6/1/15 (Part Two): The Mournful Cry of the Lone Wolf

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absentee father, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Alex de la Iglesia, auteur theory, blind, blind protagonist, Caitlin O'Heaney, cinema, Cold Sweat, Eric Stolze, Ernesto Herrera, Ethan Embry, father-son relationships, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Here Comes the Devil, horror, horror movies, Karen Lynn Gorney, Karron Graves, Lance Guest, Larry Fessenden, Late Phases, Movies, Nick Damici, old folks home, Penumbra, practical effects, retirement communities, Robert Kurtzman, Rutanya Alda, The ABCs of Death, Tina Louise, Tom Noonan, Under the Bed, Vietnam vet, war veterans, werewolves, Wojciech Golczewski

In the modern world of cinematic monsters, werewolves sure do seem to get the short end of the stick. Sure, they may have factored into the mega-colossi that were the Twilight and Underworld franchises and they’ll never be able to take Lon Chaney, Jr. away from us but, to quote the parlance of the time, “What have they done for us lately?” Compared to peers like zombies, vampires and space aliens, there’s a notable shortage of lycanthrope films to choose from but, ironically, some of the best werewolf films have also been some of the best horror films, period: the aforementioned classic The Wolf Man (1941), An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Company of Wolves (1984), Ginger Snaps (2000) and Dog Soldiers (2002) are not only shining examples of tortured folk howling at the full moon but they also hold fairly esteemed ranks within the horror genre, as a whole.

While it’s been some time since I’ve seen a werewolf film that’s good enough to howl about from the rooftops, it looks like the dry-spell has finally been broken: not only is Spanish auteur Adrián García Bogliano’s Late Phases (2014) the best werewolf film to come out in over a decade, it’s also one of the very best horror films I’ve seen this year. While it’s tempting to say that I’m surprised, I’m really not: with a track record that includes such essential cinema as Cold Sweat (2010), Penumbra (2011) and Here Comes the Devil (2012), I fully expect any and all Bogliano films to kick major ass over and above their daily allotted allowances. Truth be told, I can’t think of a better filmmaker to tell the story of a legally blind Vietnam vet who goes to war with the werewolves terrorizing his seemingly serene retirement community. In the simplest way possible: Adrián García Bogliano has done it again.

The fearless, tough-as-nails protagonist of our little tale is Ambrose McKinley (the always amazing Nick Damici), the aforementioned blind war veteran who has just been moved into a retirement community by his disapproving, micro-managing son, Will (Ethan Embry). Ambrose is a difficult guy, no two ways about it: with a perma-scowl affixed to his face, Ambrose’s unseeing eyes seem to peer right through everyone he meets, cutting through any societal pleasantries and exposing the rest of us for the bullshit artists we really are. Call him the AARP Holden Caulfield, if you must, but for god’s sake, don’t do it to his face.

As Ambrose settles into his new home, he immediately meets some of his new neighbors: his next-door-neighbor, Delores (Karen Lynn Gorney), and the local “welcoming committee” of Emma (Caitlin O’Heaney), Gloria (Rutanya Alda) and Clarissa (Tina Louise), as well as local preacher Father Roger (genre vet Tom Noonan) and church benefactor James Griffin (Lance Guest). As befits his nature, Ambrose does absolutely nothing to curtail favor with anyone, leading Delores to view him with something approaching puppy-dog infatuation, while the others react in ways ranging from extreme amusement to extreme suspicion.

Practically before he’s completely unpacked, however, Ambrose finds himself knee-deep in a grisly mystery: as he listens, helplessly, from his room, he hears Delores being savagely attacked on the other side of the wall. The local authorities blame it on vicious dogs, saying that “old people make good targets” and should be more aware of their surroundings. Ambrose is the furthest thing from stupid, however, and none of this makes sense to him, especially after he finds himself under attack from the same monstrous creature that mutilated his neighbor. Once he discovers that these attacks seem to occur once a month, around the full moon, Ambrose launches into his own investigation, much to the dismay of his put-upon son.

As he pokes around the retirement community, Ambrose begins to uncover the threads of a larger conspiracy, one that may or may not include the community’s quiet, slyly watchful man of God. Despite being blind, however, Ambrose can actually “see” better than anyone around him: he’s also a pretty damn good shot, a fact which certainly comes in handy when you’re hunting monsters. Before it’s all over, Ambrose, armed with a sharpened shovel, more moxie than a mob of Eastwoods and a studied disdain for morons, will become a one-man army. He’d better move fast, however: there’s another full moon on the horizon and it’s bringing a very hairy, very hungry beast with it. As Ambrose knows all too well, you don’t come to places like the retirement home to live: you come to places like this to die.

For his English-language debut, Bogliano turns in his most streamlined effort to date: not surprisingly, Late Phases ends up being the best film (thus far) in an extremely impressive body-of-work. Gone are the occasionally tedious flourishes and unnecessary camera zooms of his previous effort, the otherwise excellent Here Comes the Devil. Bogliano also minimizes the darkly humorous elements of previous films like Penumbra and Cold Sweat, making Late Phases seem more like a serious cousin to Don Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) than the natural successor to his earlier works. Despite being his most straight forward film, however, Late Phases is a virtual embarrassment of riches, thanks in no small part to a great script, fantastic performances and some truly amazing werewolf effects, courtesy of legendary SFX guru Robert Kurtzman.

One notable difference between Late Phases and Bogliano’s previous films is that he relinquishes the pen here, handing writing duties over to Under the Bed’s (2012) Eric Stolze. At first, this change carried the most potential for disappointment: after all, Bogliano’s earlier films were tightly plotted and often rather ingenious, whereas Stolze’s prior genre effort was disjointed and, frequently, kind of a mess. As it turns out, however, I had very little to fear: short of one completely unnecessary and confusing red herring involving certain characters coughing, the script and plotting for Late Phases is air-tight and easily comparable to Bogliano’s scripts, albeit without his (usually) overt political sensibilities.

From a technical aspect, Late Phases looks and sounds great: frequent Bogliano cinematographer Ernesto Herrera turns in some beautifully autumnal imagery, even managing to imbue the film’s frequent gore with a lovely, burnished quality that makes the entire film feel almost impossibly lush. He does some truly great things with light and shadow, not least of which is the quietly powerful scene where Ambrose slowly moves backwards into darkness, his craggy features slowly subsumed by inky nothingness. The gorgeous imagery is handily tied together by Wojciech Golczewski’s understated score: each aspect helps to elevate the film past its simple indie horror roots, taking it into the territory of something like Jim Mickle’s classic Stake Land (2010).

One of the main issues with any creature feature, dating all the way back to the Universal originals, is the actual depiction of said creature. In many cases, monster movies are inherently disappointing because whatever promise is set up by the movie’s mythology is usually dashed once we actually get to see the creature: anyone who grew up on old horror flicks will be more than familiar with that reliable old game of “spot the zipper.” Not so here, in any way, shape or form: Late Phases’ lycanthropes are brought to roaring, terrifying life by SFX pioneer Kurtzman (if you’re a horror fan and aren’t familiar with KNB, you need a refresher course, stat) and they’re easily the equal of any werewolves that came before, including Rick Baker’s iconic American ex-pat wolf man. Equally important for werewolf films are the obligatory transformation scenes: as expected, Late Phases knocks this out of the park with one of the goopiest, most painful-looking transformations ever put to film. If you’re not gritting your teeth by the time our monster rips his own skin off, like a snug t-shirt, well…you have more iron in your blood than I do, neighbor.

As a werewolf/horror film, Late Phases meets and exceeds pretty much every requirement: what really sets the film into its own class, however, is the high-quality performances that ground everything, starting with the film’s protagonist, Ambrose. Quite simply, Nick Damici is one of the greatest, unsung treasures of our modern era and Bogliano uses him to spectacular effect here. Ambrose is easily the equal of Damici’s iconic Mister (from Stake Land) and ends up being one of the most effortlessly cool, kickass heroes since Eastwood lost his name and donned his serape. The concept of a blind protagonist always brings issues with it: in many cases, plot developments like this are usually just ways for filmmakers to shoehorn in gimmicks involving dark rooms, night-vision, what have you. In Late Phases, however, Bogliano and Stolze do the best thing possible: they just establish Ambrose and then let Damici sell us on the character. In the best example of “show don’t tell” I’ve seen in years, he does just that. If there were any justice, Nick Damici would be a household name along the lines of Jason Statham or Scott Glenn.

Ably supporting Damici are a handful of some of the most accomplished character actors currently treading the cinematic boards: indie MVP Larry Fessenden has some nice scenes as a slightly bemused headstone salesman; Ethan Embry does great work as Ambrose’s son, with some genuinely touching moments between the two; Tom Noonan gets to don a priest’s collar, again, and his performance is his typically assured combo of quietly reptilian intelligence and paternal concern; and, of course, genre fans should recognize Lance Guest from more things than they can shake a stick at, including Halloween II (1981), The Last Starfighter (1984) and any number of ’80s and ’90s-era TV shows. We also get the phenomenal tag-team of Tina Louise (Ginger from Giligan’s Island), Rutanya Alda and Caitlin O’Heaney (who also appeared in the ’80s-era cult classic Wolfen (1981): between these three actresses, you’ve got more amazing horror and genre history than most films have in their entire casts.

Ultimately, there’s one big thing that separates Bogliano’s Late Phases from any number of pretenders: genuine passion. At no point in the proceedings is there ever the notion of “phoning it in” or “making do.” Unlike Álex de la Iglesia’s severely disappointing English-language-debut, The Oxford Murders (2008),  Bogliano’s film feels like it belongs squarely in his canon: it’s a natural progression from what came before, not a watered-down reminder of what worked better in the native tongue. At this rate, Adrián García Bogliano is quickly establishing himself as one of modern horror cinema’s foremost artists: with another potential masterpiece, Scherzo Diabolico (2015), on the horizon, I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot more of Bogliano in the future. I, for one, can’t wait.

6/12/14 (Part One): Chuck Norris Can Divide By Zero

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'70s action films, Aaron Norris, action films, action star, Andy Sidaris, Anne Archer, Anthony Mannino, auteur theory, bad films, bad movies, Black Tigers, Bruce Cohn, C.I.A., Chuck Norris, cinema, commandos, covert military action, Dana Andrews, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Good Guys Wear Black, hand-to-hand combat, James Franciscus, Jim Backus, John T. Booker, Lawrence P. Casey, Lloyd Haynes, Mark Medoff, martial arts, Movies, P.O.W.s, prisoners of war, Soon-Tek Oh, Ted Post, Texas Ranger, The Black Tigers, The Delta Force, Viet Cong, Vietnam vet, Vietnam War, Walker

At what point, exactly, did Chuck Norris go from just another ’80s tough guy to an honest-to-god cultural phenomenon? Was it around the time of Lone Wolf McQuade (1983) or did it happen closer to The Delta Force (1986)? Was Chuck just another karate-kickin’ action star when Missing in Action (1984) was released or had we already decided he was a force of nature by that time? Maybe Chuck’s ascension to the pantheon of cinematic tough guys didn’t come until he’d infiltrated the small screen as the goody-two-shoes/ass-kicking Walker, Texas Ranger (1993-2001). Whenever the time and for whatever reason, however, Chuck Norris seems to exist more as an Internet meme these days than an actual person. After all, before he made his big “return” to the silver screen with The Expendables 2 (2012), it had been seven years since Norris appeared in anything: that’s virtually an eternity in the life-span of an action star.

For whatever reason, we need Chuck Norris…or, at least, we need someone like him: an incorruptible force for good that protects the innocents, whups righteously on the wicked and maintains a stoic sense of zen through it all. Norris has always come across as the most laid back ’80s action star: Willis was more sarcastic, Ahnald was thuggier, Sly was harder to understand, Gibson was nuttier, Seagal was greasier but Chuck? He was kinda the Big Lebowski of karate: he just was, man…he just was. As my personal movie marathon continues, I chose to focus on a couple of Norris’ lesser known films (at least as far as I’m concerned): Good Guys Wear Black (1978) and The Octagon (1980). While I recall seeing the poster/video-box art for Good Guys Wear Black, I couldn’t remember anything about The Octagon at all. Would the roots of Chuck Norris’ invincibility lie here? Journey with me back through the layers of time and let’s find out.

After an incredibly odd opening credits sequence that features awful, glitchy computer graphics (possibly from a cutting-edge Atari) and one of the worst slow-jazz tunes in recent memory, we get tossed head-first into the Vietnam peace talks in Paris, circa 1973. Sleazy Undersecretary of State Conrad Morgan (James Franciscus) is negotiating a cease-fire with Major Minh Van Thieu (Soon-Tek Oh) and hanging in the balance are the lives of several American P.O.W.s, including several CIA operatives. Morgan has arranged it so that the U.S. can send in a special ops unit, called the Black Tigers, in order to rescue the CIA operatives. Coordinating with head CIA-man Murray Saunders (Lloyd Haynes), the Black Tigers hit the jungle for a nice, quiet rescue mission. Led by John T. Booker (Chuck Norris), the Black Tigers encounter no resistance until everything goes ass over tea-kettle: in short order, Booker and his men are surrounded by Viet Cong and engage in the kind of dubious fire-fight that Andy Sidaris made famous in Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987), minus the gratuitous T & A, of course.  Despite the terrible odds, Booker and a small handful of his men are able to make it out alive. As Booker notes: “It takes careful planning for things to be this screwed up…we’ve been set-up!” Indeed!

Flash-forward five years and Booker is now a race car driver who also happens to be a grad student pursuing his PhD in Political Science: in other words, he’s your basic, well-rounded type of guy. When a comely reporter named Margaret (Anne Archer) approaches him about doing a story on the Black Tigers’ failed mission from five years earlier, Booker gives her the brush-off: he’s already gotten over the “betrayal” and moved on. Way to be the bigger man, John! The situation changes, however, when Booker’s old friend Murray Saunders gives him a call and let’s him know that someone has put a hit out on Booker “in the system.” As the surviving Black Tigers get picked off one-by-one, Booker must figure out who would want them all dead and why. The answers, of course, go all the way back to that failed mission and involve a government cover-up, a vengeful Viet Cong officer and lots of feet to the face. The odds may be stacked against him but no one puts Booker into a corner…after all, this is Chuck Norris we’re talking about here.

Good Guys Wear Black is many, many things but a quality film is not, unfortunately, one of those things. While the film’s rampant stupidity can be forgiven (the world is full of vapid, action-packed films that are tons of fun despite being virtually brain-dead), it’s exceptionally shoddy action sequences can not. The opening gunfight between the Black Tigers and the Viet Cong has no sense of drama whatsoever, resembling nothing so much as a backyard war epic helmed by pre-teens: it couldn’t have been less realistic if the actors had run around pointing their fingers at each other and yelling “Bang!” Truth be told, none of the action sequences and fights are really worth a hill of beans, more often than not amounting to Chuck Norris kicking someone repeatedly until they fall down: it’s kind of like that old button-masher Karateka in that regard.

So…the film is completely inane and features lame action sequences: what else is there? Unfortunately, not a whole lot: as expected in films like this, the acting is pretty over-the-top and silly, although Norris nicely underplays his role (does he have any other acting style?). The problem with Norris is that his only reaction to things, whether it be his girlfriend getting blown up in an airplane or his best friends getting shot, is to kind of shrug his shoulders and go about his business. At no point in time does Booker ever seem overly worried about anything, which meant I spent a good portion of the film likewise disengaged. Look, it’s as simple as this: if the main characters can’t be bothered to care about this mess, why should I?

And what a mess it is, too. The screenplay, by Mark Medoff and Bruce Cohn, is both stupid and overly complex, which is a most lethal combination. Medoff would actually go on to write the screenplay for Children of a Lesser God (1986), so perhaps we can chalk this up to growing pains. Cohn, on the other hand, would go on to write one other screenplay, for a ’90s-era TV movie: this pretty much speaks for itself. There are so many double-crosses and switch-arounds that I completely lost track of who was doing what by the midpoint: good thing, then, that I was already pretty checked out, by that point. Director Ted Post is actually responsible for some of my favorite films of all time, including Hang ‘Em High (1968), The Baby (1973) and Magnum Force (1973): I’m not sure what happened here but I’m willing to cut Ted a little slack, based on his impressive resume. The screenwriters, on the other, definitely don’t have those laurels to rest on.

In the end, Good Guys Wear Black ends up being a thoroughly average (although tilting towards the terrible), if completely non-nonsensical film. Chuck Norris is consistently amiable but the film, itself, is alternately goofy, corny, stupid and boring. While Chuck Norris’ might reign as some sort of action demi-god nowadays, the proof definitely wasn’t in the pudding back in ’78. As far as our current experiment goes, the search for the genesis of Chuck Norris’ badassitude continues. Next stop: The Octagon.

 

2/1/14: Your Mind Will Betray You

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'Nam, 1970's cinema, absurdist, Academy Award Nominee, Academy Awards, Adrian Lyne, Alexandra Stewart, Alice in Wonderland, Alois Nebel, animated films, Au revoir, auteur theory, avant-garde, battle of the sexes, black market, Black Moon, bureaucracy, Cathryn Harrison, cinema, Cold War, Czech-Polish border, Czechoslovakian films, Danny Aiello, dark films, drama, Elizabeth Pena, experimental film, fall of Communism, Fatal Attraction, Film auteurs, films, foreign films, French cinema, French films, French New Wave, homeless shelter, horror films, hospitals, Indecent Proposal, insanity, isolated estates, Jacob Singer, Jacob's Ladder, Jan Svankmajer, Jason Alexander, Joe Dallesandro, les enfants, Louis Malle, Movies, post-office, psychological horror, Rotoscoping, scary faces, Silent Hill, strange families, talking animals, Therese Giehse, Tim Robbins, Tomas Lunak, train conductor, unicorns, veterans, Vietnam vet, Vietnam War

Although I didn’t really plan it that way, last Saturday’s screenings definitely had a theme: the unreality of reality. These were films that may (or may not) have been about insanity or they may (or may not) have about something more tangible and bizarre. All three of the films challenge audience perceptions of what is real and imaginary, proving that we really don’t know as much about our world as we like to pretend we do.

My immersion into dark animated fare continues with Alois Nebel, an Oscar nominated Czech film from 2011. As I’ve mentioned before, animation style can, often, be the biggest impediment to my initial enjoyment of animated films. In the case of Alois Nebel, however, this issue was pretty much thrown out the window early on with the film’s gorgeous black-and-white imagery. At first, the animation style reminded me of a more severe, serious version of Archer. Upon closer examination, however, I realized that the animated images were actually Rotoscoped. Now, in general, I’m not the world’s biggest Rotoscoping fan: up to this point, my go-tos for that style would have been either A Scanner Darkly or Waking Life, neither of which really blew me away. The images and animation in Alois Nebel, however, are certainly the best Rotoscoping I’ve yet seen and have given me a new benchmark for stuff like this in the future. As always, I heartily approve of anything that expands my horizons.

Tomas Lunak’s film begins in a small town on the Czech-Polish border in 1989, at the tail end of the Cold War. The titular character is a quiet, reserved train conductor who first comes to us via voice-over as he unemotionally recites the train schedule, his droning voice taking on the feel of a litany or a mantra. He lives in a town that seems to exist outside of the current world, a town where the black market is in full swing, thanks to the local military and one of Alois’ “friends”, a fellow switchman. Alois has been having dreams of his childhood, specifically about events that happened in 1945, when German citizens were expelled from Czechoslovakia. His caretaker was one of these people and Alois never ceases wondering what became of her. His dreams become interpreted by those around him as a mental breakdown, however, and he is committed to a pretty wretched insane asylum (electro-shock therapy and Rohypnol appear to be the standard treatment choices). When he is released, Alois ends up homeless and falls in with a former train conductor who now resides at the local homeless shelter. He begins a tentative romance with the woman who runs the shelter before events around him conspire to throw him back into the mystery of his missing caretaker, Dorothe, and her fate. Into this mix we pour a mysterious mute man with an ax and a grudge, the collapse of Communism and a harrowing finale involving betrayal, a torrential downpour and washed-out roads.

There’s an awful lot to take in with Alois Nebel and I’ll be honest: even with an extremely close reading of the film and copious notes, I’m still not sure that I understand everything. In particular, I found many of the relationships to be a bit confounding, especially when dealing with older/younger versions of the characters. There are times when I was positive that I was following one character, only to find out that it was someone else, entirely. The stuff about the mute man is especially confusing, which can be a bit of a critical wound when one realizes how intrinsically he’s tied into everything.

There also seemed to be a lot of very casual betrayal going on, so casual, in fact, that I keep wondering whether I missed something: surely these people couldn’t so actively fuck each other over without incurring any sort of ill-will from those around them, could they? Again, I’m not sure if the intent was to highlight institutionalized duplicity, point out how naive Alois was or if I just managed to misread it but there seemed to be quite a few examples of characters doing everything in their power to step on someone else.

For as confounding as Alois Nebel can be, however, the film is also powerfully hypnotic and flows with a beautifully lethargic sense of dream-like wonder. The sound design is exquisite and, when paired with the stunning imagery, combines to create a truly immerse experience. At times, the film almost seems like a partial horror film (there is a particularly nasty ax murder that occurs) or nod to German expressionism (the combination of Rotoscoping and black-and-white imagery makes for some truly sinister shadows), although the slow pace and dour attitude definitely place this squarely in the “serious art film” category.

More than anything, I found myself wondering just what, exactly, this film would look like as a strictly live-action affair. From what I can imagine, it would still look pretty darn interesting. The shot composition and framing is nothing if not reminiscent of live-action films and the frequent silent scenes, showcasing only subtle facial expressions or, in some cases, no expressions at all, would certainly play well with “real” actors. Ultimately, however, the Rotoscoping helps to add an unearthly edge to the film which is perfectly in tune with its themes: Alois Nebel is about a man who doesn’t quite fit in anywhere and the film, itself, really doesn’t, either. Patient viewers (or anyone with a sense of Cold War Czech politics) will find much to like and appreciate here but those expecting more action may find this to be a bit inert. Odd, unsettling and slightly too confusing to be a complete success (for me, at least), Alois Nebel is still a fascinating film.

I’ve always had kind of a love/hate relationship with Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder. As a rule, I’m not really a fan of Lyne’s oeuvre: his career has tended towards Hollywood potboilers like Fatal Attraction, Nine 1/2 Weeks and Indecent Proposal, none of which I’m a big fan of (I do tend to have a soft-spot in my heart for Flashdance, however: that film is just so stupid that it’s kind of brilliant). Jacob’s Ladder always stuck out like a sore thumb, at least to me: the closest any other Lyne film got to that little psychological shocker was Fatal Attraction, which wasn’t particularly close.

Jacob’s Ladder deals with the struggles of Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins), a Vietnam war vet who currently works at the post-office, romances his co-worker (Elizabeth Pena) and has extremely unsettling flashbacks to his war-time experiences. You see, Jacob was part of an army platoon that experienced…something…during the war and he’s never been quite right ever since. He goes to see his friend and chiropractor Louis (Danny Aiello, in a truly great supporting role) whenever he needs an adjustment but there’s no adjustment that will fix his bizarre dreams or the creepy imagery that has begun to seep into his waking like, including strange creatures with no faces and demonic lizard-men.  Jezzie, his girlfriend, is starting to get fed up with his problems, especially once he has a complete freakout at a nightclub and begins screaming about monsters and demons. He might just be ready to confine himself to the loony bin until he happens to reconnect with one of his old army buddies and realizes that he’s not alone: everyone in his former platoon is experiencing the same issues. Jacob tries to take action, even going so far as to initiate a class-action lawsuit with lawyer Jason Alexander (a mere one year into his tenure on Seinfeld), but is stymied at every turn by his own comrades, shadowy mob figures and those damned creepy faceless critters. Will Jacob finally get to the bottom of his problems or is this all one big exercise in futility?

For most of its run-time, Jacob’s Ladder is a pretty effective, nifty little chiller. The visuals may seem commonplace nowadays but it’s interesting to note that the “scary-quick-changing-face” effect that’s become all too ubiquitous in modern horror films actually got its start here. In context, it works well but I can’t help but hate its genesis on principle, alone: if Jacob’s Ladder could only see what it wrought with Paranormal Activity…

The acting is, generally, pretty good, with Robbins giving a nicely nuanced performance as Jacob and Aiello providing just the right amount of mystery as his “is he/isn’t he?” friend. Pena wears out her welcome fairly quickly, unfortunately, playing her character with so much anger and aggression that she seems sorely out-of-place in the film: she even seems pissed off when she’s making love. Her attitude works in the scenes where it’s necessary (blowing up after the dance-floor fiasco, for instance) but fails completely in those scenes where she’s actually supposed to act loving. I never bought Robbins and Pena as a couple, ever, which seems like a real lost opportunity.

The film has an interesting, atmospheric quality to it, although the horror elements are really only paid off in a few scenes. One scene, in particular, is a real corker and the true horror centerpiece for the film: after escaping from abductors, conking his head on the pavement and getting his wallet stolen by a Salvation Army Santa, Jacob is taken to a hospital and sent for X-rays. As he’s being wheeled down the hallway, going down first one corridor, then the next, Jacob’s surroundings gradually change, going from normal hospital sterility to the kind of gore-drenched, body-part littered hellscapes that one would normally find in Silent Hill. The truth? The hospital scene in Jacob’s Ladder was actually a big influence on the seminal horror video game. At any rate, it’s an amazing scene and goes a long way towards cementing the film’s horror cachet.

So, with all this to recommend it, why do I have a love/hate relationship with the movie? Well, you see, it happens to have one of those twist endings and this particular one manages to undo the entire film as surely as if it pulled on a loose shoelace. This isn’t the kind of ending where you say, “Eh, it was alright.” It’s the kind of ending that makes you say, “Hey, wait a minute! How is that possible if this and this and this actually happened?” It’s the kind of ending that seems powerful and emotional, for about 30 seconds, before you start to really think about it. Once you let it bounce around in your noggin, however, you realize that the ending is pretty much impossible: if you accept it, you basically end up discounting the entire film. If you choose to toss the ending out the window, however, then you’re provided with absolutely no sense of closure or resolution. In other words, a lose/lose situation. Ultimately, this will always make Jacob’s Ladder a good, rather than great, film as far as I’m concerned.

There are times when you can be completely unprepared for a film, even if you’ve been anticipating it for some time. Case in point: French auteur Louis Malle’s 1975 surreal oddity, Black Moon. I’d read about the film for some time and had become quite curious to actually see it. After finally viewing it, however, I find myself nearly as perplexed as I was before I saw it. Sometimes, seeing does not bring clarity.

Although he had a distinguished career (including a 1956 Academy Award for Best Documentary and several nominations after) in France before he made his first English-language films, it will probably be a trio of these American films that he’s best remembered for: Pretty Baby (1978), Atlantic City (1981) and My Dinner with Andre (1981). These films, along with Au revoir, les enfants (1987), showcase Malle as a filmmaker as comfortable with testing film’s technical constraints as he is with pushing the emotional limits. Although Malle was a constant presence during the French New Wave of cinema, his work never really fit explicitly into that movement. At least, it didn’t really fit into that movement until he released Black Moon in 1975, however, only a decade or two since the movement ran its course.

Black Moon is many things but plot-driven is not one of them. Nonetheless, there is a plot (of sorts) and it will sound imminently familiar to anyone who’s read Alice in Wonderland: a young, inquisitive blonde girl wanders about a strange house, meets bizarre individuals, talking animals and, gradually, comes to learn something about herself. The young girl, in this case, is named Lily (Cathryn Harrison, a mere 16-years-old at the time of shooting) and she’s on the run from some kind of lethal gender war: men and women have taken up arms and proceeding to blast each other to kingdom come. Lily takes refuge in a mysterious estate and meets the eccentric family who lives there: Brother Lily (Warhol regular Joe Dallesandro, who gets by his acting inadequacies by way of remaining mute for the entire film), Sister Lily (Alexandra Stewart, as mute as Joe) and the Old Lady (Therese Giehse, who died shortly before the film was released and to whom it’s dedicated) and her husband, Humphrey the rat (yes, he really is a rat).

After introducing these decidedly odd elements, Black Moon does what any good absurdist film would do: piles one absurd event on top of the other. Lily discovers the family’s pet unicorn (a creepy-looking pony-thing that looked, to my disturbed eyes at least, as if it had a skull for a face: I don’t think it does but I could probably be forgiven for thinking that); drinks milk out of an absurdly large glass, while a pig looks on from a high-chair (hello, Alice, my old friend…); has to constantly pull up her constantly falling-down knickers; runs over a badger and suckles the old woman. We see naked children leading around a giant pig (shades of Jodorowsky); crying flowers (don’t ask) and creepy people in gas masks.

In many ways, Black Moon does come across as a kinder, friendlier version of a Jodorowsky film or, possibly, a version of Waiting for Godot enhanced by three sheets of acid. As with any absurdist/avant-garde film, the visuals are at least as (make that: much more) important than the actual story, although I think that the description of this as a “post-Apocalyptic Alice in Wonderland” is as good as anything I could come up with.

This is a defiantly weird film (Brother Lily can communicate via thought but only while touching someone; the Old Woman appears to die in one scene only to be fine in the next) but it’s also a pretty interesting one, anchored by the wide-eyed performance of Harrison as the surrogate Alice. She sees a lot of weird stuff, no doubt about it, but she always seems to be ready for more, which, consequently, makes us pretty game for more, too. When faced with the bizarre, Lily grits her teeth, puts her head down and says, “Just a minute, please,” whether dealing with hawk-slaying siblings, talking unicorns or hungry old women.

Whatever Black Moon actually ends up being about (Is it a strange Alice in Wonderland adaptation? A dialogue about the battle of the sexes? A story of a girl becoming a young woman?), the film is quite lovely to look at and filled with just enough absurdity to make one wonder what could possibly be around the corner. At times, it reminded me of the unholy offspring of Jan Svankmajer’s Alice and Hardy’s original The Wicker Man, a gauzy, odd landscape with any number of potential horrors just over the horizon. At other times, my wife and I turned to each other and shrugged in complete bafflement. Without a doubt, this is a strange one.