TODAY IS

A GAME OF THROWN TO THE WOLVES



BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF (2001)
Samuel Le Bihan, Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, Mark Dacascos, Émilie Dequenne, Jérémie Renier, Virginie Darmon
Directed by Christophe Gans
This movie is loosely based on a French urban legend known as the 'Beast of Gévaudan' -- a supposed man-eating, wolf/dog/hyena hybrid that attacked & killed 100+ victims (mostly women & children) in a coastal mountain province of south central France between 1764-67. Set during the reign of Louis XV (24yrs before the French Revolution), an aging Marquis Thomas d'Apcher (also the narrator) is writing his memoirs in a castle while an angry mob is stirring outside. In flashback, we begin with a young woman who is chased, attacked & killed by an unseen creature (similar to skinny-dipping Chrissie Watkins before a rogue Great White makes his acquaintance). Royal knight (and biologist), Chevalier Grégoire de Fronsac, and his companion, Mani (a mystical Iroquois warrior and last of his tribe), arrive on horseback on the outskirts of Gévaudan, where they immediately rescue an elderly man and his daughter being attacked by a group of townsfolk during a rainstorm. Both men (who met while fighting the redcoats, aka the British, in the New World, aka North America; what was then still called the 13 Colonies) have been dispatched to capture the enigmatic, beastly culprit responsible for gruesome killings that have terrified the region, and they are soon befriended by the Marquis, a young nobleman. Because of wildly varying accounts, Fronsac (who is based on the real life wolf hunter, Jean-Charles Marc Antoine Vaumesle d'Enneval) is doubtful of the stories & their descriptions. Nonetheless, the investigation has him believing that a large animal is responsible.

Along the way, we meet Captain Duhamel, a wolf-eliminator extraordinaire who is leading the mission to stop the beast; Marianne, the daughter of a Count, and love-interest; Jean-François, her jealous one-armed brother who lost his right limb to a lion while hunting in Africa; and sultry Sylvia, the local bordello's Italian courtesan. After finding a steel fang, and hearing a child saying the creature seemed to have a human controller, Fronsac becomes more unconvinced of a roaming monster likened to a demon, but he feels the baffling clues (which contribute to people being prone to flights of fancy as far as he's concerned) will lead him to the murderer. When Lord de Beauterne, the King's weapons expert, shows up and kills a wolf, Fronsac reluctantly agrees to pass it off as the beast. The carcass is sent back to Paris (a hotbed of arrogant, aristocratic privilege & snobbery) for display where Fronsac is shown a book -- L'Édifiante (The Edifying), and learns of a sinister conspiracy theory involving a disillusioned secret society named The Brotherhood of the Wolf. The outfit use the creature as an instrument of punishment against the ruling King's blasphemous embrace of philosophy, citing that the doctrine of science over religion (in the burgeoning Age of Reason) is heresy. As utter fear from the elusive beast's rampage will undermine public support of the King, the cover-up could allow the Brotherhood's consolidated power to step in to take over France.

Fronsac is warned to keep quiet of this explosive knowledge, and uneasy with both falsehood and potential treason, he is bribed with a high-profile posting in Senegal. Ignoring his superiors, he returns to Gévaudan at the Marquis' request where his study resumes, and the real beast continues to scare the shit out of everyone. When he meets with Marianne to take her to safety, both are attacked by the creature and Fronsac finally sees it with his own eyes, where it kills a man but strangely leaves Marianne alone after sniffing her. Shortly after, Fronsac, Mani (who is harmoniously in touch with nature), and the Marquis head into a forest and set a bunch of elaborate traps. When they try to bag the beast in a clash, they see it has almost human-like intelligence. When the beast is injured but escapes, Mani goes after it alone and discovers a catacomb where it is being kept by the same elderly man, Jean Chastel, and his daughter, La Bavarde, who were encountered earlier. They are in cahoots with the Brotherhood, and he is attacked by Gypsies. He kills a number of them before being shot in the back and taken away. Fronsac is devastated when he finds Mani's body and sees he was tortured to death. When an autopsy reveals a silver bullet pointing to Jean-François, he hits the roof and at the catacombs finds a pile of the conspiracy books. Fronsac kills several Gypsies and later burns Mani's body in keeping with the deceased's native customs. He is then apprehended and imprisoned by the authorities.

In jail, he is visited by Sylvia who tells him she's a Vatican spy sent by Pope Clement XIII to kill Henri Sardis, a conniving priest and leader of the Brotherhood whom His Holiness in Rome has deemed is a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and thus trouble for the Papacy. She then poisons Fronsac to keep him quiet of this clandestine information. Sardis wants heartbroken Marianne dead and convinces Jean-François to kill her as a means to cure his incestuous lust. Twisted brother shocks fragile sister telling her that he is the beast's master, and reveals he still has his right arm intact which is heavily scarred and been kept bandaged. Holding him at knifepoint, she refuses his sexual advances but he rapes her. A buried Fronsac who was exhumed by Sylvia's operatives and revived from what was a coma, now gatecrashes a Brotherhood ceremony. In commando battle mode, he kills several of their numbers before his duel-to-the-death showdown with Jean-François. Captain Duhamel and his men make mass arrests, Sylvia offs La Bavarde, and Sardis flees into the mountains where he is killed by a pack of wolves. After Fronsac uses one of Mani's primitive potions to heal a near-catatonic Marianne, he and the Marquis return to the catacombs and find Chastel nursing the wounded beast, where we learn of its sympathetic African origins. Stolen from its home, kept in captivity, and reared to be a savage predator turned loose on the population, Fronsac shoots the dying creature, putting it out of its misery.

We return to the aging Marquis being led to his public execution infront of a huge torch-lit crowd. [The real life counterpart on whom the Marquis is based was supposedly saved from the guillotine by his servants]. In a final flashback (or is it a dream?), we see Fronsac and Marianne aboard a ship and are left to ponder if they reunited to begin a new life of happiness together. This is definitely an entertaining and unconventional werewolf picture for the rampant beast (made by Jim Henson's Creature Shop) is not what our horror imagination will immediately conjure up. [Picture a gumbo of baby dragon, lion, warthog & dinosaur, with hand-made wood/skull/iron/bone-plated armour, also part skinless and of mutated flesh, and draped in scales of retractable thorns & spikes]. Odd to say the least but it doesn't disappoint with its brutal maulings. Director Ang Lee said of his movie CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, that it was a graceful combo of Bruce Lee and Jane Austen. Applied here, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF plays as Asian kung-fu cinema meeting comely & buxom peasant maidens in cleavage-popping gowns; all in a backdrop of DANGEROUS LIASONed, pompadoured intrigue infused with frenetic bursts of spaghetti western violence. And with its slo-mo bad assery of heroes who hardly break a sweat, the incorporation of the fight choreography to its very expositioned, costume-drama, mythological mystery is impressive.

The dark tone and graphic novel-ish mixture of styles (martial arts meets THE MATRIX, and Sergio Leone meets SLEEPY HOLLOW) puts this film on the fringes with its further broad exploration of progressive idealism vs. (a) fundamentalist dogma, (b) institutionalized self-indulgence, (c) disregard of the poor & oppressed, and (d) reactionary bigotry. Such blunt content always walks a fine line of filtered subliminalism through messy politics but thankfully, we are spared heavy-handed messaging & preaching. Of curious note is the presentation of this movie's women. All voluptuous and freedom-seeking, the ladies span being innocent, indiscreet, determined, desperate, sensual, and scheming. Viewed as prizes, property, and babymakers by the prevailing standards of their day, they face punishment when overstepping permittance, and no praise for self-liberation from imprisoning attitudes that held them inherently inferior. And when they get busy in the boudoir, sex -- more than personal pleasure -- is used & represented as an independent outlet in their contrast of striking beauty against the quadruple threat of male deception, corruption, repression, and abomination. In total, while the excessive running time at almost 2½ hours is overlong, the wild & flashy action, lush scenery and rugged terrain close to the LOTR films, and nude Bellucci (which is always a pleasant addition) makes this worth checking out.




ROMASANTA: THE WEREWOLF HUNT (2004)
Julian Sands, Elsa Pataky, David Gant, Maru Valdivielso, Luna McGill, Gary Piquer, John Sharian
Directed by Paco Plaza
This movie is loosely based on Spain's first documented serial killer, Manuel Blanco Romasanta, a travelling salesman who in September 1852, admitted to 13 murders (the post credits say 15) that took place in the Galicia region that borders Portugal. Claiming to be cursed as a shapeshifter that needed to feed his urge to kill, he was dubbed the "Werewolf of Allariz," and the "Tallow Man" for also making soap from his victims' fat -- which he purportedly said made for the best skin care. Much like the true story, the film opens in a small village plagued by puzzling disappearances and then gruesome murders, with naked bodies (mostly women and children) found displaying signs of both vicious animal savagery, and cutting of surgical precision. Romasanta is a vendor in his caravan wagon who pulls into town to ply his wares. He's a smouldering ladie's man who is engaging and charismatic. And unbeknownst to everyone is that he is the monster that has been terrorizing them. As people are afraid to venture into the dreaded forests, superstitious rumors are spreading, and the police in hunting the killer are covering up the deaths to prevent panic but the Inspector brings in Professor Philips, a phrenologist (brain expert) to help in the investigation (and right off the bat, he disturbingly implies some necrophilia has taken place). Bárbara Garcia lives in a remote farmhouse she shared with her widowed, older sister Maria, and young, mute niece Teresa. Maria left with her daughter to marry Romasanta, and already jealously upset at Bárbara's attraction to him (pulling a knife on her to back off (!), joined him on his merchant journeys with an intention of also finding a sign language tutor for Teresa.

But sadistic hubby eventually turned on wife and child, killing them (after displaying his cruelty to birds). In the aftermath of their discovered corpses, Bárbara having been seduced earlier, hooks up with him and resumes their affair when he returns. He tells her Maria and Teresa are doing fine but she soon finds proof pointing to them having met foul play, with him as the slayer. Instead of cowering in paralyzed fear however, she sets out to take him down for destroying her family. Even as another man (a former wandering partner of his who warned her) is arrested for the crimes, her fierce determination for revenge stirs the police to grow a pair. All along, Romasanta has played it cool as a cucumber, and in an attempt to at last stop his blood-spilling, she faces off with him in a cornfield climax. When he's finally apprehended and in custody, he confesses his dark deeds saying he is a lycanthrope, but Professor Philips (whose name in reality is believed to be an alias for Joseph-Pierre Durand de Gros, a French exile living in London) disputes this assertion as nonsense saying that far from being a Devil-ish beast of hell, Romasanta is insane; suffering from mental disease making him not responsible for his actions, and that he can be cured. For its historical presentation, ROMASANTA is comparable to BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF as another (dubbed & subtitled) fanciful, nightmarish faery tale whose territory also delves into both rural isolation with rule from bewildered authority, and psychological explanations for a supernatural occurrence, while straddled by some inaccuracies thanks to the blending of fact & fiction...

[E.g. ROMASANTA features scientific discussion of "genes" even though the coining of the term by Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen was still 50yrs away -- and DNA another 50yrs after that. Oops. Let's just say the script deliberately incorporated the word to streamline a lot of long-winded, complex talk of behaviour being shaped and controlled by chromosomal molecular biology, and/or study of abnormal, hereditary blueprint sequencing]. Combining drama, mystery, suspense, and action, with good cinematography and an atmospheric score that further mixes tragic romanticism (with a strange Red Riding Hood vibe) with court procedural, the movie with its authentic, period-piece look, is admittedly slow-moving (bogged down in large part by the love story) and rather scattered in plot but its low-key subtlety is made up for with fine performances. Sands (who has always looked menacingly lupine anyway) displays a deceptive and hidden pulsing threat, while gorgeous Palatky totally holds her own with expressive screen presence that switches from vulnerability to vengeance. The werewolf transformation is not a typically same, paint-by-numbers offering. It's particularly excellent (apparently more majority make-up than CGI) for how the villain actually changes into a proper form of non-new age, straight up wolf. And then just as incredibly reverts from animal back to human. Seriously, it's terrific. ROMASANTA's script is by Alfredo Conde, who also wrote the fictional novel 'The Uncertain Memoirs of a Galician Wolfman: Romasanta'. Conde himself is a descendant of one of the doctors involved in the original trial which lasted 7 months.

[As well as stating he had an accomplice named Antonio whose existence was never verified, Romasanta was found guilty in April 1853 but acquitted of 4 of the murders that were credited to real wolf attacks. He was condemned to be executed by garotte but in May, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by a Royal Order from Queen Isabella II herself. Although disputed by some researchers, Romasanta is believed to have died in December 1863, at the age of 53, allegedly waiting a full pardon. His case also served to inspire the first portrayal of his life in the Spanish 1970 movie, THE WOLF'S FOREST]. Even as this movie pulls from the annals of 19th Century true crime, for the sake of entertainment, whether Romasanta is indeed a creature, or if his claim is pure invention because it's something a cold, calculating sociopath would say, there is an ambiguity left open to interpretation. Also commendable is the decision to have the fiend be captured. Without much formulaic tampering, the overwhelming ending of countless werewolf movies conclude with a final showdown of the monster being chased, cornered, and killed on a full moon-lit night. Here, ROMASANTA's bravely different depiction daringly breaks the mold in this horror subgenre. Bypassing generic clichés, it goes for broke by taking a next step to explore the nature of delusion and compulsion in the bizarre tribunal. In closing, the movie is interesting and worthwhile should you seek it out. With that said, if you're looking for direct, beastly lines akin to AN AMERICAN WEREWEOLF IN LONDON, THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, or THE HOWLING, you might find this dull & disappointing. If however you're more prone to straying into a bit of spiritual unusuality like WOLFEN, you may find this unique treatment sharing those parallels, highly satisfying.

'M' IS FOR THE MILLION THINGS SHE GAVE ME



INSIDE (2007)
Alysson Paradis, Béatrice Dalle, François-Régis Marchasson, Nathalie Roussel, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Ludovic Berthillot, Emmanuel Lanzi
Directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury
4 months ago, pregnant Sarah (Alysson Paradis, aka Johnny Depp's sister-in-law) was involved in a tragic car accident that killed her husband, Matthieu, in a head-on collision. She as the driver, and her unborn child miraculously survived. Still mourning in her suburban home, she nears birth on what is now Christmas Eve. The holiday theme is not on display however and Sarah has zero fucks to give about yuletide. Having turned down her Mother's offer to stay at her place for dinner, Sarah awaits her photo editor boss to drive her to the hospital in the morning for an induced labor. And then with blessed event impending, a strange woman loudly bangs on her door the day before delivery. She wants to use the phone, knows of Sarah's condition, and demands to be let in but is refused. Wary & alarmed by this woman on her doorstep, the police are called. They arrive to find no suspect but say they'll keep an eye on the place. As night falls, the intruder has forced her way in and wants the baby. Picture a female, gothy Michael Myers on uppers, but with the twist of intentionally keeping the protagonist alive. With a pair of scissors, she plans on cutting it out of her womb. Sarah will not be keeping her due date appointment. In the terrifying home invasion (yes, not exactly an original concept these days but let's not nitpick), the vulnerable mother-to-be faces a gruesome, nerve-racking nightmare from the mysterious villainess.

This dangerous kook will stop at nothing in her attempt to caesarian carve the bun out of the oven, and will kill everyone who attempts to help the victim. In the fight for her and the baby's life, Sarah at first locks herself in the bathroom, and with the threat heightening from the cat n' mouse conflict, a smorgasbord of household weapons such as knitting needles, a lamp, a toaster, and an aerosol container turned into a blowtorch, are used to stab/smash/burn. In the unfolded wretchedness, featuring an impromptu tracheotomy and crudely-made spear, Sarah must turn the tables on the relentless, gap-toothed, she-beast-from-hell -- credited as unnamed 'La Femme' -- in order to survive. As for the crazy invader herself? She wants that baby by any means necessary. In a flashback, we see what brought the assailant to her homicidal motive, where not a bond but a metaphorical umbilical cord of maternalism strangely attaches the 2 women to each other. And most unusual: through her entirety, not once does Sarah ever scream for help. This picture was one of a slew of movies that helped put the new wave of French horror on the map; all with fresh takes on bloody gore, shocking brutality, cruelty, and extreme painful violence. They provocatively pushed envelopes of tolerance, asking "how much is too much?" to challenge a viewer's capacity to withstand what they could watch physically inflicted on the body.

French horror is a blunt instrument that does not shy away from hardline presentations of trauma (or accusations of good taste disappearing into the horizon). And it certainly positions that nothing is too sacred or taboo to be explored by way of having to endure the mental strain of psychologically being affected by witnessing such bold, unsettling, graphic terror. The slow start of INSIDE's beginning helps to soak in expectant Sarah's loneliness and depressed state, but once the psychotic siege is underway, safe haven is completely ripped asunder, and outsiders dropping by for a house visit, end up dropping like flies -- Sarah's boss, her poor Mom (by accident), 3 cops (one of whom provides one of the most WTF moments I never saw coming), and a dragged-in teen are all goners. And periodically as both women brawl, we get glimpses of the baby sloshing & pinballing in utero. This poor kid is really put through the ringer. [Apparently INSIDE's producers added the fetus-cam shots, first against the directors' original rejection, and later without their knowledge. Bustillo and Maury were said to be furious upon discovering their inclusion as they did not have the final cut. Yikes]. While there are some photographer homages to REAR WINDOW and BLOW-UP (with well-crafted cinematography to match), the contrast between the 2 women is immediate: Sarah 'the good' in white evening gown vs. La Femme 'the evil' in long black dress.

The movie will no doubt have many dismissing it as being in the vein of exploitive, excessive torture porn. For whatever claims of sickening offensiveness, I think the criticism lies much more for some implausibility. While not impossible, La Femme's reason for murdery revenge, at the least, may seem unconvincing (even though Béatrice Dalle's portrayal is very menacing as a vicious, feral predator). And the believability of her being such a culprit to actually carry out the slaughter, at the most, may be unrealistic (even though the role emanates that of a very deranged, shadowy stalker). This interpretive questioning makes for some odd paradox. INSIDE is repulsive yet suspensefully engrossing and over the top. And while it's intensely disturbing, emotionally draining, and cringe-inducingly difficult to absorb, what begins as intriguing does give way to ending up formulaic/contrived/messy once intelligence starts going out the window and logic starts jumping the tracks. For real, a lot of the behaviour is quite dumb, and one major question about La Femme cannot be avoided: why not just wait until the baby is born? I guess planning isn't simple when you're insane. And lastly, if you happen to catch the street address, well that just introduces a whole different subtext altogether (vague even) involving some type of (hint?) otherworldy resolve needed to make it through such visceral suffering.




THE BABADOOK (2014)
Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Tim Purcell, Hayley McElhinney, Benjamin Winspear, Daniel Henshall, Barbara West
Directed by Jennifer Kent
This critically acclaimed, directorial debut from Jennifer Kent took Utah's Sundance Film Festival by storm and is based on her own 10-minute, 2005 short, MONSTER. While it took nearly a decade to bring to the big screen, both versions are about a single mother, Amelia, and her young son, 6yr old Sam, who confront a monster that is first dismissed as Sam's overactive imagination. In the short, the creature manifests from a stuffed doll and a presence lurking in a closet, while the feature film makes the transition to a creepy, pale-faced, top-hatted, goblin-esque figure (inspired by Lon Chaney's look in 1927's famous lost film, LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT) in an obscure pop-up storybook that bleeds from the pages into a vaporous essence. From its early origins to the movie, the theme & tone expand, and the psychological surface gets much more heavy-handed as the growing threat against Sam, and Amelia's realization is not just in the terror of the monster alone that begins to surround the both of them, but very much in Amelia's fragile mental state which keeps enduring cracks. She is dealing with loss & grief over the death of her husband, Oskar, from a car crash (while on the way to the hospital with her in labor). In raising Sam alone (an erratic, and physically draining, hyperactive child), what we get is an unsettling metaphor for her exhaustion, confusion, clear depression, and natural verge towards nervous breakdown.

Sam is unable to sleep which interrupts her getting any rest. Strange noises are heard and glass shards are found in her food. Sam is blamed who in turn blames the book -- which to begin with just inexplicably appeared. Amelia tears up the book and throws it in the trash but she finds it intact on their doorstep the next morning. Its newer depictions are more violent and come with a warning that denying the creature's existence will only make it stronger. An upset Amelia burns the book and convinced she is being stalked, goes to the police who can do nothing. When she is at her rope's end, with Sam appearing to be too much of a handful to even hear or set eyes upon, we see an emotionally spent parent who pulls a 180 from protectiveness to outbursts of straight-up verbal abuse. In wanting nothing more than some much-needed peace & quiet, her desperation becomes disassociation. The dark and claustrophobic nature of their gloomy house only heightens the stress & tension overwhelming Amelia, while Sam's confrontation with the creature appears to be a literal transfer of having to deal with a display of uncertainty and a type of neurosis bred from trauma, which has materialized into a living & breathing, sinister monster. While Sam's manic behavioral problems stem from some neglect, it is in his unsupervised moments that we see more than just a brat but a troubled kid in a subtle cycle of real, deepening downslope.

Already socially maladjusted, Sam desperately craves attention but when he doesn't get it, his undisciplined inability to deal with frustration results in temper tantrums louder than the last, and physically lashing out. He worried his school because of home-made weapons he brought, and at a backyard birthday party of his cousin, Ruby, he pushes her out of a treehouse when she makes fun of him for being fatherless. Sam being so young (with impulse-control issues to boot and quite possibly suffering from mental illness) doesn't have the comprehension to understand that by alienating those around him, this leads to his exclusion which in turn fosters further loneliness. With only his mother to turn to, Amelia's love seems like rejection in her present failure to cope with him. Withdrawn and irritable, she scolds Sam for disobedience. And still reeling & struggling, she too may also be on the circumference of mental illness, and one wonders if maybe harboring suicidal thoughts as well; unable to decipher the presence of the lurking creature, what is & isn't real, and what she can & cannot control. During an earlier car ride, Sam's glimpse of the creature causes him to have a hollering seizure with Amelia pleading to a Doctor for him to be prescribed sedatives. It is in this worsening state that left weak, vulnerable, baffled and helpless, Sam is naturally ripe & prime for a supernatural entity to target him.

[At present, he has all the makings of a not-so-distant future as a teen and young man possibly destined for a dysfunctional life, filled with therapy, medication & substance abuse in continuing stages]. One night after a vision of Oskar, Amelia is possessed and tries to kill Sam (after she breaks the neck of their pet dog, Bugsy), but he manages to knock her out in the basement and tie her up. Can mother and son outmanoeuvre the evil, save each other in the process, and rid themselves of the creature? Whether it's the layering of a child's bad behaviour or a mother's complicated bereavement process, THE BABADOOK has some good scares, and the atmosphere is suspenseful and disturbing. I'm sure many viewers will find Sam so ear-piercingly grating, that they might not finish the movie. Yes, the character definitely tests one's patience to keep from wearing ultra-thin but for this reason, rather than consider bailing on the movie as a lost cause, I say it warrants a revisit. And to stick with it after a second chance, is to get a full & proper context of just how both Mother and son are so badly affected by the sequence of events, as if to physically feel that worse than the sinking of hope, is its non-existence. Overall, the movie impressively & cleverly positions fear itself in the aftermath of death by pondering the shattering of family, the undoing of child safety, and ultimately losing one's self to going mad.

GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN!

RATTLESNAKE VARMINTS AND SUNBAKED BUTCHERY



GHOST TOWN (1988)
Franc Luz, Jimmie F. Skaggs, Catherine Hickland, Bruce Glover, Penelope Windust, Laura Schaefer, Zitto Kazann
Directed by Richard Governor
Heading down a stretch of Arizona desert highway in a red Mercedes Benz convertible (Judas Priest could easily be playing over this opening scene) is spoiled rich girl, and runaway bride, Kate Barrett. She's jilted her fiancé at the altar, and taken off in her car alone, no doubt for a wonderful new round of freedom as she tosses out her wedding veil. As she's driving, the sudden sound of hoof beats from galloping horses causes her to pull off to the side of the road. Thinking WTF, she is then swallowed in a sandstorm and vanishes. At the same time, Deputy Sheriff Langley is taking some target practice, blasting objects in a junkyard (because what else is there to do in a boring Southwest backwater?) when he gets a dispatch call from his head honcho, Sheriff Bubba, to investigate her possible abduction after she's reported missing by her father. Less than enthused, he arrives at the desolate scene in his Jeep Bronco and finds Kate's battered, empty car when out of nowhere, a man-in-black rides by on horseback shooting at him multiple times. In the attack, Langley bails out of his vehicle just before it melts & explodes, and now he too is thinking WTF. Stranded and on foot, he comes across the gravestone/wooden marker of a Sheriff Harper in which a skeletal corpse bursts out of the ground, grabs his wrists, and tells him to defeat an evil that has taken grip of his town.

Failure will mean a fate worse than death. When Harper's withered corpse collapses even more decayed, Langley scoops up a badge from the crumbled remains and stumbles into a dilapidated, spooky, Old West ghost town named Cruz Del Diablo, ahead of an approaching storm. He takes shelter in an empty rundown building and hits the hay exhausted from the day's bizarre events. He awakens to visions of a saucy barmaid/saloon keeper named Grace, a blind gambler known as The Dealer (also the obligatory fortune teller), and a blacksmith with his daughter, Etta (who looks like Laura Branigan). The former residents are themselves spirits being terrorized by dreaded gunslinger Devlin, a scarred & zombie-ish, ruthless outlaw on black horse (of course) who has made a pact with Satan that keeps him and his lurking phantom gang of hammy roughnecks in control of the haunted town they gleefully punish. Devlin has kidnapped Kate because she's a deadringer for a saloon (or was it brothel?) singer he once had the hots for. As far as dirty rotten scoundrels go, Devlin is lower than a worm's belly and in flashback, we see how he first crucified Sheriff Harper on a windmill, then buried him alive infront of the fear-stricken occupants. Langley -- now the town's defacto lawman -- learns more about the trapped souls from the blacksmith and Etta (whom he got in the sack), but the doomed pair are killed for giving him information.

With his modern guns useless, Grace gives Langley an old pistol which can kill Devlin and his cronies with gold bullets. Langley rescues Kate and the duo hide out in an abandoned church, but they are tracked down and the church is set on fire. They escape and Langley blows away Devlin and his villains in a final 'High Noon' (albeit at night) shootout, thus avenging Harper's cruel death, and releasing the souls of the past-inhabitants from the limbo of unholy dark that ran the show for a century. The town disappears; at last, allowed to die in peace. This team-up of traditional ordinary western meets horror (which for what it's worth is a hybrid that has surprisingly combined for more than a handful of times) has a slight ARMY OF DARKNESS feel with it's theme of being pulled back into time, having to navigate the unfamiliar, and helping townsfolk to lift a curse. [Luz as Langley oddly seems at times as if he's channeling Bruce Campbell while coming off as a cross between Ron Silver and Peter Horton]. Even if you overlooked this as a VHS rental, you're bound to have recognized its memorable cover. There's nothing too special here and truthfully, the movie can be seen as an example of impressive box art sometimes delivering more than the film itself which feels incomplete in a few areas. The acting is passable, the plot is one-dimensional and too thin, and some of the featured music was the same used in GHOULIES II, FROM BEYOND, and CRAWLSPACE.

[All those titles via the catalog of the Empire International Pictures production/distribution company owned by Charles Band which went bust by 1989, but saw Band forming Full Moon Entertainment that same year]. Outside of sadistic Devlin's violent penchant for shoot 'em up, more blood & gore (climax aside) would have been nice. But as far as the low budget visual look, the rotting teeth and deformed decomposing flesh make-up is decent (if not rubbery and dated), and the cinematography on the whole is atleast effective, particularly with the undead gunmen as seen through the dreary haze of dust. [Fun fact: Kane Hodder did stunt work in this, the same year he debuted as Jason Voorhees]. GHOST TOWN is clichéd and mediocre but spirited, has parallels in its storyline to HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (1973) starring Clint Eastwood, and gets brownie points for trying to offer something different in its blend outside of the slasher stable of then-established franchises. Sergio Leone this ain't but remade today with its cobwebs and swing doors, I can picture a considerable change of the tired & fed up, equally deceased locals rallying to band together and intent on ending their suffering, once n' for all finally standing against the demonic henchmen -- either both to a montage or end credits of Johnny Cash's 'The Man Comes Around'. [I wonder if the filmmakers modeled Devlin from Freddy Krueger, as there seems to be a pale imitation here]. Overall, the movie has room for improvement, and best looks like it could have been an off-kilter episode from the 1985-89 Twilight Zone revival.




BONE TOMAHAWK (2015)
Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox, Lili Simmons, Kathryn Morris, David Arquette, Sid Haig
Directed by S. Craig Zahler
Set in the Wild West of the 1890's, Purvis and Buddy are bushwhacking drifters who have just brutally killed 3 campers out in the brush. Hearing horses, they take off into the hills and on a burial site, Buddy is killed by an arrow. Purvis escapes and 11 days later enters the small, peaceful cowpoke town of Bright Hope (on the New Mexico/Texas border) where he buries his stolen loot. Raising suspicion as an obvious robber and taking his dead partner's name, he comes to the attention of Deputy Chicory and Sheriff Franklin Hunt, and is shot in the leg trying to flee while in the local saloon. Hunt has the town Casanova, John Brooder, call for the doctor but Doc is a drunkard, so another physician, Samantha O' Dwyer, instead patches Purvis up in jail. Her husband, Arthur, is a foreman who is nursing his broken, lower right leg at home. That night, unknown attackers kill a stable boy and steal horses. In the morning, Hunt finds Purvis, Samantha, and another Deputy (Nick) all missing from the jail, and finds an arrow. A Native American dubbed "The Professor" tells Hunt it belongs to a vicious group of cave-dwelling cannibals known as troglodytes who reside in the "Valley of the Starving Man." The cautious Hunt forms a posse of aging Chicory who rambles, hobbling-on-a-crutch Arthur who has insisted on joining despite his injury, and dashingly vain Brooder who is unapologetic for the number of Indians he has killed. The 4 men set off to rescue, Samantha, Nick, and Purvis. On their journey and mindful of potential raiders out in the barren plains, Brooder kills 2 men who wander into their camp. During a night ambush, both Brooder and his horse are injured while the remaining 3 animals are stolen.

After the horse is put down, and with the group on foot, Brooder and Arthur get into a punch-up regarding Samantha. As the condition of Arthur's leg is worsened from falling in the fight (as well as from the threat of gangrene), Chicory sets it in a splint, and the 3 men leave him behind and alone to recuperate. Upon arrival at the Valley, the trio are met with a hail of arrows. Injured, they manage to kill 2 of the trogs, and in a retreat, Hunt and Chicory abandon a seriously hurt Brooder, who has demanded he be left behind. Macho to the end, Brooder kills a trog before he himself is killed. Hunt and Chicory are captured and imprisoned in a cave. Samantha and Nick are still alive, but poor Purvis has since been eaten. Nick is then taken from his makeshift cell, stripped, scalped, vivisected in half, and feasted upon by the trogs. Samantha quips that present existence is hard because of "idiots" and figures the remaining number of cannibals to be possibly 12. Hunt remembers he has a flask of opium he took from Arthur which is given to some of the trogs to drink. Only one fatally OD's while another blacks out in narcotic sleep. Arthur's determination knows no bounds. Desperate to get his wife back and in limping & agonizing pain, he tracks his comrades to the Valley and after killing 2 trogs, finds an embedded whistle-like implement on the outside of a dead attacker's throat (actually windpipe) meant as a communication device, as they do not speak. Carving it off, he blows it which summons a trog, who is quickly killed. Back in the cave, the trog leader is pissed to see 2 of his men felled by Hunt. Hunt is yanked from his cell, has the right side of his abdomen sliced open, and a now fire-heated flask shoved into the gash.

He is then shot in the left arm, and stomach by his own rifle. (And only by sheer luck does he avoid having his balls blown off). Arthur shows up at the cave having killed a few trogs, and a still-alive Hunt kills the leader with a tomahawk (in this case, a weapon fashioned from a human hip bone). Samantha and Chicory are freed, while mortally wounded Hunt stays behind to kill the rest of the trogs who will return; to ultimately prevent Bright Hope from being paid anymore of their unwanted visits. Leaving the cave, Arthur, Samantha, and Chicory pass 2 pregnant trog women. Both are mutilated having been blinded and their limbs amputated. Neither female makes a sound. Arthur blows the whistle and their is no reply, thus paving the way clear. Outside and away from the cave, the surviving trio hear 3 gunshots ring out, signifying Hunt has killed the last of the trogs. Safe, the party make their tired way home. If BONE TOMAHAWK was played out as numerous past Western Hollywood classics (e.g. THE SEARCHERS from 1956), we would have noble cowboys heroically banding together and hitting the trail to save a group of innocent settlers, kidnapped by the uncivilized Red Man whose ruthlessness is more implied than visual. But here, with an injection of horror-fusion very much recalling THE HILLS HAVE EYES, the Native Americans have been replaced by man-eating, warrior, savage tribesmen from a degenerate bloodline. And the assembled, flawed group upon whom the imperiled will depend on, not only bicker and have eccentric issues that could derail the mission, but the odds of them rendering successful help, let alone their own survival, is less than slim.

More than the punctuation of realistic, ultraviolent gore & slaughter (which is more restrained than rampant, and saved for the final reel), the movie's key element is its dialogue-heavy slowburn; a building atmosphere of trepidation and dread that sets the highly unsettling tone. That and a top notch cast of excellently, tightly written characters who are more a motley crew than they are seasoned vigilantes; all with their particular backgrounds & insights, combined with deadpan humor and sadness. Each man evokes empathy -- especially in the terror of being cut loose from the rest -- in a brotherhood that barely bonds in their beginning. [Russell as Hunt is a more subdued but just as brave version of his Wyatt Earp in TOMBSTONE]. The interaction of gritty frontier life is also richly presented, running from daily droll to dangerous. [Accusations of racist overtones aside, the indigenous, bestial inbreds are depicted as basically primitive, mud and ash-smeared, animals who rape and eat their own mothers. And we can only shudder to think what happens to some of the offspring]. The lack of a musical score amplifies the ill-at-ease quiet, and tension all throughout, and really intensifies every specific moment that is dark & disturbing. The movie has traces of Eli Roth splatter, some CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, and even a pinch of FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. I could imagine this being made and written by the Coen Brothers, and dare I say -- wait for it -- Rob Zombie (even though Mr. Boogie Man might benefit more with a better writer than himself). To date, BONE TOMAHAWK is probably the most gruesome and graphically unflinching nod to a spaghetti western yet (easily outbesting THE HATEFUL EIGHT, which also featured Russell, and equally a tad too long at 132min). Lastly, it is also not for the squeamish and weak-stomached.

OLD SCRATCH RESIDES IN A RUBBER ROOM



ASYLUM OF SATAN (1972)
Carla Borelli, Charles Kissinger, Nick Jolley, Louis Bandy, Jack Peterkin, Claude Fulkerson, Mimi Honce
Directed by William Girdler
A young concert pianist named Lucina Martin has woken up to find herself in a strange bed in an unknown place. She's been transferred to the Pleasant Hill Asylum. Scared, confused, and kept against her will, she is to receive "special treatment" from the renowned Dr. Jason Specter, with his seemingly-abnormal she-male German nurse, Martine. Insisting she doesn't belong in the isolated, private mansion doubling as a hospital, once committed, Lucina grows uneasy about the strange atmosphere and even stranger patients. Why are they dressed in white hooded robes frozen in wheelchairs? And what's with all this obedience to the rules? After having nightmares & visions, she finally meets the quietly threatening Specter who assures her that being kept under his supervision for care is necessary because she has suffered a nervous breakdown. His specialty is 'pain' and she must stay to recover. She immediately demands to be released but her call falls on deaf ears and she is restrained. When plaid-wearing, pudgy fiancée Chris checks in on Lucina only to be told there are no visiting hours, he furiously senses something fishy and goes to the local police station for help hoping for a raid. Chris is heroic every bit as he is anti-sexy, and the cops are as useful as tits on a fish. When the Lieutenant tells Chris that Specter has been dead for years, and prior to his demise had been picked up for hailing Lucifer a number of times, Chris is naturally floored but atleast his fashion crimes are not an arrestable offense. Meanwhile, trapped inside the hell house, hapless Lucina witnesses the fellow inmates forced to endure their worst fears in order to be "cured" but the methods of remedy are homicidally hazardous.

It's obvious that this still-alive Doctor is up to no good, and aware that something evil is lurking in the building, Lucina discovers she is but one in a long line of co-eds who are kidnapped to be sacrificed to the Devil. Can she escape? Will she be rescued? Or will she be bumped off in a black magic ritual? Before THE EXORCIST, and THE OMEN set off a popular & influential, mainstream wave of 1970's demonic possession/Antichrist/satanic cult worshipping movies, (and those pictures which in turn spawned numerous knock-offs), this choppy, charmingly bad movie filmed entirely in Louisville,KY was one of the first to skim the surface. Inspiring, and diamond in the rough it most definitely is not, ASYLUM OF SATAN is an outright laugher because of how poorly made and entertainingly inept it is. In washed out colors, and drabbed in some dark earth-tones, what creepiness it has, is matched with both incidental brooding music and 70's groove rock. It also has very cheapo sfx complete with rubber snakes and plastic toy bugs pulled by fishing line; Halloween monster fangs falling out of a zombie's mouth; fire extinguisher exhaust standing in for poison gas(!); a horrendous Devil suit looking like a gorilla with a papier-mâché dragon-head mask; and proverbial stale dialogue twinned with weak acting. If eerie & terrifying was the intent here, it's clear the utter failure gave way to pure, quirky cheese instead. No blood, no nudity (inspite of a medicine cabinet peephole), scant violence, a tad of tension but not much suspense, flat sets, dull camera work, plodding pacing... this is hardly convincing horror and all the tameness assembled here makes for a hodgepodge of nonsense. Forget logic. Somewhat directionless and heavily boring, the movie is a labyrinth of ridiculous incoherency.

The surreal dream sequences are baffling as we're unsure if they are happening in the hospital or as a result of a mental breakdown entirely in Lucina's hallucinatory mind. The fiery end only helps to confuse this: seeing her in the same clothes that she wore in the beginning (inspite of the white robes we saw her in only seconds before), and flashes of the hospital appearing between state of the art modern and decrepit abandonment -- is there some sort of parallel bizarro world/alternate universe thing going on? And there's Lucina's whole abduction: as female virgins are the sacrificial ladies of choice, if her original Doctor (Dr. Nolan) is in with Specter's evil ceremonies, shouldn't he know that Lucina's cherry was busted a long time ago thus making her an unfit offering altogether? And wouldn't Specter know from having performed a full medical exam on her? Ugh, total rubbish. [The commentary for the Something Weird dvd-release states the production saw involvement from the Church of Satan, and has connections to ROSEMARY'S BABY. On the one hand I can see such co-operation by the COS on a kitschy/flimsy front, and yet it's also a disappointment for if true, could there really not have been a more impressive showing?] Ultimately, with its mounting murders, a deformed monster in room 319 that is never explained, a romantic flashback of winter sex, and egg cultists in the cafeteria(!), ASYLUM OF SATAN is a wacky whirlwind of low budget, slapdash schlock that would easily put a smile on Ed Wood, and see MST3K have a wisecracking field day. When a movie is hilariously awful, sometimes not hating it, regardless, oddly works in its favor. That's the deal here. Simply put, there is no way you can't make fun of this.




MISTER FROST (1990)
Jeff Goldblum, Kathy Baker, Alan Bates, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Roland Giraud, Daniel Gélin, Vincent Schiavelli
Directed by Philippe Setbon
Detective Felix Detweiler has been called to the French country estate (in England) of the mysterious Mr. Frost about a dead body. This after a tip-off from a pair of thieves who found a body in an Aston Martin in his garage. Frost is first met having finished burying the body in his yard. During an exchange of pleasantries over coffee, he unexpectedly and nonchalantly admits to the crime, with still another body found in his house. With the media now camped out on his property, 24 mutilated corpses (including children) are dug up from his garden and after his arrest, and being declared insane, (with nothing of his background and identity ever found), he is bounced from one institution to the next, until he is sent to St. Claire's Hospital, a posh asylum where he doesn't speak for the next 2yrs. From the initial investigation, Detweiler became obsessed with Frost. He was confused and intrigued by his flair, and ended up leaving the police force. Under tight security, when Frost is introduced to Dr. Sarah Day at the asylum, he announces he will only talk to her. He tells her he is Satan and that his aim is for her to kill him. Detweiler believes that from his own previous interrogation of him, Frost is truly infact the Devil, very much "in the details" as the saying goes, and begs Sarah to becareful. She isn't sold, and in the skepticism of Frost's claim, a soft-mannered boy becomes a murderer. But all doubt & denial is cast aside when Sarah's wheelchair-confined brother (paralyzed for most of his life) suddenly is able to rise and walk again, along with other patients displaying unexplainable, physical changes. Sarah has beome convinced Frost is telling the truth for in these strange occurrences of healing and premonitions, he takes credit for the disturbing happenings that point to him having some type of otherworldly power.

Frost plays games of a crooked nature -- producing miracles for the purpose of corrupting. Sarah agrees to shoot him to death. As Frost prepares for his execution, he thanks Sarah while waxing poetic on a plain of next levil-ish divinity. Will she pull the trigger? Does Frost have some final revelation, or last minute, insidious trickery up his sleeve? Have we seen the last of Detweiler? This supernatural-of-sorts chiller that pits a mass murderer against his psychiatrist, works on a simple premise: who will bend first to the other's will by way of belief? It feels like a throwback to stylish international thrillers with its touches of Euro locations. With his genius for understatement, Goldblum is in sharp, fine form as Frost. As an actor, his quirky mannerisms; unusual speech patterns of quiet, halt & pause delivery; quizzical facial expressions of tics; intimidating & intense gaze; and active eyebrows are well-suited here. Frost is suave, sly, smug, taunting & tempting with his mental mind games but always calm in stating he isn't crazy, just evil incarnate. [Why else would the sfx have superimposed crucifixes in his eyeballs?] I can just hear Frost's own narrative: Sure, I shoveled 2 dozen cadavers into the ground. No big deal, it means I'm enigmatic and complex. Labeled sick and dangerous because of the slayings? How does that render me out of my mind? The Franco-Anglo cast otherwise do a fair job with the "Is he or isn't he?" angle, but as the storyline is quite straightforward, it does tend to be a little lethargic, moving in some places between lackluster and dry. As personal faith is something that both wavers & weakens, and stiffens & strenghtens, Frost and Sarah each reinforce the other's resolve. [Not bad with Kathy Baker's performance which at times is too emotionally stiff].

Of peculiar interest is how Frost unintentionally manages to pull an anti-hero stance for how as the Prince of Lies, he can still be the antagonist who is humanized and even viewed as misunderstood. And yes, this is on top of the subdued wickedness he administers. For Lucifer -- as we imagine him -- to allow himself to be locked up, let alone captured, can only mean some kind of twisted amusement; ultimately to damn people to the Lake of Fire, but Frost's rational conversations with Sarah span psychology/philosophy/thelogy/law/science. With his own murky indifference equal to his enthusiasm, he's fed up of the world's lack of belief in him, and delivers a great rant. So who better to coerce, and have prove everybody wrong than a shrink (or an arresting officer) who has watched a videotape of his torture killings? Is Frost brilliant or downright nuts? Is he a butthurt hypocrite who can't accept being dismissed by others while he does so freely to them? Yet it's in this intellect of engaging, enlightening discussions (that even if he is deemed psychotic), never degenerates into full-blown, raging ego primed for attack. Our curiosity can actually allow to sympathize with someone so heinous and serpentine. He is every bit of a vile monster, and complimentary counterpart to Hannibal Lector. In all, MISTER FROST was one of those ignored VHS titles for rental back in the day. Smart, dark, and far more creepy than scary, it was originally passed over as underwhelming, and it's 80's-electro score (while typical for its decade) is lame, but the movie's later reception has since garnered a tag of 'forgotten gem' and now has a cult following. If you're after a Satan flick of an epic fire & brimstone caliber, you'll be disappointed. If however you're preference for 'the infernal walk among us' runs more subtle and cerebral, you might find this a decent and solid sleeper.