DVD Reviews: Two More by Creep Creepersin: he and Peeping Blog

Text © Richard Gary / FFanzeen, 2011
Live image © RBF
Cover images from the Internet

As promised in an earlier blog, here are a couple more of Creep Creepersin’s indie, shot-on-digicam full-length releases. He is fast becoming one of my favorite DIY directors, showing an artistic side to his releases. The reason I put these two reviews together is for a number of reasons: they co-star both Ariauna Albright (who RBF met in the early 1990s at a Chiller Theatre show in Rutherford, NJ) and Creep, himself, is the main actor. In both, they are unnamed. These are more psychological in nature than most of Creep’s works, and if fact, Peeping Blog could easily be considered as he’s sequel.



he
Written, produced, directed by Creep Creepersin
MVD Visual, 2009 / 2011
70 minutes, USD $14.95
creepersinfilms.com
MVDvisual.com

”…and drop a smile passing in the hall
But there’s no laughs left ‘cause we laughed them all
And we laughed them all in a very short time…”
- Paul Simon

“You oughta scratch from the human race
You are a waste of a name
A waste of time and a waste of space
You’ve only one claim to fame:
I don’t like you.”
- Stiff Little Fingers

For the opening of the “making of” short, director (etc.) Creep Creepersin states, “I don’t remember really writing it or doing it; I just remember we decided we were going to make a movie, and we made the movie.” From the detail given by him during the commentary, however, that is obviously not the case, but is Creep playing mind games in a film full of mental questions.

This is the third film of Creepersin’s I’ve seen in a row. While it’s one of his early full-length efforts, it’s also among his best. he is a tight psychological drama about an unnamed man and his ever increasing descent into mental illness.

When we first meet “he” (as the character is listed in the credits; apparently it is always lower case), played by Creepersin himself, he’s just gotten out of bed as we watch him bring his very crunchy feet into the shower, while still wearing his glasses. This is to symbolize, I’m assuming, his tenuous connection to what’s really going on in the world though he does his best to see it.

His long-suffering wife (listed in the credits as “the wife”), both touchingly and scarily played by scream queen Ariauna Albright, comes to the bathroom door in a thick leopard print robe open over a black, cleavage-exposing bra that she wears for most of the film. She is obviously unhappy and dour in her life, especially the one she shares with him. Wait, is that a kitchen knife in her hands?

As the credits roll over yet another Creepersin breakfast eating scene (is he obsessed with this meal and tooth brushing, or what?), we start to see how the cracks in the relationship are imbedded, as he obliviously drinks his coffee with long, loud slurps, and mashes the food into his mouth. Not a turn-on for her (or us), as we watch her winch at every sound and action. We also shortly learn that she wants a baby, and holds him responsible for her lack of progeny (despite neither having ever been tested). It becomes explicitly clear quite quickly that they both are having psychological problems. It almost seems like she has a form of severe depression, or PTSD.

After believing the wife has a kitchen knife early on, it become increasingly clear that he’s becoming delusional. For example, after being out of work for an undisclosed period of time (though the impression is it’s been quite the while), he receives a letter that to him says “Proceed,” in big, handwritten letters, but when she reads the same paper (i.e., the real world), it’s a job offer. The viewer gets the distinct impression that he is not exactly excited about it.

Along with these little bits of weirdness, he starts envisioning a hit man (Matt Turek) after him (supposedly hired by his wife who, as we see, gets the idea from doing crossword puzzles; question is, is the puzzle his delusion, or hers?), two business men who hide in the house, a silent watcher with a thick head scarf over her face, a radio dj that talks directly to him in his car, and a couple of times he even sees himself laughing at him and taking physical control of a situation. His most frequent vision is a woman (Malina Germanova) who speaks only in Russian (with English subtitles, but he understands her and answers in English) and will only answer questions, between demanding he run out and buy her cigarettes. It is during this exchange that the viewer starts to realize the extent of his damage, as he keeps pleadingly asking her, “What am I supposed to do?” And then, of course, he’s convinced he’s being watched, in one of the few funny dialog moments that leads into a tense scene.

There are goofy moments here and there that could easily be snipped, such as he singing a nonsensical vagina-referenced song during an extended, unedited close-up shot of him driving for those cigarettes. This reminds me of a similar shot of the Doug character in Ding Dong Dead; it’s definitely the same car, too, by the “grey” alien figurehead on the dashboard.

Speaking of Creepersin-isms, there are some stylistic choices that are reminiscent of his excellent Frankenstein film here, such as someone talking another language with subtitles (in F, it was the voice played backwards) or just nonsense (as an open box does here) without any reference, but in both cases, the protagonist understanding and responding normally. I actually like this gimmick, but hope he doesn’t overdo it in the future. And as for the filming itself, Gary Griffith does an outstanding job of cinematography (or as it is put in the credits here, “shot, edit and manipulation”).

[Ariauna Albright in the early 1990s – photo © RBF]

Creepersin does well to elicit the right emotions from the audience, and though he does a bit of scenery chewing here and there, his inexperience as an actor works for him as the clueless and frightened “he.” Albright absolutely shines as his long-suffering wife, her own anger and resentment usually held just below the surface. Despite the minimal dialog through the film, she is clear in her state of anxiety through her face and body motions. She really should be doing larger films (this being said though this is sadly the first of her in action I’ve seen, despite her long list of indie horror flicks).

There is an interesting 13.5 minute short on the “making of,” with Creep, Turek, and Griffith, who tell anecdotes of the filming. But the most attention-grabbing for me, in a bemused way, was how both Turek and Griffith say Creep’s real name, which is overdubbed by Creep himself saying, in a deep and creaky voice, “Creeeeep.” Of course, it’s easy enough to lip read that they’re actually saying [CREEEEEP]. There are also trailers to some of Creep’s releases.

In the solo director’s commentary, Creep describes in loving detail how the house used for this shoot was not only his home at the time, with his wife/producer Nikki Wall (who also plays one of the voices, as she did in Frankenstein) and their kids, but it’s where he grew up in Cypress, California. The house was also used in Ding Dong Dead and Peeper Blog (they have since moved to Burbank). It takes place at Christmas time (or, as “the wife” insists in the film for an unexplained reason, Xmas), and actually was filmed in December 2008, after a three-week pre-production, yet the house is full of Creepersin’s family horror memorabilia, making it look more like Halloween; this isn’t a complaint, just an amused observation…heck, I’ve had my share of posters, imitation skulls and monster models on my shelves during my day.

Creep goes on to point out continuity errors that would most likely be missed, like while he’s standing outside observing his neighbor’s (real) Christm…Xmas decorations, comparing it to his own, the audience can see the silhouette of his son in the upstairs window watching the filming. I love the humanity of that kind of thing, when a director not only admits to the flaws in his own films, but actually embraces them, as he should. It was also brave of Creep to admit that, “Watching it was harder than making it.”




Peeping Blog
Written and directed by Creep Creepersin
MVD Visual, 2011
75 minutes (bonus: 30 min), USD $14.95
creepersinfilms.com
MVDvisual.com

Let me start off by congratulating Creep for this film winning a Jury Award at the 2010 Polly Staffle Grindhouse Fest (aka Pollygrind), in Las Vegas.

That being said, lets discuss the film…

Didja ever see the Family Guy where Peter wins the Golden Ticket and runs home, tripping on the sidewalk in front of his house, and he sits there for a good minute or two holding his knee in pain, going “Oooo, ahhh”? Well, if you found that tiresome, you may want to hesitate before viewing this. Personally, I found that particular scene hysterical, even after numerous viewings.

After a brief intro where the unnamed protagonist (whom I shall refer to as the Peeper) creates a stalker blog site online (looks like Blogger to me, home of this very review), we are introduced to a scene that is one continuous shot that lasts for nearly 20 minutes. Filmed on digicam in the Peeper’s car (from the alien head on the dashboard, it’s obviously Creep’s car in real life, which was also used in he and Ding Dong Dead mounted on the dashboard, it follows another car (probably also belonging to the Creepersin clan, judging by the pirate skull head decal on the back window; perhaps Nikki Wall’s?) into a mini-mall full of chain stores. We then sit and watch the stalker’s prey (I’ll call her the Peepee…er, let’s make that Peeped), played by Ariauna Albright. She stops into a shop (won’t say the name, only that it is probably a Seattle First-Nations’ word for “bitter coffee”) and we watch sits at an outside table as she drinks her cup and talks to someone outside the camera range (perhaps a real-life fan?). After finishing the drink, she walks back to her car and we follow her out of the lot. Through all this, the only sound is the Peeper’s breathing and some minor ambient noise filtering through the car window.

That is one of the cool aspects of this film, that all the audience gets to see and hear is what the Peeper sees and hears through the very camera he’s using to stalk (hey, saves on having a camera and sound crew, too; this must be one of his lowest budget efforts yet).

The next extended shot is of the Peeper cooking what looks like either a hot pocket or burrito in a nuker (aka microwave oven), and we watch him eat it in extreme close-up (lifting a home-made full-face mask to do so). Yes, once again, a Creeper film where we get to watch someone eat a meal by themselves. He’s consistent, I must say, though I’m grateful we don’t watch anyone brush his or her teeth again. The following shot is as the Peeper hides behind a coat rack and the Peeped walks into a very white-motifed living room. She also nukes her food and eats it alone, perhaps a commentary on their mutual loneliness? A lot of Creepersin’s characters are lonely, even when they are with someone (such as in he). It’s then the audience becomes aware that the plate she is using has the same design as the one he used, and he’s inside her apartment. How he got there is unexplained, and why she can’t see him standing behind a coat rack even though she walks directly past it a number of times is, I guess, a suspension of disbelief. Meanwhile, he watches her sit on the couch in front of the television while eating. When she steps out of the room, he runs out to smell her knee-high boot, and then runs back to behind the coat rack.

After a phone call, the Peeped leaves and the masked Peeper walks around the apartment and into her bedroom, opening drawers, smelling intimate objects, and laying down on her bed. He’s in his usual spot when she arrives back, but she is not alone. Her sister (I’ll call her Sister, played by indie scream queen Elissa Dowling), who has just had a big fight with her boyfriend, is with her. Sister is invited to stay while the Peeped she goes out to work.

When the Sister steps out for a ciggy-butt, the Peeper walks around the apartment, putting down the camera to smell the Sister’s jacket. And, of course, the Sister comes back sooner than the Peeper expects. At that moment, things pick up more than a notch. Also, this is the point where I stop describing the plot (didn’t think I’d tell ya the whole story now, didja?).

If I had to describe this film in single words, what comes to mind is “dreary” and “humorless.” In fact, this is the least pleasing Creepersin release I’ve seen to date. With minimal editing, dialog, or any pleasantry whatsoever, it is a difficult show to watch, and it is all one chapter on the DVD, so you cannot jump to another scene. While not torture porn per se, such as the Saw or Hostel films, the violence of misogyny, both internalized and acted upon, makes this more than uncomfortable and claustrophobic. By putting the audience inside the camera with him, we are equally peeping voyeurs as well. For this reason, I think this is my least favorite of Creepersin’s work that I’ve seen to date. I’m not saying it’s badly done, and cinema violence is not something that I’ve shied away from in the past, but I was prickly watching this to its conclusion. Perhaps that’s the point? If so, then it is effective, and therefore not a bad film, just uneasy.

During an interview on the extras, Creep comments that Ariauna wanted to do a project where she was victimized because during all the years of her making indie horror films, she’s never been in that situation. Apparently, there was no script (despite Ariauna wanting one) to Peeping Blog, all of the dialog being spontaneous. Creepersin also goes to great lengths to show that the mask worn by the Peeper is not the same one worn by the imaginary he in he. Making masks, by the way, is one of Creepersin’s hobbies, he explains in a different film’s commentary.

Other than the trailer, another bonus feature is a 21-minute behind the scenes – err – documentary? Ariauna and Elissa lounge around the living room between shooting, and Ariauna comments on the hardness of a dildo she is smacked with in the film by the Peeper. That takes up a couple of minutes, and the rest of it is a very shaky camera following Ariauna around a Ralph’s supermarket (she even looks directly into it and smiles at one point as she passes by). Most of the image, however, is of the shelves, the ceiling, or Creeper’s thumb over the lens. Not the most exciting footage. Then they both get into their respective cars, and we watch as Ariauna sits in hers for a while (well, actually, we get to see the back of her car; is that the sound of Creeper’s real impatience I hear during this?), and then takes off. While the camera follows her out of the lot, she makes a left and the car with the camera makes a right. We follow along a few blocks until we get to the house Creepersin grew up in, where they filmed both he and Ding Dong Dead.

While this feels like a one-day project from inception to completion, it is at the least effective, even though I was turned off by the ending. And yet, I still look forward to more work by Creepersin.

DVD Reviews: Two by Creep Creepersin: Ding Dong Dead and Corporate Cutthroat Massacre

Text © Richard Gary / FFanzeen, 2011
Images from the Internet

I was pretty blown away from writer / producer / director Creep Creepersin’s Frankenstein, which was reviewed earlier on the FFanzeen blog. So, I was grateful to get the chance to review a couple more of his indie, shot-on-digicam releases. The reason I put these two together is that they were filmed bam-bam-bam, and have some overlapping features, such as being comedy mass murders, and they both contain Elina Madison.



Ding Dong Dead
Directed by Creep Creepersin
MVD Visual, 2009/2010
70 minutes (bonus: 9 min), USD $14.95
creepersinfilms.com
MVDvisual.com

In the commentary, Creep posits that this has been his most “funnist” film to make. It’s also kind of silly, actually. The premise is the story about Doug, a guy who is hanging on by just a thread on many levels. He is targeted for pranks by a gang of beautiful “Mean Girls” after he calls the cops on them for hanging around his neighborhood and being a nuisance. Their revenge on him? Well, they, keep ringing his doorbell and running away (hey, even Groucho mentions this practice in an early Marx Bros. film). Apparently, it’s called ding dong ditching. But they ring this doorbell one too many times, and after a misunderstanding, this escalates until the story lives up to its title.

While other films are referenced by Creep during the commentary as influences, possibly the one it comes closest to it – and is not mentioned – is Peckinpaw’s amazing Straw Dogs (mousetraps included… hmmm wonder if it’s available on DVD…).

Luke Y. Thompson stars as Doug, the main character of the film, playing him with just the right amount of pathos, hopelessness, and anger. Creep lights him mostly in a blue hue, reflecting his life. Doug’s running diatribe during a long driving scene, complaining about other drivers and pedestrians, is telling (though I admit to doing that myself). He may occasionally walk kinda funny, but it’s easy enough to put that in as part of the character. With loud shirts and a short temper, the film starts off with him losing his job (overslept) with few future prospects, or the will to do anything about it. Doug lives a life of both inertia and hostility, living alone, with his mother being the only one who phones. A long clip of Doug brushing his teeth (seemingly a Creep signage) perhaps shows his loneliness, as it did in another of his films, Creepersin’s Frankenstein.

Doug has a crush on his neighbor across the street, played as an extended cameo by Elina Madison, who also stars in Creepersin’s Corporate Cutthroat Massacre (reviewed directly below). He imagines himself being suave and turning her head, but in reality he’s a shy, fearful man. Besides, she’s too distracted by the loss of her husband who was killed in action. Just one more frustration for Doug to help build up his anger.

And the pranks by the mean girls (all of whose names reflect the doorbell practice, such as D.D. Diane, D.D. Debbie, D.D. Dana, and my favorite, D.D. DeeDee) are just what push him over the edge into insanity, which leads to an obvious conclusion, well at least to someone who watches a lot of crime dramas.

It’s hard to feel any sympathy for any of the characters, as they are just plain nasty. The gang gets knocked off one by one by various methods; however, I thought the fate of the leader of the D.D.s was a bit much, even for the now clearly insane Doug (you know he’s nuts because he keep referring to himself in third person, such as “Doug is going to war” or “Doug likes to play games.”). While all the other assassinations are of the moment, her fate is more deliberate, which seems out of character to me.

There are some really nice shots in the film, two of my favorites being Doug sitting in his living room chair watching television while the girl gang view him through a big picture window behind him. It reminded me the Tall Man standing over Mike’s bed in Phantasm (in my mind I hear: “We’ve been waiting to ring your doorbell…boy!”). Another great shot is as Doug is walking past the kitchen door, and one of the gang is standing in the shadows of that room, unnoticed by the dull-witted Doug.

The locale for this film is the same house as in he (i.e., Creep’s childhood home in Cypress, California; review to follow. No, I’m not that observant about the house, but Creep mentions it in the commentary (in-between near-constant throat-clearings; perhaps time to put down the ciggy-butts the listener can hear you lighting up a few times?). There are actually two commentaries, one by Creep and one with Creep and star Luke. Both keep up the interest on the filmmaking process with anecdotes, and the story of how Luke met his real-life girlfriend, one of the D.D.s, is pretty cool, since the first time they met was her death scene; supposedly she was genuinely scared of him. Now they live together. Nice. If you visit, though, be sure to knock.



Corporate Cutthroat Massacre
Directed by Creep Creepersin
MVD Visual, 2009
70 minutes (33 min bonus), USD $14.95
creepersinfilms.com
MVDvisual.com

This near-bloodless black comedy slasher film is based on a 17 minute short co-written by Tyger Torrez and Elina Madison, the later of whom plays the same lead character in both (the original short is included here, in the extras).

The original, The Late Shift, is strong and never lets up, hardly a comedy. And while there are elements in the earlier version I find superior to the full lengther (e.g., revolving around the Rusty/Crusty character), Creep did a fine job filling out the story into a feature. He adds more characters, more plot lines, and elongates some scenes, usually with success.

In his commentary…hell, even on the box, Creep mentions how much his additional material was inspired by the US version of The Office, of which he and his partner/wife, Nikki Wall (listed as Mrs. Creepersin on some of his films) are fans. He even declares which characters in this film are based on which ones in the show (some are pretty obvious).

Elina Madison plays Brandy Babcock (spelled Brandi in the short), a hard-nosed boss who states firmly that she “expects perfection” from her employees (“Is that so much to ask?” she further queries, rhetorically). The company she works for is going down the tubes, and she has to fire two people, so she makes her handful of fuck-up employees stay after hours and do sales reports until she decides who stays and who gets axed. Elina, who played the unrequited love neighbor in Ding Dong Dead, handles her character here chillingly well. Creepersin gives her a more human side than is presented in the short, which is a nice touch, though I thought that scene should have been earlier in the film; without giving anything away, before the scene where she shouts, “Will someone answer that phone!” When you see the entire film, you’ll understand. The only nit-pick I have about Elina is, in this film, she tends to add an extra “ah” vowel at the end of some words to show disgust, which is distracting (“What are you doing-gah?” “Get back to work-kah”). Perhaps it’s a California thing? I notice Penny does that on Big Bang Theory, as well.

As for the employees, there’s the married couple who want to go home and fool around, the alcoholic looking for her next drink, the two screwing in the copy room, and Bernie, the smartass (though not expressed, I’m guessing based somewhat on the Dwight character). One by one (or two-by-two in some cases), they start to mysteriously disappear. The name of the film should somewhat answer any curiosity.

Creepersin definitely has some auteur moments. While no one eat breakfast or brushes their teeth at length here, as in other films of his, there is a long unbroken one-shot of Elina putting on a fresh layer of make-up in a bathroom mirror.

The ending is a nice twist and handled well in both short and long versions. The whole The Office homage is a bit overdone, including the shaky camera, but just taking this film for what it is, it’s a good effort by the extremely prolific Creepster. Each of his films usually take two-three days to shoot, so adding pre- and post-productions, he could conceivably do a film a month. I know since seeing these two films and having reviewed another, I’ve already received another. And I’m happy about that.

There are two making of shorts in the Extra section, the first of which is a pretty extraneous one with short interviews with various cast members. Much of what is said by Creep and actor Charlie Vaughn had already been said in the commentary, so it feels redundant. The second short, obviously shot the same time as the first, is a bit more interesting that has them all talking about their own jobs from hell.

The first film-length commentary is Creep by himself, and he does an excellent job getting the viewer into what was happening on the set at the time of the scene, or what technical issues were behind others. In the second commentary, Creep is joined by Vaughn, who plays the Dwight-ish ne’er-do-well Bernie. He is good in the film, but I’m not sure why he is on the comment track, other than being a friend of Creep. Personally, I would have liked to have Creep joined by either Elina (first choice) or Tyger Torrez (second), as she was the executive producer of both films, and Torrez was the original director; it would have been interesting to compare notes on the shoot, especially as there are a couple of scenes where Creep actually used the footage from the short (which he verbally acknowledges).

For the kinds of films Creepersin makes, he has a keen eye and a way of telling a story. He also consistently gets some good work out of his actors. Sure there are continuity issues, which he is willing to address in commentaries, unintentional cameos in reflections, and the like, but one thing I learned from working as an usher in a cinema, no matter what the budget, there is no such thing as a perfect movie in that way. Every film contains some errors. Now, I’m going to watch Creepersin’s Peeping Blog, which will be reviewed here anon with another of his films, he.

DVD Review: “Truth or Dare: A Critical Madness”

Text © Robert Barry Francos/FFanzeen, 2010
Images from the Internet

Truth or Dare: A Critical Madness
Directed, and written by Tim Ritter
Sub Rosa Studios, 1986
87 minutes, USD $9.95
SRSCinema.com
MVDvisual.com

Around the time VCRs came into fashion during the early to mid-1980s, the top two sellers / renters at video stores were porn and horror. This opened up a whole new genre of cinema, the made-for-video release. Most of the time these were shot on low budget (making some of Roger Corman’s films look expansive), on inferior quality stock, and with actors who were, well, lets just say not exactly the Meryl Streep caliber.

Director Tim Ritter was 18 or 19 when he directed this film, shot entirely on 16mm, giving it a grainy, ‘70s television feel (the main character driving a ’77 Firebird helps with that image; I kept expecting Dolemite to exit the car). The Chicago company that helped finance the film tried to take it away from him when they found out his age, but with a lawsuit, he retained custody. In the meanwhile, they undermined him at every turn, by changing plot points, actors, and even core storyline on second string shooting, making this an inconsistent mess as far as continuity, so the viewer must go beyond suspension of disbelief, and enter a land of no limits, to the level of Gilligan’s Island. A well-discussed point is that the main villain (there is no mystery on who the killer is from the first scene) keeps coming up with weapons out of nowhere, including machine guns, a (very fake looking) mace, a machete, and a large bolt-cutter.

Okay, that being said, if one is willing to accept the film for what it is and the period it was birthed, this is a fun popcorn-chomper. It really is a time capsule when the rules for straight-to-video product had not yet been written, and anything was possible. For this subgenre at that time, Truth or Dare is a fun ride almost because of the sheer ridiculousness of it all, and I do not mean this as a put-down at all. It is what it is, and this film is no better or worse than, say, 1978’s The Tool Box Murders (sans Pamelyn Ferdin, of course).

Lead nutcase Mike Strauber, acted at first as nerdy and rising to full insanity, is played by John Brace, whose previous credit is as a member of the Burt Reynolds’ Playhouse in Jupiter, Florida (near where this film was shot). His only other credit listed is also from 1986, which is an appearance on Cheers. Brace does some serious scenery chewing, but he manages to be one of the more professional actors in the picture; though I wonder how much he was actually there since during the last half he is wearing a full-face mask made of copper (wouldn’t that get really hot in Florida?) and his body shape and hair changes often as his character is obviously being played by stunt people.

Most of the cast is amazingly amateurish, in a fun way, though. Raymond Carbone plays a wild police detective named Rosenberg who is obviously from the Chicago area (and a real ex-cop), Terence Andreucci plays the comic relief cop who is way too old and physically stiff for his part (it’s fun watching him try to crouch behind, say, a small rider mower), and Kerry Ellen Walker portrays a baffling hitchhiker (though her brief role soon becomes clear) who was obviously hired more for her cleavage, boxy figure, and big hair then for her acting talent (this is her only credit). And practically the entire Duff family makes an appearance in various roles (perhaps since the film was cast by Priscilla Duff?). I was especially laughing at the “teen punks” who were obviously in their overweight 30s. Then there is the wonderfully named actor Asbestos Felt, one of the only people in this film that has an upcoming credit.

The only on-camera cast-person who had a somewhat healthy career is Mary Fanaro, who played Stauber’s wife, though her many credits seem to peter out in 1999. Of course, there is an infamous cameo by a then-tween A.J. McLean, who would go on to have silly facial hair in the Backstreet Boys.

Perhaps because of the time period before MTV was influencing everything with music video style editing, or maybe it was that Ritter just didn’t really know what he was doing, the edits are kept to a minimum, with shots lasting much longer than one would expect these days, lingering in imaginative ways. For example, when Mike leaves his house after finding his wife in bed with her boss (hey, the first shot is of them in action, so no spoiler alert needed here), he storms out with his wife standing at the door. The camera stays steady on her back and the door as he storms out of frame for a few seconds, and then his car appears backing out of the driveway into the street. With such slow editing and pacing, more drama is built up. Sure, Sergei Eisenstein said that editing equals action, but in these days of 2-second cuts, this works by doing the opposite.

Yes, there is gore and appliance special effect, and some of them are well done, though most of kind of cheesy, of course. Most of the action is done off camera, such that the viewer will see the knife come down, and then the next shot the limb is already cut in CSI full gore. It’s rare to actually see the action itself rather than the aftereffect, and yet it still retains a nice blood-to-gore ratio.

There are a lot of enjoyable holes in the story, my favorite – even more than the mysterious appearing weapons – being that the police have trouble finding Mike, even though he drives around in his ’77 Firebird, wearing a full-face copper mask (surely a nod to Jason and the Shape), with his blinkers on throughout the whole film. And I won’t even go into him shooting three people at a bus stop with a machine gun while traffic continues to flow around him on a busy street.

There are some obvious comedy set pieces, as well as the unintentional, such as the use of the text crawl under the image of the Sunnydale Mental Institution, or the complaining neighbor who rants, oblivious to Mike loading up on weapons from the car.

The music deserves some comment: wow. Tacky ‘80s synth (usually one bar repeated over and over) for the tense moments, lame piano twinkling (probably also the synth) for the softer emotional parts, and the final credit song, “Critical Madness,” which is just, well, bad (in a fun way), sung occasionally on key by Kay Reed with the Church of Our Savior Choir (I kid you not), from Chicago.

There are extras on this DVD. Trailers for this and the next two (shot on video) Truth or Dare sequels (fourth is currently in production) – they look more like porn S&M tapes – and an interesting Behind-the-Scenes documentary, which is essentially Ritter talking over clips, like a commentary. And speaking of commentaries, there is a full length one by Ritter and a couple of the actors. Now, don’t go expecting a shot-by-shot analysis, but the conversation is pretty interesting about getting funded, the lawsuit, and the like, to keep it from getting dull (like any of the Farrelly Brothers’ or Kevin Smith bore-fest talks).

The word classic has been bandied about for this film, and in its way, it is. It was one of the first of a new direct-to-video genre, and while it’s far from perfect, it’s more than adequate if one is willing to take the step to just accept it for what it is. I probably won’t be the only one to say this, but: go ahead a get this film… I dare you.

Graphic Violence in the Cinema: A Brief History

Text and photos © Robert Barry Francos
Videos from the Internet

The following is a paper I wrote for an expository writing class in 1992. Of course it is outdated, but I still like it, so I am posting it here. Note how many of these films mentioned either have been remade, or are about to be.

Violence in the cinema is hardly a new concept; its presence has been felt from the first narrative film.

In 1903, Edison and company released The Great Train Robbery, a western shoot-‘em-up involving, naturally, the robbing of a train. What was interesting in a social context was the last scene in the single-reel film (approximately 12 minutes). The shot opened up on a waist-high profile of one of the robbers. He faces the camera, pulled out a pistol, and fired directly at the camera, hence the “audience.” The concept of the cinema was so new, what reportedly occurred was that members of the audience invariably ducked, and some even fainted.
The Great Train Robbery clip: start at 4:05

Graphic violence came to light in 1929, when Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel released La Chien Andalou. In s scene toward the beginning of the film, a man approached a woman from behind. The action is inter-cut between the man and the woman, and the moon that is slit by a cloud. Mirroring this, the man proceeds to slice the woman’s eyeball with a straight razor in extreme close-up. She is intact in the next scene, but the surrealistic film is shocking, even to this day.
La Chien Andalou trailer:

With the advent of the Hayes Commission (an internal morals board created in the early 1930s led by the Postmaster General as a reaction to the response by religious and citizens groups to the violent gangster films of the period, such as Little Caesar, Public Enemy, and especially Scarface), Hollywood was reined in while the rest of the world continued to show violence in a relatively graphic nature. An example would be the samurai films of Akira Kaurasowa, like Throne of Blood (based on Macbeth), The Seven Samurai, and Yojimbo.
Throne of Blood trailer:

In the United States, violence once again took a tack to the graphic extreme in the late 1950s when particular film companies no longer agreed to bring their films to the mainstream Board. The maverick filmmakers whose production companies were not affiliated with the Hollywood “machine” made these. The leaders of this movement were Samuel Z. Arkoff (producer) and Roger Corman (director), who created their own company, titled American International Pictures. They became a film factory, creaking out “B” pictures by the dozens each year, sometimes filming them in less than a week (1).

Herschell Gordon Lewis
In the field of graphically violent films, the “grandfather” of this genre was a real estate agent in Ft. Lauderdale named Herschell Gordon Lewis. With an extremely minimal budget, he co-produced (with David Friedman) and directed a film titled Blood Feast (1964), which contained no acting talent to speak of (though two Playboy centerfold models were featured), little, if nonsensical plot, and many body parts torn from their host (leg, arm, tongue, scalp). The film was distributed to second-=run theaters, drive-in, and art houses. It sold out wherever it played and made a lot of money. His follow-up films in the 1960s included The Gore-Gore Girls, The Wizard of Gore, Color Me Blood Red and 2,000 Maniacs, the latter of which is considered a classic to genre fans. Unknowingly, Lewis has single-handedly created a new subgenre, the gore film, a term taken form his films.
Blood Feast trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ2t0et8wWc

Producer Dave Friedman and star Mal Arnold, Blood Feast
The gore genre had laid its foundations. It did not really pick up momentum until the end of the decade and through the beginning of the next. At that time, there were three seminal films that appeared from unknown filmmakers that helped project the independent production field further into the public’s eye.

Kyra Schon, littlest zombie (see image behind), The Night of the Living Dead
The first release was filmed in black-and-white due to its budget, and was produced and shot in a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2). Directed by George A. Romero, who had previously worked on industrial films until this production, Night of the Living Dead was released to a startled, yet receptive audience in 1968. The story of flesh-eating zombies was loosely based on the classic Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend (3). Although it cost a mere $60,000 to produce, the film has made millions of dollars and is still shown regularly in revival houses, midnight shows, and on college campuses.
Night of the Living Dead trailer

Gunnar "Leatherface" Hansen, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The second film to produce a profound effect on the newly emerging genre was directed by yet another unknown named Tobe Hooper. His film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, actually shows very little blood, but it is astonishingly brutal in its implied violence. For once, the terrorizing was not by ghosts, zombies, or other supernatural means and beings, but rather by an everyfamily. It was also shocking because it was based (again, loosely) on a real-life incident perpetrated by Edward Gein. In Minnesota, during the mid-1950s, Gein killed an unknown number of people, dug up graves, used human leather (including a “face mask”), and participated in cannibalism. (4) As with Night of the Living Dead, this film was at first a curiosity, and then became a cult favorite.
Texas Chain Saw Massacre trailer:

David Hess, Last House on the Left
The last of the three films of this growth period was not as popular as the previous two, and practically disappeared until video made its appearance (released first in an edited version and eventually uncut, pun not intended). Still the film had enough of an effect to make a dent in the genre and create an advertising slogan that is still famous: “To keep from fainting, repeat to yourself, ‘It’s only a movie… it’s only a movie…’.” Although it too was claimed to be based on a true incident, Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left was actually founded on Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring. In this story, two teen girls are kidnapped and brutally killed by a trio of escaped “lunatics” (one being a woman) who, in turn, are butchered for revenge by the parents of one of the victims (a morality tale).
Last House on the Left trailer:

The latter two of these “reality-based” films set a precedent that would start a brand new subgenre, which is described below.

John Carpenter, the director of Halloween, took the serial killer to a new dimension of nearly mythic proportions. His assassin, The Shape (nee Michael Myers), could be wounded, but could not be killed (for, as the studio learned, if the killer does there could be no sequels). The film kick started the subgenre known as slasher films, the basic premise of which is as follows: a group, usually teens, gather at a physically restrictive space (e.g., a house, camp, island), participate in sexual activity, and then die in gruesome and graphic manners (arrows, hatchets, machetes, etc.). The killer is eventually “stopped” by a female or child-like figure (innocence triumphant).
Halloween trailer:

The unstoppable killer was further extended into the psyche with a new and usurping slaughterer, Jason Voorhees (quickly shortened to just Jason), the hockey mask wearing, machete-bearing “monster”) in the Friday, the 13th series. (5)
Friday, the 13th trailer:

Occasionally, the major studios would put their “toe in the water” and produce a film with excessive violence. Some of these included Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1968), Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971), and Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver (1975). The leading auteur director of mainstream gore of this period was Sam Peckinpaw. He came to prominence in 1968 with The Wild Bunch, a western shoot-em-up to the extreme. Thousands of bullets flew and people died with blood literally spraying out of their wounds, usually in slow motion. (6) Peckinpaw’s other films, such as Straw Dogs, are artistically sound, yet excessively violent in some moments.
The Wild Bunch trailer:

Most of the mainstream films that approached the violent genre were morality tales, showing the results of living an “evil” existence outside the status quo. With rare exceptions, most of the larger budget films tended to place the violence during the climatic conclusions, whereas the independent releases were usually increasingly relentless throughout.

What made the independent films of this genre so successful was catering to its audience (demographically teenage/young adult males), pushing ever further the barriers of taste and sensibilities than had previously been cinematographically tried, enticing the audience with “what will they try next?” While the studios were still mostly reined by the fading system, the freewheeling indies went for the “juggler” (pun intended) by not worrying about “art” and star power, being more character (villain) driven, and using that money for effects.

Eventually, in the 1980s, major studio started to catch on to the financial possibilities of the gore and “splatter” genres. They entered the foray with easy, careful steps, which would eventually be coined somewhere as “sequelities.” Halloween II was followed by Halloween III (7), as were Friday, the 13th II (8) through Friday, the 13th VII. (9)

During this phase in the 1980s, while reviewing one of the Friday, the 13th sequels on WNBC-TV local news in New York City, critic Pia Lindstrom asked why these kinds of trashy films keep being made. She went on to answer her own question by commenting that the film has made much more money than the recent Academy Award winner for Best Picture.

Paramount, one of the larger studios, struck out and released one of the most popular films of this genre, West Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1983). This was also quickly followed by a string of (connected) sequels, each marginally more of less financially successful than the previous productions. A segment of Entertainment Tonight, which was taped during the Second Annual Horror Awards on WABC-TV (also New York City) during 1991, Robert Englund (10) stated that most of the major studios released films of this nature through satellite subsidiaries to keep their distance (and reputation) from them, and yet used the money raised from the low budget, high income films to finance and make up for the losses incurred by expensive flops, such as Ishtar and Heaven’s Gate.
A Nightmare on Elm Street trailer:

As the motion picture industry increasingly moves both physically and spiritually away from Hollywood, the level of acceptance of these films is increasingly making its presence felt in the mainstream cinema. Proof of this is Silence of the Lambs, the 1991 Academy Award winner of many awards, including Best Picture. The film includes scenes of cannibalism and the shearing of human skin (Ed Gein writ large, indeed).
Silence of the Lamb trailer:

With this acceptance of graphic violence by mainstream America and Hollywood, as always there are the fringes of cinema, which is now presented in the field of the home video market. As the marketplace for the distribution of off-center films slowly dries up with theaters only showing single features, and with the closing of many art houses and drive-ins, the route many independent films now take is straight to the home via video. Companies like Full Moon Films (Puppet Master, Subspecies) and Tembre Productions (Abominations, Riot in Redneck County) are examples of the present leaders in the direct-home market.
Puppet Master trailer:

Markets and tastes change, and the mass media follows. There will, however, always be people on the fringes of the masses, whose tastes need to be catered to by some means. As video is now reliable and handy, those tastes are being met, and all is happy in the imaginary land of adrenalin, cinematic fear, and especially violence.

Footnotes:
1. Little Shop of Horrors and The Terror, for example. In the first case, Roger Corman learned that a set from another film would be up for a week, so he had the film written in four days and then shot it in 2-1/2 days. Rumor was that Corman had use of another set for a week, and of actor Boris Karloff, so he told his art department if they could come up with a good “one-sheet” poster, he’d make a film using the set and the actor. The poster is arguably the best product of this endeavor, being a close-up of Karloff’s face made up of writing bodies, though the film itself made no sense whatsoever. Coincidentally, both of these films had Jack Nicholson as a principle.
2. Whose nickname was “City of the Living Dead.”
3. Also based on this book were the films The Last Man on Earth (1956) and The Omega Man, respectively starring Vincent Price and Charlton Heston.
4. Other films based on this case include Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and Deranged (1973).
5. In the first film of the series, it was actually Jason’s mother who was doing the killing, and in the fourth sequel, a teenager who was possessed by the “evil spirit” of Jason. Jason was “revived” by lightening in the sixth film in the series.
6. In their television show, the group Monty Python’s Flying Circus did a hysterical spoof of Peckinpaw’s style of filmmaking, called “The Tea Set,” in which a miss-tossed tennis racket cases blood and limbs to fly – in slow motion, of course.
7. The latter of which actually had nothing to do with the two previous releases. This precedent has been keenly applied in the video realm. Many so-called sequels are actually original films, but are titled as sequels to cash in on the previous film’s success. As examples, there are Curse II and The Howling II through The Howling VII, none of which are actually sequels of each other.
8. The first true appearance of Jason as a killer.
9. Eventually, the studios started using clumsy subnames to distinguish the films, such as Friday, the 13th V: A New Beginning or Friday, the 13th VII: Jason’s New York Adventure.
10. The actor who played popular Freddie Kruger, the central character/villain of the A Nightmare on Elm Street series.

Bibliography:
Naha, Ed. The Films of Roger Corman: Brilliance on a Budget, Third Edition (New York: Arco Publishing, Inc.), 1992.
Phantom of the Movies. The Phantom’s Ultimate Video Guide (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.), 1989.
Stanley, John. Revenge of the Creature Features Movie Guide, Third Edition (Pacifica, CA: Creatures At Large Press.), 1988.
Vale, V. and Andrea Juno. Number 10. Incredibly Strange Films (San Francisco: Re/Search Publications), 1986.