The Collector (1965)

Rated: UR

Run Time: 119 mins

Director: William Wyler

Starring: Terence Stamp, Samantha Eggar, Mona Washbourne

The Collector’s Freddie Clegg is an altogether different sort of villain.  He is, in some ways, more sinister than most.  With his bland cunning and dough-faced innocent visage, he is almost sympathetic.  As such, he is much of a kind with a new sort of killer that had ostensibly arrived with Hitchcock’s Psycho and Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom of the same year, 1960.  I suppose one could make an argument that the character had appeared much earlier still, with Peter Lorre’s child killer in Fritz Lang’s M or even Hitchcock’s own particular version of The Lodger. 

This new type of killer was the kind of fellow who could not have a real relationship with a woman unless it were characterized by possession and dominance.  Movies of this ilk were prototypes for the European (and I say European for a reason, because I am not entirely convinced the Italians created the giallo) giallo.  Later, the giallo as a sort of prototype would be replaced by the dreaded slasher flick.  These newer films featured an antihero who was not as much “psychologically motivated” as straight-out motherfucking batshit crazy.  Superficially these men are outwardly normal, if eccentric, but they are always incredibly introverted and pathologically shy.  This was the first (or, second if you must have it that way) incarnation of the psycho killer.  He is with us still, to this very day.

Our first sight of Freddie is as he lopes at a slow jog through a field, chasing a butterfly.  It is a rare specimen apparently, and will be a welcome addition to his vast collection (this is a motif that would be used again by Thomas Harris many years later in The Silence of the Lambs, although the metaphor would be reworked).  Near his jaunt, there is a large manor house that is for sale.  There is an attachment to the structure that is composed of an outer room and, down a series of steps, what can only be described as a dungeon room with sinister stone walls.  This gives Freddie an idea.  It’s an idea that’s been forming for some time, actually.  He has recently won a large sum in what seems like a lottery of sorts (they call it the football pools), and, as this idea is going to cost a pound or two, his recent winnings are fortuitous indeed.

Now, it is certain that Freddie is not going to miss his job very much.  His co-workers mock him.  It’s easy to make fun of the outsider, the alienated, and the lonely.  Cruel people do it.  I am convinced that the ones who embarrassed or humiliated you in school never really change, unless for the worse.  I pity poor Freddie his social awkwardness, his inability to transcend class and his lack of culture (this is one of the purported reasons John Fowles wrote the book, to out and condemn the ugliness of class conscious England in the era of the “angry young man”).  What is a poor whacked out psycho freak bug collector with a vivid fantasy life to do?  Eventually, Freddie buys the house and retires to live the life of a country squire. 

Oh, and he kidnaps a girl he’s been ogling from afar to put her up in that dungeon I just mentioned.

This is the plan that Freddie, like any good incipient serial murderer, has carefully nurtured, for which he has plotted the logistical details for some time.  Like anybody who means business, he has not only thought a great deal about it, he’s got a by-God plan.  As if she were a butterfly, Freddie uses chloroform to anesthetize a young art student named Miranda Grey, to whom he’s taken a fancy.  He then books her a room at his “wow, am I whacked out crazy or what?” B&B in the country.  He has done this in the unspoken hope that she will “learn to love him.”  He lays her out in a bed, takes off her shoes, and the chastely pulls down her skirt (which has hitched up).  From these very first gestures, we can see that Freddie objectifies Miranda much as he does his extensive and marvelous collection of butterflies.

Sound familiar?  Well, that’s how John Fowles wrote it, and he absolutely deserves the credit for this archetype (unless Robert Bloch does, it’s a close call; the taxidermied birds of Norman do precede Freddie’s flittering butterflies).  The lonely, introverted, keeps-to-himself, “he was always such a quiet neighbor” type of perverted psycho creepoid (think Ed Gein, Reg Christie, Dennis Nilsen, Jeffrey Dahmer).  The sort of man whose only means of experiencing a relationship is through the twin lens of obsession and ownership.  A fellow who can only feel passion through a prism of voyeuristic objectification, possession.

The scene after his plan goes off (flawlessly) is interesting.  He secretes her in the room he’s laid out and goes into the main house.  Then it starts to rain.  While he first narrowly escaped becoming drenched with the initial downpour, he now willfully runs into the deluge with a childlike joy that reads like a release of tension, a relaxation and self-satisfaction with his success.  This is juxtaposed with Miranda awakening in gradually dawning horror at her predicament, before Freddie descends the steps and she sees him for the first time. 

          

Stamp and Samantha Eggar as Miranda breathe life into their literary counterparts, only two years after the novel was written (Fowles wrote the screenplay himself).  I don’t know if The Collector is a classic of literature (perhaps a minor one?), but there was very little time left to the prospective filmmaker to gain any perspective on its importance as a work or for the literary critics to tease out possible meanings before it was committed to film.  Yet, Fowles was apparently happy with the finished product.  That is largely because of the leads, I think. 

Terence Stamp plays to the nuances of the character marvelously.  We know Freddie’s up to no good from the start, but it is only as the action progresses that we begin to understand just how bad he really is, how dangerous.  Every escape attempt Miranda makes is quickly revealed to be a trap laid by Freddie to test her, whether or not she’ll really stick around, whether she really likes him.  How much can you trust someone you’ve kidnapped and sequestered in what amounts to a medieval dungeon that you’ve creepily furnished as a young lady’s boudoir? 

Samantha Eggar as Miranda is, I think, ultimately whom we pull for, not Freddie, whom we may pity but who also revolts us.  As a character, she is alive with the potentiality of youth, energetic, clever, and desperate.  It seems such a simple thing to create characters who represent microcosmic types but who are also recognizably human, but I suspect it's not.  Their performances and their chemistry keep our interest in a movie peopled by so few characters.   

In praising the acting, I'm not neglecting the direction of the great William Wyler.  If I remember correctly, it was he who gave such sage practical advice on film acting to, yes, Laurence Olivier (in Wuthering Heights).  Wyler turned down the opportunity to direct The Sound of Music for this movie (Robert Wise, of The Haunting, took the reins; it’s a small world), a wise choice if you were to ask me.  One is considered a classic and the other is little known now, but I still prefer the thriller to the other.  

   

As an aside…man, directors in the old days were versatile; check out Wise’s CV some time: psychological horror, Val Lewton RKO B-Unit horror!, musicals, science fiction, noir thrillers, adventure, westerns, war films, mysteries...incredible, and many of them classics.

     

Fowles later wrote that the book was in part a diatribe against class conflict and how that conflict manifested itself among the ineffectual efforts of the working class to ascend to the station of their betters and the inability of the snotty privileged classes to understand what great responsibility their good fortune placed on them.  In this context, the discussion of The Catcher in the Rye is enlightening.  I’ve read Salinger's book and been conditioned, as has Miranda, to regard it as a modern classic.  But I cannot find fault with Freddie’s dissection of it.  His argument that the literary criticism that has lionized Salinger’s best-known work it is all so much pseudo-intellectual posturing is not unreasonable.    

But when you make your hoi polloi pseudo-antagonist a man who is incapable of empathy and your victim a female who is a bit snotty and entitled, well-heeled, pursuing a liberal arts education that we all know is a luxury of the privileged when the rest of us have to get real jobs, well then you’ve rendered your tale with a bit of a misogynist sheen.  The movie cannot entirely escape that reading, either.

Still, while we can view Freddie and Miranda as symbols of their social class, I would prefer a literal reading.  The characters work well enough as individuals.  And I see the film as being important more for helping establish a very interesting horror stereotype that would be mined to great effect in the future than for contributing anything of value to England’s discussion on class distinctions.  Who really gives a shit in the 21^st century?  Not an American, I can tell you that.  The movie still entertains because I believe there really do exist people like Freddie Clegg, and they really are dangerous.  And we, although largely women it would seem, are their prey.        

Freddie Clegg is deservedly Stamp’s breakout role.  Smallish, he never really seems too overtly threatening, but his actions, and the clinical calculation that precedes them, unveil before us, under out greater comprehension, a monster.  The actor is a slight guy, not much bigger than Samantha Eggar, but he is constantly foiling her every effort to gain any slight advantage in their relationship.  It is as if he were cruelly toying with her as much as testing her obedience.  The way he does so creates an aura of disquieting menace about the character.  I can’t describe it better than that.  You'll have to watch it to see if you agree.

The movie is not without its flaws.  Perhaps the most egregious is that the screenplay doesn’t always let the camera do its job.  Show, don’t tell…good advice.  The shot of Samantha Eggar’s face framed, as a reflection, within the confines of one of Freddie’s glass cases, full of mounted specimens, is a clever visual metaphor.  I don’t know whether or not the idea is, cinematically, innovative as an image, but I at least found it satisfying.   

  

Here's the problem, though: the moment is ruined in the very next instant when Miranda just comes right out and reiterates what we’ve just seen.  We get it.  She’s a new addition to his collection.  And he’s a collector.  And the name of the movie is, The Collector, which is also, you know, the name of the book, The Collector.  I don’t know if this scene is in the source novel, but that doesn’t make it any more palatable in the movie.

I want to revisit something I wrote earlier.  So very much has been made about the fictional counterparts to Ed Gein over the years, but I wonder if, in The Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris consciously chose to reuse the entomology angle from The Collector.  Jame Gumb’s interest in entomology is dissimilar to Freddie’s (and to Conan Doyle’s villainous Arthur Stapleton, as well).  Not that that book is concerned with metamorphosis, any more than Psycho is concerned with naturalism.  But the use of entomology, specifically butterfly collection, as a metaphor for obsession and the sublimation of sadism and homicidal misogyny in favor of a more palatable form of possession (real intimacy, much less a normal and healthy sexuality, is out the window for these men…like way-ass out the window) is a cogent idea.  Perhaps Wyler did not capitalize as effectively as he could have on the visual possibilities inherent in the metaphor.  The idea was right there, presumably sufficiently elucidated by John Fowles.  If so, it was a missed opportunity.   

There is not much else to say about the movie, really.  It’s just one series of narrow non-escapes after another, the two of them bargaining for freedom and companionship in turn, conversations about ideas, art, standards of beauty…and then it ends, just as you think it’s going to end.  And if you thought it was going to end in any other way, you have not been paying attention.  

The Horror Inkwell Rating: 5/5 

  

House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

Rating: R

Run Time: 89 minutes

Director: Rob Zombie

Starring: Sid Haig, Karen Black, Bill Moseley

“…sure, his films aren’t always good, but they are made with a strong eye towards creating a very certain response in the viewer, and their sometimes severe failures as narratives should not take away from their very real success as momentarily terrifying collections of surrealistically violent tableaux.”  -  Tim Brayton, Antagony and Ecstasy 

Although I’m using Tim’s quote out of its original context, I think he aptly sums up the general critical response to Zombie’s movies well (for the whole piece, see his review of Zombie’s Halloween II).   

Much has been made of what a fan of horror cinema Rob Zombie is, and being an enthusiast myself, I can certainly appreciate a kindred soul (there are not, I think, too terribly many horror aficionados among us, even among those such as myself, whose present knowledge, after a lifetime's viewing, is still sketchy and incomplete).  House of 1000 Corpses is, I believe, an homage to a particular type of horror movie, hicksploitation cinema or, alternately, redneck or hillbilly horror.  I know much less about ‘70s exploitation cinema, however, than I do about horror in the general, outside of the two movies that consensus opinion views as having most influenced hicksploitation horror movies as a sub-genre in general and Zombie’s particular film here.  

Those movies are, of course, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre/TCM and the The Hills Have Eyes.  The two films, reviled by most upon their initial release, are now recognized classics within the horror genre.  A passing acknowledgement must be made to their spiritual progenitor, John Boorman's Deliverance.  Without that one, an exemplar of a different sort of sociological horror than the former two, they would perhaps not exist.

Nothing occurs in a vacuum, certainly, and I have often wondered if Wes Craven’s Hills is an homage to or at least an acknowledgement of Tobe Hooper’s TCM?  Which itself may well be a parody of Deliverance?  That would make 1000 Corpses a parody of an homage of a parody.  Or, the first three may simply be iterations of themes common to each of those movies.  There is a lengthier debate inherent in this line of thought, for we have not even considered Straw Dogs, The Last House on the Left, or Day of the Woman (and, man is that a title I much prefer to I Spit On Your Grave).  These are works with similar thematic concerns, be they more serious-minded or mere exploitation fare.  And we've not considered hillbilly horror shlockers like Motel Hell, Just Before Dawn, The Final Terror or Charles B. Pierce's The Tenants.   

Suffice it to say I don't have time or energy for that quite yet.  Moreover, this is my second edit of a review to a movie I watched months ago.  And I can assure those of you who have not watched House of 1000 Corpses already of this: it is not a movie that’s worth quite that kind of consideration.  It is a cartoonish parody, but I like it, nonetheless.  I don’t know what Rob Zombie might have intended.      

The movie opens with a weird-ass black & white TV add for Dr. Wolfenstein’s Creature Feature Show somewhat introducing the film in what I assume is a nod to program hosts of the past who presented monster flicks on TV; nice touch, Rob, in what I take as a nod to the horror fan as a child.  This segues into another B&W sequence introducing more weird-ass shit whose host is a demented clown calling himself Captain Spaulding, announcing his Monsters and Madmen Tour and advising us that his roadside shop also sells gasoline and fried chicken!  It is Texas, you know, in 1977.

Spaulding is a real guy (in a manner of speaking), which we learn when he and his cousin, wearing some big (and I do mean big), goofy clown head, gun down a couple of would-be hijackers whom it is clear Spaulding and yet another redneck using his store's shitter (Michael J. Pollard, man!) are not the least bit concerned with.  This happens as soon as the two retard bastards storm into Spaulding’s roadside shop of bizarre memorabilia and jenny hannivers.

The clown has just finished mopping the blood up from the late carnage when a pair of couples, the movie’s rather limited selection of expendable meat (although it takes rather a while for their meat to get expended), pulls into Captain Spaulding’s for gas.  He ends up selling them tickets to his haunted horror house ride.  Now, I don’t care what some other critics have said; I thought the ride showed some real ingenuity and a commendable knowledge of relatively obscure serial killer arcana.  Spaulding also feeds them some bullshit about the mythical Dr. Satan, who performed terrible experiments on the patients of the local (though long since closed) psychiatric hospital (there’s something about an attempt to build a master race, so maybe this is also a nod to Nazisploitation cinema, too).  And, hey, the tree he was hanged on is right down the street.

Well, the gang (Jerry, Mary, Bill, & Denise) are on their way there when they stop to pick up a hitchhiker (who, let me tell you, looks a hell of a lot better than Edwin Neal!).  She is “Baby” Firefly, of the Clan Firefly, and boy is she ever crazier than a shithouse rat.  As we will learn, however, she is by no means the craziest member of the family.  That would be Otis (Bill Mosely), whom we will meet with the rest of the Firefly family in just a little. That includes Karen Black in a way over-the-top performance as Mama Firefly, Dennis Fimple as Grampa Hugo,  Robert Allen Mukes as Rufus, or R.J., and Matthew McGrory as Leatherface, I mean Pluto, Tiny.

The general area or township near where the tree is located has experienced a rash of disappearances lately (we learn this through both the Plot Specific News Network broadcasts and brief montages interspliced within the film).  This includes five cheerleaders who have vanished during their return trip from an out-of-town football game. Hmmm…  Meanwhile, we learn that Otis, home at the Firefly manse, is a local artist: in his unique way, he is very much a misunderstood genius, a thwarted performance artiste whose outré work is too avant garde for the petty bourgeois or those on whom he is creating his oevres (you see, he may also be the demented creator of those jenny hannivers in Spaulding’s shop; wait and see).  Man does Otis go on and on about it.  And the missing cheerleaders?  Well, they’re not missing anymore.  They’re playing up in Otis’s room…sort of.

The rest of the movie, including Zombie’s version of the TCM dinner scene, is essentially one long, flowing stream of scenes depicting psychological and physical torture… But those scenes are highly stylized, relieved of the tension otherwise required to render them as brutalizing to the viewer as to the film’s victims.  The Final Girl scene was tense (for me, at least) and the imagery introduced during it garish and horrific; it can stand beside Marilyn Burns’s desperate run in TCM without entirely paling in comparison.   

The first time I sat down to watch this movie several years ago, I could not get through it; I found it too disturbing.  It reminded me of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, which I also could not finish the first time I tried.  Upon a second view, I found it is not at all like that movie; it is far more stylized as a surreal tableau than the other.  I, too, found it nowhere near as disturbing the second go-round, and I consequently enjoyed it a lot more.  There is not the tension or bloodless brutality of TCM, and it is not gritty like that movie or Henry.  But for all that I thought it was a pretty good flick, better than many of the reviews of it suggest.  It's not everyone’s cup of tea and I'm particularly selective as to whom I recommend it among my outwardly normal friends and acquaintances, however.

Here is the thing, really: I had never liked a Rob Zombie movie until The Lords of Salem, and there is a part of me that thinks perhaps my favorable opinion here is being informed by my enthusiasm for that movie (perhaps it is Zombie’s homage to Mario Bava’s Black Sunday/La Maschera del Demonio?).  On the other hand, there is another side of me that thinks I should re-evaluate this movie’s sequel, The Devil’s Rejects, and re-watch his Halloween.          

Random Thoughts/Interesting Tidbits

The movie seemed a hell of a lot longer than 89 minutes, particularly what seemed like the “director’s cut” Final Girl sequence; I’m on record as liking it, but it began to drag a bit, as harrowingly bizarre as it was. 

As far as exploitation fare goes, it’s got cartoon-like gore and gratuitous female nudity, two prerequisites.  It also has sets and accoutrements that suggest what it would be like if Tim Burton's production designer were to go insane, Sheri Moon in chaps and nothing else, and The Office’s Rainn Wilson.

I loved the opening track over the titles.  It seems he recorded it before the film was conceived.  I find that surprising because I DO NOT like White Zombie).

The realization of the Dr. Satan scene was great.  The set seems to have stepped right out of a Hieronymous Bosch painting, or worse. Those last ten minutes set there depict what an insane person’s nightmare vision of Hell itself might resemble, and it certainly looks like that’s where Zombie spent the majority of his budget.  It is a piece with the overall cartoon-colorful nightmare phantasmagorical imagery of the film.

In fact, there are really great set pieces and imagery throughout:  Captain Spaulding’s house of horrors reminded me of Funhouse and the short pieces on Ed Gein and Albert Fish demonstrated, as noted earlier, Zombie’s knowledge of far out serial killer lore (right down to the x-ray of Fish’s groin); the setup of the scene where the protagonists’ try to escape (after the Fireflys’ off, off, offf-Broadway stage show) looked like some crazy Candyland boardgame. 

On some level, God help me, I identified with the Fireflys, and that, my friend, is a frightening thought.  But here’s why: the four kids were pricks, even the girls; all of them were bitchy and the boyfriends were geekily elitist and condescending; all four conveyed a superior air that pissed me off.  Still, I do not suggest they earned their fates and their suffering is as revoltingly disturbing as it was unwarranted…or would be more so if the film weren’t so mannered.   Again, though, we have all seen worse displays of physical or psychological torture in other, more somber-minded films.  This kind is a little hard to take too terribly seriously.  And, unfortunately, Zombie, like so many other directors and writers today, chose to create characters whom we actively dislike.  This is a troubling transmogrification of the old slasher aesthetic of expendable "teenagers" who were merely shallow and superficially dickish, but who were generally not downright assholes as here.   

The title is great; it might have been borne of any era, but it certainly fits well in ‘70s exploitation cinema (as does the title of its sequel).  Caveat: there are quite a few corpses lying around in this movie, but there aren’t a thousand…

There is an execution scene that may be the most sadistic death in the movie (you’ll know which one I mean) that lasted for juuust too long, although I thought the camera’s perspective was a unique choice.

I have two more thoughts on that execution, though.  I read an interview with Zombie where he described the film's screening for a test audience where movie-goers cheered the death and Zombie thought, and I’m paraphrasing, hey, cool, they’re getting into it.  This was when Universal first passed on it soon after it was filmed in 2000.  Now:

1. I find it somewhat disturbing that people would cheer that death in any context, fictitious or otherwise.
2. Even so, I am surprised that Zombie would consider that to be the reaction he was looking for in that scene; mine was to sit there silently, tensed and waiting for the hammer to fall. 

I read another interview where the director rightly pointed out how roundly vilified HO1C was once received and yet now it is viewed favorably…he is right, I suppose, and I was one of those detractors.  He said the same of those who clamor for the reunion of White Zombie, yet hated the band initially…he is right, and I was one of those detractors, too…but I still don’t like White Zombie.    

The Horror Inkwell Rating: 5/10

Gojira aka Godzilla (1954)

Rating: NR

Run Time: 96 minutes

Director: Ishiro Honda

Starring: Takashi Shimura, Akihiko Hirata, Akira Takarada

I do not fear the explosive power of the atomic bomb. What I fear is the explosive power of evil in the human heart.                                                                                               ~Albert Einstein

Godzilla/Gojira is an acknowledged classic of fantasy cinema.  Perhaps it is not flawless, but it's damned close.  Its pace is largely unflagging, even in the human interest sections (which contribute to the considerable contextual depth within the film).  Those sections that punctuate the monster action elucidate the themes (Japanese fatalism, fear of the destructive power of science and technology, the psychic scars that afflict the survivors of a terrible national tragedy), symbolism (the monster itself), and origins (what are they exactly?  We don’t really know) surrounding Godzilla; they are what makes the beast (as we all know from viewing the movie or reading example upon example of critiques or reviews that dissect this film)  a very particularly Japanese metaphor for nuclear annihilation. 

The opening of the movie, even after all these years, is stunning.  The experience is first an aural one.  The opening sound we hear is like that of a telephone post striking a solid metal wall.  There is a consistent rhythm to its beat.  Over this is tracked another very loud noise, as yet unidentified, that can only be described as some amalgam of metallic moorings ripping asunder and the hybrid of an elephant’s and lion’s roar.  This immediately precedes the score and main theme.  It has been described elsewhere in these terms, but I find the word to be so apt that I cannot and do not want to avoid using it.  The theme is, in a word, martial.  The sharp staccato pulses of the strings increases the urgency and tension inherent in the music.  The root note or key rises an octave.  The dynamism of the theme establishes an expectation for what we see later in the movie; it is foreboding and apprehensive all the while.  The score is the work of Akira Ifukube, and it must rank among the greatest pieces of theme music in any fantastic film within the history of the genre. 

We open on the Eiko Maru, a large fishing boat in the Japanese Sea.  Crew members are gathered on deck relaxing, when they observe a large and powerful light just beneath the plane of the water’s surface.  The light is pulsating as if from some power source that waxes and wanes.  This ominous occurrence is proceeded by a shot of the ship engulfed in flames.  Actually it is a shot of a miniature ship set afire with lighter fluid and a match, floating in a large swimming pool beyond which is a matte drawing.  While we’re on the subject, the pulsating light itself is probably a large, high wattage light bulb insulated by a waterproofed electrical line, just beneath the surface of the water (I’m not certain how the strobe effect is achieved, although that would be easy enough to jerry-rig).  ANNOYING ASIDE THAT ADDS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO THIS REVIEW: you know the sort of light I’m talking about: people with lake front property sometimes put them in the water just beyond the shoreline to attract bug; then the bugs attract the fish.  Anyway, and this is the salient aspect of this whole digression, it would seem that whatever is the origin from which the light emanates is an incredibly powerful source of energy.          

A cascade of events ensues upon the inexplicable loss at sea of the Eiko.  A sister ship, the Bingo Maru, is sent by the owner, South Sea Shipping (highly original, n’est-ce pas?) to search for the first vessel.  It suffers the same fate. Three lone survivors of the Bingo alight on the shore of Ohto Island, a fishing village, where they then tell a strange story.  Then a third ship disappears (now at this point, I was beginning to think, “fuck, people, it might be time to revisit your rescue process; send a damn helicopter next time” – then again, choppers never fare well in these nature run amok movies either; think Jaws or Grizzly).  A reporter is sent to investigate the claims of the three survivors of the Bingo and a local village fisherman from Ohto who raves of seeing a monster while on the sea.  During this journalist's stay, a violent storm rages on the island.  Simultaneously occurring with that storm are those same eerie flashing lights and the destruction of several village structures…and the helicopter used to transport the reporter (see what I mean?).  What is more, we hear a terrible roar that sounds suspiciously like the one accompanying the opening theme music (the sound a metallic elephant would make).   

Back in town, and by that I mean Tokyo, it would appear that the same guy who works for South Sea Shipping and was sent to salvage one of the lost ships, Hideto Ogato (Akira Takarada),  is the secret boyfriend of Emiko Yamane (Momoko Kōchi), whose father just coincidentally happens to be the famed paleontologist and marine biologist, Kyohai Yamane (the great Akira Kurosawa lent one of his very favorite actors, Takashi Shimura, to his good friend, Ishiro Honda).  Now, I’m not a scientist, but that strikes me as rather implausible academic cross-training in disparate disciplines, doesn’t it?  in any event, it is he who is tasked with forming an expedition to Ohto Island to investigate claims of some sort of enormous sea serpent, an idea that has gained media time because of the confluence of different witnesses talking essentially the same shit. 

Why do they send a paleontologist slash marine biologist at this juncture, you might ask?  Well, it’s not just the three Bingo survivors and the Ohto Island fisherman who are raving about this gigantic beast.  The crazed village idiot (and every village has one; although, as I recall, the village of my birth seemed to have a disproportionately larger number than most) starts in about a monster he calls “Godzilla,” a legendary carnivorous dinosaur-like creature who lives in the sea.  This creature has been known to destabilize the fishing economy of the island from time to time and has occasionally come ashore to devour its human inhabitants (as this villager is the sole adherent to the legend, it would seem that Godzilla hasn't made an appearance in quite a few years; one suspects that the mythic tale has been passed to only a select few such as he).  Also, a child whose home was one of the huts destroyed in the storm claims to have seen some giant monster leaving the scene of the mayhem which claims the lives of his brother and mother, leaving him orphaned and homeless (which, I suppose, will make him a good candidate to fill the role of the next generation’s prophetic village dunce).  Hmmm…maybe the crazy old bastard isn’t so crazy as he seems. 

Perhaps the Japanese authorities are willing to entertain the idea of a giant prehistoric sea monster, but the introduction of Kyohai always seems to me at least a little premature.  Even the island’s inhabitants at least initially dismiss the claims of the old villager (again, whose tale’s beast must be a legend he himself has never personally seen; either there would be, in the current age within which he is living, direct evidence of the existence of Godzilla and other villagers who had seen the monster, or Ohto Island’s secret is as well kept as the location of Skull Island).  The young boy’s statement regarding what he saw, although we know it to be true, could as easily be dismissed as the result of shock, grief, and susceptibility to the story of the old man.

Meanwhile, the send-off to the expedition is witnessed by a mysterious man, thin, wearing an eyepatch with an enigmatic expression on his face; this is Dr. Daisuke Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata).  He used to be Emiko’s squeeze, or at least they are betrothed or were engaged or something along those lines (Emiko eventually breaks up with the slightly sinister doctor some time later, clearing the path for Hideto).  The injury that necessitates the eyepatch is never explained, but he’s got that thousand yard stare (which must be taxing for a guy with only one eye) and we are perhaps encouraged to wonder if he has terrible personal knowledge of the destruction at Nagasaki or Hiroshima (in which event, really, he ought to be glad he’s not a gelatinous stain somewhere or that he doesn’t have three or four eyes to cover up).  

Daisuke is the last of the four lead actors, and his character, motivation, and scientific acumen is of extreme importance to the outcome of the movie.  I’ve already at least alluded to this, but the triumph of Godzilla over just about any other daikaju eiga (giant monster movie), including its many sequels and save for the great 1933 King Kong, is that the story itself is rich with both text and sub-text in equal measure.  Godzilla himself is both a monster and a metaphor.  The central human players are sympathetic and their characterization is reasonably well-developed for a monster movie.  In Dr. Yamani, Brody, Hooper, and Quint are one.  Within the aspirations of the young lovers, Emiko and Hideto, lies the phoenix-like resolve of a broken nation to heal itself…if only they and the Japanese people can withstand Godzilla’s assault.  And, most significantly, in Dr. Serizawa, a morally complex character who further elucidates the complex thematic material that illustrates the predicament of a modern nation-state that nearly precipitated its own destruction trying to fulfill chauvinistic imperial ambitions; the character epitomizes self-loathing, survivor guilt, shame, arrogance.

Anyway, the expedition ships out to Ohto Island and, upon arrival, begins its investigation.  The scientists find areas on the island contaminated by massive amounts of radiation and a gigantic footprint in the eddies of which is a living trilobite, an oceanic arthropod long since believed extinct.  While all this is being discovered and pondered upon, the village alarm bell is sounded and its people clamor to more fortified areas.  Dr. Kyohai is just climbing the incline of a large hill when the sound of that awful roar is heard and over the hill appears…a ferocious…wait, what is it?...ohmigod it’s a…it’s a fucking hand-puppet, that’s what it is.

    

That’s right, the first time we see this most iconic of all fictional Japanese daikaiju eiga, its monstrous visage horrendous and awesome, Godzilla’s a damned hand-puppet.  And not a particularly good one, either.  Points off.  The admittedly bad taste left in the modern viewer's mouth is redeemed almost immediately by a spectator POV shot of those atop the hill who stare down at the beach from above, where there is visible of the monster’s temporary return to the sea..   This is a great shot.   

Kyohai returns to testify in a government hearing convened on the subject, where he unveils evidence of Godzilla’s existence.  Extraordinarily, he shows them a photo of the hand puppet.  Instead of saying, “Hey, that’s a fucking shitty hand-puppet, Kyohai,” the politicians are aghast at what they see (for the wrong damn reason).  He is asked what can be done, and after speculating about its likely origins and coupling that with the indication that it has been immeasurably strengthened by the atomic energy it has ingested, he pretty much concludes by saying there’s really not a damned thing that can kill Godzilla.  Now you may ask yourself, “What the fuck does a paleo-marine biologist know about killing a 200ft, therapod-like reptilian creature that breathes fire?”  And right you would be, I think.  Kyohai is a scientist. 

Serizawa, on the other hand, is both a scientist and a researcher/inventor.  One of his most recent inventions is a thing called a Motherfucking Oxygen Destroyer (sans the motherfucking), and the bad bitch does as its name suggests.  In fact, he has shown the technology to Emiko, who was justly horrified, as is Serizawa himself.  It’s been a while since last I saw Godzilla, so I don’t remember if he was threatening when he did so, like, “Bitch, this is what I’ll do to you if you break up with me!  If I can’t have you, no one can…moo-hahahahaha!”  I’m pretty sure he doesn’t.  but does swear her to secrecy, one she feels compelled to break when she realizes it may be the one thing that can save  Japanese and the world from the monster’s destructive wrath.

I don't want to say much more about the movie, other than to concur with those who believe Godzilla is one of the greatest giant monster movies ever made, second only to King Kong.  In 1952, the first time since the dawn of the atomic age, King Kong was re-released and made more money than ever (apparently more than any previous re-issue of the classic; more even than the movie made in its original run in 1933).  A canny producer thought there might be a market for a new giant monster movie.  Ray Harryhausen convinced him that such a monster could be achieved realistically and fairly inexpensively, just as Kong had been.  That movie was The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and it, too, made a fair sum of money.  It also introduced the concept that atomic bomb testing might unleash or even create monstrosities we as a society were ill-equipped to face on any number of levels, logistically, politically, culturally. 

  

Across the ocean, a rising star of Japan’s Toho Studios, the producer, Tomoyuki Tanaka, was similarly canny and conceived of a very Japanese incarnation of much the same concept.  I am going to say very little on the next subject, because it has been said elsewhere with more eloquence and thoughtfulness than I might bring to bear, but very simply, for those of you who, like me, are not the most adept at recognizing symbol or allegory: Godzilla is a metaphor for the atomic bomb.  It is, for the Japanese people, a very distinct and unique symbol, and a horrifying one.  The point is explicitly made more than once in the film.  It permeates the mood of the movie entirely.  The annihilation of Tokyo is merely the denouement; the climax of the movie a reiteration of the same.

Random Thoughts/Interesting Tidbits

Unlike the giant ants of THEM!, yet similar to the Rhedosaurus of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Gojira was not created (or, more accurately, genetically altered/mutated) by nuclear radiation, but initially awakened after many years and then strengthened by it.  He consumes the radiation somehow and, instead of being destroyed by it, is further empowered.  He breathes flame and his stegosaurus-like dorsal fins simultaneously glow.     

While I joke about the hand-puppet and other somewhat mildly unconvincing aspects of the f/x work, it doesn’t sully the film for me at all.  I have always been a fool for miniature models of cities, planes, helicopters, tanks and such (countrysides, too, such as in War of the Gargantuas).  When I see the burning boats, I know they are models in a swimming pool set afire by a match and lighter fluid.  Yet, while artificial, the effects do not look cheap or shoddy, and I for one can believe there are men burning alive in those flames (itty-bitty men, maybe, but men nonetheless).  If I am not mistaken, the f/x guru responsible for this work, including Godzilla's rubber suit, was Eiji Tsuburaya.  The man who wore than suit and imbued the monster with motion and menace, for quite a long time, was Haruo Nakashima.  These early creators are important people.  If contemporary SFX artisans are great, it is only because these men and women stand on the shoulders of the legendary giants who preceded them and were arguably greater than they (because all they had to work with were rubber bands, sticks, and glue).  

Anyway, on what was clearly a limited budget that was probably largely expended between director Ishiro Honda, a contemporary and friend of Akira Kurosawa;  Takashi Shimura, also one of Kurosawa’s most favored actors;  and the massive miniature set of Tokyo, there was likely not much remaining for even the Gojira suit itself.  Given the limitations, it is impressive what the creativity and ingenuity of the SFX crew was able to accomplish.

Lastly, for those of you who would like to read what I consider to be the best review and critique of Godzilla that I have yet read (passionate, profound, and well-articulated), see Lyz Kingsley's critique at “And You Call Yourself a Scientist.”  Truly, if it has been argued similarly but better elsewhere, a reviewer should defer to that source; if I had anything original to say beyond what she has already said, which I doubt, it is through pure serendipity.  Her reviews are informed, comprehensive, and often, laugh-out-loud hilarious.  And she does it without profanity, a feat I find extremely difficult.   

The Horror Inkwell Rating: 10/10

Cabin Fever

Rating: R

Run Time: 93 minutes

Director: Eli Roth

Starring: Jordan Ladd, Rider Strong, James DeBello

“You just want to grab the person next to you and fuck the shit out of them.”

I really wish Eli Roth were the person next to me at this moment.  I don’t want to fuck him; I want to beat the living shit out of him…

I have subjected myself to a string of shitty movies lately.  Cabin Fever is just one more flick that continues the trend and perfectly epitomizes this particular dry spell of mine ten-fold.  The movie is nonsensical.  The dialogue is atrocious.  The expendable meat is even more contemptible than usual.  The film is rambling and desultory, devoid of much of a plot. There is no forward momentum to the story.  There is nothing at all logical about the entire experience.  Even the reasoning of the group of vile young adults who are the focus of the flick is, if at all possible, even more idiotic than is generally the norm in this sort of shit-fest.

If you are a Roth fan, please explain to me the attraction.  This was supposed to be his good movie, right?  I will never watch Hostel now. 

I’m not averse to watching disturbing movies, outre gore movies, exploitation movies, movies depicting torture, or any combination thereof, if there is a need for the thing.  I understand that the enjoyment or vilification of some aspect of a film that deliberately tries to shock or even alienate the viewer is entirely a matter of subjectivity for each of us.  My tolerance of this kind of show extends to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, House of a 1000 Corpses and its sequel, Hatchets I, II, & III, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, or Taxi Driver.  My God, man, I liked Saw well enough and actually find merit and message in Cannibal Holocaust.  But Cabin Fever is just fuck-awful, derivative and unoriginal without possessing value as an homage to one of those other films, it is filled with character after character whose deaths do not elicit audience empathy, and it’s just plain stupid.           

Cabin Fever is not half bad, it is wholly, unashamedly, irredeemably, unabashedly all the way bad.  I should have known a movie whose lead was the co-star of one of my most reviled 90s sitcoms wasn’t likely to satisfy me on any level whatsoever.  But I had no idea a horror movie could plunge to the depths this one plumbs and still earn a theatrical release. Or be reviewed well. 

Some have suggested it be viewed as a black comedy or parody (of what, I have no idea).  The problem with this theory is that the filmmakers play it straight throughout at least the first half of the movie, until they are far too committed to a vision of the film as a legitimate horror outing.  Then, mid-way through, they try to get ironic on us.  It’s too late, mo-fos.

Here’s where we begin: a hobo-looking fellow returns to his campsite with what looks like some roadkill for dinner, only to find his dog dead and the bloody carcass open from neck to groin.  The dog is so obviously dead from even the most cursory glance that the incredulity of the homeless guy looks a little ridiculous.  Really, the dog is not so much obviously dead as obviously the most fake-ass prop, but let’s, for the sake of fairness, try to suspend our disbelief.  If the homeless guy can do it, so can we.

Next up, we see five kids heading for a weekend of fun at somebody’s cabin in the woods (sorry, but that’s what it is).  The gang are the most sorry excuses for humanity I have seen since, well, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, another recent shitter that has been reviewed well.  I’m not even going to make the effort to identify these characters with names or the names of the actors who play them because the characters are all cut from the same vain, self-absorbed, cloth.  Here is my exception: one of these assholes is played by Rider Strong (“Boy Meets World”).  Not only is he as much of a dick as the other two male co-leads, but, being Rider Strong, he is a terrible actor playing a dick.  Somehow, some way, the combination of talentless douche and insufferable character made the viewing experience infinitely more painful for me.

Now we swing back to the old man.  He’s been infected with something.  Did he get this from the dog?  Fuck if I know, because I didn’t know the dog had an infection.  While we’re on the subject of the dog, however, I will say this: he has better presence and acting chops than the entire cast of this debacle…and he’s a fake-ass prop.   Now to the where the old man meets the assholes.  One of them happens onto the homeless, woods-dwelling unfortunate and refuses to help the poor guy when he asks for and so desperately needs it.  Flat out refuses.  You wouldn’t think that even complete douches would tempt the wrath of God, the fates, karma, or whatever you happen to believe, quite so blatantly as this jackass does.  The poor homeless bastard returns to their cabin in the evening, still seeking help, and the stupid fuckers end up accidentally setting him on fire.

This does nothing to save them from what’s coming, however, and the rest of the movie deals with their efforts to save their own sorry asses at each other’s expense.  Have we become so cynical that we must populate a cast with young characters and then demonstrate that every single one of them is entirely devoid of even the most rudimentary sense of moral responsibility or compassion for others, even among themselves?  Have we become this inured to a pointlessly nihilist approach to movie-making that this is what we get for characters?  What is Roth trying to say?  I cannot tell, but it adds nothing of value to the very real societal problem I, in my dotage, am beginning to see:  our alienation from one another and our increasingly antisocial behavior threatens to destroy us.  The behavior here is on display for no other reason than to show people who fuck each other over to survive, yet end up dying anyway.  Maybe it’s a Sophoclean metaphor used to decipher the tragedy of the Millenials, the tragic flaw being woven into the tapestry of this generation being that you can be as shitty, cynical, narcissistic, and vain as you care to be…but you’re still gonna end up dead, fuckers.         

Is this what Eli Roth believes?  Perhaps so, given that he followed this with Hostel.  But in this film there is no dramatic import to how these young adults turn on one another.  Because they are all assholes to begin, when the virus infiltrates the group, they really just become even bigger assholes.  Lost is the resonance of the key theme of Deliverance, Straw Dogs, or The Hills Have Eyes, that we are capable of descending into the worst kind of savagery and will use extreme violence, fighting fire with fire and claiming an eye for an eye, to protect our own interests and to survive.

Here’s another thing, while I’m on it:  some horror works well when there is no explanation for the bad thing (what it is, where it came from, etc.), whether it be monster, ghost, deadly virus, you name it.  This movie, however, cannot bear to be inexplicable; it chokes on the lack of an origin story for the flesh-eating (I guess, who really knows) bacteria or whatever it is.  The lack of exposition regarding the infectious agent leaves a big, gaping hole in a plot that cannot afford one, because the story that unfolds behind it is simply not strong enough. ***

Because of this, Cabin Fever is a long, verrrry long, string of scenes of no intrinsic significance that do nothing to develop narrative continuity; it’s just one unimportant thing after another.  This is not helped by the main actors, who suck as much as actors as their characters do as morally bankrupt tits.  If Roth were aiming for a black comedy (I’m not convinced), the performances need to be tongue in cheek or a little mannered; this cast is not up to that. 

Anyway, as I said, once everyone starts getting whatever the fuck it is they’re getting, they start acting even more cravenly and, incredibly, even more obnoxiously than before.  As they do, the movie descends further into irrelevance. 

Shall we try to salvage something out of this experience?  Let's use Cabin Fever as a model for how not to make a horror movie of this sort.  Here we go!

1. Populate your movie with despicable characters whose deaths the audience will not only not mourn, but will instead actively root for with every fiber of their being.
2. Create an undefined menace that has no antecedent to explain what the hell it is,where it came from, and just exactly what it does.
3. Write shittty dialogue (so bad it has three tees) that is littered with profanity, to demonstrate how bereft your imagination truly is.
4. Arrange your scenes by no logic discernible to anyone with a fucking brain so there is no inter connectivity between one asinine idea and the next and the movie just stumbles ever onward inexorably toward an ending that will release the viewer from his pain and incredulity.
5. As either a consequence or the driving force behind #4 (I’m just not sure), just don’t worry about anything so bourgeois as a plot and, whatever you do, don’t let it get in the way of your vision of further corrupting any-bloody-someone so unfortunate as to stumble in to the theater to see the morass of doo-doo you’ve created.
6.  Do make a late act effort to shift gears entirely into what could kindly be called black comedy, if it were only the least bit fucking funny.  Still, however, continue to litter in scenes that can only be taken seriously in order to confuse further those of us who form your audience.
7. Be sure to have about six endings too many.  Make sure they go on and on.     

  

I have heard it said Cabin Fever is a parable for the AIDS or SARS crisis.  That is almost unthinkable, because if it were, it would be an absolutely tasteless insult to anyone with HIV.  I’ve heard it’s a parody…of what, Ebola virus?  Does that seem like a good idea? 

Let me end with a few of the things that are never explained, because, hey, I cannot stop myself at this point without hitting on every single thing I can remember that made my viewing experience so very, very unpleasant:

• Why does that fucking retard kid Dennis bite?  And why does he scream ”pancakes” and then do a little ju-jitsu before moving in for the kill?
• Who is the guy with the dog who shows up with the weed?  That whole scene is nonsensical.  (Yes, I know it’s Eli Roth, but what does he have to do with anything?) 
• Winston…really?
• The storekeeper and the racist comment is explained in a way that is, if anything, even more racist in its irreverence…why would a person do that?

Senseless cruelty, extreme gore, sex, profanity, all have their place in the right kind of story.  But don’t they have to earn it?…even a little bit?  What is the upside to creating a fictional world peopled with vile, selfish, amoral characters?  Because if the point is to show how we crumble and fall and turn into quivering mounds of jelly when forced to act in extremis, why broadcast that inevitability by giving us people who would, judging by what we see of them even before the shit hits the fan, only ever do exactly that anyway?

   

To end: the movie is depressing.  Is it depressing because the subject matter is uncompromisingly hard-hitting?  No.  It’s because I looked back at the end of it all and realized I had wasted an hour and a half of my life that I will never ever see again.  The one thing I can say in its defense is that Cabin Fever is an effective explanatory model for Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, because I would swear that hour and a half was twice as long.

The Horror Inkwell Rating: 3/10