Brain Blasters

Rip-offs. In the realm of the psychotronic, we love them and loathe them in equal measure. There are those strange and rare moments where the rip-off not only beats the original to the theatres, it out-grosses its rival and turns out to be better, to boot, as was the case with Death Race 2000 triumphing over Rollerball. At the other end of the scale, there are the innumerable “mockbusters” pumped out by The Asylum (Death Racers, The Day the Earth Stopped, Transmorphers, Snakes on a Train, and so on), which actually manage to degrade the term “rip-off” (though I have to say, the climax of Snakes on a Train, where a giant snake eats a train, remains one of the most unusual sights I’ve encountered in the last few years).

Back in the 70s, a little something called Jaws inspired innumerable imitators. Most were execrable. One, Piranha, actually managed to become its own wonderfully oddball work, thanks to the warped sense of humour of Joe Dante, John Sayles, et al. But today, let’s consider a far lesser work: the 1977 Italian exercise in cheese known as Tentacles (released a while back as a double-bill with Empire of the Ants as part of the MGM Midnite Movie series).

Time for a book recommendation.

Years ago (1992 to be precise), Christopher Golden edited Cut! Horror Writers on Horror Film. In and among the various essays in this fascinating tome were those special joys for the dip-in-dip-out reader: the list. John Skipp and Craig Spector offered “Death’s Rich Pageantry, or Skipp & Spector’s Handy-Dandy Splatterpunk Guide to the Horrors of Non-horror Film.” And Stanley Wiater contributed an essential guide for the daredevil viewer: “Disturbo 13: The Most Disturbing Horror Films Ever Made” (collect ‘em all!).

A few weeks ago, I sung the praises of Forrest J. Ackerman and the childhood joys his Famous Monsters of Filmland gave me. Now comes sad word, already up on numerous websites, that he is ailing, and the end is very soon. (I have seen some statements that, in fact, he passed on yesterday, but nothing, fortunately, that strikes me as authoritative, as of yet.)

Consider this column a companion piece to my review of Last House on the Beach. I mention therein that the finale of the film obviously inspired (to put it politely) that of Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof. I shouldn’t really use this opportunity to beat up on Death Proof all over again. But what struck me even more than the similarities between the two scenes was their instructive differences.

So, if you haven’t seen either of the films yet, consider this entire column a spoiler and leave now. Thank you.

Oh God, here we go again with another When I Was A Wee Lad memory. Sorry. But When I Was A Wee Lad, two of my favorite books were The Hammer Horror Film Omnibus, and The Second Hammer Horror Film Omnibus. Written by John Burke, each volume contained four novelizations of Hammer films, and for many a year, this was the only way I could experience the stories. It would be a long time before I saw the films in question. Still, most of those films I got under my belt some time ago, but one remained stubbornly out of reach, seen once on TV and then never again, VHS and then DVD releases apparently never on the horizon. That film was Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), and the wait is finally over. It appears as one of four films on the Icons of Horror: Hammer Films 2-disc set. Accompanying it are The Gorgon (also novelized by Burke, and more about it another time), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, and Scream of Fear.

Just the other week, I was singing the praises of [REC]. Today, I come to bury its American remake, Quarantine. At first glance, Quarantine is a virtual photocopy of its model. Scene follows scene in the same order, to the same (intended effect), to the same final shot. And yet somehow, the whole thing falls flat. How can this be? If the movies are identical, why aren’t they identically effective?

The other day, I was watching Pathology, a release from Fox that is terminally mediocre, but is surprisingly gory for what is, minor-to-nil theatrical release aside, essentially a mainstream release. I won’t rehash its silly, empty-headed plot here, other to suggest that you look to spend your entertainment dollar elsewhere. What interests me about the film is that gore. As our characters about their titular activities, corpses are opened up and messed around with in a manner that, not too long ago, would have been unthinkable outside the realm of the more extreme exploitation flicks. For quite a while, since the horror film was revived at the end of the 90s, much of the chatter about violence in the films conveniently forgot just how graphic the situation was in the 70s and 80s, but over the last few years, the gap has been bridged. But that’s not what I want to talk about here. It isn’t the quantity of gore or its explicit nature that I’m ruminating about. Rather, is it still possible to distinguish the genuine, wholesome sleaze from its production-line counterpart emerging from the major studios.

The latest issue of Rue Morgue has hit the stands, and its cover story is a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Famous Monsters of Filmland. Naturally, there is plenty celebrating the man behind the world’s first horror/SF magazine, Forrest J. Ackerman. Permit me, then, to take advantage of the occasion to do a little celebrating myself.

And now, another bit of musing on Mario Bava, brought on by a recent screening of Lisa and the Devil.

Coming in 1972, this was late in Bava’s career, and from a period when seeing his films the way he intended became very difficult. Until recently, when the original print resurfaced, this has been most commonly seen under the title The House of Exorcism, an exercise in butchery by producer Alfred Leone, which not only removed much of Bava’s footage, but replaced it with a ridiculous Exorcist rip-off. Fortunately, Bava’s original film has been restored to us. It is a prime example of that moment in European cinema where the distinction between horror film and art-house production vanished.

I can’t quite decide how I feel about Paul W. S. Anderson. On the one hand, he clearly has a great deal of affection for his inspirations, and since most of his filmography, as either a director or producer, consists of adaptations, this is to the good. He is, for instance, one of the few filmmakers who actually seems to respect video games, even if his Resident Evil films consciously depart from the games’ story arc in a fairly massive way. Unlike Stephen Sommers, he does not feel the need to trivialize his material by giving up on the suspense and going for the cheap laugh.