Stream-of-Consciousness Review: Holy Motors

Title?: Holy Motors (2012, dir. Leos Carax)

First or second viewing?: First

Preconceptions:

I actually know nothing about it. I have it written down on one of my “what to rent next” lists, but can’t remember where I heard about it. The back of the box did little to describe the movie; even the clerk who had just seen it had some trouble telling me what it was about. This is the first time I’m reviewing a movie without any kind of bias going in. I should revisit it in the stream-of-consciousness format a year from now, and see how different the review turns out.

 

Program Start:

A man wakes up from a dream, feels his bedroom wall, and fingers open a secret door hidden in the wallpaper foliage. Reminds me of the climax of Suspiria right out of the gate. The dreamer and his dog (Fool and animal sidekick) venture into the passage.

It leads to a movie theater! I’m currently obsessed with movie theaters–they are the subject of two separate writing projects–so my inner Agent Cooper is urging me to pay strict attention.

A deluxe modern mansion that looks like a tugboat. A very rich man with a very dangerous job. His first “appointment” involves donning a beggar costume and spare-changing in the street. Performance artist? The actor reminds me of Jodorowsky as the monk in El Topo. In fact, so far this feels like Jodorowsky without the sex and violence–a better version of The Rainbow Thief. 

Now he’s wearing a motion capture suit. He beats the crap out of himself in a beautifully choreographed martial arts fight against a non-existent opponent. A love scene with a very flexible female foil, also in a capture suit. The CG characters they perform–two reptillian demons rutting over an abyss–are far less engaging and exotic than the real actors; it’s like Mummenschanz porn!

On his way to the next appointment, he still has capture dots on his face, making his skin look reptilian; the roles he plays are rubbing off on him. He takes a head from a box and wears it as his own. Again it brings to mind a kinder, gentler Jodorowsky–La Cravate.

This character in general has to be an homage to Lon Chaney, right?

He chews a hard boiled egg with his mouth open. Jesus God alfuckingmighty please get this scene over with. Fuck! Hurry up, God!

Godzilla theme plays as his new role–a pervy, leprechaun-like troll–cavorts through a cemetery, meant to represent a miniature city. Japanese tourists run screaming from a creature that is shorter than them. The troll commits the first real violence in the film.

The limo rides remind me of Cosmopolis; the actor’s journey from role to role recalls Laura Dern in Inland Empire. The troll kidnaps a catatonic model. In a twist, he turns her outfit into a burqa, covering rather than stripping her. He wants a mother rather than a mate, it seems. Is this meant to be some kind of slam against fundamentalist Islam?

Now I remember where I must have heard about this movie–I think it was an online article I read a couple months ago about the 25 greatest movies about movies.

Now he visits an estranged daughter, apparently as himself, the actor. He’s a complete prick to her. An actor who’s a stranger to his own family, a poetic cliche. She’s an introvert, and he can’t understand it, forces her into an extrovert’s role. She has to lie to keep him off her back, performing for him to keep from performing in public. Keeps her at a hotel, hides his wealth from her (at least I think that’s what’s happening).

And then… the coolest cinematic musical number since Salma Hayek’s snake dance in From Dusk Til Dawn. Wow. Okay, I’m now in love with this movie.

Next appointment: an assassination. His target is his doppelganger; he switches identities with him, but is wounded by his double at the last second. One survives; we don’t know which.

Next: a deathbed scene with a niece, to whom he left a great deal of his money. But the “niece” was fulfilling an appointment of her own.

On the way to his last appointment of the day, his limo collides with Kylie Minogue’s. They have history together, and this 30 minute window may be the last they ever have together. Their musical number bulges at the seams with melodrama, but since we don’t have any of the backstory, we have to take the actors at their word. He has something to tell her, but leaves without saying it; Kylie takes her wig off in order to become the suicidal character she’s playing. Blurred boundaries; classic meta-movie rubber reality. The ledge jump makes me think of Wings of Desire.

The Actor is torturing himself, not eating, wallowing in melodrama. The Tortured Artist is a toxic archetype that has no place in modern life. I’m guessing the movie feels the same way, or maybe I just hope it does. It’s painting him as an asshole, but I don’t think it’s saying that this is the way things must be for artists.

The surprise appearance of the chimp, and the camera crawling around the outside of the house, peeking in the windows, remind me of  Phenomena and Tenebre, respectively.

At the end of the day, all the limos employed by Holy Motors talk among themselves about how people “don’t want visible machines anymore.” Live action cinema’s fear of being replaced by computer animation?

 

Afterthoughts:

The douchebaggery of the lead character paints artists in as negative a light as Black Swan or Synecdoche, New York. (Or maybe it just warns of the pitfalls awaiting the artist on his/her path.) But if this final segment is implying that cinema as an art form is a luxury limousine, I’d of course be inclined to agree.

Stream-of-Consciousness Review: Elephant

Title: Elephant (wr. dir. Gus Van Sant)

First or second viewing?: First

Preconceptions:

I’m not the biggest Van Sant fan in the world. Nothing against the guy, and I love an artist who takes chances, but some of the chances he’s taken perplex me (attempting to adapt Even Cowgirls Get the Blues–a novel where the magic exists primarily in the narration; his reshooting of Psycho, which might be the most head-scratchingly pointless idea ever to come out of cinema). Having said that, I find myself surprised by how often public mass shootings pop up in my own writing–especially Columbine–and I realize that this phenomenon has a stronger hold on my brain that I had previously imagined. I’ve been curious about Van Sant’s experimental trilogy for a while now, and this seems like the ideal jumping-off point.

Program Start:

A time-lapse twilight behind the opening credits, underscoring the “day in the life” nature of the story. Opening tracking shot above and behind the car reminds me of the arrival at the cabin in Evil Dead.

Timothy Bottoms! Where the hell has this guy been? He plays Kid #1′s dad–a drunk gun nut who takes the kid hunting on weekends. Are we assigning blame right out of the gate here?

Kid #2 is apparently a photography nut. Maybe a stalker as well? Is he singling out future victims with his camera? Shooting vs. “shooting.”

All these provocateur filmmakers love to use classical music in lieu of score. What is that? Is it a Kubrick thing? Does all this stuff spring from A Clockwork Orange? “Moonlight Sonata” feels a little obvious here.

Random nerd girl stops in front of the camera, takes in the sky and scenery, as though she senses a storm coming. Maybe she intuits it’s her last day alive, stops to savor her surroundings?

It’s reminding me quite a bit of Slacker so far (if Slacker were populated mostly by beautiful young boys, of course);  camera follows someone  for a while, then takes up with a passerby. Wonder if it’s intentional.

Kid #1 wears a t-shirt with the image of a bull–projecting strength? Steeling himself for what he’s going to do later? Yellow t-shirt–3rd chakra color, personal identity.

So far, these kids don’t seem unpopular–with girls, especially. But the next scene depicts a student debate about homosexuality; is the implication that these kids are languishing in the closet?

Oops–turns out neither Kid #1 nor Kid #2 is a shooter! We see the shooters enter the campus, and then jump back in time to tell more story. Well played, Gus!

Okay, now comes the introduction of one the real shooters, and the bullying. But hey–a girl still approaches him in the cafeteria and asks him what he’s writing; she’s friendly to him.

Random Nerd Girl from earlier is chastized by female coach for not wearing shorts to Gym class; mild sexual harassment? Is the girl covering up out of modesty, or to hide signs of abuse? (I now have that Crash Test Dummies song playing in my head.)

It’s slow and meditative, yes, but in a way that never feels dull or indulgent. (Will I feel the same way when it’s time to watch Kurt Cobain eat cereal for ten minute stretches?)

Van Sant’s desire to play with and thwart our expectations motivates the non-linear narrative; we don’t realize we’re watching a whodunit of sorts until the real shooters show up; until then, we’re trying to put the pieces together and assign blame, based on the very limited information we have, as is the instinct of most humans in the aftermath of a tragedy. Gus doesn’t let us off the hook nearly so easily, and bless him for that.

What the hell year is this supposed to be set in, anyway?

The tone of the bulimia scene rides the line perfectly between After School Special and teen sex comedy. Probably because the camera just watches impartially.

Bullied kid goes home for lunch, we meet his partner in crime–a kid with an Eminem haircut. Bullied Kid plays “Moonlight Sonata” on piano while Eminem plays a crude first person shooter game. But by now we know better than to assume Van Sant wants us to judge the  game. Bullied Kid’s mom doesn’t seem like the type to teach neo-Nazism to her kids, so again, we’re left hanging as to the root cause. Maybe it’s Eminem’s influence, maybe his parents. We’ll never know, and maybe it’s my own confirmation bias, but I believe that’s the point.

The two shooters make out in the shower together before they return to school. It’s unclear if they are acting out repressed desires, or if they are simply two sociopaths experimenting with intimacy before committing the rest of their lives to violence.

My only complaint is I wish Gus had had the foresight to give his high school an armed guard–which Columbine actually had, and which prevented absolutely nothing. Today’s gun nuts conveniently forget that.

The first bit of the shooting spree is filmed like a first person shooter. Dangerously close to heavy handed, but it works.The nonchalance with which the spree is both carried out and filmed is amazing. Feels like an accurate reflection (or at least creative  translation) of a sociopathic mindset. It all feels completely real, until all of a sudden, we start following a victim named Benny, in a tracking shot that feels completely unreal and dreamlike, as though the film itself has gone into shock.

A weird confusion of calm and panic, until Bullied Kid meets up with–and kills–Eminem, and stalks a student couple to the freezer where they’re hiding. We leave the spree early, which is, again, gently startling. Roll credits.

Afterthoughts:

Structurally and tonally, it’s hypnotic and riveting. Unique in a way that’s inviting rather than confrontational; vague in a way that’s provocative rather than frustrating. Each action taken by a character seems to have at least two possible meanings/motivations, and clarity is never provided. An experiment, and an exhilaratingly successful one.

Stream-of-Consciousness Review: Melancholia

Title? Melancholia (2011, dir. Lars von Trier)

First or second viewing? First

Preconceptions:

I freakin’ hate this guy. But, you know, I have enough friends telling me to give this one a chance, and these types of films lend themselves so well to this format, I simply can’t stay away. I swear I’m going into this one with an open mind.

 

Program Start:

Kristen Dunst is depressed. Just look at her. A Greenaway-esque shot of impeccably symmetrical landscaping. Another slow motion intro, a la Antichrist. A 2001-esque shot of a big planet dwarfing the earth.

When I first heard about this one, I was expecting a ripoff of Don McKellar’s excellent Last Night. Sources assure me this is not the case, and at any rate, the new Steve Carell movie looks to fit that description better. The planets come together like a kiss, to the strains of Wagner. Kirsten poses like Ophelia. How goth. The rogue planet consumes Earth. Gee, we’re insignificant.  Ahem, sorry. Impartiality. Onward.

Flashback to Kirsten forcing smile upon smile on her wedding day. Her white limousine is stuck in a rut; she and the groom are late for their own party. Everyone gives her shit for it, she stalls further by visiting the stable (bridal=bridle, ha ha). The tone of the movie shifts back and forth between epic/cinematic and intimate/handheld. But neither extreme is pulling me into the movie; if anything, the handheld segments make me think of fucking mumblecore. Everyone is repulsive: her family, her employer, her brother in-law. Kristen quietly endures, like all of von Trier’s female victims. Another pair of damaged sisters, a la Breaking The Waves.

Kirsten trundles alone across the moonlit landscape in a sole golf cart; awesome image.

Udo Kier! His presence always cheers me up! God, I wish he were in this more.

Sorry, friends and defenders; I’m suffering through this one as reluctantly as Kirsten’s character so far. Her name is Justine; a De Sade reference?

Lars loves to wallow in this formula he’s established: a bunch of loathsome characters gang up on and exploit a decent, passive character. The fetishistic repetition seems, to me, to stress a philosophy that humans are doomed to behave this way until, well, the end of the world.

40 minutes in and the plot hasn’t moved an inch; the mob is still torturing Justine. Is von Trier acknowledging De Sade in some way? The material feels pornographic as well as fetishistic, all the while not feeling at all sexual.

The floating paper lanterns are another gorgeous image…but I’ve seen it done better in Vinyan.

Back inside for more mumblecore awkwardness. Kirsten ditches her husband (whom also seems like a decent, if passive character) and fucks a coworker on the golf course, whom earlier she witnessed being belittled by their boss. Again, this moment doesn’t feel sexual; it’s two victimized souls stealing a moment together. She lashes out at her boss and quits, even calls off the marriage, but rejects this new, seemingly better, connection she has made.

Kirsten tells her future ex-husband, “Yes, this could have been different. But what did you expect?” I feel like Lars might as well be addressing me, and yes, I can’t say I expected anything else from him. Lars is consistently failing me in order to prove that it is human nature to consistently fail each other.

An hour in and I suppose Lars has at least gotten me to identify with Kirsten: I cannot wait for this fucking movie’s world to end either.

Part two of the movie finally provides the major plot point: a rogue planet called Melancholia (whose soil I assume is rich in Unobtanium) is going to crash into the earth. The brother-in-law is in denial; the sister is scared; Kirsten is crippled by depression and followed around by a jerky camera for long stretches of time. Interesting to be watching this in the dead of winter, when I, my housemates, and even the cat, seem to be feeling a little extra depressed. Glad I didn’t attempt to watch it during the freakin’ holidays.

Kirsten lashes out at her horse, beating the shit out of it with a riding crop. Because we as humans are destined to take our traumas out on weaker creatures until the world ends. Not even ever-enduring victim figures are immune.

Kirsten lolls naked under the night sky, and the planet bearing down on earth. The Wagner piece is blasting yet again, but my brain has imposed “Crash Into Me” by Dave Matthews over the soundtrack, and now there’s no way I can unhear it.

Our impending mortality–and that of those we love–is a burden too heavy for most of the human race, poisoning us against each other no matter what we do. This is the theme I take away from both this and Antichrist. Lars is certainly not one of those “the finite nature of life makes it more meaningful” hippies.

Kirsten proves her psychic abilities to her sister, then tells her that she knows the Earth is evil, deserves to be wiped out, and will be. Such an open-and-shut case there seems no point in finishing the movie, save to experience the money shot of worlds colliding again. (Again I’m compelled to make a porn comparison.)

Fifth time I’ve checked the clock during this movie.

The brother-in-law kills himself, leaving the women and child to endure the end alone. I still really don’t care much. It’s an awfully long time to wait for an ending we know is coming, with characters so toxic that viewer empathy is hobbled, not even allowing for suspense.  Yes, the sister is humanized in part 2 because we see the fear that motivates her need for control, but it’s too late. I don’t like her.

If one were an optimist, one could infer that part two is symbolic of the world that Kirsten has ended–her job and marriage–and the depression that made it possible for her to see past all the bullshit. But clearly we are not in the hands of an optimist here. The most optimistic thing that happens is that Kirsten finds a way to comfort her nephew, and by extension her sister, during their final moments. And in LvT’s world, I suppose that’s a pretty big deal.

 

Afterthoughts:

Both this and Last Night are about how a handful of people react to the impending end of the world. But where Melancholia believes that people are basically evil, Last Night depicts the best and worst of humanity existing side by side right up to the end, and focuses on the good stuff as being the most important and interesting. Should the world end in my lifetime, I’ll be hanging out at Don McKellar’s house.

 

 

 

Stream-Of-Consciousness Review: Funny Games ’97

Title?: Funny Games (1997 version)

First or second viewing?: First

Preconceptions:

I can put this one off no longer. This format of reviewing lends itself very well to films designed to push buttons, or that I have strong preconceptions about, and this one certainly fits in both categories. I know a lot about what happens in this movie, and in theory alone, I hate it.

I mention the contemporary provocateur filmmakers (Noe, von Trier, Aaronofsky) a lot in these reviews, because their work is designed to push the primal buttons of their audience (if you do this in the name of entertainment, you’re an exploitation filmmaker; if you do it in the name of art, you’re a provocateur). Haneke certainly belongs in this category, and philosophically I dislike him about as much as von Trier. He seems to believe that violent art desensitizes people to real violence; I maintain that the two are very different animals. But I believe in giving the man’s work a fair shake–at least as much as I can with my expectations. Besides, if I’m gonna talk shit, I need to have a leg to stand on.

Program Start:

Overhead shot of the doomed family’s car, scored by portentous classical music. Noe would do similar things in Irreversible, but so far I like the way Noe did it better. I KNOW the movie’s just started, get off me! Anyway, someone’s gonna die horribly to Mozart’s Requiem later; you can just tell.

The vacationing family’s classical CD is sonically raped by John Zorn on the soundtrack as the credits roll. Feels cheap and obvious. Excuse me: provocative. C’mon Mike! Get over yourself, admit you’re working in crass, manipulative exploitation tropes and enjoy your life! Red credits, even? Jesus, watch Maniac much?

Their neighbor is under siege by the home invaders already. Our protagonists are largely clueless; they mention that the neighbor’s daughter wasn’t there, that the husband was acting strange, that he was flanked by two strangers… and dismiss it.

Dog’s gonna be the first one to go.

Haneke probably thinks it’s clever to have poncy villains in crisp tennis whites. If the dog was worth his salt, he would do a lot more than just bark at these two. Regardless, it’s the second red flag that goes unheeded by the protag couple. Only the kid and the dog suspect anything.

Wife invites another couple to come up for the weekend to die horrible deaths as well. Kid asks for a knife, which will likely come into play later.

Bad Guy 2 pops by to borrow some eggs. Red flag #3: eggs are the most disgusting food on earth, and someone who wants to borrow them should not be trusted.

Broken eggs=dead children. Foreshadow something we haven’t already predicted, dude.

The violence is coming, but Haneke draws the tension out. He does it well… but no better than Tarantino at his best.

As I understand it, Haneke wants to rescue violence from films that, in his view, glorify, justify or downplay it, making it awful and real again. But the husband and wife about to be terrorized are fucking idiots, and I have about as much empathy for them as I do for the stoner teens in slasher films. I’m sure I’ll feel for them later on once the shit hits the fan, but only because I’m projecting myself into their situation. Which, likely unbeknownst to Haneke, is exactly the same function the archetypal teens in slasher films fulfill.

Husband cannot stand up for his wife in front of the poncy bad guys: “My wife doesn’t feel well.” Haneke is presenting a pacifism that’s as weak and negative as aggression, parents incapable of protecting their child.  Villains and victims are both tainted and weakened by upper class entitlement; is this a conscious point Hanake’s trying to make?

First act of violence at the 24-minute mark. And holy crap, we’ve got an hour and twenty to go. Haneke is about to spend the length of an average feature indulging in what he so loudly detests. What a trooper. Janet Maslin once reviewed Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter positively for the comparative depth of its characters, adding that, “of course, after the first act, there’s nothing to do but watch them die.” I could easily say the same thing here.

As they so often are in slasher films, the bad guys are more compelling characters than the victims. They’re obsessed with “formalities” (designed to keep up appearances) as opposed to “rules” (designed to maintain truly civilized society). When they want to change the “rules,” they simply start up a new “game.”

Bad Guy 1 is the alpha, bullying #2 like David Hess and his son in Last House On The Left.

And now, the moment that made me cringe when I read about it: Bad Guy #1 breaks the fourth wall and asks me if I think the protags will live or die, and whether or not I’m really on their side.  Is he implying that it’s my fault Haneke’s killers are more interestingly written than his victims?

God, there’s another hour of this to go. The forced strip-tease is reminding me of the motel room scene in Devil’s Rejects. I get it, Mike: you’re playing a game with your viewers. If you want to win, you’d best show me something I’m not expecting.

Bad Guy 2 channel surfs, stops on a slow-motion stock car crash. Because violent media has made us into awful people who like to look at car crashes.  Your time’s running out, Mike.

Bad Guy 1 makes sandwich while Bad Guy 2 kills the kid. We linger on the parental grief for a predictably long, predictably static shot. Intuition tells me it would be as predictable, as boring, as it would have had I known less about the movie going in. I don’t know how the movie ends, but I can guess, and I’m caring less by the second. I do know that at some point, the bad guys “rewind” the movie to make a plot point work out in their favor; I think I’m gonna beat them at their own game. Program stop.

Afterthoughts:

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. Now, where’d I put my Maniac DVD?

Stream-Of-Consciousness Review: The Thing 2011

Movie: The Thing (2011 Prequel)

First or second viewing?: First.

Preconceptions:  Carpenter’s Thing is one of my five favorite movies. I’m nursing a post-birthday hangover. If nothing else, I expect to enjoy the adorability of Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Although not even her deadpan radiance could help me enjoy a nanosecond of Scott Pilgrim.

Program Start:

Black credits against white snow. Nice. There’s Morricone’s “Dun-dun” bass motif, but the new theme can’t hold a candle to the Maestro.

Nice reveal of the chasm the saucer is buried in. They’re following a strange transmission that might be a mayday–a dangerously overt Alien reference.

“Who Can It Be Now?” Cute. Men At Work–a double pun. Title reveals the story’s text; the band name reveals the subtext.

Mary has the loveliest eyes, doesn’t she? Playing nearly as subdued as she was in Scott Pilgrim. She’s a double-minority: a woman and an American.  She’s an alien, too. American movies are finally owning up to how much the rest of the world hates us. Fascinating.

Ice cave looks like the Matterhorn ride.

The Norweigian dog handler seems to be Clark’s doppelganger.

Douchebag team leader wants a tissue sample of the Thingsicle, gets the movie started. His selfish motivations mimic the “selfishness” of each individual cell that made up Carpenter’s Thing.

Every major image in the film so far is a reference to the ’82 version.

The Thing explodes out of the ice block, fleeing the scene and inexplicably sparing the sole human witness in the room.

Bad CG looks far less realistic to my eye than any wobbly latex-coated animatronic.

Nice creature design in the first attack scene, though–some giant vagina dentata action for the vore/unbirthing enthusiasts in the audience. But this Thing attacks out in the open, as opposed to hiding in plain sight and spreading among the ranks unhindered. The movie calls itself a prequel, but this is a somewhat different Thing than Carpenter’s. Specifically, a more aggressive, less intelligent one.

The lead douchebag finds the whole thing “fascinating.” I would not be surprised if he turned out to be a corporate android.

Stomach as shadow womb, digesting rather than gestating. Fear of women introduced into the mix; this kind of twist justifies making a new Thing movie.

The Thing can’t assimilate fillings. Like us and corn!

The helicopter attack is well staged, but the misdirection has no motivation, other than to set up the scare. Why would the Thing attack without being cornered, in a situation where it seems like suicide to do so?

Like MacReady, Mary is forced by circumstance into a leadership role. The lead douchebag seems to be Gary’s doppelganger. The alien is unnecessary: these characters are already imitations.

The only other woman on the team turns out to be a Thing. The design looks like it might have been inspired by some of the more ambitious storyboards Rob Bottin and Mike Pfloog came up with in ’82, but the end result looks more like JK Potter.

Exteriors look like a set. The Thing is very fond of forming those king crab claw appendages.

The “filling test” plot point is admittedly clever, and reminds us of the vagina dentata subtext.

The other Americans are quarantined, like Blair. There’s a “Nauls breaks in” moment; a red herring gets shot and killed; a character suspected of being the Thing engages in a Mexican standoff with the rest of the team. Every plot point ticks off with a precision that suggests “remake” (or, more appropriately, “imitation”) more than “prequel.”

The hand monsters are part Giger, part Guillermo Del Toro.

The two-faced spider-Thing is a lot of fun. A tribute to Bottin’s amazing sculpture in the ’82 version, and a “final boss” monster as epic as the Blair-Thing.

I hate the score. It’s far too bombastic. But I’m not sure if they’re even going for as somber a tone this time around.

Climax recalls Predator 2 or–gag–The Tommyknockers. It is, however and at last, a major image that does not directly reference Thing ’82.

Oh, hey–there’s a bigger bosss monster on board the saucer. Frankly, I was more impressed by the 2-faced spider-Thing; this one is too reminiscent of post-Thing movies like From Beyond and Slither.

Is she actually Childs’ doppelganger rather than MacReady’s?

Nice bleak ending. I would’ve liked to see the set piece in which the guy slashed his wrists and the blood froze, though, rather than just revisit the aftermath.

Afterthoughts:

Not sacrilegious to my sensibilities. A fun sidenote that can be compartmentalized in my mind, relegated to an alternate, slightly dumber but still charming universe, somewhere in between Alien Vs Predator and the Star Trek reboot.

Stream-of-Consciousness Review: Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence

Title? Human Centipede II: Full Sequence

First or second viewing? First

Preconceptions:

My real-time chronicle of this film experience may well play out like a youtube video of some poor rube watching “2 Girls 1 Cup” for the first time.  Tom Six is the new Jorg Buttgereit, who was himself the old new Herschell Gordon Lewis.

Program Start:

“Martin” is an amazing villain–Peter Lorre meets Joe Spinnel. The opening plays out in long black and white shots, sparse dialog, like a Jarmusch movie.

Martin is a stand-in for Six’s seemingly Hanecke-like view of the original Centipede’s fans: a metally crippled man-child who fetishizes the film and wants to act it out in real life. I’m sure Six means it lovingly, though.

Martin’s trying to cast the actresses from Part One in his 12-person chain. The Spinell comparison was more apt than I thought! Is this a reference to The Last Horror Film?

Martin’s at-home appointment with his doctor is paced like the dinner scene in Eraserhead. Martin’s father used to rape him regularly; now the doctor molests him during their sessions. Martin’s home environment is hilariously abusive. Brings to mind Combat Shock.

Pregnant woman! Toddler! Holy crap! Is the closeup of the woman crawling across the floor of the parking garage meant to reference Irreversible?

At the 30 minute mark, our first bona fide bit of awfulness: sandpaper masturbation. Is this supposed to be the act one break?

The flicker of the flourescents in Martin’s warehouse lab, as well as many of the rain effects outside, are cheap, obvious CG opticals.

Ha!  Ashlynn Yennie, one of the Centipede actresses, says yes to Martin, thinking she’s reading for a Tarantino film.

Mom destroys Martin’s special Centipede scrapbook. Makes me think of the mom tossing out the nudie jigsaw in Pieces.

I wasn’t expecting this much pacing; was more anticipating a wall to wall grossout. I’m sure it has a hell of a third act, though.

He stings his mom with his pet centipede; it escapes. I predict it will emerge and kill him later.

A hooker escapes! Guess it’s Six’s way of  saying he’s above any kind of “sluts must die” moralizing. Martin shoots his doctor (whom the hooker was blowing) in the crotch.

Oops! Never mind–he wounded the hooker, and she’s totally gonna die.

The CG rain seems to be colored back. Don’t know if it means anything, but it’s interesting.

Yennie’s meta-portrayal of herself is as naive as her character in Part One.

All Martin’s victims have been bound for days with little more than single  strips of duct tape, which I can assure you is very unrealistic. 

He found and caught his centipede. Okay then: I predict it laid eggs in a corner somewhere.

Act two ends with the next genuine horrendousness: Martin hammering out his ex-neighbor’s teeth. I have a feeling the movie’s  not gonna slow down from this point.

Let the home surgery begin. Of course, Martin is not a doctor, so the victims from Part One didn’t know how good they had it. Hammers, tin snips, staple guns, and a crowbar for anesthesia. It’s not only awful to look at, it’s sloppy workmanship; this can’t actually hold together, can it? Yennie gets to be in front this time, not that it’s an improvement by any means.

Six hasn’t put the toddler in the chain… but he doesn’t have his full 12 yet, either.

Isn’t Yennie gonna bleed to death with her tongue ripped out? And is this meant to be a nod to Blood Feast?

Laxative-induced feeding frenzy at 75 minutes. Six fucking colorized the shit-spray!

Here comes the scene we all read about in the UK censor report: barbed wire sodomy. This time around, being in the middle of the chain is clearly the better choice.

How the hell did this guy get hired as a security guard in the first place?

“Talent” is often defined as an abilty to do something others cannot. Six, Buttgereit and Lewis’ “gift” is the willingness to do things nobody else wanted to. I’m hesitant to call this gift a talent, but have no idea what other word to use.

Pregnant woman escapes, gives birth in the driver’s seat while Martin pounds on the windows outside. She squishes the fetus as she speeds off, but it looked like she stomped on the brake pedal instead of the gas.

Toothless guy rips free of the chain; the centipede subdivides. Martin aborts the experiment, killing most of his subjects, but his pet centipede returns. Damn, I’m good. 

And it pays off better than I imagined! Yennie anally rapes him with it!

And then… we cut back to an earlier point in time, with Martin watching Part One on his laptop at work. Roll credits. I suspect this ending is supposed to be cryptic, but my first impression is that the whole thing was a masturbatory fantasy, and following the causal thread, Martin realized it was more trouble than it was worth.  Which, I guess, makes me an optimist.

Afterthoughts:

Surprised by the lack of breakneck perversity in the first two acts, but at the end, I feel anything but cheated. And the essential message seems to be “Don’t try this at home,” which I appreciate. It’s ultimately hard to trust a filmmaker in a straw cowboy hat, though.

Stream-Of-Consciousness Review: Red State

Title?: Red State

First or second viewing?: First

Preconceptions: I used to like Clerks, because there wasn’t anything like it when it first came out, and I felt it spoke to my condition as a frustrated creative working a dead-end job. But the film has aged terribly in my view, and Kevin Smith’s arrogance as a public persona has far outgrown his talent as a writer/director. I kinda loathe the guy now, and am fully expecting to hate this movie.

 

Program Start:

Fuck you and your fucking Woody Allen credits.

Fred Phelps is already such a one-note villain in real life; how is Smith gonna make him more interesting for the movie?

The teacher just called the head of the evil church “nuckin’ futs.” A goddamn  catch phrase from a David Spade movie. This is the best Kevin can do, apparently.

It’s amusing how closely Smith’s dialogue for the douchebag teens resembles Rob Zombie’s: the same artless, repetitive strings of “fucks,” “pussies” and “dicks.” Makes total sense that Smith has gone the modern day evil-hillbilly torture-porn sledgehammer route.

The going-off-to-get-laid douchebag protagonists, much like the girls in Human Centipede, might be completely undeserving of the fates that will doubtless befall them, but like the victims in Centipede, they’re vapid, one-dimensional, unlikable. I don’t think Smith is going for torture-porn nihilism, but it’s weird that he’d make these guys so thoroughly unpleasant. More and more, Red State makes me think of Centipede, Hostel, 1000 Corpses.

Now, as Drugged Douchebag #1 is carted out to the church service, my religious gag reflex is triggered as blatantly as it was by Bill Maher’s final sermon in Religulous. I already hate these guys, Kevin; you’re preaching to the choir here.

Fucking handheld mumblecore photography.

Smith seems to be trying to recreate Tarantino’s trademark cinematic tension by casting Michael Parks and having him give a 30-fucking-minute speech before the violence beaks out. 3 guesses as to whether or not it’s working for me. (hint: I did not hit the pause button while taking this note.) Parks does a game job, though.

“Y’all know that world wide web?” Jesus, seriously, Kevin?

It’s not that I disagree with the vitriol against fundamentalist lunatics, but Jesus Christ, try to make it interesting, would ya? Anybody could do it exactly like this. I wouldn’t give Smith (or Zombie for that matter) so much shit if they didn’t tout their own auteur theory so highly.

Here come the police. It’s now gonna move into Waco territory.

“Pete! Was that a gunshot, Pete? Pete, are you there?” Seriously, Kevin?

The closet-gay sheriff even reminds me a bit of Sheriff Wydell from Devil’s Rejects.

Et tu, John Goodman? Kevin talked you into this mess, too?

Kevin’s making a movie here; he could explore and exaggerate a lot more religious weirdness if he wanted. The evil preacher doesn’t have to just be an exact hybrid of Koresh and Phelps; he could kill a sinner for eating shellfish, or have 7 wives… make it fucking interesting, Kevin!

The sheriff accidentally shoots the kid who made it out. Because after all, WWRZD?

Kevin fucking Pollack?

Goodman’s character seems nervous about leading  the siege on the church, and indeed, his SWAT team seems fairly incompetent right out of the gate.

Goodman’s character is a real protagonist: a character with responsibilities, conflicts, empathy, something to lose. It took this movie 45 fucking minutes to introduce its protagonist, and its central conflict; the douchebag kids we’ve hung out with up until now were just plot devices to get us to this point.

And now, at the 55-minute mark, we are asked to accept the teenage cultist daughter as a conflicted, empathetic character. Okay; things have actually gotten interesting now.  And it only took Kevin an act-and-a-half to get around to it. And hey!–the one surviving douchebag teen is brought back into the conflict now that the stakes have been raised; he can either work with the daughter, or risk being mistaken for a cultist and shot by the SWATs.

The teenage daughter’s motivation is to protect the children. She tells them to barricade themselves in the attic. Of a building that’s about to be burned down.

Hell of a long shootout, this is.

The standoff is interrupted by the sounding of Gabriel’s trumpet, signalling the Apocalypse. Kevin, this had better be a trick pulled by the SWAT team. Okay, good.

But then Smith has to twist it yet again; it was just the next door neighbors testing their new PA system. The SWAT team’s victory was purely accidental… or was it thinly veiled divine intervention?

Goodman gets a lame speech at the end that sums everything up in a sentence or two, because Smith popping up as Silent Bob to do so would be inappropriate this time around.

Afterthoughts:

I expected to hate every second of this thing, but it turns out there’s 25 minutes of a real movie in here.

 

Stream-of-Consciousness Review: The Initiation (1984)

Title?: The Initiation (1984, Dir. Larry Stewart, Writ. Charles Pratt Jr)

First or second viewing?: Second

Preconceptions: Haven’t seen it since I was a teenager. At the time, I remember thinking it was a decent time-waster, with one memorable murder (the blonde killed at the security desk). Revisiting it today for my next book, which focuses primarily on the teen sex comedies and slasher flicks of the ’80s.

Program Start:

Daphne Zuniga! Vera Miles (appeared in Psycho II, arguably a slasher film) and Clu Gluager (would appear in Elm Street 2 the following year)!

First thing I notice is the score: very classic ’80s, in the “Tubular Bells” vein, which I can never personally get enough of.

Flashback: Little girl leaves her room (womb), walks down hallway (birth canal), to parents’ room (adult world), where a fire rages in the fireplace (passion/danger), discovers Mom and Dad making love. Stabs father (who turns out to not be the father–real dad catches them in the act).

The “other man” attacks daddy with a champagne bottle, which “ejaculates” onto the floor as they struggle; Daddy catches fire.

Flashback is revealed to be a dream; our heroine awakens to teenage reality: surrounded by sorority sisters chanting a mantra of immortality (while wearing nightgowns, of course).

Surprisingly decent cinematography. This one had a budget.

The head sister wears a Red Riding Hood-style cloak. The sister in charge of pledging calls the pledges “little Cinderellas.” Gives Daphne shit about being from a rich family, orders her and her fellow initiates to break into her daddy’s shopping center and steal security guard’s uniform (two symbolic emasculations of male authority figures).

We cut to an asylum complete with its own Nurse Ratchett archetype. Daphne’s father appears to be the groundskeeper. Wonderfully stereotypical crazy extras gather together in a revolt against the nurse which is not quite allowed to become a revolution. Lots of castrating female figures in this one. Our three pledges are being initiated into the world of adult women–badgered by female authority figures into becoming castrating bitches themselves. This is the true initiation of the title–from innocence into the world of sex and violence. Of course, this is precisely what all slasher films are about, but this one seems to be very conscious of it, in a way that feels more intellectual than purely visceral.

Daddy lets the crazies out. Symbolic revenge on his cuckolding wife.  The loonies trap Nurse Ratchett in her car, in the back seat of which Daddy is waiting with his trusty garden claw. The setting and weaponry remind me of Alone In The Dark from a few years previous. Has to be a conscious reference, right? The loonies disband harmlessly after he hacks her up. Nice.

Clu Gulager plays the “other man,” but Daphne thinks he’s her real father. Dream is a repressed memory.

Another champagne bottle money shot! Has a more incesty vibe in this scene, since its in celebration of Daphne’s birthday.

Back in my youth, I was not in any place to appreciate how well made this one is. Today, I’m shocked it’s not more popular than it is. Wonder what happened?

A fellow student invites Daphne to a “come as your favorite repressed desire” party; she turns him down. He refers to the pledge mistress as “the wicked witch.”

Daphne is more interested in the older grad student, who is researching her favorite subject: dreams and nightmares. When he sits on his desk, he blocks the blackboard, changing the word “analog” to “anal.” She reveals to him that she remembers none of her life before age nine. He takes her to his “dream lab,” offers to record her brainwaves while she sleeps, record her recollection of her dreams upon awakening, and “let Freud and Jung take over.” This is now officially my kind of movie. I am excited.

Daphne chickens out her “first time” letting her new mentor monitor her dreams.

As good as the script is, I’m not sure if I was supposed to figure out that Daphne’s real Daddy is the guy in the asylum. It’s possible that I subconsciously retained more of the plot than I thought (repressed memory, ha ha), but I think I would’ve put it together even if this were my first time seeing it. Regardless, can’t think of a more appropriate movie to be reviewing in this format and context.

Now, on top of it all, she’s hallucinating.

Clu and Vera have a conversation about the cover-up. Okay, maybe the writer does in fact want us to know.

Mirror image=Daphne’s “other self.” Reminiscent of Happy Birthday To Me; she’s being brainwashed to think her shadow is evil, that she’s a split personality, when she is in fact the victim. Subconsciously, she also knows her real daddy is also a victim, which helps explain her rejection of a peer for a mentor; her empathy for her father is as much a motivation as her desire to be “initiated” by someone with experience.

The dream lab, as well as the “sins of the parent” subtext, are reminiscent of A Nightmare On Elm Street. 

Clu appears to be cheating on Vera. Daddy gets him in the throat with the garden claw, beheads him with a machete. Vera unwittingly gets off a bad head pun.

Daddy stalks the sorority house. Holy crap, is he in the closet, watching Daphne disrobe? Hope he got to see more than we did.

Nope–turns out to be the asshole “peer” student. The pledge mistress puts him in his place immediately.

Daphne goes to the “repressed desire” party with her mentor, dressed as…a garden variety slut, I guess? She unconsciously wants to break out of her Final Girl shell. (Interestingly enough, one of the other pledges is referred to as the virgin of the group.)

In choosing the mentor over the peer, she is rebelling against her mother’s programming–choosing to commit herself to psychoanalysis and uncover what her mother has done to her. She skips out on the party with the mentor, presumably to start a far more private “suppressed desire party.”

“You listen,” she tells him, “That’s why I chose you.” In asserting that she chose him, she establishes dominance and subsequently seduces him. Only than does she feel comfortable “submitting” to hypnosis–while the mentor’s assistant watches and videotapes, no less. Kinky shit.  She regresses back to the night of her childhood trauma; laying out all the backstory for him. Mom walks in on this “private session,” provides a missing piece of the puzzle–Daphne’s real last name. It breaks the spell of the hypnosis like the kiss of Prince Charming. The mentor incorrectly assumes that she’s a split personality; the only person she trusts unwittingly betrays her.

And finally we’re at the mall. The sequence in which Daddy stalks the security guard is reminiscent of Halloween II–in a good way. Nice use of the mall space and the security equipment.

One of the sorority sisters comes to her senses at the last second and delivers a speech, to the best of her limited acting ability, about how grown women should be doing “something instructive,” and decides to quit the sorority. This may, in fact, be the smartest thing any character has ever done in a slasher movie. Does this have any precedent in the genre? I can’t think of one. You cannot say this film doesn’t respect the ladies.

The pledges enter the mall, and the slasher film begins in earnest. Daphne’s plan is to steal one of the spare uniforms. Our final girl is clever and resourceful. A couple of male douchebag students accompany the pledge mistress into the mall to scare the pledges. Woo hoo! We gonna get us a healthy bodycount after all!

Boobies! Shoplifting! Rollerskates!

Another great set piece in which the first douchebag gets killed. The mall really opens up the possibilities for suspense and production value.

The booby-baring pledge exhibits more traditional slasher film behavior by suggesting she and the virgin pledge split up.

Another great set piece. The pledge mistress gets it with an arrow. I was hoping for something a little more dramatic for her death.

The douchebags are pure caricature. Feels appropriate for an ensemble cast dominated (in both senses of the word) by the female characters.

Daddy’s name is Jason! Awesome!

The mentor’s (female) assistant does all the research, finds the evidence that clears Daphne’s name. He takes the info and runs off to “rescue” Daphne. The film’s gender politics (as well as a few of its camera shots) remind me a bit of Deep Red.

The remaining douchebags and pledges join up and get drunk together. The virgin pledge gets a little extra drunk and reveals that she was molested by her violin teacher in childhood. Another repressed memory coming up while “under the influence.”

The film seems remarkably aware of  the archetypes and “the rules” of slasher films, and plays with them with pleasantly consistent cleverness.

The slut accompanies one of the douchebags to a bridal supply store to fuck; a riff on pre-marital sex.

“Oz has spoken.” Yet another fairy tale reference. Like Sean S. Cunningham, writer Charles Pratt Jr. seems to really understand what these movies were about.

The slut suffers the aforementioned memorable death: stabbed to death slowly and bloodily at the security desk, her screams broadcast over the mall’s P.A. system, intercut with a sex scene between the “virgin” pledge and the “comedian” douchebag. Holy shit!

The mentor barges in on Mom (turnabout is fair play), who is trying to drink herself into amnesia. He calls the sorority; the smart girl tells him where to find Daphne. He’s proactive, but ultimately nearly as ineffectual as Dave Hemmings in Deep Red.

The “virgin-no-longer” pledge gets killed off camera in an elevator, is dragged away in a manner reminiscent of Amanda Wyss in NOES. Oh yeah–and the killer is a burn victim like Freddy as well!

Daphne kills Daddy! Knocks him off the roof of the mall. ’twas beauty that killed the beast.

Ha! Another twist! One that I actually did forget (or repress), and one that is, yet again, reminiscent of Happy Birthday To Me: a doppelganger in the form of an evil twin. It’s a silly plot point, but again,  not inappropriate, especially with as many fairy tale references as this film consciously makes. I’m totally on board with it.

Mom shows up at the last second, kills “other daughter.”

Afterthoughts:

So glad intuition compelled me to revisit this one. It’s very consciously working with tropes that I believe a lot of these films played with unconsciously, and because it’s as classy and clever as it is, the many references it makes never feel like ripoffs. The introduction of the twin provides a nice counterbalance at the end–an “other daughter” to go along with the “other father.”

The champagne bottle and garden claw are interesting symbols of class: the real Daddy has been robbed of his identity and social status, locked away in a pauper’s dungeon with a working class weapon; Gulager, the “fake Daddy,” has a more bourgeois prop to work with.

And again I have to say: some of the strongest female characters I’ve ever encountered in a genre famously–and falsely, in my opinion–accused of rampant misogyny.

Stream-of-Consciousness Review: Uncle Sam

Title?: Uncle Sam (Dir. William Lustig)

First or second viewing?: First

Preconceptions:

Been curious about this one for years. I’ve found it streaming on Netflix in the immediate wake of the stock market crash and the riots in London. William “Maniac” Lustig directed this, so I’m having a hard time imagining this being as campy as its ad campaign suggests.

Program Start:

Nice 2:35:1 formatting.

We open with Gulf War One soldiers discovering the gruesome aftermath of a helicopter crash caused by “friendly fire,” immediately letting us know that this film will not pay lip service to notions of patriotism; prescient of Joe Dante’s Homecoming.

One of the soldiers comes back to life and kills his own troops. Well, there you go.

Opening credits look like 4X3 HD side-cropping. Weird.

PJ Soles! Robert Forster!  Isaac Hayes! Edited by Oscar-winning grindhouser Bob Murawski! Written by Larry Cohen! Feel like I’m in good hands.

A boy has fonder (false?) memories of his (wait for it…) uncle Sam than the rest of his family do. Sam’s wife is trying to move on, dating a cop but not letting him get to first base; she digs a man in uniform, I guess.

It’s slightly reminiscent of Deathdream. Given that Lustig’s Blue Underground distributes that one as well, I would guess this is not accidental.

The nephew’s teacher was a conscientious objector in Vietnam, but nephew indicates that he will follow in his uncle’s footsteps–by saying all his internal dialogue out loud for no reason. Shoddy screenwriting, Larry, but I’ll let it slide.

The family is just keeping the corpse of this guy they hated so much in the fucking living room?

Two more instances of character development established by gratuitously expositional monologues that have no reason not to be internal. Uh-oh.

Is it the nephew’s attachment to Sam that brings him back, like the mother’s in Deathdream? Or Sam’s unquenchable hatred and rage? It’s not terribly clear, actually. I predict Sam will turn out to be the boy’s father.

Isaac Hayes’ prosthetic leg will later be used as a weapon–probably against him. He’s jaded, tries to convince nephew that heroism is just hate misspelled, and that he doesn’t want to become a soldier. Doesn’t seem to work.

It takes Sam nearly 40 minutes to get out of his coffin. Bold move, Larry.

The stilt-walking pervert in the Uncle Sam costume is named Willy. Awesome! Sam steals his costume in a murder scene that isn’t funny, scary, terribly disgusting, or remotely interesting.

Neither is the next murder. The movie’s quality has actually dropped with the commencement of the carnage. Not sure if this has ever happened in a slasher movie before.

Timothy Bottoms looks an awful lot like George W. Bush.

Again, all the nephew’s internal dialogue is external. I’m really annoyed now.

Nephew’s friend was put in a wheelchair and blinded as a result of a fireworks mishap with the neighborhood kids. A parallel story of a victim of “friendly fire.”

There are certainly interesting ideas, but none of them are developed or pulled off remotely convincingly. It’s now reminding me of Jeff Leiberman’s ill-fated Satan’s Little Helper–needs a lot more time, attention and money to help its grasp meet its reach. Dammit! I really don’t want this movie to suck. In fact, I so don’t want it to suck that I’m trying to convince myself it’s actually my attitude that sucks. Telling myself that I enlisted for this tour of duty, and by god I’m not gonna go AWOL like some fag Commie pinko.

Underacting all across the board here. Jesus, poor Forster.

It just. Doesn’t. Work.

Interesting plot point: The family covers up a lot of Sam’s backstory, fearing the nephew is “too young to understand,” which is actually, and ironically, enabling nephew’s hero worship of a garden variety sociopath. Nephew accuses them of lying when they come clean–conservatives attacking “liberal media.” It is revealed that Sam sexually abused his sister routinely, starting at age six. Told ya he was the kid’s father.

The fireworks casualty kid has suddenly become a dark oracle, laying out all the missing narrative pieces for the nephew.

Forster finally got killed and is out of the movie; Hayes is not so lucky.

It just doesn’t work! It fails on the same level that Satan’s Little Helper fails, and their plots are weirdly similar, now that I think about it. Something in my brain stubbornly insists that this means something, but I have no idea what.

Editing isn’t helping matters much. Every shot goes on at least a second too long; at most, twenty. This guy won an Oscar, huh?

Cannonballs don’t fucking explode! Do they? Fuck off, movie!

Nephew burns all his military toys at the end. Come on, let’s at least see the kid burn a flag before it’s over.

But no! We’ve gotta have a pointless tribute to Fulci’s City of the Living Dead followed by a dedication to the maestro in the credits. Last-minute similarities with Dead Hate The Living, another American tribute to Fulci, also possessing none of the cockeyed vision or lurid excess that made Fulci interesting in the first place.

Afterthoughts:

What’s more depressing: a movie that has no hope whatsoever of being remotely good getting produced and distributed; or an idea with potential for genuine quality and talented professionals behind the scenes, that still falls flat on its ass?

Also: Isaac Hayes’ prosthetic leg was never paid off in the way I predicted it would be. This does not mean that the film is in any way “unpredictable,” mind you–merely that Cohen forgot a fundamental rule of screenwriting: If you introduce a prosthetic leg in act one, you must beat someone to death with it in act three.

Stream-Of-Consciousness Review: The First Turn-On

Title?: The First Turn-On  (1983, dir. Michael Herz)

First or second viewing?: First

Preconceptions:

I generally distrust Troma movies to deliver what I want in exploitation; I always get the feeling they’re trying either too hard or not at all.  Maybe I’m a bit of a snob, but I believe there’s genuine art to the genre.

Program Start:

Summer camp! Embarrasing pre-celeb appearance by Vincent D’Onofrio as an idiot with a chainsaw! Boobs at the 2-minute-29 mark! I’m fully on board so far.

Even for a teen sex comedy from the ’80s, the humor is pandering and caricatured. Like an episode of Hee-Haw.” Everybody emotes like they’re in a junior high play.

A group of campers led by a nature expert go on a nature hike, get trapped in  a cave-in. Tell each other stories to pass the time until they get rescued. It’s like an Amicus horror anthology, in sex-comedy form! Had this been done before? Has it since?

They’re trapped in mother nature’s vagina, taking turns telling about their first times:

The first teller–a guy named Stud–tells a tale of a coerced handjob, leading to public humiliation. She says, “I hope this doesn’t get me pregnant;” fine example of the piss-poor sex education we had in the ’80s.

Stud then hitches a ride with a hooker in a van with a plush, fuzzy blue interior, symbolic of her…blue womb? She offers to do him for free, but he’s so nervous he brings a male friend with more supposed experience, to warm her up, I guess? Hm. The guy, of course, has no idea what he’s doing either, and the hooker rejects him for Stud. He admits he’s a virgin; she teaches him how to surrender to instinct.

A commercial for a dating service that manages to lump homosexuals into the same punchline as pedophiles and bestial relationships. Faux pas, Troma. Unless it’s a comment on rigid commercial society’s view of homosexuality. But if it is, it’s more subtle than I’d ever give Troma credit for.

The next storyteller-a fat loser-tells of inadvertently saving a woman from being jumped by a gang of gay black men–while wearing a Klan outfit, I’d be remiss not to mention. She takes him home and indulges his food fetish before showing him her gratitude. Dialogue hints that they may be cousins, but this is never explored further. She has cute little boobies.

The next narrator is a girl who claims to have been forced her first time; the flashback shows otherwise. Barnyard sex! More rape-y humor!

Meanwhile, back at the camp, a camper tries an experiment in attracting the girl of his dreams: jizzing in her food without her consent. The theory proves successful (!), but on the fat girl instead of the hottie. Commenting on the un-PC-ness of this gag seems ridiculous; it’s no worse than the racial and homophobic humor. Nonetheless, it’s a gag as fascinating as it is disgusting; teenagers learning to trust in the attractive power of their own pheremones instead of colognes and perfumes. Trusting in primal nature, and getting over one’s squeamishness about it, gets one laid.

The next story involves yet another weird pairing of guys who think they’ll do better with chicks “as a team.” This time, they’re brothers. Big brother kicks little brother out of the room at the zero hour; little brother hooks up with a Penthouse pet, who happens to be in the next room. Big brother turns out to be a disappointment, so his girlfriend-for-the-evening joins little brother in a threesome. The tale, of course, reads like a Penthouse Forum story.

Nature Girl tells her tale of being rejected by her first boyfriend–the most unattractive male who ever had a wet-n-messy fetish–only to find solace in identical twin Chippendale dancers. Another incestuous threesome.

Meanwhile, back at yadda yadda: a camper is tricked into jerking off in public, under the pretense of an innocent circle jerk.

The trapped nature hikers begin to panic as their oxygen runs out: birth trauma, smothering anxiety. In the heat of the moment, scared they’re about to die, they admit to actually being virgins. Nature Girl gives a speech that pretty much stands as the credo for all the films in this genre: “If you live fully in the moment, and live by the laws of nature, then if death comes to take you before your time, you’ll be a part of nature.” They all decide they’re not going to die virgins, and melt into a hippie pagan cave orgy.

The group orgasm brings the rockpile down; the nature lovers are reborn into the world as adults. Even the repressed elders find each other and get laid.

Afterthoughts:

This might be as close to the quality level of the better Corman/AIP movies as Troma ever got! Holy shit! There’s a solid, satisfying philosophy behind this one, as batshit retarded as the movie undeniably is.