Halloween Horror Challenge Oct 12: Adam Wingard Short Films

1000 YEAR DEATH (2005) and THE GIRLFRIEND (2007)
D. Adam Wingard
Synapse Films

35mm
Both are extras on the HOME SICK DVD

Both of these are extra feature short films on the DVD of Wingard's feature film HOME SICK. Both are in fact better than the feature film they are supporting.

1000 YEAR DEATH is a small short art film that quickly becomes a one joke movie that thankfully is a very funny joke. For the most part it is artfully short, erotically charged shots of four young teenage girls, two lesbians, and two other girls as they go about their day to day lives. A narrator begins to explain how these four girls are victims of a violent serial killer, That their lives have been cut short by his wrath that they will never go on to do the various things that young girls go on to do. We hear the lives of each of these girls WOULD have had, had they not met this violent man. We see them meet him, get strangled and drag their bodies to hide them. He narrates this while it is happening, especially that one of the girl's bodies will never be found. That is when a surprise ending comes to the forefront that changes everything we have just seen. Making it suddenly more of a comedy of errors than the brutal art piece we have been watching. But it actually IS very funny.

THE GIRLFRIEND is vastly different. A much more straight forward horror piece about a newer couple where the girl seems to be more committed than the man. She has convinced him to take her to meet his parents for the weekend, though it is clear he is not so into the idea. Pre-credits they stop at a late night convenience store so she can use the restroom and she runs into a some sort of evil entity that killed the clerk. Clearly what ever she ran into at the story has either possessed her or took over her body. Once they meet his parents the NEW version of the girlfriend charms his parents and is a much more erotically charged but clearly dangerous person. His sister, who seems to be more than a little bit sexually interested in him as well, seems to be clued into what is going on, but not before his family starts dying.

The first film is an exercise if formalism that gives way to suddenly comedy. THE GIRLFRIEND is a very creepy exercise in horror fully of atmosphere and tension. The performers and good, but it is the queasy feeling of ongoing dread and uneasy sexual tension that keeps this one alive.

Wingard shows a terrific visual mastery of the genre with these shorts. It is easy to see how they landed him enough dough to make a feature, It is too bad that feature was such a troubled production that it became HOME SICK. But I hear nothing but great things about his new film A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE. 

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