Over the past fifteen years, Peter's work in horror and other genres, in the form of short fiction, poetry, criticism, and comics, has appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals.
Current publications: Rue Morgue (issue #82) ComiPress Dark Territories Read by Dawn Volume 3 Diamond BookShelf Withersin Speaking gig: SFABC
European filmmakers seem to be ruling the season, with releases of titles by Xavier Gens, Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury, and important re-releases from all-time master Dario Argento. But American films are holding their own as well, tackling interesting psycho-social themes in ways that may surprise some genre enthusiasts…
No question, it’s been a great spring for horror films and thrillers on DVD, with some winter theatrical releases getting quick turnarounds, a few rarely-seen gems from 2007 taking bows, and a handful of retro titles getting deluxe treatments.
When we look back on the year in horror movies, 2008 may mark the moment when Europe once again achieved a cultural dominance in the U.S., finally dethroning J-horror. First, there was the near-universal drubbing that remakes of the Asian films One Missed Call, The Eye, and Shutter took in the first quarter. Then there was the DVD release of Them (2007) from Dark Sky in March. The appeal of that film, coupled with these other recent imports, builds on the momentum that began with High Tension (2003), The Descent (2005), and The Orphanage (2007). And while these films comprise a wide range of style and content, they share an approach that we rarely see out of Hollywood these days: a commitment to full-throttle horror that is unapologetic about trying to be smart. Feel free to judge whether any of these individual titles is successful in this regard, but overall their energy and depth-of-feeling has been nothing less than refreshing.
Tenebre (1982); release date: May 27, 2008
This was the first Argento film I ever saw, in a grindhouse on New York’s 42nd Street during its U.S. release in the early ‘80s. Of course at the time it I didn’t know it was an “Argento film”; in fact, I didn’t even know it was Tenebre as it had been retitled Unsane for stateside audiences. Nonetheless, it hit me pretty hard—in a good way. The set pieces were executed with an artful relish, there was “style” bursting from every corner of the frame, and there was this brand of storytelling that pretty much stayed coherent yet bordered on surrealism. Most of all, there was a twisted passion to the entire undertaking that seemed to reflect the twisted passions at work in the film’s killer. Over the next quarter century I came to realize that these are traits that Tenebre shares with the best of Argento’s seminal work.
Having seen Tenebre so many times now, it strikes me that a large part of its power derives from its score and its cinematography—and how the two work together to create a bright, uptempo atmosphere that is both unnerving and exciting when sheer horror is dropped right into the middle of it. To its credit, Anchor Bay has done a wonderful job with the transfer, so that these elements can be enjoyed to full effect. And in one of the interesting extras, D.P. Luciano Tovoli offers the wonderful comment that if he could, he would have had theaters show the film with the lights on; he and Argento wanted the audience to feel the same thing that the characters did—that there were no shadows to hide in.
In fact, it’s this aesthetic that goes to the heart of why I believe Tenebre to be one of the very best Argentos and possibly a quiet landmark in the realm of genre films. Those who follow the career of Argento and his peers are quick to categorize titles as either horror or giallo, and by this point in his career Argento had achieved success in both areas. But what’s special to me here is how the director creates a full-blown horror flick out of what is technically a giallo. He does this by invoking an entire universe of random peril that seems to surround all of human activity. There’s an early sequence with a menacing homeless man that introduces this notion, and a stunning set piece later with a malicious dog that embellishes and draws it out. In addition, the killer/monster is both so invisible and unstoppable that the proceedings start to take on a supernatural air a la John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). And let’s not forget the hair-raising climax, which, unlike the emotional closure of a conventional thriller, literally leaves us with screams lingering in the air.
No doubt that if Argento had had his way, the echoes of those screams would have followed audiences out into the lobby and all the way home. In short, if you’re unfamiliar with this title, you’re missing out on what’s perhaps an overlooked masterpiece. And if Tenebre is an old friend of yours, as it is mine, you’ll want to spend some quality time with it, courtesy of this terrific new DVD.
Phenomena (1985); release date: May 27, 2008
It’d been years and years since I’d last seen Phenomena, and I’m so glad to rediscover it through Anchor Bay’s new DVD. It had always struck me as second-rank Argento, partly because I felt that it was so anomalous in terms of the rest of his body of work. I also viewed it as a 1970s-style revolt-of-nature flick coupled with a Carrie-inspired adolescent girl’s wish-fulfillment fantasy. And yes, those elements are present, but I’m afraid I was far too dismissive of how strong the film is in its own unique terms. Indeed, on one of the DVD’s extras, which seem even stronger than those on Tenebre, Argento remarks that Phenomena is his personal favorite of his works.
In terms of the narrative, there is definitely more than might immediately meet the eye. We’ve got the lead character’s sleepwalking, the memorable scene in which she tells her tormentors that she loves them (!), and the CSI-style exploration of entomology as a forensics method. Somehow Argento blends all these items, along with the central killer-on-the-loose storyline, in a way that makes them fit together rather than seeming like an amalgamation of suggestive oddities. For newcomers to the film, you should know that thirteen-year-old Jennifer Connelly turns in a surprisingly poised performance as the similarly named Jennifer Corvino, an American sent to study in Switzerland. Her boarding school is located in a region that features strange Santa-Ana-like winds and, oh, yeah, a sporadic serial killer. Connelly’s ably supported by a superbly nuanced job from a brogued-up Donald Pleasence (whose poignancy here rivals his turn in the classic Columbo episode “Any Old Port in a Storm”). With this cast and setting, the film is largely in English, with only the German language dialogue dubbed.
Following immediately on the heels of Tenebre, Phenomena is a remarkable demonstration of Argento’s versatility. While incorporating aspects of the giallo and horror genres, the film never strays too deeply into either territory. Instead, what we end up with is an object lesson in terms of the “supernatural thriller.” To be clear, while the horror elements are pronounced and the gore factor is considerable, there’s only a passing interest in the monster per se, and most of that is back-ended to the final act. There’s simply too much of a focus on Jennifer and her kinship with the insect world, which also means that the film sports more optical effects than an Argento effort usually does. Most of them really work. As does the soundtrack, despite the few times I winced at the inclusion some big-name heavy metal acts. Not that such music isn’t appropriate for film, or genre film, but it strikes me as a much better fit for urban settings.
And the fact that Phenomena has a strong feel for the natural world, unlike so many other Argento films, is one of its strengths. From the opening and subtly unsettling establishing views of the countryside to the many shots of tree branches swaying in the night wind, the film is creepily evocative when it needs to be. Although on a scene-by-scene basis it’s unclear how much of this success one should attribute to work of the second unit and how much to Argento himself, the bottom line is that Phenomena is lit and shot with considerable care and creativity. There’s a scene near the end where Jennifer, dressed all in white, emerges from a dark lake with a fire burning in the background. The play of the multiple light sources and Argento’s artful composition of the shot create an image that fairly trembles with grace and menace simultaneously.
Adding to my belated appreciation of the film are all the extras on the DVD, including a tremendously time-efficient featurette that brims over with insight and interesting anecdotes. And although it has unexpectedly long stretches of silence, the commentary track here is fresher and more revealing than the one for Tenebre. One point that I found particularly interesting confirmed a kinship that I’d long suspected, but which may strike some hardcore Argento fans as old hat, I don’t know: the connection between his work and Japanese culture. I’d often thought that Argento’s more “irrational” sequences, as well as some of Mario Bava’s later work, shared more than a few features with the nightmarish anything-goes-but-somehow-still-works sensibility of the Japanese horror tradition. Just take a look at the super-bright cityscape and the sense of darkest evil lurking in cold, modern settings of Tenebre and compare them to the standard J-horror tropes of fifteen or twenty years later. In the commentary track we learn that Phenomena and Jennifer Connelly in particular were huge hits in Japan (I’ve since read that she even made a music video there at one point). To a degree that’s to be expected, given the film’s schoolgirl milieu, which is also so prevalent in Japanese pop culture. But I also learned via commentary that all of Argento’s films have been popular in Japan, helping him enjoy a unique status among Italian filmmakers. Without pushing the comparison too far, I even think there’s a bit of an anime feel at work in Phenomena. Tell me if you agree, but first pay close attention to the way that the story is tinged throughout with the fantastic and, as in the scene in which Connelly follows a lone firefly to find an important clue, the magical.
The Argento Box Set
While the two films discussed above are available individually, they’re also part of Anchor Bay’s Argento box set, which provides an interesting, if incomplete, overview of the director’s career. Of the three other films, I feel that Trauma (1993) is undeniably the most successful, and I think most Argento aficionados would agree on this point. At its core, Trauma has always struck me as a revisiting of material from the classic Deep Red (1975), but more self-consciously “virtuoso” in its execution. That’s not to say that the film isn’t virtuoso in its trademark Argento set pieces, and that there aren’t genuine shocks aplenty, but that everyone involved seems to be working harder to achieve those results.
The other films in the box set are of interest perhaps only to completists. There’s Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005), the consensus view of which I share: this could have been a lot more fun—and scary. While the idea of an Argento homage to Hitchcock may initially strike one as a match made in heaven, in this TV film the director kind of forgets to show up for his half of the deal. The result is a final product that feels more like an homage to a 1980’s Brian De Palma film: a dilution of a dilution. I’m also not a big fan of The Card Player (2004) despite its occasionally gripping moments. The problem is that I can’t decide whether this film represents a decent execution of a stupid idea, or vice versa—an interesting premise that never gets the details right. Either way, I expected better of Argento. As he proved in his two subsequent episodes in the Masters of Horror TV series, even when he’s saddled with a predictable story, he can turn in an impressive job and create some truly unsettling effects. The Card Player, by contrast, doesn’t add up to the sum of its parts and unfortunately comes across as a lesser filmmaker’s pastiche of the maestro rather than a work by the maestro himself. Term it Do You Like Argento? and you’ll get the idea.
Blast of Silence (1961); release date: April 15, 2008
It would be easy to say that this title is a must-see for fans of film noir. Too easy, in fact. A more accurate statement might be that it’s a must-see for anyone interested in indie filmmaking, the ‘70s films of Martin Scorsese, or for those who’d like another example of how the cinema can create stunning realist poetry when it’s in portrait-of-a-city mode. The city in this case is New York, and although writer-director-star Allen Baron never comes across as trying to pen an ode to it, he manages to do so anyway.
What makes Baron’s effort so memorable is that it’s not a recreation on a soundstage of the proverbial “mean streets” or a meticulously stylized-but-feels-real version of New York like that in Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Rather, Blast of Silence has an ambience closer to that of the early Kubrick film, Killer’s Kiss (1955). That is, you get the feeling that although this is the real deal in an almost documentary manner, the locations are somehow shot so that the stylization inherent to the city itself is brought out in rich, unexpected, and breathtaking ways. No gilding of the lily is necessary. In fact, Blast of Silence is made with such an artist’s touch that you get an inkling of why such cities inspired twentieth century writers and filmmakers to create the hardboiled school in the first place. Also neat is how the dénouement in the marshes of Jamaica Bay somehow recall landmark Japanese films of the period such as Onibaba (1964) or Pitfall (1962): there’s that same sense of haunting desolation and beauty, a surrendering to the natural world that goes beyond tragedy and becomes sublime. The Criterion Collection has wisely responded to this strength of the film by including a bunch of features that document how the locales have changed in the nearly half century since Blast of Silence was shot.
My, my, what nice things to say about a gloomy, almost nihilistic, picture about an alienated hitman.
(courtesy of The Criterion Collection)
Long respected, if only quietly, in Europe, Blast was rediscovered in the 1990s, and its simple story has an appealing and slightly existential-flavored minimalism. We follow our point-of-view character Frank Bono as he stalks his prey and works up a paradoxically detached kind of hatred that helps him do his job. In the course of things he comes to reflect on his own loneliness, and he even—dangerously—starts to harbor doubts about the contract he’s been hired to fulfill. One of the things that sets Blast of Silence apart from what you might expect given this relatively straightforward plot synopsis is the tremendously resonant voice-over from character actor Lionel Stander. Through its pointed second-person insinuation we really get into Bono’s head in a way that’s not only reminiscent of great pulp fiction à la Jim Thompson, but also contrasts well with the character’s reticence and lack of verbalism. And in a move that beautifully adds counterpoint to the main text, the narration wasn’t written by Baron like the rest of the script, but by Waldo Salt, the Oscar-winning scribe of Midnight Cowboy (1968), Serpico (1973), and Coming Home (1978). (I don’t believe he’s credited by name, perhaps because at this point in his career he was working his way back from the Blacklist).
Blast of Silence—it was only recently that I screened it, but I’m already excited about the next time I get to watch this smart, one-of-a-kind, tone poem of a thriller.
Frontier(s) (2007); release date: May 13, 2008
Right away it’s pretty clear why director Xavier Gens made a name for himself internationally with this film. He coaxes surprisingly sympathetic performances from many of his actors, effortlessly blends genres, and has a real knack for crisply staged action scenes. And in terms of tempo, usually starting-with-a-bang and building-atmosphere are at odds with each other, but in the opening ten or fifteen minutes of Frontier(s) we somehow get both.
Gangster movies have always been a French strong suit, and here the noirish crime elements are not only well executed in their own right, but also perfectly set up the film’s none-too-subtle political subtext. By making explicit the connection between current anti-Muslim sentiments in France and the Nazi dream of “racial purity,” Gens’s script ruthlessly pulls the scab off collective memory and suggests that in some rural areas the Occupation has never really ended. It’s as if Mathieu Kassovitz’s brilliant La Haine (1995) has been filtered through the brutal blue-staters-are-bled-red sensibility of The Hills Have Eyes movies or House of 1,000 Corpses (2003). To his credit, as a writer Gens pushes but never really strains when it comes to the contrast between the urban hoodlums and the new setting they find themselves in after fleeing the riot-torn city. One character says that he’s never been “out of the slum” before, and though it’s a remarkably sobering statement, it’s also quite believable. Of course when the conversation turns to wondering whether it’s still the “Middle Ages” in these border-lying regions, we’re getting a strong dose of foreshadowing that sooner or later somebody will be “going Medieval” on somebody else.
As it turns out, it’s sooner rather than later.
After getting the characters lulled into a false sense of security in a way slightly reminiscent of Hostel (2005), Frontier(s) suddenly kicks into high gear and never really downshifts. And as we go along for the ride we’re treated to first-rate editing, cinematography, effects, and music. But for all these accomplishments, plus compelling work from lead Karina Testa, the movie runs out of ideas as it moves forward: each body that hits the floor might as well as be an original thought. The film has been well received by many genre fans, but I can only think that’s possible in a U.S. market where audiences are tired of the rote Saw sequels, disappointed by Hostel 2 (2007), and perhaps didn’t see Wrong Turn 2 (2007) in the numbers that movie deserved. Or it could just be that the potentially powerful theme of forced assimilation in Frontier(s) didn’t resonate enough for me personally. If it had, I think I’d have been less likely to scrutinize the well-worn situations and plot machinations as they came my way.
Specifically, there’s a hobbling-via-Achilles’-severance sequence as in Hostel, and then so many scene-by-scene riffs on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) that I started to wonder whether Gens had secured the rights for a remake and I’d somehow missed it. There are bodies hung on meat hooks, a gothically creepy family dinner marked by cannibalism, and all the rest of it. No doubt about it, Gens pulls things off with a cool professionalism and a sharp eye, but his film is sorely lacking that sense of the bizarre and the truly crazed that distinguishes Hooper’s. And a phoned-in subplot about the weird family’s political in-fighting doesn’t help any. Yes, Frontier(s) is made with more conviction and style than the recent TCM prequel and remake, but that’s not setting the bar real high.
Sadly, other aspects of the story simply recall action-thrillers in a more generic way. In the final act, I counted no fewer than four scenes—pretty much in succession—where the bad guys have the “survivor character” dead to rights. That means seriously injured, down on the ground, fully in their sights of their guns—or some combination of these. Then, through their sheer stupidity or delight in monologuing, or through dumb luck or the appearance of a deus ex machina, the script provides a way out. It would have been interesting to hear Gens discuss the films and filmmakers who have influenced him, or why he chose such familiar devices in key places, but the DVD doesn’t come with any extras. I applaud After Dark’s efforts at presenting interesting foreign films to American audiences, but next time I’m hoping there’s more to help me appreciate the work of such an intriguing new talent.
**
All right, that’s all for now, but that’s definitely not all in terms of this season’s noteworthy DVDs. Check out part 2 of this round-up, in which we take a look at other new releases, including Teeth, Inside, and Visions of Hell, the new box set of Jim Van Bebber films.