is working within a cliched genre and doing its best to make it timely [while staying true to the original formula], this film was the best it could have been.

Motel Hell (1980)

A truly unusual (and satisfying) film

[3 June 2003]

Many concur that the plot of this film may seem to be derived from the original TCM, but the film's approach to its material, direction and overall character render it the opposite of Hooper's cinematic masterpiece. SPOILERS!!!!! This film is a consciously campy though often very effective comedy satirizing the almost offensive anachronistic moral center of most slasher films. All of the victims are, in terms of Judeo-Christian morality, evil, in that they couple out of wedlock (Beau), use drugs (the metal[?] band "Ivan and the Terribles" which uses some Communist imagery on the tour bus, making their deaths all the more justified according to the red baiting, fifties-era American ethics cauterized in the film) or engage in "deviant" sexuality (the prostitutes[?] and the swinger couple). The film indicts American hypocrisy, in that Farmer Vincent (a very kindly old sort) and Ida (a mammoth woman with dubiously sexual designs on her brother) refer constantly to "the good work" they are doing by trapping, burying, preserving (with chemicals that seem to zombify the unfortunate victims) and finally killing passersby and feeding them to the hungry populace that love the excellently cured meats. Vincent is a god-fearin' countryboy who thinks he's doing the world a favor by helping god and reducing the population by feeding the dead to the hungry (since he goes out of his way to make his meats affordable, he kills two birds with one stone). He is the immoral moral center, a supposed good man who is really a bad man but in some way a good man, one still better than the actual good man (his brother, the sheriff) who is really bad man. The sheriff with which he is contrasted is selfish, abuses his power (clearing of the drive-in), unsucessfully attempts rape and does not bother to investigate Vincent's very obvious lies until the rugged farmer beguiles and plans to marry the sheriff's would be rape victim. Throw into the mix psychedelic hypnosis machines, creepy slaughterhouse set pieces, a chilling, old-hollywood-esque score, grainy film stock, comedic (and seemingly intentional) over-acting, gurgling zombie revenge, hypocritical preachers played by Wolfman Jack and an amazingly intense chainsaw battle (offset by a comically absurd, girl tied to railroad tracks update) worth the price of admission alone. For twisted brilliance (and disturbing ambiguity in every scene), rent the film that Tobe Hooper himself pays slight homage to in TCM 2.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

Insanity Unleashed

[30 May 2003]

It is not often that a film manages to be simultaneously terrifying, comic, ridiculous, disturbing, absurd, alienating and affecting, but this well-written, masterfully directed and amazingly performed feast for the eyes, ears and mind certainly achieves just this. Taking the cast of killers from TCM and supplanting them in the hypocritical, amoral, success-crazed America of the 1980's, Tobe Hooper uses cannibalism as a metaphor for capitalism (a feat accomplished just as successfully several years later by Wes Craven's superb satire "The People Under the Stairs") and takes the guns out of the hands of the vengeful (if not thoughtful) cowboys of the USA and replaces them with chainsaws. This is a larger than life world where ambition takes the place of reason, pop-culture replaces the idea and the "moral" are more destructive than their flesh-eating, chilli-cooking, radio-blasting quarry. The film is the great landscape on which the battle between "good" and "evil" takes place, though neither role is so simply defined. The "good" Texas Ranger seeking "justice" proves to be completely ineffectual or inadvertantly malignant, while his opponents (which include the moneyhungry cook from TCM, an insane former-hippy-cum-war-veteran music lover, the love-crazed manchild Leatherface and, finally, Grandpa and the Hitchhiker from TCM [named Nubbins], both of which are of dubious vitality) are so steeped in madness that their (often unsuccessful) acts of malice take on a playful, insanely logical quality that can hardly be deemed "evil." Amidst this sea of chaos are a small town Radio DJ looking to make it big and her smitten, ill-fated cohort, destined for slaughter or stardom. The great battle takes place at an abandoned amusement park where brutal battles were once re-enacted and celebrated. See this film if you enjoy intelligent satire, scathing comedy, chainsaw-phalluses, dead skin masks or the brutal murder of teenage yuppies.

From a Whisper to a Scream (1987)

exhilarating exploitation...

[30 May 2003]

Of the many horror films I used to alleviate childhood boredom, this one was indelibly etched into my brain and probably will be forever. A cinematic achievement of unparalleled depravity, this Vincent Price vehicle (filmed in the Autumn of his life) contains incest, rape, child molestation, necrophilia, voodoo, glass-eating, slavery, mutilations, dismemberment, vengeance and allusions to cannibalism. By genre standards, the scripting, filming and performances were, for the most part, excellent and the work contains enough scatology to hold the interest of even the most reluctant horror/exploitation filmgoer. View this work if you would like to see an exaggerated depiction of humanity at it most malignant neatly condensed into four vignettes.

Bijitâ Q (2001)

"Its a wonderful life" Meets "Nekromantik"

[8 December 2002]

First of all, I would like to say something to the viewers of all non- hollywood, unconventional films: Stop analyzing the director's intentions and the films ultimate meaning based on your own intellectual and artistic limitations. If you do not have the ability or discipline to look beneath the surface of a film to find out what the director really wanted to communicate, then please admit this instead of dismissing the film as "pointless," "boring," "stupid," or, often in the case of the brilliant Miike, "Just out to shock." The Guinea Pig series originated in japan. That culture, if any, knows how to make a film with no goal other than to turn stomachs and induce nightmares. Five minutes into the film, it becomes clear to the unbiased and aesthetically open minded individual that this is not some horror movie just intended to "gross out" a bunch of popcorn eating, quip-spewing, pop-culture worshipping hipsters and morons. The film has some very poignant things to say regarding the nature of family and love, the utility of morality and the beauty of life in general, amidst the rampant sickness and decay. (Possible Spoilers) Visitor Q concerns a dysfunctional Japanese family. The outside world has infiltrated their happy home, and has torn the relationships of each member assunder. The father is a fautuous, failed reporter, so obssessed with his reputation and career that he is indifferent to the suffering of his family, exploiting it where possible to achieve the success he desires. I believe this man to be a living metaphor for the workaholic, career-minded salarymen and Japan, the USA and, in reality, everywhere. His wife numbs herself to the neglect and infidelity of her husband, the physical abuse of her son and the heartbreak she suffers because of her runaway daughter, with television and heroin. Her son, bullied at school and in the neighborhood, takes out his aggression on the woman who fails to protect him (his mother) the only thing weaker than himself. His runaway sister works as a prostitute, and even sleeps with her father for the money (her father who is exploiting her homelessness and prostitution for a news story). This family seems hopeless, until a mysterious visitor appears to show them all their inner strengths and desires. he helps them, silently, calmly and even indifferently, to combat what stands in the way of their fulfillment, and ends up uniting the modern Japanese Clan in love and happiness once again.

While this subject matter is handled in a comic and absurd way to better convey that which is represents and that which it is trying to communicate, the film is, nevertheless, equally disturbing and touching, sickening and sweet. It explores the themes of bullying, cyclical violence and the (potential) beauty of violence and sadism rampant in Koroshiya 1, the need for connection in a cold world explored in Odishon and the meaninglessness of morality in contrast to the necessity of happiness explored in...Nothing I have previously or hitherto encountered (except, perhaps, for Lynch's Eraserhead). The film is not realistic, but, then again, art is not reality. It is a representation. If you cannot handle this, please don't see it and base your derision on its lack of realism or familiarity.

Don't even waste your time unless you are willing to be overwhelmed and challenged. This is not "entertainment," though it is, for the right people, entertaining. Please see this film if you are prepared for blood, tears, vomit, necrophilia, coprophilia, murder, incest, microphone sodomy, excessive lactation... and one of the most beautiful film experiences ever.

Red to Kill (1994)

Entertainment on two levels

[10/10 · 13 November 2002]

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS) Ruo Sha ("Red to Kill" in America and Europe) is a very successful splatter/exploitation comedy (albeit a very, very black one) in which a musclebound serial killer rapist stalks a dilapitated tenement that houses, among the "normal" working class men and women, a collective of the city's mentally ill. The director of the aforementioned home for the disabled is a kindly, bespectacled giant with some seriously repressed childhood trauma, a man very soon revealed to be the dreaded local predator. Fixating his hatred-fueled sexual violence on women clad in red garments (since they remind him of his nihilistic, red-covered mother who, when caught in an act of infidelity, attempted to slaughter the [very] young future killer, as she did his father and brother moments before), he soon becomes inflamed by the most recent addition to the simple yet happy family. Her name is Ming-Ming, and, though she has the mind of a ten year old, possesses the body and sexuality (albeit unconsciously) of an adult woman. When, after finally (inevitably) raping this defenseless creature, our hero(?) realizes that he is "in love" with this latest addition to his blood drenched tally, and would like to start a family with her. That is when the film gets really interesting, and begins veering off into the realm of over the top gore and absurdity, when, previously, the film had been a very well made piece of disturbing suspense cinema. When the themes of the film become too uncomfortable and tragic (an apathetic and inept legal system places the near-catatonic Ming-Ming back in the killer's custody, while her only friend and social worker is physically and legally unable to defend her "little sister"), the film shifts from one of unrelenting darkness and chilling atmosphere and becomes a splatterpunk revenge/slasher comedy. When one deals with a film like this, the director must somehow soften the blows (and in this film there are PLENTY) so that his product might remain watchable. He does this and does this well with his careful inclusion of black comedy, spoof and absurdity, in the right places. The almost ridiculously depressing ending, when in his hands, left most of the audience laughing uproariously, even though the horror of what occurs is firmly emblazoned in the mind of every viewer. It takes great amounts of talent to make a film that is both extremely disturbing and heavily comic, and Tang succeeds without his product feeling unfocused. This is the ultimate exploitation achievement (accomplished only by one other film I've seen; fellow Category III opus "The Untold Story"), and Billy Tang has my undying respect for having pulled it off. Rent/buy this film if you want something unique and unclassifiable that entertains and pleases (as well as sickens and disturbs) its audience. Some scenes (shower, opening, the "Love" scene, the manniquin, climax, the ending) will never leave you because of their power, just like the film in general.

The Eight Immortals Restaurant: The Untold Story (1993)

Twisted Brilliance

[13 November 2002]

After many viewings, the Untold Story is still one of my favorite films. It is an unclassifiable amalgam of comedy, horror and gritty true crime drama filled with cynical social commentary and a slightly sympathetic heart for all involved (or none involved, depending on your POV). Spoof-like vignettes depicting the incompetence, idiocy and sexism of the police force are contrasted with their sickeningly gleeful and disturbingly detached brutality (the film's less gory yet more upsetting moments) toward their supposedly inhuman quarry. The acts of remorseless murder, rape, mutilation and cannibalism practiced by the disgruntled, joyless protagonist are offset by the trauma he is later forced to undergo. At the start of the film, sympathy for this character is non-existent. It is then generated by the abuse he himself undergoes at the hands of equally (yet differently) soul-less torturers, and is then dismantled once again when the extent of his "atrocities" are finally and unflinchingly depicted. I was more unsettled by this film than by "Henry:P.O.A.S.K," a film to which this has often been compared. The presence of slapstick comedy beside gritty child murder only served to heighten the upsetting effect of the film, making it feel "dirtier" with its lack of respect/reverence for the severity of the crimes committed. It presents a well-rounded picture of humanity, one that is at once blackly comic, cruelly indifferent, wholly sympathetic and, at its heart, completely tragic. I recommend this film to anyone that has a strong stomach, a black sense of humor (without one the antics of the police and killer would be completely offensive and tasteless in their context) and the desire to be unexpectedly touched with sympathy for a movie about a "monster."

Ichi the Killer (2001)

"There is no love in your violence"

[11 November 2002]

**SPOILER** For many months now, I have been avidly searching for a copy of what is said to be the most extreme film by Takashi Miike, the anarchic film genius that has quickly become my favorite director. This morning, the copy I ordered finally arrived, and, when the 128 minutes of beauteous lunacy had passed, I was left feeling extremely saddened and disturbed, contrary to my expectations based on all of the reviews I read, which tauted the film as cartoonish and filled with comic violence that elicited disgusted chuckles rather than startled tears. Watching this movie, I knew that the violence was not real (obviously) so I did not judge the film based on the realistic nature of its violence or its ability to shock me (if I want to be shocked I will venture out into my ghetto neighborhood and witness an actual killing). I looked at the film from an artistic/philosophical standpoint, and viewed the representations of violence as tools to communicate the director's ideas. Here I what I found.

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS) Ichi the killer was, for me, a treatise on the cyclical nature of violence, the pointlessness (and subsequent anarchic devastation) of vengeance, the inevitability and consequences of human egoism and the complete lack of morality and ethics in a completely deterministic world. The protagonist, Kakihara, is a man on a mission to find his one true "love," the only person able to satisfy him on a sexual/emotional/psychological (for Kakihara, one and the same)level. This kidnapped mob boss, he soon finds, has been murdered by the equivalent of a human robot, a very disturbed young man named Ichi who is manipulated and brainwashed by the director of what appears to be a halfway house for troubled youth (played with appropriate iciness by the director of the two "Tetsuo" films and "Tokyo Fist") into killing whoever the said director wants dead. Within this simple plot framework, ethics conflict with desires, the nature of abuse is explored, love and sexuality are perverted and questioned and everyone, it seems, fails in their simple quest to find happiness. Though there is no such thing as a happy ending for any involved (not even for Shinya Tsukamoto's subtle criminal mastermind), none are left as emotionally destroyed as Ichi, who's perspective of reality has been so intentionally skewed that this adolescent killing machine will never know peace. The majority of viewers will not look deeply enough into the film to appreciate its originality, audacity and style, and will probably write it off as just another "Sick" crime film, based on a comic book, made just to offend and entertain (how anyone can be purely entertained by this is beyond me). But to those with artistic minds who would not write the film off as just a live action manga (as so many have done to the brilliant "Tetsuo"), to those who can look beneath the surface of a piece of art, please, please, please, BUY THIS FILM!!! You will learn from it.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

Modern, Metallic Ghost story

[8 November 2002]

Tetsuo is, perhaps, the most brilliant film I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. I feel that most viewers are not mature enough/experienced with extreme cinema to look beneath the superficial "story," of which there is very little, to appreciate the wealth of subtext lurking beneath the most mind-blowing and exhilarating hour and seven minutes ever committed to film.

At once, it is an allegory of technology in the modern age (and the dehumanizing effect it has on its unwitting victims), a commentary on the psycho-sexual fetishization of industrialization, a critique of vengeance and violence, a celebration of nihilism and the potential beauty of destruction, a deranged superhero fantasy, a metaphor for failed dreams, an indictment of sexual repression (including homosexuality) and, at its core, a modern day ghost story, in which a hit and run driver (of sorts; he does carelessly dump the metal fetishist's body in the woods) is haunted by his metal-obsessed, ambiguously homosexual, marathon runner victim, a crazed nihilist who has acquired the ability to manipulate metal with his mind after a piece of steel (from the car) became lodged in his brain during the accident. In this modern age, the fear of the afterlife and the spirit has been replaced with that of technology gone haywire, the fear of weapons falling into in the "wrong" hands and of a human creation rising up to overcome, overpower and, ultimately, destroy the humans responsible for it. The events of the film, when taken to be no more than the actual images depicted, are too disturbing, complex and, ultimately, too alien, for the average, unthinking audience member to make heads or tails of, and thus are insulted as pointless, "offensive" and "weird," as if these highly subjective concepts denote something inherent in the movie. If you are one who can handle complex films with fairly simple story lines told in a completely non-linear fashion (what we actual artists/filmmakers call USING THE ART FORM!), then, please, do yourself a favor and buy this film immediately! You will gain something new from it each time you view it (I have seen it over thirty times and am still learning!). If you, however, are unable to read (and read into) images (the currency with which the medium of film traffics), and are unable to handle "weird" things without being spoonfed clear cut "heros" and "villains," then rent/buy "Titanic" and leave complex films to the thinkers and artists and revel in your own ignorance, but do not put down Shinya Tsukamoto, a man who has won my undying respect with ONE film.