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Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with today’s installment of A Movie A Day.
[The regular A Movie A Day list has been frozen in order for me to do an all-horror line-up for October. I’ve pulled many horror titles from my regular “to see” stack and have ordered many more horror and thriller titles to make sure we have some good stuff. Like the regular AMAD column all the movies I’m covering are films I have never seen, but unlike the regular AMAD column I will not connect each film to the one before it. Instead I will pull a title at random every day and watch whatever the movie Gods determine for me.]
I fucking knew it. I’m told I have to see some of Lars Von Trier’s more well known movies and I should have included THE KINGDOM on the list instead of this movie and I damn well should have listened.
I hate Dogme filmmaking. Hate it. With a passion. Not using, you know, good mics and shooting on grainy black and white doesn’t make a movie feel more realistic. I’m sorry. It just makes it look cheap and half-assed. As an audience member I always find myself just assuming someone who shoots a film Dogme style is either scared, lazy or up their own assholes... sometimes all three.
It’s hard to make a movie. It’s not so hard to take a 16mm camera and point it at shit without lighting it or worrying about recording the sound of the camera rolling.
Dogme filmmaking should stay in high school and beginning college film programs. It’s an interesting experiment, just like pretending you’re a barnyard animal is an interesting acting exorcize, but it’s not what I want to fucking see in a movie.
If you can’t tell by now, this movie pissed me right the fuck off… because it’s not a movie, it’s an experiment that should have stayed between Lars Von Trier and his friends and family, a long fuck-off home movie where he gathers all his friends to do something “different.”
Lars Von Trier plays himself, a director who is working on a project with his writer called THE POLICEMAN AND THE WHORE, a nod to his earlier film THE ELEMENT OF CRIME, which followed a cop and prostitute, and… they don’t really say, but it’s implied that this 200-250 page script they’ve been working on for 2 years gets damaged somehow on the floppy and prints out only the first half of the title page before flaking out.
Unfortunately, they have 5 days to rewrite the script before a producer comes to town to meet with them about it. They soon discover that they don’t remember anything about that story and that it was shit, so they decide to write a new script about plague-times called EPIDEMIC.
From here on out, the writing of the movie, brainstorming of the story and research is intercut with a visual representation of the movie… which is a slightly better looking grainy black and white world where people are now speaking English instead of Danish.
Most of the movie is trash… not trash in the campy sense, but trash in the useless and unwatchable sense, but there are a few scenes that are pretty good.
One of them is in the real world as Lars and his writer plot out the movie by painting a timeline on the wall. Anybody who has written a story or screenplay will get a laugh and can relate to the brainstorming here.
There’s another scene where they drive to Germany to meet Udo Kier and he’s great, as usual, telling a weird story about his dead mother, which leaves him in tears. We get a good 4 minutes of Udo, then he’s gone and the movie goes right back up its asshole again.
One of the movie-within-the-movie scenes is pretty good, too, with a Black priest (who was a taxi driver in the first few minutes of the film) lets loose with something so crazy and politically incorrect that I couldn’t help but laugh… He’s this stoic guy, then pretty much says, “What the hell. All a nigga needs are loose shoes, tight pussies and a warm place to shit.”
Yeah, right? What the hell was that and why was it in this movie? Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for it. It was a moment where I didn’t feel every second stretch itself like taffy, one of the few in the movie.
Then the closing scene is great and if it was the centerpiece of the movie, a plot point instead of a crazy closing sequence, then EPIDEMIC could have been a really solid flick.
Basically, the producer comes over and has dinner with Lars and his wife. They give him the new script… which is only 12 pages long and he’s like, “What the fuck is this?” and asks for the full story. They give it to him and tell him their plans for the end of the movie, something about the priest pulling himself out of a plague cave and praying and the producer isn’t pleased. That’s where the subhead comes from.
So, they bring in a girl and have her hypnotized in front of the producer, putting her into the film “EPIDEMIC” and she really goes for it… describing her surroundings, growing more and more scared and then she starts freaking out, running around the room screaming.
Suddenly, she starts breaking out in boils, which we learned about during the “research” part of the movie as being the first signs of the biggest plagues to hit Europe and she infects the rest of the people at the party. Then the credits.
I love the idea of a girl bringing back a real life plague from a trance state in which she visits a fictional retelling of an epidemic, but that should have been the first part, not the last.
Final Thoughts: I’m sure I’ll get a lot of interesting email from Lars Von Trier fans about this one. I fucking hated this movie, but I don’t hold it against Lars and I will seek out his more known work before I pass any real judgment on him as a filmmaker, but this movie isn’t a film. I’m sure I’ll be told over and over again about how I “didn’t get it,” but I think I did, I just didn’t like what I got. Who knows? Maybe this is the way the average person feels about BRAZIL and fans of this movie and this type of movie will think of me in the same way I think of people who can’t enjoy Terry Gilliam’s early work. All I can say is this movie did nothing for me and it felt like a Herculian task for me to finish the movie… and also, what in the hell was up with the title branded into the film for the entire running time? That I don’t get…
Since I hated this movie so much, found it pretentious and little more than an arty fart film school exercise that shouldn’t have been shown outside of a classroom, I decided to feature a movie and its sequel that are balls-out fun from beginning to end, the exact opposite of the viewing experience I just had.
If you've been reading AMAD this week, you know I'm counting down to Halloween with an additional spotlight shined on some of my favorite overlooked or underappreciated genre flicks. Today I got a two-fer for you:
I love Lamberto Bava (Mario’s son). His work as a director always entertains me and he can find some striking imagery to go along with his fun-first approach to films. While I love A BLADE IN THE DARK (aka HOUSE OF THE DARK STAIRWAY), my favorite of his early work (and any work, really) is the one-two punch of DEMONS and DEMONS 2.
Both are solidly ‘80s movies and they play together like A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS plays with FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE or THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, but with pointy-teethed demon monsters instead of gunslingers. I mean, all of Leone’s movies feel in the same universe, but he has recurring actors playing different roles in different movies, so they’re not exactly sequels… but they are.
DEMONS and DEMONS 2 work that way. DEMONS is set in a movie theater as a group of people watch a horror movie about a devil-possessed mask. Props from this movie are on display in the lobby and when one foolish cinema-goer puts the mask on, she is cut and infected, turning into a demon.
What we have, basically, is the bulk of the movie taking place in one location, a movie theater, as the non-infected have to team up to fight the bitey horrors. Bava treats the demons like zombies in that respect. You get bit, you die.
All sorts of characters are at work here… gang members, regular folk and, the best by far… a pimp and his whores. Bobby Rhodes plays the pimp and rocks so hard in this movie, turning in one of the genre’s most fun, funny and badass performances. In fact, if I had to fault the movie for anything its that they take Tony the Pimp out of the picture way too early.
These aren’t plot-driven films. They focus, rather, on characters and scares. Lamberto Bava co-wrote both DEMONS and DEMONS 2 with the one and only maestro Dario Argento (as well as the less famous, but very worthy Franco Ferrini) and it shows.
The make-up effects and gore work in both films are fantastic, the demons iconic and scary as shit. Bava is also able to give them brightly-lit eyes in some long shots that really works and is creepy as hell.
And the ending to the first DEMONS is epic… huge and unexpected.
Both films are quality and they play perfectly as a double feature. DEMONS 2 is one of those rare sequels that is just as good if not better than the first.
Instead of a movie theater DEMONS 2 takes place after the Demon infection spreads and focuses on one Apartment complex. Bobby Rhodes is back, but not as his pimp character. He’s a gym instructor named Hank. Also keep an eye out for a very, very young Asia Agento as a little girl trapped in the building.
In many ways DEMONS 2 is scarier than the original, but both are impossibly high in the entertainment value department. They’re fun to watch, a great combination of dark humor, fun characters and creep-outs.
If you haven’t seen either, then I can’t recommend them to you enough. If you’ve only seen the first, the sequel delivers a helluva follow-up. I know it took me a few years to actually get to it as horror sequels usually suck ass, but everybody returns behind the camera and they did it quick enough after the first that it still feels like the same world.
We’re at the end of our horror-thon. I have one more entry, which I will watch and post before heading out to Harry’s Halloween party… as a reminder, here are the films left in the grab-bag:
Check out the HMAD list here!
Now’s the the time to pull the final HMAD!
We close with:
We enter Halloween with a horror comedy. I’ve long heard of this film, but haven’t seen it until now. See you in a few hours for STUDENT BODIES!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
Previous Movies:
June 2nd: Harper
June 3rd: The Drowning Pool
June 4th: Papillon
June 5th: Gun Crazy
June 6th: Never So Few
June 7th: A Hole In The Head
June 8th: Some Came Running
June 9th: Rio Bravo
June 10th: Point Blank
June 11th: Pocket Money
June 12th: Cool Hand Luke
June 13th: The Asphalt Jungle
June 14th: Clash By Night
June 15th: Scarlet Street
June 16th: Killer Bait (aka Too Late For Tears)
June 17th: Robinson Crusoe On Mars
June 18th: City For Conquest
June 19th: San Quentin
June 20th: 42nd Street
June 21st: Dames
June 22nd: Gold Diggers of 1935
June 23rd: Murder, My Sweet
June 24th: Born To Kill
June 25th: The Sound of Music
June 26th: Torn Curtain
June 27th: The Left Handed Gun
June 28th: Caligula
June 29th: The Elephant Man
June 30th: The Good Father
July 1st: Shock Treatment
July 2nd: Flashback
July 3rd: Klute
July 4th: On Golden Pond
July 5th: The Cowboys
July 6th: The Alamo
July 7th: Sands of Iwo Jima
July 8th: Wake of the Red Witch
July 9th: D.O.A.
July 10th: Shadow of A Doubt
July 11th: The Matchmaker
July 12th: The Black Hole
July 13th: Vengeance Is Mine
July 14th: Strange Invaders
July 15th: Sleuth
July 16th: Frenzy
July 17th: Kingdom of Heaven: The Director’s Cut
July 18th: Cadillac Man
July 19th: The Sure Thing
July 20th: Moving Violations
July 21st: Meatballs
July 22nd: Cast a Giant Shadow
July 23rd: Out of the Past
July 24th: The Big Steal
July 25th: Where Danger Lives
July 26th: Crossfire
July 27th: Ricco, The Mean Machine
July 28th: In Harm’s Way
July 29th: Firecreek
July 30th: The Cheyenne Social Club
July 31st: The Man Who Knew Too Much
August 1st: The Spirit of St. Louis
August 2nd: Von Ryan’s Express
August 3rd: Can-Can
August 4th: Desperate Characters
August 5th: The Possession of Joel Delaney
August 6th: Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin In The Bronx
August 7th: Start the Revolution Without Me
August 8th: Hell Is A City
August 9th: The Pied Piper
August 10th: Partners
August 11th: Barry Lyndon
August 12th: The Skull
August 13th: The Hellfire Club
August 14th: Blood of the Vampire
August 15th: Terror of the Tongs
August 16th: Pirates of Blood River
August 17th: The Devil-Ship Pirates
August 18th: Jess Franco’s Count Dracula
August 19th: Dracula A.D. 1972
August 20th: The Stranglers of Bombay
August 21st: Man, Woman & Child
August 22nd: The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane
August 23rd: The Young Philadelphians
August 24th: The Rack
August 25th: Until They Sail
August 26th: Somebody Up There Likes Me
August 27th: The Set-Up
August 28th: The Devil & Daniel Webster
August 29th: Cat People
August 30th: The Curse of the Cat People
August 31st: The 7th Victim
September 1st: The Ghost Ship
September 2nd: Isle of the Dead
September 3rd: Bedlam
September 4th: Black Sabbath
September 5th: Black Sunday
September 6th: Twitch of the Death Nerve
September 7th: Tragic Ceremony
September 8th: Lisa & The Devil
September 9th: Baron Blood
September 10th: A Shot In The Dark
September 11th: The Pink Panther
September 12th: The Return of the Pink Panther
September 13th: The Pink Panther Strikes Again
September 14th: Revenge of the Pink Panther
September 15th: Trail of the Pink Panther
September 16th: The Real Glory
September 17th: The Winning of Barbara Worth
September 18th: The Cowboy and the Lady
September 19th: Dakota
September 20th: Red River
September 21st: Terminal Station
September 22nd: The Search
September 23rd: Act of Violence
September 24th: Houdini
September 25th: Money From Home
September 26th: Papa’s Delicate Condition
September 27th: Dillinger
September 28th: Battle of the Bulge
September 29th: Daisy Kenyon
September 30th: Laura
October 1st: The Dunwich Horror
October 2nd: Experiment In Terror
October 3rd: The Devil’s Rain
October 4th: Race With The Devil
October 5th: Salo, Or The 120 Days of Sodom
October 6th: Bad Dreams
October 7th: The House Where Evil Dwells
October 8th: Memories of Murder
October 9th: The Hunger
October 10th: I Saw What You Did
October 11th: I Spit On Your Grave
October 12th: Naked You Die
October 13th: The Wraith
October 14th: Silent Night, Bloody Night
October 15th: I Bury The Living
October 16th: The Beast Must Die
October 17th: Hellgate
October 18th: He Knows You’re Alone
October 19th: The Thing From Another World
October 20th: The Fall of the House of Usher
October 21st: Audrey Rose
October 22nd: Who Slew Auntie Roo?
October 23rd: Wait Until Dark
October 24th: Dead & Buried
October 25th: A Bucket of Blood
October 26th: The Bloodstained Shadow
October 27th: I, Madman
October 28th: Return to Horror High
October 29th: Die, Monster, Die
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