Deadgirl

Fucking a decomposing corpse has never seriously crossed my mind, not even a freshly preserved one. Of course, I seem to like at least a couple films featuring the good ol' “in and out” between living humans and cold corpses. German director Jörg Buttgereit’s Nekromantik films come to mind as does the 1987 Belgian film Crazy Love as romantic movies for those that lust for corpse fucking art. In fact, these European Necro-films are quite aesthetically pleasing pieces of spoiled human meat. Due to my undying love of certain films containing Necrophilia, I felt it necessary to watch the 2008 film Deadgirl, a less artistic motion picture featuring the schlock art of postmortem arousal. Deadgirl was written by Trent Haaga, a man best known (or not) for his work as an actor and writer for Troma Entertainment. Fortunately for this sick flick, it does not share the garage sale aesthetics and production values of your typical Troma Scheiße-fest, for Deadgirl is the kind of film Lloyd Kaufman wishes he had made (and cashed in on). 

Whilst watching Deadgirl, I wondered to myself whether or not the film was supposed to have some type of deep subtext. After all, it is kind of hard to look past a bunch of loser high school dingle berries fornicating with an animated corpse to find any type of deeper meaning. One thing I do know is that certain girls who get sexually abused (especially in their prepubescent years) tend to become emotionally dead, just like the undead corpse gal in Deadgirl. A lot of the sexually promi$cuous women in the Adult entertainment industry many times admit to be molested as do many leading Feminists and Lesbians. Like the not-so-rotten corpse in Deadgirl, the girl who has unfortunate sexual encounters at a young age turns into a vicious and sex-craved monster; the prostitute archetype. After all, the dead girl may enjoy getting gang raped by a bunch of high school degenerates but one wrong move and she will literally tear your guts out. 

I am weary in regards to classifying Deadgirl as a Zombie film as that would be misleading to those that have yet to see the film. It is very apparent to me that most modern Zombie films are formulaic dead-weight lacking even enough entertainment for the average American Zombie filmgoer. Deadgirl is not a film that will re-animate the already postmortem Zombie genre, although a surplus of banal Zombie films will no doubt continue to appear from the gates of Hollywood Hell as well as the backyards of beer guzzling baboons (in many ways, digital video has become a Voodoo curse). Like most semi-decent films, Deadgirl defies fitting into any particular genre. Of course, the film does have its flaws, the most obvious being the petty melodrama between the loser protagonist, his love interest and pathetic friends.  After all, the real star of Deadgirl is the dead girl.  Not since Zombie-Punk Suicide from The Return of the Living Dead has there been such an erotic Zombi-babe as featured in Deadgirl.  Who does not love a beautiful naked and rabid animated corpse running around, ripping out throats and scrotes? 

-Ty E

Massacre at Central High

 

Massacre at Central High is the film quoted as "predicting punk and Columbine." Undoubtedly, these allegations are stupid as the pretension of stating that a vengeful rampage would have never existed had someone the gall to create a tempestuous attack perpetrated a dear student, and punk? The only crime this film is guilty of is predicting a lack of vision in the future of cinema based around school shootings. Besides from this inane assessment, Rene Daalder, a protege of Russ Meyer, created a film unheard of for its time. The idyllic walls lined with lockers are being governed by the "in" crowd, a group of four "jock" ruffians whose tactics of terror include severe degradation and rape. These instances of rough-housing go virtually unacted upon and have prompted the staff of students to quietly walk in fear with their tails in between their legs. That is, until the new kid arrives at Central High, name of David. David not only shares a friendly history with one of the "country club" tyrants but is owed a due equal to repose in this blistering high school environment. Soon after, David makes sure to white-knight himself to the graduating class and Mark's girl, Theresa. The unfolding of several key events lead to inciting a homeroom war that would later be heavily "borrowed" from Heathers, a teenage girl's fantasy of attitude and angst delivered with soppy-crevice young-adultisms. 

The prior position of counseling is scrapped however, as David suffers a crippling blow-back from the bullies which lead to the designated title reflecting horror elements, which this film is surprisingly (and thankfully) void of. Rather than to honor of acknowledge his speakings of peace and equal mindedness, David turns to murder to exorcise the frustration and pain from his very veins, corrupting the last half of the film into a slasher-esque marathon of righteous suffering and violent sentiments to those who have wronged him or deemed unworthy of life. David's rage is arguably permitted however. Dutch filmmaker Rene Daalder spent line after line with intermittent scenes building upon David's ritualistic jog, releasing the stress necessary to retain a calm, collected attitude and foresight. When even the simplest relief is taken from a man, it's no surprise to witness an out-lash of explosive fury and mercilessness. What follows is quirky tomfoolery with sports equipment and a general misanthropy.

Strangely enough, the Italians got a hold of the initial print and edited pornographic inserts, amping up the hair, sweat, rape, and teenage promiscuity to a disturbing level. The result is known as Sexy Jeans - shock value? postmortem. The flavoring of hatefucking only really benefits to the attempted rape which is now transformed into a successful raping of both Mary and Jane. It's true that violence speaks much more when documented unflinchingly and if you're watching this film in the first place, chances are you slide into this category. Without the XXX material, the basic teenage relationships are centered around the blossoming womanhood, not that of a 12 year old girl but the transition from innocent cherub to swindling harlot. As evidenced by this strange idea known as reality and the cinema to which it reflects, romance is as silly and tumultuous as born in a school setting. The questionable freebie persona of the average experimenting lady is demonstrated in Massacre at Central High with bell-bottoms, buggies, and buggery. 

An interesting addition to Daalder's undiscovered masterpiece of aggression within education is that the campus is run entirely by the students, from the library to the student lounge. Adults do not have a role until the very final scene at the annual dance and even then, their oblivious nature to the plight of education and the rise of violent crimes is staggeringly accurate still to this day. Supervision is acceptable to a point for the mind retains malleability up until your first social experiences with troublemakers and misfits. This problem leads to David's madness and his transformation into an "evil" archetype is shocking enough for the once affable eccentric. Witnessing the infectious symptoms of power turn even the warm, cynical bookworm Arthur has David even more keen to the idea of systematically slaughtering the scheming studentkind. For this, allusions to Columbine will no doubt surface. Despite the media stacking such titles as Neo-Nazis, Violent gamers, and metalheads onto the duo of Eric & Dylan, Massacre at Central High represents a justifiable (to an extent) quest of retaliation that one might expect a sided Dutch diva to preach. 

Also known as the Blackboard Massacre, what sets this film apart from other bully/revenge/exploitation films is the teasing of genres it so wildly commits. First an engaging portrait of life in the 70s only to switch to a completely anarchic environment of execution, Massacre at Central High establishes itself as the prime contender for best school rampage film. Disregard entirely the residual comedy of Heathers and push aside the retrogression of van Sant's Elephant in favor for this underrated thriller worthy of global recognition, not just from the wops. David is once sympathetic and then a hero. Altered to a prophet of pain and freer of the quasi-oligarchy that existed in the sterile halls, David becomes cold and unmoving - unstoppable. The love for Theresa alone helps create a wholly complex finale with emotion enough to elevate this above the schlock of cult DVD. No doubt will this classic be misunderstood as the sensitivities of the dying West skyrocket. 

-mAQ

Ostia (1988)

Pier Paolo Pasolini was certainly one of the greatest and most authentically innovating filmmakers to ever live. Like Jean Cocteau before him, Pasolini was a poet who used film as a more sensual outlet for his obsessions and vices, resulting in auteur cinematic works like no director before or after him. I recently discovered the short film Ostia directed by Julian Cole, a micro piece of subversive sinema that follows Pasolini on his last night before he was murdered under very mysterious circumstances. Who better to play Pasolini in the film than gay British auteur Derek Jarman? Like Pasolini, Jarman would also die tragically in circumstances revolving around his vice of buggery. The official story is that Pasolini was murdered on the beach of Ostia by a young proletarian prostitute, who ran over the Italian poet repeatedly with his own car. The film Ostia asks the question of whether or not Pasolini foresaw his own death. With Pasolini’s last film being Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom (the best film a director could end their career and life with), I am sure the Italian Renaissance man expected his life to end poetically with a bloody and climatic conclusion. After all, Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom is largely a film about the degradation of the human body, a lifelong pursuit of Pasolini and also the manner in which he would die. 

In Ostia, Pasolini states, “I’ll never have peace, never” as he cruises for young proletarians in the most slimy area of town. Director Julian Cole seems to borrow a few cues from Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising and Fassbinder’s Querelle when exhibiting this seedy devil’s playground of semen. Pasolini felt he would never have peace but his own climatic death would give him his final release. Like fellow Guido Marxist auteur filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, Pasolini’s interest in the working-class seems to be mainly influenced by the proletariat’s sexual potency as expressed in Ostia. After all, the working-class is where Pasolini found the gigolos he was most fond of. During Ostia, after noticing the young male prostitute he picked up is watching a fight on TV, Pasolini comments about how it’s just a bunch of old men paying young men to beat each other up. In response, the young gigolo, irked by Pasolini’s arrogance, responds that it is not so much different from what he does. Pasolini’s hypocrisy becomes most evident during this scene as he is a capitalist (who freely buys men and wine) yet preaches the bad opiate-based gospel of atheistic Talmudic economist Karl Marx. Only by death at the hands of the exploited prostitute, can Pasolini be genuinely Sainted as a true believer of Marxist materialism. 

Although a flawed film, Ostia is a brief yet respectable portrayal of Pier Paolo Pasolini in his final hours. The most glaring negative aspect of the film is that it is British, but one couldn’t possibly expect any Italian filmmaker to pay respectful justice to Pasolini, for they would have probably made an exploitation film as a gross insult to a director who was misunderstood in his own country (like many great artists are). The world will probably never know the real circumstances surrounding Pasolini’s death. Thirty years after it happened, Giuseppe Pelosi, the prostitute that confessed to the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini, retracted his confession claiming it was three men who killed Pasolini because he was Communist. This makes one wonder whether or not the killers were students of the great Sicilian Baron Julius Evola, for he did inspire “right-wing” terrorism throughout Italy. If one thing is for sure, it was a gay communist atheist that directed the best film about the life of Jesus Christ; Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew. Like Christ, Pasolini died for his own sins, not the sins of others, God Bless his gay Commie soul. 

-Ty E

Luna Park

I have a soft-spot for Jewish Nazis and self-loathing Jews so when I found out about the Russian film Luna Park, I immediately had to see it. The Russki film follows a Neo-Nazi skinhead named Andrei who finds out that he is the bastard son of a moderately successful Jewish musician. Andrei’s father is everything he hates, a Judaic that is more successful than the majority of ethnic Russians and admittedly disdains anything involving real working-class work. On discovering that he is a mischling in the first degree, Andrei is even more enraged than he is whilst beating swarthy mongrels. After all, Andrei’s whole being and reason for living is destroyed upon learning he is one of Abraham’s bastards sons as his life centers around his anti-Jewish skinhead crew that inhabits the industrial bowels of an amusement park. Luna Park is surely one of those wonderful and rare films that is able to eloquently express the absurdity of being a human as well as the schizoid joy of having a self/hate relationship with oneself. 

Currently, Russia contains the most Neo-Nazis in the world (oh, how time changes everything with biting irony), from feeble minded meathead skinhead thugs to somewhat legitimate mainstream Nationalist politicians. Russia used to also have the largest Jewish population in the world (mainly contained in The Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia). After the “Russian” revolution of 1917 (a largely Jewish supported and executed affair), Jews were able to spread throughout the world like wandering locusts. Mass Murdering mongrel revolutionary Vladimir Lenin (1/4 Jewish himself) even made a speech in 1919 on the capitalist ills of anti-Jewish pogroms which was surely one of the first somewhat famous Pro-Jewish propaganda campaigns, something that has become all too common in the post-Eurocentric and globalized United States of America. Andrei of Luna Park is surely an unfortunate assimilated remnant of the once thriving and still hated Russian Jewry. Unlike Daniel Balint from Henry Bean’s The Believer, there is nothing Jewish about Andrei’s behavior nor pantomimes (not to mention, he is a body builder), for he truly is a robust Russian brute flowing with a radiant energy of testosterone. It is fairly obvious that Andrei would never make it in the world of Jewish vaudevillian comedy but as for his Father, that is a whole other story….

Although a lover of Russian cinema from all eras, I find it nearly impossible to relate to the ‘Russian mentality,’ even at the most fundamental level. With the barbaric Russians featured in Luna Park, this also holds true for me for they seemed to be psychologically wired in a way that Northern Europeans probably could relate to in the Middle Ages. Andrei’s Jewish father, on the other hand, is instantly identifiable as Jewish, for he certainly shares the cynicism, humor, and arrogance of God’s chosen tribe. I bet that the average American would also find Andrei’s Jewish father to be the most 'American' and understandable due to the bombardment of krappy-kosher-komedies that Hollywood has reamed them with since birth. Although clever and humorous, Andrei’s Father is a highly despicable man, a swindling bohemian musician of the most culturally repulsive degree (he brought degenerate Jazz to Russia for god's sake), certainly someone sharing a similar genotype with Adam Sandler and Sacha Baron Cohen. Despite these glaring anti-goy traits, Andrei soon starts respecting his Father and his talents. It doesn’t take Andrei long to realize he needs to shed his working-class skinhead lifestyle for the wealthy (at least rich for a Soviet) hedonistic living of a Judaic entertainer. It soon becomes apparent that the skinheads and virtual prostitutes of Luna Park hate Jews largely out of resentment, not for the love of Mother Russia. 

Andrei’s Jewish ancestry is revealed to him by his whorish lover, an older full-figured woman who also happened to be his deceased Mother’s best friend. This older woman hates Andrei’s Father for very personal reasons and wants nothing more than having the old Jewish bohemian die a miserable death with the musical compositions of Richard Wagner as the soundtrack. After all, Andrei’s Jewish Father is a man known for screwing every young blond Russki in town (Andrei’s girlfriend and Mother being two of them) so a lot of women in the area love and hate this Hebrew geezer. The real intensity and drama in Luna Park lies in a total personal war between Andrei’s Father and all of the Russian Neo-Nazis, Andrei being the strongest deciding factor in who takes home final victory. Somehow, I found myself actually cheering for the Jewish con-man and his blue collar bastard son. After all, the skinheads (like in most films of this type and in real-life) in Luna Park come off as being a group of morons that flaunt petty idealism as a rationalization for their uncontrollable and improperly channeled hatred. If the skinheads really wanted to defeat the Jew, they would outdo him with cultural achievements and authentic/organic Russian art, not by proving that they are the untermensch barbarians that the real German National Socialists portrayed them as. These skinheads embody the slave-morality as described by Friedrich Nietzsche, for they cannot make a good reputation of themselves by achievement but instead blame the Judaics (the original promoters of the slave-morality) for their lack of success in their own country. 

Luna Park starts excitingly with a savage brawl between skinheads and a group of bikers (ironically, sporting German helmets while fighting with the Neo-Nazis). The opening gang warfare scene also happens to be the most brutal segment in the film for Luna Park is no Romper Stomper. If you’re looking for excessive philistine violence or a film that will pump you up for a fight, Luna Park surely fails in that regard. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a film with somewhat subtle melodrama and multi-layered emotions, Luna Park is a film worth embracing. Despite being a film featuring a Neo-Nazi Anti-Hero, Luna Park is a fairly apolitical work that legitimately looks at the irrationality that is human nature. It is not often that I see a drama like this, where I don’t find myself questioning whether or not the director has any understanding of humanity (not to mention, human emotions) as is the cause with most Hollywood films. 

-Ty E

The Warriors

I must be slacking in regards to Hollywood philistine cinema because until the other night I had yet to see The Warriors. Going into the film, I did not have any serious expectations as far as quality cinema goes. Now after watching The Warriors, I must admit it is a fun barbaric flick full of cheesy gang romanticism. Essentially, The Warriors is the perfect film for those people that can only tolerate the first 1/3 of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. The Warriors has all the ultra-violence minus the intellectual pessimism that most American’s do not seem to be too fond of. Sure, The Warriors maybe a dystopian gang war film set sometime in the near future but I find such a world ideal. After all, there is no diversity in the modern world (most gangs taking their “cultural” cues from the American Negro) but the world that the Warriors battle in is as colorful as a rainbow on fire. 

 

Like A Clockwork Orange before it, The Warriors immediately influenced vandalism (and even death) when it was initially screened in theaters for American audiences. Any film that influences violence and death is certainly doing something right for all great cinema has the ability to change reality. In a way, The Warriors director Walter Hill is a postmodern magician, an individual who through the power of cinema has manipulated reality with his own auteur vision. Of course, there is nothing brilliant or intellectually exceptional about the film itself. The Warriors is like a drug that brings excitement and potent entertainment from beginning to end, certainly positive cinematic qualities few films hold. 

One of the most interesting aspects of The Warriors is that each gang has their own distinct wardrobe. Sure, most of these urban warfare uniforms look quite tacky nowadays but they certainly beat the jungle “uniforms” most modern gangs where. After all, for all the talk of diversity in America, this country is becoming quite homogenized and mongrelized. The world of The Warriors features wild boy homo Dingos, effeminate Negro pimpz, baseball clowns, and multicultural skinheads. The protagonist gang, the Warriors, wear a humble yet masculine uniform of leather. The Rogues, the enemy gang of the Warriors, would have been better described as The Scorpio Rising gang in tribute to the Kenneth Anger film of the same name. The Rogues is led by a little loudmouthed turd by the name of Luther (played by David Patrick Kelly of Twin Peaks infamy) who is easily the most memorable yet despicable character in the film. 

Another positive aspect of The Warriors, strangely enough, is the “love interest” Mercy. Unfortunately for Mercy, she is from a part of town where the loser gang the Orphans reside. When the Warriors walk through Orphan territory, Mercy makes sure to check out every swinging dick, finally catching her lovely eyes on alpha-warrior Swan. Like a lost kitten, Mercy stalks the the Warriors even after they attempt to throw her away various times like a used condom. Mercy is like a femme fatale minus the brains for her only desire is sex with an alpha and possibly a better life, certainly a girl that does not aspire to be much aside from living in the moment. Angelic (but not angel) Mercy is the kind of woman all feminists should aspire to be.

Apparently, hack action director Tony Scott is planning a loose remake of The Warriors set in Los Angeles. Scott hopes to use real gang members in his dubious remake of the 1979 classic. With all the vintage character of The Warriors, a remake only seems like it could be at best a rotten piece of stillborn cinema, a film that should have never be born and that should be soon forgotten. Of course, with the solely monetary-driven businessmen at Hollywood any remake guarantees an audience (and financial success). It will surely be a dark day for cinema when some Hollywood producer has the audacity to remake A Clockwork Orange. On a more positive note, at least we still have the originals as I will surely be re-watching The Warriors sometime again this year. 

-Ty E

Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen

Legend of the Fist highlights the status of Donnie Yen's increasingly successful career to a point. Reprising the incredibly popular spirit of Chen Zhen while filling the shoes worn by both Bruce Lee and Jet Li, Donnie Yen's titular interpretation takes place seven years after the events of his own television series Fists of Fury. Set during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the torch of martial art's legend Chen Zhen is in safe hands because as we all know, Donnie Yen isn't just an artist of the body but one that can dramatize damn near any role. So while he may get caught up on the burlesque portrayal of the cruel Japanese or the visually stimulating violence, it's been declared a safe passage which allows for some of the greatest recent escapism to flood through your nostrils and soak your brain in hair-pin mixed martial arts. And for what it's worth, The Return of Chen Zhen houses an indescribable charm, potent and out of place for this historically fantastical oddity.

Beginning abruptly in a war zone, the impoverished Chinese are panicking while attempting to take cover behind sandbags littered across what seems to have resembled a courtyard at one point. While their numbers dwindle and the need for ammunition becomes unbearable, the camera begins to fixate on Donnie Yen and if you didn't know any better, this is the scene to elect him as the hero of our story, Chen Zhen. After losing several of his friends to the faceless Germans nesting in several buildings surrounding them, Chen Zhen impacts a reserve of glandular focus and sprints at a break-neck speed across the battlefield with several blades. Performing various free-running maneuvers while blending a bit of meta-wuxia within his rhythm, he glides and twirls to reach his murderous destination within the base, singlehandedly killing every German with his affable Asiatic prowess. For a fair and default representation of the Germans, Legend of the Fist receives high marks from me for providing both an action spectacle and a display of warfare and not the warped politics behind the veil. This only further incriminates the sensitive pussies who claim that Legend of the Fist contains a sharp racial animosity towards the Japanese yet fails to even acknowledge the cinematic abuse of Germans since the Cinematographe decided to employ counter-propaganda.

These allegations haven't impeded the success or longevity of talk-back concerning Legend of the Fist but I found them peculiar and irrational enough to discuss within my written reflection. Within the elements of Legend of the Fist exists a storyline all too political concerning China's struggle with the Japanese vowing to occupy and control the "weaker" of their yellow brethren. The truth couldn't really be any closer to what is displayed in this film. The never-ending conflict between the Japanese and Chinese has been revisited many times within the years and I've recently finished Iris Chang's chilling documentation of the cruelty the Japanese have perpetrated in The Rape of Nanking. With the fresh ideals of a "better" holocaust in mind, Legend of the Fist doesn't offend or betray anyone with the depiction of the Japanese and if anything at all, serves as a mixed drink to be consumed by damn near anyone, especially after the realization of how diluted the product is in retrospect. The absurdity of these claims reaches a new peak as my tangent switches rails from the incredible choreographed fight scenes with Chen Zhen donning Kato's costume from The Green Hornet to the reverse-engineered understandable resentment of the Japanese by the Chinese. To be blunt, I'm relieved at the absence of the asinine German crowd control that most cliched villainry seems to adopt with doe in their eyes. And seeing as the Eastern film industry has been modeled meticulously after our own, do we not enjoy staring back at the beast?

To jump ship from the strenuous rant I've just exhausted, Legend of the Fist is an accelerated period piece with enough action to entertain even the most nit-picky arthouse squealer as he reorganizes his Criterion collection ritualistically, by spine number or what have you? This recent exploit from the Chinese fascist of action marks a continuing trend of mobilizing even the most stalwart of screenplays. Not to riff on the alternate-history of war and society's low times but it becomes painfully obvious that absolutely no one could have pulled this character off as well as Donnie Yen has in the Return of Chen Zhen. It's predictable, marvelous, bottom-heavy near the climax, and yet not long enough, but I find something new to love about this film with every thought that pops into my head throughout the day, whether it be the hilarious usage of the infamous feral growl that has found itself to be nature's Wilhelm Scream or the brutal race to save as many as the Japanese kill in a race for a country. Certainly not Donnie Yen's best performance but I'm proud to say I cannot say the same for the fight scenes. Call me giddy but I felt this incredible rush of energy throughout each and every frenetic and implausible blow to the merciless Japanese. Return of Chen Zhen marks yet another highly satisfying tale of a one-man army.

-mAQ