VOYAGE THROUGH THE STACKS

CASE NUMBER #0004

TITLE: Devil's Nightmare
TAGLINE: N/A
DESCRIPTION: A group of tourists, each representing one of the seven deadly sins, spends a terror-filled evening in a castle previously owned by a man who made a pact with Satan. Throw in '70s Euro-beauty Erika Blanc as a homicidal succubus, and you have a rather captivating piece of vintage gothic Belgian/Italian horror-sleaze.
DIRECTOR: Jean Brismee
YEAR: 1974
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Belgium/Italy
RUNTIME: 95 min
SUBTITLED/DUBBED: Dubbed
IMDB PAGE
ROTTENTOMATOES
REVIEW:

Other reviews of this film (the positive ones, at least) would have you believe this is, without a doubt, a "bad movie," but so bad it's actually great fun to watch. I was tempted to frame my review the same way, until it occurred to me that the rhetoric of that last statement is entirely self-serving: It's a cop-out way of saying I really enjoyed something despite its schlocky heritage, and to save face when others -- especially those unfamiliar with the common tropes and gimmicks of that same heritage -- find nothing redeeming about this piece at all.

But the truth is, I don't think this is a bad film. Quite the opposite: I found Devil's Nightmare to be exceptionally enjoyable on a surface level, as romping-good Euro-horror; and on a deeper level, I also found it to be a smart film -- that crucial difference between good films and truly good "bad" films. After all, with most bad films enjoyment is derived from unintended responses, such as when viewers laugh at something that's supposed to be scary or serious; or when more irony exists for the viewer than was originally laid out in the script. But if a film more routinely has you feeling the thrill of foreknowledge at times of its own choosing, and if there are indeed surprises of a gruesome or anticipatory nature embedded in the actual narrative, then it doesn't matter if the film hails from a time of flimsy plot premises and well-worn genre devices: It has done what it set out to do, and should be lauded for that success.

Certainly, there are missteps in this film (among which, a brief intrusion of sleazy soft-core reigns supreme), but what I found more striking was just how much actually works as part of a coherent whole. The film opens with a scene in Berlin, 1945, where the Baron-father of a newborn daughter takes the girl's life in her cradle. Is this just a case of aristocratic misogyny run amok? There's room for the viewer to wonder as the opening credits roll -- but soon enough a more tragic motive appears: the Baron's family has a curse affixed to the eldest daughter of any descendant, and if let live she will become a succubus to Satan himself. The Baron relates this story to a reporter years later, from his centuries-old castle home, and after the reporter dies of fright from what she witnesses on the property, seven tourists find themselves stranded in the region, in need of lodgings for the night. They aren't the only ones, however, and the addition of the stunning red-head Erika Blanc sets the whole evening's dark affairs in motion.

You can see, then, the tired tropes at play: the dark family secret, the foray of wide-eyed outsiders to a troubled European castle, the beautiful, enigmatic female lead, the foregrounding of the supernatural. But there are immediate, arresting differences, too. For one, the tourists' characters are drawn in more subtle strokes than one might expect -- so much so that a later thesis on the seven mortal sins is not readily apparent, while in hindsight a young priest's chess game with demon-pieces makes perfect sense as foreshadow. And the dialogue, though plagued by often distractingly bad dubbing, is itself measured and lively, with plot-progressing lines pleasingly interspersed among asides that build character tension in an organic fashion.

But the surprises don't just lie with engaging dialogue or distinct characters: The very turns in the film also hold their own, pleasing weight. The first time Blanc reveals her true face to viewers, the early special effects characterizing this transformation are nothing to scoff at; and there's something eerily reminiscent of The Pit and the Pendulum in the way implements of torture do her bidding in the castle's dark underbelly.

Yes, there are moments when the horror slips into comic artifice, such as when Blanc pulls at her cross-scalded face in anguish before the prideful young priest, but in the end director Jean Brismee surely, knowingly plays one final feat of strength by revealing his Satan as something quite true to Bergman's Seventh Seal (the sharp-boned figure of actor Daniel Emilfork certainly helping in this regard) and completes his piece with a next-day reverie of hauntingly ambiguous proportions. Are the souls who dared spend a night in the succubus' haunt truly saved, or did the penultimate deal with the devil last little longer than the blood upon which it was writ?

A film with character depth, sufficiently engaging dialogue, true moments of intentional irony and fright, and an ending both enigmatic and rich in reference to its predecessors surely cannot be called a bad film. Devil's Nightmare has all the absurdity of its stylistic archetypes against it, and it groans at times under the burden of the genre's expectations, but the piece is nonetheless well-orchestrated -- and a pleasure I hope to have occasion to watch again.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING AIDS: A dark night, a cold room, and much love for the best of bad euro-horror.

VOYAGE THROUGH THE STACKS

CASE NUMBER #0003

TITLE: Cold Eyes of Fear
TAGLINE: N/A
DESCRIPTION: A young London lawyer finds himself in a prickly situation after taking home an escort and discovering his butler dead, and a ruffian on hand with a gun. After maneuvering a delicate phone call from his uncle, a judge, requesting information at the young lawyer's disposal, the judge sends an officer to the house with a legal missive. But the officer is in on the hold-up, too! And it soon emerges that a quest for vengeance against the judge is the driving force behind the whole, muddled hostage situation.
DIRECTOR: Enzo G. Castellari
YEAR: 1971
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Italy
RUNTIME: 95 min
SUBTITLED/DUBBED: Dubbed
IMDB PAGE
ROTTENTOMATOES
REVIEW:

After an agonizingly tedious pre-film introduction, care of the Redemption Films brand, Cold Eyes of Fear opens slowly but surely into the seedy underbelly of 1970s London life. Just as the tone of the opening encounter, between a lawyer and the escort he's just picked up, lulls you into the expectation of a rather underwhelming "mood piece," director Enzo G. Castellari does something interesting with his lighting: he has the young couple knock into a low chandelier, pointedly drawing the audience's attention to the light source that then frames, in pendulous passing, a very striking set of close-up images of the young lawyer falling over his escort on a table. Then the body of the lawyer's butler falls into view, interrupting the whole affair.

In that moment, I knew Castellari had the capacity to intrigue and surprise, and with this in mind I watched closely as a coarse criminal with a terrible English accent entered the fray; as tense close-ups of each character's eyes lit up the screen over and over in various, overdone sequences; as a phone call from the lawyer's uncle, a judge, in the middle of the enigmatic hold-up raised the stakes; as all hope for rescue from a subsequently dispatched officer fizzled as the man behind the uniform turned out to be the brains behind the hold-up after all.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, my interest thinned again. A strained attempt to cast the escort and coarse criminal as peas in a pod (and similar with the "higher intellects" of the lawyer and upper-class criminal) fell irredeemably flat when a bonk to the coarse criminal's head conveniently gave him a comic bout of amnesia. And the script was especially useless around the matter of the escort, who, having been trapped in a scenario that truly didn't involve her, frittered away this great potential tension on stiff and oddly-timed outbursts.

This failure to adequately divide or unite the conflicts between lawyer and past-defendant, and between low-brow criminal and "woman of loose morals," is a fairly good metaphor for the whole film's failure to divide the strengths of two distinct sub-genres resonating in Cold Eyes of Fear -- the home invasion piece, and the giallo, or criminal mystery. The former demands a great deal of exploitation and related action in their confined quarters, of which this film has precious little. Meanwhile, the latter demands a certain precision and logic to the developing story that fits in with the scope of the criminal's actions... and the viewer instead gets an overly complicated revenge plot existing solely so the criminal and lawyer-nephew have the opportunity to haggle about vague, meandering nuance surrounding a case never clearly laid out for the audience to consider on its own.

However, Castellari hadn't entirely nodded off in the course of this exhausting second act -- and when an explosion does occur in the third, the audience chances upon another striking snippet of excellent cinematography. Sadly, that's the last interesting twist (plot- or cinematography-related alike) in the whole, sordid affair, leaving this viewer with the following question: Did Castellari just assume the best surprises are doled out in exceptionally tiny increments, or did the man capable of creating those two bright moments of cinematic intrigue also think the rest of the piece equally up to snuff?

I'm left, therefore, with little to praise about this particular film except for a redeeming soundtrack, care of Ennio Morricone, but as giallos were far from Castellari's specialty (he directed, among other things, The Inglorious Bastards and a slew of spaghetti Westerns), and as he showed himself to have very clear moments of insight in his cinematography for Cold Eyes of Fear, I know I will be looking forward, with great curiosity, to the next Castellari flick that falls my way.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING AIDS: A sharp-shooter's eye for brief moments of very interesting cinematography, and a stiff drink for all the rest.

VOYAGE THROUGH THE STACKS

CASE NUMBER #0002

TITLE: China Gate
TAGLINE: N/A
DESCRIPTION: Ten former soldiers are given one last chance to prove themselves as they are called up for a mission some 17 years after they last went into battle. But the enemy proves to be formidable in this Bollywood feature.
DIRECTOR: Rajkumar Santoshi
YEAR: 1998
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: India
RUNTIME: 179 min
SUBTITLED/DUBBED: Subtitled
IMDB PAGE
ROTTENTOMATOES
REVIEW:

At the outset, I should mention this was my first Bollywood film -- and in so being, a real treat simply for exposing me to a very distinct narrative format. And what a format! Within the first few minutes we get the dishonourable discharge of a group of soldiers (for cowardice in the line of duty), the tyranny of a fearsome bandit named Jageera in an isolated village, the bluntly portrayed suicide preparations of Colonel Krishnakant Puri, and finally the nick-of-time interruption of a woman seeking aid on behalf of her father, brutally slain by the aforementioned dacoit Jageera in an attempt to save their people.

And if this isn't dizzying enough, when the Colonel decides to help this woman, he does so first by sending letters to all his similarly dishonoured comrades -- so of course we're then treated to snapshot vignettes of the other men's lives, the whole of their respective characters encapsulated in brief, often comic archetypes. One's a drunk who can never pay his tab but talks grandly of his importance to the country; another can't hack it in security because he's just too damn tough; another still loves to eat and eat and eat... You get the idea.

Next to the earlier, immensely chilling scene of a boy wailing for his mother at the foot of his father's strung-up body, Jageera caressing the boy's tear-streaked cheek with a blade as vultures call for their impending supper, the antics imparted by these character sketches are striking -- even off-putting -- to the uninitiated. It will be another half hour or so before the Bollywood beginner gets a handle on the inner workings of such a tempo and atmosphere, to say nothing of the absurdly dramatic dialogue; and much longer before she'll be able to decide if this particular film uses those metrics of the genre effectively.

Because I haven't yet seen the 1975 hit Sholay -- the "Curry Western" itself inspired by Seven Samurai, and a great deal of the inspiration for this more contemporary Bollywood classic -- let alone any of the other contemporary offerings from the world's largest film industry, I simply want to comment on the metrics themselves. Specifically, what the blunt character-building conveys (in conjunction with the film's extraordinary run-time) is that the director's aim is to build an epic -- a sprawling story larger than any one person's journey -- but not an epic so serious it forgets the humour and the diversity of real life. Rather, an epic that off-sets any inherent pomp and circumstance with the cheeky humility of over-acting and full-out comedy.

In China Gate, this approach is amply confirmed by the Chumma Chumma song-and-dance sequence, an absolute jewel of a traditional interlude planted after a fleeting success emerges in the main plot (and yes, it inspired the "Chumba Chumba" song in Moulin Rouge). It's an extraordinarily enchanting performance: Unlike Western musicals, the female lead in a Bollywood dance number is often secondary to the main plot, creating the suggestion that the whole cast is "taking five" from the main action right along with the audience. And for all the fumbling and slap-shod fight scenes in the rest of the film, you can bet your top dollar the choreography in the dance sequences will be immaculate.

I have but one warning to the fellow, novice Bollywood-watcher: Don't try to look up the lyrics for the interlude song while you're watching the film. When the subtitles suddenly disappear from your screen, you'll be sorely tempted to find out that "Chumma Chumma" means "Jingle Jingle," and that the lead dancer is talking about how her jingling bells will steal a man's breath away, but DON'T DO IT. Research the lyrics in advance, or else wait until after the film, and just enjoy the performance while it's there -- otherwise you'll have to go back and watch it all over: Yes, the song-and-dance is that enchanting.

All in all, after my first experience with a Bollywood film, I'm left wondering about the strengths of the genre in comparison to very character-driven efforts in the West. I keep thinking especially of the Oscars, which notoriously subordinates the place of comedy in serious film. And then I think of the roots of cinema -- Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton: all masters of a form that blended slapstick with profound social commentary. And what of Sunrise: A Tale of Two Humans, a timeless silent film masterpiece that matches heart-wrenching trauma with a drunken piglet run amok?

Which is to say that the blatant differences between Bollywood and Western cinema may indeed be quite contemporary; and while we may no longer critically acclaim those Western works that join blunt comedy with equally straightforward tragedy, this is no more an indictment against Bollywood than against our own, oft-forgotten cinematic past. In short, China Gate -- while likely not the best Bollywood has to offer, and perhaps a little long (though I'll know better when I get around to Sholay) -- most assuredly piqued my interest in watching more.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING AIDS: A love of over-the-top-acting, ridiculous premises, hackneyed fight scenes, and singing and dancing!

New to the Store: Week of 8 December

'tis the season when smaller releases are fewer on the ground due to all the behemoths.

Carriers
Cove, The
Fighter
Fox and the Child, The
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Informers, The
Julie & Julia (also Blu Ray)
Public Enemies (also Blu Ray)
World's Greatest Dad

Our shipment of Henry Porter blurays was delayed, we should have them Thursday or Friday.

VOYAGE THROUGH THE STACKS

For some blisteringly foolhardy reason, I took on the challenge of watching Gen X videos in the order they're listed in the stacks. In the coming months I'll try to post the fruit of these exploits as close to daily as I can (yes, the store hours will inevitably be far more reliable than these posts: Check out our holiday schedule the next time you're by!). If even one of these listings guides you to brave a new, strange title on your next visit, I'll consider my work done!

CASE NUMBER #00001

TITLE: The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance
TAGLINE: N/A
DESCRIPTION: Gothic lesbians prowl the corridors of a miserable little castle somewhere in Italy and fall prey to a deranged count, resplendent with canine gnashers, a fairly ghastly complexion and the personality of Pol Pot. This is Italian gothic with the added bonus of some bizarre breast gropings amongst the kitchen staff and other dubious sexual shenanigans.
DIRECTOR: Alfredo Rizzo
YEAR: 1975
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Italy
RUNTIME: 89 min
SUBTITLED/DUBBED: Dubbed
IMDB PAGE
ROTTENTOMATOES
REVIEW:

There is a point to every film made -- not always a laudable point, and certainly not always a good point, but a point nonetheless. Sometimes, when you know what the director's aim was supposed to be, it's easier to ignore the failings of the film in other capacities. At other times, it's not immediately apparent what the director was shooting for -- and then you have to wait the movie out, if you have the patience, until the pieces fall into place.

The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance is tragically one of the latter films: Not only are there no bloodsuckers, and precious little in the way of dancing, but even the production company's blurb for the film, relating how "gothic lesbians ... fall prey to a deranged count, resplendent with canine gnashers, a fairly ghastly complexion and the personality of Pol Pot" sorely misrepresents the culprit or crimes that take place in the course of the film (as if drastic rewrites or post-production plot changes weren't fully addressed in the marketing department).

And before viewers can even set themselves to the task of deciding what director Alfredo Rizzo's aims were, they have to endure a bizarre introduction to the film: a cheesy Bravo UK soft-core experience, care of the Redemption Films brand. For all the bared breasts and dripping blood, it's rather tedious -- and worse, an awful intro to the film itself. All Redemption Films start with some variation on this introduction, though, so just zip through it if you can.

When you do, the film opens with a straightforward premise: a count inviting an acting troupe of women and their emasculated manager to join him for the weekend at his castle. Within the first 24 hours of their stay, numerous excuses for female soft-core nudity emerge -- lesbians frolicking in their bed-chamber, another woman warming to the count's affections, the odd woman out making merry with one of the count's servants, two kitchen assistants exploring each other's breasts in recounting the tale of their lesbian guests. In fact, if this film were to be believed, the act of intercourse involves little more than the fondling of breasts -- just one of the cute consequences of erotic films skirting censorship in their day.

But the real tragedy emerges alongside the first death, a brutal affair involving one of the women in the troupe. Immediately, the lack of grief or even interest in this grotesque occurrence among the other women wears at the thin semblance of the film's plot, and from there a meagre fare of suspense and subsequent deaths leads to a wooden, drawn-out penultimate scene where suddenly it clicks for the viewer: The whole thrust of the plot was just an excuse for as much bared flesh as possible.

This is a sad realization, because -- much like the soft-core content itself -- The Bloodsucker... is exceptionally top-heavy with erotic scenes, so this epiphany about the leaden acting and stiff, flimsy plot that dominate the latter half of the film comes too late for viewers to forget about the plot in its entirety and focus on the main event.

Truly, if the film had even ended with another wanton display of female flesh, it would have succeeded in its aim. As it is, Rizzo's effort ultimately yields a lightweight soft-core scenario with a laborious plot tacked on for the second half. There are better, more efficient vehicles for buxom broads: The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance is a sad waste of healthy flesh, and not worth watching past the last done-up blouse.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING AIDS: A love of breasts and bad acting -- there's plenty of both to go around!

Dude Movies: Star Trek (2009)

What’s it about?
Alternate-universe Star Trek: The College Years crew team up to fight the evil Romulan evil plan of evil to destroy the universe out of spite, pretty much.

Any chicks in the movie?
Zoe Saldaña as Lt. Uhuru, who looks like Nichelle Nichols run through a Beyoncé brand hottifying machine.

Awesomeness Factor?
Warp 10. By all rights, the ancient and wheezing Star Trek franchise should have been hung out to dry a couple of decades ago, were it not for the life support granted by fandom’s most irritating dweebs.* Director and geek saviour J.J. Abrams, who can apparently do no wrong, wisely moves away from the dramatic inertia that’s plagued the series since The Next Generation days and replaces it with what Trek should have been all along: crazy-ass spaceman adventures in space. Abrams and his screenwriters understand that, at it’s core, Trek is really fucking stupid, so whenever the story calls for some patented Star Trek sci-fi twaddle like “I have opened the control valves to the matter-anti-matter nacelles”***, Abrams wisely decides to have the cast speak it as possible in order to get to more of the good stuff, like Kirk and Sulu swordfighting Romulans**** or watching entire planets blow up. They also make the indescribably wise decision to move away from the absolute dominance of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic to up the badass quotient for the rest of the crew, making it a more organic ensemble piece than the source material ever felt. The movie also looks great, too, positing a bright utopian future where spaceship bridge decks can be mistaken for an Apple Genius Bars and green-skinned chicks from Orion can really party. Given Abrams’ propensity for coating every corner of the screen in lens flare, watching this new, revitalized Star Trek is not unlike the feeling of being a baby and having a kindly uncle shake his keys at you. Sure, it’s juvenile, but you gotta admit those keys are shiny.

Mitigated by?
But speaking of the script: time-travelling through wormholes? Really? Ooooooh, I bet the next movie will have a holodeck mishap.

* Seriously, I’ve been a hardcore geek nerdboy my entire life and even I can’t stand Trekkies. They have this weird sense of both entitlement and superiority, which is ludicrous because Star Trek has the intellectual depth of Teenage Mutant Ninja** Turtles comic. They’re kind of like the nerdverse’s version of Republicans.

** I just wanted to write the word “ninja” again.

*** Original series, season 2, episode 22, “By Any Other Name”. Because even though I hate Star Trek, I also seem to have it memorized.

**** Not sure what the deal was with the Romulans, who aren’t styled as wild rage-o-nauts so much as slightly perturbed Tool fans. Also, note to Hollywood: face tats do not make people look edgy, it makes them look like gay bikers.

New to the Store: Week of 1 December

NEW RELEASES

Bellamy
Cook, Dane: Isolated Incident
Five Minutes of Heaven
Flame and Citron
Ghosted
Girl Seeks Girl
Into the Storm
Lost: Season 5
Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian
Pale Force
Redwoods
Shank
Somers Town
Terminator: Salvation
Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles: Season 2
Watchmen: Ultimate Cut

NEW ARRIVALS

Closer, The: Season 2
Closer, The: Season 3
Eagles over London
Golden Age of Television, The
Silent Night, Deadly Night: Parts 3-5
Three Men and a Cradle
Tora-San #1: Our Lovable Tramp
Tora-San #2: Tora-San's Cherished Mother
Tora-San #3: His Tender Love
Tora-San #4: Tora-San's Grand Scheme

BLU_RAY

Funny People
Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian
Terminator: Salvation