Teeth (2007, dir. Michell Lichtenstein) review

In a modest house, lying in the shadow of two large smoke stacks, a young woman grows teeth in her vagina. Writer/director Michell Lichtenstein forges a fast, fun horror film with some bite, but struggles to add any penetrating insight to the issues it opens up. 

Dawn (Jess Weixler) belongs to a Christian group which preaches sexual abstinence before marriage at high school. Unknown to the world, she has a physiological condition called vagina dentata. Most days she is harassed and ridiculed by the pot-smoking pupils who fail to see the point in not having sex. Dawn’s new boyfriend also doubts his commitment to celibacy. 

Teeth never goes all the way and shows us the titular fangs, but we see the effects. Dawn’s troubled brother gets his finger sliced in the paddling pool when they’re children. It’s not long before someone loses some fingers and, if you don’t wish to see a severed penis, you may want to cross your legs and look away. 

Lichenstein constructs a situation which demands we see some promised toothy action, even though Dawn has vowed to remain chaste. Problematically, this requires Dawn to be violated for the film to get its way.

There aren’t many men in Dawn’s life who don’t have an unhealthy attitude to sex. An unethical gynaecologist seems perfectly happy to vigorously examine her without another woman present. Dawn’s brother noisily bangs his girlfriend while the family sit and listen. And at school, she befriends one boy, then another, who exploit her. Lichenstein mines some uncomfortable and blackly comic scenes from this.

Teeth juggles tension and humour, with mildly successful digs at Young Christians, corporate pollution and youth culture. It is solidly directed and very well played even when the story is running out of steam. It seems lazy writing to make Dawn so fervent about sex and sin when her own sexual organs are so demonic. But what sits most uncomfortably is when Dawn allows herself to have sex with someone she doesn’t want to in order to deliver a forced emasculation. The place that Dawn finds herself by the end of the film seems a betrayal of the character.

The local power-plant and it’s smoke-stacks sit proudly in every exterior shot of the house, belching out greasy, black smoke, as though to suggest a cause for events. In truth, the cause is more prosaic. Someone wanted to make a film about a toothed vagina and, while not without some bloody pleasures and slippery horror, failed to make it all quite hang together.

House of Whipcord review (1974, dir. Pete Walker)

Sounds like a bit of cheeky, kinky titillation, doesn't it? A film about modern, fun-loving, women who are rounded up, sent to a correctional facility and then whipped for being ever-so naughty.

House of Whipcord isn’t even a bit fun or carefree, though. Rather than finding themselves in a grand, camp, gothic dungeon, our heroines are interned in a bare, cold institution on a rainy moor. They are stripped of clothes and jewellery, force to wear a sackcloth and forbidden to talk by the impressively dour women who watch over all.

The governess and wardens are living their dream. And their dream is of an England when the penalty for waywardness was swift and severe. Girls committing insurrection find themselves on the end of the lash. The damage inflicted is ugly and shocking. If the girl still refuses to mend her ways then she finds herself sentenced to death by hanging. A cruel and unjust affair which tips the mood of the film into a very dark and claustrophobic place.

The girls are sentenced by one of only two men to be found in this matriarchy. A doddering old judge guided by the venomous whispers of the chief matron. Then there is the matron’s son, Mark E. Desade (I know! You don't need me explain it, you're clever enough). He goes to parties, finds progressive, liberated young ladies and seduces them with his cold, handsome, charms. Shortly after they find themselves in the House of Whipcord.

Plenty of ‘women in prison’ film tropes of are here, but realised in brutal ways. A humiliating stripping, an evil lesbian warden and a precarious escape. Pete Walker is fascinating exploitation director with no agenda other than to "create a bit of mischief", as he puts it. Here he directs with confidence, inky black humour, chilling detachment and little flair. 

The performances range from weak to hammy but are always fascinating and eccentric. The dark interiors and cloudy exteriors offer little in the way of hope or light and the film paints a terrifying picture of what the world would look like if rabid conservatives got their way with the penal system.

House of Whipcord is a cautionary tale of the older generation’s fear of young, successful, sexually-free women and the rampant misogyny and hypocrisy which will follow.

Aguirre, Wrath of God (restored version) review

You step off the dilapidated coach, warm trade-winds kicking at the fedora you haggled for at the village market, and into your “resplendent” holiday villa-complex. Then you discover the brochure hadn’t been entirely truthful. You were promised El Dorado, the Mysterious City of Gold, and instead you got El Dorado, the feeble and short-lived BBC soap-opera. What you thought was a weather-beaten sign pointing a road to a quaint, abandoned pueblo turned out to be a village of sadistic, godless cannibals.

Welcome to the jungle! Or, more accurately, the land around Machu Picchu, where Aguirre, Wrath of God was shot on stolen cameras and a wing and a prayer. Director Werner Herzog corralled a cast and crew of 450 people to make a terrifying trip down eroded Inca steps, the film’s opening shot. Fighting vertigo and extreme rain, the filmmakers managed to transport people, animals and equipment into a hostile rainforest to film a sloppy, uneven cinematic classic.

Based on the little knowledge Herzog had of real-life adventurer Lope de Aguirre, the film traces the journey of a band of Spanish conquistadors travelling down the Amazon in search of the fabled riches of El Dorado. While searching, their infighting and ill-preparedness threatens to undo all of them.

Something is awry in Aguirre. The pacing of is erratic, the performances uneven and the characterisation inconsistent. Yet it is a unique and compelling film. The brooding hulk of Klaus Kinski gives us an arresting and unpredictable soul who stubbornly believes he is right when all falls to pieces around him. Everyone, even Kinski, play second fiddle to the land that hates them so. It is primordial and awesomely beautiful and the camera lingers long enough to make you love and fear it in equal measure.

Its hard to work out if some of the actors have been told to act bored and unhappy or whether they really just don’t want to be miles from anywhere with a film crew and a metric ton of tropical diseases. Either way Aguirre is a awash with disinterested faces and muddled motives. The film fails to give us a cohesive narrative, thanks to Herzog’s insistence on turning up in the jungle and constructing a film on the fly. Look again though and you realise it doesn’t matter. Aguirre is a glorious mess, a fascinating, filthy jumble of thwarted ambition, angry nature and godless devils who strike indiscriminately from the trees. Its not just the local “savages” who threaten the “good’ Christians looking for El Dorado either. The making of the film is just as tumultuous, with Kinski turning up ready for a full jungle experience then demanding a hotel away from everyone else when faced with insects, humidity and rain. In his time on set he raged and sulked and demanded that crew be fired for looking at him wrong. Herzog even threatened to put a bullet in his head when Kinski was prepared to leave the film on a boat. After that he was a more subdued presence on set.

Aguirre is by not an easy film to watch. It gives us extras who stare at the camera, scenes that go on too long, and then on further to nowhere. Kinski seems to be in a different film to the other actors, such is the gap between his performance and thiers. Herzog throws incongruous moments of slapstick comedy into the mix too. The bizarre lasts words of a speared man or the horse that stares inscrutably back at the disintegrating raft it has just been pushed off. Its hard not to marvel at the hubris of the greedy conquistadors facing deadly currents and mounting insanity. Aguirre is a beautiful, repellent masterpiece and proof that Herzog is a director of boldness and ambition.

Aguirre, Wrath of God has been restored and opens a season of Werner Herzog’s films at the BFI in London on 7th June

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJDuicFyJPg

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (Long men fei jia) review (2011, dir Hark Tsui)

I'm no fan of the 3D film. Something about having my eyes covered in any way while engaged with a medium that is at least 50% visual doesn't sit well. Then there is the fact that film is three-dimensional already (time is a dimension) so the name is incorrect. And lets not forget what 3D is: It's not 3D. It's several layers of flat planes which 'appear' to be differing distances in relation to the viewer. All that clever compositing effects work by the film-makers is undone by the fact that your attention is drawn right back to the fact that 'dinosaur-A' really isn't part of 'landscape-B' and the whole thing is a figment of some computer's central processor.

Having made that point I'm going to recommend you see a martial-arts epic in the wuxia tradition called Flying Swords of Dragon Gate. In 3D.

From a bravura, vertiginous, fly-through the masts and rigging of a ship-yard to an epic, and quite brilliant, fight to the death within a whirling sandstorm, the 3D process is here given a vigorous workout. FSODG is not an intelligent film, but any ounce of brain-power it had was spent solely on figuring exciting ways to use 3D to bombard the viewer with arrows, spears, fists, head and beauty.

The plot side of things goes something like this: various factions in a strife-riven China take refuge in an inn built not far from "The Dragon Gate". Viscous agents of the East and West Bureaus, brave knights who spend their life on the road, tattooed barbarians, sell-swords and flesh-eating inn-keepers all converge as the sand-storm of a lifetime engulfs them. With the revelation that the city buried under the Dragon Gate will at last be revealed by the shifting sands and disgorge its bounty of gold for the victors, the story is given some urgency.

There are subplots of love lost, mistaken identity, Machiavellian intrigue and sexual politics, but none are developed with any of the rigidity they deserve to be. Plot points come and go, sometimes serving only to provide an occasional titter, but more often than not to segue into an extravagantly choreographed fight. Provided you are happy with unclear motivations, unlikely twists and unstable characterisation you won't find anything to trouble you here.

Star power is provided by Jet Li, on enthusiastic form, and acclaimed director Hark Tsui. All of the cast are fun to watch though, especially Xun Zhou as a lady knight and Kun Chen as both a supremely nasty leader and in a parallel role as a bumbling servant. Also worthy of mention are the powerful and fun special effects, wrangled by the effects team who worked on Avatar. The aforementioned flying battle in the heart of a whirlwind of sand is a particularly exciting moment, a sort of violent Wizard of Oz dream sequence, which thrills and surprises in equal measure. All staple wuxia elements are here, from floating heroes, knights duty bound to help the weak and the pitting of lower classes against an evil and rich elite.

FSODG is a great, nonsensical fun. A rip-roaring flight of fantasy that plays fast and loose with physics, history and logic, and never fails to deliver on its promise of spectacle, action and adventure. And as a showcase for 3D it fulfills its purpose by throwing everything at the screen, including a rather ornate, gold kitchen sink. A prefect metaphor for the fact that stereoscopy can't help your story but only provide the shallow thrills that are its sole stock-in-trade.

FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGONS GATE is out in cinemas on 19th October and on 3D DVD and Blu-Ray on the 29thof October 2012.

The 10 Funniest Moments in Film: part 2

Part 1 here
6. "I'm terrified beyond capacity for rational thought" in Ghostbusters

Dr. Peter Venkman: Ray has gone bye-bye, Egon... what've you got left?

Dr. Egon Spengler: Sorry, Venkman, I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.

Why is this funny? You shouldn't analyse comedy, of course, but the humour comes from the fact that he still has enough rational thought to construct a complex statement even though he says he's terrified. It's a very pleasant spoof of any character who's ever been unrealistically rooted to the spot with fear in every horror film you've seen.


7. "Print is Dead" in Ghostbusters

Janine Melnitz: You're very handy, I can tell. I bet you like to read a lot, too.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Print is dead.
Janine Melnitz: Oh, that's very fascinating to me. I read a lot myself. Some people think I'm too intellectual but I think it's a fabulous way to spend your spare time. I also play raquetball. Do you have any hobbies?
Dr. Egon Spengler: I collect spores, molds, and fungus.

Ghostbusters! Twice! Well, it is one of the best comedy films every made. OK, print wasn't dead back in '84, but it is now! And it's funny for both those reasons. Why? Because it makes me laugh, that is why.

8. "Suck my Tits?" in This Is England

Smell: You're dead sensitive.
Are you all right?
Are you sure?
Do you want me to kiss you again?
Do you wanna suck my tits?

Wholly inappropriate, uncomfortable and weird, When Smell asks Shaun quite casually if he'd like to suck her tits the only sensible reaction is to laugh. And then be violently sick.

9. Biggus Dickus in Life of Brian

Pontius Pilate: So, yaw fatha was a Woman? Who was he?
Brian: He was a Centurion, in the Jerusalem Garrisons.
Pontius Pilate: Weally? What was his name?
Brian: 'Naughtius Maximus'.
[the Centurion laughs]
Pontius Pilate: Centuwion, do we have anyone of that name in the gawwison?
Centurion: Well, no, sir.
Pontius Pilate: Well, you sound vewy sure. Have you checked?
Centurion: Well, no, sir. Umm, I think it's a joke, sir... like, uh, 'Sillius Soddus' or... 'Biggus Dickus', sir.

As I said in Part 1, nothing is funnier than watching people trying not to laugh. Nothing!

10. Bank Robbery in Take the Money and Run

Bank Teller #1: Does this look like "gub" or "gun"?
Bank Teller #2: Gun. See? But what does "abt" mean?
Virgil: It's "act". A-C-T. Act natural. Please put fifty thousand dollars into this bag and act natural.
Bank Teller #1: Oh, I see. This is a holdup?

Take The Money And Run is probably my favourite comedy film ever, but I chose this sequence (among many hilarious ones) to show it off.

Prometheus review (2012, dir. Ridley Scott)

(Contain mild spoilers)

Prometheus isn't a horror film. It is a summer blockbuster with ideas above its station. It is a film of awe and mystery punctuated by occasional bouts of terror and action. If you want any indicator to its ambitions, the first scene is nothing less than the creation of life on Earth.

A series of ancients artefacts strewn across the globe all hold a pictogram inspired by visiting celestial beings. It is Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her boyfriend, Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) who first put the pieces of the puzzle together. It is a star-map to a particular point in space; an invitation to meet another race. A team of scientists are assembled via funding from the powerful Weyland-Yutani corporation. The film wastes no screen-time setting up the logistics of such a trip and the team are soon en-route to the planet LV-223.

Landing fortuitously close to the only building on this barren rock, the team embark on their exploration. What they find there points to the origins of the human-race. Things fall apart when alternative agendas are revealed by the accompanying robot, David (Michael Fassbender) and the Weyland-Yutani  representative, Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron).

Prometheus is a beautiful film. Shots of the space-ship cascading through the atmosphere of the planet and an opening montage of landscapes from a young-Earth spring to mind. There are also strange moments when the cinematographer's attention seems to have been diverted and exterior scenes resemble a quarry location from a 70s episode of Doctor Who.

One needs to pay attention in this film. On the planet events unfold rapidly and the seeming innocuous disturbance of a chamber has complex ramifications later on. There is a clearly a deeper mystery at the heart of the film but creaky dialogue and occasional moments of flat-out silliness threaten to overwhelm them. Musings are made on the nature of life and death with a Christian perspective shoe-horned in when the script needs to feel like it is still edgy and relevant. With such big notions at stake the locking of all the action to one small location makes it all feel strangely parochial.

Prometheus is a good film which is only a few scenes and a couple of script redrafts away from being a great one. Stronger characterisation and better dialogue would certainly have helped. Some characters are sketched vaguely, making it hard to care for them. The film has several influences. Most notably the HP Lovecraft novella At The Mountains of Madness (which could have been a film in its own right had Guillermo Del Toro received funding) in which man discovers the own hideous nature of his creation and the malevolence of those creators. The powerful opening recalls 2001: A Space Odyssey in its scope and ambition. In terms of ideas Prometheus is every bit as important as 2001 or Solaris. I can't think of any science-fiction film which has attempted to weigh in on such lofty matters since those films, with any degree of seriousness.

Performances are uniformly strong with Fassbender and Rapace providing stand out moments, stoically carrying on through the sillier moments. In the end this is a science-fiction film which has been forced to accept summer blockbuster stylings. We should be glad that a mass-market film is attempting depth with its ideas and philosophical-musings but somewhere in its gestation something prevented it shining as bright as a new star.




REALLY BIG SPOILERS - DON"T READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT:





Some questions to ponder:
Why do worms appear in our heroes footsteps? They seem to mutate pretty rapidly into the proto-face-hugger/snake creature. Do Meredith's eyes glow like a Bladerunner replicant when she is talking to David? Is she a robot as well? Is this why she pronounces "father" so strangely? What were the Engineers running from? Why is this ship different from the one on LV-426? Was the woken engineer angry because he met a life-form created by the people his race made? Why did the Engineer at the start willingly kill himself? Why did the engineers visit early Earth civilisations? Why are they hostile? Or did we get that wrong?
Hmm...

Break review (2009, dir. Matthias Olof Eich)

Break is a German horror film masquerading as an American film. Shot in English, and using American cars and newspapers, it was actually made in Bavaria with a German cast and crew. The film follows four young women on a trip into the Canadian rockies to escape the humdrum and, for Sarah, to recover from the upsetting end of a relationship.

A pleasant holiday of hiking, photography, skinny-dipping and confessionals is curtailed by the discovery of a pair of bloodied feet dangling from a tree. Intestines found nearby hint that bad things are “afoot”! Deliverance, Wong Turn and The Hills Have Eyes all spring to mind as obvious influences when the local rednecks turn nasty and hunt the girls mercilessly. What follows is a nasty chase through the woods and streams as they try to avoid sexual-abuse, stabbing, harpooning and shooting.

Performances are lively and earnest without being entirely convincing and direction is confident and restrained without being memorable. The girls at least look like they could be friends. The landscapes are undeniably beautiful and sumptuously photographed, providing a beautiful backdrop from which to juxtapose the unfolding horror.

Break ends satisfyingly for those who endured the frequent blood-letting and “unstoppable killer” cliches. It brings nothing new to the genre but what remains is watchable and grim, if terrorised women and mentally-ill yokels be your thing!

BREAK is released on DVD in the UK April 16, 2012. The trailer can be seen here.

A Horrible Way To Die review (2010, dir. Adam Wingard)

Adam Wingard's 2010 film stands as an impressive achievement. Intense performances; a restrained and understated script and a twisted, thrilling tale. But undermining all of this, a few creative decisions threaten to derail the film entirely. Does what remains withstand this onslaught? Is the powerful substance more than the alienating style?

Set in Midwestern America the film is a taut horror/thriller concerning a recovering alcoholic coming to terms with a past relationship which was not what it seemed. At an alcoholic support-group, Sarah (Amy Seimetz) meets fellow troubled-soul Kevin (Joe Swanberg) who asks for a date. Meanwhile her ex-boyfriend, serial-killer Garrick (A J Bowen), has violently absconded from gaol and is making a viscera-strewn path back home.

Sarah's relationship and drinking are going well and it appears she has turned her life around. Then her past collides with her present in a wholly unexpected way. What follows presents us with a unique and daring twist on the serial killer genre. Past and present are melded without confusion as we observe first hand how Sarah and Garrick once shared a loving relationship.

And all of this would make for a simply-told, solid film were it not for the directorial style. Shot entirely with a constantly swaying, hand-held camera, even the most motion-sick resistant will find themselves challenged not to succumb to giddy nausea. The lens never looks like it is more than a few centimetres from the actors faces. The depth of field is so shallow background detail is lost in a blurred haze. Establishing shots are few, landscapes are non-existent and no opportunity is missed to de-focus or pan away from the action. This is a great shame because such a self-conscious attempt at disorientating the viewer detracts from the naturalistic performances.

If you think you can maintain your concentration through these distancing techniques then A Horrible Way To Die is an un-sensationalist story with a shocking twist. Just don't expect to walk away without a certain amount of vertigo.

Released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on March 19th.

The Woman in Black review (2012, dir. James Watkins)

Daniel Radcliffe bears the weight of The Woman in Black almost solely on his shoulders. Despite being a recent alumnus of Hogwarts it's perhaps too large a burden. The central portion of the film has Radcliffe (as lawyer, Arthur Kipps) alone in a dilapidated house of hell. There is little to do but observe and react. When he's required to interact, with the formidable supporting cast, his weaknesses are more apparent. Not least that he looks just a smidgen too young to be a recently bereaved father and a trained lawyer.

Dispatched to settle the affairs of a recently deceased woman, Kipps arrives in a quaint but markedly rude village in the heart of the Victorian countryside where, beneath its chocolate-box veneer, dark undercurrents flow swiftly. No one wants to talk,. Kipps is warned to stay away, and the children are confined to their homes.

A high rate of infant mortality stalks the frightened streets and hushed voices speak of a vengeful spirit connected to the property of the dead woman. An apparition of a black-clad woman is said to lead youngsters away to their death. Nearby an abandoned house casts a deathly shadow over the place. The house lies across a narrow, sodden causeway precariously crossing the marsh. The path is covered cut off by the tide for several hours a day, effectively trapping visitors there should they visit at the wrong time.

The only friendly face in the village belongs to Daily (A sombre Ciaran Hinds) father grieving over the loss of his boy. Daily drives Kipps across the marsh to the house but doesn't hold with any of this “superstition nonsense”. As a lone voice of reason and science in the village he is severely outnumbered.

Writer Jane Goldman has treated the original novel by Suan Hill as a template, maintaining the bones of the plot and the sense of dread. The Woman in Black is most effective when Kipps is alone in the house, sorting through paperwork. As he works he starts to hear noises, see things in his periphery. Something is with him. Tension is carefully built as he investigates. One sequence calls to mind the 1963 film The Haunting, when. A reverberating, bassy thumping emanates from behind a locked door, ramping up the tension. And the house itself could be a twin of Hill House from that film.

Director James Watkins (director of “Broken Britain” parable Eden Lake and writer of the curious My Little Eye) paces the scares in well-timed ebbs and flows, maintaining a strong sense of foreboding. An accomplished cast bring a touch of class to a tale with little ambition other than to creep under the skin of the audience. A few well-worn tropes serve to distance the seasoned film-viewer: wind-up toys springing to clock-sprung life of their own accord; gaudy, glassy-eyed Victorian dolls observing all, and words etched in blood spewed across the walls. There is a small nod to the debate about the supernatural versus enlightenment but it is soon abandoned when the source of the terror is revealed.

The good news is that The Woman in Black does what a film under the Hammer productions banner is expected to. It provides a roller-coaster of thrills and jumps, some cheesy and some downright scary, while remaining largely free of computer generated imagery. The finale is a little wrought and sentimental, though not enough to derail what has gone before. There are moments of silliness and some straining of credibility in the effort to scare the audience. But, give in to it, leave your cynicism at home, and the hairs on the back of your neck will stand proud. You'll laugh with relief that you survived the next big “BOO!” and grab the hand of your partner. Isn't that what you want from a horror film?

UK general release: February 10th

The Haunting review (1963, dir. Robert Wise)

I pray the poor soul chancing upon this despair-smirched scrawl forgives the quality of my record. It has been four nights since last I slept. Frequent opium use has afforded little respite to my fractured sanity. I write in scarlet ink with only the flesh-coloured light of a gibbous moon. When my eyes do close I see only the vague outline of the ‘thing’. Its writhing torso accompanied by mournful ululations and discordant gibbering.



My tale starts with an invitation. A simple letter on the morning mat of an ordinary day. To sojourn in the notorious Hill House. A house born bad. I smirked and discarded the wretched thing there and then. But my old friend Dr Markway was dogged. “An experiment of tremendous important to science,” he persisted. “Vital to the disproval of parapsychological disturbances.”
I humoured him. “I’ll go. But do not expect results. Stuff and nonsense!”

A couple of days later and I ground my Plymouth Fury up the gravel drive. Hill House filled the windscreen, squatting vilely ahead. On entering I greeted Markway and the other lab-rats. I was shown to a grand room and I unpacked before we reconvened for dinner. Luke was brash and cynical, not unlike a gameshow host. Theodora was haughty and mocking in contrast to Eleanor whose demeanour was timid and mouselike. A more diverse group I could not have imagined. Markway knew what he was doing.

Now I am required to still my own hand in order to drive the ink over the page. It vibrates from memory of a primal horror witnessed over those next few nights. The booming reverberations, the gnarled forms, the mutilatedscreams. Onslaughts on reason combined in a fetid rash of terror. I saw, or thought I saw, things that were not meant to be.

And the locus of these events was Eleanor herself. Harried and hunted by a beckoning entity. I collapsed to my knees, shrieking that I could take no more. Without shame I fled, screaming as a babe, to leave the others to what fate had deigned for them.

I heard no more til many years later I learned of a cinematographic reconstruction of the ‘events’. Summoning courage from an untapped seam within, I inserted the ‘DVD’ into my digital-video display construct. My part in proceedings had, perhaps understandably, been excised. And I am convinced some of the events have been reduced in tone and intensity. Nevertheless the film was subtle, refined and rollickingly exciting. The director has employed a devilishly inventive mise-en-scène to suggest much almost without showing anything. A host of perspective tricks and vertiginous moves accentuate the fear. What remains is one of the scariest psychological horror films available to man. See it, if you be brave, and make up your own mind! And please do not confuse with the bastard remake of latter years!

I must go now. The electricity has been switched back on.

The Notorious Bettie Page

“I never thought it was shameful. It felt normal. It’s just that it was much better than pounding a typewriter eight hours a day.”





Thwack! Ow! Thwack! Ow! Thwack…! Ooh…! I’m really hammering the hell out of my keyboard. Hmm, that reminds me of something…

Bettie Mae Page made the most sordid of acts fun and wholesome. With her capacious smile and twinkling eyes, you believed she was relishing paddling the hell out of another woman’s bottom. Equally comfortable dressed in black lingerie while gagged and tied, her lolling stare challenged the viewer to find anything wrong with the image. Pornography focused on the male gaze is notoriously humour-free and po-faced; Bettie Page brought a sense of cheeky fun, dispelling the notion that she wasn’t enjoying herself too. Or possibly she saw it for how silly it all was. Sporting a distinctive, and much imitated, short fringe and jet-black hair, Bettie was renowned for glamour modelling and fetish photographs of bondage, whipping, spanking and domination during the 1950s. Bettie was also a devout Christian.

Finding success first in a fledgling Playboy magazine as Miss January 1955, Bettie’s iconic Christmas picture characterised her lack of inhibition. This image came in the middle of Bettie’s heyday as a sadomasochistic model for the brother and sister team Irving and Paula Klaw. Paula took the bulk of these images, and Irving sold them through mail order to fetish fans. Avoiding censorship by not actually featuring any pornographic or nude material, Klaw’s images featured titillating and cheesy scenes of restraint and punishment.

The FBI destroyed Klaw’s business on grounds of deviancy, using him as an example to deter others. By the turn of the 60s, Bettie’s modelling career ended and as she started attending regular Bible classes she withdrew from show business. Treatment for acute schizophrenia followed. After attacking a landlady, she was sentenced to a prison term of eight years. She didn’t know it herself, but the 80s marked an era of revival for Bettie Page with books, comics and films resurfacing to be avariciously consumed by new fans fascinated by her natural ease in front of the camera.

As Bettie-mania intensified and she learned of her new-found fame, she never allowed herself to be photographed or interviewed, preferring to be remembered as she was in the 50s. In a rare interview by the magazine that made her famous, Bettie stated that modelling had been preferable to pounding a typewriter every day. Her death from heart attack in 2008 came after years hiding from the spotlight. Her headstone reads ‘Queen of Pin-Ups’.

The Notorious Bettie Page (2005), is a curiously restrained and empty affair (no pun intended. No, make that pun intended). With the more intimate feel of a made-for-television biography and treating almost everyone as essentially innocent, it resembles Bettie’s own world view. Even a sexual assault in her college life does little to dampen her spirt. Gretchen Mol sparkles as she consumes herself with the character. The trouble is there is no flesh on the Bettie myth. Despite the film’s mission statement to tell you all about Bettie, she remains as elusive as she did in her years of hiding. And with no explanation for why she spent years playing at being tied and abused, the film portrays her as a naïve airhead. Even her later born-again Christianity is given little dissection and she becomes a catalyst for events without motive or reason. Director Mary Harron brings little visual flair aside from the innate detail of the period costumes, sets and monochrome photography.

The great interest of the film lies in the examination of 50s attitudes to pornography in the US and how they stand up compared to today. It’s obvious we’ve travelled a long road for ill or not. The longevity of Bettie’s appeal represents nostalgia not for a time before overt filth and depravity, but a desire to return to when it was (allegedly) more innocent and fun. The idiosyncratic twinkle in Bettie’s eye, unique styling and faux-naughty grin are all symbols of this golden age of good, honest, healthy perversity.

After Hours review (1985, dir. Martin Scorsese)

When did you last find yourself trapped somewhere on a night out? A tragic victim to fate when a potential encounter turned out to be something else or a wrong turn led to unheralded possibilities? I’ve more than once found myself wandering rain-washed streets long after the last train has rattled down the tracks of circumstance. I’ve no doubt neon signs reflected in pools of oily rain-water were involved too.

And that’s why I love After Hours.



A twisted, tormented trip through the dark streets of down-town Manhattan awaits Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) reminding us that hell can often be found on earth. The bare bones of this modern fable bring to mind Dante’s epic poem ‘Inferno’. Every time Paul escapes from one circle of tortured souls, he seems only to fall into another. Compounding his agony are characters who resurface only at the worst times to hound him and push him further into the depths. Franz Kafka is frequently referenced by the screenplay – in the book Paul reads, and in some of the dialogue which is lifted in whole sentences from Kafka’s writing. Writer Joseph Minion draws parallels with the anguish in the face of absurdity which characterizes Kafka’s stories.

After Hours can also be read as an emulation of Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. A simple object, a ‘plaster-of-paris cream-cheese-bagel paperweight’ in this case, stands in for the White Rabbit, leading the protagonist down The Rabbit Hole into a dreamscape menagerie of weird creatures. Those who seem at first to be friends turn on the merest whim, while even an innocent request can be misconstrued by a paranoid brain. After Hours is New York. A collection of differing – dare I say ‘kooky’? – types thrown together in a confined space, rubbing up against each other with often explosive results.



It takes place over the space of a single night. Paul tries to pick up Marcy (Rosanna Arquette) in a coffee bar. Taking her number, his libido forces him to call right away on the pretence of collecting one of her roommate’s paperweights. He calls her and, after a strained conversation, travels to Soho in a taxi, losing all his money through the cab window. Paul is ensnared, unable to return home without a fare, frustratedly unable to progress his relationship with Marcy (has he misread the signals? Is she deeply scarred physically and emotionally?) and at the mercy of fate.

After Hours features some of my favourite US actors, including a perky turn from Terri Garr, a benevolent John Heard, a giddy Catherine O’Hara, stoner comedians Cheech & Chong and a hysterically disturbed turn from Rosanna Arquette. Other familiar faces turn up as bondage artistes, criminal low lives, punk clubbers and misunderstood gay men. Vertiginous camera moves and nervy acting from Griffin Dunne help propel a fast-paced narrative.



Watch After Hours in conjunction with King of Comedy as an exploration of Scorsese’s black comedy oeuvre. Stylistically this certainly feels like the same New York as Taxi Driver. Or show the film to someone as a historical lesson on what a night out was like before the ubiquity of cash machines and mobile phones. For anyone who remembers those ‘dark ages’ it will strike chord and possibly make one yearn for a time when it was possible to be truly alone in a city.

The Spanish Prisoner review (1997, dir. David Mamet)

Steve Martin? In a serious role? It works. That all-too-coiffured white hair, which has never not been white, is really rather austere anyway.

David Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner (1997) isn’t Hitchcockian, but I’ve mentioned Hitchcock now, and as you can see I haven’t edited it out. You can see where one might make such a comparison: it features an innocent man in over his head thanks to the machinations of people far more insidious than himself. There’s much in the way of confusion, obfuscation and dastardly plots lying in wait for him too as he uncovers the machinery behind the curtain.

You won’t find swishes of Hitchcock’s bravura visual style here, or his knack for keeping things moving at a steady but heart-tickling speed. Our territory here is most assuredly Mamet-ian. David Mamet prefers the theatre with all its rhythms and artificiality intact. The characters here speak exactly as real people don’t. And the plot moves steadily and deliberately.

This isn’t why you’re going to watch The Spanish Prisoner, though. You’re here for the twists, the turns, the twisty-turns and the smarty-pants dialogue. What you thought was going to happen happens, then it doesn’t, then it does again and then that sequence repeats but backwards. Not all of the revelations will be entirely unexpected, or even convincingly revealed, but the creaky bits are obviously homage to thrillers from another era, so you can forgive it that.

Joe (Campbell Scott) is the inventor of a process. Something very valuable which has to be hidden away. It doesn’t matter what it is and we never find out anyway. What’s important is that people want it and are prepared to go to mind-bending lengths to get it.

Scott turns in an everyman performance and that’s fine; it’s what’s needed. Rebecca Pidgeon is maddeningly perky and amateurish but it suits her character, and anyway, she’s married to the director, so that’s fine too. Ricky Jay is here because he’s a seasoned Mamet actor and Mamet has to have him in his films. It’s a law of nature. Ben Gazarra is typically charismatic and inscrutable. And Steve Martin is playing out of type, which is good because he’s really rather adept at throwing his acting chops around. I can’t understand why he doesn’t take more of these roles.

I can’t tell you more; I really can’t. I don’t want to spoil the surprises on offer. Pay rapt attention, though. Every object is imbued with implication, every glance can be interpreted two or more ways and every word drips with meaning. And all will be referred to later on in some form of satisfying pay-off. You’ll need to concentrate and at the end you can give yourself a hearty pat on the back for doing so.

The Spanish Prisoner is available on DVD, though out of print, so some copies can fetch a high price.

Red, White & Blue review (2010, dir. Simon Rumley)

Sitting in a darkened room with 15 people, my toes were so curled I could almost kick my kneecaps. Across the room I saw winces, hands across eyes and heads fully turned from the screen. “Oh my…” breathed the woman behind and I wondered who would pass out. They stoically clung on with me, though. We made it through.

The second half of Simon Rumley’s Red, White & Blue kicks your punished psyche into some pretty deep, dark holes. Thankfully your trust is earned with the fascinating drama of the first half. Erica (Amanda Fuller) vacuums by day and vamps by night. In a new bar every night she picks up men with ease, never sleeping with the same one twice. Anyone who gets too close is shunned.

Franki (Marc Senter) is in a band, possibly on the verge of success. They practise rock music in a garage until it’s time for Franki to donate blood to his sick mother. Some of the most heart-rending scenes are between Franki and his mother. That he loves her and wants to help her is never in question.

Nate (Noah Taylor) lives in the same boarding house as Erica. A confessed torturer of animals and CIA operative (or fantasist), Nate tries to break down Erica’s barriers by declaring everything to her. Their initially faltering relationship is frustrated by her indifference. When they do form a bond we witness a profound change in Erica. Cutting up the photo album of her sexual conquests, she finally comes to Nate’s room. They lie together and he makes a crazy suggestion…

Rumley uses a short sequence from one of my favourite films, Carnival of Souls, to signify a turning point. “I’ll never come back,” says Mary. After this moment, none of the characters is able to return to where they were. Then Franki receives terrible news. Something severe enough to change his life, and potentially those of family and friends.

Subsequently there is a rapid descent into one of the very lowest levels of hell, the slow-burn opening giving way to an incendiary denouement. Red, White & Blue is not torture porn. Nor is it gory, sensationalist or cheap. What begins to feel like Dead Man’s Shoes by Shane Meadows or even Death Wish by Michael Winner soon turns into a revenge drama of a different colour. With grim finality it goes beyond revenge into territory occupied by Takashi Miike’s Audition. Most violence is implied. Like the shower scene in Psycho, our eyes see far less than our brains think they saw. Electrifying cuts and distorted bursts of music heighten the anxiety.

Rumley’s film is most certainly a multi-headed beast, uneasily mixing human drama with staggeringly bold nastiness. The sound-design is especially impressive as are the editing and performances. Special mention goes to Sally Jackson as Franki’s mother for a tender, human portrayal of a very ill woman, as well as Amanda Fuller, who makes troubled Erica brave and then vulnerable but never insipid or weak.

Be warned: this film will shock. Yet it’s not your standard horror/revenge fare. Its messages are open to discussion (what is revealed by Nate pushing past the US flags outside Franki’s house? Are the CIA involved in torture? Why does the boy’s mother accept Erica?) but Red, White & Blue has a human heart and is just as beautiful, conflicted and unpredictable as any of us.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me review (1992, dir. David Lynch)

Reviled by many critics and ignored by audiences, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) has unjustly slipped under many film fans’ radars. Dig below the surface, scrape away years of dirt, and you’ll reveal a rich and multifaceted cinematic gem.

Sitting down to watch TPFWWM again, I am reminded of two things. First: it is one of David Lynch’s finest films as a director, and second: it is one of the greatest horror films ever made, despite the fact it has never been categorised as such and you’ll never find it in the horror section of your local online video download store-hub.

Serving as a prequel to Twin Peaks, the TV series, TPFWWM tells one story that operates on two distinct levels. The film assembles the facts behind the last seven days of Laura Palmer’s life, a high school prom queen played with tortured fatalism by Sheryl Lee. Key to understanding Laura is the revelation of the sexual abuse she suffers at the hands of the mysterious “Bob”.

Overlaid like an acetate cartoon-cell on top of the very everyday town of Twin Peaks, is the supernatural world of The Black Lodge. This is a place outside of conventional space and time whose inhabitants sometimes leave to live in a small room above a convenience store. These entities exist to inflict pain on humankind, the suffering represented by the creamed corn they consume with each soul. They release one of their own, Bob, to possess someone close to Laura with the intention of corrupting her and condemning her to torment in The Black Lodge. An equally valid counter-interpretation is that this is only in the mind of the actual perpetrator of these acts.

Our film opens on a TV screen displaying static. An axe thuds abruptly into the TV as sparks fly and a woman screams. This violently demonstrates that Twin Peaks the TV show is in the Past. Dead. Finished.

In the FBI’s Philadelphia headquarters, David Bowie’s Agent Jeffries appears for a few minutes, after 2 years missing in the field. Jeffries points accusingly at Cooper (a clue to his eventual fate) and proceeds to explain to the assembled agents of his imprisonment in The Black Lodge and the creatures he met there. Jeffries attended one of their meetings to decide the fate of Laura Palmer at the cost of his soul. His tale told, he promptly disappears again.

Meanwhile, in an unfriendly town which appears to be the emotional opposite of Twin Peaks, Agent Chet Desmond, played by Chris Issac, accompanied by Agent Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland channelling Stan Laurel) investigate the murder of Theresa Banks. As Desmond closes in on the otherworldly fate of girls claimed by Bob, he too disappears without trace.

There are several scenes in TPFWWM which are instantly cinematic, unique and bold enough to distance the film from its broadcast heritage. The 10-minute “Pink Room” sequence takes place in a sleazy bar, almost all sound drowned out by pounding, rhythmic music. We can nearly discern snippets of dialogue but the overall effect is exactly the same as trying to hold a drunken, dreamy conversation in a noisy bar or club. The result is hypnotic, unsettling and ultimately leads to one of Laura’s redemptive acts as she saves her friend from a similar fate to her own. (Later DVD releases have subtitles come up at this point, but I know that the original European cinema print has no subtitles and the atmosphere it conjures is all the better for not having them.)

In another powerful scene we encounter Bob in Laura’s bedroom. The intrusion is so unexpected and visceral that we cannot still our hearts from leaping when it comes. Maybe it’s because we don’t expect the standard jumps and scares of a standard horror film here, that we are so taken aback by this.

Lynch has always been a great and unique sound designer. The eerie and omnipresent industrial rumble over Eraserhead springs to mind, or the noise the cadaver makes when moved early on inTPFWWM. When Laura and her father are accosted by a one-armed man on the road into town, his insane screeching and the revving of the car engine combine to drown out the words in a deafening overload of hate and anger.

Yes, you may gain slightly more satisfaction fromTPFWWM if you’ve seen Twin Peaks the series, and for fans of the television show most of the major players do appear in cameos, but as a stand-alone film concerning abuse, incest, loss of identity and the downwards spiral of a confused high-school girl, it is brave and fearless. As a fable about possession and evil inflicted by spirits from another world, an inter-dimensional war between gods centring on a small town and a supernatural horror, it is also triumphant. A game of two halves certainly, but both will chill, disturb and unnerve you more than most so-called horror films out there.

Possession review (1981, dir. Andrzej Zulawski)

It’s seldom a film lunges forward, grabs you roughly by the collar, throws you up against a wall screaming dementedly in your face for nearly two hours. What is Possession? And why will it leave you sprawled and dripping with fetid ooze on your now-desecrated sofa? What happens here to leave you exhausted, razed and slightly closer to the dark and howling abyss of insanity than you were before?



Anna (Isabelle Adjani) and Mark (Sam Neill) bicker and push against each other in their Berlin apartment, as the marriage disintegrates. Symbols of separation are seen in the omnipresent Berlin Wall, frequently seen from their apartment window. Anna ends an affair with Heinrich and begins another. With angry silence from Anna and no leads to uncover her new mystery lover, Mark collapses in a prolonged and bitter, sweaty mess. On regaining his composure (though not necessarily his sanity) he sets out to find Anna’s illicit partner. Questioning the similarly unhinged Heinrich only leads to a beating, while a private detective hired to trail her disappears altogether.

Compounding the queasy puzzle, Anna returns periodically to the flat in various states of anger, anxiety, depression and mania. The blue dress she wears looks more stained and sweat-soaked each time, her hair matted with filth.

Before you think this mystery is the crux of the film, we learn the truth early on and the revelation savagely spins the film around from domestic drama to horror. Anna is in the thrall of a bloody, mucky, tentacled beast she makes love to and kills for. This monstrosity represents the breakdown of the relationship. It is what comes between Anna and Mark but it can’t be defined, is never seen in full, always skulking in shadow and staring malevolently.

Similar themes are explored in Lars Von Trier’sAntichrist, and as a study of failing relationships, madness and body-horror it is hard not to see a direct influence. Possession also recalls the work of H. P. Lovecraft, a writer who explored the intrusion of disturbing, tentacled monsters into everyday life and the consequences on the sanity of anyone witnessing them.

The performances in Possession are brave, edgy and quite theatrical, the whole cast going over the top with glee. The stand-out performance undoubtedly comes from Adjani in her subway miscarriage scene. Walking through the underground station, groceries in hand, Anna starts giggling and grimacing, her eyes bulging crazily. With escalating hysteria her laughs explode into full-blown screams as her body writhes and contorts. The groceries spray across the tiles and she disfigures her face while blood and milk flow from under her dress and across the floor.

An equally macabre scene sees Anna and Mark cutting their bodies with an electric meat carver. Such is the mental anguish of their emotional separation, even slicing their necks and arms provokes no reaction as the blood flows.

Towards the end, as pieces unravel, the story takes oblique twists and turns. The son’s school teacher appears as a doppelgänger of Anna, raising questions of identity. Heinrich’s mother turns out to know more about what is going on than it seems. This will require multiple viewings to be understood.

Possession has only recently been scooped up and slopped in a quivering mass onto DVD in the UK after its incorrect labelling as a video-nasty in the ’80s. Watch the film and you realise it eludes genre classification altogether. The horror aspects are brief and often comical, and the creature itself, while disgusting, is only glimpsed briefly. Possession‘s over-riding theme is the portrayal of the banally traumatic process of divorce. Zulawski drew heavily on his own experiences to reach deep into his soul and spew forth the bitter and rank contents into this film. It’s about the grinding down of a relationship between people descending into derangement which ultimately results in their own loss of identity. I have an unashamed and rather dirty love for Possession and I only hope you search whatever dank corners you need to find a copy for yourself.

Brick review (2005, dir. Rian Johnson)

In the 3rd term of my 5th year at primary school, Rosa disappeared. One day she was at school then…gone. I interviewed the whole playground to check alibis. (I knew how to do this from watching Saturday matinées on BBC2.) The trail went cold quicker than a corpse in a fridge. Nobody had seen anything, there was no body, and I’m pretty sure that the apple core left on the drain was a message to leave well alone. After three weeks I applied the screws and one of the teachers sang like a canary. Turns out Rosa had moved to Israel with her father. Oh well, on to the next case: The Mystery of the Dirty Mattresses, dumped next to the climbing frame.



Later, as a self-obsessed, bored teen, I would ask myself: “Where are all the murders to solve? Why can’t my life be more like a Dashiell Hammett novel? Why can’t I find my own femme-fatale (and not fat-femmes)?” Which is why this unique and beautiful high-school detective tale holds such a special place in my heart.

Think of film-noir and you probably imagine strips of light filtered through a venetian blind splayed across a ramshackle office. Maybe an immaculately dressed woman standing in a shadowy alley on an illicit rendezvous. Such images are part of a cinematic movement which emphasised style and mood as much as story. It came as a reaction to The Depression in the 30s and 40s with films made on tight budgets, borrowing heavily from German Expressionism and presenting cynical characters from the rougher end of town.

Rian Johnson’s Brick isn’t just a classic film noir transposed to a high-school setting. And it isn’t a parody of a detective yarn either. The story is too compelling in its own right to be written off that way. It gives an effective demonstration of how noir elements can be picked up, placed in an entirely different setting and still function. The dialogue in the film is a good example. Characters use their own form of slang and talk with the breakneck speed and economy of the very best detective stories. I guarantee that one view of this film won’t be enough to take in everything that is said.

Our hero Brendan (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is like the battered hero of Hammett’s bookThe Maltese Falcon, stumbling through the case and chancing on leads more through luck and determination than skill. Brendan’s girlfriend has turned up dead and the leads point to a crime boss known as The Pin (Lukas Haas) and his hired muscle, Tug. When Brendan gets too deep he is punished for it with violence. No noir hero ever had it easy.

With an obsessive zeal Brendan pursues the case, driving himself close to death. His one ally comes in the unlikely form of his bookish friend, The Brain. In Brick’s world adults are barely visible. The Vice Principal acts as embittered police chief to Brendan’s put-upon private eye while The Pin’s mother serves as jarring comic relief, pouring our young adversaries some country-style apple juice with a cheery smile.

Alan Parker’s Bugsy Malone bears superficial comparison to Brick, both featuring young hoodlums and a world (largely) free from adult interference. The difference is that Bugsy exists only as parody; Brick has a reverential relationship with its source. Closer in spirit to Brick are films like Bladerunner and Chinatown, both of which took the feel of noir, added colour, moved the pieces around and then revelled in the atmosphere, perversion and violence of those classic detective tales. Brick also finds a cultural sibling in the form of the US TV series Veronica Mars about a seemingly unstoppable high-school super-sleuth.

This is a film about an underworld of 30s-style crime, long shadows, moodiness and danger re-purposed in a sterile Californian town. It is exciting, funny, tense and well-paced. It ranks with some of the very best modern detective stories and, with its youthful cast, is such a novel take on some well-trodden ground that I can’t help but recommend it highly.

Back at my own school, I traced the abandoned mattresses over the fence and through the woods. I was chased and nearly caught by some skinheads. Maybe it’s just as well my detective career ended there.