2/21/15 (Part Three): A Monster Mash

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Adam Green, Alex Pardee, ArieScope Pictures, auteur theory, Chillerama, cinema, creature feature, Digging Up the Marrow, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, found-footage, found-footage films, Frozen, Hatchet, horror, horror films, indie horror film, interviews, mockumentary, Monsters, Movies, Nightbreed, practical effects, pseudo-documentary, Ray Wise, self-promotion, Will Barratt, William Dekker, writer-director-editor

As I stare forty years of living in the face, there are precious few holdovers from my childhood but there are still a few: I’m still terrified of spiders, I’m still fascinated by outer space and I still believe in monsters. Call it a life-long delusion, a long-held conviction or just plain bull-headedness but I staunchly refuse to believe that we puny humans really know all there is to know about this massive ball of rock and water that we live on (much less the billions of unexplored ones that blanket the cosmos). The oceans are mighty deep, the jungles are mighty thick and there are plenty of dark places to poke around in…if you think about it, we know as much about our world as any child does, which is, of course, not much.

Indie horror auteur Adam Green also believes in monsters and, like me, isn’t afraid to admit it. The difference, of course, is that this stuff is his bread-and-butter: as the head of ArieScope Pictures, creator of the Hatchet franchise (2006-2013) and horror-oriented TV show Holliston, as well as writer-director of the ‘stuck-on-a-ski-lift’ chiller Frozen (2010) and a segment in the rather odious Chillerama (2011) anthology, Green is one of the brightest stars in the modern horror constellation. With his newest film, Digging Up the Marrow (2014), Green fuses his life-long love of monsters and horror to a sturdy found-footage template and comes up with something along the lines of a low-key, indie, found-footage Nightbreed (1990). In the process, he illustrates the fact that true believers have known all along: monsters are real…and they don’t always have our best interests in mind.

Structurally, Digging Up the Marrow is similar to another indie horror film: writer-director J.T. Petty’s S&man (2006). Like S&man, Green’s film begins as a mockumentary, with the writer-director going around various fan conventions and interviewing genre luminaries like Lloyd Kaufman, Tony Todd, Mick Garris and the like. On the surface, the subject is monsters but the early part of the film is actually all about Green and his film company, ArieScope Pictures. In an exceptionally clever bit of cross-promotion, Green and his associates play themselves in the picture and we get plenty of behind-the-scenes peeks into films like Hatchet (2006): it works within the structure of the film but it also serves as a neat little bit of fan service, a two-for-one that speaks volumes to the way Green approaches the subject (and his films, in general).

As Green discusses the various monster-related things that fans and peers send him, all while accompanied by erstwhile cameraman Will Barratt, we finally get to the “fiction” at the heart of the “fact.” In the midst of all the documentary footage and interviews, Green discusses one particular person, William Dekker (Ray Wise), who claims to have actual evidence of real monsters. Dropping everything, Green and Barratt head out to go see Dekker and prove (or disprove) his claims. Once there, the filmmaking duo find their host to be an exceedingly eccentric individual: intense, no-nonsense and utterly convinced of the existence of monsters, Dekker claims to know where the entrance to their underground world is. Dubbed “The Marrow,” Dekker claims that monsters regularly emerge from the otherwise unexceptional hole in the nearby forest and he gives Green the opportunity he’s waited his whole life for: the chance to actually see a real monster.

As Adam and Will settle in, however, they begin to get the gradual impression that Dekker isn’t playing with a full deck, especially when he claims to see monsters that neither of them can. When Green unexpectedly gets his wish and actually sees something, however, it sets off a fire in him: despite Dekker’s increasingly frantic pleas to leave well enough alone, he’s bound and determined to descend into The Marrow, scratching that unscratchable childhood itch for the first time. Will Adam and Will find the monsters that they seek? Is Dekker telling the truth, completely insane or some combo of the two? And where, exactly, does that ominous hole really lead?

Let’s get the negative stuff out of the way up front: Digging the Marrow suffers from many of the same issues that most found-footage films do (at this point, these issues are starting to seem like inherent genetic defects in the sub-genre), the finale is a little rough and we don’t get to see quite as much of the monsters as I’d like (pretty much a standard complaint in most horror fare, if you think about it). As with pretty much any found-footage film, the movie also ends just as it’s really kicking into gear: again, pretty much endemic of the sub-genre.

And that’s pretty much it, folks: past those few small complaints, Green’s film is a complete joy, a fan love letter to monsters that manages to push pretty much ever necessary button in my black, little heart. While I’ve been a fan of Green’s since Hatchet, I was unaware of how genuinely charismatic the guy is: it’s always a danger when directors “play themselves,” as it were, but Green manages to be friendly, likable, interesting and, most importantly, absolutely believeable during the fictional portions of the film. It shouldn’t be surprising that Green can interact effortlessly with the other directors and industry folks at the conventions (those are his peers, after all) but his acting scenes with Wise have just as much authenticity and realism. Ditto Barratt, who proves a more than capable foil to Green. In a subgenre that often suffers from unrealistic, unlikable actors/characters, Digging Up the Marrow acquits itself most ably.

This, of course, doesn’t even take into account the stellar contributions of long-time genre great Ray Wise. Always dependable and usually the best thing on any screen at any given time, Wise is one of those actors that lights up any production: to be honest, his part in Chillerama was just about the only thing I enjoyed in that entire film and it probably accounted for a grand total of five minutes, tops. Here, Wise has never been better, for one important reason: Green actually gives him the opportunity to stretch out and sink his teeth into a meatier role. We get much more of Wise, here, than we usually do (maybe since Swamp Thing (1982), to be honest) and the results are predictable: more Wise equals more badassitude, period. He’s tough, snarky, sarcastic, caustic, funny, vulnerable, sinister, innocent and all-around amazing: it’s a full-rounded performance and a multi-dimensional character. More than anything, this should serve as a wake up call for other filmmakers: stop using Wise as seasoning and start making him the main course…there’s no reason this guy shouldn’t be carrying more movies.

Any film about monsters, however, must still answer one very important question: how cool are the monsters? In the case of Digging Up the Marrow, the answer is “Very cool.” Based on the artwork of outsider illustrator Alex Pardee (who also appears during the film’s faux-interview portion), the monsters are unique, frightening, weird, cool and all-around unforgettable. My big complaint, of course, is that we never see as much (or as many) of them as we should but that’s also like complaining that free ice cream isn’t your favorite flavor: are we really going to bitch about free ice cream? What we do see, however, makes all the difference in the world: it’s obvious that Green and crew have genuine love for their subject and it really comes out in the exceptional practical effects and creature designs.

One of the biggest compliments I can give Digging Up the Marrow is that I wanted more as soon as the film was over: the film is ready-made for a sequel (The Marrow has many entrances, according to Dekker, all over the world…including in an IHOP, since monsters like pancakes) and I say “Bring it on.” Digging Up the Marrow is a fascinating, unique and extremely personal film by a massively talented filmmaker: I have a feeling that Green still has a lot to say about the subject and I can’t wait for him to say it.

While monsters always function better in the darkness, Adam Green is one of the few filmmakers to successfully grab them and haul them into the light. As a lifelong monster hunter, I tip my camouflaged hat.

10/9/14 (Part One): Nothing Divided By Four is Still Nothing

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31 Days of Halloween, Adam Green, Adam Rifkin, AJ Bowen, anthology films, bad movies, Chillerama, cinema, Deathication, Detroit Rock City, drive-in fare, Eric Roberts, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, horror-comedies, I Was a Teenage Werebear, Joe Lynch, Kane Hodder, Knights of Badassdom, Lin Shaye, low-budget films, Mel Brooks, monster movies, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, parodies, Ray Wise, Richard Riehle, Ron Jeremy, satire, scatological humor, terrible films, The Diary of Anne Frankenstein, Tim Sullivan, Wadzilla, writer-director, Zom-B-Movie, zombies

I have absolutely nothing against offensive, abhorrent, socially-unacceptable humor: after all, I was raised on a steady diet of Mel Brooks, Troma, South Park and Italo-splatter films, so stuff like that is part of my cinematic DNA. When done well (and fearlessly), crude, rude humor can be a powerful tool, cutting through societal niceties in a way that allows filmmakers to make honest, pointed commentary about the less-than-perfect world we live in. Racism, sexism, gender politics, religion: these are but a few of the hot-button topics that fearlessly unflinching comedy can often handle in more powerful ways than more dramatic works. All this is by way of saying that I’m most definitely neither a prude nor an easily-outraged mouthpiece for the censorship of deviant ideas.

That being said, the multi-director horror anthology Chillerama (2011) is a complete and total piece of shit, a waste of both time and resources that manages to entertain for a scant 20 minutes out of an astoundingly painful two hour running time. This was a film that managed to lose me early, yet irritated me so profoundly that I was determined to sit through its wretched excesses in order to see how much more irritated I could become. This towering testament to scatological humor in all of its nasty, sticky excesses is both lazy and stupid, too cheaply made to be effective, too sloppily conceived to be entertaining and too needlessly offensive to be anything more than the foot-stomping tantrum of a collection of filmmakers that must, surely, fancy themselves more clever than they really are. Ultimately, my overall impression of the film can be summed up in one tidy, little declaration: I was not amused.

By their very nature, cinematic horror anthologies are always pretty safe bets for entertainment: the stories usually aren’t very long, so they don’t wear out their welcome, and they usually feature punchy twists and plenty of surprises to keep the audience guessing. In the past, I’ve watched anthologies where the current tale failed to grab me, yet my anticipation for upcoming stories would pull me through the rough patches. No such luck in Chillerama: as each fetid tale unfolded, I was only left with the sinking suspicion that each subsequent short would only be worse than the preceding one. In a feeling that Dante could certainly understand, I had abandoned all hope after entering the miraculous world of Chillerama.

Here’s what we get with this lovely little anthology film: a wrap-around segment involving horny zombies fucking and eating everything that moves at a drive-in movie theater (Zom-B-Movie, directed by Joe Lynch); a take-off on ’50s monster movies featuring a sperm that grows to the size of a house (Wadzilla, directed by and starring Adam Rifkin); a parody of ’60s surf-flicks that equates homosexuality with lycanthoropy (I Was a Teenage Werebear, directed by Tim Sullivan); an intermingling of Anne Frank and Universal Studios (The Diary of Anne Frankenstein, directed by Adam Green); and a “hilarious” send-up of scat films (Deathication, directed by Joe Lynch under the “hilarious” pseudonym, Fernando Phagabeefy).

From a purely conceptual-level, there’s no reason Chillerama shouldn’t have worked. The capsule descriptions for each short promise, at the very least, that they’ll be anything but boring. On their own rights, each of the film’s writers/directors have plenty of individual merits: Rifkin wrote and directed the ’90s cult classics The Invisible Maniac (1990) and The Dark Backward (1991), before going on to make more mainstream films like Detroit Rock City (1999) and Night At the Golden Eagle (2001); Sullivan was involved with the low-budget ’80s cult classic The Deadly Spawn (1983) and went on to write/direct the effective chiller Driftwood (2006); Green is the creator of the Hatchet series, one of the more interesting, effective modern horror franchises, as well as the subtly effective Frozen (2010); and Lynch directed the long-delayed but well-reviewed Knights of Badassdom (2013). The film features appearances from such genre greats as Ray Wise, Lin Shaye, Eric Roberts, Kane Hodder, Richard Riehle and AJ Bowen. And, most importantly, each short only clocks in at about 20-odd minutes. With all of these factors involved, what are the chances that Chillerama ends up being utterly and completely worthless? Unfortunately, the chances end up being pretty damn good.

As already mentioned above, there are a nearly limitless range of issues that help to scuttle the film but if I had to pick out my personal reason for this massive trainwreck, I lay the blame fully at the feet of the film’s lowest-common denominator obsession with scatology in all of its wonderful forms. Despite any pretensions otherwise, the entire point of “Wadzilla” becomes the final bit where the colossal sperm is blown-up and proceeds to coat the entire city with about 10,000 gallons of jizz: if you really enjoy seeing actors getting doused with buckets of fake spooge, this will, undoubtedly, be your Citizen Kane (1941). Any salient points that “I Was a Teenage Werebear” makes regarding homophobia are obliterated by things such as the forced rape of a character via baseball bat and ridiculously sub-Troma gore effects. “The Diary of Anne Frankenstein” comes out head-and-shoulders above the others simply by virtue of featuring actual jokes: despite being a little rough around the edges, it’s virtually a masterpiece compared to the others. “Deathication” is a minutes-long goof that features truly nauseating depictions of scat-play (staged, I’m hoping) and was the only short I had to fast-forward through: I like shit in films to be off-screen, thanks very much, although I’ve always laughed at Spud’s little “accident” in Trainspotting (1996). The wrap-around story, “Zom-B-Movie,” gets a big kick out of equating pseudo-pornographic humping with extreme gore, delighting in moments like a zombie plucking out an eyeball and “servicing” the hole or a wife zombie ripping off and eating her husband zombie’s penis. This particular short’s only grain of ingenuity comes from the fact that the blood in the segment is depicted as neon-blue fluid, like the inside of a Glo-stick. To be honest, it’s a simple concept that’s light-years beyond anything else in the film, “Diary of Anne Frankenstein” notwithstanding.

Look, here’s the thing: I didn’t hate Chillerama because it was offensive, scatalogical and stupid…I hated the film because it was all of these things AND poorly-made, sloppy, lazy and mean-spirited. There are plenty of ultra-low budget horror films out there that try their hardest, despite their limitations: Chillerama ain’t one of ’em. At the very least, it looks like the cast were all having a great time, so that must count for something (poor Lin Shaye even appears in two separate shorts, bless her heart). Sprinkled throughout the film are little inklings of the production it could have been, had anyone involved cared to make anything more than a tasteless goof. More than anything, Chillerama strikes me as a classic case of wasted potential, not least since it completely squanders the first gay-themed anthology short that I’ve seen in, quite possibly, forever. I mean, c’mon: the damn film squanders Ray fuckin’ Wise, for god’s sake…how do they live with themselves?

Ultimately, I haven’t felt as let-down by a film as I have by Chillerama in quite some time. Even though I enjoy the individual filmmakers’ work, to a greater or lesser degree (I actually really like Green’s films, especially the vastly under-rated Frozen), this was nothing but a complete disappointment. If you’re so inclined, check out Green’s short, which manages to hit some nearly Mel Brooksian levels of absurdity, mostly thanks to a truly inspired performance by Joel David Moore as a very stupid Hitler. Other than that (relative) high-point, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to recommend Chillerama. If you want an intentionally bad movie, go watch Sharknado (2013): at least that has a totally wacked-out Tara Reid to recommend it…all Chillerama features are a bunch of bored jokesters playing chicken with the audience. My advice? Don’t take the bet.

7/12/14: Hack For More

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Adam Green, BJ McDonnell, Caroline Williams, cinema, Danielle Harris, different director, extreme violence, film reviews, films, franchise, Friday the 13th, gory films, Gremlins, Hatchet, Hatchet 3, Hatchet II, Hatchet III, horror films, horror franchises, inspired by '80s films, Kane Hodder, Marybeth, Movies, Repeaters, series creator, Sid Haig, slasher films, swamps, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Victor Crowley, voodoo curses, Zach Galligan

Of all the modern horror movie franchises, from Saw to Paranormal Activity and back to Wrong Turn, Adam Green’s Hatchet series is easily the most ’80s-oriented of the bunch. When the original Hatchet (2006) was unleashed upon the world, it would’ve been hard not to draw parallels to that classic “slasher in the woods” franchise, Friday the 13th: Hatchet featured hulking Kane Hodder in the role of the villain, was top-loaded with just about as much ultra-gore as could be crammed into one film (whatever didn’t fit into the first was handily saved, like excess chicken stock, for the sequels), featured violent death by as many different, inventive sources as possible and stuck a group of people (or “cannon fodder,” if you prefer) into an isolated location (a New Orleans swamp versus a summer camp in the woods) so that they could be summarily wiped from the face of the earth.

After Hatchet was a surprise hit amongst genre fans, Green followed it up with an even more over-the-top sequel, Hatchet II (2010), which managed to ramp the carnage up several notches (how that was humanly possible, I’ll never know) while simultaneously toning down the more explicitly humorous elements. While the sequel wasn’t quite as dynamic as the original film, it was still an awful lot of fun (for very strong stomachs, obviously, but that pretty much goes without saying) and actually served as a direct continuation of the first film, picking up right where Hatchet ended and using many of the same actors (the ones who actually survived, at least). When the sequel became another fan favorite, the future seemed clear: Hatchet was well on its way to entering franchise territory.

This, of course, brings us to the third film in the series, the cleverly titled Hatchet III (2013). For the first time in the relatively short-lived franchise, creator Green steps away from the director’s chair, although he did write the script and “present” the film. Turning the bullhorn over to BJ McDonnell, Green finds himself at that most formative stage of a young franchise’s life: that pivotal moment where the series must shake off its original progenitor (F13 did it with Cunningham, NOES did it with Craven), sprout it own set of moldy, mutated wings and fly away for parts unknown. Does it work? Does Green’s Hatchet really have what it takes to stick around in the world of franchise horror and hang with the big boys? Or is this strictly going to be direct-to-video fodder like the Wrong Turn series?

Picking up immediately where the second film ended, with series heroine Marybeth (Danielle Harris) blasting franchise villain Victor Crowley’s (Kane Hodder) face into red pulp with a shotgun, we hit the ground running. As Marybeth rests in the foreground, Victor rises in the background, leading to a short chase, a rather jaw-dropping moment where Marybeth does something extremely rude to Victor’s face-hole, followed by the equally eyebrow raising bit where Victor falls backwards onto an enormous chainsaw (used for cutting down 1000 ft tall oaks, I would imagine), where he’s split asunder, vertically, showering Marybeth in more blood than could possibly be contained in five Victors, all while Gwar’s “Hail Genocide” blasts on the soundtrack. The scene ends with Marybeth stumbling into town, a shotgun in one hand, Victor’s bloody scalp in the other. Roll credits, strap on your seatbelt, folks.

It bears mentioning, at this point, that Hatchet III is not for very sensitive sensibilities. This is, for lack of a better word, an ultra-gore epic, a film that not only revels in the depiction of inventive bloodshed on-screen but positively wallows in it. While the first two films in the franchise were gore-drenched, Hatchet III takes things into heretofore unheard of arenas: as someone who’s been watching these kinds of things for the better part of two decades, I was still surprised by some of the things I saw. Again, I only feel that it’s necessary to drive this home because I’d hate for a curious neophyte to think, “How bad could it get?,” assuming this was a more commercial type of horror confection: if the opening sounds stomach-churning, understand that it’s probably the least intense “kill” in the film and let your conscience (and your gut) be your guide.

Back in the “real world,” Marybeth stumbles into the local police station, setting off a bit of a panic (shotguns and bloody scalps have a tendency to do that, after all) and is promptly arrested and thrown into lockup by the tough-as-nails, foul-mouthed Sheriff Fowler (Zach Galligan). He sends his deputies out to investigate Marybeth’s claims of a huge swamp massacre, which they end up finding more than abundant evidence of (mostly numerous small pieces of former living folks). Back at the jail, Marybeth is being harassed by Sheriff Fowler’s ex-wife, the tenacious local reporter Amanda (Caroline Williams), who wants vindication for the entire town thinking her belief in Crowley is a load of zombie-shit. Seems that Amanda has been doing her research and knows a thing or two about Crowley that Marybeth doesn’t: namely, the hulking, unstoppable monster is also a “Repeater,” a cursed individual doomed to be reborn each night so as to continue its cursed killing streak again and again, ad infinitum. Uh oh. As the night creeps in, Sheriff Fowler and his deputies are going to learn one thing the hard way: you just can’t keep an enormous, undead, hatchet-wielding maniac down. It’s now up to Marybeth and Amanda to delve deep into Victor’s disturbed childhood, find the source of his “returning” and put an end to the curse once and for all.

As the third film in a growing franchise, Hatchet III occupies a rather interesting position: at this point, can the film ever stand on its own or it only valuable as a part of a greater whole? Personally, I feel that it’s possible to watch individual franchise entries in any horror series on their own, without the benefit of the “bigger picture,” as it were. That being said, however, Hatchet III is a true sequel, picking up, as it does, from the end of the previous film and actually manages to expand on the original mythos. As such, we’re actually left with a situation a little closer to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films (bear with me here), where the overall feel is of one, long film hacked into three separate pieces. It’s certainly possible to watch Hatchet III on its own but I think the experience is actually made richer by mainlining all three at the same time: talk about your bloody weekends, though!

As a film, Hatchet III is a bit closer in tone to the second film than the first: there’s less obvious humor and more of a reliance on jaw-dropping practical fx and ultra-violence. There are also quite a few appearances from genre vets, including the hilarious performance by Galligan (Gremlins (1984), Gremlins 2 (1990), Waxwork (1988)) as the ridiculously tough lawman, Williams (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), The Stepfather II (1988)) as the pushy reporter and an amusing cameo from all-around badass Sid Haig as a cranky old descendent of Crowley’s. Galligan, in particular, is pretty great, even if he’s never once convincing: there’s something awfully funny about watching young Billy all grown up and test-driving cuss words like he just learned them the other day.

Despite a slightly “direct-to-video” aesthetic, Hatchet III actual looks pretty good, certainly no worse than the previous sequel, at least. The swamp setting is used to good effect, once again, and the stuff about Repeaters is a really intelligent way to “explain” that old slasher movie conceit about the “unkillable killer.” The film is stuffed to the gills with some genuinely tense moments, although the emphasis is always squarely on the completely over-the-top gore sequences. To this end, we see limbs ripped off, heads power-sanded into oblivion, people hacked into bits, et al: it really is like a “greatest hits” of slasher-movie pandemonium and fans of the subgenre should be in hog heaven here. More sensitive stomachs, however, should certainly bolt for the hills.

Ultimately, what can I say? I genuinely enjoyed the first two films in the franchise, finding them to be fairly clever, well-made and fun throwbacks to ’80s gore films, perfect for a booze-soaked party or a little rainy-day weekend marathon. Marybeth is a suitably great “final girl,” Crowley has a nicely sketched in backstory and the supporting acting is always decent, bordering on quite good. At first, I was a little worried that handing the reins to another director might result in a lesser product but I needn’t have feared: Adam Green seems like he’s got the franchise pretty well under control, at this point. Here’s to hoping that he keeps finding inventive new ways to continue the misadventures of everyone’s favorite bayou baddie. Victor goes to Manhattan? Victor in Space? I’m ready for it, Green: bring it on!