The Border

Any film that enables me to emphasize with the plight of drug-smuggling illegal aliens from South of the border must be doing something right. Thus, it is to my surprise that The Border (1982) directed by Tony Richardson is an undeservedly unknown work, especially considering that it stars veteran actor Jack Nicholson and fellow classic Hollywood macho men like Harvey Keitel and Warren Oates. Equipped with a most delightfully brutal climax that is guaranteed to make any biker whore wet, it is no wonder that Peckinpah player Oates is featured in the film. Walon Green – co-writer of the screenplay for The Wild Bunch (1969) – also contributed his maverick screenwriting talents to The Border. Although set in contemporary Texas on the U.S.-Mexico border, The Border is essentially a testosterone-driven neo-Western with sentimentalist socio-political undertones that paces quite gracefully, like a true proud and stoic cowboy on the prowl. Jack Nicholson plays Charlie Smith, a California transplant who continues his career as a U.S. Border Patrol agent in the luxurious land of steers, queers, and illegal aliens. Early on in the film, Smith learns that dirty beaners are not the only vehemently reeking outlaws of the Lone Star State as a couple of his fellow Border Patrol pals foster the sort of third world criminality that they swore oppose. After dealing with pressure from his corrupt superiors and his unabashedly materialistic dunce wife, Smith eventually gives in to con conformity and decides to get in on the action of embedding illegal drug and human trafficking, prostitution, and related degenerate unlawfulness, but he soon realizes that such dastardly deeds only further contribute to his misery as a lone cowboy amongst legally employed, disguised outlaws. 

 Aesthetically, The Border resembles the French New Wave-inspired look of revered counterculture works like Stuart Rosenberg’s Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969). That being said, I would not be surprised if The Border was overlooked during its time due to its seemingly outmoded aesthetic that died hard during the reign of Hollywood big blockbusters during the second half of the 1970s and the extremely materialistic and oftentimes fantasy-driven flicks of the 1980s. Like its raw and gritty outlaw predecessors, The Border is big on atmosphere due to its almost documentary-style visuals. Unlike the early counterculture works, The Border lacks the sort of pseudo-rebellious "rebel-without-a-cause" posturing that made the original films famous and influential on American society. In fact, The Border is a tale of rebellion against unlawful rebellion where a marginally crooked Border Patrolman straightens back up and forever annihilates the forever jagged and morally-ragged amongst his authoritarian kind, thus the film was probably not very popular with anxiety-ridden youth like the original counterculture flicks. Another interesting and unconventional aspect of The Border is Jack Nicholson’s humble performance as the Ted Bundy-esque actor refrains from personifying the charismatic cool guy caricature he is eternally famous for. Charlie Smith is a fairly simple man who – unlike his wife and co-employees – is totally satisfied with living a peaceful and humble life of monotonous platitudes. It is only when Smith firsthand encounters the rotten fruits of corruption and exploitation that his rather mundane existence is given greater meaning. Smith, in the tradition of great American renegade heroes like Travis Bickle and David Sumner, takes the law into his own hands when he attempts to rescue an infant that is on the black market so that he can reunite the cute baby cholo with its exceedingly destitute mother. 

 If one is to learn anything from The Border, it is that corrupt whites (whether black market dealers, border patrol lackeys, or politicians) are the central partakers and promoters of illegal immigration and the slave-driven black market in the United States. Although it is Mexican black marketers and drug cartels that import crime and human suffering via South of the border, they would not be so unpleasantly prosperous without the help of thoroughly monetarily-intemperate Americans with golden dollar signs for pupils. In The Border, Smith’s partner Cat (played brilliantly by Harvey Keitel as per usual) acknowledges that the Mexicans have their “own way of doing things.” I found this scene to be especially symbolic of the film as a whole. While blatantly expressing the dubious facade of being morally and culturally superior to Mexicans, these Border Patrol agents neglect to walk the walk and talk the talk of their assumed gringo superiority. A film like The Border only makes it all the more obvious as to why your typical illegal alien feels that they are owed something by the nation they broke laws to land in. These illegal immigrants would not come to the United States in the first place if it were not for the supremely miserly business owners and globalist corporations that so eagerly and criminally employ them. Of course, as The Border makes clear, a life in virtual slavery in America is still preferable to living in an unsanitary desert ghetto in Mexico, so one cannot honestly blame these people for risking their lives to come here in the first place. In a lot of ways, Alex Cox’s El Patrullero aka Highway Patrolman (1991) seems to be a loose remake of The Border, only set on the other side of the border where crime and political corruption is all the more rampant and socially acceptable. Making its debut nearly three decades ago, at a time when illegal immigration and governmental illegality was somewhat less glaring, The Border is indubitably more relevant today than it was upon its initial (largely ignored) release. 

-Ty E

A Dangerous Method

If any film has ever played out onscreen almost exactly as I imagined it would before viewing it, it is David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method; a cinematic portrayal of the bizarre psychoanalytic love triangle between Aryan Christ Carl Gustav Jung (played by Michael Fassbender), the Rebbe of psychoanalysis; Sigmund Freud (played by Viggo Mortensen), and the young and thoroughly neurotic Jewess Sabina Spielrein (played by Keira Knightly). As someone who has read numerous books by Jung and his break with pseudo-father-figure Freud, I was quite surprised by the realistic (and often politically incorrect) portrayal of the inevitablly doomed relationship between the two alpha-psychoanalysts. Like A Dangerous Method director David Cronenberg himself, Freud was a Jewish atheist who had a keen knack for sexualizing the most trivial of everday situations and circumstances. Also like Cronenberg (and unlike their fellow perverted but more sexually ambitious Judaic kinsman Wilhelm Reich), Freud also tended to link man’s greatest fears with the sexual. As fairly accurately portrayed in A Dangerous Method, C.G. Jung was annoyed by Freud’s stern interest in incest and dogmatic anal fixations, thus the two eventually parted ways in a most irreparable way.  Freud's jealously over Jung's affair with his Jewish patient Sabina Spielrein would also prove to be detrimental to their already disintegrating relationship. 

From the very beginning of A Dangerous Method, it is most apparent that Sigmund Freud is quite conscious of his Jewish identity and the alien Aryan society he lives in. One of the real-life Freud’s heroes was Hannibal because like Carthaginian military commander, he saw himself as Semite who sought to destroy Occidental Civilization. Of course, Freud, being nothing more than a glamorized, penis-obsessed pencil pusher, attempted to battle Western Civilization by corrupting its morals through his less than kosher theories, especially in regard to sexuality. In A Dangerous Method, Freud’s sheer resentment towards the Teuton man is more than obvious and even Jung is not excluded from his hatred. Due to the fact that the psychoanalytic movement was disproportionately Hebraic, Freud championed Jung as the chairman of the International Psychoanalytic Association so as to give the organization a more “Aryan Face.” Cronenberg makes light of this fact (albeit, somewhat subtlety) in A Dangerous Method; no doubt a bold and totally anti-Hollywood gesture on his part. Of course, Freud’s racial chauvinism becomes most glaring when he realizes that his goy boy protégé starts an affair with the kind of stunning Jewess that he could have only dreamed of as a young mensch in the ghetto. Freud sees fit to (in a dishonest fatherly manner) tell Spielrein that she should “never trust an Aryan” and that her affair with Jung is nothing more than the delusional pseudo-love of a Jewess fawning over a mystical Aryan “Siegfried.” 

It is undoubtedly an understatement for me to say that I was a bit weary of the thought of seeing stoic Dane Viggo Mortensen portraying a totally emasculated and hopelessly neurotic early 20th century Jewish intellectual yet he managed to pull it off the seemingly impossible in A Dangerous Method. Indeed, Mortensen looks like Freud on 'Roids yet he is versatile enough as an actor to mimic the stewing bitterness and growing quasi-schizoid paranoia of the Viennese psychoanalyst in an exceptionally believable way. It also does not hurt that Mortensen sports Freud’s stereotypical beard. Naturally, just like all of his performances, Michael Fassbender does a notable job portraying young C.G. Jung; a man who has yet to grow as a great thinker in his own right. Only after his break with Freud and his deep immersion in Gnosticism did Jung develop into the highly revered thinker he is today. Fassbender portrays young Jung as a man torn between his allegiance to a somewhat hostile father figure and asserting his own budding original theories. Although his role as proto-hippie psychoanalyst Otto Grass is small, Vincent Cassell performance is also quite notable.  Even as a Frenchman, Cassell brings the charming swarthy libertine routine to a new extreme in A Dangerous Method. To my surprise, Keira Knightly had me believing that she was as a neurotic Russian Jewess whose behavior ranges from the severely repellant and dangerously childish to sexually fetishistic and highly professional. That being said, not only is A Dangerous Method a cinematic introductory course in psychoanalytic history but also a work of romantic neo-Victorian decadence. 

I have noticed that a lot of diehard David Cronenberg fans are somewhat disappointed by the Canadian filmmaker's more recent non-body-horror works. On the contrary, I found A Dangerous Method to be more subversive and ambitious than much of Cronenberg’s earlier works as the film is merely more intricately packaged with a sleeker and subtler design. Sure, a small scene of sadomasochistic sex between Fassbender and Knightly may be the most visually offensive aspect of A Dangerous Method but the film tells an imperative story – the battle of two cultures and two peoples – a dichotomy about the history of psychoanalysis that even the most dedicated of psyche nerds have yet to understand. Over two decades after her fling with Freud and Jung, Sabina Spielrein was exterminated by SS Death Squad, Einsatzgruppe D in 1942. Although Freud laughed at Jung’s insistence on the importance of myths, his young student would predict – through “dubious ancient Aryan myths” – the outcome of the National Socialist revolutionary via his infamous essay Wotan; a work that describes the Teutonic archetype and what role it would play in the awakening of the German "collective unconscious" (a term coined by Jung) and the war and destruction it would bring to Europe (and its enemies) as a result. Of course, Freud managed to escape from the Gestapo and his anti-Aryan theories live on today in the hearts of Cultural Marxist college professors and Hollywood screenwriters. Seeing as it is virtually impossible nowadays to watch a children’s show without hearing some sort of Freudian sexual quip, it is quite obvious who of the two adversarial psychoanalytic heavyweights had the most dangerous method. 

-Ty E

Simona

Without question, the Italian work Simona (1974) directed by Patrick Longchamps is the best film ever created based on the writings of French transgressive author Georges Bataille. Forget the pompously putrid performance art documentaries (Visions of Excess, The Monster in the Night of the Labyrinth) starring HIV-positive homo-sadomasochist Ron Athey and Andrew Repasky McElhinney's obscenely degenerate porn flick Story of the Eye (2004), Simona is the only film based on the work of Bataille that deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence with the unabashedly decadent French author. Simona is based on Bataille’s 1928 novella Story of the Eye and like the book, the film manages to do the seemingly impossible by successfully combing art with eroticism for a most savory feast of sensual aesthetic overload. Thankfully, Simona is not a mere rehashing of Bataille’s book but a work that uses the original story as a sturdy skeleton for its many exquisite vignettes and delectable erotic scenarios. Simona is a cumming-of-age story about a beautiful and luscious lady named Simona (played by Italian goddess/actress Laura Antonelli) who generously carries along a young and naïve man-muse named George and uses him as a she-devil’s plaything. Simona and George mischievously romp around the countryside, using everything from dairy products to clergymen as unconventional sex toys. Along the way, the twosome turns into a threesome when they virtually kidnap a cute but somewhat reluctant blonde girl. Although featuring deviant sex and nonstop full-frontal nudity throughout, Simona is a rare work of cinematic eroticism with class and without comprise that is guaranteed to titillate and tantalize the coldest of puritan prudes. 

Near the beginning of Simona, the leading lady lets her boy toy know that, “milk is for the pussy” and, naturally, she acts accordingly, cooling herself off by sitting panty-less in a pleasant plate of delicious liquid dairy. Simona is certainly a committed proponent of body-wetness as she also finds the ocean to be a grand place for sexual exposure and team-based body ravagement. Some of the most breathtaking scenes featured in Simona are of a seaweed-heavy sex-triad on the beach. Taking cues from Nicholas Roeg (his collaborator Donald Cammell would later re-edit an English language version of the film that was never released), Simona features abstract and non-linear editing throughout, jumping back-and-forth from vulgar yet voluptuous scene-to-scene. Thus, due to the film's consistently erratic editing and always engrossing scenes, Simona proves to be an unflinchingly enthralling experience throughout. Like Bataille’s novella, Simona truly has the feel of a person recalling their precious, pheromone-heavy memories. Thankfully, Simona manages to “cut the fat” when it comes to recalling the most penetrating and stimulating of her infamous personal history. Whether it to be her valiant attempt to seduce a pussy priest with her pussy or life-shattering personal tragedy, not a dull moment is stored in the beauteous lady’s beautiful mind. 

Generally, when watching erotic Euro-sleaze flicks from the 1970s and 1980s, I am somewhat repelled by the domineering hippie “free love” atmosphere. Simona is different in that it has a timeless quality that fails to reek of pot smoke and venereal diseases. Featuring Baroque architecture and nude live-human-statues, the film is also a somewhat clever and tasteful erotic mockery of the Roman Catholic Church. Unsurprisingly, the film concludes with the quote, “…you can be Saints, either in a religious sense, or in an erotic sense” by Italian novelist Alberto Moravia. Indeed, Simona has an almost religious and spiritual tone to it, as if it is a perfect therapeutic response to the sexual repression caused by the Catholic Church. I consider it nothing less than the phenomenon of synchronicity that I happened to be reading Romanian philosopher E.M. Cioran’s early work Tears and Saints during the same time as my viewing of the film.  Simona is blasphemy gone beautiful; a meritorious trait indubitably shared by source-writer Bataille.  

-Ty E

Days of Nietzche in Turin

If any nation should make a film about German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, it is the ill-fated thinker's own, but Germany, being very possibly the most self-loathing country in the world since their catastrophic defeat during World War II, would not dare make a film about one of their greatest national figures, even if he was an anti-hero and anti-Christ of sorts. Admittedly, I was quite reluctant to watch the Brazilian film Days of Nietzsche in Turin (2001) aka Dias de Nietzsche em Turim directed by Júlio Bressane; an experimental biographical-drama about the German philosopher’s lone contemplative wanderings around the Northern Italian city; the area where the often misunderstood thinker would dream up Twilight of the Gods and his less-than-honest but extremely aesthetically-pleasing autobiography Ecce Homo. It is one thing for a film to feature a portrayal of Nietzsche speaking in the totally alien language of Portuguese but another for the film to have the prophetic Aryan anti-Christ be portrayed by a swarthy, dark-and-greasy-haired fellow whose exaggerated mustache is the only tool that allows the viewer to dispend belief that the man in anyway resembles the great philosopher. Not only is the actor who portrays Nietzsche in Days of Nietzsche in Turin a physical mockery of the terrible Teuton but he also goes as far as fully exposing his wienerschnitzel; the last area of the German philosopher that a diehard Nietzschean would want to uncover. In fact, a good portion of Days of Nietzsche in Turin is dedicated to the philosopher's dubious sexuality and his problems with the unfair, fairer sex. Nietzsche one stated, “Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent” but in Days of Nietzsche in Turin most of Nietzsche's intimate contact with women is voyeuristic and in the imaginary realm of his exceptionally introverted mind. If the film does anything right, it is that it adequately expresses how far the German philosopher had escaped into his own thoughts; a retreat that would prove to be the root of his genius and transcendence into Übermensch status, but also the source of his break into total insanity and an early and lonely death.  Indeed, Days of Nietzsche in Turin may not be an extraordinary tribute to a man whose life and work has yet to get an exquisite cinematic tribute that is long overdue but for those individuals interested in the Titanic Teutonic thinker, the film is a passable homage that will have to do for now. 

German conservative revolutionary philosopher Oswald Spengler recognized that Friedrich Nietzsche – being a dilettante composer and music addict – was a thinker who philosophized through his ears and that his prose was not “written” but “heard" through a sort of "physiognomic tact." Spengler believed that Nietzsche intuitively felt the rhythm of "culture" and “nobility, ethics, heroism, distinction, and master morality.” In that regard, Days of Nietzsche in Turin also successfully expresses Nietzsche’s inspirations and thoughts as he can be seen throughout the film basking in musical melodies as if it is vital to his very existence (which it undoubtedly was). The film also somewhat successfully expresses Nietzsche’s sensitivity to life and his organic surroundings in general but, of course, most of the film relies on mere speculation in attempting to recapture his last days of sanity. I would even go so far as to nickname the film The Passion of the Anti-Christ as the work permeates a spiritual and almost religious portrayal of his sacrifice as a thinker and prophet of Occidental decline and rebirth (which partially inspired the National Socialist revolution). Nietzsche may have ended his career as a philosopher with a short work entitled The Anti-Christ (1888) but his dire concern for the death of god and reign of slave-morality-based mediocrity in Europe was not in vain. Although his works were written over a century ago, many great thinkers – of all religious and political persuasions –  look to Nietzsche’s writings for answers today. What Days of Nietzsche in Turin does best is expressing how Nietzsche – both on an intellectual and personal level – was all by his lonesome. Surely, Days of Nietzsche in Turin is more successful and respectful in capturing Zarathustra’s essence than When Nietzsche Wept (2007) directed by Pinchas Perry.  Visually, the film is also flawed in its almost anarchic anachronisms as the work combines modern shaking documentary-style digital video with seemingly vintage film stock from the early days of cinema.  Luckily (but certainly unsurprisingly), Days of Nietzsche in Turin features a score by Nietzsche's former friend/father figure and (later) enemy Richard Wagner with excerpts of Nietzsche's writings narrated throughout.

Undoubtedly, the most powerful segment of Days of Nietzsche in Turin is after Nietzsche's mental collapse near the conclusion of the film. In a manner comparable to Woody Allen's underrated mockumentary Zelig (1983) and superior to Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump (1994), Bressane was able to animate and give life to the infamous real photo series “The Ill Nietzsche” by Hans Olde in a totally believable and ostensibly authentic way. As someone who has seen these distressing photographs many years and times before seeing Days of Nietzsche in Turin, I could not help but feel awed but slightly saddened by the pseudo-stock footage of the great thinker in a state of total and irrevocable incapacitation. Naturally, the film also portrays the dubious and unverifiable story of Nietzsche’s collapse after witnessing a horse being whipped in Turin. That being said, Days of Nietzsche in Turin is a film that will certainly be of interest to those familiar with Nietzsche and his work but it is doubtful the film will be anything more than a hopelessly tiresome struggle for the uninitiated. Unlike When Nietzsche Wept, it is also obvious that Days of Nietzsche in Turin director Júlio Bressane has a strong passion for the German philosopher’s life, work, and selfless sacrifice. Unfortunately, it is doubtful one can expect a superior cinematic work about the tragic philosopher-poet anytime soon, thus Days of Nietzsche in Turin, albeit flawed, makes for mandatory viewing for those who have gazed into the splendid abyss of the German philosopher's mind. 

-Ty E

The Warriors Way

 

With the extended release of products like The Matrix, Rush Hour, and The Last Samurai did Hollywood finally make its presence known and its intentions accepted. Accepting the appeal of cross-continent theater fares, it seemed overnight that the formula of East + West = "cool". Perhaps it was the techno-zen of the messianic "One" or even the sudden and obnoxious intrusion of Brett Ratner's smash hit Rush Hour. Regardless of the streamlined roots of this craze, one that has always been hidden beneath the dormant floorboards of the box office, one thing was for certain - American audiences devoured it. Enter the effects of the Wu-tang Clan, translated anime cassette tapes, the circlejerk that is Kill Bill, and Sanrio's mass roll-out of memorabilia and what you will find is that as often as the East is credited to adopting a largely Western ideal, we too, have exhibited symptoms of an impression left on us (although not in a traditional sense). For us it seems to be a fanaticism with no real intention on becoming permanent. This became apparent with the release of Ninja Assassin (2009), an idea so laughable it transcended novelty and leapt directly into its tomb where scripts go to die. Films like these play hooky with the thought of Asiatic stoicism/vigilantism then return home safely with no harm done - utter child's play. One could think that our Western vision is impervious of foreign influence (but how wrong you'd be). What Ninja Assassin adopted was a Western approach to romantic/action storytelling and with coating it with the sauce of Orientalism, had hoped to create a enigmatic character likable enough for a box office Eastern feast. As you can imagine, Ninja Assassin proved to be one of the worst films of 2009. With the slate wiped clean Sngmoo Lee debuted with The Warriors Way, the very same principle except overdosed on steroids reeking of sickening stylization.

Starring Dong-gun Jang, a personal favorite whose many roles encompass several classics (Friend, The Coast Guard, Taegukgi), The Warriors Way took to creating a hybrid all-too literal by crossing a shadowy ninja clan and thrusting them directly into a wild west scenario guilty of minuscule steam-punk influences. After slaying an entire clan on orders of his own, The Sad Flutes, Yang is frozen in his tracks at the sight of the sole surviving member, an infant. Putting his sword to rest and freeing the infant of its cradle, Yang flees the country after severing threads with his clan and jumps aboard a ferry navigating blindly across the stretch of sea. As wanderers do, Yang suddenly finds himself in a sleepy, sickly town whose only life is a waning carnival act. After learning the ways of these people as well as withstanding ridicule and expressing these questionable traits known as emotions, Yang's new home is stalked by his past as well as the town members' own. Like Lone Wolf and Cub before it, The Warriors Way idly juxtaposes beast & baby with a hint of babe (Kate Bosworth) in one of those senseless demonstrations of the monster-with-a-heart device. The film essentially just sputters along with images of the "greatest swordsman who ever lived" performing trivial tasks like "bonding" or doing laundry. The entire ruse of cheating the runtime builds up to the last 40 minutes in which the nature of time is slaughtered in favor of slo-motion scenes of Yang catapulting through the air with delayed spurts of arterial spray following in his jacketed wake. Once the villainous Danny Huston and his bucking cowboy crew meet the Sad Flutes, the level of silly skyrockets into the territory of being wildly unbelievable. For all it had going for it, strictly being on a scale of hardened entertainment, I feel that The Warriors Way wasn't as unnecessarily violent as I would have liked it to be. You never get the sense that his blade and all its soul-sadness, can do any real harm. There's visual mention of the rare head or arm tossed about but only a handful of quick images to support the timid nature of its existence. In fact, The Warriors Way could have just as easily been a PG-13 rated flick and not had any qualms with the idea.

When it boils down to the story of Yang's blade, the action is represented only by blood splatters. I imagined severed limbs, multiple decapitations, and rowdy brutality, something in the same vein as Ninja Assassin (the opening scene being the only decent thing in this case). What I got instead was akin to picking a shy, conservative dame of many Eastern-Western broads. Of this particular formula I'd have to say that The Warriors Way was of the more enjoyable go-arounds with entertaining a ludicrous synopsis. I don't mean to put a spin regarding the actual quality of the film. The Warriors Way is what you'd imagine from the looks of it - stupid, overloaded with digital set-pieces, lacking any distinct aesthetic, overburdened with time manipulation, and to top it all off, boasting a pitiful excuse for romance. When and if you can manage to set aside your differences with the artificial nature of this film, however, you can find it within yourself to actually become engaged by this hammy and juvenile procedure in extirpation of conventions. If you, like me and many others, were sickened and revolted by the excess of Ninja Assassin then mayhaps the candy-painted ninja-western The Warriors Way can provide to you what the aforementioned couldn't. To a degree of certainty, I can validate a sort of inner-warmness towards Yang's plight-with-fight and would enjoy seeing more of his bloody adventures in the future. If your wish is to see an inventive film relating to a ninja assassin the answer shouldn't be anymore clearer than it is with this. The Warriors Way may be shit but it's shit that I don't mind enjoying, even advocating, and in the end, that's all that really counts.

-mAQ

A Nightmare on Elm Street

If I were to only choose one film that has remained as potent as it was when I first saw at it during my preschool years, it would undoubtedly be Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984); a surrealist slasher flick with a charismatic killer who – in terms of depth of personality and bloodlust – shreds all of his mass-murdering human-monster buddies to celluloid pieces. Unlike retarded-mute slasher killers like Mikey Myers, Jay Vorhees, and Pleatherface, Freddy Krueger is a mass-murderer who takes prides in his ability to execute a variety of quasi-illusionary psychodramas and phantasmagorical killings. Like in the much anticipated but dreadfully disappointing movie Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Herr Krueger would indubitably manipulate and ultimately enslave his rival slasher killers. But enough with the redundant and totally irrelevant philistine fanboy gibberish, A Nightmare on Elm Street is much more than a great horror/slasher flick; it is a film that holds its own outside the hopelessly formulaic and schlock-based genre. Not since the delightful daydream delirium days of German expressionism has a film given so much mystique to a malevolent monster-man who finds solace amongst the shadows. Whereas German expressionist films turned reality into nightmare, A Nightmare on Elm Street sliced the seams of daytime and dreams in a manner that has brought psychological unrest to generations of moviegoers.  To this day, I have fond memories from my childhood of my little sister waking up in the middle of the night and screaming in fear that Freddy K. would swallow her soul. The wonderful thing about dreams is that no matter how horrible they may be, one ultimately rests with the comfort of knowing that they will eventually awake and the subconscious constructed pseudo-reality is no more. What makes A Nightmare on Elm Street so particularly unsettling to the human mind is that self-assured insurance policy of mind-made REM is severed, thus opening a deluge of unimaginable possibilities during the most incapacitated of moments. Of course, as portrayed in A Nightmare on Elm Street (and its various uneven sequels), cunning Krueger creates a variety of scenarios for his physically and psychologically petrified victims, hence the all-around originality of the franchise in general. What makes the original A Nightmare on Elm Street the greatest film in the series is that, unlike the less serious sequels, the horror is less tongue-in-cheek and more finger-knife-in-gut.

Although contrary to mainstream-media-formed public opinion, the baby boomers are easily the most pathetic and hopelessly degenerate generation in all of American history. Of course, subsequent generations of Americans have proven to be even less morally-inclined and spiritually-sound but it was the baby boomer generation that originally deracinated itself from what was considered sacred among the generations before it. The teens featured in A Nightmare on Elm Street are the first lost generation of children from the aimless, morally irresponsible and careless baby boomer crowd. In fact, before being tortured and murdered by his parent comrades, Freddy Krueger was also a baby boomer. Epitomizing the worst qualities of baby boomers to the most pathetic extreme, Mr. Krueger – a man-child in a state of infinite-infantilism and clearly bound only to self-gratification at whatever cost – treated children as his own person playthings that he used and abused before disposing them like a child does to broken toys. The virginal grade school children in white that jump rope to the infamous Freddy nursery rhyme (One, two, Freddy's coming for you...) in A Nightmare on Elm Street and its sequels are ghostly reminders of Freddy's one-entity campaign to destroy the pure and innocent. As explained by Marge, the alcoholic mother of female protagonist Nancy Thompson in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger was murdered by (rightfully) vengeful parents after he was freed on a technicality after killing over 20 children during the late 1960s. The children of this suburban mob would go on to pay for the sins of the father (and mother), so to speak. What I find most interesting and telling about the parents in A Nightmare on Elm Street and its sequels is that no matter how many of their children are sadistically slaughtered, they stay committed to total ignorance and denial as if they all suffer from a permanent blindness of the mind. Nancy’s mother is an alcoholic, Tina’s mother is a shameless whore, and Rod’s parents are nowhere to be found.  Wes Craven, a baby boomer with a strict Baptist upbringing who would go on to be a director of hardcore pornography (before his horror filmmaking days), certainly personifies the "loss of innocence" his generation is well known for to a quite notable degree, thus no other person could have been more suitable for the direction of A Nightmare on Elm Street than he. 

On top of telling a unique story, A Nightmare on Elm Street features some of the most iconic and marvelous murders ever featured in a horror film. From the first anti-gravity killing of Tina Gray by a seemingly invisible killer to Freddy’s bodily dismemberment of Nancy’s boyfriend Glen Lantz in his own bed, A Nightmare on Elm Street thankfully ignores all of the clichés of the slasher genre. Of course, A Nightmare on Elm Street writer and director Wes Craven was no comic-book-addicted philistine like his mostly incompetent compatriots as he was an English professor before he ever sat in a director's chair. Craven has acknowledged that the lone sheep featured in the opening dream-sequence of A Nightmare on Elm Street was his tribute to Spanish surrealist auteur Luis Buñuel. I found the killing of Tina to be somewhat reminiscent of the absurdist wall-crawling featured in French poet auteur Jean Cocteau’s early work The Blood of a Poet (1930). Before directing A Nightmare on Elm Street, Craven directed an extremely loose remake, Last House on the Left (1972), of Swedish master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960). If future horror filmmakers can learn anything from the early films of Wes Craven, it is that a deep knowledge of film history can go a long way in the concocting of a truly distinct macabre movie. I certainly cannot think of another film aside from Philip Ridley’s extremely underrated cinematic gem The Reflecting Skin (1990) that has been created within the past 25+ years that deserves to be compared to A Nightmare on Elm Street (although some could argue that the Candyman of the 1992 film Candyman is the "Negro Freddy Krueger"). 

Although created nearly three decades ago, A Nightmare on Elm Street still proves to be one of the greatest landmarks in American horror cinema history. The legacy of Freddy Krueger may have been beaten to death by a number of A Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, a tedious TV-series (Freddy's Nightmares) and an endless bombardment of consumer memorabilia (a phenomenon Craven responded to with the reflective 1994 film Wes Craven’s New Nightmare) yet the burned phantasm in the red and green sweater still remains one of the greatest and most memorable villains of cinema history. A Nightmare on Elm Street is also probably the only film featuring Johnny Depp where the much celebrated character-actor’s performance is one of the less interesting attributes of the film. The distinct cinematic quality of A Nightmare on Elm Street only becomes all the more clear after watching the blatantly blasphemous 2010 remake; a cinematic abomination that makes the remake of Friday the 13th seem like the holy grail of slasher sinema.  I just hope the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is not bastardized and beaten-to-death to the point where Freddy finds himself fingering Madonna or Lindsay Lohan (with unrestrained and overly "ambitious" fanboy horror hack directors like Rob Zombie, anything is possible).  Whatever the future holds for the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, nothing can extinguish the uncanny yet strangely comforting hallucinatory horror of the original 1984 movie.

-Ty E

Killdozer

 

Only due to a strange blue hue emanating from a restless meteorite does Killdozer take sentience and proceed to pick off its blue collar victims one by one. Directed by Jerry London, one who could easily be considered an inner-company chameleon in the television industry, Killdozer represents all the knowledge accumulated at this point in his career while still reflecting just how much he wasn't privy to. Taking a talented cast of rugged actors, some even iconic, London weaves sick desperation through a patchwork quilt of a sci-fi tale that concerns its biggest obstacle as an "aware" and malevolent bulldozer that seeks nothing but extermination of those who awakened and fed its discourse. Now, given the material granted by Theodore Sturgeon in the form of pulp patronage, Killdozer's cinematic cousin can only tread so far before its fuel supply ceases to feed its starved mechanized workings. The reason behind Killdozer's refuse-to-die cult attitude is surely based on marquee jests. That, and Conan O'Brien's meticulous slip of the tongue. How could one not chuckle at the mere mention of Killdozer, as I had when I heard of Death Bed as well as comedian Patton Oswald before me. Film like this serves more duties as an oasis of punchlines hardly tapped than of something considered recreational annulment. These projects are crude comedy resources just waiting to be harvested, really. Had Killdozer been born with humor in mind then maybe the tale would fare differently. Nobody enjoys self-aware shit unless they've got non-conformity on the mind. With London's ability to pick up a television episode at random and direct with iconoclasm in mind - breaking down a once unique vision of primetime luster in order to continue the assembly line of case and trial comes the soul-stretching remnants of something so moderate and tasteless in execution that it becomes near impossible to categorize. Such is the case for Killdozer; an example of a film living in the shadow of its title.

Starting off strong with dead-sight of the meteorite hurtling towards earth almost clumsily, you get the implication that simple serenity wouldn't last on Earth. Civilization would occur in the future, guaranteeing not a short enough rest from the dark abscess of space. But London quickly and briefly abandons the science-fiction badge for the camaraderie and destruction-loving nature of a group of working class construction workers on a Pacific island. Soon after the opening credits are we "treated" to the origins of our catty tractor come-to-life in a quick spurt of virility as man controls machine all too forcefully. As soon as you know it, dozer blade meets rock and sets to course the vindictive nature of the non-material being while simultaneously fatally poisoning the one worker not situated behind the drivers seat. Alien radiation is the only cause of death up for assumption at this point in time. Not before long is when the subtle hysteria kicks in as we watch an often unmanned piece of machinery trample radios, tents, the basic necessities for off-civilization survival, leaving only a handful of perturbed men feigning superstition and hanging on to bare threads of earthly exceptions. After all, that's one thing that makes up the sometimes grand essence of horror/terror - those earthly exceptions - that moment in time we all submit to when nothing can be ruled out. Not to say that your lifetime will include made-for-TV sobriety or a rough tumble act of gymnastics while trying to outrun a remarkably slow killing machine, but this aspect of horror is the last thing one can really cling on to anymore for an effect - which doesn't include a vast amount of differing mutilations. That's really just medical pornography mixed with big-breasted track and field - here's looking at you, slasher films.

During this moment in the Killdozer canon is when the string of continued denial of otherworldly interference becomes tiresome and the short-supply of charm becomes noticeably absent. After witnessing friend after friend fall victim to Killdozer, always in an unbelievable and idiotic fashion (who would hide from a rampant machine in a thin pipe just begging to be crushed?) to the heavy metal plate adorned by the crawling constructor, the denizens of Killdozer's wrath continue to play transparent as to what is occurring. In such an age where people toy with the idea of world-ending disasters and various notes of apocalypse daily, one would think the feeble mind of man would collapse easier than Lloyd Kelly's - leader of the outfit and a disbeliever to the very end (I don't count his scripted acknowledgment, that bastard was too stubborn to turncoat so swiftly). Even at just an hour and nine minutes does the runtime of Killdozer weigh in deep to my dormant filmic narcolepsy. I in turn washed my sorrow away with early morning liquor which only furthered a bad day. A film that drones on as slow as Killdozer should be put to death without trial. I accept fully the label of novelty to Killdozer's name but refuse to acquiesce to the misinformed opinion that is "Killdozer rocks!" Killdozer is not hip, cool, underrated, or amazing. You will not feel better about enjoying it unless you grew up with the film and in turn, allowed it to affect your impressionable mind. Killdozer is slow and painful, a brain-death as agonizing and embarrassing as allowing your friends to know just what you've finished watching. It's not that I hate Killdozer. My negativity is more due to the fact that I hate myself for not stopping while I was ahead and playing something else, anything else. As long as something actually occurred would my spirit rest easy. Stick to snippets for this long-term poisonous experience in dry cinematic mediocrity.

-mAQ