6/10/14 (Part One): The Men Who Make the Nightmares

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behind-the-scenes, blood-button effect, Bob Kurtzman, Day of the Dead, Dick Smith, documentaries, documentary, Donna Davies, Elijah Wood, Frank Darabont, George Romero, golden age of special effects, Greg Nicotero, Gross Anatomy, Howard Berger, Jack Pierce, John Carpenter, John Landis, KNB Effects, Kurtzman, Lon Chaney, Nightmare Factory, practical effects, Quentin Tarantino, Ray Harryhausen, Rick Baker, Robert Kirkman, Robert Kurtzman, Robert Rodriguez, Sam Raimi, special effects, special effects pioneer, Tom Savini, visual effects, writer-director-producer

When one is discussing the most influential special effects/make-up/visual effects artists in the business, there are a few names that always seem to come up: Tom Savini…Rick Baker…Stan Winston…Ray Harryhausen (RIP). Look closely, however, and you’ll notice another trio of names that seem to pop up in every other end credit scroll for the past several decades: Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger and Bob Kurtzman. Although they have plenty of individual credits to their name, the three would go on to form KNB Effects, one of the most influential and omnipresent effects studios to emerge since Lucas’ groundbreaking Industrial Light and Magic. Donna Davies’ fun and informative documentary, Nightmare Factory, takes an up-close-and-personal look at KNB Effects, with particular emphasis on co-founder Greg Nicotero, sfx godfather Tom Savini’s protegé.

Kicking off with a “greatest-hits” highlight reel that amounts to a fan-pleasing gore clip show (complete with pounding metal soundtrack), Nightmare Factory makes one thing abundantly clear: this one is aimed right at the genre fans who geek out on fantastic monsters, severed limbs, spurting blood, explosions and puppetry. We go through the history of KNB, which begins with the history of its key players: Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger and Bob Kurtzman. While we don’t get a whole lot of Kurtzman, who left the company a decade into its existence, we do get a whole lot of Nicotero and quite a bit of Berger. Luckily, Nicotero is an absolutely fascinating person, a life-long film and genre fan who’s devoted his entire life to making the impossible real. Long before KNB Effects was a twinkle in anyone’s eye, Nicotero and his younger brother, Bryan, were making their own movies, perfecting stunts, devising effects and props and, in general, being pretty amazing. A chance encounter with George Romero (during a family vacation in Rome, no less) led the 16-year-old Greg to a tour of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978) shopping mall set and an offer to work on his next film, Day of the Dead (1985). This, in turn, led to Nicotero meeting effects god Tom Savini and the rest, as they say, is history.

After meeting and becoming friends on the set of Day of the Dead, Nicotero and Berger ended up moving in with a friend of Berger’s named Robert Kurtzman. The three became fast friends on the set of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 (1987) which led to the realization that they might be able to make something bigger of this. KNB Effects was born and, within short order, became a powerhouse in the world of movie special effects, particularly in the effects-heavy era of the late-’80s and early-’90s. KNB Effects reach was so widespread, in fact, that it extended to decidedly non-genre offerings like Gross Anatomy (1989) and Oscar-winner Dances with Wolves (1990). In fact, you’d be pretty hard-pressed to find a film with any kind of practical effect within the past 30 years that didn’t bear the mark of either KNB Effects, Nicotero, Berger or Kurtzman: the guys were just that ubiquitous in the industry! Some of the best parts of the film involve the footage of KNB Effects heyday in the late ’80s, where the studio had a wild, rock ‘n roll, party-hard attitude: most of the effects artists were also in rock bands, hung out together constantly, partied the night away and made monsters during the daytime. For a guy like me, this looked like pretty much the best place to work in the entire world. Fuck crazy Wall Street firms: the shenanigans at KNB looked like a whole lot more fun!

Although KNB Effects is just about as important as effect studios get (they even created the “blood-button” effect that has allowed generations of indie filmmakers to create gunshots on the cheap), the times are always changing and we feel the effects of this within the doc. Studios now want effects as quickly and cheaply as possible: there’s no longer time to lovingly craft effects in the same way that the artisans did twenty years before. While computer-generated imagery is a valuable tool when used hand-in-hand with practical effects, the tendency these days is to heavily rely on CGI, which can be much quicker and cheaper to utilize than practical effects but tends to have a disarmingly glossy hyper-reality that is no patch on the oftentimes rougher practical effects of bygone eras. It’s certainly a devil’s dilemma: filmmakers are always in a desperate need to save money, which makes CGI the only feasible reality for many low-budget productions, yet cheap CGI makes any film look bad, regardless of the general quality of the production.

There’s also the sad revelation, late in the film, that Nicotero doesn’t really think anyone will come around to replace them: no one has a burning desire to just make monsters these days, he says, at least not like in the days of Famous Monsters of Film Land, Ray Harryhausen and Tom Savini (at 68, Savini is now the elder statesman who used to be the infant terrible…he even has his own special effects training school). We do get to see a few members of the younger generation who were influenced by the ’70s-’80s pioneers, such as Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Robert Rodriguez, although we don’t really get to meet any of the new generation to whom Nicotero and the others will be passing their torch.

While Nicotero certainly has a history and perspective on the situation that I’ll never possess, I can’t help but feel that he’s dead wrong in that aspect: there will always be kids around who want to make monsters. As long as there are geeky outsiders who spend their childhoods reading monster magazines under the blankets, there will be special effects people. As long as there are kids who create backyard zombie epics featuring the contents of their fridge and an ocean of passion, there will be special effects people. We may very well come to a time when practical effects are no longer utilized in mainstream cinema, where CGI has become the all-encompassing cinematic creative force and where model-makers are as quaint as town criers. Hell, we may already be there. As long as there are still kids who grow up with the burning desire to make the magic themselves, however, to mold the clay and set the fuses and paint the models, to bring life to dead objects in the same way that Dr. Frankenstein once did…as long as these kids are still around, there will always be someone to carry on the flag. Nightmare Factory serves as a wonderful reminder of just what an important tradition this really is and a truly loving salute to those who continue to keep the tradition alive.

5/30/14 (Part Two): Sex = Death

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Alice Macdonald, body horror, Caroline Williams, Charley Koontz, cinema, Contracted, Deadgirl, decomposing, drug abuse, dysfunctional family, Eric England, film reviews, films, homosexuality, horror film, horror films, horror movie, independent film, indie dramas, Katie Stegeman, Matt Mercer, Movies, Najarra Townsend, necrophilia, rape, self-abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, Simon Barrett, special effects, writer-director-producer, zombies

It’s no secret that sex and death have always been intrinsically intertwined in horror films, although some films have made it more of a context than a subtext. The figure of Count Dracula, after all, is an explicitly sexual one, as are Clive Barker’s Cenobites. Slasher films have always been focused on sex: we could fill up pages discussing the various phallic symbols in everything from Halloween (1978) to Friday the 13th (1980) to Maniac (1980) but it would be just as easy to point out that the quickest way to get killed in any given slasher is to have sex. As soon as ol’ Jason or Michael Myers get a hint that horny teens are in the vicinity, we can assume that the bloodletting will follow. Some films even manage to flip the script on the whole “have sex and die” philosophy: Andy Warhol’s Blood for Dracula (1974) features a hunky gardener who attempts to deflower virgins as fast as the toothy Count can identify them, while Cherry Falls (2000) features a serial killer who only targets virgins. Fastest way to survive in those instances? Toss on some Barry White, cuz things are about to get romantic in here.

While sex and death have always shared a connection in horror films (after all, haven’t the French always referred to the orgasm as “the little death”?), most of the connections have revolved along the lines of “Have sex and die.” As our modern era keeps chugging along, many of the familiar tropes and archetypes of horror have, likewise, been in a state of near constant flux. As “traditional” slasher films have fallen largely by the wayside (especially when compared to their late-’70s-mid-’80s heyday), examinations of the natural connection between sex and death have changed from “maintaining purity at all costs” to the grimmer, more bleak realization that “sex kills.” With the “free-love” era well in our rearview mirrors by this point, the threat of sexually transmitted disease and sexual violence have taken the spotlight. In the old days, the kids looked like they were having fun…at least until the inevitable spear or machete, of course. In these modern times, however, no one is having much fun. Writer-director Eric England’s most recent film, Contracted (2013), makes the explicit point that not only can sex kill but it can turn one into a killer. If the final destination on this trip ends up being a familiar and largely cliched one, the journey itself is unpleasant, tense and just disquieting enough to make the whole thing worthwhile.

We first meet our protagonist, Sam (Najarra Townsend), as she makes an entrance at one of those ubiquitous “indie-movie-parties” where everyone drinks out of red cups and stands around chilling underneath assorted backyard Christmas lights. She’s rolling stag to the party, since her girlfriend, Nikki (Katie Stegeman), has to work late. We get a hint of some conflict here, since Nikki never answers Sam’s repeated calls and Sam seems to get progressively drunker and more unhappy as the night continues. We also meet her “best friend,” Alice (Alice MacDonald), a thoroughly unpleasant, loud-mouthed troublemaker who pressures Sam to get wasted (despite her continual protests) and makes a public mockery of Riley (Matt Mercer), a stereotypical “nice guy” who pines in not-so-secret for Sam, even though Alice’s boyfriend, Zain (Charley Koontz), tells him that it’s no use, since Sam doesn’t “swing their way anymore.”

While at the party, Sam is approached by a creepy guy named B.J. (Simon Barrett) who hands her an obviously drugged drink. We can assume this pretty decisively, since the opening of the film strongly insinuates that B.J., who works at a morgue, has just had his way with a corpse. Obviously, we’re dealing with a pretty sick individual and these fears are confirmed once we witness B.J. raping Sam. The very next scene begins with a “Day One” intertitle and we’re off to the races. As we follow Sam around, we gradually get to know a little more about her: she’s an expert floral arranger and has entered some kind of prestigious competition; there are conflicts with her mother (Caroline Williams) who seems to disapprove of Sam’s “choice” of lifestyle, as well as her previous inclination to hurt herself; her girlfriend, Nikki, is a cold, manipulative and possessive person who seems to care little for Sam and dislikes straight men with a passion; and Riley has been stuck on Sam for quite some time, to the point where he’s a regular at the restaurant where she serves. We also notice that Sam is looking worn-down and tired. By the time Day Two rolls around and Sam wakes up in a bloody bed with strange, prominent blue veins popping out on her body, we have a good idea that this won’t end well.

As Sam’s condition gradually worsens, no one seems to be able (or willing to help her): her doctor is baffled, considering this to be some sort of cross between a sexually transmitted disease (Sam tells him that she’s only had sex with one guy in quite some time but can’t recall if they used protection) and “female troubles.” He prescribes moisturizer to help with the dead skin that he notices while examining her but seems genuinely confused. Sam’s mom thinks she’s either back on drugs, hurting herself again or both, while Alice comes to believe much the same thing. Sam knows that somethings wrong, even if everyone else doubts her. And she’s right, of course, but the realization will do nothing to help her or her loved ones. In the world of Contracted, there is no such thing as love: there’s only the face of Death, whether grinning or solemn.

For most of its run-time, Contracted is a fairly unpleasant but bracingly original film about a young woman who is, literally, falling apart. Propelled by an outstanding performance from Townsend, the movie wrings a tremendous amount of pathos out of her struggle. Unlike more generic characters in horror films, Sam is dealing with an almost overwhelming amount of baggage: she’s an ex-junkie/cutter who’s just been raped at a party, is in a loveless relationship and faces constant condemnation from her own mother over her sexuality. At one point, Sam’s mother is about to say something and Sam fills in the blank with “dyke”: it’s obviously not the first time she’s heard the slur coming from her mother. She’s being stalked by a male acquaintance and her only “friend” appears to have nothing but ulterior motives. In any “normal” film, this would be enough to crush a character. Toss a degenerative disease into the mix that can best be described as a female-centric form of leprosy and Sam suddenly resembles that fabled sad-sack Job.

Unfortunately, writer-director England ends up taking a fairly unique, female-centric viewpoint on horror and ends up at a thoroughly predictable location. Like similar films such as Deadgirl (2008) or The Woman (2011), Contracted works elements of feminism into its central framework but, unlike the aforementioned films, the feminist angle ends up being largely a MacGuffin. By the time we get to the finale, we end up seeing Sam’s “condition” from a wider perspective and it’s one that any horror fan should be more than familiar with, by the point in film history. It’s a shame, too, because Contracted seems to have quite a few interesting tricks up its sleeve, yet we end up with a film that is, more or less, just a zombie movie. Compared with Deadgirl, which actually featured real zombies yet used them as “props” to discuss the poisonous nature of rape culture and patriarchy, Contracted ends up feeling unnecessarily slight. It’s the classic case of a strong film which peters out by the end, limping into the finish line. Although Contracted’s most nauseating moment is its penultimate one and fairly original (If you’ve ever seen Cabin Fever (2002), this will seem familiar) , what follows is the most basic, by-the-book ending possible.

For the most part, Contracted looks great. Early on, particularly at the party, the cinematography is actually quite beautiful and evocative. There’s a slow-paced elegance to the first half of the film that comes across like a rather unholy melding of the aforementioned Deadgirl and American Beauty (1999): even the necrophilia scene that opens the movie is shot in a way that speaks more to brittle beauty than to in-your-face exploitation. As Sam’s condition progresses, the look of the film gradually changes: the vibrant colors from the beginning and Day One fade in intensity until we get to the ugly, green-tinged look of the final day. It’s a smart, simple effect and one of the strongest in the film. Likewise, the sound design is exceptional and does wonders to make the film, by turns, feel both overwhelmingly lonely and overly kinetic.

The acting is pretty strong across the board, with Townsend being a near revelation as Sam. I wasn’t as taken Katie Stegeman’s offhand, bored portrayal of Nikki: there’s a big difference between acting bored and “being” bored and it doesn’t seem that Stegeman lands on the proper side of that equation. In particular, the scene where she rebuffs one of Sam’s would-be male suitors is extremely awkward and tone-deaf. Although his part isn’t more than a cameo, genre writer Simon Barrett (the scribe behind Dead Birds (2004), A Horrible Way to Die (2009) and You’re Next (2011)) does a superb job as B.J., the terrible human being who kickstarts the whole bloody mess.

Effects-wise, Contracted is pretty exemplary: weak stomachs or those averse to the sight of blood are advised to stay far, far away. While this isn’t the same kind of “melting person” film as The Incredible Melting Man (1977), it’s a much more realistic, biology-based approach and pretty strong stuff. In particular, the penultimate scene is a real corker, even though it’s noticeably less explicit than previous scenes in the films: sometimes, the idea is worse than the image (actually, all the time).

On the whole, Contracted is a really well-done, intriguing and surprisingly female-centric take on the body horror subgenre. If I wish that the destination had been as original as the journey, I suppose that’s a small price to pay. Ultimately, Contracted ends up being “feel-bad” horror at it’s (almost) best: put this on a double-bill with The Incredible Melted Man and bid those unwanted house guests farewell!

5/30/14 (Part One): Beware the Melty Man

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'70s films, '70s-era, 1970's cinema, Alex Rebar, All Buy Mice Elf Film Festival, astronauts, B-movies, body horror, Burr DeBenning, cannibalism, cinema, drive-in fare, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, horror movie, Jonathan Demme, melting people, Movies, Myron Healey, Rick Baker, sci-fi, science-fiction, special effects, special-effects extravaganza, Steve West, Ted Nelson, The Incredible Melting Man, William Sachs, writer-director

While iconic villains are a vital component to horror films (particularly franchises), they’re also one of the most difficult aspects of a film to nail. Despite the exponential increase in the sheer number of horror films, we haven’t really added many “classic” villains to the roster since the ’80s: while characters like Laid to Rest’s (2009) ChromeSkull and Hatchet’s (2006) Victor Crowley have been in a few films, by this point, they’ve yet to achieve any sort of cultural resonance. One could argue that Leprechaun’s (1993) titular character counts, since he’s now been featured in seven different films (after all, Freddy only had a total of 9 films, including the recent reboot). As with ChromeSkull and Crowley, however, the Leprechaun never really made it to Buzz Bin status: he’s working-class but no hero. There have been many attempts to spawn a new horror icon, over the years, but very few ever end up taking off. One of the strangest of these attempts to craft a bit of zeitgeist came about in 1977 with The Incredible Melting Man, a B-movie with pretensions to immortality.

Despite some pretty impressive makeup effects by a young Rick Baker and a tagline that explicitly announced the filmmakers’ intentions (“The first new horror creature”), The Incredible Melting Man did not go on to spawn a franchise…or even a sequel, as it were. Whether audiences had a hard time associating with the gloopy titular monster or whether the (decidedly rough) production-quality put them off makes little difference. As it stands, The Incredible Melting Man is a complete failure at creating a lasting legacy but pretty successful as a goofy, gory popcorn film.

Astronaut Steve West (Alex Rebar) is part of an expedition to fly through the rings of Saturn when something goes wrong: his nose begins to bleed, things get fuzzy and he wakes up in a hospital. After removing his facial bandages, Steve notices something: he doesn’t look too hot. In fact, he seems to be rotting. This kinda ticks him off (wouldn’t it bother you?) and he pounds the table, apeman-style, before trashing the examination room. A nurse returns in time to get chased by Steve in a scene filmed with the kind of gauzy slo-mo that usually ended ’70s horror films, not began them. She crashes through a glass door (saved a second on opening it, I suppose), Steve’s right there and it’s “Good night, nurse!”

We now meet Dr. Ted Nelson (Burr DeBenning) and Dr. Loring (Lisle Wilson) as they examine the nurse’s body. Ted knows a little about this situation, since he was Steve’s friend and was involved with the Saturn mission. He’s also the most laid-back, unflappable, milquetoast “hero” of all time: the scene where he describes to Dr. Loring how his wife, Judy (Ann Sweeny), is pregnant with their third child, after two previous miscarriages, has all of the emotional impact of a colonoscopy. Any “clues” he turns up along the way will be greeted with the mild distaste that one might express when finding caterpillars on the cabbages: Ted Nelson may be the “hero” in The Incredible Melting Man but the guy would be a zero just about anywhere else.

As poor Steve stomps around the countryside, leaving gloopy handprints here, a bit of his ear there (“Oh God…it’s his ear,” exclaims Ted, in a way that practically screams “Could I possibly have a refill on my glass of water, please, if it’s not too much of a bother?”) and dead bodies everywhere, Ted is forced to get General Perry (Myron Healey) involved. Together, Ted and the General set out to stop Steve’s killing spree, albeit for different reasons: the General wants all traces of this disaster dead and gone, while Ted only wants to help out his soupy buddy. It all comes to a head at some kind of a factory, where Ted’s friendship will be stretched to the limit and Steve will have to try, if only for a moment, to regain his basic humanity.

When The Incredible Melting Man is rough, it’s really rough. The acting is rudimentary, at best, with some performances being so howlingly terrible that they achieve a kind of gonzo spectacle. Alex Rebar, in particular, is awful: were he to stay “normal” throughout the film, the movie would actually be unwatchable, although getting buried in the melting man makeup restricts his performance to strictly physical, which works wonders. While Burr DeBenning is nowhere near as terrible, he manages to possess as much energy and life as a department-store mannequin (and not the ’80s kind, either). In the world of the over-actors, the under-actor is king and DeBenning rules his roost from a godly height. The musical score is also pretty ludicrous: the final pursuit in the factory is scored by some of the cheesiest wah-wah guitar possible, along with a pathetic rip-off of John Williams Jaws theme.

Among the shoddier filmmaking aspects are some genuinely “so-bad-it’s-great” moments. My personal favorite has to be the one where Steve steps on the fisherman’s sandwich. It’s the oddest, most awkward and just plain confounding scene in the entire film (which is saying a lot): for some reason, we get a close-up of a plastic “monster” foot (think Gwar) stomping awkwardly on a sandwich, as if the “actor” accidentally tripped and was immortalized on film. Another forehead-slapper would have to be Judy’s ridiculously horny mother and step-father, who stop for a little hanky-panky and orange picking in the middle of the night and get a nasty Steve-sized surprise: not only are the actors terrible (bested only by their avatar, Alex Rebar) but the situation makes no sense whatsoever.

Far from being a complete waste of film and time, however, The Incredible Melting Man is actually quite charming, believe it or not. It will never be accused of being a good film, mind you, but it’s a pretty great B-movie. The movie is definitely cheesy (and very, very soupy) but it’s also got a surprising amount of pathos wrapped up within the idiocy. Steve West, when he’s not talking, is a tremendously sympathetic creature and not so far removed from Frankenstein’s Monster or The Wolf Man. He’s a normal man, with normal friends and a normal life, who is completely destroyed by forces outside his command. He’s turned into a monster, hunted by the very government who facilitated his transformation and has his waning sense of humanity constantly appealed to by his former best friend. Steve West is no sadistic Freddy or Wishmaster: rather, he’s a pitiable creature who seems to take no joy in his mayhem. There’s one moment that perfectly illustrates the two halves of this character: after he’s turned into a completely horrifying, shambling mess, Steve looks down into a water-filled barrel, right at his reflection. As he stares, a drop of pus, like a tear, falls into the water, rippling the image. Say what you want but it’s a powerful, subtle moment that manages to perfectly blend pathos and ick factor: in other words, it’s a picture-perfect horror movie moment.

Too much can’t be said about Rick Baker’s phenomenal special effects, which really give the film a sense of identity. While the makeup starts off a tad bit rough, we’re in glorious hardcore mode once Steve really gets to rottin’. At first, I was wondering whether the version of the film I recently watched was censored: an early shot of the dead nurse seems surprisingly tame and cut-off and there’s some weird editing going on. Once we get to the shot of the fisherman’s body, however, complete with ripped-open ribcage and a severed head, it’s pretty clear that not much hit the cutting room floor. Truth be told, The Incredible Melting Man, as befits its moniker, gets severely goopy, so much so that it begins to resemble one of those extended Family Guy vomiting scenes. If your stomach isn’t fairly cast-iron, chances are that Steve’s melted-wax look is really going to rumble your guts: make it through enough of the film, however, and it kind of fades into the background, sort of like all the nudity in Showgirls (1995). For my part, some of the most stomach-churning stuff came from scenes like the one where an unsuspecting young girl puts her hand into a nice, sticky bit of Steve slop: the thought, alone, is undeniably gross but the practical effects make it even worse. Ditto for the final melting scene, which would be echoed a decade later in the gross-out classic Street Trash (1987). While Street Trash would plumb it for laughs, The Incredible Melting Man goes straight for the heart-strings, reminding us that the disgusting pile of wet, red something on the ground used to be a pretty average (if terribly hammy) dude.

While The Incredible Melting Man may not have succeeded in adding another indelible villain to the collective conscience, it ended up being a more than worthy B-movie. It’s not hard to imagine couples going to see this at the drive-in, covering their eyes whenever Steve shambles up into the camera-eye. For folks who grew up on this kind of sensational, B-movie fare, The Incredible Melting Man should more than fit the bill for a night of nostalgia. Just be sure to keep this one away from the dinner hour: for once, this is all about truth in advertising.

4/30/14: Today Came Yesterday

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'70s films, '70s-era, Bruce Dern, Charles F. Wheeler, cinema, Cliff Potts, Deric Washburn, Dewey and Louie, director-producer, directorial debut, Douglas Trumbull, Earth, environmentalism, film reviews, films, Freeman Lowell, global warming, greenhouse effect, Huey, Jesse Vint, L.A. Law, lost in space, Michael Cimino, Monsanto, Movies, near future, NYPD Blue, outer space, robot helpers, Ron Rifkin, sci-fi, Silent Running, space operas, special effects, Steve Bochco, Steven Bochco, The Deer Hunter, trees, Truck Turner, visual effects pioneer

Sometimes, science fiction can be so fantastic, so out-of-this-world, that it leaves the realm of “science” and puts both feet firmly in the “fiction” camp. Take Douglas Trumbull’s ’70s-era sci-fi film, Silent Running, for example. In this particular movie, we’re led to believe that in the near future, mankind has destroyed Earth’s atmosphere due to unchecked industrialization and pollution, leading to the loss of all flora on the planet. Not only are we asked to buy this utterly outrageous scenario (since when has unchecked industrialization ever led to anything but more money and happiness?) but it’s also compounded by a further bit of foolishness: in order to preserve what trees and plants are remaining, we’ve put them aboard gigantic, spaceship-sized greenhouses and sent them into space, where they can be free from Earth’s noxious atmosphere, serving as a melancholy reminder of what we once enjoyed.

As mentioned, utter hogwash: why in the Sam Hell would we waste money sending the trees into space when we could just let them die, for free, by doing nothing? As long as future generations can read about them, that should be more than sufficient: no self-respecting “person-in-charge” would spend one cent on this foolishness, much less the perceived mega-cost of a fleet of spaceships. After all…they’re just trees, right? What real use do they have, besides the obvious benefit of building resources and mass-producing toothpicks?

Silent Running is concerned with Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), an employee of the defunct Forestry Department who has spent the past eight years tending the last remaining forests. These forests have been uprooted from their native terra firme and set to space, orbiting Saturn in massive “greenhouses” in order to protect them from Earth’s now noxious environment. Lowell is the epitome of the tree-hugging peacenik: hanging out in long, flowing, Druid-style robes; growing his own, organic food; petting fluffy bunnies and tenderly planting each new seed, cutting and sapling. His crew members, however, aren’t quite as eco-friendly as ol’ Lowell: Barker (Ron Rifkin), Wolf (Jesse Vint) and Keenan (Cliff Potts) spend their days racing around the spaceship on ATVs (crushing Lowell’s plants in the process), scarfing down the fake, processed “food” that they’ve been provided and bitching about being stuck in space with hippy Lowell, when they’d much rather be back on good ol’ Earth, pollution be damned. When a communique comes in from Earth, Lowell expects the best (the reinstatement of the Forestry Department and his installation as Director) but gets the worst (nuke the forests and bring the ships back to Earth, where they can be re-purposed for commercial usage.

Lowell, of course, is devastated: this is akin to a mass genocide, for him, and synonymous with giving up the rest of our (tenuous) humanity. The others, however, are overjoyed and rush to set the nukes as quickly as they’re able. While the other ships around him begin to glow with the inferno of their “cleansing,” Lowell just can’t let that fate befall the forests under his care. In a moment of terrifying clarity, Lowell takes matters into his own hands and, with the assistance of his faithful robotic helpers, Huey and Dewey, sets out to atone for mankind’s mistakes and preserve the forests, at all costs.

When visual effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull directed Silent Running in 1972, there no way he could have known how prescient the film would become by 2014, a mere 40+ years later. After all, Silent Running is a film that examines not only over-industrialization, pollution, resource management (and waste) and global warming but it also manages to throw haymakers at genetically modified food and our species’ tendency to put the almighty dollar above the needs of the natural order. In a day and age when words like “Monsanto” and “GMO” are hot-button issues and revelations about global warming on shows like Fox’s Cosmos can bring the kind of angry debates that used to be restricted to questions like “Tastes great?” or “Less filling?”, it definitely seems like our world is ready for another look at this chestnut. While there’s plenty of hippy-dippy silliness to be found here (the ’60s weren’t far in the rearview mirror, after all), there’s also a surprisingly somber and moving meditation on what it means to be human, what it means to be a guest and what it means when we’ve lost something as basic as the plants around us. Throw in a powerful, nearly solo performance from Bruce Dern and you’ve got a film that deserves to be given a chance to add its voice to the current debate.

Right off the bat, Silent Running looks absolutely gorgeous, featuring some of the most majestic space shots you’re likely to see from that era (2001: A Space Odyssey, by contrast, came out a mere four years before Silent Running). Trumbull was an award-winning, visionary, special effects pioneer whose work in films like 2001 (1968), The Andromeda Strain (1971), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977),  Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and, my personal favorite, Blade Runner (1982), pushed the genre (and films, in general) into exiting, new places. His work on Silent Running, perhaps because it was a labor of love, are exemplary: the early shot we get as the camera zooms out of the forest and into outer space, to reveal the greenhouse-ships for the first time, is a true stunner. Words like “awe-inspiring” get thrown around a lot today but I would love to have been able to experience this film in the theater, with other people: I can’t imagine that there was anyone there who didn’t have their mind blown by that initial reveal. Likewise, the scene where Lowell navigates through the rings of Saturn is a Technicolor marvel, reminiscent of the equally impressive space-travel scene in 2001.

Trumbull also used real people, under costuming, for the parts of the robot helpers, which gives them an odd sense of movement that’s strangely realistic: it’s an interesting effect that only speaks to the care and attention put into the production. Truth be told, everything about the visual style of Silent Running works exceptionally well: the sense of world-building in the film is pretty complete, unlike more generic “space operas” that feature anonymous scenery and Spaceship #1, Robot #5 scenarios. By extension, the acting in Silent Running is pretty good, although all other characters become subsidiary to Dern’s, by the end. Although this isn’t a “one-man-show” film like Moon (2009), Wrecked (2010), Gravity (2013) or All is Lost (2013), the focus is squarely on Dern throughout, with the other characters serving only to play up elements of his own personality or to provide him moral/logistic challenges.

Dern has been a helluva career actor, logging time in nearly 150 projects in just over 50 years, with many of them being of the utmost quality. He’s easily one of our most under-rated actors and Silent Running gives a great opportunity to see Dern play a role that’s more low-key than his usual parts but no less passionate. Without Dern’s powerful performance, Silent Running would be a beautiful bit of cotton-candy, big ideas in search of an anchor: Dern is just that anchor, attaching the film’s ideas about ecology and conservationism to a decidedly human ideal. It’s a sad, sympathetic performance and, to be honest, quite haunting: I found myself thinking about Freeman Lowell quite a bit in the days following my screening of the film.

In another nifty hat-trick, Silent Running’s script also featured the early effort of two gentlemen who would go on to full careers: Michael Cimino and Steven Bochco. Ciminio, of course, is best known for the epic failure that was Heaven’s Gate (1980) but he also wrote and directed the award-winning The Deer Hunter (1978), as well as writing the Clint Eastwood vehicles Magnum Force (1973) and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974). Bochco, of course, is the guy synonymous with creating a TV empire, including such iconic shows as Hill Street Blues, Doogie Howser, M.D., L.A. Law and NYPD Blue. Together with Deric Washburn (who also worked on The Deer Hunter screenplay with Cimino), they’ve turned in a really tight script, filled not only with gripping action sequences (the aforementioned Saturn crossing, the race against time with the nukes) but also big emotional beats (Lowell’s inspiring speech to his crew members, the poignant and lovely finale). Silent Running is that rare event movie that is actually about something, rather than being a mindless excuse to consume popcorn.

If there is any point where the film feels “silly” or dated, it would definitely have to be the awful theme songs, sung by Joan Baez. The songs are both stereotypical hippy twaddle, to be frankly honest, and seem so cliché as to drive the rest of the film down. In one key scene, one of the stupid songs scores a bit where a hawk flies to Lowell’s outstretched: combined with the song, the scene is so ridiculous and treacley as to be laughable. If anyone wants to cast dispersion on Silent Running, let it be for the awful songs, which give the exact mental image that the rest of the film works so hard to contradict. Lowell may be a “hippy” but the songs are the worst kind of pabulum and definitely do the film a disservice.

There’s a point, in the film, where Lowell argues with his ship-mates over the tide of progress that’s brought them to where they are now. As the other men point out, Earth’s policies may have done irreparable damage to the environment and the flora but it also led to no poverty, no disease and a constant temperature of 75 degrees. In short, this has become a “golden age” for mankind, despite the implications for everyone else. This may be true, Lowell grants, but it also means there is no more imagination, no more frontiers to conquer…because we just don’t care anymore. When we turn our backs on the natural world and defy the complex machinery of nature, we’re making a definite statement: we know better than you do, whoever you may be. “You” may be a higher power or it may be a dedicated group of environmental activists. “You” may be a raft of scientists or it may be the board of directors of a mega-corporation. “You” could be a bunch of loud-mouthed “eco-terrorists” or it could be Mother Nature, herself.

In this day and age, “we” are so sure about everything, so confident in our own boundless abilities, that we always know better than “you.” This, of course, is a shame: we can always stand to learn from others, no matter who they are or what they believe. In crafting a bold, new world for humanity we have said, unequivocally, that we know what is best for the planet and, by default, what is best for every living thing on it. This is not only hubris but it’s dangerous. In the business world, sticking to the same unsuccessful strategy would not only be considered pointless but it would also be seen as crazy. We’ve tried to wring every last drop and resource out of our planet for almost 200 years, now: maybe it’s finally time to try something different.

 

3/25/14: If Wishes Were Horses, They’d Eat Your Face

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Andrew Divoff, Angus Scrimm, cinema, djinn, djinns, film reviews, films, gory films, Greg Nicotero, Harry Manfredini, horror, horror films, horror franchises, horror-fantasy, Kane Hodder, Movies, Nightmare on Elm St., practical effects, Robert Englund, Robert Kurtzman, SFX, special effects, special-effects extravaganza, Stan Winston, Tammy Lauren, Ted Raimi, Tom Savini, Tony Todd, violent, Wes Craven, wishes, Wishmaster

In some ways, I like to equate watching films with eating. Sometimes, I’m really in the mood for a complex, sprawling, four-course meal: at those times, nothing less than the twistiest, most difficult foreign film will do. Other times, I want a good, hearty steak and look towards any of the numerous “classics” that I’ve re-watched enough to memorize the dialogue. There are times when I want a little lighter fare: those are always good opportunities for a music documentary, a slapstick comedy or an old musical. At certain times, however, there’s really nothing that will hit the spot better than junk food: gimme the cinematic equivalent of a Ho-Ho, from time to time, and I’m a happy boy. On those occasions when I want to turn my brain off, kick my feet up and satisfy my horror jones, there really isn’t much finer than the first Wishmaster, a snack-pack of goodness that I’ve been enjoying for nearly 20 years.

Right off the bat, it helps to know one very important thing about Wishmaster: the film series began as the labor of love of Robert Kurtzman, one of the premiere special effects/make-up guys in the industry. Along with Greg Nicotero (any horror fan worth his salt should recognize this name immediately) and Howard Berger, he formed KNB EFX Group in the late ’80s. Naming all of Kurtzman’s projects would require its own separate blog entry but we’ll list a few that folks might recognize: Evil Dead 2, Phantasm 2, From Beyond, Predator, Tremors, Cabin Fever, Misery, Army of Darkness, Pulp Fiction, From Dusk Til Dawn, Scream, Boogie Nights, The Green Mile, Hulk…basically, if it was released in the past 28 years, Kurtzman probably had a hand in the makeup, effects work or both.

As with other directorial efforts by special-effects experts, specifically Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead and Tom Savini’s remake of Night of the Living Dead, the focus in Wishmaster is squarely on the astoundingly gory, over-the-top special effects, most of which are jaw-dropping…sometimes literally. The nifty hat trick here is that Kurtzman has taken an entirely serviceable idea for a B-horror film and tricked it out with an immaculate, shiny coat of candy-apple-red primer. As mentioned earlier, this is pretty much the epitome of junk food: delicious but nearly devoid of any actual nutrients. Wishmaster is like an amusement-park thrill ride: a blast to sit through but essentially incapable of changing your overall world view.

As far as a story goes, Wishmaster is pretty lean and mean: an opening inter-title explains that there were once men, angels and djinn. The djinn didn’t want to play nice, despite their ability to grant wishes, and were banished to the furthest regions to prevent their complete destruction of humankind, an event which they can bring about simply by granting the same person three separate wishes. Cut to Persia in the 1400s and we see all hell (quite literally) bust loose as a djinn grants a king’s second wish. Before the djinn can grant the king’s third wish and damn humanity to an eternity of servitude, a court magician imprisons the djinn in a gemstone. Cut to the present and a drunken accident at a dock has led to the discovery of the gem: the gem changes hands until it ends up with Alexandra (Tammy Lauren), our spunky heroine. As can be expected, the djinn is eventually released and goes on a wish-granting rampage, all the while trying to get back to Alex: if he can grant her three wishes, mankind can kiss its collected asses goodbye. Will Alex be able to save the world? Will she be forced to use her third wish? Will the djinn help them throw the craziest party in 600 years? As if you had to ask!

Let’s get one thing absolutely clear: Wishmaster will never win any awards for acting or its script but that’s not really why we’re here: we’re here because this thing is a party in a can. Decades before audiences thrilled to “in-on-the-joke” junk like Snakes On a Plane and Sharknado, we all had to make do with good, old-fashioned B-movies, films that took themselves at least seriously enough to avoid winking into oblivion. Wishmaster is a film with plenty of heart (all over the damn place, pretty much) and isn’t so terribly removed from the effects extravaganzas that Harryhausen created back in the day…just with a lot more viscera and exploded rib-cages, of course.

Although the film is jam-packed with eye-popping moments, it’s book-ended by its two biggest, most extravagant set-pieces: the opening Persian bloodbath and Beaumont’s (Robert Englund) climatic cocktail party. Both scenes are chock-full of the kind of explosive effects that would be the centerpiece of any other film: someone turns to crystal and shatters, spraying deadly shrapnel around the room; a skeleton rips itself from a man’s body and stands for a moment, pondering the chaos, before running off to cause some more; a collection of bronze and stone statues depicting warriors from various countries and eras comes to shuddering life, in a scene that directly references Harryhausen’s classic films, and massacres a group of armed mercenaries; someone is cut to pieces by living, levitating piano wires, etc etc…In truth, the two aforementioned scenes actually pack in more amazing special effects moments than at least four lesser horror films combined. Even better, the effects are almost all practical, lending the film yet another point of reference to classic films like Clash of the Titans and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

I’ve gone on and on about Wishmaster’s effects but what about the rest of the film? While it’s certainly not An Officer and a Gentleman, Wishmaster ends up being a pretty sturdily constructed affair. The film looks great, with a vibrant color palette that really lets the gore pop off the screen. In a nod to old-school horror fans, Friday the 13th’s Harry Manfredini handles the score and it’s a typically good one, even featuring a few pieces that directly recall the “adventurous” music from the aforementioned Harryhausen films. Wes Craven produced the film and, in many ways, it’s pretty comparable to the latter-day Nightmare on Elm Street films, particularly films like Parts 4 and 5, which tended to be more special-effects showcases than the earlier entries. The djinn even gets a massively ooky regeneration scene that manages to give both NOES and Hellraiser a run for their collective money.

The acting, as can be expected from B-movies, is rather hit or miss. Andrew Divoff is a complete revelation as the djinn, playing the villain with just the proper amount of smarmy charm, deadpan sarcasm and dead-eyed seriousness. His quipping never really gets old (although it will get more tedious over the next few films in the series) and I’m constantly surprised that he never became a more prominent face in the horror world, similar to co-star Robert Englund. Englund is quite good as the slimy Raymond Beaumont and it’s also nice to get cameos from a couple other familiar faces: Candyman’s Tony Todd and original Jason Kane Hodder make appearances as a bouncer and security guard, respectively. They don’t get to do much but it’s still nice to see them.

More problematic, unfortunately, is Tammy Lauren. As the lead, we get to spend an awful lot of time with Lauren and her progressively hysterical performance makes this a bit unpleasant, after a while. She’s alright for the first half of the film or so but she sets the controls for the heart of the sun after that and her overacting even begins to compete with the special effects, after a while. A lesser, but still noteworthy, issue is the rather lackluster ending: while necessary to paint the film out of its corner, it comes across as a real head-smacker and more than a little uneventful.

If you can look past the film’s small handful of problems, however, I can see absolutely no reason why any horror fan wouldn’t love this movie. Here, at the very beginning, we saw the groundwork being laid for a franchise that had the potential to rival Elm Street for prime real estate on the horror map. If the series ended up dropping the ball and limping off the sidelines way too soon (Part 2 is merely okay, whereas Parts 3 and 4 are completely execrable), that does nothing to take away from the achievement of this first edition.

Sometimes, I just want to kick back with an old friend and kill 90 minutes: whenever Wishmaster comes knocking at the door, I’m always ready to party.