Bad boy in the house

Earlier this month I wrote about my 12 Must (somehow Sees) -- rare or hard to find movies I long to view. I had little hope of watching any of these movies, but that was before good samaritan and all-around awesome blogger Marty McKee basically gave me a "step inside my office." Through Marty's goodwill, I will be able to cross two of those movies off my list, including the one I had most wanted to see -- Bad Ronald. A 1974 television movie, it seems like I've been aware of Bad Ronald for a long time, though I'm not sure when I first learned about it. I had high expectations for this movie, and am happy to say that they were largely exceeded.

Based on the book by the same name, Bad Ronald stars Scott Jacoby in the titular role as a sweetly weird teen who has a very bad 18th birthday. Lots of people have had miserable birthdays, but few of them can say they accidentally killed an adolescent girl on their big day. After blowing out the candles on his cake and re-affirming his desire to be a doctor with his clingy Mom (Kim Hunter!), Ronald is flush with confidence and heads out to ask mean girl Laurie Matthews on a date. This goes badly, as Ronald is laughed out the door by Laurie and her friends, and in his haste to get home, Ronald collides with Laurie's little sister Carol on a sidewalk. Things quickly get worse as Carol starts making fun of Ronald and his mom, and in his desire to get an apology from the girl, she falls down and hits her head on a cinder block.

Naturally, Ronald finds a shovel and buries the dead girl, which as Mom will later tell him was not a bright idea. Mom is of course heart broken at the news of her son being a murderer, but also strangely delighted, as Ronald now won't be able to study in college and leave her alone. Mom's big plan is simple yet dramatic: she and Ronald will construct a hidden "lair" in their house for him to hide out in while the mess dies down. Using Ronald's "incredible" tool kit that he just opened as a birthday present, the Good Family erects a mock wall over the door to a bathroom ala Dawn of the Dead, adds a secret entrance in the neighboring pantry -- and Ronald's new life has just begun.

It's these scenes of Ronald's new captive life where I thought Bad Ronald was at his best. Jacoby is well cast as a dorky teen shut-in, and we see that he doesn't exactly share his mother's enthusiasm for her hideaway plan. As Ronald's mother, Hunter is the best thing the movie has going for it, growing increasingly creepy in her transition from mother to warden. In her brief interactions with Ronald in the lair (as she refers to it), Mom is quick to shut the door on her son and remind him how stringently they must stick to their plan. Ronald's new dwelling also allows him ample time to tend to his literary creation of Atranta, a Tolkien-like fantasy world complete with life-size illustrations. This subplot is really our only clue to Ronald's label of being weird, but it never feels natural.

So everything's going just fine until Mom goes in for surgery and doesn't come back. In fact, the next visitors to the house are realtors who are trying to sell it. Ronald is soon joined in the house by a "they all were blonde, like their mother" nuclear family, helmed by Dabney Freaking Coleman. It's not long before the family notices missing food and strange noises, leading them to believe that the house is haunted. Ronald takes some delight in being the ghost of the house, and gradually loses his grasp on reality. When the youngest daughter finds herself alone in the house, Ronald takes the opportunity to cast her as the princess of Atranta, and hijinks ensue. The family's eventual discovery of Ronald and his lair is played out perfectly, and is probably the movie's best (and scariest) moment. For the genre, the ending is pretty by-the-numbers, but it doesn't take anything away from the previous 70 minutes.

I had hoped Bad Ronald would combine the sensibilities of a made-for-TV movie, with a highly creepy story that could have come from a Stephen King short story. While obviously hampered by time constraints and content sensitivity, Bad Ronald is never boring and packs in a few honest scares with a constant air of creepiness (my wife surrendered 30 minutes in, proclaiming it "too creepy"). With a longer running time would have served it well, as we barely see any of Ronald before the accidental murder, and never really get to know him as a normal kid. What Bad Ronald does best is maintain a consistent ghost story/urban legend feel, it's the kind of story you heard at the playground that's "totally true."

A Los Angeles Crime Saga

In 1995, a great deal was made about how Heat would be the first pairing of actors Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in a movie. Thirteen years later, we have Righteous Kill again showcasing the two actors, and I've heard exactly zero buzz about the movie. You could say this disinterest is due to the falling popularity of the two actors -- owing some to the passage of time, and most to their own doing -- but it probably has more to do with how generic Righteous Kill looks from the previews (or maybe the fact that they play characters named "Turk" and "Rooster"). With Heat it was Pacino-DeNiro, but also director Michael Mann diving into a canvas as large as Los Angeles itself, creating a giant world we spend nearly three hours in, yet still feel to have only seen a few nooks and crannies of it.

Pacino and DeNiro have had their moments since Heat (Cop Land, Insomnia), but it looks doubtful that either actor will top the roles of Vincent Hanna and Neil McCauley. The latter is my favorite DeNiro character, completely inhabiting the idea of a man who is always someone else -- essentially playing an actor. Right from the start we see exactly who McCauley is, just from the way he's walking and his gaze constantly darting, confidently strolling through a hospital in a paramedic uniform and making off with an ambulance. We get a few peeks at McCauley's personality through the film, but most of all we see a lifetime criminal who knows his success depends on himself not existing -- never getting close to anyone, or drawing any attention to himself beyond that of an anonymous bystander. The role suits DeNiro's acting style perfectly, as he's at his best when communicating without words. It's also worth noting that DeNiro has perhaps never looked as good outside of Heat, physically he looks much slimmer than his usual self, and he simply appears as the last person you want to disappoint or double cross.

Pacino's character of Lt. Hanna resembles many of the actor's stereotypical roles of hot-headed, fly-off-the-handle eccentrics, but Mann puts him in a setting that makes it work. In the DVD documentary, Pacino said an underlying theme with the development of Hanna was to play him as if he was a cocaine addict, although it would never be touched on in the film. Watching the movie with this in mind, it's easy to see how Hanna has something else in his system pushing him, but it's also plausible that his redline behavior is a side effect of law enforcement success. Hanna gets results, but he also exhibits some of the qualities of McCauley, notably how he must hide his emotions even in situations where there is only one human way to react: like when he meets the mother of a murdered prostitute at the scene of the crime.

Mann's main theme in Heat seems to be how similar the two sides are. McCauley and Hanna are both surrounded by a team of professionals who take orders from their leader, but still seem like an indestructable group of friends who will only let death get in the way of their goals. The cameraderie and drive of Hanna's group makes for one of my favorite moments in Heat: at the precinct when Det. Casals (the always great Wes Studi) gets the bank heist tip and just shouts out the bank name and time. Everyone in the room knows exactly what he's talking about and immediately springs into action. The group's spontaneous reaction feels real, and ratchets up the tension leading into the raucus heist scene.

The equivalent of this moment for McCauley's crew still brings chills to me. Sitting in a greasy spoon diner before embarking on their daring daylight bank heist, McCauley gets word that Trejo (Danny Trejo, of course) can't shake the police on his tail and is out as driver for the job. Amazingly, McCauley spies a man behind the restaurant's grill from his past: Donald (Dennis Haysbert), an old crony he met in prison. Before this point we had been following Donald's journey to make an honest living after being released from prison, but what he found was near-slave labor in the diner, working below minimum wage. McCauley approaches Donald and asks him point blank if he can be the driver ... today ... "yes or no." Donald steps back to think, knowing the decision will forever alter his life, good or bad. "Yeah." Donald throws his hairnet to the ground and shoves his asshole boss to the floor (Bud Cort!). The character and story of Donald is the most heart-wrenching in Heat, he's not the caliber of criminal as McCauley and Co., but he's also trying to get out of that life and obviously has someone who loves him and wants to see him succeed. Post-prison, Donald sees nothing in front of him but a hot grill and tiny paychecks, and in McCauley he sees an opportunity. When his girlfriend/wife (is she ever named?) sees Donald's face in the news report after the heist, I can barely watch it.

The most infamous scene in Heat remains the much-talked about coffee sit-down between Hanna and McCauley. I have to say, this scene never really did much for me, the best part is simply Hanna's decision to confront his adversary, and the way Mann films their highway meet-up. In a movie filled with great musical cues, this Freeway Oddysey is the biggest highlight for me. Showcasing Moby's adrenaline-pumping New Dawn Fades, we fly through a glowing Los Angeles freeway through Hanna's mile-a-minute eyes. Like few can, Mann completely fuses his imagery to Moby's song, and gives us one of Heat's trademark scenes. I still put it on occasionally just for that 1-minute trip.

Some 'Brood' Brooding

David Cronenberg's The Brood is a concept so thoroughly Cronenberg that you can almost imagine the idea forming in his head. Since Cronenberg's films often deal with the complex and painful idea of physical transformation/mutation, it's only natural that he could create such a wretchedly provocative image of pregnancy and birth. As a concept, it's my favorite Cronenberg movie behind The Fly, but purely as a film it has too many narrative flaws for it to be in the director's elite company. Seeing it for the first time recently, I enjoyed it immensely but still had to agree with Roger Ebert's 1979 review. Ebert's review notes that up until the last 15 minutes, The Brood is mostly made up of Art Hindle's rants and raves, and "... just a lot of coming and going and musing, as the music on the sound track hints darkly at the terrible things to come." But boy howdy do those terrible things in the last 15 minutes deliver! Goddamn.

And that's what ultimately hurts The Brood the most -- it's heavily back-loaded, and as a result Cronenberg's novel premise is never really expanded upon. Once it's finally revealed just what the movie is about, the credits roll. Cronenberg put all his chips on the fact that suddenly revealing Samantha Eggars' "strange adventure" at the end would provide a shock like other big twists from the likes of Psycho or Les Diaboliques, but those movies both held your interest up until that point.

The Brood focuses on the goings-on at the Institute for Pyscho-Plasmics, a most unconventional treatment center headed by Dr. Raglan (Oliver Reed). At Psycho-Plasmics, patients are encouraged to give physical expression to their pain, with results ranging from harmless welts to ... much more extreme manifestations. Frank Carveth (Hindle) becomes very concerned about his wife Nola's (Eggar) extended stay at the Institute, and spends most of the movie hollering about when he gets to see her again. There's also the matter of a terrifying gang of snow-suited adolescents who are terrorizing family and acquaintances of Nola, and upon closer inspection they appear to be just barely human. Frank suspects the Institute is to blame for the evil tykes and the kidnapping of his daughter -- in the end he will come face to face with the source.

Cronenberg directed The Brood under the premise that you don't know the origin of the titular creatures, but it's never really a secret. If you've never read anything about the movie, then the title itself will give you quite a big clue: the tiny menaces are born from Nola, fueled by her hateful emotions, and do her subconscious bidding. The big reveal to Frank is fantastic disgusting, in a way only Cronenberg can do, with Nola lovingly embracing her newest bloody brood. These final 15 minutes are by far the film's strongest point, but there's still part of it that leaves me wanting more. Frank decides to rid the world of the murderous children by killing his wife, on the premise that her emotions give them life. This is a logical ending to a mostly illogical movie, but it's emotionally hollow: Nola's revelation to Frank is horrifying, but would it really cause him to viciously strangle his wife to death? I think there's one way he could have cured his wife, killed the brood, and kept his family intact. How? Why, some Marvin Gay brand Sexual Healing, of course.

I'm not quite sure how Frank could have accomplished it given the circumstances, but by transforming Nola's thoughts from malicious to carnal, wouldn't it have the same effect on the brood? The visuals would be more powerful as well, with inter cuts of Nola's throes of sexual passion and the destruction of her hateful manifestations. This would not only provide a happy ending by keeping the Carveth family intact, but it would wreck the Institute's radical treatment ideals, showing that modern problems can still be solved in the home.

And yes, I'm aware that the previous paragraphs represent something more disgusting than Cronenberg put together (given Nola's physical state at that point). These are the kinds of things I think about. And yes, I need help.

Little girls lost

In a list of Best Horror Sequels, there should be a special place reserved for The Curse of the Cat People (1944). Engrossing and superbly creepy, Curse is a sequel in name only, as RKO rejected producer Val Lewton's name of Amy and Her Friend in favor of a title that would draw in fans of Lewton's most popular work, Cat People. Looking at advertising of the film, it's hilarious to see how fraudulent it was sold, promising viewers "the beast women stalks the night anew." Indeed the only cat in the movie is a small playful one in a tree (onscreen for probably 3 seconds), and the only stalking done is by Elizabeth Russell's strange character, usually on dark staircases with her scalding glare attached. What it lacks in feline terror, Curse is filled with chilling mystery, youthful fantasy and a sad air of loneliness.

The main character is Amy, who is celebrating her sixth birthday in Tarry Town, N.Y. -- Irving's setting for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. None of Amy's friends attended her party because she put the invitations in a hollow tree she once believed to be a magic mailbox. Amy's head is full of such imaginary thoughts and friends, much to the frustration of her parents, so they take some solace in the fact that Amy's birthday wish is to "be a good girl." Amy's curiosity takes her to an old dark house in the neighborhood, where a voice beckons her to come closer and then tosses her a handkerchief tied to a ring. The family servant Edward wonders if it might be a wishing ring, like he used to have in his native Jamaica, and Amy uses the ring to wish for a friend.


Amy's wish is granted, awakening the spirit of her father's first wife Irena (Simone Simon, from Cat People), who teaches the child songs and generally keeps her amused. In other developments, Amy finds the dark house where she found the ring to be home to a reclusive old lady and a younger woman who claims to be her daughter. This hardly sounds like the stuff of nightmares, but my wife found the movie so creepy that she refused to watch the final five minutes (true to Lewton form, these final few minutes contain the most scares). Like other Lewton horrors, the chills come not from the story but rather the movie's soul of creeping unease and startlingly effective photography.

Whereas other Lewton productions stick to shadowy cities (The 7th Victim, Cat People, The Body Snatcher) or isolated extremes (Ghost Ship, the desert town of The Leopard Man, the islands of I Walked With a Zombie and Isle of the Dead), Curse is set in an idyllic small town with its own unique potential for scary sights. The trademark set piece of Curse is Amy's backyard, her imagination's blank canvas where light and weather can change dramatically and a ghostly friendship is born. It's also a haven for finely sculpted shadows playing against stark white snow, with an endless barrier of branches and trunks to protect Amy from whatever lies beyond her house.


All the real scares happen next door where Amy meets Mrs. Farren, the woman who dropped the ring out of the window to her. Welcoming a rare guest, Mrs. Farren seizes the opportunity to give Amy an unnerving telling of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, in perhaps the movie's creepiest moment. If you only know Sleepy Hollow from the Disney version, then you're in for a treat. A recurring subplot is Mrs. Farren's daughter Barbara, who the woman calls an impostor, saying her real daughter died at age six. Amy's role in this confusion is never explained, but there must be some connection since the girl has just turned six.

My favorite character in Curse is actually Amy's mother, Alice, who silently accepts the fact that her husband's previous wife is still in his thoughts and slowly forging a relationship with her daughter, whether real or imagined. The fact that a ghost is closer to Alice's daughter (and possibly her husband) is the movie's saddest element, and means that almost every female character has some sort of identity conflict. The one woman in Curse who isn't included in that theme is Amy's teacher, Miss Callahan, who has her own strange subplot. Miss Callahan is introduced at a parent-teacher conference talking about Amy's troubles and the next time we see her is riding her bicycle past Amy's house. Amy asks if Miss Callahan is there to see her mother, which she denies but decides anyway to stop in. This seems to be the first time Miss Callahan and Alice have met on friendly terms, with Alice giving her a tour of their house, but Miss Callahan is still at their house that night playing cards with Amy's parents. She then celebrates Christmas with the family, and at least one shot has Miss Callahan gazing at Alice with eyes that suggest something more than friendship.


Lewton's films have often been described as having lesbian overtones (he grew up with his aunt, the notoriously flamboyant Alla Nazimova), and Alice's suddenly close relationship with Miss Callahan could be read this way, especially when you factor in Alice's obvious loneliness. But like the other themes and subplots in Curse, there is little opportunity to explore them in its 70 minute running time. The 7th Victim had a story much too large for its abbreviated length, but Curse feels only a tad shorter than it needs to be, and it makes for a brisk pace despite the fact that the characters always take their sweet time in everything they do. While it's true that Amy is never in any actual danger, it's also undeniable that Curse keeps you on the edge, never sure where the young girl's odd imagination will take you next.

'And all my pleasures are like yesterday'

Over the past year I've been slowly digesting producer Val Lewton's horror movies from the 1940s. I've found that they're a lot like good hamburgers, in that the last one you've had always seems like the best one you've ever eaten. I was ready to be disappointed with his other works after being blown away by the creative chills of The Leopard Man, but then I saw Cat People, and then The Body Snatcher was my favorite, which was then trumped by I Walked With a Zombie, before that was usurped by Ghost Ship. It would be impossible for me to rank Lewton's horror movies, as they are all so similar in quality, yet very different in subject matter.

The latest Lewton Burger to top my list is The Seventh Victim, which I watched twice this weekend (finally broke down and bought The Val Lewton Horror Collection -- now that it includes Scorsese's The Man in the Shadows documentary). Like all of Lewton's movies, The Seventh Victim has scenes and sequences that will stay with you long after its short 71 minute running time is up. Similar to its stablemates The Seventh Victim has a constant air of death -- this time dealing with a woman who has always been "obsessed with death" and never afraid of it. The woman is Jacqueline Gibson, a young owner of a beauty products business who has recently gone missing. Her only relative is sister Mary Gibson, who is informed of her sibling's disappearance by her school masters before setting out to New York City to find the truth. Mary and a private investigator think they have found her sister's location in a locked room, but the detective emerges from it not with Jacqueline, but with a fatal stab wound. After running for her life, Mary learns her sister may have unwisely come under the ire of a mysterious group of devil-worshippers called the Palladists.


A scene that jumped out immediately to me was Jacqueline's startling entrance -- where should this rank among the all-time great character entrances? If Harry Lime is No. 1, then Jacqueline's scene has to be in the top 5. Her name is mentioned multiple times in every scene, and the movie is about her disappearance -- yet we never see her until she's abruptly revealed behind a knock on a door. Jacqueline's silent introduction and subsequent vanishing make the scene all the more memorable.

Though we see little of New York City, director Mark Robson is able to add small background touches to make the locale grow more sinister as Mary and her allies plunge deeper into Jacqueline's disappearance. The most prevalent of these for me was this oddly prominent sign above the morgue, which is only seen for a few seconds...


Creepy!

More mystery than suspense, The Seventh Victim has a handful of scares, with the most noteworthy being a bathroom confrontation that set the table for Hitchcock's seminal scene:

Watching it a second time, I noticed details that didn't stand out during the initial viewing. What pleased me the most was seeing a Palladist symbol projected onto Mary while she and the detective break into the factory. It's easy to miss upon first viewing, because the symbol at this point in the movie has no meaning. Although one is partially obscured by the detective's shadow, when Mary passes in front of the light, there are four Palladist symbols in view:


What an amazing shot, especially since the corridor we're focused on also features the silhouette-filled window where any number of evils could be lurking. This is probably the best-directed scene in the film, especially from a horror sense. The tension builds at a believable pace, even though there's really nothing happening beyond waiting for a character to open a door. The door itself is even scary, it's draped in just the right amount of darkness, and shot in such a way (with near silence) that your imagination instantly fills in the amount of terror that could lurk behind it.

I also noticed that the preface sonnet is actually taken from the stained-glass window at Mary's school. Seems pretty morbid for a stained-glass window at a girls' school:


The aforementioned scenes and elements are so great that they largely mask the storytelling deficiencies of The Seventh Victim. Though it's only 71 minutes, this is a thick plot that never feels like it properly unfolds. The short running-time has been attributed to RKO Studios punishing Lewton for his choice of rookie Robson as a director -- they reportedly demanded Lewton to find someone else or have his project slapped as a B-movie. Lewton obviously chose the latter, and had to excise four crucial scenes (disappointingly missing from the DVD). Those with knowledge of these scenes say they did not completely remedy the film's confusing plot, but greatly aided certain aspects such as the unexplained matter of how the Palladists located Jacqueline while she was in hiding, and how Dr. Judd was able to know so much about the group. But even with these four scenes restored, it seems we would still not see any more of Jacqueline -- too bad because it seems like her strange, death-obsessed character deserves more screen time and depth.

As it is, The Seventh Victim is a challenge to keep up with. There are probably too many characters, and by the end I felt like I didn't know much about any of them (I'm still confused by Jason). But any frustration was quickly erased by the movie's many moments of brilliance, in particular the last act. The movie is at its best when the Palladists are on screen, and I think it's best that we never learn too much about them. Judd and Ward's moral confrontation with the lead Palladist is a triumph, and it could have been even better if the latter's last line was more sharply written (or possibly delivered by a superior actor). The morbid ending may be my favorite of any Lewton film, and it's amazing that it survived the Production Code cutting room. The Seventh Victim currently stands as my favorite Val Lewton flick, but of course that's subject to change when I get around to seeing Isle of the Dead, Bedlam or Curse of the Cat People.

New favorites from 2007

2007 was a career year for me as a movie watcher. I made some tweaks to my schedule that allowed me more time to take in films, and for the first time I committed to writing down all my viewings. The result was nearly 300 movies viewed, and many new favorites experienced for the first time. Wrapping up the year a little late, here are my personal highlights of what I saw on DVD/DVR in 2007.

THE FURY (1978) -- Brian DePalma's marathon sprint of energy and desperation, as teens Gillian (the striking Amy Irving) and Robin (Andrew Stevens) come to terms with their raw psychic abilities and the government agency that seeks to control it. Kirk Douglas is a maniac from start to finish and John Williams' score perfectly fits the frenetic action. And of course, it all wraps up with the famously explosive climax.

GUN CRAZY (1950) -- Unique film noir crime adventure, where an impressionable lad is criminally influenced by a dangerous woman, hence the original title Dangerous is the Female. As the trick shooting character Annie Laurie Starr, Peggy Cummins carries the film and provides one of the sexiest moments of the genre in a surprising scene of gun shots and seduction.

THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN (1985) -- Not the first time I've seen it, but the only time since about 1989 that I've had the pleasure. They sure don't make 'em like this any more (for good and bad), and it's outdated in a pleasing way: the over-usage of Pat Benatar's "Invincible," a pre-Simpsons Yeardly Smith, youth across the country chanting the same cry for justice, Peter Coyote. Oh yeah, and one of those rad motor scooters that were the coolest things on earth for about 16 months plays a pivotal role.

VIDEODROME (1983) -- The Criterion version was a blind buy for me, after reading much about it over the past year. Cronenberg's tale of vacuum and cathode tube analog horror is unsettling -- and still relevant. While Brian Oblivion appears only on a television, today he would be a video blogger on YouTube.

DEMONS (1985) -- Maybe my favorite horror viewing of the year. Lamberto Bava brings terror to a zombified movie theater, where the monsters in the aisles are scarier than what's on screen. Way too much fun, especially when Bava adds in the Italian punks and the motorcycle.

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1966) -- A stunning journey through a revolution from the roots up. Each side is represented well, and neither looks pretty in this portrayal of the Algerian revolution in France.

PETULIA (1968) -- Richard Lester's odd, original look at the evolution of romance leading up to the Summer of Love is impossible to look away from. Archie (George C. Scott) is transfixed with the title character (Julie Christie, never more beautiful) but constantly befuddled by a world he increasingly can't recognize. Filled with odd 60s culture like a futuristic drive-up hotel and a castle of a modern California home.

HARD EIGHT (1996) -- Paul Thomas Anderson's breakthrough debut is filled with strong acting by Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly and Gwyneth Paltrow. A story of temptation and regret in Las Vegas, it's a low-key production that builds from the opening credits.

A BUCKET OF BLOOD (1959) -- It's not often you get to see Dick Miller in a lead role, but he's perfect as a plucky loser hoping to get in with the beatnik crowd -- no matter the cost. Directed by Roger Corman, the story of a man who becomes a ceramic artist by covering dead bodies in clay is consistently unsettling, and often hilarious.

3 WOMEN (1977) -- Robert Altman's interesting spiral into the mystery of the female psyche was one of my 5 favorite movies I watched this year. The odd dynamics that form between two troubled roommates (Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall) takes stranger and stranger turns, and becomes a perfect circle when they enter the life of a third woman. Filled with provoking looks into identity and memory, I'd like to see it a few more times.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1983) -- One of the most unheralded of Mel Brooks' comedies, this is undoubtedly one of his best (and funniest). Taking a sensitive subject, the Nazi occupation of Poland, Brooks presents a wonderfully-paced slapstick comedy that peaks with one of the funniest scenes of any Brooks comedy (Bronski trying to imitate Col. Ehrhardt).

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973) -- From my pick for the best DVD of 2007 (more on that in a forthcoming post), Alejandro Jodorowsky's films had been out of the public view for decades before this year. The Holy Mountain is one of the most visually captivating movies you'll ever see, from its beautiful bewildered opening credits, through a ridiculous battle between toads in a miniature Mexico City, to the unpredictable ending. It's often disturbing and challenging, but never like anything else you've seen.

PRETTY POISON (1968) -- One of my favorite surprises of the year, Pretty Poison is one of those rare movies that manages to deliver suspense, quick wit and disturbing humor in a wonderful package. With a sharp script, Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins are memorable as an unlikely couple brought together by paranoia and lost youth. Weld's character may be one of my all time faves, as a seemingly innocent glassy-eyed girl who becomes more devilish as she gains more confidence.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957) -- The best kind of sci-fi movie, where the genre is used to serve up a powerful message -- in this case, a straight-faced existential musing. Amazing special effects and a bold, perfectly-executed ending.

SUNRISE (1926) -- This is probably atop my list of silent movies, with genuine emotions of hope and despair throughout. Beyond the great story, it is also filled with some of the best visuals of the era.

DON'T LOOK NOW (1973) -- I had read numerous glowing reports of this Donald Sutherland/Julie Christie chiller, and they were all richly deserved. I love the atmosphere of looming terror created by Nicolas Roeg, and the infamous ending lived up to the hype.

PLAYTIME (1967) -- I had passed over viewing this a few times, but after reading it was Andy Horbal's favorite movie, it moved to the top of my queue. Wow. Definitely my best viewing of the year, Playtime is literally like nothing else, with Jacque Tati creating his own world of comedy and human observation where every scene is a virtual mosaic of characters, setpieces and emotions. This is one of those movies you watch repeatedly to find something new with each viewing, and you find it more rewarding each time. Also, I can't imagine another movie with more potential from a Blu-Ray remastering.

THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND (1936) -- This sensationally-titled tale of the doctor who was wrongly implicated in Abraham Lincoln's assassination was one of John Ford's early Fox films. While the facts get skewed to present a more favorable story, it's a wild adventure told passionately by Ford.

'Peanut Butter' still sticks

With our first baby on the way, I've been doing some soul searching about kids movies. On one hand I'll love watching Toy Story or Willy Wonka for the first time with my child, but I'll also silently dread having to brave a Shrek movie. Of course, I'll wean the child on my (appropriate) favorites from Day 1, but there will be many times when a kids movie has to be put on. I've thought a lot about the unorthodox diet of movies that comprised much of my youth, which was usually HBO and whatever I could convince my parents to rent. I can't tell you how many memories of nameless movies from HBO I have, and most of them I'll probably never see again. But I was finally able to re-view one of those random crazy 2 p.m.-on-a-Sunday movies this week, thanks to Google Video.

Joseph B brought it to my attention that The Peanut Butter Solution was online in its entirety, which was kind of amazing since it's not on DVD anywhere. Peanut Butter was a movie I watched in fragments many times, and for quite awhile I wasn't sure if my memories of it were real or dreamed. The IMDB comments for the movie confirm that many other people felt the same way. Watching it again, I think it's holds up very well as a kids movie, and I think my kid will be the only one in the schoolyard trying to explain the art of magic paintbrushes.

Yes, magic paint brushes. And ghosts, and kids enslaved by a mad art teacher, and a kid with a lot of hair. A truly strange movie, The Peanut Butter Solution's best plot device happens early, when young Michael finds his way into a burnt out house and is mysteriously frightened to such a degree that he goes bald. Michael can't remember what it was that scared him so much, but he does know that he can't go on with his life without any hair. Luckily, a couple of hobos died and became ghosts and they want to help Michael with his problem. They know about a concoction that will regrow hair -- just don't put too much peanut butter in it. Of course, Michael does put too much peanut butter in, and soon he has Cousin It hair growing at an astonishing rate. If that's not bad enough, he soon gets kidnapped by an art teacher he didn't like who imprisons him in a factory run by enslaved children where his hair can be farmed to create magic paint brushes. Yup, this movie has it all.

Peanut Butter freaked me out as a kid, and it is genuinely creepy, considering its intended audience. The idea that something could scare you so much as to force baldness is a chilling concept for a child, and the movie sells the idea well by having it be unexplained until the end. And kidnapping, especially in the 80s when it seemed every kid was convinced their captor could be lurking behind the nearest tree, is always a gruesome concept for kids and even more so when it involves a hated teacher. The magic paintbrushes made from Michael's enchanted hair allow a person to paint a picture that they can "enter" and interact with, and the low budget effects do a good job of portraying this concept. Unfortunately, when the culprit of Michael's fright is revealed at the end, it's an unquestioned letdown -- probably due to an equal lack of writing creativity and budget constraints.

Released in 1985, the Canadian production of The Peanut Butter Solution was the second in director Rock Demers' Tales for All series, and by far the most popular. Apparently, Demers was an influential figure in Quebec's emerging film industry in the 1970s:

Throughout the 1970s, Quebec quietly established itself as the centre of production for Canadian children's films. The success of 1970's The Christmas Martian spawned such venerable kiddie fare as Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang (1972) and Mystery of the Million Dollar Hockey Puck (1976), but it wasn't until the 1980s that the industry became one of the cornerstones of Canadian b-film production, thanks primarily to the efforts of one man? Rock Demers.

No offense to my Canadian readers, but that paragraph reads like something out of a Christopher Guest script. The Christmas Martian? Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang? Wow. The Peanut Butter Solution sounds pretty normal compared to those titles. Another bit of trivia: this movie featured the English language debut of one Celine Dion! So if you have 90 minutes to spare, click below and enjoy this odd Canadian 80s kids flick.

'Halloween' lessons learned

I really couldn't turn down the opportunity to see a double feature of Halloween 4 and Halloween 5 on the big screen. Showings like this don't come around very often in Boise -- the only other such offering this month was a 25th anniversary screening of Heavy Metal at the so-beautiful-they-really-should-show-better-movies-than-Heavy Metal Egyptian Theatre. And while I wasn't expecting to see two good movies, I did come away with some good lessons about the original Halloween, and the new one.

I really had no knowledge of the Halloween sequels past II. I've seen almost all the Friday the 13th sequels and a few Nightmare on Elm Streets, but didn't really know what I was in for with these two Halloweens. Actually, that's not true. A friend of mine in grade school, who saw every new horror movie that came out, told me once that Part 5 was his favorite movie of all time

The double feature was part of a national event put on by Monsters HD, I think it was broadcast by satellite or something, and the movies were prefaced by a new documentary on the two sequels. Since it consisted of 20 minutes of interviews of cast and crew trying to make the movies out to be masterpieces, there were a few highlights. Notably, Danielle Harris talking about how she and Donald Pleasence had fun "taking pictures" of each other on the set (when Harris was about 11) and how Part 4 director Dwight Little was qualified to make a Halloween movie because he celebrated Halloween in the Midwest. My experience with the other two 1980s slasher franchise sequels convinced me that I was in for a few solid entertaining hours in Haddonfield ... but as Crissy Hines once sang: "My city was gone."

4 and 5 are simply horrible movies. To say they were made "by the numbers" would be an insult to first grade arithmetic. On my way out of the theater, I kept siting examples to my viewing companion that the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, while hardly "good," at least found ways to spice things up with each successive movie -- giving you a reason to not walk out on it. While Jason continually carved up campers as the years dragged on, we at least got to meet Corey Feldman's character, the psychic girl, and even experienced him in 3-D. Freddie Krueger had a built-in sequel mechanism, with more bad puns and nightmare imagery added to each movie -- however tiresome that became. With the Halloween sequels, all we're given is the mask, a crazy Donald Pleasence and a Haddonfield sign placed in a Salt Lake City neighborhood.

And it's one thing for a slasher movie to be bad, but does it have to be boring? When both movies arrive open their third acts, the action grinds to a screeching halt: In 4 we have all the characters sitting in a dark house waiting for suspense that never arrives, and in 5 there's literally a 10 minute scene of characters chasing stray kittens through a barn before being killed (the people, not the kittens). Worse yet, there's absolutely zero scares in either of them, not that they don't try. It seems like both directors felt Michael Myers was the reason Halloween was scary, giving us many shots of him: Michael standing in the mist, Michael on a roof, Michael floating down a creek, Michael driving a car, Michael ordering an iced Chai latte (sadly, only this last one is a lie). Of course, Michael by himself is not scary, and certainly not when he's wearing a cheap imitation of John Carpenter's mask -- it makes him look like an action figure being used for a miniature shoot. Carpenter went the Jaws route with Michael -- just giving us glimpses of him, usually in between shadows. A glimpse of Michael's face in perfect lighting can be scary, seeing Michael poorly hiding behind branches in broad daylight on a busy street is not.

After being disappointed with 4, I felt for sure 5 would be an improvement -- especially after David McReynolds' hearty 5th grade endorsement of it. Just as The Wild Bunch closed the Western era in 1969, Halloween 5 must have really slammed the door on slasher movies 20 years later. The movie is so ridiculously flawed and uninteresting that the only redeeming quality of it is that it was shot and distributed in a span of only 5 months -- beginning production in May 1989 and getting to screens that October. In that sense, it's a little understandable why it feels only half completed: why the opening 5 minutes are recycled from the previous movie, why we see Michael taken in by a hobo and his parrot who let the masked monster apparently sleep for a year until the next Halloween, why Ellie Cornell's 4 character is reduced to a few scenes of excitedly taking off her clothes and grinning at the large sweater she's going to wear like it's a birthday cake, why we're made to watch teens leave a rockin' Halloween party so they can chase kittens in a barn, and why there is an infuriatingly anonymous character who apparently plays a huge role in the film's plot.

That last part still rankles me. Who is this Man in Black who wears steel-tipped boots and a cowboy hat? What are his motives? Does he have anything to do with Michael's unexplained tattoo we see at the beginning? We'll never know for sure, especially not after the Man in Black guns down the police station and allows Michael to escape from jail (yes, Michael is dramatically arrested in 5 -- justice is finally served). Couldn't this character have been used to provide us something interesting in the movie?

And that brings me to Rob Zombie's Halloween, which I've been holding off writing a review for. I honestly really enjoyed the movie, even more so after seeing these awful sequels. Remake or sequel, it's a high quality addition to a franchise that was repeatedly dug up and buried through the 80s and even 90s. There are actual interesting elements of the movie, and its momentum peaks where it should -- in the final act. I don't mind that Zombie tried to explain Michael's past, especially because it draws no conclusions. No matter who raised Michael, there was something behind those black eyes that would eventually become pure evil, and Dr. Loomis couldn't find the answer after decades of research. I think it works perfectly as a remake, riffing on a few of Carpenter's scenes, while adding original ones, without being too obvious. Best of all, Zombie was smart enough to know how to shoot that mask.

Worst. Funeral. Ever.

I'm really thankful never to watch Phantasm as a child, because the amount of lost sleep I would have endured may have resulted in being held back a grade. Phantasm is a one-of-a-kind horror movie, seemingly springing from a brain storming session of what people are afraid of. It ends up feeling like a wax museum of horror frights, with a wide variety of spooky images that only occasionally relate to the plot. And yes, there is a plot -- run from the bad stuff. It's the kind of movie that couldn't be remade today: there's only one Tall Man, and most of the movie's charming creep-factor relies on mood..

It's a tribute to Coscarelli that it all comes together to work so well. A production light on story, heavy on special effects, yet with minimal budget. Some sleight-of-hand effects work well to mask what shortcoming Phantasm had in the cash department, and music by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave adds another uneasy element to the atmosphere. The music may be my favorite part of Phantasm, and one of the reasons it's so easy to turn on anytime -- has there ever been a more rocking horror score? What starts as eerie, slowly builds up to almost soft rock when the percussion kicks up later in the movie, providing a perfect backdrop to the Tall Man's pursuit.

From the beginning, Coscarelli gives you slight hints of what you're in for: a glimpse of a hooded dwarf scurrying behind a grave, the silent mystery of what lurks inside the mortuary and ... who is that Tall Man? Thankfully, there are few to no answers in Phantasm. It exists as a nightmare that goes in and out of actual dreams, never trying to explain whatever evil is at play in Morningside Cemetery: are there other Tall Man portals on our planet? Is it another dimension? Where does the mortuary go after it disappears? Almost every scene asks another question without an opportunity for an answer (the finger turns into a bug?), and Coscarelli keeps the scares coming so there's no reason to keep wondering.

The Tall Man has to be one of the best original monsters of the past few decades. What is it about him that works so well? He's not exactly tall or ugly -- he just has that walk and that hair, and that way of saying things: "You play a good game, boy. But the game is up -- it's time to die!" I think Phatasm is one of the few movies where I can picture a television series based on it: each week, a new hair-raising adventure for Mike and Reggie with the Tall Man. And every episode ends the same way -- with the Tall Man lunging at Mike through a mirror.

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Two new horror favorites

Following up on the post below about 31 Flicks That Give You the Willies, it's once again a great month to find out about underseen and underrated horror movies. I recently took in two of these flicks, and have nothing but good to say about both of them:

The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)

A tip of Vincent Price's top hat to Neil Sarver for this one. After reading Neil's recommendation, I saw that TCM was showing the Roger Corman classic the following day -- huzzah! The Tomb of Ligeia contains one of my new favorite openings of any horror movie. How could you turn away after hearing these opening lines:

"You cannot bury her in consecrated ground, she was un-Christian!"

"This is my ground."

"It's the Lord's ground."

"Then let the Lord refuse her."

"She will not rest with the Christian dead."

"She will not rest for she is not dead ... to me. And she will not die for she willed not to die."

The opening scene is a dark funeral procession at a crumbling English abby. Price's character, Verden, carries the body of his wife Ligeia, which has a convenient window to display her face. After she is lowered into the ground, we see her eyes pop open, which Verden attributes to a "simple reflex." A snarling black cat walks over her grave, and the pallbearers leave in horror, Verden asking if "cat got your tongue?" The film's title is displayed over the cat and Ligeia's tombstone, then we're taken through a creative credits scene of numerous gothic paintings featuring the abby and that darned cat.

It's a beautiful beginning to an entertaining movie, shot in gorgeous widescreen in England and on a familiar Corman set that was also used for The Terror, The Raven and The Haunted Palace. The last of Corman's Edgar Allen Poe-based movies, the short story Ligeia provided the basis here. Poe's 1838 story featured a narrator married to the strange title character, although he could not remember her last name or quite how they met. His wife was obsessed with the philosophy of a person's will to live, and also die, and continues through her passing. As in most Poe stories, the ending packs a punch. Corman's movie does not show us any of Ligiea's life, instead focusing on Verden and his relationship with Lady Rowena, whom he meets shortly after the opening funeral.
A dapper gentleman who is forced to wear bad-ass wraparound sunglasses due to light sensitivity, Verden is haunted by Ligiea's existence, or lack thereof. Strange things happen after her death: the date of her death is removed from her tomb (Verden probably did it, but he can't remember), a hunting party's trophy fox disappears from plain view (a fox was Ligiea's symbol) and that black cat is not exactly welcoming of Rowena. While not scary, The Tomb of Ligeia has an intoxicating atmosphere of morbid English mystery. Verden's abby is an amazing setpiece (particularly in outdoor scenes), and the story builds right up until the pure Poe ending (with a little more action added in from Corman). And as good as the opening dialog was, nothing matches this beauty from Verden, which I hope was taken straight from the Poe text:

"Christopher, not ten minutes ago I... I tried to kill a stray cat with a cabbage, and all but made love to the Lady Rowena. I succeeded in squashing the cabbage and badly frightening the lady. If only I could lay open my own brain as easily as I did that vegetable, what rot would be freed from its grey leaves?"

I Walked With a Zombie (1943)


These Val Lewton/Jaques Tourneur movies never cease to entertain, and while it's not as good a movie as Cat People, it's equally as bold and mysterious. One of the most interesting elements of this movie is the title, which seems to put it in the same league as Teenagers from Outer Space or My Stepmom's a Werewolf. I took the "walk" in the title as a courtship slang, maybe equating to I Went With a Zombie, and expected a tale of a husband or boyfriend who turned into a zombie. And when you learn that the title is literal, the choice seems strange or perhaps a bad translation ("You walked with a zombie? Big whoop, my family got eaten by them!").

While the title is a little off, the film is anything but. A reworking of Jane Eyre, I Walked With a Zombie shares the novel's concept of a husband with a wife allegedly gone mad, with a comely new woman firmly in his sights. Betsy is a nurse who has agreed to help on a Caribbean plantation, where she cares for the owner's wife Jessica. Suffering from the strange effects of a local fever, Jessica is in a near vegetable state -- a zombie. Constantly dressed in flowing white with an eerily distant stare, Jessica is the haunting mystery that is central to the film. After falling in love with husband Paul, Betsy is determined to cure Jessica, as her condition seems to defy medical logic.

The film's title refers to its most satisfying scene, when Jessica and Betsy walk through the plantation's wheat fields to a spooky voodoo gathering. With this scene, the relationship between Betsy and Jessica gathers some sapphic qualities, especially if you interpret the "walk" element the way I did. It's a beautiful scene, with the moonlight shining through Jessica's gown and the scenery allowing you to almost feel the West Indies night heat. Tourneur has a field day with the odd voodoo elements, and Darby Jones' piercing Carrefour character is the physical embodiment of the area's zombie practices, with bulging eyes and an emaciated gait. Not one of the scarier of producer Val Lewton's horror movies, but the sexual undercurrent in a creepy voodoo land appeal of I Walked With a Zombie makes it memorable.

'It's not the age honey, it's the mileage'

As someone who was obsessed with all things Indiana Jones growing up (including the seldom-seen arcade game that featured one button: "whip"), I was fascinated a few years ago to read about the shot-by-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark that a few adolescent friends put together in Mississippi. The Vanity Fair article (PDF file) that introduced most of us to the project dove into the elements that make this story almost too good to be true: a homemade film that took 8 years to make, made by friends who put everything they had into the film's making, and a finished project that even impressed Steven Spielberg.

Raiders: The Adaptation is also a movie that few will see, because due to licensing restrictions it will likely never be on DVD, and it's even tricky to get it into private screenings. Thanks to the Idaho International Film Festival, I was finally able to see the adaptation and learn even more about its tremendous back story. Talking to one of the festival's organizers before the movie, she said not to expect it to be like an actual movie, especially the sound recorded on a BetaMax camcorder. The film has not been touched since its final edit in 1988 (rightfully so) and is pretty raw. While it's true that it's not like an actual movie, Raiders: The Adaptation is also one of the most unique movie-watching experiences I've ever had.

The sound is so garbled that probably 80 percent of the dialog is indecipherable, so if you have never seen Raiders of the Lost Ark beforehand, you'll get a little frustrated trying to follow things. But that's where a lot of the fun comes in -- because John Williams' score is used throughout, the film takes on a hybrid-silent quality. Luckily they were dealing with a fairly simple story that relies little on dialog to drive it (we're not talking Glengarry Glen Ross here). But the raw sound does little to hamper the kids' enthusiastic acting, notably the energy of Angela Rodriguez as Marion. Eric Zala, Chris Strompolous and Jayson Lamb fill in most of the male roles (and almost every crew position), but Rodriguez is probably the strongest performer and really brings the adaptation to another level.


The main reason the adaptation took 8 years to produce was a commitment to high-quality stunts, sets and special effects, and the end result is sometimes startling (considering the circumstances). In a Q&A session afterward, Strompolous explained that most indoor scenes were shot in one of their basements -- including the pyrotechnic-laced barroom shootout. Once the movie gets going, you find yourself wondering just how they will accomplish the various memorable scenes, and they only skip past them in a few instances (such as the large scale 'Flying Wing' sequence). In all other cases, they turn to their youthful creativity -- the Ark setpiece looks nearly identical to the original's, they were able to film in a decommissioned submarine in Mobile, Ala. (after three years of haggling), a small dog is substituted for the monkey in Marrakesh, Indy gets away from the dart-shooting natives via motorboat and not airplane, and the famous map travel interludes are accomplished with stop-motion animation. Probably the most impressive scene is the famous truck chase, which is presented more or less in full, with the Nazis riding in a Volkswagen SuperBeetle instead of a Mercedes, and Indy commandeering an old Ford truck. I kept waiting for Indy's risky stunts underneath the truck to be cut, but there it was -- with a 15-year-old kid hanging on for dear life.

One of the biggest surprises was how fun it was to see the credits, where the makers went out of their way to credit each and every contributor -- meaning their own names were listed no less than 15 times. The final credit reads: "This is the end," -- The Doors.

Raiders: The Adaptation has no peers, and no genre. There are innumerable examples of this kind of tribute on YouTube, but today's kids have so much more at their disposal than simply a BetaMax camera. Strompolous talked of coordinating each friend's birthday and Christmas wish list to relate to what their production needed, and any allowance they got went straight to the movie. There were even a couple times where the boys went a couple months without talking to each other, and at one point it looked like the project was put to bed for good ... until Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came out. The third entry in the trilogy provided all the motivation they needed. By then, all three friends were 18 and dealing with a project that had consumed their entire childhood. After working endless hours at a local television studio to finish the final edit ... it was done.

The story goes that each friend went his separate way for college, and Zala ended up at NYU where a certain student named Eli Roth watched the adaptation one night, and began spreading the word. Soon, Spielberg had seen it and the Vanity Fair article was in the works. In 2004, it was announced that a documentary of the adaptation's production was underway (still TBA). All three eventually quit high-paying jobs in the entertainment industry to focus again on their childhood film, touring around film festivals with it. Strompolous spoke of a screening last year in an Eastern Idaho town I had never heard of, so they clearly get around to every corner of the country with this thing. He also told me that while working in the DVD industry, he pitched the film to Paramount as an extra in the Indiana Jones Trilogy. They smiled and said no.

At the Boise screening, the theater was packed with families, and even kids who obviously hadn't seen the original before seemed captivated. In a way, it's the ultimate kids movie. The message here is this: if Raiders: The Adaptation comes to your town, don't miss it -- it might be your only chance.

Note: Visit TheRaider.net for an extensive history of the adaptation.

Evil Dead RV

What ever happened to the good old days when it seemed every time you turned around there was a guy wearing a goat's head sacrificing a nude virgin? Well maybe it never got that bad (in most areas), but it's comforting to know that there was a time when the threat of Satanic cults was a great distress to this nation. Case in point the Satanic cult craze in Hollywood and television through the 70s and early 80s. Rosemary's Baby probably jump started the film industry's fascination, and The Exorcist did nothing to slow it down.

So the Satanic cult/Satan genre had a few good movies, but we also got a bunch of low-grade/high-fun crazy crap such as Necromancy (also known as A Life for a Life, Rosemary's Disciples, The Toy Factory and The Witching), starring a brow-furrowed Orson Welles as the devilish owner of a bad toy factory (never seen) and the leader of a Satanic cult (very much seen). But as far as Satanic cults go, it doesn't get much more fun than 1975's Race With the Devil.

Starring Peter Fonda and Warren Oates (strangely looking much older and fatter than he did in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, made only a year earlier), Race With the Devil combines the familiar Satanic cult paranoia of Rosemary's Baby with the sensibilities of a Winnebago road trip. What starts off as a pleasant Texas to Colorado ski vacation via a new RV turns bad when Roger (Fonda) and Frank (Oates) find a secluded camping area for the men and their girlfriends, and accidentally spy an apparent Satanic sacrifice across the river. Somehow the men are spotted, and eventually high-tail their asses out of there, but not before a suspenseful river crossing (this is before people knew RVs were not off-road vehicles) and fighting off a few stowaway cult members.

Of course, the local law is little to no help (despite the usually God-fearing R.G. Armstrong playing the sheriff), but our foursome is able to steal a book on Satanism from the library. So they're in the clear, right? Unfortunately, this is not your everyday Satanic cult. The brand of cult in Race With the Devil is the kind that will fill your RV with snakes, the kind that will stare at you while you're in a swimming pool, and the kind that will take you out to dinner at a country western bar with one hand and sacrifice your little dog with the other.

Our gang soon finds out what most of us had already suspected: the entire state of Texas is one giant Satanic cult. This leads to a Winnebago death chase that may have inspired some of the delicious madness that ends The Road Warrior. There are some absolutely smashing stunts to be had in the climactic chase scene, and if you're hoping for the gang to outrun the Satanists, well -- you just don't know how Texas cults work, do ya? They always get their man.

Race With the Devil is all kinds of fun, and it's helped by the fact that the nameless Satanic cult is played as an outright MacGuffin. We never learn what their intentions are, what they plan to do with our gang, or even who it was they were sacrificing that one night. And who cares? As long as it results in a cross country chase with a Winnebago, I'm satisfied.

Note: While googling Race With the Devil, I ran into this Black Oak Arkansas album of the same name. Niiiiiice.

Bullitt Time

I opened the door to my wheelhouse recently and found Piper there. Yes, he was talking chase scenes -- and left out Bullitt! Still trying to recover from my post-INLAND EMPIRE haze (another time, another post), I was not up to the challenge of entering the ring, but thankfully Moviezzz stepped into the opposite corner and threw the first punch, which Piper quickly countered. Though I'm late to the fight, a recent viewing of the Steve McQueen chase in question re-energized me, so here I am to defend Bullitt.

I've actually found myself in this position frequently -- usually after recommending Bullitt to someone who claims to be a car and/or chase scene buff. They inevitably come back disappointed, and I predictably sever all ties to them. Admittedly, my love for the Bullitt scene comes from at least a couple biases: I am a car guy -- my first real conversation with my wife was a one-sided education on the merits of the lesser Porsche models (the 944, 928, 968 etc.) and an explanation on how Porsche-philes identify 911s by series. Also, the chase in question features my favorite American car of all time -- the 1968 Dodge Charger R/T, which for my money is the most beautiful car ever manufactured in this country.

The '68 Charger is what helps Bullitt rise above other chases: the car looks evil, and is such driven by villains. If the Bug-Eyed Sprite looks like, well, a bug-eyed sprite, then the '68 Charger looks like Darth Vader. The sinister black Charger against Steve McQueen's American-as-apple-pie green Ford Mustang is a constant visual reminder of which chaser is good and evil. Looking at the combatants from a contemporary eye makes them more impressive -- these were two brutish cars (especially the Charger), built more for speed than corners. The '68 Charger sported a 440 "magnum" V8, which until the Viper debuted was the largest engine Chrysler would ever put in a car, and was a long and heavy coupe with no promises of tight cornering. McQueen's pony car had "only" the 390 V8, which would be eclipsed by the powerhouse 429 V8 in later models, but it was far lighter and more compact than the Charger. With this in mind, it's somewhat amazing seeing the two cars barrel through San Francisco hills -- sometimes unsuccessfully. The driving is sloppy at times because they were stock cars driven to the absolute limit.

What we have through the whole chase is a raw realism that ups the adrenaline considerably. In no other chase do you grit your teeth or squeeze your chair when the cars barely miss oncoming traffic and continually come close to bottoming out or flipping over. Because the chase was not in the original script, much of it was probably improvised and done in one shot: see the Charger's collision with a parked car after a failed turn, it's possible that it got hung up on this car because the Academy Award-winning editing (!!!) essentially makes most of the Charger vanish after the hit. The numerous continuity errors make the chase less a part of the movie, and more of a "look what we did" home recording: after witnessing the downhill leaps (by the Volkswagen Beetle) from the drivers' perspective, they go back up the hill and then we're treated to the same downhill sequence again, but from a different angle (keep an eye on the Beetle). If we're supposed to believe these were two unique sequences, then the Charger loses a total of five hubcaps before the chase is over.

So yes, it's raw, but it's also stylish. The chase begins slowly with a brilliant cat-and-mouse game set to breezy jazz, with McQueen hoodwinking his pursuers by slyly becoming the hunter. Just when you might be lulled to sleep, the Charger burns off and the jazz stops completely. With no dialog, the cars supply the score for the duration: rhythmic thump-thumps of their suspensions crashing after catching air, dueling engine notes between the roaring Ford and bass-heavy Dodge and the trumpeting tire shrieks on grip-testing turns. While the chase began softly and safely, it ends abruptly and brashly: the villains play dirty by bringing out a shotgun, but McQueen breaks out an ancient race car driver move and forces his rival into the non-existent barrier -- leading to a brutal fiery grave.

Subsequent movie chases would feature hidden ramps for maximum air, reinforced suspensions and replica cars. McQueen drove the Mustang himself, the two cars are driven recklessly for ass-off-your-seat asphalt air and the beautiful Charger in particular is beaten senselessly more out of apparent accident than aesthetics. Bullitt ushered in the modern chase scene, but there's still never been another one like it.