Category Archives: Film

Saturday Matinee: Wizards

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By Ian Cullen

Source: Scifi Pulse

The animation in this film is a weird psychedelic hodgepodge of various styles. It seems both very cool and experimental at the same time.

Synopsis: In Wizards After the death of his mother. An evil mutant wizard Blackwolf discovers some long-lost military technologies. Blackwolf claims his mother’s throne, assembles an army, and sets out to brainwash and conquer Earth. Meanwhile, Blackwolf’s gentle twin brother, the bearded and sage Avatar calls upon his own magical abilities to foil Blackwolf’s plans for world domination — even if it means destroying his own flesh and blood.

The Story

Wizards begins with the destruction of the earth via a nuclear explosion. After several thousand years. The few survivors of humanity have become mutants and hide in the shadows. But from the ashes the fae folk of long-forgotten earth is reborn. They live in peace and tranquility for many thousands of years until their Queen gives birth to twin Wizards. Avatar a goodly and kind Wizard and his evil brother Blackwolf.

When their mother the Queen dies. The two brothers fight and Blackwolf is defeated by Avatar and journeys to form his new kingdom of Scorch. While in exile for 3000 years. Blackwolf sends his demonic forces out to search the earth for old technologies that he can use to defeat the forces of good and ultimately defeat his brother.

Meanwhile, in Montagar Avatar and his girlfriend, Elinore are blissfully unaware of Blackwolf’s plans until one of his soldiers Necron 99 attacks and kills their President.

Voice Acting

The acting throughout this films is really solid. Bob Holt is excellent as the kindly Wizard Avatar who justs wants to live a peaceful and hassle-free life. His interactions with Elinore (Jesse Welles) are a lot of fun and full of innuendo, which is something the film features a lot of. Richard Romanus puts the swashbuckler in Weehawk the soldier Elf who will fight to the death to defend his lands.

We also get Mark Hamill in perhaps his shortest animated role ever as Sean the ill-fated king of the Fairie folk. No sooner as he introduces himself. He gets wasted by one of Blackwolf’s soldiers.

Finally, special mention must go to Steve Gravers who puts in a great performance as the evil Wizard Blackwolf.

Animation

Directed and produced by Ralph Bakshi who is better known for his more adult-orientated animated films and series such as ‘Fritz The Cat’. ‘Wizards’ was supposed to be Bakshi’s first attempt at doing something for a family audience. Although we’d have to agree to differ on that front given that within the first five minutes we meet three fairy prostitutes. And Then we get Elinore sporting curves that would make most glamour models jealous.

The animation in this film is a weird psychedelic hodgepodge of various styles. It seems both very cool and experimental at the same time. I particularly loved the Rotoscoping effects that are used fairly heavily in the film. Especially when it came to the use of it with old world war 2 footage of tanks and planes. For its time, which was the late 70s. The animation in this movie was likely cutting edge. And I think it holds up pretty well considering.

Overall

Some of the themes and storylines within this film are probably more for the older kids than for younger viewers. How Bakshi managed to get a PG rating for this film will forever be a mystery. Especially given how little Elinore is wearing. Added to which the debate about Technology versus Nature and Magic while fun would probably go over the heads of younger viewers.

The film was made in a time where things like duck and cover were still fresh in the minds of most adults that saw the film at the time. If anything it was a film warning about the threat of nuclear war and it was very on the nose in that respect. I was about 12 when I first saw this movie as a video rental back in around 1982 and it stuck in my memory because this review is based on only my second viewing of the movie since back then.

That said though. The more mature version of me did spot a few contradictions in the film. The ones that stand out are to do with Avatar and his land of Montagar where technology is supposed to be outlawed. In the scene that establishes Avatar, we see him conjure up a jukebox. And later on as we get to the final battle. He uses a gun. Now back when I was 12 I wasn’t to bothered by this. But the grown-up me thinks Avatar is a hypocrite and a cheat for breaking his own rules.

Overall though. Despite those two issues I spotted. It is still quite an enjoyable film with some killer 70s funk and prog-rock guitar licks making up a killer soundtrack.

Watch Wizards at Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/y2mate.combernievstrumprzlyugsut7q360p

Saturday Matinee: The Visitor

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Witney Seibold Reviews ‘The Visitor’ (1979)

By Witney Seibold

Source: Critically Acclaimed

I first encountered Michael J. Paradise’s “The Visitor” at an after-hours, by-invite-only screening curated by my local video store. 

You see: The managers of said video store would, on a weekly basis, acquire whatever 35mm prints they could get a hold of for cheap and/or free. These prints consisted of obscure German comedies, weird sex films, lost genre oddities, sci-fi epics with missing reels, and, in one baffling bout of programming, “My Giant.” Then, in conjunction with a helpful projectionist at the movie theater next door (where I worked at the time), the store managers would invite over employees and friends of employees to view said films, eager to talk aloud in the theater and openly discuss the insanity on screen. These were magical nights of baffling cinematic exploration, and I’m glad to have been invited on several occasions.

It was in this milieu that I was introduced to Michael J. Paradise’s 1979 sci-fi epic “The Visitor,” perhaps one of the most baffling films ever produced. It was such a moving experience that I rushed to my (now long-neglected) criticism blog to review it. That was in 2007. The time has now come to re-visit “The Visitor” and see what new lessons can be learned. Luckily, the film is just as brain-melting as it always was.

Michael J. Paradise is the nom de cinéma of director Giulio Paradisi, an Italian character actor and assistant director who only made four features in his career (one of which was a crime comedy called “Spaghetti House”). “The Visitor” was his second feature, and, from the looks of it, the most ambitious. Tapping into many of the “2001”-inspired sci-fi trends of the time, Paradisi made a film that sought to tie together the cosmos with spirituality, Jesus with space aliens, and apocalyptic genre tropes with an all-star cast. 

“The Visitor” sets its sights on the entire universe, the nature of good and evil, and how humanity is the plaything of warring ancient space deities. The “big questions,” however, are mixed into a psychedelic bouillabaisse of confounding imagery, bad plotting, and weird-ass performances, at least one of which was done entirely under the influence of alcohol. “The Visitor” is insane.

The plot of the film centers on a young girl named Katy (Paige Connor) who is poised to be the next Christ or the next Antichrist, depending on which timeless deity can influence her fastest. On the light side is John Huston and Franco Nero, who oversee an ultra-futuristic space lounge populated by bald children. Nero dispenses Christ-like wisdom while Huston does the legwork; Huston sets up shop on modern-day Earth atop a Los Angeles skyscraper with a cadre of performing space cultists. Many of Huston’s scenes involve his direction of their performance art and his manipulating the stars with his very mind. He wants Katy to become a vessel for – who else? – Yahweh.

On the dark side, we have Lance Henricksen, owner of the Atlanta basketball team, who regularly attends creepy board meetings in a modern high-rise to discuss apocalyptic details with a shadowy cabal of high-powered executives. Henricksen is urged by this cabal (headed by Mel Ferrer) to magically influence young Katy into becoming a vessel for Zatteen, a.k.a. Satan. Katy, meanwhile, has already displayed a propensity for evil: Not only does she have telekinetic powers, but at her birthday party, Katy received a gun as a present (!) and shoots her aunt.

Shelley Winters also appears as a recently-hired nanny for Katy, but I was unsure if she was in the employ of the Huston cult or the Henricksen cult. At the film’s conclusion, she does give a tearful farewell to the Huston character, but that adds no rhyme nor reason. To add a much-needed human element to “The Visitor,” much of the film is seen through the eyes of Katy’s mother Barbara (Joanne Nail), who serves as our protagonist. She will eventually be felled by a gunshot and will spend much of “The Visitor” in a wheelchair.

The above synopsis only emerged in my mind after several viewings of “The Visitor.” While in the midst of actually viewing this Frankensteinian monstrosity, however, one may find themselves totally lost. “The Visitor” takes very long intermissions wherein portentous music pounds at the soundtrack but not much of ultimate consequence happens. The star-manipulating scene mentioned above is neat, I suppose, but it has no influence on the characters or the story as far as I can tell. There is another sequence wherein Katy is particularly at risk at an ice-skating rink, and the film’s poor sense of spatial continuity might have one believing that John Huston is scurrying down 3000 flights of stairs to stop it. At the end of that fateful descent, nothing notable happens.

The most mind-blowing celebrity cameo is provided by Sam Peckinpah who, in 1979, was in dire straits. In 1978, he directed “Convoy,” often seen as the least of his films, and it’s been posited that he accepted make “Convoy” only due to his addictions to booze and cocaine. He appears in one scene of “The Visitor” as Barbara’s ex-husband and Katy’s biological father. Peckinpah’s dialogue appears to have been dubbed, and, as we posited at that midnight screening so many years ago, it may have been because he was too drunk to remember his lines. He certainly seems tipsy and unhappy in his scenes.

In 2007, I was happy to let “The Visitor” melt my brain without much in the way of analysis. It was instantly classified by the midnight audience as a “Holy Fucking Shit” movie, and it still, to this day, enjoys a coveted spot on the “Holy Fucking Shit” shelf at CineFile Video. 

In 2018, having now seen more bonkers, psychedelic 1970s sci-fi epics, I have a better context for it. Thanks to “2001: A Space Odyssey,” audiences enjoyed nearly a decade of incredibly ambitious sci-fi movies that sought to unlock the deepest philosophical questions about eternity, humankind’s place in the cosmos, and how our consciousnesses may be a vital piece to a vast, astral puzzle. If one is swallowing tabs of acid while watching Carl Sagan interviews, one could easily conceive of something like “The Visitor.” 

I can’t say that the bulk of 1970s psychedelia was necessarily successful – they were big on histrionics but short on actual logic, character, historical theology, filmmaking acumen, or even basic entertainment value – but one can at least admire them for being willing to tip into the surreal to reach something higher. The movies often suck, but I can see why someone might have written something like, say, “God Told Me To” or “Zardoz.” I just couldn’t say how they did.

“The Visitor” will ever remain an oddity, but wow, what a rush! This is one of the crown jewels in baffling psychedelic 1970s freakout cinema and should be shared immediately. Drafhouse Films put out a handsome Blu-ray of it a few years back, and I encourage the purchase of it, sight unseen. I have my copy.  

Watch The Visitor on Kanopy here: https://www.kanopy.com/en/kcls/video/13448350

Saturday Matinee: Possession

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By Abby Brenker

Source: Lunatics Project

This article will certainly contain spoilers. You have been warned.

There is so much to say about Possession (1981). It was written and directed by Polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski. First of all, this film is difficult (but not impossible) to find. It’s worth the effort though. It’s currently showing at Metrograph theaters, and may be available on their streaming platform. I have not seen it on a big screen but I think that would be the ideal way to see it, if you aren’t susceptible to panic attacks.

Possession doesn’t fit cleanly into any specific genre. It’s equal parts drama, thriller and horror…maybe with a sprinkle of sci-fi. If you haven’t seen this movie, it starts out with a husband and wife who are dealing with infidelity and separation. But it devolves into something nightmarish, feverish and horrifying.

Right off the bat, we have to discuss Isabelle Adjani’s performance. It’s intense and exhausting and a performance that will stick with me for a while. Adjani has many memorable scenes, but one that comes to mind is when her character, Anna, enters a subway. Her continuous panting and heavy breathing (reminiscent of Midsommer), slowly erupt into screaming, laughter and blood and…so much more. The physical toll that this roll must have taken on Adjani is immense. There is no reprieve for the actors.

Everything about Possession is exaggerated, which makes some of the scenes hard to watch. But at its core, the allegory is quite clear. The monster which we are introduced to about halfway through the film represents the resentment and growing agony of divoce. Zulawski turns this common experience into grotesque body horror and upsetting desire. Though, I am sure you could watch this film over and over again and find new meanings and layers.

The film also stars Sam Neill in the role of the husband. Adjani plays her own doppelganger, as does Neill. The doppelganger element creates a circular, never ending pattern. A fairly unfavorable take on romantic relationships. Essentially, as one attraction wanes, another waxes. Side note: Zulawski did go through a divorce before he made Possession. Not very surprising.

It’s a film that’s meant to invoke a very specific emotional reaction from the audience. In a lot of ways it reminded me of how I felt watching Aronofsky’s Mother!. Both Mother! and Possession are films that I like and respect, but do not necessarily enjoy watching. But these films aren’t meant to be entertaining, they’re meant to take you on a very specific, guided emotional journey.

Beyond the plot and acting, the filmmaking is stunning. The cinematography is dizzying, in a good way. Often the camera moves freely around the actors, bringing additional elements to the drama that’s unfolding, One of the final scenes is filmed in dramatic vignette. Other shots are stark and clinical, until they are blood soaked. The filmmakers use sound here in a unique way. The actors breathing or moans or over the top noises add another layer to the soundtrack and rhythm of Possession.

In one of the final moments of the film, the husband and wife’s bloody pre-death kiss, was one of the hardest to watch for me. Not to mention the way Anna bends her arms backwards to try to end them both. A tragically horrifying yet somehow fitting end.

From a filmmaking perspective, Possession (1981) should be on everyone’s must-watch list. But it will soon also be on your what-the-fuck-did-I-just-watch list. Possession is like being in a bad dream. From the start, the way the actors move is slightly off. They always seem to be wearing the same outfits day to day, or very similar colors. The way the plot unfolds is familiar but surprising. It lures us in under the false-pretense of a drama and whacks us over the head with body horror and tentacle fueled sex scenes. Only to leave us with a cynical feeling about love and modern relationships.

Possession was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1981. Though it didn’t win, Isabelle Adjani won best actress that year at Cannes for her role. Andrzej Zulawski has said that he makes films about “what is torturing” him. I think Possession is an excellent example of a highly successful exploration of one’s person torture. So be warned, what you’re feeling at the time you watch this film will undoubtedly impact how you perceive it.

Possession begs us to ask the question, who really is the bad guy?

Watch Possession on Kanopy here: https://www.kanopy.com/en/kcls/video/14014934

Saturday Matinee: From Hell

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“From Hell” – Plakatmotiv

By Roger Ebert

Source: RogerEbert.com

One day men will say I gave birth to the 20th century. — Dialogue by Jack the Ripper I’ d like to think Darwin has a better case, but I see what he means. The century was indeed a stage for the dark impulses of the soul, and recently I’ve begun to wonder if Jack didn’t give birth to the 21st century, too. Twins. During 10 weeks in autumn 1888, a serial killer murdered five prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London. The murders were linked because the Ripper left a trademark, surgically assaulting the corpses in a particularly gruesome way. “I look for someone with a thorough knowledge of human anatomy,” says Inspector Abberline of Scotland Yard. An elementary knowledge would have been sufficient.

The story of Jack the Ripper has been fodder for countless movies and books, and even periodic reports that the mystery has been “solved” have failed to end our curiosity. Now comes “From Hell,” a rich, atmospheric film by the Hughes Brothers (“Menace II Society“), who call it a “ghetto film,” although knowledge of film, not the ghetto, is what qualifies them.

Johnny Depp stars as Inspector Frederick Abberline, an opium addict whose smoke-fueled dreams produce psychic insights into crime. The echo of Sherlock Holmes, another devotee of the pipe, is unmistakable, and “From Hell” supplies its hero with a Watsonoid sidekick in Peter Godley (Robbie Coltrane), a policeman assigned to haul Abberline out of the dens, gently remind him of his duty, protect him from harm, and marvel at his insights. Depp plays his role as very, very subtle comedy–so droll he hopes we think he’s serious.

The movie feels dark, clammy and exhilarating–it’s like belonging to a secret club where you can have a lot of fun but might get into trouble. There’s one extraordinary shot that begins with the London skyline, pans down past towers and steam trains, and plunges into a subterranean crypt where a Masonic lodge is sitting in judgment on one of its members. You get the notion of the robust physical progress of Victoria’s metropolis, and the secret workings of the Establishment. At a time when public morality was strict and unbending, private misbehavior was a boom industry. Many, perhaps most, rich and pious men engaged in private debauchery.

The Hughes Brothers plunge into this world, so far from their native Detroit, with the joy of tourists who have been reading up for years. Their source is a 500-page graphic novel (i.e., transcendent comic book) by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, and some of their compositions look influenced by comic art, with its sharp obliques and exaggerated perspectives. The movie was shot on location with the medieval streets of Prague doubling for London, and production designer Martin Childs goes for lurid settings, saturated colors, deep shadows, a city of secret places protected by power and corruption.

We meet some of the prostitutes, particularly Mary Kelly (Heather Graham), who is trying to help her sisters escape from the dominance of the pimps. We see Abberline and Kelly begin a romance that probably would have been a lot more direct and uncomplicated at that time than it is in this movie. We see members of Victoria’s immediate family implicated in whoring and venereal mishaps, and we meet the Queen’s Surgeon, a precise and, by his own admission, brilliant man named Sir William Gull (Ian Holm). The investigation is interrupted from time to time by more murders, graphically indicated, and by forms of official murder, like lobotomy. Sir William is an especially enthusiastic advocate of that procedure, reinforcing my notion that every surgeon of any intelligence who practiced lobotomy did so with certain doubts about its wisdom, and certain stirrings of curious satisfaction.

Watching the film, I was surprised how consistently it surprised me. It’s a movie “catering to no clear demographic,” Variety reports in its review, as if catering to a demographic would be a good thing for a movie to do. Despite its gothic look, “From Hell” is not in the Hammer horror genre. Despite its Sherlockian hero, it’s not a Holmes and Watson story. Despite its murders, it’s not a slasher film. What it is, I think, is a Guignol about a cross-section of a thoroughly rotten society, corrupted from the top down. The Ripper murders cut through layers of social class designed to insulate the sinners from the results of their sins.

Saturday Matinee: Brainstorm

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By Moe

Source: Cup of Moe

The 1983 sci-fi thriller “Brainstorm” stars Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood. This forward-thinking science fiction romp presents virtual reality (VR) in its early stages and evolution. Although the Douglas Trumbull-directed film isn’t perfect, it’s a neat look at VR with superb acting, a magnificent score, and excellent effects.

A scientific group led by Michael Brace (Walken) and his estranged wife Karen (Natalie Wood), along with Michael’s colleague Lillian (Louise Fletcher) invents the computer and brain interfacing device. Their creation not only allows for virtual reality experiences but allows feelings and sensations to be recorded on tape. In this way, others may experience those as well.

After their initial success, CEO Alex Terson (Cliff Robertson) instructs Brace et al to offer a demo of their device with the intent to secure financial backing. It’s during this exhibition that the group realizes the true power of their device: its ability to record human emotions. Michael uses the device to record memories with emotions, and thereby influence the real world. But whereas Michael employs this as the utility to reconnect with his estranged wife, previous colleague Landan Marks (Donald Hotton) aspires to use it for military applications.

When Lillian suffers a heart attack, she puts on the headset and records her death. Michael later discovers her recorded memories. Eventually, Michael realizes the insidious intent to use his creation for warfare when he uncovers “Project Brainstorm.” As such, Michael and Karen team up to thwart efforts to use their technology to perpetuate the military industrial complex.

“Brainstorm” offers an intriguing and groundbreaking look at VR. There’s an exploration of not only virtual reality experiences but the effects on the user. This manifests in the ability to record emotions as well as memories. I like the way “Brainstorm” touches on humanity’s influence of tech, and the means through which tech shapes humanity. Moreover, “Brainstorm” presents an accurate portrayal of tech advancement. Early in the film, Terson instructs his team to make a smaller version of their helmet. Similarly, a trend in real-world technology is constant innovation in creating smaller devices.

I quite enjoy the helmet design and the effects are top-notch. The 1983 movie has aged pretty well with its fish-eye lens shots and well-crafted animation sequences.Trumbull worked on effects for films such as “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Silent Running,” and “Blade Runner.” It’s evident that Trumbull understood the genre and he infuses mesmerizing special effects, particularly at the end.

Cinematography is fantastic. The film is set in North Carolina and uses several NC scenes as prominent backdrops. Notably, the Wright Brothers National Memorial plays an important role. Plus, there’s a neat shot of Duke Chapel. Locations even appear futuristic. The Burroughs Wellcome building offers its then high-tech looks as the main office for Michael, Karen, and Lillian. A gorgeous Chapel Hill, NC home with its parallelogram angles and solar panels was used as well.

Acting is phenomenal. Walken lends an inspired performance, and Natalie Wood is captivating in her final cinematic appearance. But it’s Louise Fletcher as Lillian who completely steals the show with a tour de force acting job.

It would be remiss to discuss “Brainstorm” without touching on its superb score. Renowned composer James Horner provides the musical backing which is replete with the timpani Horner became best known for. Horner’s “Brainstorm” soundtrack features elements from his “Wolfen” score. Later, in the 1986 sci-fi hit “Aliens,” Horner continued this trend. But it’s a formula that works.

Unfortunately, “Brainstorm” doesn’t quite end as well as it starts. The finale is admittedly a muddled moment which will leave you wondering “what?” as the credits roll. Michael plays back Lillian’s tape and watches the afterlife playing out, even glimpsing hell for a moment. Departed souls in the form of bioluminescent butterflies flow peacefully into heaven. Though the effects hold up fine, this sequence falls flat in lacking the poetry of similar scenes like the end of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Still, it’s tough to hold the abrupt and admittedly cheesy, ending against the movie. Wood’s tragic and mysterious death led production to halt. Eventually, Trumbull rewrote the script and used Wood’s younger sister as a stand-in for her remaining shots.

I especially enjoy how “Brainstorm” probes the relationship between tech and humanity, presenting complex concepts like computer-brain transference. “Brainstorm” may not carry the legacy of sci-fi flicks like “Blade Runner,” “Alien,” and “The Matrix.” However, its stellar cinematography, acting, score, and effects plus forward-thinking portrayal of tech make this 1983 movie a smart, lasting thriller.

Saturday Matinee: Three Days of the Condor

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Three Days of the Condor

A thriller for thinkers probing covert activities within the CIA.

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Source: Spirituality & Practice

Joseph Turner — code name Condor — works at the American Literary Historical Society in New York City. The organization is actually a branch office of the CIA. He and his youthful coworkers read, analyze, and computerize various spy stories, mysteries, and periodicals for the CIA’s mammoth intelligence gathering operations.

One rainy day while Turner is out to lunch, the rest of the staff is brutally murdered. Scared out of his wits, he contacts the CIA and is told to go into hiding. When he does arrange a meeting with the CIA, he is fired upon and his best friend, along to help identify the contact, is shot by another agent. Terror grips Turner. He abducts Kathy Hale, a photographer, and in her apartment in Brooklyn tries to unravel the mysteries surrounding the executions.

Three Days at the Condor works on two levels: as an examination of the covert activities within the CIA and as a somewhat curious look at the development of a relationship through shared stress. Robert Redford is just right as the paranoid Turner, a bright young man unexplainably put in a harrowing situation. Did the slaughter of the American Literary Historical Society staff stem from his inquiry to CIA headquarters about a mystery novel only translated into Dutch and Arabic? Perhaps someone in higher places was doing unauthorized intelligence work and Turner stumbled onto his scheme. Can Turner now determine who’s out to silence him? Director Sydney Pollack, (The Way We Were, Yakuza) orchestrates the zigzag storyline into a labyrinth of effective scenes, revealing Turner’s fright and his own special brand of grace under pressure.

Faye Dunaway gives a well modulated performance as the woman who is kidnapped by Turner at gunpoint and forced to serve as his host. Her initial fright turns to anger as he brutalizes her. But then, through the bizarre intermix of their wants and needs, the two develop an uneasy relationship. Sex is one part of the bond drawing them together; intelligence the other. She helps him solve the mystery and come to terms with his conscience. He helps her to a new understanding of her loneliness. Faye Dunaway, moving from her standout role in Chinatown to this notable performance, proves that she is one of our better actresses.

Also featured in this gripping suspense story are Cliff Robertson and John Houseman as two Central Intelligence Agency officials and Max Von Sydow as a hit man used by the CIA on various contacts. In the wake of Watergate and the recent probes on the CIA, Three Days of the Condor has a resonance with the general mood of public uneasiness about secrecy in high places. We can empathize with these characters and their paranoia. Although it doesn’t really make any sophisticated political commentary on the activities of the CIA, this movie does work as a thriller for thinkers.

Watch Three Days at the Condor here: https://m.ok.ru/video/9819443366575

Saturday Matinee: Dark Star: H. R. Giger’s World

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Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World, In Which The Alien Artist Is Examined

By Supreme Being

Source: Stand By for Mind Control

H.R. Giger, who most famously created the monster design for Alien (and less famously, prior to that, artwork for Jodorowsky’s never-made Dune adaptation), is a pleasant old man at the end of his life in the new documentary, Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World, much of which follows Giger, his wife, and friends puttering around his cluttered home of many years.

Dark Star is a nicely puttering little movie, refreshingly unlike so many modern docs, those that consist largely of talking heads speedily edited together with rapid-fire clips, so as not to bore audiences. Defensive movie-making, this is called. It’s assumed documentaries bore people, so they’re now edited as jauntily as possible, to keep things moving. Dark Star has very few people sitting down for proper interviews. There are a few, scattered throughout, but they’re not there to relate Giger’s history. Instead they talk about him as a man and as an artist, or talk about his art, or about how he and his artwork affected their lives.

No chronological story is told here. A certain amount of old footage is included of Giger as a younger man, but there’s no narration over it. It’s more that Dark Star, a Swiss production directed by Belinda Sallin, gives an impression of Giger’s life and work, and does so in a gently paced, meandering way. Which style I liked quite a bit. By its nature it was slow to grow on me, but the more I watched, the more the picture was filled in, and the more I became absorbed in it.

At one point I began wishing they’d just show more of his artwork up close, instead of showing shaky shots of it hanging on the walls of his house—and almost as if reading my mind, the movie went into a section showing off his artwork. Well played, Dark Star, well played.

Giger’s art is generally described as being “biomechanoid,” or some other made up word like that. One thing’s for sure: it’s unique. Nobody paints like Giger. Once you’ve seen anything he’s done, and you have, because you love Alien and like me have watched it 500 times, his work, any of it, is instantly recognizeable. It’s all women and bones and machines and warped little children, birth and sex and death, all in the same painting, all happening at the same time.

Well. I’m not going to try to describe his art. Look for yourself. Whatever, exactly, it is, it sticks its fingers deep inside the human psyche and wriggles them around.

A small part of the movie focuses on Alien, with some nice footage of Giger constructing the space-jockey set, and an old interview where he explains that his original alien egg opening—a slit—looked too much like a vagina. “This movie is going to play in Catholic countries,” he was told, so he had to make it less sexual. His solution? Two crossing slits, i.e., two vaginas in the shape of a cross. Take that, Catholics!

There’s no mention of Giger’s earlier, unused work for Jodorowsky’s unrealized Dune project, but again, this isn’t a comprehensive look at Giger. It’s a meandering one. Eventually it meanders to a little Swiss town where Giger grew up. His mother, it turns out, was a huge supporter of his art, though initially Giger worried—as one might expect—about what reaction his parents would have to the things he painted.

Giger spent most the money his art brought in on still other creations. Like the kid-sized, haunted house-like train set in his backyard, which we get to ride around on. Also toward the end of his life, he participated in the creation of a Giger museum in Switzerland to house a large portion of his work, much of which he’d slowly bought back from collectors over the years. For the museum’s opening, Giger signs books and posters and body parts. One of his male fans pulls off his shirt and turns around to reveal his entire back tattooed with one of Giger’s images. “Very nice work,” mutters Giger. One tough-looking, tattooed young man has his art signed, shakes Giger’s hand, and walks away crying. Giger’s work had a profound effect on many people.

Giger died in 2014, shortly after the completion of Dark Star. He does look a bit like he’s near his end while being interviewed. He doesn’t have a lot to say. What comes across clearly is a man who’s satisfied with his work, who got to do exactly what he wanted, who didn’t feel he’d failed to accomplish anything he set out to accomplish.

Watch Dark Star: H. R. Giger’s World on tubi here: https://tubitv.com/movies/704843/dark-star-h-r-giger-s-world

Saturday Matinee: The Wicker Man

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Copyright HAG ©2008

By Berthold Gambrel

Source: RuinedChapel.com

Picture this: a movie that takes place mainly during the day, on a picturesque Scottish island. There is very little action in the movie; it’s mainly a police procedural, with a stony-faced, prim and proper policeman questioning the local population. The film contains almost no violence, except for a very brief scene towards the end. Indeed, what earns it its “R” rating is nudity; a few scenes of naked women dancing. Other than that, it could air on broadcast television with no cuts. 

Moreover, did I mention this film has a number of songs? It’s not exactly a musical, but there is fast-paced nursery rhyme-like patter, a few ribald drinking songs, and a ballad performed by one of the aforesaid nude dancers. 

There’s almost no blood, no sinister torture chambers, no howling dogs on desolate foggy moors; instead there is only a quaint little village in a quiet part of the world. I ask you, with such a setup, can a film really be scary?

Comes the answer: this is possibly the scariest movie I have ever seen.

It follows Sgt. Neil Howie, a devout Christian police detective, who is dispatched by seaplane to the remote Summerisle to look for a missing girl. The townspeople are not unfriendly, but not exactly helpful either, referring Howie to Lord Summerisle, the nobleman whose family has administered the island’s affairs for generations.

During Howie’s investigation, he sees odd things. Strange rituals out of centuries past, like maypoles and disturbingly explicit fertility rites, quite at odds with his conservative Christian beliefs. When at last he meets Lord Summerisle, he confronts him about the unsettling things he has witnessed, and Summerisle acknowledges that, as part of a program to revive the island’s agricultural output, his grandfather gave the people back their ancient, pre-Christian folkways, to entice them to believe in the Old Gods of the Harvest.

Howie is appalled and horrified, and in view of everyone’s refusal to aid him in finding the missing girl, begins to suspect that she has been sacrificed to their Old Gods in some sort of bizarre druidical ceremony. 

I really liked Howie, who is played perfectly by Edward Woodward. His refusal to compromise his beliefs, and unwavering resolve to find the missing child no matter what stands in his way, make him easy to root for. And also perhaps easy to… but no, that would be saying too much. This is not exactly an unknown film, but it would be wrong to spoil it.

The late, great Sir Christopher Lee is also fantastic as Summerisle. Offhand, I’d say it’s his best role. In fact, he said it was his best role. Of course, playing a charming but sinister aristocrat was pretty much Lee’s standard, but the devil is in the details, and it’s how he plays it that makes this interesting. He seems relaxed, almost easygoing, compared to the straight-laced Howie. But, let’s just say he has another side to him…

Okay, but what makes this movie so scary? I did say it might be the scariest film I’ve ever seen, after all. I can’t spoil it, but if I’m going to make such a bold claim, I have to try and justify it somehow.

Those of you who made it all the way through the sprawling post I wrote about the Metal Gear Solid 2 book a while back may remember that I made reference to a non-fiction book called The Meme Machine, by Susan Blackmore. Blackmore is a student of Richard Dawkins, the well-known evolutionary biologist. Dawkins coined the word “meme” as an analog for “gene” in the realm of culture. A “meme” is a unit of information; a word, a phrase, a song, a mannerism, a belief, that is transmitted through human culture, by a process not unlike evolution.

Dawkins derived his neologism “meme” from the Greek word mīmēma, which means “imitation.”  And just as Dawkins described genes as “selfish,” memes likewise seek only to replicate themselves, so much so that we can analogize memes as if they were beings with conscious desires.

It’s all quite interesting, and Blackmore takes Dawkins’ idea and runs with it, arguing that the human brain evolved as a kind of super-powerful meme replicator, and our capacity for imitation of memes allowed us to evolve into the dominant life-form on the planet.

As she explains: 

Memes spread themselves around indiscriminately without regard to whether they are useful, neutral or positively harmful to us… they are selfish like genes, and will simply spread if they can.

Elsewhere, Blackmore proposes the following thought experiment:

Imagine a world full of hosts for memes (e.g. brains) and far more memes than can possibly find homes.

Of course, as Blackmore takes pains to point out, it’s not as if these memes are literally flying around the world, taking over human brains and using them to replicate themselves. It’s just that, ah, they might as well be. It’s not literally true, but it’s a good model for approximating the behavior we see in the world. (Anyone who has studied Economics will be familiar with this sort of thing.) 

However… there is something curious about all this. Because there is another Greek word Dawkins might have used instead, that describes much the same phenomenon. The Ancient Greeks tended to model human thought as the work of external entities—e.g. inspiration being given from Apollo, lust from Eros, and so on. 

The Ancient Greek word I’m thinking of is daimōn, from which we get the modern word “demon.” “Meme” and “demon” even sound somehow similar, with the same phoneme as the central component.  Now consider Blackmore’s hypothetical rewritten:

Imagine a world full of hosts for demons (e.g. brains) and far more demons than can possibly find homes.

In an instant, we have transformed the work of modern scientists (one of whom is famously an atheist) into something that sounds like what the wrinkled old woman living in a strange cabin in the woods tells the horror movie protagonist.

And this is what I find curious: the superstitious ancients described the world as inhabited by invisible spirits that took hold of people’s minds. The modern memeticists describe the world as inhabited by invisible memes that take hold of people’s minds.

If I tell you that I got an idea for a story when “out of the blue, it just popped in my head,” you would nod understandingly. If I said I got the idea when “the God of Fiction whispered it in my ear,” you’d think I was a bit of an oddball, at best. Yet, for practical purposes, the two are the same.

So if you say someone is possessed by a demon, it seems strange, but being possessed by an idea is totally normal. 

Coming back around to The Wicker Man, this is what makes the film so scary. At the end, we see people who are possessed by something. We could argue all day about whether it is some true supernatural force or merely certain memes which they have learned to imitate; memes handed down from an ancient tradition dating back millennia. The film, like all great horror, leaves much to the audience’s imagination.

Practically speaking, it doesn’t much matter, does it? The fact is, there is something—call it a demon, a meme, an idea, a fashion, a spirit, whatever name suits you—that can take hold of human minds and compel them to do things that seem unthinkable to those immune to the phenomenon. 

And that’s the ultimate horror of The Wicker Man.  Here, in this bucolic setting, we gradually uncover the darkest impulses that lie in the hearts of human communities; primitive urges predating everything we call civilization. A base need for rituals that give meaning and provide a sense of power, of grandeur, even, to those craving it.

Unnerving, unsettling, disturbing and uniquely memorable, The Wicker Man is one of the greatest horror films ever made.

Watch The Wicker Man on tubi here: https://tubitv.com/movies/100010483/the-wicker-man