Archive: Author: Keri O'Shea

Comic Review: The Hand That Feeds! Parasyte

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Review by Comix

Japan has no luck. If it’s not a natural disaster destroying half the coast, then it’s Godzilla or some other godforsaken monstrosity tearing apart whatever’s left. After so many crises and near brushes with death, you’d think the Land of the Rising Sun would be prepared for the possibility of anything, but sometimes, even the most carefully laid plans can’t foresee the danger right under its nose. Enter Parasyte, a comic of epic proportions which starts with something incredibly small: spores. One of the earlier adult horror comics to have made the transition over to English, Parasyte is still fondly remembered and read as one of the pinnacles of alternative manga. At a time when Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z were forming the minds of young kids, Parasyte – along with Viz’s adult collection Pulp and early Dark Horse manga – was shaping the imaginations of the older readers who were looking for more mature titles following the immense popularity of Ghost in the Shell, Akira, and Vampire Hunter D. Parasyte offered up exactly what they were looking for, along with blood, boobs, aliens, and a possessed left hand that craves human flesh. In short, good times.

There are two versions which got released in English, one with Americanized names and one with the original Japanese (I’ll get into that later), but for the sake of the review, I’m going to stick with the Japanese originals. The comic begins with our hero, Shinichi Izumi, who lives with his parents in the suburbs of Tokyo. Shinichi is pretty much your average teenager; he likes music, girls, and being awkward. One night, as he’s chilling in his room, strange, alien spores flutter down from the sky and settle over Japan. As they land, worm-like creatures crawl from the shells and begin to body-snatch anything they can get their ‘hands’ on. One, though, has the unfortunate luck to try to take over Shinichi and while attempting to crawl in through the kid’s ear, is suddenly stopped by a pair of headphones and mistakenly enters his arm. Here begins a journey of strange relationships and bloody adventures, as the now dubbed arm-parasite Migi, is forced to share a body with Shinichi, who is less than excited to have his arm possessed. As they learn to get along, other body-snatched humans/parasites begin coming out of the woodwork, curious and disgusted by Migi’s failed attempt to take over Shinichi’s body and keen on eating and taking over the entire human race. In classic heroic tale style, the pair’s destiny becomes clear as they realize they are the only thing standing between Earth and a total alien invasion.

Parasyte is a classic tale of aliens and savior-of-the-universe type story, but what really stands out are the parasites themselves. They are incredibly gnarly. The way the parasites work is that not only do they take over people, but they snatch up anything that moves and, for food, they eat the same type of creature that they had become. Essentially, they became cannibals. As they take over the brain, they kill the host and adapt to their surroundings, only to come out when they have to eat or fight other parasites for resources and man, oh man, do they fight dirty. The parasite can manipulate the host body into various shapes, a la The Thing, and attack with various shape shifts (such as splitting their heads open or making blades with their arms), reinforcing human strength, and dodging bullets and knife attacks with quickened speed. They lack emotion and would run over a squadron of grandmas if it meant having a nice old lady goulash for dinner. This comic perfectly plays on our fear of other people, especially if you’re paranoid; but on a side note, it does have its share of lighter moments. Despite everything, Shinichi is still a teenager with plenty of girls coming and going. So, if I really had to to summarize Parasyte, it would be as a horror high school story aimed at adults.

Now, when I say it was one of the first horror comics to be translated into English, that doesn’t mean it was one the first horror comics in general. Japan has an incredible history of horror comics, some even reaching cult status among horror circles, but Parasyte (first released by Mixx/Tokyo Pop) was one of the initial comics to transition into English. Also, since it was one of the earlier mangas to hit the translated comic market, it was first adapted in a flipped format (left-to-right instead of Japan’s right-to-left) and the names were changed to sound more American, so as to appeal to audiences abroad. Shinichi became just Shin, a character named Reiko Tamura became Tamara Rockford, and Migi (whose name means ‘right’ in Japanese) became Lefty because as they flipped the comic for the English-speaking audience, Migi wasn’t a right hand any more. There was also a second version released by Del Rey that printed a translated version as well, but this time keeping the Japanese format and all the names went back to their originals. Really, it comes down to preference, but it’s an interesting observation at the lengths foreign countries used to go to just to appeal to other domestic industries.

Parasyte is written and illustrated by sci-fi/horror mangaka (manga artist) Hitoshi Iwaaki, who, along with his characters during the Mixx/Tokyo Pop run, also got his name romanticized, but only to Hitosi Iwaaki. Though he has written tons of other comics, only Parasyte has managed to hop over the pond. His art style, while not exactly distinctive, does break away from the standard big-eyed cartoons and goes for a more subdued style, focusing more on story than large and flashy splash panels (which actually made the monsters more intense.) This was especially noticeable when Parasyte was getting big in the nineties; a time when long legs and short skirts were all it took to get famous. Parasyte was first published in Japan’s manga magazine Morning, but moved over to Afternoon after a few issues, where it remained for its entire run from 1990 to 1995. When it was finally collected into books, Japan released a total of ten volumes, whic,h oddly enough, became twelve volumes through Mixx/Tokyo Pop, then eight volumes through Del Rey after Mixx/Tokyo Pop edition went out of print. Why the volumes were different is beyond me, but there you go.

As I mentioned, there are a couple of different versions for you to pick up. As always, there is the Japanese version, but unless you know Japanese, there’s really no point. While the Mixx/Tokyo Pop edition is easier to read with the flipped format and less Japanese-y names, it’s also more censored; it tends to Americanize cultural references and cuts out like, tons, of boobs (yet keeps all the violence). Also, the Mixx/Tokyo Pop editions are out of print, so while some books can still be bought for a dollar, others are going to be harder than hell to get. I suggest getting the Del Rey version. Along with the proper art and names, the volumes are thicker, so you don’t have to buy so many books, and they are way easier to find. It’s a great read for fans of body horror who have been looking for a fix after a John Carpenter marathon.

Interview: Cinema Sewer Maestro and Artist Robin Bougie

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

Interview by Keri O’Shea

Artist Robin Bougie has been wreaking his awesome graphic havoc on the world for many years now. His magazine, Cinema Sewer, combines a healthy love of good ol’ fashioned smut with film reviews, articles and retrospectives, all topped off with that inimitable cartoon artwork. As we wait on the release of the new Cinema Sewer compilation, Robin was good enough to take some time out to speak to Brutal As Hell, and definitely went the extra mile with his responses. By the way, it should go without saying that a lot of what follows is not safe for work, unless you work somewhere pretty enlightened…

Brutal as Hell: You’ve been working on Cinema Sewer since the mid-nineties, and – since 2007 – FAB Press has been releasing compilations of the magazine, with Volume 4 due to come out next month. Can you tell us how these compilations came to be, and are you pleased with the response so far?

Robin Bougie: Well, I started out as a comic artist. A self published teenage comic artist who lived on the prairies and xeroxed his silly comics about stuffed animals and farting, and sent them to other lonely disenfranchised kids in other towns. This is pre-internet world, 1991 to be exact. So I did nearly 100 of these little 16 to 24 page comics, and eventually got into movies, and reviewing movies, and using comics to review movies. That was when I started doing Cinema Sewer in 1997. After nearly 10 years of getting pretty good at that (the early issues were terrible) I built up a readership and felt confident enough to start offset printing it with full color glossy covers, and looking to land a publisher for book collection of the best of the magazine. My first choice was FAB Press in the UK, who specialize in genre film books, and are rather legendary for being one of the best at that little niche.

After some convincing and some pleading, and some proving that my work has a built-in audience that I had been carefully fostering for years — a publishing deal came about, and here we are. Cinema Sewer book one has gone into multiple printings (three, at last I checked), and the other volumes have gone to a second printing as well. So yeah, I’m very pleased with the response. I’m not getting rich or anything, but people are paying to read my writing and to look at my comics and art, so I’m very tickled. I feel pretty blessed – but I’ve also paid my dues, you know? I’ve done my time in the gutters. I used to write for Screw magazine in New York, I’ve done time in the salt mines of porn industry journalism, reviewed boring porn dvds for jerk-off mags like Fox and Lollipops… I’ve done my time. I had to quit that freelance porn journalism stuff mostly because it was so hard to get paid. Unless you live in the same cities as these guys, they just pay whenever they feel like it, and they know you can’t do anything about it. What am I gonna do? Jump on a plane and fly down to Los Angeles to collect the $130 they owe me for reviewing “Young, Dumb, and Full of Cum” volumes 3 through 8? I had to get out of that and concentrate on my own little sleaze empire of Bougitude.

BAH: With your interests being what they are, this is reflected in the type of art you create, and a lot of your stuff is pretty graphic – but it seems to me that for you there’s a sense of fun, almost an adolescent sort of glee about drawing what you draw. Is this an accurate impression?

RB: Absolutely! The more graphic the better. We’re all consenting adults, so why the heck not? I’m a big believer that people only think something is “wrong” if you ACT like it is wrong. I’m a pornographer, and I honestly think that is something to be proud of — and so I use the title of pornographer or smut-monger with a sense of pride and enthusiasm. It’s something I’m proud of, and know is totally fun. I feel like a carnival barker sometimes in my writing, you know? Like “Step right up! See the 94 year old woman who gladly made a hardcore sex movie! Who says you can’t make up for lost time?! Does pussy that old still get juicy? It’s like nothing you’ve seen before! You sir! Hey there, ma’am! What’s that? You’ve never seen Brazilian lesbian face-farting videos? Well, let me tell you all about them in this illustrated essay, my good gents and ladies! We’ll delve deep into sight, sound, and smell! It’s a whole other world of delightful perversion and funky debauchery, so step right up!”

BAH: From your point of view as an artist and as a fan of a lot of adult mediums – do you think we are a more permissive society compared to say, thirty or forty years ago?

RB: In some ways, yes. In some ways, not really. There are so many aspects to society, so many levels, and different groups and sub-groups. But let’s focus on the positive. Like for instance, women – a whole new generation of young women under the age of 30 are quite open-minded about all of this for the most part, and that is kind of a new thing. About gender, about sexuality, and about sexual content. They’ve had access to adult material and can finally make up their own minds about what they like, what turns them on, off, and what they think is offensive.

Ever since porn was legalized, if you were a women you had to walk into a porn shop to be exposed to this kind of material – and that wasn’t really open to you thanks to the cultural taboo of such an act, and also the fact that there wasn’t really anything in there made for, or marketed to you — even if you were made welcome, which they were not. Now they can investigate and discover this stuff just as easily as men, and on their own terms. And if what they want to see isn’t there, instead of picketing and getting all pissed off about it like the previous generation did, they get creative and make it themselves – how fucking fantastic is that?

So many of my female friends are totally open about their interest in porn, and masturbating to it, and why shouldn’t they be? “Stud” was always a compliment, and “slut” was always a put-down for the older generation, but the 20-somethings are saying “Fuck that sexist shit!” to that now, and that really makes me happy. Homophobia is slowly dying off, and transphobia is gonna be next to go. I’ve got a lot of hope looking forward. Honestly, I really love this new era of feminism. It’s not the same old sex-negative Dworkinites that gave the word such a negative aura, and it’s sad that some people haven’t figured that out yet. It’s not even so much about being permissive per se, it’s just about being open-minded and a lot less judgemental about what other people are into. Just because it isn’t for you, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist, and I see a more people warming up to that way of thinking. Both men and women.

BAH: Not everyone loves what you do, and I gather you’ve got some rather irate mail down through the years. Tell us about some of the best (worst?) hate mail you’ve ever received…

RB: Oh, the usual stuff. People telling me I’m wrong, or that I don’t have the right to draw what I draw. But they mostly question me. They do the interview thing when they confront me. “Don’t you wonder what kind of damage you’re doing, putting this kind of thing out into the world? This kind of negative imagery? What is it that you like about exploitation? Why do you want to exploit? Why do you hate women? Could you find a more positive use for your talents?”. It’s all very condescending, and it almost always comes from the far left. The Christian right have never bothered me. It’s the people obsessed with political correctness and making the world G-rated, for the most part.

But mostly I barely hear from the haters, to tell you the truth. I skate by because, like I said before, I know I’m not doing anything wrong, here, and I don’t act like I’m doing anything wrong – and when you try to soften the blow and look to legitimize yourself by saying things like “I don’t do porn, I do erotica”, you are indirectly acting like you’re doing something wrong. It’s like how a nude model will tell you she’s not like those dirty disreputable porn girls. She’s legit! And a dominatrix will tell you how she’s not like those lowly prostitutes! Ohhh, she’s so much better than those whores. Why are we stepping on our fellow perverts to curry favour with a vanilla mainstream that thinks we’re lowlife shitbags regardless? Every one of us is a sex-based organism. Own it! Erotica is interchangeable with pornography, anyway. It’s all semantics and perception. One person’s erotica is another person’s porn. And porn, and horror movies, and drive-in movies – they’re just like any other genres. It’s just entertainment.

BAH: You’re a collector: comics, magazines, movies, and more. Is there any one piece in your collection that you treasure above everything else, or is there one item that you covet like hell?

RB: Hmmm. I don’t really know. I have a vintage pair of Vanessa Del Rio’s shoes – signed to me. I really like those. They’re super slutty looking, and totally cool. She’s one of the greatest adult entertainment performers of the 1970s and 80s, so I wouldn’t ever want to get rid of ’em. She’s such a warm, funny, wonderful lady, and worthy of every single ribbon of salty jizz she’s coaxed from her multitude of her happily masturbating minions over the decades. You could probably fill 20 swimming pools with it by now, if it had all been collected. Ewww… what a thought. Festering forty year old goo-pools. Barf.

BAH: Erm, eww indeed! Cinema Sewer is choc-full of obscure movies, many of which have never been released to DVD and probably didn’t get that much of a run on VHS! What 5 ‘lost’ films would you like to see get a DVD release, and why?

RB: These five films are amongst my very favourite of all time, and they have barely been seen – and it’s a goddamn shame! They need to finally be given a proper home format release (special editions with extra features would be nice!) so the people can know what they have been missing. Until then, here are some words about them, and links to the movies on Youtube. Now your week is set on “stun”. You’re welcome.

The Devil At your Heels (1981. Canada)

This is just astounding, and one of my fave documentaries of all time — bar none. Simply put, this is a movie about a Canadian stunt man named Ken Carter. Keep in mind that I don’t mean the kind of stuntman who substitutes for actors when there is a dangerous situation on a film set. I mean the kind of Evel Knievel-esque daredevils that captured the imagination of the entire world in the seventies. These were showmen. Gloryhounds. Mental cases — and Ken in particular might have been the most insane of them all. Listen, this cat wanted to shoot off a giant ramp, fly a fucking car almost a mile across the St. Lawrence Seaway, and land what was left in some flower bushes in a cow pasture. Watch it to see how that turned out. Hint: NOT WELL. Watch the whole movie here.

Not A Love Story (1981. Canada)

The ultimate hand-wringing anti-porn feminazi screed of its era will amaze you, infuriate you, and titillate you from minute one to its bitter, guilt-packed, victim-flavoured end. If you’re as interested as I am in the classic era of the porn industry, the early knee-jerk baby-steps of the misguided sex-negative Dworkinites, and the days when Times Square was a fetid urine-soaked stink-pit of debauched sin and sleaze, you absolutely must not miss this hilariously one-sided investigation into why men are reprehensible monsters for wanting to see women sans clothing! Mega-props to this propaganda made by the mother of author Naomi Kline! Watch the whole movie here.

The Killing of America (1982. USA)

Leonard (brother of Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul) Schrader compiled, edited, and wrote narration for this, the finest mondo-style documentary ever made about violent death in America. Sound distasteful? Nay, it’s all class, baby. It was made with money raised in Japan, and Leonard scoured several countries, buying footage from TV stations and “several hermit-like collectors”. The material he scraped together was exclusive, truly unforgettable, and has never been topped. From race riots, to police shootings, to interviews with serial killers, to insane and random acts of violence accidentally captured on film, The Killing of America delivered the disturbing goods brilliantly cloaked in a powerful anti-gun message which remained unmatched in the years prior to 2002’s Bowling for Columbine. Watch the whole movie here.

Mindgame (Japan 2004)

Due to some vile injustice I have not been made aware of, this radical animated movie has not yet found a release on any home format in North America, nor was it given much of a theatrical release outside of a few festival screenings halfway through the last decade, where I was lucky enough to peep it. There really hasn’t been much else ever made quite like this batter-blast of imagination that washes over you and melts into your brain like a waking dream. I also happen to find this movie incredibly inspirational. I’m not even going to go into the plot, or why it is so great, because it really is better if one comes to it as innocent as a newborn fawn in a wooded glade – and simply experiences it. Trust me, it is worth your time. Watch the whole movie here.

The Sexy Killer (1976. Hong Kong)

Jack Hill’s Coffy, starring Pam Grier, was one of the greatest blaxploitation films of the 70s, and this is a stone cold fact. But lesser known is that just a short time later, the amazing Shaw Brothers studios in Hong Kong decided to do a remake – which is nearly shot-for-shot the same, and every bit as funky and entertaining. The radical Chen Ping (who did a lot of Chinese exploitation and martial arts films) takes the role that Pam played so well, and totally does it justice. She’s a tough young sexy thang whose sister gets drugged and seduced by an evil dealer working within a corrupt drug industry, and it’s up to Chen to go buckwild, and kick all kinds of ass as she makes the bad guys wish they had never fucked with her or her family! Watch the whole movie here.

BAH: In the past few years we’ve been seeing a lot of exploitation homage – things like the Grindhouse movies/fake trailers, Bitch Slap, Hobo With A Shotgun and so on. What do you think of this trend and the movies it’s produced so far?

RB: I’ve seen pretty much all of these grindhouse throwbacks thus far, and I can tell you that only two of them have gotten it right. There are only two very noteworthy exceptions. One is Anna Biller’s VIVA from 2007, and the other is Black Dynamite from 2009. They both play it for laughs which is a marginal cop-out, but they both do it brilliantly regardless. The really important thing is that they get the tone right. The language, the costumes, the way the movies were made. They did their homework and they got it all correct. Excellent films. The rest of them range in fucking terrible to not-so-horrible in terms of execution.

BAH: Thank-so much for taking the time to chat to us! It’s much appreciated!

Many thanks to Robin Bougie – now go and check out his online store! You’re very welcome.

Horror in Short Double Bill – Crestfallen (2011) and Drool (2011)

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

The majority of short films which we encounter are put together, in the broadest sense, to entertain. More often that not, this means that they have a tale to tell, however brief it may be. However, this isn’t the only way to use the medium of the short film at all, and in the following two shorts directed by filmmaker Jeremiah Kipp, there’s a little of two different approaches. In the first of the films we have for you, Crestfallen (2011), there is some evidence of a story arc but no conventional development or resolution. The result is a very economical, yet visually impressive five minute film.

Crestfallen (2011) from Codebreaker Productions on Vimeo.

The nameless woman at the hub of the film is represented as a person in turmoil, but it’s not immediately obvious why – at first all you really see of her is the prelude to, and then a strangely painterly suicide attempt, a scene which is deliberated over by the camera. In fact, and surprisingly, the suicide bid is the most painterly moment in this very painterly short film – Shipp even conflates the character’s blood-soaked limbs with a sex scene, so quickly does it follow on from the earlier scene. Can a suicide be picturesque? It looks that way here, which some folk may find problematic. It’s a bold move to make the film dialogue-free too – or rather, sound-free, as lines are obviously being spoken but remain unheard, and the reveal of what has driven the central character to her actions is very subtly done.

Crestfallen is not a story as such; it’s more of a snapshot, albeit strikingly well-presented. The Harry ‘Friday the 13th’ Manfredini soundtrack lends weight to proceedings too, sounding for all the world like Angelo Badalamenti’s work on Twin Peaks to me. I can’t call this entertainment as such, and I would usually prefer a punchline, but nonetheless there is much to respect here. Even less of a conventional film, though, is the second of Shipp’s films which we are featuring here – Drool (2011)…

Drool from Slick Devil Entertainment on Vimeo.

Drool is a film which has not come any form of plot, character or action; instead, this is a more like a performance art reel. And there really is a fetish for everything, eh? Here we have two people who seem to enjoy (or are they enjoying?) writhing around in spit. Each to their own and all. Shipp himself terms this ‘experimental’, and you get the impression that the purpose here is to showcase some nifty camera work and interesting visual material, without taking too much of an interest in anything else. Does it generate atmosphere? Yes. Would it have an interest for most horror fans? Probably not, generally speaking, so I’d definitely recommend the first of these two shorts. However, this is just a small selection, and Shipp also has an extensive filmography to his name, so if you’re keen to see what else he can do, be sure to check out his website.

http://kippfilms.com

DVD Review: Static (2012)

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

Sara Paxton. Now, where the hell do I know that name? Sara Paxton, Sara Paxton, Sar…

Oh wait. Oh, BOLLOCKS.

When I realised that the actress from The Innkeepers was also in Static, and that the press release describes her role in Static as that of ‘a hysterical young woman’, I wasn’t exactly filled with joy. Y’see, being a contrary old cuss, I did not enjoy The Innkeepers one bit, and sad to say but Paxton’s nervy, quirky, high-pitched performance was a large factor in that. Frankly, I wanted to push her face in, and she was never described as ‘hysterical’ there. What were we going to get this time, I wondered? Still, I am very glad I gave Static a whirl, because all in all this is an ambitious, well-told story which proves itself capable of a few surprises. Not least of which is an understated performance by Ms. Paxton…

The opening scenes of Static set the scene for what is to follow in terms of tone: this is for the most part a low-key, morose movie, as we’re introduced to a grieving husband and wife, writer Jonathan (Milo Ventimiglia) and Addie (Sarah Shahi). Having lost their beloved son at three years old, they are slowly getting their lives together, but their feelings still all too readily spill over into anger and frustration at one another. However, now that Jonathan’s long-awaited book is complete, Addie looks forward to leaving their country house with all its dismal memories, making a fresh start back in the city.

This is the movies, though. No sooner have they talked about moving on, but in the middle of the following night, a young woman claiming to be a neighbour (Paxton) arrives at their door claiming that there is ‘somebody out there’; a group of men wearing gas-masks, no less. Thinking she must have been spooked by some local kids, Jonathan goes outside to take a look – but, when he sees her car is indeed outside with the tyres deliberately slashed, it seems like she may have been spooked by something a bit more menacing than pranksters. Who has she brought into their lives?

All of that sounds like your common-or-garden home invasion movie, and yeah, there are a lot of common elements, but the chief strength of Static is that it keeps you engaged by turning out to be something quite other than I, at least, expected. For one thing, forget optimism; Static begins with its ending, not dissimilar to 2010’s In Their Sleep (and Static resembles the earlier film aesthetically in several ways, too). You know from the earliest frames that you’ll be journeying towards this point, so all that remains is to watch this play out, knowing all the time that the conclusion exists. Another thing which builds upon this feeling is the point of view afforded to the audience. As we see Paxton’s character Rachel talking individually to Addie and then to Jonathan, we wind up knowing more than each of them, and that is that – all’s not quite right with this young woman. Why are these men after her? Does she know more than she’s saying? Is she even some kind of rabid fan? Unease comes on gradually here, but it sticks.

Static understands that in order for all of this tension to matter, you have to be able to engage with the people under siege, and also that it’s possible to humanise them with a few muted touches. Together, first-time director Todd Levin, the screenplay-writing team and good performances from the lead actors allow this; in good hands, you don’t need acres of exposition to create a couple on-screen who are believably in mourning. Just a sidelong glance at a photo of the deceased little boy or the presence of a small keepsake garners more pathos than any protracted speech; this sense of loss is important for the film throughout, taking on a different significance as the plot proceeds.

And, as things proceed, Static reveals more and more that the force invading the home is somewhere between the earthly and the unearthly. I couldn’t help but think of ‘F’ and its omnipotent hooded figures at some points, as the same sense of awe and doubt also surrounds the invaders in the newer film. The outcome here is rather different, nonetheless: although the film drops in some rather trite tropes (jump-cuts, car trouble) it is at its best when maintaining the much more quiet sense of dread it builds so well, and the conclusion proves an engaging pay-off to that dread, merging earthly/unearthly in a way I didn’t see coming. Is the ending flawless? No, and there are a few ways you could pick it apart if you so wished; personally, I thought it was bold and effective enough to override the urge to do that. When a film can look tried-and-tested, but then it carries you in a different direction altogether, then it deserves credit.

An imaginative blend of genres and visual flair, Static is a real achievement for a first film, and I advise you to go into it spoiler-free to really give it its dues. Oh, and apologies to Sara Paxton. I take it all back!

Static will be released in the UK by Second Sight on 15th July 2013.

DVD Review: Maniac (2012)

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

It could all have gone so wrong. It would have been oh-so easy for Maniac (2012) to be yet another entrant in a now vast catalogue of shoddy, pointless reboots. The original is beloved of a hardcore of film fans who like their violence sleazy, but I hope it’s fair to say that it’s no world beater as movies go – it has its charms, but it’s no major classic, and upon finding it was to be remade, my only response was to roll my eyes and shrug my shoulders. What a pleasant surprise, then, that Maniac is such a superb, gritty, stylish horror movie, a film which manages to be both very simple and nicely complex.

The plot as written doesn’t seem to deviate much from the original, and it certainly doesn’t sound as if it could give way to anything complex at all, but here it is: Frank (Elijah Wood) is a loner who continues to run the mannequin business owned by his late mother in a suburb of Los Angeles. By day, that is. By night, Frank epitomises just why LA can be such a dangerous place; whether using internet dating, or just tracking down women in his car, he cannot fight his urge to hunt and kill – taking the scalps of his victims as souvenirs. One day, when an artist, Anna (Nora Arnezeder) asks to photograph his mannequins for a project she’s working on, Frank soon finds himself in what appears to be a functional friendship with her. Will Frank be able to maintain this, the only relationship he has in his life, or will his murderous self take over? The answer to that question is played out in an increasingly nightmarish, unrelentingly tense manner.

From the get-go, Maniac pulls no punches, immediately giving the impression of a practised, pathological figure operating on the fringes of the city – watching, waiting, following, not quite of the real world but a threat to it nonetheless. And, from the get-go, I felt very involved with the central character, which is what for me makes this film so successful. This is a film which is prepared to take stylistic gambles and they pay off, every time. For instance, the introduction of the first-person POV which is used for nearly all of the movie, and which is thrown in there as a curveball a few minutes in, has the potential to come off contrived, but it doesn’t. Instead, it does two things very well. Firstly, it makes us, the audience, compliant in what is happening. We’re not just watching what unfolds, we’re one and the same with the perpetrator. At times, this is a genuinely chilling sensation. I cannot say I enjoyed the experience, and no doubt nor was I meant to, but being made to see and do everything that the killer does? It’s a device well used here. Secondly, it allows a particular kind of empathy to spring up. If not filmed from Frank’s perspective, I feel that it would have been more difficult to get a sense of character beyond the killer, and yet when privy to his innermost thoughts, his anguish and his turmoil, additional shades of ambiguity are possible.

Director Franck Khalfoun does extend the perspective of the film beyond Frank’s own view however, as the narrative progresses. He seems to bring to bear on Maniac the kind of ingenuity we saw in Haute Tension; Frank is not left faceless for long, and we see him in photos and reflections – a nicely-used set of visual tricks, which isn’t laid on too heavily, but which does just what it needs to in order to begin to humanise our lead guy. Of course, this could all have come apart at the seams without a powerful lead performance from Elijah Wood. Casting him was a bold move, considering he’s so well-known for that other series of films where he very definitely doesn’t scalp anyone, and taking the part was something of a gamble, but Wood is excellent. His physicality makes him interesting, because he doesn’t come across as some belligerent meat-head but rather as someone who is believably messed up and, in a messed up way, rather frail. Wood does a lot with a little to achieve all of this, and it must have been challenging to enact the role whilst being off-screen for so much of the film. However, he works with this, making every gesture and look count, and I was especially struck by what he does with his stance. The alteration between anxiety and aggression is all in the body language, even when we aren’t hearing him speak.

Another aspect of the film which I enjoyed (and you’ll have to forgive me for all the adulation here, folks) was how the theme of the mannequins played out, and how it contributed to the visual fabric of the film. The mannequins bridge the gap between real and imagined, perfect and imperfect, encapsulating the real push/pull in Frank’s desires. Real women are desirable, but unsafe. Mannequins are perfect, but not real. Lots of scenes neatly conflate living women’s bodies with the mannequins’ own, and then of course Frank literally blends real women’s bodies with them. Towards the conclusion of the film, this becomes increasingly eerie.

Maniac is of course a violent film, but I felt that its emphasis on quality rather than quantity was what made it unnerving – and I did find it unnerving actually, sometimes very much so. The kill scenes are prolonged, for one thing, and held in unflinching focus; there’s no panning away, no allowing us to avert our gaze. It did cross my mind, as I watched, whether I found this at times so disturbing due to being a female viewer, and the jury’s still out on that one, but after all, there have for all of us been moments, I’m sure, when you find yourself having a moment of doubt about the person walking behind you, or the person who strikes up conversation with you, and knowing that, in a worst-case scenario, you’re not physically strong or fast enough to defend yourself. Essentially, you know you’re probably going to come off worse. Maniac is all about the worst-case scenario, and it’s strikingly well-wrought.

Making something sophisticated out of what is ostensibly very straightforward, Maniac is a triumph. Forget it’s a remake. I soon did. This is an accomplished, tense piece of film, and very much its own beast.

Maniac will be released in the UK by Metrodome on 1st July 2013. For another take, here’s Ben’s review from FrightFest 2012.

Horror in Short Double Bill: Dollface (2011) and Girl at the Door (2013)

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

It’s always a pleasure to encounter a filmmaker who really ‘gets’ short films, and it seems like we’ve found such a fella in Colin Campbell, two of whose films we’re happy to be able to show you in our latest instalment of Horror in Short. The first, Dollface (2011), takes us a little out of the current season and to Halloween, where husband and wife Emily and Kyle are enjoying a decidedly non-spooky night in, playing a game of chess and chatting. A knock at the door heralds a trick-or-treater, so Nick gets up to go and dish out some candy…

More quirky than the next film we have to show you, Dollface is a lot of fun because it plays out like a modern, urbane fairy story – with none of the grisly or unsettling subject matter excised, of course. From the minute Emily goes in search of Kyle, she’s thrown into a mysterious and labyrinthine space which doesn’t play by the rules of the world outside, and boy does it work well. The interiors look good, are crowded with modern objects, but feel very much apart from the cosy night in which was so oddly interrupted. As for the characters we meet there, they are all ambiguous folk, whilst the neat punchline to this tale adds greater depth to that which has gone before.

Which brings us to the second short film, Girl at the Door, an altogether more visceral little film. If Dollface is a modern spin on the fairy story then Girl at the Door brings sex and drugs to the supernatural tale.

After a night of booze and illicit substances, architect Jake gets lucky, accompanying a very hot and very willing woman back to his place for a night of rough sex (and well done to Campbell for sneaking that sex scene past the Youtube police!) When he wakes in the morning, she’s already hit the road, so he gets back to his work. He’s surprised, however, when she turns up again that night, seemingly as keen as ever – but odd, somehow. What has he got himself into?

This is a film which gets a lot out of eleven minutes, but sticks with a relatively straightforward story, meaning it can balance its lascivious content with an excellent, escalating sense of unease. Absolutely key to this are the performances, especially the lovely Kristen Renton as Sofia. The lines she delivers are repeated, but she does good work at making them mean something else each time, albeit in a subtle way. This means the film feels properly sinister by the time we get our exposition, making this an interesting spin on a supernatural story, as up-to-date as Dollface.

In making everyday situations (well okay, maybe not everyday in the case of the beginning of Girl at the Door, unless you happen to lead a charmed life) become otherworldly, even ghastly, Colin Campbell shows real flair, and I hope to catch up with his other short films in the future. His films are economical, they understand pace and achieve a great deal. This promises plenty of good things.

Film Review: The Purge (2013)

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

Often times, the thing that makes or breaks a dystopian horror is its level of plausibility. Could we – honestly – foresee a scenario which at all resembles that which is depicted in our film? Is it all a little too close for comfort? It’s a fine line to walk though; too familiar, too everyday, and that note of alarm won’t be heard. Too improbable, and we won’t engage with it in the manner intended. The Purge, overall, manages to weave an effective dystopian yarn. At times, its plot is too heavily signposted – however, this isn’t enough to overpower a very interesting premise, which for the most part is explored entertainingly on-screen.

We find ourselves in an America which has, by all accounts, overcome some very dark days: economic depression, social breakdown and high levels of crime had blighted the country until the intervention of the so-called New Founding Fathers, who introduced radical social changes, the notion of ‘The Purge’ being one of them. This means that, from 7pm until 7am on one day of the year, all crime – including murder – is completely legal. The success of this policy has been widespread because now, crime is at an all-time low, the economy is strong and society is running as smoothly as a well-oiled machine. People can get all of their hatred and loathing out of their systems in one designated time-slot, and then, exorcised, they can go back to their lives. The Purge works.

The Purge also provides scope for entrepreneurship, satisfying that most fabled element of American life – the American Dream. James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) is a very successful home security system salesman; protecting others (or at least those rich enough to pay) has meant James Sandin is wealthy enough to provide his family with a lavish home in an affluent neighbourhood. We meet the Sandins on the night of The Purge, and together James, wife Mary (Lena Headey), tech-geek son Charlie (Max Burkholder) and inexplicably-Catholic-schoolgirl-uniform-clad daughter Zoey (Adelaide Kane) are preparing to go into lock-down until it’s all over. However, when Charlie, who is ‘too young to understand’ the necessity of Purging, lets a terrified, fleeing man into their home, those hunting him come to reclaim their quarry. Moral dilemmas and mayhem ensue.

I had assumed, upon reading the basic premise for this film and the idea that the whole of America was free to partake in a day of violence, that it would play out as a pursuit through lawless streets, so I was surprised to find instead a home invasion movie (although, with another Purge movie already on its way, it’s certainly possible that the different angle could happen in future.) And, as home invasion movies go, this is actually a pretty good one, despite the fact that The Purge feels the need to oh-so clearly delineate several of its plot markers at the beginning (‘What’s that, son? You’ve built a remote-controlled video camera with night vision?’) and thus comes across as a teeny bit patronising in its initial stages. Once the screenplay feels assured that the audience knows what’s going on, though, it begins to play with some more sophisticated ideas. The briefest of TV bulletins here, a snippet of radio there is enough to set up the premise; at the time of writing, it’s hardly as if we need too much help to imagine a world struggling through economic meltdown and mass social protests, so the film is free to move into its fantasy of what could be done to put things right, without feeling the urge to break down its political meta-message into monosyllables, at least once it feels it has our full attention.

Of course, the idea that human violence can be isolated and compartmentalised into society-friendly outlets is not a new one. The Purge reminds me in a few ways of a science fiction story entitled ‘The Seventh Victim’ by Robert Scheckley; in Scheckley’s imagination, society has permitted those who wish to indulge in violence to sign up to become ‘assassins’; thus murder is legal, but only for those who choose to partake – and they are only allowed to kill other, designated assassins, thus making society safe for everyone else. The Purge mirrors this in several respects, including rendering down the violence itself to something quite minor when compared to the implications of legal murder overall. Although the film has some brief, very bloody interludes, this definitely ain’t The Raid on two storeys. The Purgers who arrive at the Sandin home – part Manson family, part finishing school drop-outs – emanate threat more than they act upon it. The decision to personify one of this group and to turn him into a spokesperson is in some ways an odd idea (why wear a mask you are so happy to remove?) but you can’t deny that Rhys Wakefield in this role has a certain psychopathic charm.

The Purge does have some issues in how it opts to defuse on-screen threats, and at times it settles into a mode whereby you know exactly how we will get from a scene of peril to one of vindication, which is unfortunate, as it is also capable of some effective about-face scenes. All told though, the film may have some questionable elements, but for the way it provides political commentary without preaching and generates tension – even if sometimes by familiar means – it remains a succinct, competent home invasion movie with an intriguing contextual story. It’ll be interesting to see where we go from here, since we already know that we will be going somewhere…

The Purge is in selected UK cinemas now and will be released in the US on 7th June 2013.

DVD Review: Dario Argento’s Dracula

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

Bram Stoker’s Dracula was the direct antecedent of what is arguably the first horror film ever made, and in the best part of a century which has followed, it has remained a particularly fertile source for horror movie makers. By their very nature, the films which have followed have been variable; never, however, did I expect Dracula to manifest as a giant, cuddly CGI owl and make me laugh my gin through my nose. Dario Argento, sir – are you trolling us?

As the years roll on, I find it ever more difficult to accept any version of auteur theory where Dario Argento is concerned; sure, films like Suspiria and Tenebrae are savagely beautiful, innovative pieces of film, and nothing can take them away from us, but in later years – where Argento is ostensibly still in charge of proceedings only with more cash and more freedom – the quality of his output has generally declined. That said, I liked The Stendhal Syndrome a lot more than I expected, so hope sprang eternal that, however unfortunate the teaser trailer for Dracula seemed to be, it would be worth a watch. And I tried to enter into the spirit of things, I really did. It’s not that I simply want Argento to keep making films exactly like Suspiria; I don’t, and nor do I mind when a filmmaker changes their modus operandi – as long as what they go on to do actually works as a film, be it a scary film, or a charming film, or even a ‘so bad it’s good’ film. Sadly, Dario Argento’s Dracula is part Noah’s fucking Ark and part AA meeting, a huddle of slurring or disengaged actors wending their way through a random selection of vampiric beasties, bad fangs and sudden tits.

Sigh. Anyway, here’s the plot. We are, true to the novel, somewhere in the Carpathians; village girl Tania (Miriam Giovanelli) ignores her mother’s advice about locking up for the night and sneaks out for some hot Walpurgisnacht barn action with a married man (tsk!) before suffering an ignominious death by unbelievable owl/Dracula. Cue arrival of one Jonathan Harker (Unax Ugalde) to the village, a man from foreign parts who seems unlikely to understand the quaint local customs they have here, such as a group of men digging up the recently deceased Tania preparatory to staking her, allowing her to escape because they’re crap, and then brawling with one another. Still, Mr. Harker is in town for the happy occasion of starting a new job: he hopes to settle into his role as a librarian at Castle Dracula before wife Mina arrives, and he stops off to see their mutual friend Lucy (Asia Argento) before heading off for his first day.

It is literally minutes before Harker notices that Count Dracula – played by Liam Neeson Look-a-like Competition Winner Thomas Kretschmann – has no reflection. Oh, and Dracula’s ‘niece’ Tania, now a fixture at the castle since outwitting the witless village men, is a bit effing keen. Things go from bad to worse however when he gets ‘the bite’ and by the time Mina arrives in town, Jonathan is missing altogether. Will Mina recover him? Will Mina be safe? AND WHY THE FUCK IS THERE A SIX FOOT PRAYING MANTIS IN THIS?

It’s difficult to know what Argento must have been thinking of here, but possibly this is his attempt to render something akin to a Hammer Dracula film – the location, the costumes – only adding some characteristic profondo rosso into the mix because gore is cool and it always went down well in the Seventies, and then of course adding CGI, which, ahem, brings the film smack bang up to date. In fact, let’s have everything CGI. Want a wall in your film? Sure, you could film a boring fucking actual wall, even a few houses, or you could get them done up on one of them new-fangled computers! It’s the future. I’m not some rabid anti-CGI fangirl, by the way: I think that CGI when it is well-used is fine, but it works best when it conjures up the improbable, not the everyday, or if it must depict the everyday, you should hardly know it’s there. From the opening credits of this film, with the fake village fly-over putting me in mind of Atari ST adventure games from the late Eighties, I was dubious. When I saw that Argento had used real wolves but employed CGI for said village, I began to fear the worst, and I was right to do so. Every instance of CGI used in this film was jarring, pointless and stupid. It didn’t just take me out of the film, it made me want to take the film out of the player.

The CGI was a major player in the film’s laugh-out-loud moments throughout – the spider on its web which makes the Fulci tarantulas in The Beyond look positively believable, the werewolfpire attack, the owl, the mantis…but there are other things which made me laugh just as much, like the ‘You both look so happy!’ comment regarding Jonathan and Mina’s wedding portrait, as they’re there with faces like stone, and – sad to say – nearly all of the performances. Marta Gastini as Mina is one rare flash of competence here, whereas all of the other chief players seem embarrassed or stoned, even the great Rutger Hauer as a late-entrant Van Helsing. The appearance and aesthetic of Dracula is interesting at least, but not fully-developed thanks to unequal screen time and a poor script.

However, the absolute baffler here is what the hell has happened to Asia Argento in recent years. Perhaps her father has simply demanded too much of her during her acting career – he certainly seems to have a predilection for filming his own daughter’s tits which would get him on at least one special register here in the UK, let alone what he put her through in Stendhal – but it’s as if she is slowly atrophying. Her delivery has become…somehow stymied, occasionally even slurring. When she makes efforts to break out of that to enact Serious Things, it’s impossible to believe. It’s a bit of a worry.

Whilst it at least moves at a decent pace and doesn’t add insult to injury by lasting for much more than ninety minutes, it’s seriously difficult to say kind things about this film. Whilst you could get some mileage out of it during a group-viewing (i.e. take a shot every time it looks as if Asia has) it doesn’t go quite far enough to be utterly ludicrous. It has silly creatures but you know they’re not even there, it has a cast which should have been good but they look like they wish they weren’t there, and its cut ‘n’ shut Dracula plot is somewhere in the hinterland between earnestness and aimlessness. Let us hope against hope that this is the lowest ebb; if so, and provided someone hides all the computers from the director, then the only way from here, surely, is up.

Dracula di Dario Argento is available, if you must, from international sellers on Amazon.

“The Gentlest and Most Generous of Men”: The Friendship of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

What is it that defines the term ‘gentleman’? Without a doubt, it is a term which remains nebulous, and one which has changed throughout its history; you could also make the case that the term itself has lost much of its meaning in the modern day, but perhaps we can still say some things about it with a degree of certainty. Gentlemanly behaviour, I would argue, connotes decency, dignity and deference. A gentleman may have humble origins (the term seems to have lost much of its association with ancestry) but a noble character and actions; a gentleman would almost certainly behave according to a profound sense of propriety, and it is sad that the notion of a man acting according to this sense of propriety is seen by some as archaic, because surely it is anything but. However, whatever one’s social mores might dictate, there is something else I feel I need to add to the definition. The concept of the gent is, in so many ways, an ineffably English phenomenon. Oh, sure, you may find gentlemen in many traditions, cultures and places, but somehow, it seems most intricately bound up with ideas of Englishness – which is yet another concept which some people find easy to castigate in these cautious times.

In The Image of the English Gentleman in the Twentieth Century, author Christine Berberich quotes Sir Sidney Waterloo (himself an English gentleman) and his definition of the gent as ‘he who feels himself at ease in the presence of everyone and everything, and who makes everyone and everything feel at ease in his presence’; when I read this definition, I was struck by how much this reminded me of the great Peter Cushing, the man who is for me, the quintessential English gentleman. Cushing is a man about whom I have never heard or read a bad word. Anyone, anywhere who worked with him speaks fondly of him, of his manner and his conduct; and, immediately when I think of Cushing, I think of his dearest friend Christopher Lee, with whom he made a staggering twenty-two films over a period of thirty-five years. If Cushing was the quintessential English gent, then his friendship with Lee would seem to be the quintessential friendship between gentlemen; Cushing the more pacific character to Lee’s breviloquence, but together, a brilliantly-matched, deeply-attached amity.

And it was horror which initially forged this friendship – Hammer Horror, to be precise. Peter Cushing had initially eschewed a career as a surveyor – a dependable, respectable but ultimately unsatisfying job – and had become an actor instead. At this, he enjoyed modest, steadily-building success, appearing in theatre (including Broadway) before at last moving into cinema. Cushing and Lee appeared in the same film together as early as 1948, when they each took a role in Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet, and again in a version of Moulin Rouge in 1952, but they still had not yet met. This was to change in 1957, when each was cast in Hammer’s first full-colour horror film, The Curse of Frankenstein, a film which was successful enough to open the floodgates of Kensington gore and establish a strong horror presence for the Hammer studio which would last well into the 1970s. Christopher Lee, however, was not overly pleased with his first impressions of the film he was about to shoot. Lee’s ambivalence (and sometimes downright dissatisfaction) with Hammer’s modus operandi would continue for as long as he worked with them, but nonetheless, the studio united him for the first time with the actor who would become his ‘dear fellow’.

In his autobiography, Christopher Lee recounts their first meeting, which took place on the set of The Curse of Frankenstein. “Our very first encounter began with me storming into his dressing-room and announcing in petulant tones, ‘I haven’t got any lines!’ He looked up, his mouth twitched, and he said drily, ‘You’re lucky. I’ve read the script.’ It was a typical wry comment. I soon found Peter was the great perfectionist, who learned not only his own lines but everybody else’s as well, but withal had a gentle humour which made it quite impossible for anybody to be pompous in his company.” Their friendship was born. It is ironic that, as their friendship grew, they tended to play on-screen adversaries, most notably of all Van Helsing and Dracula; the end sequence of Horror of Dracula (1958) is for me the ultimate Dracula scene committed to celluloid. Cushing himself reflected upon his role as Van Helsing: “To me, Van Helsing is the essence of good pitted against the essence of evil…I believe that the Dracula films have the same appeal as the old morality plays, with the struggle of good over evil, and good always triumphing in the end.” As Van Helsing looks peaceably through the day-lit, stained-glass windows after dispatching Dracula in what must have been a very physically tough scene to play, you can see what Cushing means when he said, “I suppose in a way it is possible that I was pre-ordained to play Van Helsing. For although I am not a religious man, I do try to live by Christian ethics and I believe in the truth as set forth in the New Testament. I can see so many of the elements of good and evil in life, and this seemed to give me added strength in my screen battles with the powers of darkness.”

However, the loss of Cushing’s beloved wife Helen in 1971 was to cast a pall of sadness over the remnant twenty years of his life; although he continued to work and always performed to the best of his abilities, his heart was never again in his work in the same way, and his friends, Lee included, understood this. It is a matter of great sadness though that what is probably his best-known mainstream role – in Star Wars – was to occur in those years after his greatest enjoyment in his career had passed. Lee was also to work his way into the mainstream, and now in his ninety-first year continues to work at a frenetic pace. Both men always remained in contact; on occasions they celebrated their consecutive birthdays on the 26th and 27th May together, whilst they often exchanged letters and gifts in the interim, with Lee commenting on the “entertaining letters and satirical verses” which he received from him. Yet however much he took pleasure in his friendships, Cushing was always honest about his state of mind following Helen’s demise. “She was my whole life and without her there is no meaning. I am simply killing time, so to speak, until that wonderful day when we are together again.”

And so he waited, and he worked, to fill the time. As another irony of both Cushing’s and Lee’s respective careers, neither of them were fans of the horror genre. Cushing, whilst always characteristically charmed and humbled by the letters he received regarding his horror roles was far more glad of the opportunities which genre film afforded him than he ever was a fan of the end product. In a 1985 interview, he said, “It gives me the most wonderful feeling. These dear people love me so much and want to see me. The astonishing thing is that when I made the “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” movies almost 30 years ago the young audiences who see me now weren’t even born yet. A new generation has grown up with my films. And the original audiences are still able to see me in new pictures. So, as long as these films are made I will have a life in this business – for which I’m eternally grateful.”

As the friends’ careers diverged somewhat, Cushing was to continue working as he battled prostate cancer; it was the illness which was eventually to end his life in 1994 when he was eighty-one years old, after a ten-year battle. Christopher Lee recounts of their last meeting in that year, “There was something a little bit different about Peter, waiting for the end: for twenty-three years since his beloved wife Helen died, his friends realised that he wouldn’t mind packing up on this earth to join her. Vincent [Price] once, in a phone call to me, asked, ‘Is he still expecting Helen to be there to greet him?’ And I said, ‘Looking forward to it.’ And Vincent said, ‘And what if she’s out?’ I said, ‘I shall tell him you said that, Vincent,’ and when I did, Peter laughed fit to dispatch him immediately on his journey. When he’d recovered he said, ‘Only Vincent could say such a thing, and only you could pass it on.'”

Peter Cushing was and is one of the most well-loved and well-known actors of his own generation and of those which have followed. It is also difficult to visualise Cushing – at least for me – without also visualising Christopher Lee. Perhaps the friendship between these two men – and its loss – speaks to us so keenly because it speaks to us of something else above and beyond itself. To return to Christine Berberich, whose book on the phenomenon of the gentleman we looked at at the start of this article, she suggests that the notion of the gentleman is at least partly bound up in the idea of nostalgia, of a past we miss. By looking to men like Cushing, we are looking to the past; in his loss, we see the end of a way of life, we see the demise of a certain value system, or a manner, or simply a way of doing things. But then, of course, we are also affected by the loss of Cushing as an individual, someone whom we did not know personally, but whose evident value system, and manner, and way of doing things we respected enough to mourn. This is not to denigrate the loss of those who did know him personally, however, and it is only fitting that his greatest friend have the final word in this regard. Lee – a man known for his honour and gravitas, but perhaps less for his emotionality, nonetheless had this to say. “At some point of your lives, every one of you will notice that you have in your life one person, one friend whom you love and care for very much. That person is so close to you that you are able to share some things only with him. For example, you can call that friend, and from the very first maniacal laugh or some other joke you will know who is at the other end of that line. We used to do that with him so often. And then when that person is gone, there will be nothing like that in your life ever again”.

But perhaps I might be permitted to add one note of positivity: as much as we mourn the loss of a great actor and a man who does not seem to have an equivalent in these times, we are also celebrating the centenary of Cushing’s birth. We can say that those of us who continue to adore seeing Peter Cushing – and of course Christopher Lee – on our screens have imbued them and their friendship with a particular kind of eternal life, as their warmth, honesty and integrity continue as a pleasure to observe.

Select Bibilography:

Berberich, Christine (2007) The Image of the English Gentleman in Twentieth-Century Literature: Englishness and Nostalgia (Ashgate Books).

Haining, Peter (1987) The Dracula Scrapbook (Chancellor Press).

Lee, Christopher (1977 [1998 edn.]) Tall, Dark and Gruesome (Vista Books).

DVD Review: Apartment 1303

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

As a general rule of thumb, I tend to avoid English language versions of J-horrors. Sure, the Far East has provided rich pickings for cautious filmmakers and those who fund them, but almost as soon as Ring happened, Japanese horror became a victim of its own success; no sooner had Sadako become the impromptu ambassador for a subsequent army of creepy kids with flowing locks, but the ubiquity of it all had begun to show, and by the time Hollywood got its greasy mitts on J-horror, horror fans already knew the ropes. It only made colossal cock-ups like Gore Verbinski’s remake feel all the more pointless and jarring. Still, Ring was – is – an excellent horror movie. The Grudge is a ripping yarn too, and in each case the remakes failed to capture the creepiness of the originals. So, then, why would you elect to remake a movie which is at best part of the horde of imitators spawned by the success of those two? This is a question I soon asked myself upon sitting down to watch Apartment 1303, an American spin on the lacklustre 2007 Japanese film of same title and – by and large – plot.

The plot runs thusly, anyway: Janet Slate (Julianne Michelle) has had quite enough of living with her domineering, difficult and frequently drunk mother (Rebecca de Mornay) and her sister Lara (Mischa Barton) for that matter, so when she goes to view an apartment, she likes it so much that she immediately signs a year-long lease. Uh-oh. Immediately, things aren’t right with this place. For starters, there’s a creepy little girl in the foyer (which would surely entitle you to some sort of rebate), the Super is a perv who offers her money off her rent if she will only pay him in kind, and of course there’s a long-haired ghostie in the apartment, though bucking the usual trend by having long fair hair. Things are so bad, that she even thinks about going home to Mom – but this isn’t to be after all, so she heads back to the apartment for a second night with boyfriend Mark (Corey Sevier) for a rather coy, underwear-on sex scene, just prior to being hurled out of the window by said ghostie. Boobs or GTFO, I guess…

Right. So it’s down to Lara to find out what really happened to Janet; she picks up on the subtle clues that this wasn’t an honest-to-goodness suicide by the fact that her dead sister calls her up and invites her over, so over she goes and, with Mark’s assistance, she begins to investigate the circumstances surrounding Room 1303.

Wow, this is messy. The jigsaw puzzle of actors and plot developments just…doesn’t fit together. Whilst some scenes are compelling and nicely-shot, they all seem sandwiched between poorly-acted scenes or plot lines which aren’t fully realised. People’s emotions don’t fit with what they’re experiencing. Motivations are hinted at but not expounded; perhaps director and (re-)writer Michael Taverna assumes we all know how J-horrors play out and why ghosts do what they do, so there’s little point in delineating anything. There is, though. You still have to try. I wasn’t clear on where an entire character went during this film, and after all when someone reads out all the exposition at the fifty-minute mark, it does tend to make the next thirty minutes or so which follow completely redundant. Julianne Michelle takes events rather oddly in her stride until it’s possibly decided that she’s a little too calm, so she then becomes instantly shrill and gets her make-up is smeared all over her face, as nothing declares mental turmoil in a lady like runny mascara. Mischa Barton, one of the big names attached to this project, fares rather better in her low-key, decidedly non-glam role as Lara, but then there isn’t a great deal for her to play around with. There are hints of some grand mental instability in her background, and she acts it out at certain points with not a little flair, but again, not much is made of it. It’s just a neat way of justifying a few things later in the script. As for Rebecca de Mornay, she is oddly compelling in the short time she spends on screen, but the OTT nature of her character edges her way into comedy value on more than one occasion.

Oh, sure, this is an attractive-looking film. I’ll say that for it. In contrast to many of the blue-filtered, washed-out colour palates trendy in horror cinema these days, Apartment 1303 is a vivid, even garishly-coloured movie, with the haunted space of the apartment perhaps the most colourful of all. Many shots have evidently been put together in a considered way (cinematographer Paul M. Sommers deserves a tip of the hat) and the plentiful city vistas used here are very nicely done indeed. It’s a shame, then, that this is a film and not a painting; when not trying to maintain motivation to see this through to the end, this looked great.

Ultimately, though, Apartment 1303 is proof positive that the well, Sadako’s or otherwise, is drying up. It’s also evidence that it’s not enough to ransack Japanese cinema for ghost stories; often, Oriental ghost stories translate badly to Western settings anyway, as we lack the tradition of, say, yūrei – vengeful ghosts being kept from the afterlife – chuck one into Detroit, and it might not make much sense. (Even hanging onto the Oriental-style screens for use in the apartment was pushing it a bit, as these aren’t commonplace in the West, but I guess they are just so handy for the creepy silhouette scenes.) Apartment 1303 is visually accomplished, effective here and there, but ultimately familiarly, fatally flawed. Might be time to leave Japan alone and write some original screenplays then, eh?

Apartment 1303 will be released by Koch Media on 3rd June 2013

Book Review: The Lucifer Glass by Frazer Lee

Posted on by Keri O'Shea

By Keri O’Shea

Daniel Gates is what you would call a fixer – a man of ways and means, someone who works to acquire rare artefacts for people whose conventional methods have turned up nothing. He does this for a steep fee, of course, but he is good at what he does. When he successfully procures an unusual mirror for a wealthy client, he is given a second assignment thanks to this initial success; he is sent to Scotland, to exchange an ancient magical text for an incredibly rare whisky, but in so doing he is capitulated into a hitherto unknown world, peopled with dangerous entities and immeasurably dark forces…

Intended as the first in an upcoming series of books based around the character of Daniel Gates, The Lucifer Glass is an engaging introduction, with Gates showing the hallmarks of a promisingly solid character. Care is taken to establish him as a fleshed-out creation with a credible inner life, although – bearing in mind that there is much more yet to come in the series – you won’t receive all the answers here. As an example of this, one of his chief motivations in this part of the story is held back until close to the end of the book, and this further builds the impression that the character is intended for the longer game. The Lucifer Glass certainly does enough to encourage a reader to want to stay with the upcoming series; the balance between what it says and what it withholds is confidently-wrought.

The novella format seems exactly right for this tale, ideal for balancing the worldly against the otherworldly. There is a lot of action in the book (perhaps partly due to author Frazer Lee’s other work as a screenwriter and horror director, lots happens which is easy to visualise and follow) but there’s an economy to the writing style which matches well with the overall march of the plot; you can be evocative without requiring hundreds of pages. There’s an abundance of very sensual descriptive language here, by which I mean that all senses are catered for, with smell, touch, taste as important as sight or sound. This can be pleasant – the importance of the feel of cool water, or the scent of whisky, for instance – or it can be hideous, invoked during some deeply visceral scenes which are difficult to forget. I particularly winced at one description of the sensation of walking over scattered teeth…

Alongside these unsettling sequences, however, The Lucifer Glass displays a playfulness, unable to restrain itself from knowing nods towards horror and occult references. For instance, the wealthy client who sends Gates up North goes by the name of Master/Roth…recognise the ol’ demonic presence lurking in that one? There’s also fun to be had with a Crowley reference or two here and there. The mirror motif, though itself only part of the puzzle, is also a familiar one for lovers of occult horror, and I couldn’t help thinking of the Hammer House of Horror ‘Guardian of the Abyss’ episode during the first chapters. Essentially, The Lucifer Glass is aware of its status as part of an occult horror tradition and is open with that, doing plenty in its own right to forge in its own direction, but also wearing its heart on its sleeve.

Confident, collected and entertaining, The Lucifer Glass is a page-turner, and it will be very interesting to see where we go from here. As the first entrant in a new series, it promises great things indeed, and lovers of occult horror should take the chance to support the series from the get-go.

The Lucifer Glass will be released by Samhain Publishing on 4th June 2013