Setting flame to SXSW this year is Gareth Edward's Monsters, an independent hell-on-earth science fiction film seating both the aspirations of the best of District 9 and The Mist. What Monsters does is quite energy-efficient and relaxing, taking a big budget ideal and producing the film for a mere $15,000 using natural lighting, two reoccurring cast members, and a slew of volunteers to partake in this interstellar experiment in outwards community film-making all on location without too much permission. Refusing to view any trailers for a promise of a fable that I'd appreciate more with no prior indication of the events to transpire, Monsters came as quite a shock once I discovered how passe the realization of extraterrestrial Cthulhu life was for mini-budget Edwards and his DV dreams. The realization of the creature design and the likening effect that they produced on camera blew my expectations out of the water. If Gareth Edwards could create such an airtight romance surrounded by alien-organic infection then surely SyFy could fund something with double the cost besides a sweeping retelling of Sharkdactyl vs. Dinosloth only to appease autistic B-movie "fans." To put it simply, Monsters is in most regards a symbiotic epic, in which taking in the cost of shooting, provides a vast amount of appreciation reserved for the surprising skill of acting Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able are convinced to convey. Not to mention the conspiracies between disillusioned Mexican film viewers, their rage towards a theorized "final solution" to border patrol by deploying alien life in their zone of dusty squalor.
With much zeal does Gareth Edwards sidestep from adapting either of the films it's been convicted of "stealing" from. While The Mist does carbon-copy the same tentacled beasts imagined by Lovecraft, the only charge Monsters is guilty of is presenting us with face-time to these gorgeously animated octopi. Whereas Darabont's The Mist ended on such a note of helplessness while we acknowledge such large beasts compared to a quaint and rusted station wagon. Monsters doesn't feature the alien apartheid that District 9 is commended for, adorning its label with awards and praise which in a similar situation, Monsters might not be as soaked with praise but victim to argumentum ad infinitum. District 9 is made for the action connoisseur and racial inequalities put to the test of bizarre alien weaponry while Monsters captures an entirely desolate and benign world of limitless terror at every turn. In a bold strike to extinguish pacing and the needlessness of a constant quick pace to further the flow of visual stimuli, Monsters dutifully takes its time to create a stream of animated creature consciousness rivaled by the chaotic preachings of the creatures starring time in the unfairly maligned Cloverfield. The one ideal to grasp onto is that the final verdict for your enjoyment of Monsters is left up to your imagination as much of the terror and mystique is derived from the unknown.
Amidst the chaos is where Monsters finds the tale of our two and only characters. Not to disregard the mentioned roles of fiance and father but Monsters caters to a bond grown over mistakes and mildly genial embrace of the possibility of death. I often found myself bound between loving the film purely for creature-feature antics but then often sat in a quiet embrace with a glass of brandy waiting for one of these classic lovetypes to further the romantic congregation. Not to expel my "man card" but Monsters was a quality monster film while at the same time digressing towards a womanly atmosphere, a monster film in which both genders could embrace as their own. Quite an impressive achievement for someone who created this particular shortcut towards destruction of body and society on a laptop. Other than the technical achievements that Monsters documents in the smegma-stricken underbelly of what's considered "indie" in this day and age, a fragile and simple story is told with a fervor for science. Reportedly, Edwards was inspired by both Jurassic Park and the possibility of life on one of Jupiter's moons, Europa. Title card mentioned NASA probe with findings broke apart over Mexico infesting forests with sentient fungi and spaghetti monsters, hardly the makings of a science-fiction classic but surprise is a dish best served vegetated.
Monsters is far from perfect but given the budget and the lengths that this amateur film maker went to capture his vision of escort-love-suicide betwixt a jungle of mysterious monsters, Monsters preforms favorably with still so much steam in its veins. A theatrical experience might be recommended for maximum Mexican anarchy but Monsters is definitely a film in which you must rewatch the beginning after the end unless you retained the brief semblance of a conclusion thrust in your cerebellum at the dawn of the film experience. Even breathtaking moments such as the border cross reveals a terror in stucco that seems to be a fantasy including this "American dream" we live out to our full extent. The vulnerability that we are actually victim to is enough to drive a striking narrative into even the sleaziest horror film e.g. Zombi 2 and Jason Takes Manhattan. Believing that an extraterrestrial force could overrun our land of the free and the brave is enough to drive even the most liberal-minded into a schemata of insanity. Pointlessly poetic and honest, Monsters rivals most science fiction to be released this year and I hope this euphoric brain chemistry never leaves the star-crossed lovers Andrew and Sam despite their pragmatic plight.
Strolling through the decadent and backwoods gas station rental oeuvre, I'd see selections after selections of films that I'd be able to watch effortlessly, however, only with age. Finding it in myself to pick up Ghoulies Go To College seems like such a far cry from my habitual rental of Tremors or The Kindred. Other than the typical action films, I'd frequent Face/Off and Broken Arrow, respectively, and their Hong Kong predecessors were virtually unknown to me. Had I known this Eastern-Western director created 2 bodies of work that are complete mirror opposites of archetype and rival every action film released in the states (in terms of bullets and psychotic violence), I would have converted to Wooism years ago to save me the embarrassment of my friends goading me for not seeing John Woo's The Killer and only until this year, Hard-Boiled. The tale of an introverted and valiant assassin is something that most every subject has glanced at, their tales sweeping the screen in the lingual form of French, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. What really spikes The Killer above the enamored expectations alongside Leon: The Professional is the chemistry between Ah-jong and Inspector Ying, while border-lining male romance, the obsessions they carry differ in routes but never-the-less scrawl to many climactic confrontations.
Having watched both The Killer and Hard-Boiled within the span of a sweat-soaked evening, Chow-Yun Fat has fashioned himself to be an indecently versatile actor, harnessing giddy-boy in Hard-Boiled as the "serious-when-he-needs-to-be" Tequila and channeling an intensified yet poetic hitman whose heart is too big for the sordid expectations of him and his weapon. In The Killer, Chow-Yun Fat plays past his genetic baby-face and manages to shed that image upon the opening shootout scene which gives birth to the wonderfully important subplot of a blinded lounge singer named Jennie whom, out of guilt, Ah-jong decides to follow, protect, and love, tenderly, with plans of a final job to afford her cornea transplant surgery. Simple basis enough with a dash of betrayal and healthy amounts of gun play for an excellent HK splurge. Not necessarily the post-meditated state on violence that Hard-Boiled unabashedly hurls you into wondering who is on which side, however. Through all the environmental carnage, it's hard to discern who is shooting and what exactly is getting lit up with slugs. The Killer is much more distinguishable as an action/thriller though not without heavy doses of detective narcissism and a terrible score to topside the action with primordial jazz.
Acting as ringer for the entire project, The Killer only becomes the legend that it is due to the raw, shocking nature of the ending and how utterly hopeless you feel after the credits roll. Brought to a simmer, this tale of brotherly obsession and acceptance of dreary philosophies on the wielder of guns, killers and cops, crawls to a conclusion that will no doubt burrow in your mind as you can't help but feel sick over the fates of all three characters. Thinking I had the course of predictability down to a "T", what a fool I was and left bewildered staring at the screen with a guttural hankering for affection and co-dependency. Ironically enough, The Killer has been hailed as Woo's "magnum opus" but with great evidence to back upon these claims. To think of it, this might even be a near perfect film if the soundtrack was recycled and refined. Sadly so, there is not much to say about this film and the festering hatred that is spawned by the tragic finale. All thoughts and impressions can all be retraced back to the solemn, iconic scene of Ah-jong letting a cigarette slowly burn out; pure visual existentialism. That and the heroic bloodshed nature of idolizing the power of weaponry as phallic extensions of machismo. As I stated, a perfect companion piece to Hard-Boiled for any particularly sleazy night.
When you’re black, one must be a fool or at least act da fool, for the world expects it. Little swarthy Jewish auteur filmmaker Harmony Korine was searching for cinematic truth(s) when he directed the short Act Da Fool starring a unconsciously charming debutante Negress and her home girls. Despite being one the best moving picture pieces Harmony Korine has ever directed (surely better than the entire film Mister Lonely), he made this Negrophile short film for the Woman’s clothing and accessory company Proenza Schouler, known for making deals with high-priced Hollywood cunts like Kirsten Dunst, Julianne Moore, and Korine’s ex-girlfriend Chloe Sevigny. One can only wonder whether or not Korine decided to direct a group of 40oz. malt liquor drinking and horsehair-weave-wearing black girls sporting ultra-hip femme wear in hopes of tainting the name of Proenza Schouler and those ladies (especially Sevigny) who just happen to dress in that kind of crucial corporate-gal clothing. If Harmony Korine were to be critiqued solely in regards to his ability as a creative advertiser, he has given Proenza Schouler a certain authenticity that seemed next to impossible and has given evidence that a true artist can make good use of even the most dubious of projects.
One of the things that makes Harmony Korine a standout auteur is his ability to capture American truths and trends in places most Americans, especially film directors, consciously (and subconsciously) ignore. Whereas some bigwig blockbuster filmmaker hack like James Cameron puts tons of money into an aesthetically-synthetic film to make it look “out of this world” usually resulting in a movie that is unrelentingly boring, Korine takes the most common and realistic subcultures of America (especially rural America) that are so bizarre they border on the surreal, creating true Americana art on a welfare budget. In the short film Act Da Fool, we are introduced to a black girl who talks about aspects of her day-to-day life. She and her skinny black girlfriends have very long legs, like those of a doe deer that are further accentuated by a pair of high-heeled shoes that resemble hooves. This girl proclaims, “I like the way animals hangout in the trash in parking lots,” and she does the same with her friends, representing a true display of walking-the-talk.
Despite acknowledging her admiration and respect for the way animals hangout in trash in parking lots, the black girl also states negatively of herself and friends, “We can act like wild animals, we can do some messed up shit.” To the girl and her friends credit, they do not kill people or smoke crack in the parking lot, they merely drink 40oz. Malt liquor and tag graffiti on the side on dumpsters, making use of the few very things they have in life and creating their own postmodern nihilistic (not even knowing what the word means) realities. Despite what some spineless whites see as negative stereotypes in Act Da Fool, one would have to be a fool not to see Korine’s objective neutrality, if not total respect towards these black girls. Personally, I have never found any black girl to be appealing in my life but in Act Da Fool it is apparent that Korine made sure to find the best crème of the crop Negro genetics, the kind of healthy Negroid phenotypes a person can only find in rural America. I am afraid it seems that most city blacks have ruined their gene pools by partaking in crack, social welfare, government housing, and the worst junk foods imaginable (or at least more so than their rural brothas).
Harmony Korine has certainly followed in his Jewish Godmother Diane Arbus’s legacy of capturing the wonderful and vibrant realism that is often ignored in America. Not that I can say I am a connoisseur of Rap/Hip-Hop videos but with Act Da Fool Harmony Korine has given the ultimate justice to the young Negress and her own distinct beauty, especially when one considers that not one gigantic shaking ass (like your typical Rap video) is shown in the short film because Harmony Korine ain’t no fool but a documenter of a world very few people have a personal perceptive lens for and that is harmful Harmony’s greatest gift as one of America’s greatest modern auteur filmmakers. Apparently, the black church used to be the backbone and support network of the Afro-American community, as the great black Reverend James David Manning has stated time and time again. The female narrator of Act Da Fool states passionately, “I ain’t goin’ to church no more, church can suck it.” Instead of the Church, these blacks girls now have a parking lot and instead of holy water they have the liquid golden calf of malt liquor. These Negresses may be living in the time of collective Negro-nihilism and regressive degeneration but as the young narrator states, “The stars ain’t never gonna leave us.”
I watch horror films for two reasons, both harkening back to childhood. One reason is to get in touch with the primal, sleepless night-inducing fear of, say, watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the first time (the day before Halloween, 1995, aired on a local television station. Being nine and naïve the opening ‘based on a true story’ crawl narrated by John Laurequette had me convinced I wasn’t watching a ‘scary movie’ but true crime along the lines of Helter Skelter. By the end of the scene where they pick up the hitchhiker I was nearly in tears). On the other hand, there is the “Do you like see-food?” appeal of films that, while not particularly scary, appeal to the twelve year old in all of us who lived for nothing more than throwing bricks at the dead cat behind the cafeteria dumpster after school to see if we could dislodge some maggots before skulking over to a friend’s house to thumb through his older brother’s worn copies of Hustler. Flicks that are big, dumb, gross, and awkward as we were when stuck in the painful expanse between our childhood perception of what constitutes cool (roadkill, fighting robots, armpit farts) and our young adult perception of what constitutes cool (girls) and all that entails (mostly masturbation, humiliation, and acne scars). Flicks that one must put away with the childish things if one ever wants to know the love of a woman (Corinthians 13, I think), but can indulge in every once in awhile to satisfy the adolescent weirdo with the peach fuzz ‘stache that resides at the base of our brain.
Of course, you can always indulge and wear Fulci Lives shirts and argue on message boards about how the laserdisc of a Blind Dead movie omits a second-and-a-half transitional scene and blare Cannibal Corpse on your way to your graveyard shift retail job, but this will ensure that in the odd event your penis ever lands in a vagina and you aren’t paying for it that said vagina will belong to a woman that outweighs you considerably and is every bit the nerd you are and you’ll despise her for it and feel like you’re slumming and she’ll feel the exact same about you but you’ll stay together because no one else could possibly be interested in fucking either of you because you prattle on for hours like a couple of fucking Aspies about meathooks going through breasts and Goblin soundtracks but never bother to expand the scope of your interests beyond something someone that rides a bike with a baseball card in the fucking spokes would think is “pretty siiick.” A more successful approach? Watch movies with substance, subtitles, and/or subtlety. Watch stuff that you could imagine girls you’ve always wanted to cum in might enjoy or at the very least tolerate, but which won’t make their vagina's arid at the mere mention of. Respect cinema as an art form and appreciate the nuances of a particular director or camera movement or something, anything beyond “dude, he removes their kneecaps and then sews her mouth to the one girl’s butt and then that girl’s mouth to the guy’s butt and…” I guess what I’m trying to say is it is more than okay to like something puerile and disgusting, but don’t let that be the sum of your interest in movies because (a) you aren’t twelve years old and (b) being a movie nerd, or nerd of any kind really, stacks the odds pretty high against you in terms of getting laid by anything remotely human in appearance, but being a nerd whose development peaked at twelve years old, i.e. horror geek, comic book guy, etc, you are pretty much guaranteeing yourself a life of quiet desolation, disappointment, and actually attending conventions and shit. Grow the fuck up. It is okay to like comic books or horror movies, but if you are 35-going-on-12, no one wants to fuck you. Did girls want to fuck you when you were twelve? Of course not, and they certainly won’t want to now that you wear a hockey jersey as “going out” wear and use a goatee to disguise how fat you’ve gotten since you dropped out of community college eight years ago. The only people that want to fuck twelve year old boys are creepy old men, and even they don’t want to fuck you because while you are emotionally stunted at an age when things made sense and you didn’t have to slave away all night cleaning chili dispensers and selling smokes to tweakers to afford your Fangoria subscription you don’t possess an untapped butthole and pimples and puppy tails or whatever the fuck it is pedophiles are into because you are an adult man, you fucking fuck. I don’t know who to pity more, the washed up “horror icons” who have to stand arm in arm with you for a photo op at the convention center or you for having to part with twenty-five bucks for such a unique privilege. Ultimately I pity your parents, anything with self-esteem low enough to allow you to wiggle around your puny pecker inside of it, society as a whole, but mostly yours truly for having had to endure so many terrible conversations with so many of you fucking losers over the years.
Okay, so perhaps this (maybe) misguided rant is the result of my (definitely) misguided attempt to discuss movies with a guy at work wearing a Friday the 13th shirt whose eyes glossed over whenever I’d mention a movie that didn’t feature disembowelings and grotesquely augmented breasts, the guy who thinks Argento is a hack because Fulci “brought it” in terms of gore and who looked completely dumbfounded when I mentioned anything remotely outside that of which could constitute Necro lyrics. We did, however, find some brief common ground in my most recent adventure to the multiplex, Piranha 3D. My friend had just been fired from her job under the worst possible circumstances. Said friend needed some cheering up, and nothing cheers one up better, if you ask me, than putting adult notions of good taste and responsibility to the side and enjoying some disembowlings and grotesquely augmented breasts for about an hour and a half, even better if it’s in 3D. Of course, like Lifetime movies or greasy post-hangover grub, this is the kind of empty calorie awesomeness that is best enjoyed sparingly, but taken in the right frame of mind (drunk, high) really hits the spot.
Piranha 3D, like the Joe Dante flick on which it is based, is essentially Jaws helmed by someone who doesn’t want to fuck twelve year old boys (or be Peter Pan or whatever the fuck Spielberg’s deal is) but rather by someone who understands what twelve year old boys want to see, in this case Alexandre Aja (director of the overrated Haute Tension and The Hills Have Eyes, maybe the gold standard against which all other horror remakes should be measured). As was the case with The Hills Have Eyes, Aja recognizes what worked in the original film but is able to improve on it both stylistically and in terms of gore. With The Hills Have Eyes, Aja was able to translate the Vietnam-era anger of Craven’s first films into a political parable that was less preachy than just really lean, mean, and jarringly brutal. With Piranha 3D, Aja knows as well as you and I do that there is nothing intelligent to mine from a flick that existed solely to improve on Jaws by way of blood and titties, so he goes the exact opposite route of Hills and injects Piranha 3D’s scant running time with wall-to-wall ass, titties, gore, moronic humor, and a couple of great cameos, all of this again, in three glorious dimensions. Steve McQueen’s grandson is the Pixies-shirt clad good guy, who blah blah likes this girl yadda yadda his mom is the sheriff and an earthquake dislodges prehistoric cannibalistic demon fish from an underwater lake just in time for Spring Break and Jerry O’ Connell plays a thinly veiled Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild infamy (here called, if I remember correctly, Wild Wild Girls) so Steve McQueen’s grandson gets on board with the girl he likes as a tour guide and the fish eat everyone you’d expect them to eat and a “twist” ending sets it up for a sequel but don’t stick around for the end credits because all that happens is a skull floats by so fuck that.
There are two things I really took away from Piranha 3D, or rather, two things I still remember about it (aside from that we had a great time and laughed and guffawed and made “bo-o-o-i-i-ing” sound effects to represent our boners throughout). One is the genius of casting Jerry O’Connell as Joe Francis. Spoilers abound, but when O’Connell’s coked out, obnoxious character bites the dust, we are treated to the spectacular sight of his severed penis floating past our face, being swallowed by a piranha, and then coughed out over our heads before being bitten in half. As the fat kid from Stand By Me and Joe Francis should be at the top of anyone’s list of people who should never be allowed to procreate, this is crowd-pleasing at its finest, plus it is refreshing to know that we live in an age where hundreds upon thousands of dollars will be spent to realistically thrust severed cocks in the faces of moviegoers. The other thing I can recall about this movie was the big climactic massacre scene where Spring Break is interrupted by bloodthirsty piranhas but because the 3D process kinda makes a lot of the underwater stuff a bit murky, the best deaths are caused by humor error, including one death-by-hair-caught-in-boat-motor that is so great it belongs in a hastily-edited, grindcore-scored Youtube video along with clips from Dead Alive and Guinea Pig films or something. I’m sure the guy from my work is hard-at-work compiling it as you read this. Did I mention that he declared this the best film he’d seen all year? Like, really? I mean, it was fun. The nude underwater ballet scene where two chicks with tits bigger than, well, the guy from my work’s tits, is pretty amazing, and the Spring Break massacre, O’Connell cock- it all added up to a very satisfying, imminently forgettable timewaster. It will satiate your inner-adolescent appetite for mayhem and female nudity (also 3D vomit), but it isn’t something you’ll ever really consider watching more than once, or sober, or at home even (at least I wouldn’t - if Jerry O Connell’s meat isn’t plastered to your forehead, it really isn’t the optimal Piranha 3D experience).
That said, Aja continues to be a capable director, my friend seemed sufficiently cheered, and the lack of anything substantive to say about the flick itself has allowed me to tackle one of my least favorite archetypes at length, so if it is still in theaters, check it out, and if the DVD comes with little 3D glasses or something check it out or if you find a torrent and can skip to the above mentioned scenes, by all means, but don’t buy it or think it is some kind of masterpiece or invite an attractive co-worker to dinner and breathlessly recount your favorite parts of the movie with your fucking mouth open (see? food! haha) while she recoils in (actual) horror and wishes someone, anyone would text her so she can make an excuse to get away from you but you’re so convinced you’re getting laid tonight that you are already plotting how to get through the hallway and past mom and dad’s room without waking them and are forming a mental picture of a post-coital snuggle sesh in which she’s wearing your favorite death metal shirt watching Nekromantik but really this will be like every other night of your life since you were a pre-teen and you’ll masturbate furiously, cluelessly into a tubesock and feel curiously empty and fill the void by clicking Buy It Now and now you’ve gotta make room on your wall for another autographed Bruce Campbell poster - fuck.
Existing on the fringes of cinema is Shinya Tsukamoto, the Japanese nothing-but-an-auteur who (arguably) developed the resolute be-all end-all body horror in its finalized and post-cocooned state. With such a bevvy of silver horrors underneath his exasperated arms, Tsukamoto set out to tackle the Japanese youth rebel boom of the 90s. Following in the wake of the mutinous children, Bullet Ballet, Battle Royale, and much more were created to chronicle the horrors of moonlighting young killers. Ordinary teenagers by day with jobs beneficial to the community of Tokyo as a whole (or so they thought), only to turn into rough-tough muggers, looters, and overall monsters who seek a supposed rapture of youth through sex, drugs, and violence. Supposedly Tsukamoto was mugged by a gang of the aforementioned. Like the absolute madman that he is, he didn't resist or pity himself. Feigning confrontation even with his peak physical condition, he observes their actions, their emotions, possibly the wild excitement in their eyes. This is the same voyeuristic approach from Tsukamoto that I'd expect nothing less of, especially from the famous Japanese auteur with his disillusioned peace-in-rebellion mindset. After the dust and fear settle, Bullet Ballet is born . . . in a frenzied statement and fictional documentation on the addicting pleasures of anarchy. But every rose has its thorn, as Douglas Jerrold put it, free from context. The question is, does Bullet Ballet qualify as entertainment?
First and foremost, Bullet Ballet is as wonderfully in touch with the flickering brilliance of black and white as demonstrated in A Snake of June and the better half of Tsukamoto's poetic yet fluctuating career. Chu Ishikawa marks his frequent return in most of all Tsukamoto's works and doesn't disappoint with the resurgence of his trademark twisting and hammering metal in a noise-punk admittance of layered guitar additions. With the aesthetic dissected from Tetsuo and the better half of his early Super8 shorts, Bullet Ballet looks and feels the way a black & white film regarding the regression of anger but cannot fit the part of a classic example of experimental Japanese filmmaking. The story revolves around a self-centered television executive who stumbles home in a stupor only to realize that his girlfriend of ten years committed suicide. Unable to come to grips with the resonating fact that her death is at the hands of his oblivious and domicile nature, Goda becomes enraged and seeks to find the exact model of gun, the .38 special, so he too can commit suicide. This was the plan, however, until he gets mixed up with a gang of youthful and irritable speed-freaks.
(Tetsuo: the Iron Man)
(Bullet Ballet)
Rather than sticking straight with the fetishism of metal and the likes, Tsukamoto hones it down to a specific artistry of steel - guns. The gun metal fixation from Goda presents some very serious symptoms of Taxi Driver melodrama with the scene of phallic extensions from his self-goading in the mirror to the shirtless pantomime trigger-teasings, it's obvious that Bullet Ballet was made with a special significant nod to the Western cultures while steadily embracing the Eastern side of things, mainly referring to the great lengths and difficulties Goda endures to finally land his hands on his prized possession, whereas it's remarkably easy to purchase a weapon in the states. After stumbling upon a young punk named Chisato, whom Goda rescued from falling on the subway tracks days earlier, Goda is tormented by her and the gang religiously, being mugged and beaten over the course of the entire run time. Strangely, I feel no sorrow towards Goda in the slightest making Bullet Ballet seem like a nicely shot student film with a budget fit nicely behind it. Perhaps it's this or the wistful fact that Chisato reminds me of an old flame - so blindly wrapped in selfish exploits proceeding a future fueled by "art" and circlejerk meditation on photography, all the while juggling men to both extremes of friendship and romantic entanglement. These ample musings of the hipster millennium crowd are the driving force behind my indifference to the character of Chisato and her fate.
Many flaws surround Bullet Ballet, whether it's the pedestrian filling surrounded by an excellent opening and climax, the events transpiring in the midst of this dark drama are ultimately forgettable and not worth even viewing. For lack of a better description, Bullet Ballet is a lost idea, wandering alone on a desolate stretch of highway with no real place to go but to follow asphalt. Following the temperament of Tetsuo: the Iron Man, the camerawork becomes frenetic during periods of high volume, so much that what action and throttled stress does compose within Bullet Ballet is strewn across the screen wildly leaving me bewildered and wondering what just happened. Rather than dismissing Bullet Ballet as the weaker film of Tsukamoto's art archives, I find myself able to compassionately appreciate this ill-received film as an exorcism of conflicting ideas of youth and violence and violent youth.
Only in the final ten minutes does Bullet Ballet even out and become a moving work of beauty. The mistakes we make and the consequences we hope to escape are brought to the stand. Tsukamoto created this rapid descent in quality with a fervor that I must commend and in part to his signature promise of bringing it all together in the end. If not as a rousing piece of entertainment, then certainly Bullet Ballet can be transcribed as an ill-sought meditation on the aggravated assimilation into the violent underbelly of the mutinous city inhabitants. Bullet Ballet is perhaps his weakest solid effort, not counting the visual afterbirth that is Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, but regardless of the quality (or lack thereof) Bullet Ballet is still a consequential ceasefire to the rampant youth of Japan. What better way to retaliate upon a large group of people than to construct a film showing them in their most instinctive and amorous state.
With a lack of continuity and a thematic indulgence in reincarnation, Shinya Tsukamoto returned to his esteemed cyberpunk steam which spread like a panicked wave through cult and arthouse circuits with the smithy-porn Tetsuo II: Body Hammer. The idea on paper reads as such, juxtaposing itself alongside the original homoerotic male rapture aided with fleshy physicality that we all know as Tetsuo: the Iron Man, Body Hammer concerns itself as a allegory on reincarnation if you will, same characters grown up with different connections and an all too similar string of genetics. Perhaps lay blame on the subversive assimilation into one rusted being at the climax of the original. Both the roles of Tomorowo Taguchi and Shinya Tsukamoto as the salaryman and Yatsu, respectively, are reprised by the same actors from the original Tetsuo film. The metal fetishist, however, is given a name and a past. Branded as Yatsu and adorning the same shirt with an "X" emblazoned upon it, Yatsu is the skinhead leader of a group of bodybuilders who seek the scholarly fortunes of an elderly scientist in order to create the godlike body mechanics artificially. Or something along those lines.
As Tsukamoto and top film analysts would spread it, Body Hammer isn't a sequel but an evolution of both character and the regurgitated-and-not-improved aesthetic used within, which sadly, siphons most of the originals mark left upon the initial viewing. The stakes were certainly raised with the promise of a sequel, both on and off the set. With a salaryman confined in a sterile and concrete building instead of a sweaty shack, the bourgeois household and family matters are put to work quite efficiently. That is, before Tsukamoto bleeds this sequel like a stuck pig expecting expectations to be forgotten and weeding every promising aspect in favor for a sordid creature feature towards the end with coherence and narrative despite the successful nature of the sensory-overload that is theIron Man. Not just the notion of ousting black and white in favor of a smeared color palette yet to be perfected, but for removing the blatant sexuality of the original in an attempt to channel pre-Tokyo Fist idealizations of macabre masculinity.
Foremost, color was never meant to be existent in the universe of Tetsuo. The grainy and obscured visuals of steaming coils, leaking faucets, and wire-rotting junk atop sordid soil was breathing the monochromatic horrors that Tetsuo: The Iron Man effortlessly exposed in a daring and culturally unheard-of fashion. The addition of hues flattens the lucid transgressions of the oddity that was the Tetsuo namesake. To set further in motion and to evolve my previous argument of narrative, Tetsuo II is more of a film than the original film ever aspired to be. With theories of gangs turned to manifesting flesh alchemy and the surplus scenes of tripe chest-piece manipulations with body cannons exploding with roadside sparklers and soaked fireworks, Body Hammer is not to be taken as a serious project. Perhaps a foot in the door as an aspiring film maker and not just an extended music video project for Chu Ishikawa's incredible hammer-to-anvil noisemakings, our pal Shinya has (decidingly) created some stale, albeit enjoyable, creations but Tetsuo II: Body Hammer finds no time to entertain except for a handful of scenes. Proving to be a failure on near all fronts, Ishikawa's return to scoring the post-science world of the Iron-beings is a haggard attempt at "evolving" the now "advanced" prototype of real industrial. Given inspiration from a poster with frogs(?), Ishikawa's ideal representation of the soundtrack to Tetsuo II sounds more as if a Super Nintendo track was recorded in midi format under several feet of water.
Tetsuo II: Body Hammer lives up to neither the title of Body Hammer or Tetsuo. As later experienced in the break-up masterpiece Tokyo Fist, Tsukamoto's obsession with bulging and grotesque muscles was still premature in the womb. With the exception of a couple of training montages, Body Hammer's addiction to the physique is quite absent and is perhaps rotting somewhere on a cutting room floor. The skinheads involvement in the film is quite absent and serves as a preinvention of the parable, Tokyo Fist - the perfected worship of dripping machismo. Body Hammer opens a note of remote tangency compared to the affable circus-scud of the predecessor. A salaryman in his marble chamber, a solid life in contrast to the squalid exploits of Taniguchi past. To break formation and sing some praise, the first 40 minutes is wholly better than the terrible drivel that makes up the climax and Tsukamoto is best to reference the first sequel as a portfolio for some terrific arm mutations and exquisite practical effects in an era that is overrun by the need for computers and technology to run rampant over expression. That being said, if you admire the audacity of the groundbreaking precursor, avoid at most costs.
Being redirected by splotches of classic memories of Cool World, I decided to revisit the sudsy noir-typed gonzo inspirations found within the vault of Ralph Bakshi's return to feature films. After Fire and Ice, it just seemed that Bakshi retired all too soon to the measly slave-tracks that is syndicated television. But before you knew it, a new film was announced to predate the repopulated live-action/animated musings of Space Jam. Cool World stars Brad Pitt before he hit the spotlight with his best roles to date (Kalifornia and True Romance) and Kim Basinger playing herself for the seductive and manipulating Holli Would; lending voice to toon and likeness to "Noid." Imagine my surprise when I discovered this magical land that filled my head with throbbing fetishes as a child turned out to be a spoiled script behind even more rotten directing, not to mention the animated population of Cool World to be less-than-Crumb fantasies of bizarre slapstick and catty chubbies with heaving breasts. Things aren't all bad in Cool World, however as life is cheap and women are even cheaper.
Taking an aimless road, Cool World opens with Frank Harris, a WWII veteran returning home to his lovely Ma with a personal gift to the both, a motorcycle. After one fateful accident minutes later, Frank Harris is thrust into an animated paradoxical world of cigarettes, twisted subsurreal architecture, and boozy women. Coincidentally, some 40+ years later, an animator played unconvincingly by Gabriel Byrne creates Cool World and is too sucked into some strange, incoherent wormhole that leads to the place of his creating. Funny thing about this is that this portal to Cool World opens on golden opportunities and never without plot progression in mind which connects even more wildly to the theory that Cool World is just the hidden fetishes coming to fruition within a possibly comatose Frank Harris' mind. Once we are introduced to the 3 - 4 reoccurring characters that highlight the faceless world of cool, we are met with a femme fatale blonde bombshell by the name of Holli Would, who kills the shit out of Jessica Rabbit in terms of evoking youthful sexuality to bloom prematurely. Throughout the entirety of the time spent in the radical degeneracy of Cool World, sporadic looped footage of a doodle mob parades slowly across the screen obscuring the sights and sounds that Cool World has to offer. This mental onslaught is yet another cheap tactic that Bakshi employs in what is possibly the worst in his career. The amount of zero mentality looped footage alone is staggering and impossible not to pick up on.
One of the only merits that Cool World has to offer is terrific background visuals in a wild neon mess that houses oversexualized Saturday morning cartoon fodder. The "doodles" in their reverse beat generation are all broad shouldered or teeming with unsubtle cleavage. In regards to the decade of the 90s and the video rental boom, I must digress that Cool World must have had something to do with the current generation's obsession of Japanese animated women and their almost always incestuous relationships. Cool World didn't invent the fanatical subversion of animated fantasy but it sure as hell broke it out into the mainstream by planting seeds within children's minds. For me growing up, the plot of Cool World escaped me. I simply had memories of scrambled scenes that held no continuity other than Brad Pitt smoking and bimbo cartoons. After committing myself to the institution that is Cool World, I feel that this is one of those rare occurrences in which the memories lasting within the stems of past viewings are more favorable than the current result. Re-watching Cool World certainly rotted the core of my past recollection and the only safe tiding I can manage is to envision this film as the inhibitions of a comatose soldier returned home. That certainly spices up the frequent shortcomings and inconsistencies littering this animated abortion.
As with most of Bakshi's work, there are fragments of inspired genius and Cool World is not without these brilliant minerals but treading through the run time seems like an infinite purgatory. Perhaps Bakshi had developed a lazy senility which would certainly explain the looped alienating segments of crude illustrations. Seems as if scrapped storyboards were used as a sensory overload to stimulate the mind into processing all of which this film doesn't offer. But what Cool World does offer is a terrific mondo metropolis realized by screaming and twisted branches mutating off cityscapes. Furthermore, Cool World recycles most of Bakshi's previous successful avant-garde animations e.g. Fritz the Cat and Hey Good Lookin'. Inspired so, the costumes of many-a-citizen of Cool World seemed idealized by that same whisper that Bakshi fell victim to during conception of the 50's extravagance. As it is, this is a venture into live-action/animation that I'd prefer to avoid in favor for the multicultural exploitation that is Space Jam or the more successful greasy noir that is Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. While Roger Rabbit didn't have such gratuitous and delightfully harmful sexuality, it encompassed the desperation and dinginess of film noir so much better than the shattered product of Cool World. In praise to Cool World, it was one of the few examples to reach viral hall of fame with the rare event of "desecrating" the Hollywood sign by constructing a 75 foot tall Holli on top of the letter "D". I suppose the legacy of Cool World is destined to perish among an elusive photograph of such and the bargain begging price of five dollars. To put it rather simply, Cool World is just another disappointing debacle of squandered talent - should have been reserved for art galleries and not cineplexes.
It's been high time that I've put thoughts of Fresh to rest being this was the film that first set my horizons to dabbling in constructing a solid base of opinions in written form, see also: review. Far from the decadent projects of faux paus hood dramas, Fresh presents the first of its kind that I've seen, an intellectual pass at exhibiting impoverished communities without making me want to fumigate the entirety of the seedy alleys littered with degenerates and addicts. Essentially a coming-of-age urban fable with a 12 year old drug runner, name of Fresh, the film decides to center itself a fancy twist when he begins to use the game of chess and his estranged father's tactics to get himself and his sister out of the "game" before it's too late. Setting up a chessboard in his room, Fresh manipulates each piece in a manner catering to his opponents needs. As whimsical father-figure Samuel L. Jackson puts it, "I play my opponent. If he likes to attack, I force him to defend himself. If he's a cautious man, I draw him into dangerous waters." These words from this golden deus ex machina provides us with an exhilarating set-up for what might be one of the greatest films ever told through a black child's eyes, with the exception of George Washington.
Establishing the pawns rather quickly and efficiently without wasting time from the fireworks, Fresh introduces us to the morning habits of a school boy drug pusher as he stiflingly tells this smacked Mexican Consuela that 20 means 20. After she bullshits her culture and daughter to the young black man in what might possibly be a scheme for more of the "product", Fresh leaves the apartment to deliver to local drug kingpin Esteban's cronies. The intensity of life is established very quickly in the projects as this kid Fresh could be any other kid growing up with such a poverty-stricken way of life. Scratch that, no kid from the projects could house such an intellectual fervor as effortlessly as Fresh. I think Mexican clown Chuckie would be a better comparison to the average low-income child, destined to die because of his arrogant, irritating, and perversely mongoloid nature. Because of the deteriorating element of his family, Fresh takes it upon himself to free himself from the slimy hands of Corky and Esteban in a concise yet superficial rigging of his creation. Using tactics employed in chess, Fresh ultimately boils down to a metaphorical game of chess using real pawns and sacrificing much to make ends meet.
Fresh proves to be one of the more tame films I set out to review. Not being much of quality, filming wise, Fresh doesn't really house any hidden aesthetics or inspired technique. It's simply a film that exists within the raw boundaries of the story it portrays so the quality is dismissible as the product is something I can revisit over and over again. Courting my predilection for spicy urban dramas, Fresh was developed for a specific audience in mind. I couldn't imagine current black youth watching this film without heckling poor Michael for participating in lame activities such as "chess" or "family." These concepts mean nothing to most of, if not all, of our streetwise rodents. Surrounded by such filth must be distracting on the developing adolescence of Fresh. From the lackadaisical temperament of his "nAuGhtIIe N' nAstY" sister converted whore to the greasy self-idolizing tentacles of Esteban, Fresh concerns himself with some putrid excess for sure.
As an added bonus, Samuel L. Jackson turns perhaps his best performance as his alcoholic speed-chess father whom Fresh can drop the moniker and manifest the semblance of a human being. Not just for whimsical anecdotes or father/son malleability, Fresh comes to this park to step his game up to better suit his needs. In what eventually begins to unravel, Fresh takes charge as a studious film featuring rather unsavory characters and takes the time to escape the bind of class-B "yungbloodz" and their banal disillusionment of cinema. Fresh isn't a perfect film but rather a perfect character. A child of rotting roots that I feel great sympathy for. You may be able to disregard the film but you most certainly cannot shun the character. As Michael sheds mortal coil by releasing Roscoe of his tainted innocence, Fresh becomes somewhat with purpose to better his life and stray back on course. To cap off a perfectly-competent debut picture from Boaz Yakin, Fresh ends on such a note of breakdown that it's near impossible for me to not get caught up in the flood of emotion emanating from Sean Nelson in his only credible role. This is the stuff that Urban films should be made of. There is no glorification of hood dreams to be found in Fresh, only a wake up call to black youth stating that it's time to grow up.
When most people hear the word Barbie they think of a plastic blond doll with all the right curves. Unfortunately, most people do not ordinarily know the name of Klaus Barbie, the infamous “Butcher of Lyon,” one of the Gestapo’s top men in France. Klaus Barbie originally intended to study theology and became a teacher but fate sprung him and instead his name has permanently entered the history books as the personification of evil, at least according to Jewish filmmakers like Marcel Ophüls. Ophüls, being a French Jew, must have felt a special calling when he decided to make the documentary Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, an over 4-hour long documentary about Barbie. Marcel Ophüls is probably best known from Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, where Woody makes reference of the French-Jewish director’s documentary The Sorrow and The Pity.
It is clear from the get-go that director Marcel Ophüls is dedicated in his documentary Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie to present Barbie, as well as most Europeans, in a light of the most despicable and depraved evil. Those that are not evil are just portrayed as ignorant barbarians with the incapacity for any type of intellectual or abstract thought. For example, when questioning a German farmer about the young Klaus Barbie, Ophüls questions whether or not Barbie was the much liked and loved little boy as portrayed by childhood neighbors. Ophüls writes-off the peoples love of the young Sonny (Barbie’s childhood nickname) as the result of his Father being a local and well respected teacher. In fact, throughout the documentary, aside from Jews and French “Resistance”(aka Communists) fighters, most people have kind words to say about the young and old Klaus Barbie. It becomes apparent though the documentary that Ophüls is extremely annoyed by this occurrence, but what really sets him off is how many Europeans bring up the fact that Barbie’s “crimes against humanity” were committed over 40 years ago. Obviously, these silly goy Europeans do not understand the Jewish tradition of an “eye for an eye (or two)” bloodthirsty vengeance.
Apparently, while the Germans and Italians stayed in Germany during World War II, they were known for being great tippers (or at least they were at Hôtel Terminus). This makes one wonder whether or not a Frenchman could spot whether one was a Jew or not by their generosity in regards to gratuity. It has been said that Klaus Barbie was fairly generous with his whip but I digress and now have to ask the question, was Klaus Barbie really the monster Marcel Ophüls portrays him as? Knowing Klaus Barbie had a very important job as a SS- Hauptsturmführer, one just comes to expect a little bit of blood, death, and torture. When one also compares Klaus Barbie to his Communist enemies, whether it be in France or Soviet Eastern Europe, he seems like a fairly reasonable killer. How many Americans know about Jewish mass murderers like Béla Kun, Lazar Kaganovich, Genrikh Yagoda or Yakov Sverdlov, individuals responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of white Russians and Eastern European people. We never hear a word about these dubious ghetto characters yet people like Klaus Barbie are put on a kosher pedestal of pure evil.
Although not mentioned in Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, it is been recently noted in the Kevin Macdonald documentary My Enemies Enemy that Barbie may have helped the American CIA capture and execute corporate Marxist-icon Che Guevara and for that alone, Klaus Barbie should at least get some recognition as a fighter for the Occidental and destroyer of Marxist culture-distorting scum. After all, it would be much nicer to see teenagers wearing t-shirts with Klaus Barbie’s infamous Gestapo picture on it as opposed to the swarthy face of Che Guevara. Throughout Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, Marcel Ophüls makes a special point of portraying the United States Government, CIA and other U.S. departments as “men with their hands dirty” for putting evil Nazis like Klaus Barbie on the payroll. Personally, I think the most disgraceful thing the United States ever did was align itself with the Soviet Union during the second World War and the late great General Patton felt the same way, dying tragically in an automobile accident shortly after making his opinion on the barbarism of the Soviets and dubious character of the Judaic known.
One SS man, a German hero that was awarded The Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, lets it be known in Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie that there is no way Klaus Barbie can be an evil man because his pet Dachshund dogs showed great love towards Barbie. I must admit that I also have a soft spot for dog lovers but not so much for Philo-Semites. Klaus Barbie maybe was not a Philo-Semite but apparently he did not have an irrational hatred of Jews like most individuals would suspect knowing his Gestapo background. While living in Bolivia, Mr. Barbie had no problem doing business with Jews and even harboring them as associates. Like Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds, Klaus Barbie was competent at hunting Jews and Communists in France but he was not a fanatic Jew-hater. When it comes down to it, Barbie’s only crime was that Germany lost the war because if the Krauts won the war, such modern inventions as “war criminals” would not exist. Going back to General Patton, he believed that the Nuremberg trials were anti-Christian and blatantly Judaic, certainly not part of the noble tradition of European war. The Soviet Union and the Allies no doubt had their fair share of mass murdering “war criminals,” yet they will never be “brought to justice” like those damn evil NATZIS!
In Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie, Herr Barbie makes it clear that there is no such things as “Nazis.” By this, Barbie is addressing the fact that the word “Nazi” is a derogatory slang term invented by the enemies of National Socialism. Certainly, the average American is unaware of this as the media, Hollywood, and American public schools use the term “Nazi” when describing The National Socialists. If one cannot not even address a well known political party without resorting to childish slang in an academic setting, it is quite apparent that the bias against that group is so immense that one is going to have to dig very deeply for an objective view of history. Hollywood mainstream comedy trash cinema like the Rat Race, starring the grotesquely Jewish Jon Lovitz, is a great example of the Jewish obsession with denigrating ones enemies into oblivion (it is no coincidence that all Jewish holidays are celebrations of destroying the enemy of the Jews and self-worship). In the film, Lovitz and his obscenely unpleasant and overweight family accidentally stroll into a Nazi museum thinking it is a Barbie doll museum. Unsurprisingly, this short scene does more to shit on the legacy of Klaus Barbie, especially when considering the average American movie-going philistine, than the whole over 4-hour long Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie documentary. Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie is a documentary I can recommend to anyone interested in The Third Reich, for Marcel Ophüls certainly failed in regards to his documented smear campaign.
Fascist, Satanist, Occultist, Antiquarian, Bibliomaniac, Autodidact, Teetotaler, AntiCommunist, AntiLiberal, Dissident Right Wing Political & Social Critic, Social Darwinist, Weaponeer, Experimental Noise/Musician, Film Buff, Amateur Philosopher and Historian. Born in 1965. Affiliated with the Church of Satan in 1992. Appointed to the Priesthood of the Church of Satan by Dr. Anton Szandor LaVey in 1996. Appointed to the degree of Magister in the Church of Satan by High Priest Peter H. Gilmore in 2005. Author of Essays in Satanism, the afterword to the Underworld Amusments edition of H.L. Mencken's translation of The Anti-Christ by Friedrich Nietzsche. Other works in progress.
SS:In the most general terms, what makes a film Satanic?
JDS: A film is “Satanic” insofar as it deals with themes of Satanism, such as productive alienation, stratification, nonconformity, total environments, artificial human companions, justice, revenge, incursions of the irrational, misanthropy, etc. in a productive or insightful manner that frequently paints the outsider-antihero in a sympathetic light (intentionally or not) in contrast with the bland mediocre conformists. Aesthetics are also a huge part of what makes a film “Satanic.” A film such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari would still be “Satanic” to some degree if it were an entirely different story using the same aesthetics and psychological devices in sets (The Law of the Trapezoid), photography (The Command to Look), editing and whatnot.
Another thing I would point out, although it digresses from your question, more than how Satanism features in films, it think it is interesting to observe how film features in Satanism as a legitimate recognized religion. I cannot think of any other religion that considers a body of film work as a primary source or example of its doctrine, aesthetics, and ideals. This is one of the truly unique aspects of Satanism. Other religions have music and art, I can’t think of any that have films they regard as centrally related to their religion as does the Church of Satan.
SS: Can a Satanic film come from any genre? Are there certain genres that feature Satanic films more prevalently? If so, which genres?
JDS: Yes, I cannot think of a genre that would be incapable of fitting a Satanic film within its parameters. Skimming over the “official” Church of Satan film list we see everything from horror and gangster films to comedies, musicals, and children’s cartoons. Of course for obvious reasons Film Noir and classic Horror feature Satanic themes more explicitly, because they are based in the “dark side” of human nature, or depict man as “just another animal… worse than those that go on all fours,” and frequently center around themes of obsession, justice, and revenge.
SS: Would you describe the post-World War I German expressionist movement as Satanic?
JDS: Personally, I cannot think of one German expressionist without some type of Satanic theme in it.
Most definitely, and this is explicitly stated by Dr. LaVey in more than one place in his writings, especially pertaining to the Law of the Trapezoid. It is also important to note how much of this was intentional on the part of the film makers, directors, and art directors of these films. Even later films by the same people made in the USA follow the same line of thought. F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise for example is outwardly a simple love story with a happy ending, yet there are Satanic undercurrents in the story, and the aesthetics are extremely Satanic.
SS: Many of the filmmakers and actors that were involved in making low budget Hollywood film noir films immigrated from Germany and Austria to the United States. Many (if not the majority) of these filmmakers were German expressionists. Do you believe that these European directors helped to bring a Satanic element to American films that was lacking before?
JDS: Of course! This is all well-documented. The influence of German expressionist ideas on Universal Classics such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and a slew of others is indisputable. The German expressionists coined the aesthetic that would defined Film Noir and Horror. The films of Carl Lemele, James Whale, Val Lewton, Howard Hawkes, etc. are all saturated with the expressionist aesthetic.
SS: In your book Essays in Satanism, you make no lie about the fact that you’re a horror film connoisseur. Were horror films an early obsession of yours?
JDS: I cannot over-emphasize how strongly horror films were an early obsession of mine. My mother still has drawings I made when I was four years old of Frankenstein, Dracula, the two-headed man, and others. I lived for this stuff. I was in second grade when I watched my first Creature Feature episode, and never missed it until it went off the air some ten years later. I also had a huge collection of Famous Monsters of Filmland from before I could read because I liked the pictures. I was very much a “Monster Kid” of the 70s.
SS: In Essays in Satanism, you talk about how younger horror fans just cannot appreciate the genius of the Satanic themes featured in older films. Do you believe there is any hope for these sad individuals?
JDS: Probably not – I have no idea what is wrong with someone who still cannot tell the difference when they have seen the classics, or who dismiss them as “slow” or “boring.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of John Carpenter, Wes Craven, and a lot of the “post-classic” horror films, I just get disgusted with people who can’t appreciate something like The Ghoul, while at the same time praise some filmic atrocity like Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, or worse, some mindless schlock like the Friday the 13th sequels. I appreciate the humor element in horror, this is even present in classics such as Bride of Frankenstein and The Old Dark House, but when it becomes the dominant element in the genre something has been lost. Then on the flipside there are films that take themselves too seriously, trying to be hard-edged horror, and fall face-down. It is also appalling that there are so many dumb kids stumbling around who have seen all the bad remakes of films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, House of Wax, and think they are somehow in touch with the “tradition” without ever having seen the originals. Or worse, they think the remakes are better! There is no hope for them.
SS: Is Rosemary’s Baby the definitive Satanic film? What are your personal thoughts on the film?
JDS: The gathering of eccentric Satanists at the end could literally have been home movies of a Church of Satan event, in terms of the cast of personalities involved. Compare it for instance with the Church of Satan individuals interviewed in Satanis. Really not far off the mark!
SS: The good doctor Anton LaVey has been said to have given new life to old and forgotten films like Tod Browning’s Freaks. Can you tell us anymore about LaVey’s endorsement of films that would probably otherwise have been forgotten?
JDS: It’s funny because there are so many films that are still forgotten even after Dr. LaVey’s endorsement! Even within the Church of Satan, the individuals who have systematically worked their way through the recommended film lists are few and far between. I can think of just a handful of people who have actually watched The Boy With Green Hair. As far as keeping some films alive: Just about anyone I’ve met who has seen The Ruling Class heard about it from Church of Satan sources, likewise Night of the Generals and a handful of others. There are others that until recently were very hard to come by, including Island of Lost Souls, Svengali, The Most Dangerous Game, etc.
SS: What are your thoughts on Kenneth Anger and his filmography? I was personally happy to see Anton LaVey’s appearance in Kenneth Anger’s Invocation of my Demon Brother. Is he (or was he ever) a member of the Church of Satan?
JDS: I’m a huge Kenneth Anger fan. I was very pleased to see his collected films finally released on DVD with the supplementary material they deserved. Anger had been something of a secret influence on so many film makers, more than suspected by most fans attracted to his work because of occult connotations. It is impossible not to see signs of Scorpio Rising in the work of Lynch, or the influence of Kustom Kar Kommandos on specific scenes in Scorsese’s Goodfellas.
Kenneth Anger and Anton LaVey were personal friends since childhood. In spite of false reports in some gossipy journalism, Anger has to my knowledge never uttered a negative word about Dr. LaVey. Somewhere in The Devil’s Notebook, I think LaVey refers to Anger as a “magus”, although I’m sure he meant it in the sense of being a magician and master of his art rather than as the technical title of a degree within the Church of Satan, although I’m also fairly certain Anger was an honorary member, even though his interests rant more toward Aleister Crowley, which has little or nothing to do with Satanism. But on that note I would add that Anger has, from my perspective anyway, done more than anyone to present the symbolism of Crowley’s work in an aesthetically interesting and “magically charged” way.
SS: In your book Essays in Satanism, you have listed 200 Essential horror films. I must admit that I have yet to see another list of horror films with such refined and eclectic taste. It is not everyday that you find someone that is a fan of both Der Golem (1915) and Clean, Shaven (1993). That being said, could you narrow down a list to your top 5 essential films and why a serious horror fan should see these particular films?
JDS: Narrowing it down to a list of five would be nearly impossible. The five I would list today might not be identical to the five I would list tomorrow.
1. Nosferatu
2. Frankenstein
3. Dracula
4. Freaks
Like I said, restricting it to five is impossible, conceptually, and forces it to be a very flawed list.
SS: On your 200 Essential horror films list you have David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and Mulholland Dr. (2001) listed. What are your thoughts on David Lynch as an American filmmaker and his unconventional cinematic portraits of America? Do you believe that David Lynch is someone that is primarily interested in Satanic themes?
JDS: You are the only person to catch that. I put Lynch on the list because, while he is not exactly a “horror” filmmaker, he incorporates horrific elements and genuinely terrifying manifestations of the supernatural or irrational in a way most contemporary horror filmmakers could stand to learn a lot from. Without being a horror filmmaker, he does horror better than most horror film makers. He also orchestrates a genuinely disturbing atmosphere, whereas most contemporary horror filmmakers would have to look up “atmosphere” in a dictionary and probably still be at a loss how to incorporate it into film. That is a huge disconjunct between guys now and the old classics. Lynch also deals with psychological themes, intrusion of the irrational, and compulsions that make him of Satanic interest for the same reasons that makes someone like Alfred Hitchcock a categorically Satanic filmmaker, and Hitchcock similarly was better at “horror” than most horror filmmakers, without being a horror filmmaker himself. He and Lynch share a visceral understanding of the monstrousness in human nature, even though their overt “shock tactics” are dissimilar.
Of the Lynch films included on my list, Fire Walk With Me was hated by critics, and Mulholland Dr. is hated by most Lynch fans I know. Both contain the best examples of Lynch’s effective use of horrific imagery, and I’m continually impressed by the way he depicts the intrusion of the irrational or supernatural into normal consciousness. The burned-witch episode in Mulholland Dr. stands out as one of the most horrific moments in film that I can think of. I had a friend who had nightmares about that after I reminded him of it, and he hadn’t seen the film in years. I get the feeling Lynch incorporates nightmare material from his personal unconscious into his art in a manner similar to H.P. Lovecraft, his work is more authentic because of it, even if only those elements. I would add Inland Empire alongside Mulholland Dr. for the same reasons. I am the only person I know who has anything good to say about Inland Empire, but it hinges on these same themes, and has some of Lynch’s strongest material along these lines. The film is entirely self-indulgent, and his most irrational film, which is why most people detest it or can’t follow it, and also why I liked it.
SS: As someone that owns over 30,000 books, you’re obviously a bibliophile. About how many of these books are on cinema? Do you have any favorite books or authors(or critics) that are dedicated to the art of cinema? Better yet, are there any certain film critics/authors that you hate?
JDS: I have surprisingly few books on film, probably less than 100 and I haven’t read most of them. I will mention one book, American Movie Critics: An Anthology from the Silents Until Now, edited by Philip Lopate and published by The Library of America, that is a fantastic collection of film writing, including such unlikely things as a review of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by Carl Sandburg.
SS: About how many films (in any format) do you own? Is your film collection anywhere near the size of your book collection?
JDS: I really have no idea how many films I own or have owned in my personal collection, probably 1000 or more, which isn’t very many. I probably have thirty times that many books.
SS: What are your thoughts on the future of cinema? Do you see any parallels between the decline of the west and film as an art form?
JDS: The future of cinema holds a lot of potential, especially considering the advances made in digital technology, the quality of digital filmmaking and editing is continually improving and becoming more affordable. The more ability placed in the hands of filmmakers without having to go through the suppressive distortion of the studio system, or the marketing system. I suspect even more creative filmmakers will develop their own cottage industry marketing their own work through the internet. At least I hope so.
SS: Can you mention a couple mandatory films for those interested in Satanism, The Church of Satan, and Anton LaVey? Why are these films essential viewing?
JDS: The two documentaries about the Church of Satan, Satanis and Speak of the Devil! would be at the top of the list, followed by the cream of the Church of Satan film-list in terms of exerting the most overt influence on the Satanic philosophy, or embodying it; The Black Cat, The Seventh Victim, Freaks, The Most Dangerous Game, The Sea Wolf etc. Really it is hard to narrow it down from the CoS film list because they are all relevant in some way. The two abovementioned documentaries are essential for being the story straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak. Edward G. Robinson’s portrayal of Wolf Larson in The Sea Wolf is probably the most quintessentially Satanic character in film or literature. Once someone gets a grasp of what authentic Satanism is about, you start noticing Satanic themes and characters in various places and films – usually there is one character that will stand out in almost any film as being more “Satanic” than the others, although I’m sure there are mainstream “feel-good” films, or comedies lambasting average mopes, that feature NO Satanic characters but are still “Satanically” relevant films for the way they treat normal people.
SS: Are you planning any future projects related to film? I know that I am sure as hell interested in reading a book on cinema and/or a film directed by Magister James D. Sass.
JDS: Actually, just because you mentioned it, I gathered together everything I’ve written so far into one document and it is already over a hundred pages, so the answer is yes, I probably will put out a collection of film writing when I have enough material. You will be to blame!
SS is a postmortem Occidental Sinema site led by two admittedly vicious Nordish libertine cinephiles. We ruthlessly, yet charmingly rip at the bowels of the prissy populous PC-beast; offering the more discerning reader a piece of our eclectically refined minds and our uncompromisingly distinct weltanschauungs. At Soiled Sinema, we believe in cinematic diversity and equal-opportunity film criticism. Do yourself a favor by allowing us to gouge at your Hollywood-lobotomized gray matter, as we have a pleasant plethora of svelte and seminal writings on films we have come to wholeheartedly and fanatically cherish, as well as expertly diagnosing loathsome cinematic abortions worthy of total celluloid deterioration.
