Category Archives: Review

CRAFTing Class Systems

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As we are here in the Halloween season, I thought I’d take a look at a perennial favorite which I like, which I saw multiple times at the dollar theatre back in the day, and which I’ve always had somewhat mixed feelings about.

The Craft (1996)

Andrew Fleming and Peter Filardi’s teen witch flick makes good use of a personable young cast and stands as a solid piece of mid-90s memorabilia, delivering the entertaining tale of a band of young female outcasts finding empowerment and friendship, mixed with a heavy dose of somewhat reactionary Hollywood tropes.  It also, in its style, soundtrack, and TV-teen drama-based-casting, presaged the late 90s slasher cycle which Scream would kick off only 7 months later.  It is very much a memento of a time and a place, and while that means that it is rich with nostalgic value, it has more than that going for it, even if some elements of its final act leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The story follows Sarah (Robin Tunney), a teen with past suicidal tendencies, who has just moved to a new town with her father and stepmother.  Her first day at school, she is both immediately interested in Chris (Skeet Ulrich), an alpha male, grabby handed, rumor spreading football dude, and a group of standoffish girls who she is warned to stay away from by some other popular types, told that they are ‘witches.’  Ignoring all advice, she befriends the three wannabe magic users, each of whom is a persona-non-grata in her own way.

Nancy (Fairuza Balk) is a goth kid who, despite the fact that she’s somehow going to a posh, private Catholic school, is dirt poor from an abusive home. Bonnie (Neve Campbell, in her first film role) is covered with burns over most of her body and is very withdrawn. Rochelle (Rachel True) endures racist bullying at school, largely from a pretty blonde girl on her swim team.  The three have been practicing witchcraft together, seeking strength in the face of the everyday cruelty they encounter, but we don’t see much evidence that they have been able to summon much in the way of aptitude in this domain.

It turns out that Sarah has always had real magic but has never understood or sought to harness it.  The three girls invite her to join them and complete their coven and soon, they’re casting love spells with dire consequences, cursing their enemies, and climbing out of poverty.  Finally, Nancy convinces them to try a more serious spell in search of more aggressive power tipping her over into full blown psycho territory and resulting in a string of corpses of some not terribly nice people (and some perfectly pleasant beached sharks).  Sarah tries to detach herself from the others, but they come after her, making it appear that her family has died in an accident and trying to push her to kill herself (more successfully than her previous attempt).  She taps into the natural power within, communes with the same ancient force powering Nancy, and triumphs, leaving Nancy institutionalized and the other two powerless.  She has risen to her full potency and self-confidence.

There is much to like here.  First off, no one has ever gone broke selling an empowering story of outsiders finding support and power in each other, and taking revenge on bullies. The interplay between the four leads is strong. It’s easy to buy into their friendship, just as it’s easy to sympathize with their plights.  Seeing glimpses of Nancy’s home life, Rochelle fielding racial slurs, or Bonnie undergoing painful skin treatments, desperate not to feel like a freak anymore, you want them to rise above all this. And as they first tap into actual magic, it is fun. It is thrilling.  It’s exciting to see power bestowed upon the powerless, and when they first start striking out at those who have wronged them, it’s hard to blame them. Similarly, at the end, when Sarah really finds her own power and pushes back against the others, it is easy to cheer her on as she becomes more self-assured—as she becomes herself.

Beyond that, there is a nice young energy, a soundtrack that summons a feeling of ‘96, some capably designed magic effects (notably, a nice bit when the shadows of some window ironwork transform into snakes—it holds up), and in all four of the leads, some enjoyable young performers who deliver the goods.  There are reasons that this mild success became a bit of a beloved cult classic, especially for those who saw in it a celebration of the freak-outsider overcoming the awful, boring, and cruel pettiness of the pretty, “normal” people.

But, something always felt off about the ending, and I think on re-watch, I might be able to clarify it.  So, it is not surprising that these girls, once they have power, start to abuse it, and that it goes to a dangerous place.  This is as standard a progression as any in the Western canon.  As viewers, we get pulled in with the charge of new power and the potential to strike out at hateful jerks, and then we are shown, by the end, the wicked path to which that inevitably leads.  But especially because the friendship between the four landed so well, it feels frustrating and disappointing when they so rapidly turn against each other and ‘go evil’ to serve the demands of the plot. The way the film suddenly paints these characters as villainous, who seem to finally be getting their due, feels like some kind of narrative betrayal akin to Allie Sheedy’s character at the end of The Breakfast Club trading in her black clad, idiosyncratic identity to put on a lot of pink girly bows and kiss a cute boy.

And there’s something larger at work in this particular story arc—probably unintended by the writers, but nonetheless present.  The three initial witches are all cast offs of society, with Nancy standing out in her poverty and domestic abuse.  They all live and operate in a world of wealth and privilege: an expensive looking private school in or near LA.  When these powerless figures get a taste of power, they use it violently, lashing out at their former oppressors.  The poor, the ugly, the black are new to having power and they can’t be trusted to use it responsibly. In their rage, they endanger the stability of a rich, white, misogynistic society, and therefore, must be quelled.

Sarah, on the other hand, her power stemming from her mother who had died giving birth to her, is old money.  (Not to mention that, based on her home and neighborhood, her family is, in fact, loaded)  She was born with her power—she didn’t have to take it from anywhere.  All she had to do was accept the position she had inherited and she could triumph over the other three, ultimately putting them all back in their place, fully chastised for daring to rise above their respective stations. Again, it’s doubtful the writers had any polemic in mind when penning this, but the final act does dampen any sense that the film is actually on the side of the disenfranchised.  It may sell itself that way on the surface, but in all actuality, it serves to reify the status quo of capital, position, race, and, um,  magic. All of this should be unsurprising, given the extent to which it is the product of big, entrenched business, in the form of a Hollywood movie studio (Columbia). But still, it does feel like a let-down.

All of that said, it is still a rather enjoyable watch.  The camaraderie and the initial wish fulfillment fantasy both offer real pleasures.  The story, if somewhat predictable and socio-politically regressive, plays out engagingly. Finally, even if the ending disappoints, it is played well.  The final confrontation looks cool, is exciting, and, in Fairuza Balk’s Nancy, features a great, crazy, unhinged performance.  Much about this does still play well and rewards repeat viewing, but, may require overlooking a bit of an astringent aftertaste.

How can you not Love this Witch?

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When I first saw this one advertised, it sounded interesting, but something about the stilted style in the trailer just didn’t pull me in. I’m so glad I eventually gave it a chance. I’ve now watched it at least 4-5 times and I think it’s just great.

The Love Witch (2016)

This is a visually arresting film that is more than a little difficult to process.  One part early 70s pastiche melodrama, one part satire of persistent gender expectations, and one part art house flick, with just a dash of occult sexploitation, it is an exercise in deep criticism and deeper irony, asking us to both identify with its protagonist’s tragic tale of loves lost and loves murdered, and to question the often (self) destructive ways of thinking that she has come to espouse. It’s a heady, gorgeous, stylized piece of work that calls for critical response.

Written, directed, produced, costume designed, set decorated, art directed, scored, and edited by Anna Biller, this is a true piece of auteur cinema. It is clear that absolutely nothing appears on screen accidentally and that everything, from the hemming of a dress, to a musical quotation in the score, to the hint of discomfort on an actor’s face is fully intentional, often carrying consciously chosen meaning.  It invites the viewer to analyze what is presented, but it offers few obvious readings. 

Characters sometimes speak very explicitly, presenting ideas that sound like authorial voice, but the choice of the mouthpiece for those very ideas sometimes undercuts the sense that they should be trusted.  The narrative and focus on Samantha Robinson’s Elaine draws the viewer into her cool, love obsessed mania, but at the same time, other characters directly call out her seemingly patriarchy perpetuating views and much of the course of the story shows that this way to lead to madness—plus, she also comes across as quite the sociopath (as in the scene where she meets with a friend to theoretically comfort her after her husband’s lovesick suicide, but is cold as ice and unwilling to engage with any emotions that are not her own), so maybe not the best person to choose as a role model, even if charming and perfectly coifed. 

It feels so clear that Biller knows exactly what she wants to communicate, but at the same time, there is a constant irony, casting any interpretation of even the most seemingly on the nose symbolism into doubt.

The story follows Elaine as she relocates to a new town from San Francisco, following her husband “leaving her” (by ceasing to draw breath). 

A friend of a friend, Trish (Laura Waddell), shows her the house she’s arranged to stay in and takes her out for lunch at a tea room that seems to exist inside whatever it is that wedding cakes dream about.

 We learn of Elaine’s obsession with being loved by men and her insistence that the only way to find satisfaction is to give them whatever they want (food, beauty, sex, ect.) so that they will love her as much as she loves them. 

She uses “sex magic to make love magic” but that love magic never ends well, generally killing the targeted male by overwhelming him with emotions he’s incapable of coping with.  This plays out with a couple of men she sets her sights on, including the local professor/self-styled libertine, Wayne (Jeffrey Vincent Parise) and Trish’s husband, Richard (Robert Seeley), before locking firmly onto the particularly manly (toxically so) detective who’s investigating Wayne’s murder, Griff (Gian Keys). 

Unlike the others who have cracked, becoming blubbering messes in their newfound feelings for her, thus turning her off by being weak “like a woman”, Griff maintains a certain disdain for Elaine and her desire, both satisfying her with his overt masculinity and crushing her with his rejection.  In the end, claiming him for herself, she stabs his heart out, mirroring a tarot-inspired painting adorning her bedroom wall.

The story is fairly straightforward, but this short summary does it little justice, especially without presenting a sense of the overall style and stylization of the picture.  The whole film is made to look as if it were filmed sometime in the past (mid 50s, late 60s, early 70s perhaps—it’s never exactly clear), though the presence of cell phones situates it in the more or less present, resulting in the story feeling somehow outside of time, but rooted in old fashioned mores of masculinity and femininity. 

This presents itself in the technicolor-approximating film stock, the 50s era hard lighting, the sumptuous costuming and makeup and set dressing, and of course, the stilted, presentational acting choices.  This last aspect could certainly turn off a viewer, but is probably one of the most effective aspects of the film, allowing a clear analytical distance between spoken text and filmmaker intent, and underlining the absurdity of character relationships, such as the hyper-masculine, square jawed Griff being served constantly by other officers in his precinct who happen to be female or people of color (you can help him in this murder investigation by getting him a sandwich—you know how he likes it). And it is often very funny. 

This style allows for moments or scenes that in any other film would stand out as unrealistic, such as the scene in which Elaine meets Wayne and, in under two minutes of dialogue, has him eagerly take her to his remote cabin for dinner and sex.  It’s quick work and a nice spot of whimsy.

This style also lets Gahan (Jared Sanford), the leader of Elaine’s coven, spend nearly 4 minutes lecturing girls at a burlesque club on the importance of reclaiming and harnessing feminine sexuality in order to exert real power in life and have men finally see them as human beings while in the background, the men in the club go crazy over the performer on stage.  This is a great example of the dialectic of the film between spoken and visual text.  On one level, the words he speaks seem like they could reflect the filmmaker’s views, that the reclaiming of female sexuality and desire is empowering, but the fact that it is a man speaking them, and particularly this man, whose touch we see Elaine shrinking from and who elicits a cringe when he kisses her in greeting, who it seems might just have gotten involved with witchcraft because it grants him authority over a bevy of often naked girls who he can have sex with, because, um magic and stuff, really undercuts his words and, while aspects ring true, the dubious motives of their speaker makes them seem suspect.

And the style also makes it possible to include a fairly long scene at a Ren Fair hosted by the coven where Elaine and Griff are taken through a fairytale mock wedding after which voiceovers of their conflicting views of love (her: in time, a woman loves all of a man’s little foibles more and more and a love grows stronger and more grounded; him: love makes you weak and in time, any woman becomes irritating and trapping) overlaying scenes of their newlywed bliss. It’s a strange, funny, pretty-if-kinda-silly-looking, and it lays bare how doomed they both are in this relationship.  We know she will be hurt and we expect he won’t survive it (though I think we also don’t feel particularly bad about that).

Ultimately, this is an intriguing watch.  Especially on first viewing, the film’s approach provides a really novel experience, and it can be hard to know what to make of it. Some will be irritated and some will be enraptured, but it is inarguably unique and clearly expressive of a creative, thoughtful, and singular mind at work.

Halloween approacheth

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Here we are in October. “Spooky season.” Pumpkin spice, if that’s a thing where you live. (I don’t think it’s quite so ubiquitous in Poland.) Let’s kick things off with a short look at one of the most iconic of the seasonal offerings:

Halloween (1978)

This is going to be pretty short—more of a blurb than anything else as I assume that everything that needs to be written about this one has already made it to print.  It may no longer have the power to scare me as I’ve seen it plenty of times, but it is surely a kind of comfort food, satisfying in so many different ways.

I like the characters.  I’m not rooting for them to bite it, as might occasionally be the case with the nameless casts of the many later imitators which would follow in Halloween’s footsteps.  I mean, they’re not exactly exercises in depth, but I buy them as people, as friends.  There are laughs to be had and their relationships are believable.  And at the same time, they are drawn with broad enough strokes that the dominant feeling when they die is the jolt of terror rather than the weight of mourning. 

The film making is confident and precise, while still operating on a tight budget, and makes economical choices that pay off in atmosphere and artistry. It’s really something how this movie, filmed in May in California, really evokes a midwestern fall.  Apparently it was too warm for real fallen leaves, so they scattered paper leaves around, which they had to collect after each shot so they could be reused. The score, while repetitive, is also relentless and so simple.  Both the film and its killer are playful with their scares, making it such a fun popcorn scary movie.

And, at the same time, it really contributed to placing horror in, and showing the lie of, a new setting—cozy, suburban, small town America, a place where your kids can feel safe walking to school and you don’t have to lock your doors, but when a teenage girl is screaming for help in the middle of the night, people will turn off their porchlights and pretend not to be home, rather than stick their neck out for someone else in need. 

Many things can be scary, but in this moment of seeing just how little these comfortable suburbanites are willing to go out of their way to help a terrified kid, it is really chilling, and it offers a moment of horror: the chilling comprehension that “this is probably true—this is how people would behave—I may greet my neighbors with a smile and a nod, but if I really needed help, there’s every chance that they’d close their doors, and if one is to be totally honest, if the situation were reversed, I may very well close mine.”  That realization—that confrontation with a terrible truth—is really the essence, I think, of horror as a concept and this is a good, simple, very effective example.

While this was certainly not the first slasher, it surely fixed the formulas, even when it did so inadvertently.  Laurie is the platonic ideal of the final girl archetype, down to and including the nigh Freudian way that she adopts a series of different sharp, long, pointy, penetrative objects to fight back with, but that all of them imply some kind of traditionally coded feminine element—the coat hanger, the knitting needle, even the kitchen knife—all of which can be read as markers of ‘women’s work’ and the domesticity that is being invaded by this very masculine-coded killer. 

And still, I take Carpenter at his word that he was not thinking about these things.  They just came out of the setting—out of the situation.  These are the available weapons in a home that doesn’t have guns.  Laurie doesn’t end up being the final girl because her friends are punished for being sexual.  Rather, she is alone, lonely, and paying attention.  They are distracted, having fun, fooling around and, therefore, easier targets.

And there are just so many standout moments: the opening tracking shot, featuring presumably the fastest off screen sex scene ever (the young couple leaves the living room to go upstairs and 85 seconds later, we see the boy coming out of the bedroom, putting his shirt back on—it’s fast!), so effective and chilling and clever; Dr. Loomis going on about “the blackest eyes, the devil’s eyes”; the growing irritation/comedy of Linda “totally” only seeming to know one word; the moment when the shape appears out of the shadows that Laurie had been backing into; Michael tilting his head to examine his handiwork after stabbing Bob to the wall; and of course, the final moments after the killer has disappeared and the camera shows us the empty hallway, the empty stairwell, the empty street—there are shadows everywhere and anything could be waiting in them—nothing will ever feel safe again. 

For all these reasons and so many more, this one is a classic which can really help set the tone any October.

An Under-Seen Italian Classic

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Sometimes there are those films that you really know you should have seen by now, but it’s somehow hard to finally pull the trigger on.  This was one of those for me for the longest time and I’m so glad that a few months ago, I finally remedied the situation:

Black Sunday AKA the Mask of the Devil (1960)

Mario Bava’s first directorial credit really stands the test of time as an (occasionally flawed) masterpiece of gothic horror. It exists in an interesting space between the old Universal classics of the 30s that preceded it and the rougher terrain the genre would come to tread over the course of the next couple decades.  If you’re looking for spooky old castles filled with cobwebs and riddled with secret passages, it’s got you covered. If you want to see a hot brand burning flesh, it’s got that too.  How about a carriage eerily racing through moonlit fog in slow motion? A giant bat attack in a ruined crypt? A young girl fearfully running through a dark forest, the spindly branches of trees seeming to reach out as if to grab her? This is your movie.  But what if you want needles being driven through eye sockets? The face of a loving father melting in a fire? A shambling corpse bursting out of wet earth? A spike filled metal mask being sledgehammered onto a witch’s face? But of course, Black Sunday, all things to all people, is there for you as well.

The story begins with a prelude set in Moldavia in the 17th century, two hundred years before the main action of the film. Princess Asa Vajda (Barbara Steele) is a witch (or possibly a vampire—the film plays fast and loose with its supernatural terminology) being ceremonially put to death by a robed and hooded inquisitorial mob for her wicked deeds, along with her brother and consort, Javuto (Arturo Dominici).  She is branded as a witch and a “Devil’s Mask” is hammered onto her face before she is set on a pyre to burn.  A storm prevents the job from being completed, but she is entombed in a coffin with a glass lid so that she can always see the cross above, which should theoretically keep her evil contained.

And so it does until a couple hundred years later when two doctors on their way to a conference happen upon her tomb, accidentally shatter the cross, break the glass atop her coffin (leading to a scratch on the hand that gives her a resuscitating drop of blood), steal a religious artifact that had been placed on her (it may have been helping to hold her down, but will also provide a useful user manual to defeat her later), and remove her Devil’s Mask (with some effort—it had been nailed on quite forcefully).  Then, having done everything wrong they possibly could, they have a chance meeting with the local princess (bearing a striking resemblance to the witch) whose family crypt they’ve been defiling and make their way to an inn for the night.

Said princess is Katja Vajda (also Barbara Steele), Asa the witch’s descendent, who has just turned 21 and is feeling some unnamable dread whose source she cannot identify. Long story short: Asa raises Javuto, has him kill and basically make vampires of one of the doctors, Katja’s father, and a few household servants, all so that Asa can steal Katja’s youth, beauty, and ultimately her life. 

Fortunately (I suppose), the younger of the two doctors and the inevitable romantic lead, Dr. Andrej Gorobec (John Richardson), teams up with a local priest to fight the vampires (dispatched by driving a spike through the left eye rather than a stake through the heart), defeat the witch, and save the girl (who has a real fainting problem—it’s a good thing she ends up with a doctor).

Bava based the story on a Nikolaj Gogol story, “Vij,” which I understand was far more faithfully adapted in the Russian film, Vij (another great movie). Here, the main points of connection seem to be the dark spookiness and folkloric quality of Eastern Europe, a witch, and, based on my viewing of the Russian film (not having read the Gogol), some kind of supposedly learned men who are actually quite useless. But the distance between source text and film is inconsequential.  This is Bava’s film, not Gogol’s, and as a piece of visual storytelling, it is significant.

On a compositional level, Black Sunday is decidedly effectual.  The lighting here is key—stark, casting heavy shadows in all directions, and creating striking looks throughout. In an early scene, the innkeeper’s daughter is sent against her wishes through the woods at night to milk the cow (who, for some reason is kept far from home, in a barn directly next to the cemetery where Javuto was interred beneath unholy ground and is now due to rise).

As she makes her way, terror-stricken to this ill-placed shed, she appears somehow lit from below, such that her face seems to be this one point of light and the darkness seems to close in on all sides.  It isn’t realistic if you stop to consider it, but it succeeds in evoking a very active darkness and her fear is contagious.  The camera frames spaces claustrophobically; the elegant clutter of a palatial manor or the shattered remains of coffins in an abandoned crypt are both used to create a sense of an invasive space. Elements that surround figures seem to move in on them, as with the darkness and creeping branches hunting the dairy seeking adolescent.   

In addition to being Mario’s progenitor, Eugenio Bava was also known as the father of special effects photography in Italian cinema, and his son carries on the family business admirably here.  By today’s standards, some of these effects might look a bit obvious, but in 1960 they were apparently truly shocking (the film was heavily edited when released in the States and was banned for years in the UK before the edited American version was allowed to be released) and some of them still offer a visceral kick in the 21st century.  When the Devil’s mask is hammered onto Asa’s face and blood spurts out, or when a spike is driven through the ocular socket of a sleeping vampire with a sickening squelch (followed by the priest delicately wiping his hand with a handkerchief) , even a modern horror viewer, well inured to viscera, might still find themselves cringing a bit with appreciative disgust.

And there are some truly arresting sequences, such as a frightening scene in which Katja is hounded by some unseen menace that appears to chase her through the castle, upturning everything in its path as she shouts for help. Finally, she comes to her father’s room, where he still lies, recently dead, awaiting funereal rites. We know that he has been turned and that the sun is about to set, but she has no inkling of what’s about to happen. She falls on his berth, calling out for his support in the face of the horrors that beset her and as she lowers her head, the light can be seen disappearing from the sky. It’s a delicious moment. If only it didn’t result in her fainting again, but you can’t have anything.

The only thing that really stands out as unsuccessful is a romantic subplot between Katja and Gorobec. They’ve known each other for perhaps 36 hours by the end of the movie and it’s a big leap of faith to go along with their relationship.  It doesn’t help that the dialogue is so very over the top.  A certain degree of verbal extravagance is welcome in such a film when it pertains to vengeance and undying evil, but an otherwise milquetoast love scene featuring such florid text as, “Even if all Mankind abandons this castle, or even deserts these grounds, there is no reason why you should do likewise with your life and your youth” is just a little hard to buy. 

Though, honestly, the language of the film plays better when watching it dubbed in Italian with English subtitles, rather than having to hear these clunky lines spoken in English (as with all Italian horror of this time, it was filmed without sound and all voices were dubbed later for different markets, often utilizing multi-national casts with each actor speaking their own native tongue).  But these are small gripes in the face of the total effect of the film.

I don’t know that there is much to read into the story of the film itself.  The witch is bad. Her victims are good.  In the end, love triumphs and the dead die once again.  The sun will shine.  But in its simplicity, it well houses an effective and historic horror piece that honors what came before it and prefigures what was soon to come.