The world of exploitation film ripped open and laid raw for you to experience. From 70's grindhouse to current underground, it is all here. So ripe you can practically smell it.
ADAM CHAPLIN (2010) D. EMANUELLE DE SANTI AUTONOMY PICTURES /NECROSTORM FILMS 1.78 HD
This is Italian language, low budget gorefest is pretty damned impressive. Sure the story lack in a few areas, and there is zero characterization on board for most of the leads. But it makes up for the faults with boatloads of style, and more bloodshed than any recent movie I can name. It is like a LOONY TUNES movie with action and gore effects.
Writer, Producer and Director Emanuelle De Santi stars as the title character. A musclebound brute of a man (who has no past) who is avenging the death of his girlfriend. His girl was killed my monster/mutant/gangster Derek -Giulio De Santi (all the characters have deceivingly normal names) when she was late with money owed to him. Derek and his two sons set her on fire in a convincingly unpleasant sequence. The opening credits roll over her being wheeled into the hospital and worked on, her entire body one crisp and molten wad of skin.
So Adam has not quite willingly called up a Demon that lives inside his back that helps drive him to find revenge. This demon also has given him supernatural powers that make him able to do things like punch a guy so hard he breaks though the cement wall, a half mile outside the building, sending him landing on, and destroying the car the villains are in. When Adam Chaplin hits someone their face explodes, gore showers everything. If someone tries to look at the demon their eyes burn out of their heads.
Imagine the gore of DEAD/ALIVE being met with the brutality of STORY OF RIKKI and you are in the ballpark or ADAM CHAPLIN. I have no idea what the budget for the film is, but I know it is low, extremely low. But the production value is up on screen, the stunts, fights and special effects are all top of the line. Watching the final fifteen minutes where the main character lays waste to dozens of people, all I could keep thinking was "what could this guy do with a larger budget?"
WE'RE GOING TO EAT YOU (1980) D. TSUI HARK MEDIA BLASTERS 1.85 This early entry from Hong Kong wizard boy Tsui Hark is full of energy, kung fu and some splashy gore. But it uses those things to mask that there is very little plot, no scares and tons of goofy comedy in the mix as well. It is as hyperactive as you would expect from this director and equally incoherent. But there is some fun to be had amidst the chaos. Norman Chu (once again as we saw him as the lead in LEWD LIZARD. No, I did not intentionally have a Norman Chu double feature!) plays special Agent 999 who is on a small island looking for a criminal from his past named ROLEX (Melvin Wong). The island is overrun by mask wearing cannibals under order of the new chief of police. They are killing and eating people and giving a little of the left over meat to the mentally handicapped and poor villagers.
While this is a set up for a no holds barred gore fest, the movie instead chooses to be a slapstick comedy with lots of martial arts. The cannibals all fight with a series of people in long, drawn out, intricate Kung Fu sequences that play more like demo reels for another film job. There is also a strange use of real handicapped and deformed people for bit parts, under most circumstances I would be fine with this, but here they are often used a comedic relief such as the giant transvestite that keeps attempting to rape the various men in the story. It just comes off as poor taste.
DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS (1984) D. EMUND PURDOM MONDO MACABRO 1.66
Producer
Dick Randall, hot off the success of his slasher flick PIECES, made a two
picture deal with UK based F/X man Peter Litten for this film and
another slasher called APRIL FOOLS DAY - which was retitled SLAUGHTER HIGH
to avoid litigation from Paramount. For this Christmas themed gore
flick Randall brought in his PIECES star Edmond Purdom to play the lead
again. But Purdom would only do it if he could direct too. Which led to
such a hack job that three other directors ultimately took over to patch
this mess into the hilarious monstrosity it is today.
Yet
in some ways, this may be my favorite if the X-mas themed slasher films
from the era. The film is just, top to bottom, so insanely wrong-headed
that it is constantly entertaining. Delivering consistently for the
whole running time.
The scant story has some psycho
scouring the streets of London killing street Santas. Very brutally in
fact, burning off faces, slicing throats in peep booths and castrating
one poor St. Nick in mid piss. Purdom is the dick on the case
investigating and he is convinced a flute playing street musician is the culprit.
Naturally he isn't. The killer is exactly who you
think the first time you meet him. But you will be distracted by
the naked saggy boobs, overflowing blood and incredible dialogue. Like
when flute boy is almost caught by a couple of cops in the street with a babe in a Santa
cape and exclaims "they are gonna think we are a couple of GAYS!" Or
when Purdom finds a dead body and two women gasp, he tells them "it's
ok I'm a police officer!" Then two men approach and he tells them "go
phone the cops!"
I also love how every dime store Santa in
England is a drunk or a pervert or both. They get killed because the
stumble drunk into dark alleys or go into peep booths for a wank. Except
for one poor Santa who stumbles inexplicably into Carolyn Munroe's
sound check! She looks super hot, the song kinda sucks, the guy gets
killed and Carolyn never shows up again!
Of course it is
all some flimsy psycho sexual trauma. But you won't care. This is the
kind of thing that is only as good as the piles of absurdity it can
muster. Trust me, they don't come much more absurd than this.
The
dvd has an hour long vintage behind the scenes that showcases mostly producer
Dick Randall. But they don't even try to hide how troubled of a
production it was. Instead they made a humorous behind the scenes film
about it.Joking about the multiple shoots, body doubles and new directors. But even better is the Mondo Macabro made extra THE WILD WILD
WORLD OF DICK RANDALL that is a wonderful and loving overview of his life and
career. That extra alone is worth the price of the disc and make my all bleary eyed for an era of exploitation film that will simply never exist again.
The movie looks fine, grainy in places, belying
its very low budget roots.but better than if ever has considering it has floated around in bootlegs sourced from 20 year old VHS and one full frame DVD of questionable originans from nearly ten years ago. Add to that the mind melting Mondo Macabro trailer reel and you
get a package that is fit to open well before Christmas indeed.
SAVAGES (2012) D. OLIVER STONE UNIVERSAL PICTURES 2.35-1 HD
Oliver Stone returns to the drug business with his Southern California beach noir adaptation of the Don Winslow crime novel of the same name (Winslow also co-wrote the screenplay). The result is probably Stone's most entertaining movie in a decade or more, but is still not without some major flaws. But the film is so awash in beautiful scenery, and plenty of forward momentum it is easy to get caught up in the ride.
The story deals with a trio of pot growers and also full time lovers. Ben (Aaron Johnson) is the Soft heart, hippie agriculturist of the trio. The brain who studied botany and perfected the specialized herb that has made them the millions they have. He travels around the globe spreading the wealth to the underprivileged. Cho (Taylor Kitsch) is the muscle, an ex Marine, back from two very violent tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Scarred by the war both physically and mentally, he takes the business side very seriously. He is more animal than man most of the time. Finally there is Ophelia, (Blake Lively) O for short, the woman that loves them both, and they both love her. She is the glue that binds them all together. The three of them live in a Southern California bliss, happily selling weed, and trading each other off with no jealously at all. The perfectly progressive family for the 21st century.
Until the Mexico drug cartels come calling. Salma Hayek plays Elena, the drug Kingpin (clearly based on the famous Cocaine Madam of Miami) who wants the boys to reinvent her business with their product and growing know how. When they refuse and intend to run, she has Ophelia snatched and held captive. The intent to be she will be her captive for a year while they set up shop for her, then Ophelia will be set free and they will take a hefty cut in profits for disobeying. They boys know this is not going to work and going to war is probably going to be the best bet in winning back the love of their life.
So begins a viciously violent thriller that delivers on most of what it promises. The first 30 to 40 minutes of the movie as near picture perfect. Especially the setting up of the relationship between the three of the leads. We get to know the boys especially well and understand what it is about them that Ophelia sees in them and why the threesome approach works for her. There is a terrifying opening scene involving an internet video and multiple decapitations that is not easily forgotten as well as a sequence that introduces Benecio Del Toro's character Lado, an assassin for Elena that brings the title of the movie into sharp focus.
But once Ophelia is captive the movie begins to drag a bit. The boys spend a lot of time trying to figure ways to get her back and the movie spins around more than it really should. There is a fantastic heist sequence that is bloody, brutal and fucking LOUD. But most of all takes time out to remind you the cost of human lives.
But the movie slowly loses focus as it runs into the third act. Ophelia sort of never really rises to become a clear focus of the material the way she should. She gets one great scene where her and Elena have dinner and discuss the people in their lives they love. But mostly she just kind of whines and wimpers about her situation. As the movie progresses we clearly see why SHE loves the boys. They are everything she claims them to be in her narration that peppers the film. But we never get to really understand what it is about HER that makes them so crazy in love with her, that they are willing to risk their lives, to tear down their own empire to save her. Her character seems kinda of one dimensional compared to them at the end of the day.
***SPOILERS***
Then there is the issue of the ending. Of the two endings actually. Neither of which actually conclude the film in a satisfactory way. The film actually has a shoot 'em up climax that is semi-satisfying, then ends with a Romeo and Romeo and Juliet death pact, then literally backs out of it to give us the "real" ending where everyone lives. Bad guys, good guys, supporting players, everyone. The whole thing feels weird and like a cheat. Problem is that the movie leading up to that point has been a journey for the two boys, especially Ben who has learned to give up a significant part of his humanity to save her. To have a happy ever after undercuts the point.. I have not read the book, but I would be curious to know how the book ends and if it is like the movie at all.
Even with all this in mind, I still quite enjoyed the film. The acting is good, and Stone's direction is slick and back to the heavy saturation, crazy editing of U-TURN and NATURAL BORN KILLERS that I love so much. His politics are not as hit you on the head blatant here, but the pro-pot stance is loud and clear. SAVAGES is a very entertaining film. It just could have been a great film with just a little more effort.
ZOOM UP: THE BEAVER BOOK GIRL (1981) D. Takashi Kanno Impulse Pictures. Synapse Films
2:35-1 / 16X9 Anamorphic
This is the fourth release from Impulse
Pictures/ Synapse Films Nikkatsu Roman Porno Collection series,
celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the Japanese studio. Without
question this is my favorite of the releases so far. This is
officially the 3rd film in the loosely connected “ZOOM
UP” series, the first being ZOOM UP: RAPE SITE in 1979 and the
second ZOOM UP: RAPE APARTMENT in 1980 both by different directors
and boasting different plot lines. So it makes no difference that you
are jumping into the series after a couple of other entries. If the
other two are as interesting as this one, I hope Impulse/Synapse has
them on the future schedule.
ZOOM UP: THE BEAVER BOOK GIRL deals
with a photographer for a slick skin magazine who specializes in
those ever popular panty shots and upskirt voyeur pics. His newest
specialty is piss pics, which seem to be the only thing that even
remotely turn him on. When he comes home to find his assistant and
newest model fucking wildly in the living room he goes about cooking
dinner like nothing is going on. When she hungrily begs him to join,
he violent pushes them both out of the way and finishes his cooking.
He is clearly a man with some sexual hang ups. We get a peek at what
that might be when his boss (who continually hits on him, grabbing his dick every chance he gets) mentions to
a new model that his “true artistry” lies in his past as a
rapist(!) but it was okay because all the girls instantly fell in
love with him.
Meanwhile a slightly older woman, maybe
in her thirties, has been stalking the three leads as they go about
their day of making pornographic pictures. She finally makes her way
into their loft and gets in on the action in a sequence that will
send piss fetishists into a blissful fugue state. We later learn from
the skin magazine editor that this lady is named Nami ( Nami is a common name used in a lot of Manga and sexually explicit films in Japan) and she was the
most popular skin game model until year before when she dropped out
mysteriously, taking five million yen with her she robbed from him.
But he tells the photographer that if she shows back up to get her to
pose again and then give him a call so he can get his money back.
Naturally she does show back up, but she is so game to do
things that the other models won't do, the he does not call his boss.
Instead she convinces him to go to a another remote location for a
more private shoot. But we just know things are going to get
weird, and they do indeed. As it turns out they have much more of a
past together than he even could possibly remember.
Much more intricately plotted than the
other three Nikkatsu film released so far, this one goes from being a
voyeuristic skin flick, to a weird study on fetishism, to a rape/revenge film all in the same couple of reels. It even throws in a
really raw and bizarre love story at some point. Mix into that some
of the most potent, edgy and down right dirty sex in the
Nikkatsu films up to this point and you get a winner of a film. Of
course, if off the beaten path sex is a turn off to you, you might
want to consider giving this film, and the others as well, a really
wide birth. But if you have some adventure in your soul, and things
like S+M, or particular fetishists really catch your attention, this
may be a something for you to take a look at. Just like the other films, it is really well made, has a peculiar point of view, and ends up being weirdly haunting before it is all over.
The disc includes the short, but catch-line filled trailer, and nicely done liner notes by author and historian Jasper Sharp. Watch for his book THE HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF JAPANESE CINEMA from Scarecrow press.
THOU SHALT NOT KILL... EXCEPT (1986) D. JOSH BECKER SYNAPSE FILMS
1.66
THOU SHALT NOT KILL ... EXCEPT was one of the last gasps of the 80s exploitation indie movement. Directed by Josh Becker on 16mm with a budget you couldn't feed a family on, the film is really a triumph of where there is a will there's a way, up by your jockstrap style filmmaking. Typified by the fellas that came out of Detroit at that time. Josh Becker made this film, Sam Raimi, well we know what movies he has made, and their buddy Scott Spiegel made INTRUDER a few years later. This group all had the true indie spirit that shone through on all their projects.A lot of love and a LOT of time went inter their work. THOU SHALT NO KILL...EXCEPT is a shinning example of that spirit.
The movie opens with four buddies fighting their way through some stock footage in Vietnam (and some trees that are clearly up state Michigan). Soon the battle hardened friends are back home trying to adjust. Seeing family again, meeting girls, just trying to start over.
But a nasty cult of murderous fanatics have started cutting their way through the neighborhood and it is up to the boys to stop them. The cult gets all the good scenes with Sam Riami as the MANSON styled leader and brother Ted Raimi as the efeminate gang member Chains who likes to torture people. Whether tormenting babies or feeling up babes with hands full of blood theses guys know how to party.
It all culminates in an ultra-violent low budget Peckinpah styled showdown that spreads the red stuff all over the screen. Are you looking for a gory action revenge movie to get you to your feet? This one delivers the goods. And then some.
The long making of segment is shockingly thorough covering from the script stage all the way through the vhs release (they got $50,000 for the vhs rights!!! My god that is a dead era now!) I most enjoyed seeing the theaters playing the film first run. The marquee's with this title running along side the big films of the day was a kick to see. As it was only a few more years and these sorts of movies didn't get into theaters at all.
Also as an extra the Super 8mm version of the film, this time called STRYKER'S WAR and starring a very young Bruce Campbell. It is just as accomplished as feature version. A lot of the same scenes exist in the even lower budgeted version of the movie. Though at times it is even better as it is played completely straight, with no camping it up. At almost an hour long, it is just shy of being a feature. Too bad there was no way to distribute super 8mm films at the time as this one actually stands on its own as a gritty little movie.
It is a funny thing that for my money the Blu Rays that have been the most impressive in my collection have turned out to be the completely no budget films. Movies shot on shoestrings, usually on 16mm for peanuts. When remastered with love and care they have turned into gorgeous Blu discs worth their weight in gold. Add THOU SHALT NOT KILL... EXCEPT to the list. Looking at this disc after the previous incarnations is almost mind blowing. It STILL looks like a 16mm film, with the grain and grit intact, but it is so clear and clean that it looks like it was SHOT yesterday. You can almost reach into your TV and put your fingers into the pools of coagulating blood. An astounding job in every way putting this movie back out in this format.
HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (2011) D. Jason Eisner Magnet Releasing 1.85 VOD and Theatrical
As most of you know HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN began life as part of the SXSW festival contest when GRINDHOUSE came out to have fans create fake trailers in the 70’s gritty exploitation style. HOBO was without a doubt the ONE entry that nailed the vibe best in every way right down to the fonts used for the on screen credits. If no one told you, one could easily had been fooled to believe it was a lost 70’s film. The fake trailer rightfully won the contest and even played with GRINDHOUSE in Canada.
So naturally it was only right that an actual movie be made from the concept and the Internet community rallied behind the idea. It has taken almost five years to get completed but we finally have a feature film version of HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN with a name star in the title role. But the final product lacks that retro punch the original trailer had. In fact it feels more like a modern video game released by Troma, than some lost Grindhouse gem.
Rutger Hauer plays the lead character simply named Hobo, who strolls into a small town just in time to see some poor smchuck trotted into the middle of the street, tortured and beheaded by a crime family. The town is held under the thumb of Drake (Brian Downey) a cartoon Mafioso and his two even more cartoonish sons Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman). The Hobo wonders through the town and witnesses other atrocities too like a Pedophile Santa kidnapping kids, a black pimp whoring young teens girls etc. He follows Slick to the hide out and bemusedly watches a whole bunch of people tortured and murdered until we meet Abby the typical Hooker with the Heart of Gold who for some reason prompts the Hobo to finally step in and stop Slick from hurting her. There is some more tit for tat, but his deed ultimately lands him all carved up and with Abby taking care of him for a while.
The movie takes a good forty or so minutes before it gets to the events of the original trailer when he gets the shotgun and starts going ballistic in a scene that is admittedly pretty satisfying. But then the events of the trailer are merged down into basically a montage of him finding and wasting the scum of the town and then it is back to the annoying bad guys and their screen time.
That is the biggest problem with the movie. Whenever the movie is with the Hobo it works just fine. Hauer is committed to the performance and has good chemistry with his female lead. But anytime the movie goes back to the villains, which is often, it just becomes ridiculous. A purposely over the top, offensive, cartoon that is trying too hard to get in your face. Instead it just becomes annoying and ultimately kind of empty. I felt like I was watching a live action episode of SOUTH PARK with Terrence and Phillip as bad guys.
There are a couple of places where the film attempts some social commentary such as a nod to the BUMFIGHTS thing and a well done speech about how the streets are “their” (meaning the homeless) homes and how the people of the town need to have some respect for them. I certainly respected that those moments are there. I just wished the material around them had been as well handled as these few scenes.
By the end of the movie it struck as to why I was not responding to the movie the way so many of my friends and peers have. So many people I know have declared this a modern classic, the “grindhouse” movie done right etc. But near the climax of the movie a pair of armored goons called “The Plague” are sent after the Hobo. In the process they decimate and entire Hospital full of people in a scene that should have had me breathless. Instead it had me bored to tears. This scene and the scene earlier when the Hobo watches Slick in his hideout torture and kill several people for fun clicked with me as to why this movie doesn’t work. It is nothing but a big, bloody, video game. There may not be a HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN video game, but there might as well be because that is exactly how it feels. A lot of these faux Grindhouse movies that have come in the wake of the Rodriguiz/Tarrantino collaboration feel the exact same way. Maximum offensiveness, maximum body count, minimum character or attention to script. Tell them it is a tribute to the 70’s & 80’s movies but instead it plays like you are just a player in a video game.
The last fifteen minutes of this movie feel just like that. Oddly enough 90% of the people I know who watched it, did so on a Playstation 3 if that tells you anything.
So to me almost half the movie works. The scenes with the Hobo interacting with the Hooker as good stuff. The scene with him telling the babies in the Hospital how much their lives are going to suck is pure gold. The scene when he finally gets the gun and goes on his rampage is what the rest of the movie should be like. But nearly all the other stuff felt like some other movie that I really couldn’t wait to be over so I could get back to the OTHER movie I was enjoying.
I get the feeling I am going to get a TON of hate mail over this one...
Day fifteen of the September Exploitation challenge takes us into the distant FUTURE!
THE NEW BARBARIANS (1982) aka WARRIORS OF THE WASTELAND D. Enzo Castellari Media Blasters 2.35
In the future Nuclear war will ravage and scorch the Earth leaving nothing in the wake but roving packs of marauders who want nothing more than to continue killing each other. Oddly enough these gangs will have mastered the ability to make vacuformed plastic into everything they need from space age costumes to gigantic bubbles for their neato vehicles. They will also have worked out how to turn everyday guns into laser shooting death rays and explosive devices that blow people’s chest cavities out upon impact. In this chaos is a group who have christined themselves The Templar's, but really have no inkling of anything to do with that historic Christian sect of Knights. This group of villains are run by one George Eastman who calls himself “One” and really all they want to do is kill everyone.
"Come to me and touch my stylish hair..."
But one man stands in their way. One man who drives a souped up muscle car (with a giant plastic dome on top) outfitted with missiles and machine guns. This man’s name is Scorpion (Giancarlo Prete), and he looks like he just stepped out of a East side beauty shop from getting his hair done. Seems he and One have some bad blood when he beat One at a duel some odd years ago and this has effected One’s ego and leadership abilities ever since. Scorpion stops these bad boys from roughing up a poofy haired babe in leather leggings named Alma (Anna Kanakis). He shows her his sensitive side by not raping her and she falls for the big lug. So they do it in a blow up tent on the side of the road. Even in the wasteland her make up stays perfect.
"Well, as long as you are not going to rape me, I guess you are an alright guy..."
Eventually One’s men decide they are tired of Scorpion banging the only chick left in the world, thus taking One’s attention away from them. So they set out to kick Scorpion's ass and take over the group. Enter Fred Williamson as Nadir. Don’t ask me why the only black dude in the Future, (hell the whole world in this film) is named Nadir, seems a bit racist, but hey its the Hammer and he can take care of himself. He basically puts futuristic foot to ass on these guys by saving Scorpion's butt. He has a bow and arrow with super explosive tips that when they hit the target blow their heads clean off. Naturally Scorpion tells him he could have handled it all on his own. I guess AFTER he got his ass kicked. They find a camp of, get this, Christians, who help them out and I was afraid this whole thing was going to turn into some sort of bible thumbing bullshit parable. Instead The Hammer beds down a hot ass sister, and then he and Scorpion leave so the bad guys can just come in and start wiping people out!
"Anna, I am really not so sure about this Hammer guy. He keeps upstaging my manliness at every turn..."
Naturally, cause Scorpion is a poofy haired wimp, and his buddy isn’t there to protect him, he gets captured. His punishment by the almighty One is to become a Templar before he is killed. But I guess old One is harboring some latent feelings for our hero because his initiation to the tribe involves something that took me entirely by surprise. It is a rare movie where the bad guy butt-fucks the hero when he has captured him. Some action films just hint at the whole homosexual subtext, but here they just went, “oh the hell with it. Just have big mean ol’ George Eastman ramrod that pretty boy and get it over with!”. And who saves our hero? That’s right. Nadir, or The Hammer or however you want to call Fred Williamson.
"Yes, it is Bob from HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY. Be afraid..."
Did I mention that little obnoxious brat from HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY is in this too. He plays basically the Murdock character from A-TEAM but as a little kid and has a slingshot that can kill people. Actually he is not nearly as obnoxious here as he usually is in Fulci’s movies, which leads me to believe Fulci either hated him, or kids in general. It all climaxes in a big crazy shootout, car crash, blow em up real good fight in an old oil refinery that is highlighted by our hero ripping off his clothes to reveal his nifty new suit of bullet proof armor. Made out of clear vacuform plastic that make shim look like one of the Village people on plastic and leather night at The Hellfire Club. Violence and hilarity ensue.
"Yeah, it is EXACTLY what you think it is."
As goofy and funny as this often is, most of the action scenes are well done. Castellari really knew his shit when it came to handling action. It is just the wrongheaded production design that makes this movie such a hoot. Well that and some weirdo turns of the story, with a lead that would be more at home in gay porn. But these 80’s post apocalyptic ROAD WARRIOR rip offs are all a shit ton of fun and this is no exception.
WARNING: Even for the material normally discussed and contained on this blog, the following pictures and video may be objectionable and disturbing. The following contains images of real death and embalming, so proceed with caution.
Orozco The Embalmer (2001) D. Tsurisaki KiyotakaCinema ObscuraS.O.V.
Widely considered to be one of the must brutal and in your face of the mondo-documentaries that has floated around the underground in recent years, OROZCO THE EMBALMER has gathered a reputation that's proceeded it. Mostly by gorehound death fetishists that don't understand, nor care enough to look beyond the guts being spilled on screen to see the spiritual, political or just plain human context they may be watching. All they want to see is bodies being ripped open and blood splashed all over the place. This movie delivers that in a matter of fact manner that puts films like FACES OF DEATH or even the turgid and offensive FACES OF GORE series to shame. But at the same time there is an exploration of a real person here, who does a very real job, in a very real place, that very much resembles hell on Earth.
Orozco is an embalmer in one of the poorest, most crime ridden grottoes in Columbia. It is not uncommon here to see someone gunned down in the street, or for cars to run someone over and reduce them to paste in some sort of drug fueled vendetta. A life of crime is basically the only way to survive in this place and people die all the time.
Even the stray dogs have to take time to get plastered up to heal after street warfare in Columbia.
Hell, even the stray dog's are not safe. Orozco's business is booming due to this. But at the same time, he understands that the people he serves are poor and suffering, so he charges less than the city hospitals for an embalming and he makes his services affordable to the people he lives and works among. He also hires as assistants people from the neighborhood, including a local mentally handicapped man and that man's son who he has basically almost adopted as his own and is training.
Orozco finishes dressing a dead child for a funeral, while the parent waits patiently in the wings.
But don't let all this selflessness fool you - Orozco is one grumpy son of a bitch. The daily grind of cutting people open for little pay obviously gets to him. He is an old man now, the lines of a life that has battered the shit out of him are etched on his face. He barely seems to blink, and his mouth is always down turned in a frown. He applies his trade in a swift and aggressive manner, cutting into the bodies he is working on as someone would expect a butcher to attack a side of beef. Chunking his knives into the flesh hard and fast, tearing into abdominal cavities to release bloated gases, pockets of settled blood, and sack after sack of gorged internal organs that are simply in his way. He is not performing an autopsy, his job is to relieve the body of the artifacts that are going to start decaying soon that will prevent the body from being in a funeral service. He might even go as far as to apply make up if he deems it necessary for that particular person, though he has pretty strong opinions on that matter, expressing about one corpse "why paint this person up like a clown now, when that never looked like that when they were alive?" The brain is always removed and replaced with newspaper because that rots away the quickest and will smell immediately. It is all a daily grind for him: body after body, old men, women, and occasionally little babies or children. Sometimes he will notice things the hospitals or morgues have missed, such as an elderly corpse on his table he clearly notices had been abused while alive, but the cause of death does not indicate such. But he steps away from saying anything, claiming that to do so would only start trouble. Orozco was in the military when he was much younger but refuses to talk about it, as well as his time in the police. He clearly saw things that were quite awful, illegal things, murderous things. Things in which to spend his days among the dead is not terribly different.
A typical way someone ends the day in Columbia now and again.
The documentary crew visit one of the local hospital morgues to watch how they do their embalming, which is no more high tech than Orozco. In fact, in some ways it is just as savage. They take more time in the clean up, with more make up and prep for the funeral, but the actual cutting up and discarding of parts it is no different. Still, the embalmer has no problem talking shit about Orozco and his team. In a weird and out of place bit, the documentary director begins to talk off camera to the embalmer about the corpse and how it has a "really pretty hairy pussy" which kinda comes out of nowhere. Once that is said, though, it does sort of make you notice that a lot of the camera work has included crotch shots of the corpses which seemed a bit unnecessary. And very, very weird.
Which leads me to the movie's biggest detriment, the direction. The movie has a truly fascinating subject with Orozco, and the actual town in Columbia, but the direction itself is beyond sloppy, with many long, useless montages of life in the street (all set to the same droning, repetitive music) that just pad out the movie. There is one long aside of a drug addict allowing the camera to follow him to a corner in an alley to smoke crack, that has nothing to do with the movie at all. Then there is that weird sort of leering sexual asides the movie takes form time to time, the worse being the bit at the hospital morgue, where the camera seems to linger on a corpses genitals or breasts just a bit too long, which seems really fucked up.
The brain is removed to prevent stink of decay during any services the family may ask upon.
When I mentioned this on a message board someone mentioned that this film started life as an episode of the DEATH FILES series in Japan which is just a Mondo Death footage series (and one of the most brutal and outrageous). That series is just footage of dead people, usually at accidents in third world countries (of which there is plenty of here) or murder sites (once again plenty of that here). One of the most famous of that series was an off shoot called DEATH WOMEN which is just that, random footage of the corpses of women at accidents, murder scenes, morgues etc. Seems this director cut his teeth working on those series, and then make some short "art" films called JUNK FILMS which were basically more of the same. Orozco was originally intended to be more of this until he got a hold of such a fascinating subject and it become something entirely new. And that saves it. The focus on Orozco himself gives it all context and form, as well a lot of social dynamic as he explains how these people live and die.
Certainly well worth watching if you can stomach it. But be warned it IS as rough as you've heard.
THE ROAD (2009) D. John Hilcoat Dimension Films 2.35
This adaptation of the much-loved Cormac McCarthy book about a father and son surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland has been a long time coming. First announced for release in October 2008 the studio claimed it was not ready due to massive amounts of special effects shots left to do. It was reset for a year later, but bumped again to be released during Oscar season during the winter. Then the Weinstein brothers, in their infinite wisdom, decided to roll the movie out in 100 theaters with little to no fanfare, and quietly added a few more in the following weeks as reviews came in. Basically, they dumped the movie.
In some ways, it's understandable. This is a hard film to categorize and even harder to sell. The trailers for it were downright misleading, opening with shots of some sort of global cataclysm, actively showing the world ending. Sort of a darker, more realistic version of the Roland Emmerich movie 2012. Problem being such footage isn't in the film and never was. The entire story of the movie takes place AFTER these events - long after, with the events themselves never names or discussed. The trailers also make the film look like some sort of action, horror hybrid piece. While the movie is indeed horrifying, it most certainly is not an action piece, and not really a horror film either. It's a brooding drama about survival, sustaining life and teaching your young to be a better person than yourself. The story is about preparing your child for the big, scary, ugly world, while not becoming the monsters you want to protect them against. All the apocalypses in this story are really personal ones.
Viggo debates using one of those all important last bullets.
The story begins ever briefly with Viggo Mortinson waking up in his bed to an earthquake. His pregnant wife (Charlize Theron) enters the room, chaos can be heard from outside in the world. We realize this is in fact a dream of a life long before as he's asleep on the cold ground next to a child. They are wrapped in a plastic sheet and filthy to the bone. Clearly they have been here a while.
Then my main bugaboo with the film begins: a narration/inner monologue from Mortinson that explains far too much of what's happening. As he and the boy awaken, the narration tells us there was some apocalypse, though doesn't say what kind, and that everyone died off. Those who were left became scavengers and cannibals, while food, gas and most importantly, shoes, became the only commodities left to fight and search for. This is over a montage that shows the two of them walking around trying to find food, gas, as well as lots of shots of their ragged shoes. They find an old barn that holds a family that have hung themselves, and when the boy asks Viggo why they did it, he replies "You know why. To be together." Moments later, Viggo is showing the boy his revolver and reiterating to him that they only have two bullets left, one for him and one for the son. He shows him how to put the gun into his mouth to successfully kill himself if the time comes.
There is a very strong "Lone Wolf and Cub" vibe going on in the later part of this film.
But mostly they wander about this broken wasteland of gray trees, dank water, and forever rain and snow. They survive on bugs, the sparce remains of picked-over carcasses, and the occasional one soda that was wedged into an ancient machine. All the while, the father tries to explain things to his son as to why they must continue on. Why they must get to the south. Flashbacks show us that the mother wanted them all to commit suicide together years ago to avoid the nightmare before them, but the father refused. So she left him, walked into the cold and presumably died. Now he and his son are sort of doing the same, but fighting the elements to try and survive. Often, the boy seems to want to die - he wants to see his mother again, he's tired of being cold, hungry and alone. He's also very aware that he's the only child left in the world, since the other ones were eaten by roving packs of people who have turned cannibal to get by. When they meet a group of such feral survivalists and the father is forced to use one of the bullets to save his son, there is a paradigm shift in their relationship. The son sees a savagery in his father awaken that he is uncomfortable with. A willingness to resort to violence that he previously thought separated them from "the bad guys".
Eventually, the movie becomes a trial of which one of the main characters is going to die first, since both of them are clearly ill. At this point, the entire movie becomes a bleak spread of hopelessness that's hard to get through. The final curtain call of the film feels like a nice positive wrap up, until you connect a couple of dots from earlier and then it really isn't at all, at least that's how I read it. Movies do not come any more bleak and ravaged as The Road.
But in a way, they don't come as beautiful either. There are moments of unique tranquility throughout the film. This is a rare movie that allows itself the chance to often just be quiet and exist in the world it has created. The vistas while father and son watch the horizon smolder and burn, the miles and miles of fallen dead trees. Many empty houses, alone on a clear landscape in a dead sky. These almost painterly like canvases are punctuated with moments of humanity, like when the duo find a waterfall and plunge in nude and laughing to get clean. Or when they finally stumble on the mother load of food and supplies and hole up for a while and Dad proceeds to smoke some pot and drink some Jack Daniels. Or when the son gets exceedingly upset when he thinks he's seen another little boy in a burned out apartment window, but the father knows this is impossible.
Even when you are the last brother on Earth you still have a hard time getting any respect.
There are horribly shocking moments too, mostly to do with the cannibalism which is not played down. There are guts strewn on a street, a basement full of emaciated, some limbless, people that are basically being kept as cattle, and sinks full of facial parts that have been stripped from bodies. It never goes full throttle into CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST fare, but is forthright enough to be very upsetting. Especially to those not sure what to expect.
My largest problem here was not the movie but how I saw it. I have been waiting over a year to see this and was really pissed when the release pattern was screwed up. So when it hit our local art theater I was relieved it was gonna play my town at all. But little did I know the theater would stick it in their tiny 50 seat auditorium where the screen is so small someone's home theater set up is probably more impressive. This is a movie where the cinematography is a character, but I was watching it on like a nine or ten foot screen, being projected so low that all the heads in front of me were now players in the movie too. This frustrated me so much that I never properly got into the movie. I felt completely distanced the entire time, like I was always outside the frame trying to get in. This is a movie that should have been big, overpowering and washingover me. Instead it was like seeing it as a postage stamp.
Still it is a powerful, incredibly acted, impeccably shot and directed film. Director John Hilcoat's previous films THE PROPOSITION and GHOSTS OF THE CIVIL DEAD are quit excellent work, and this, though not quite as good as those two, still carries on his tradition of top notch production. Only the narration (which I've heard IS partially in the book and partially created for the movie) is annoying and a misfire.
