HALLOWEEN HORROR CHALLENGE MOVIE #12 - THE COLLECTIVE VOL 4

THE COLLECTIVE VOL 4 (2012)
D. Various filmmakers
JABB PICTURES

This dvd collection of short indie films, all by different directors is a lot of fun. As with any collection it is a hit and miss bag, but the good outweighs the bad here. Each filmmaker was given an EMOTION to use as the spring board for their film. Building the narrative around it. We watched this at our INDEPENDENT SHADOW CINEMA screening so  I ended up watching the films completely out of order as they appear on the DVD, so this list does not represent the actual order.

101 TAYLOR ST opened the show for us and it was a good place to start. Directed by Jabb Pictures Jason Hoover the emotion taken on here is DENIAL (arguably not an emotion as much as act but whatever). The film is designed almost like a documentary with a droning narration telling us the story of an elderly woman who turned out to be one of they most prolific serial killers of the mid west. The film is constructed of a series a very well shot tableaux of the area's landscapes. It is the most experimental film in the package and is entirely effective. It creates a deep seated mood. The emotion should have been DREAD because the movie builds plenty of it. 

Next up is HAPPY HOOKER BANG BANG from filmmaker David Paul Bonnell. He follows it up later with a second installment. The two emotions he uses are DESIRE and ENVY and he blatantly names his characters after the emotions. The first segment of this hooker duo starts out well enough with two roomates arguing about work. The more worldly of the two is a hooker and her plain friend is out of work and envy's her friends ability and money. Soon she is sneaking around, pretending to be Desire and gets tied to a bed about to be raped. The short had been straight forward and serious up to this point. But then it turns into chicks with guns comedy, letting it down. Hard. 

The second installment HAPPY HOOKER BANG BANG: A LOVE STORY dispenses with any resemblance of seriousness for a straight up comedy. Some of it is kind of funny (The pimp character, Desire pulling a bomb out of her snatch) but over all, even at ten minutes it becomes kind of tiresome.

Next is LUKE 1:17 directed by 14 year old Dakota Meyer and it is one of my favorites of the volume. The emotion here is HATE and it is a decidedly serious segment with no supernatural trappings. Two brothers are trying to get by in the emotional wreckage of their Father murdering their mother and ending up in jail. The film feels like the best of the DOGMA 95 movies with naturalistic performances and shooting style. The climax is more an emotional gut punch than a visceral one and that is why it works. This kid has more of a grip of the mechanics of film than most people twice, or three times his age. 

CONTRITION by Jim Dougherty is one of the strongest visually. But the story is ultimately very slight. Basically a werewolf story told in flashback. A geneticist accidentally creates a wolfman who turns on her family. This one clearly had the biggest budget of any of the movies and uses it well. It just could have stood another script draft to bring it all together. 

FLASH OF WIRE by David Ross is a very interesting little movie. Taking the art film approach to explore SCHADENFREUDE (The emotion of taking pleasure in the pain of others). Shot in Black and White and using Greek Mythology as a reference point the film it follows a man at the dentist explaining his dreams. Ultimately everyone in the film comes to represent Greek Gods. It is a brave approach to the genre material.  Apparently part of it was actually shot in Greece too. 

James Manning directs the ghost story DEATH DO US PART. Easily the weakest entry (despite a fetching lead who has no problem getting naked). A house is haunted by the couple who died there and the investigator slowly becomes sexually enamored with the place. Hence why the emotion here is LUST.  The segment is just way too leisurely paced for the inconsequential pay off.

FRANKIE is Jason Hoover's shot at GRIEF and is the one that has split audiences from the reviews I have read and at our screening as well. The most viscerally violent of this volume, it is one long take, with the camera circling around the protagonists, as they are tied up, interrogated and tortured by some guys they may or may not have wronged. For the most part it is quite disturbing and unsettling, it is only let down by the improv acting that works most of the time, but falls back on just saying "fuck" over and over.

Bryan Wolford’s MYCTOPHOBIA is largely very solid, grounded by a very good performance from the lead actress Kitsie Duncan. The movie deals with a woman who has an otherwise normal life but is crippled by her fear of the dark. Her therapist tells her to try getting used to the dark a little at at a time, so when her electric goes out it seems her madness will set in. But what she is unaware of is there is a very good reason to be afraid of the dark. This segment is only marred by some so so CGI. Otherwise it is one of the strongest of the set.

Finally TRUST is explored, in the form of misguided trust in the best movie of the set EPIDEMIC by Dustin Mills. It deals with an outbreak of some sort of viral infection. But we witness it through one characters slowly becoming sick until he finally  calls on the government for help. 

The one consistent annoyance for me was the filmmakers over reliance to CGI effects, 90% of them not well executed. MYCTOPHOBIA is probably the only one that called for those effects, but the others would have been much better served by just doing practical effects. 

Review © Andrew Copp

Killing as Sport

Killer’s Delight aka The Sport Killer aka The Dark Ride (1979)
D. Jeremy Hoenack
Code Red/ Media Blasters
1.85

Fairly tame but well made thriller based on the Ted Bundy murders that was made while the slayings were still going on. The movie opens with a van stopping on a side of a San Francisco hillside and a man getting out carrying a nude girl. He throws the body into the air and it freeze frames on her flying corpse and the title comes up. Except it is the title The Sport Killer, not the on package title Killer’s Delight which is never really explained anywhere. The movie kicks in with another murder of a young woman who is hitchhiking with her shaggy dog. she is picked up by this same van. Cut to later and a bevy of cops led by James Luisi as Detective Vince De Carlo. Seems a man and his son found her nude corpse at the bottom of a gulch with the dog. One rather haunting shot shows the dog, still alive refusing to leave the side of his former owner’s nude corpse. As the EMT’s are taking the body away we hear the little boy who found them ask if the dog is alright. A fairly realistic touch I thought. The movie has been on seven minutes and there has been two murders already.

The film settles into a fairly routine police procedural at this point with De Carlo bringing in San Francisco police Detective Mike (played by Martin Speer) to help him with the case since there have been murders of young women in his jurisdiction too. They hit the pavement together to tract down the killer who isn’t slowing down. The killer begins targeting girls at a local swimming pool. The disappearances there cause the cops to stake it out, but this only gets the pretty young pool attendant killed on one of the films more harrowing scenes. You really think she won’t get killed since movies tend to let this type of girl go. But not in this case. And the killer still manages to elude the cops and pick up more girls from this area, as he escalates his crimes. It becomes a cat and mouse situation, as the cops end up having to break some laws to figure out who he is, and then the heat is on.

The movie has some sleazy moments, as the opening credit shot will suggest, such as when the killer strips down two teens in his van (one with early large fake breasts) and begins to break her fingers and arm. But the kills scenes are at their most effective when we see the aftermath and the film shows them as b/w crime scene style stills. You have to remember this was 1979 before the deluge of TV true crime shows were this kind of thing was the norm. So this was a pretty groundbreaking way to present the material. And it is still striking and effective today. Once the killer’s identity is revealed and we get the standard Mommy fixation reasoning it loses its footing and becomes a bit more of a standard thriller. But a lot is to be said for the nihilistic, punch you in the nuts ending that only the 70’s could get away with.

The DVD is really nice, with a great picture. Code Red (with Media Blasters releasing) has done a terrific job restoring an obscure movie. The ultra low budget almost never shows, except maybe in the scenes when they are talking to the police captain, were it is clearly not in a a police station at all. The DVD is loaded with extras, including deleted scenes with George Buck Flower. Unfortunately these scenes have no audio as the sound track for these scenes were lost over time. There is a very short interview with the director and actor John Karlen who you may remember from some Hammer films and the great Daughter of Darkness. Plus an alternate opening credit sequence using the title The Dark Ride.

Altogether it isn’t a groundbreaking film, but it is at times a tense one, and certainly well made. The camerawork and editing are consistently strong, and the acting is top notch. So for a low budget film it is first rate and well worth recommending.

Andy Copp

British Psycho Chiller!

The Black Panther (1977)
D. Ian Merrick
Unknown
VHS O.O.P

This British lensed True Crime pic is easily one of the most clinical and cold films ever put to celluloid. While not as good, it ranks up there with the German film Angst in cold blooded depiction of crimes.

The Black Panther tells the true tale of one Donald Neilson (formerly Donald Nappey in real life who had changed his name because of the bullying he took over the last name because that is British slang for a diaper) who was responsible for the deaths of several burglary victims and ending with a 17 year old heiress he kidnapped. This film wasted no time getting to the screen as the case has just wrapped up literally the year before in 1976.

The film opens with Neilson in the woods performing what appears to be survivalist duties. But it turns out to be is his woods bound hideout for a robbery attempt. But this attempt sets the stage for those to come as he bungles it when someone finds him rummaging about and he flees without any of wares. Though back in the woods he does an admirable and thorough job of dismantling his campsite so there is no trace of his presence.

We soon see that he has a wife and teenage daughter that he treats horribly. Commanding them around like he is a drill Sargent in the army and they are his recruits. Even the tiniest infractions are met with his disdain. he spends hours alone in his room pouring over blue prints and photos from the city plotting his next robberies. When he is not doing that he is remembering his time in the war with pictures and warm memories.

But his robberies never go as planned. He dons a black hood and manages to show some skill getting into the places (usually post offices or general stores) but he always has to go that extra step and get keys or what not from people who live attached to the places and ends up facing off with unexpected people. He doesn’t set out to kill anyone, but they meet his shotgun anyway.

The press label the murderer The Black Panther because the surviving family members describe a man in a black hood. When he sees a newspaper article about a teenage heiress who recent was awarded a huge amount of money in the death of her parents. He sets his sights higher for some kidnapping and extortion. He finds a storm tunnel underground that is rarely used and makes that the place where he will store his captive. Unlike his other adventures, this one goes off without a hitch. He gets the girl and gets her into the drain, ties up and she cooperates. his complex plan of leaving notes, having her family makes calls and set up meetings is put into motion. Naturally the family call the police, which is what screws it up and things do not go as planned.

As I stated before this is a cold, calculated movie. It isn’t really a character study as you don’t get much characterization from anyone, especially the lead. This film is much more interested in laying out the facts as they happened. And from what I understand it does so as close to reality as possible.

Donald Sumpter plays the lead role (he can most recently be seen in David Cronenberg’s crime drama Eastern Promises) and is chilling. He plays this guy as a wound spring. Tight, rigid and waiting to blow. But he only blows in small fragments, just long enough to make a mistake and kill someone. Then he heads right back into his shell and is rigid and rock solid again. he’s living some sort of paramilitary superman fantasy that we never are really clued into, but it is clearly there in the performance.

The version of this I saw was from a well worn VHS that I got from a bit torrent site. So I have no idea where it exists. I keep thinking this might be in one of those 50 pack DVD sets, but I may be getting it confused with another film called Day of the Panther.

Andy Copp

Screen caps and ripp from empoapes at cinemageddon

Is it real?

The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2008) D. John Eric Dowdle MGM 1.85

When I first saw a poster for this larger budgeted serial killer/true snuff film horror, the first thing that jumped into my head was that it was going to be an August Underground rip off. That some enterprising up and coming Hollywood upstarts had seen those movies and figuring that no one in the mainstream knew what they were that they could just take the idea and redo it. The posters and ad art seemed to be just that. that a bunch of video tapes are found containing the home movies of a psychopath torturing and killing his victims. Take an underground, hardcore horror and water it down for the masses and claim originality.

Well the final film of The Poughkeepsie Tapes isn't quite that, though it wouldn't surprise me if that was still involved in the inspiration somewhere. The film is actually more of a recreation/put on of the standard court TV true crime documentary. You know the type, where various talking heads are interviewed about the case, giving insight into the killer's mind and life, while inter cut are the tapes this killer supposedly made himself. Not really a bad idea for a movie and sometimes it works here. But most of the time it doesn't.

The film tells the tale of a killer whose has yet to be caught, but the authorities have gotten close enough to him to have found a closet full of video tapes that show him butchering, torturing and assaulting his victims. The film goes through various experts, police officers, psychiatrists, specialists and family survivors to try and figure out how this happened and why. The acting ranges from convincing to pretty bad. And so does the writing and directing. A couple of really horrible scenes stand out in my memory such as a moment when the killer is watching a victim through her window on the video camera and apparently has her phone bugged too because he can hear her conversation. Her conversation consists of dialogue about how great her life is, how perfect everything is, except she feels like there is something really bad about to happen. that it will all come crashing down any moment. It's supposed to be ironic because we are watching it from the killer's point of view. Its not ironic, its stupid. It's bad writing. Another moment has the killer, videotaping all the while, approach the grieving mother of one of his victims as the mobilize a search party. He starts questioning her and she figures out it is him, but no one hears her cries. In theory this should work as a scene. I'm sure this kind of thing has happened in real life. But the handling of it is so lame, with the killer laughing like a fiend, and the Mom over acting that it is suddenly like a Snidley Whiplash cartoon. If the killer turned the camera on himself he would be twirling his mustache wildly. The interview scenes are handled alright for the most part except one expert who looks a lot like Herschel Gordon Lewis, that for some reason they kept slowly twirling the camera. I guess for effect, but it just looked amateurish. There is another expert on post mortem butchery who is so over the top and silly that they really should have just cut him out of the movie altogether. His performance is embarrassing.

But the meat of the movie is the snuff film scenes. If they work the movie works right? I mean the whole premise rest on if those scenes are believable. Well to the average moviegoer who hasn't seen much underground cinema they are probably pretty effective. They are grim and ugly and seemingly don't flinch. They are more violent that most people will be used to. But if you don't look away you will notice that they are more manipulative than actually violent. Whenever there is any real nasty sadism the victim ends up just off screen, so we hear them being pummelled but really don't see it. Plus the scenes are highly stylized with professional lighting, and the video quality itself is so distorted and processed to look like home movies that it becomes distracting. No one's home movies ever looked like this. But the biggest problem is that they have music and sound design, and very manipulative at that. The music and sound reach this unbearable crescendo when something bad is about to happen, often you don't see the actual act, but the sound fills it in for you. If these were real home movies none of this would apply. It is too Hollywood to even remotely be real.

There are some good things about the movie though such as a subplot about a woman the killer keeps as a sex slave for a number of years. We see the progression of her as she is broken into becoming a complete submissive until she is finally rescued and cannot reintegrate back into her normal life. In fact her story is, in a lot of ways, more interesting than the main story the film focuses on. There is also a scene where one of the FBI profilers visits Ted Bundy that is well done and the guy playing Bundy is pretty effective.

Weird thing is that though I started seeing posters for this movie at least a year ago, and spots for it appeared on you tube around the same time, it is still unreleased. Granted it is a hard sell to a public who flock to see cheesy fun time horror movies. This would not go down well with the teenybopper fans. But it makes so little sense to advertise a movie widely then just shelve it. But someone in Hollywood liked it enough to give the brothers team who made it another job as they went on to direct the remake of the excellent Spanish film [REC] called Quarantine.

Andy Copp