Something Is Missing...

The first (of a whopping two) film criticism classes I ever took was a one-day-a-week English elective on French cinema. Though I didn’t quite relish the act of watching 3-hour romantic epics in the comfort of my university’s drab library, I did absorb something of an appreciation for moody Europeans and their innovation behind the camera. 7 years later, it’s somehow more rewarding to discover classic films without the confines of writing mini-essays.

Wait a minute--

Quick Plot: Attractive blue-eyed young ladies are disappearing in 1950s Paris, their bodies later washing up in the Seine sans facial skin. While the police remain woefully ignorant, we meet Professor Genessier, a surgeon on the cutting edge (ba-dom bom bom!) of Face/Off style transplants.

A cold man, Professor Genessier has some personal investment in honing his craft: his once-beautiful daughter Christianne had her face all but torn off in a tragic car accident. While the world--including her fiancee--mourn the faked death of Christianne, her father and his loyal secretary collect young women in attempt after attempt to find and maintain Christianne’s new look.

Filmed in the worldwide censorship-happy ‘50s, Eyes Without a Face is an eerie, disturbing, and ultimately quite sad little tale that is as effective as it is influential. A creepy score sets the mood and documentarian director George Franju plays with his camera to maximize effect. You’ll probably be able to predict the direction of most of the plot, but the story remains engrossing and beautiful and unsettling way.

High Points

The circus-like score is unsettling and neat, but the choice to silence it during the famous transplant scene is even more powerful

The entire physical design of Christianne is quite striking. With her slender frame, oversized sleeves, and blank mask, actress Edith Scob comes off like a porcelain doll sitting atop an Expressionist toy chest

Low Points

Though I was intrigued by the stoic guilt of Professor Genessier and sympathized with Christianne’s plight, the lack of central character (and third act emergence of psuedo-protagonists) keeps the film a tad cold to the viewer

Lessons Learned

Never, under any circumstances, get arrested for petty crime in Paris when a murderer is on the loose hunting young women who fit your exact profile. You never know when you’ll be put into a dangerous, irresponsibly run undercover operation that puts your life in danger

Always note the jewelry style of overly generous strangers

Just because you feed your cruelly caged dogs does not mean they don’t secretly want to eat you

Rent/Bury/Buy

One can easily watch Eyes Without a Face to learn a few early camera tricks and catch some inspiration for Michael Myers’ mask, but this haunting thriller also holds up as an engrossing view. Currently on Netflix’s Instant Watch, it’s a hearty recommendation for both classy cred and good old fashioned entertainment reasons. Watch it for culture and sadness.

Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! Bloggity!

Missed Bastille Day? There’s always alternative ways to celebrate France’s favorite summer holiday, especially when it comes to horror movies.

Prison Breaks

Since the Bastille was primarily used as a high security fortress, it makes perfect sense to kick back with, say, Stuart Gordon’s Fortress. As a bonus, it even stars a pseudo-French Christopher Lambert! Not into early 90s sci-fi horror? Zombies are the universal language for making a stand against society, so why not queue up an internationally friendly undead film set during a prison riot? Of course, I’m speaking of 1987’s John Saxon directed Zombie Death House. It’s the most holiday appropriate viewing since Santa Clause conquered the Martians.

Rich vs. Poor

Without royalty and peasants, there would be no cause for fireworks this 14th. How does horror celebrate the tragic beauty of class division? Generally, with the poor kicking the rich’s ass or better yet, eating them. Wes Craven’s The People Under the Stairs has a nice ghetto vengeance on oppressive slumlords plot, while George Romero’s still underrated Land of the Dead teaches the wealthy a fine--and final--lesson on oppressing the poor from a glass house. 

I Love a Parade

The French like to honor Bastille Day with a parade and thankfully, so does horror. Scariest parade ever? The coulrophobes among film fans will rightfully cite Killer Klowns From Outer Space, where the full-blown devastation of the titular villain invasion is revealed via ticker tape marching. Alternative watches? I suppose I Know What You Did Last Summer could suffice (especially since it’s so seasonal). Except it doesn’t have cotton candy. And it kind of sucks. 

War...What Is It Good For?

National change, societal fixings, and occasionally, good movies. Sadly I come up empty in identifying official French Revolution-set horror, but its American counterpart The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has a nice flashback colonial touch. Something more current? Choose your battle. Class of 1999 features good old fashioned gang warfare (and psychotic robot teachers, natch). Something more epic? Three films in and those werewolves and vampires still can’t get along in the Underworld series. For a simple wartime setting, there’s always the historical--if still 70 years past the original 1789 anniversary--Dead Birds, an eerie and incredibly well-cast (Michael Shannon, Henry Thomas, Patrick Fugit, plus more) ghost story set during the American Civil War.

National Pride

Perhaps it’s a resurgence of past mentality (this is the birthplace of the Grand Guignol, after all), but something in the Seine is causing France to produce some of the best--and most brutal--horror films of the decade. High Tension, Martyrs, and Inside are easy recommendations but to best capture the political spirit inherent in July 14th, check out Xavier Gens’ Frontier(s). Part torture porn and part backwoods horror, this 2007 film is set in a near future dystopia where a few petty criminals flee a rioting urban French society (get the connection?). Of course, this gory little slice also features evil Nazis, mutants, and slashed Achilles tendons, If that’s not revolutionary, what is?

It should be noted that I have not one drop of French blood in my veins, so if you have any of your own celebrations, add them in the comments section and wave your flag with pride. If it’s any good, I’ll even let you eat cake.

What's Great About The Good Son

There are few things I love more than modern trash. The fact that inappropriate and slightly offensive films like Orphan  can still be made in the era of enforced child labor laws makes me smile in ways that should frighten social workers.

Joseph Ruben’s The Good Son is like a delicious candy bar made from cocoa you know was picked and harvested by overworked 3rd world children who sleep 12 in a room and are too exhausted to cry.

Despite being a mainstream release that, at the time, starred the hottest child actor since Shirley Temple, The Good Son is pure B-movie material, an over-the-top mean-spirited Bad Seed takeoff created to shock.

Quick Plot:

Big-eyed 10 year old Mark (post-Huck, pre-hobbit) promises his cancer-ridden mother that he won’t let her die.

Cut to her funeral in the red-brown sands of Santa Fe.

Dad David Morse (who due to The David Morse Code, can only be cast as a douche or kind-hearted yet ineffectual supporting character, the latter which he embraces with a perm here) has to head to Japan to “close a deal,” the nature of which is never revealed but for some reason, lingers as ominous. Responsibly enough, he leaves his mourning son in the care of his estranged (or so it would seem, since the families haven’t seen one another in 10 years) brother, who lords over a stately Maine manor with wife, good son, spritely daughter, and ghost of their drowned baby boy.

We’ve met a lot of very dumb parents in cinema history, but have any quite matched the Evans in impressively low (for a golf score) IQ? When we meet Henry, the boy is sporting a creepy paper machee mask and punching his cousin at the dinner table. 

Two scenes later, he’s killing dogs, dropping a dummy from a bridge to simulate a 10-car pile-up, attempting to push kid sis headfirst in broken ice, and revealing the not-so-surprising fact that he is indeed responsible for kid brother’s death. In an age before Grand Theft Auto, where was this demon child letting off steam before the arrival of Mark?

The quickness to which Henry’s evil develops is on one hand alarming, on the other, expected from an 80 minute thriller that immediately introduces about 9 foreshadowed death traps. In their first playdate, Henry and Mark do the following:

-break windows in an abandoned factory

-climb a precarious 60 ft. high treehouse

-dance atop a deep stone well

-shoot homemade dart guns at cats

-hang out on a rocky cliff

Gee, I wonder if any of these locations and toys will come back into play.

The most important fact you will need to keep in mind watching The Good Son is that Macaulay Culkin was simply playing Kevin McAllister if that precocious 9-year old was never actually left Home Alone. He would still savor inflicting pain on others through crafty do-it-yourself  means; under coddling (and daft) parents, it would just be more obviously diagnosed as sociopathy.

This also brings me to my favorite The Good Son anecdote, newly discovered (thanks IMDB) and quickly rising the ranks of my all-time behind-the-scenes stories*. SPOILERS follow

So if you haven’t seen this movie, stop, cue it up on Instant Watch, and see it for yourself. Advertised as “one of the most shocking endings ever!” it delivers on so many inappropriate levels.

Anyway, now that you’ve witnessed The Best Ending of ALL TIME, here’s the great trivia behind it: Macaulay Culkin had to complete a part of his dramatic fatal fall sans stunt double. Scared and reluctant (because, you know...the kid was TEN), his parents promised him a BB gun upon completion of the stunt. 

A BB gun. For falling 30 feet on film.

If you’ve seen Henry’s tumble into sharp rocky cliffs, you know that young Mr. Culkin was probably shooting his eye out before the premiere.

Prior to the other night, I last saw The Good Son in a movie theater in 1993. The impression it left on me has lasted through my teens and twenties. Not that it ever actually scared me: if my long-lost cousin essentially threatened my life within two days of meeting him, I’d simply tattle. Though that would be sad if it meant no campily awesome film got made as a result.

Because I love trash.

Seriously. This began as another old-fashioned Doll’s House review, but within the first paragraph, I realized that I do indeed want to have this movie’s children. Its good sons, of course. 

Immediately after watching the film, I gave it a 5 star rating on Netflix.

Immediately after watching a very good movie the next day, I turned to my cats and said “That was really good. But it wasn’t as awesome as The Good Son.”

I don’t know quite how else to say it. The Good Son is fast, tacky, trashy and mean. It’s like a stolen sports car covered in candy corn. The only thing you can learn from it is to not raise a sociopath, to not share a bedroom with one, to not go ice skating with one, and ultimately, to pick up on EVERY SINGLE WARNING SIGN THAT YOUR CHILD IS EVIL.

So really, just watch the movie. With alcohol. Or alter a drinking game where instead of taking a sip at every blatantly evil thing Macaulay Culkin does onscreen, you slap your cheeks with your hands and scream at your television.

It will do you good.

For Those Bored With Stamps, Baseball Cards & Vintage Barbies

When considering the color of your parachute, I imagine there’s a fine shade between exterminator, MacGuyver, and sadistic murderer. Which profession pays the best probably depends on location and the general state of the economy.

And that brings us to 2009’s The Collector, a slick and soulless torture treat that should in no way be confused with the 1965 Terrence Stamp/Samantha Eggar classic of the same name.

Which you should really just go and watch right now. My feelings won't be hurt. Heck, leave a comment about what an underrated gem that film is and I'll buy you a hot dog!*

*Please note 'hot dogs' in Internet speak are defined as good intentions sent via mind waves.

Quick Plot:

A mumbling locksmith named Arkin installs new security bars on a country mansion, bringing home his pay to a bitchy wife who inconvenieintly enough, happens to be inexplicably in debt to loan sharks. To save her and his young daughter, Arkin agrees to break into the wealthy home and steal a ginormous dark crystal for The Wire’s Bunny Colvin.

Naturally, the plan goes awry when Arkin discovers every room has been booby trapped, each family member kidnapped, and all exits boarded up in record time.

The Collector is an efficient man not without a sense of humor. While he starts his trap design with subtle and effective invisible wires, each room gets progressively more ridiculous, slowly increasing to knife-dangling chandeliers and a den entirely carpeted by open bear traps. Give director Mark Dunstan some credit for following Chekhov’s rule of showing a gun in Act I; by Act III, all of the insanely overworked traps are tested and proven.

But is the movie any good? From a technical view, sure. The gore is gruesome. The action welll-staged. It’s as fine a film as Saw III with about the same amount of black spark, meaning The Collector is slick, cold, and about as empty in substance as an airy bag of Lay’s potato chips.

High Points

I kid about the mumbling of lead Josh Stewart, but at least the main character of Arkin is likable enough to draw our sympathy (my general main issue with the Saw franchise)

Low Points

It’s hard to really pinpoint what’s wrong with The Collector. The plot is singular but well-told. Performances are adequate. Ultimately all the elements are sleekly unified, but there’s njust nothing in or about The Collector to leave a single lasting memory

Lessons Learned

If you’re so concerned about securing your masion, perhaps you should be a tad more discrete about the fact that you’re immediately planning an extended vacation

Front-opening bras are useful for kitchen makeout sessions and quickie button-ups, but rather weak when it comes to actual chest support


Wealthy family men often collect gigantic jewels worthy of demonic chants or Jim Henson films

Little girls dig basket bears

Rent/Bury/Buy

For a modern theatrical horror release, The Collector is a surprisingly small little entry. A tthe same time, I can’t in any way say I personally enjoyed it or will plan on seeing the film ever again. For my personal taste, it was a tad too empty to register as anything mildly special. The DVD includes a commentary and (I think) featurette or two, so at least it’s packaged with care. If the premise interests you and Saw-style filming is your cup of grog, grab it. If the ugly execution of 21st century torture porn makes you feel old, skip it and eat a taco. Or better yet, do yourself some good and pick up a book. Might I recommend... 

Trust me. Have I ever done you wrong?

Like Beauty & the Beast, but with more killing

What happens in horror when common household goods get angry? Generally, really great things. For the audience. Observe:

The Refrigerator

Yes, this movie exists and yes, it’s fabulous. A young couple moves into a furnished Brooklyn apartment and find a vintage refrigerator-freezer welcoming them with a plate of cheese. Too good to be true? Naturally, as the titular appliance turns out to be a portal to hell (ironic, cause you know...refrigerators are cold). The fridge doesn’t do much in the way of menace, other than hiding your keys and occasionally closing back and forth on human bodies, but the film itself is quite a hoot. Plus, for extra bonus points, there’s a homicidal blender, house fan, and garbage can (that naturally kills by...closing back and forth on human limbs).\n\n

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

How, you might ask yourself, could one possibly make a monster out of that giant rectangle you snuggle atop every evening? Apparently, with very little talent and money. Make no mistake: Death Bed is a terrible, terrible film that barely can be called one. Characters never actually speak to each other, instead taking turns narrating their emotions. No relationships make any sense. And the bed, ahhhhh the bed. It eats. Should you dare lie down for a nap, expect to be sucked inside so that director George Barry can show off the film’s sole special effect: gooey yellow plasma dissolving whatever floats. It doesn't quite end there, as we learn that while Death Beds don't dream of electric sheep, they do fantasize about spinning newspaper reels that highlight their killing sprees on the cover. It's kind of adorable.

Tourist Trap

Though it’s the eerie mannequins and evil mannequin maker responsible for most of the terror in this underrated 1979 classic, Tourist Trap does open with some very angry living room furniture, including a Beauty and the Beast-esque armoire armed with an arsenal of weaponry. Beware self-closing windows, flying dishes, and of course, the occasional knife with the mind of its own.

The Mangler

Cynics would say The Mangler was most likely inspired by Stephen King’s need for a new swimming pool. We can imagine America’s most successful horror novelist gazing around the house, hungry for some inspiration and thinking “well, nobody’s ever done a killer washing machine before.” I’ll give him and director Mick Garris a little more credit for eventually ending up with The Mangler, mostly because for all the film’s failings, it does find some innovation in using not just your average Maytag. Set in an industrial laundromat that thirsts for the blood of virgins, The Mangler epitomizes the cheap messiness of '90s horror, for better and worse. And hey: a killer ice machine costars. Anyone else smell a spinoff?

Maximum Overdrive

In 1986, a comet hits the world, mechanical objects of all shapes and sizes go postal, and Stephen King does a whole lot of cocaine. The results of all three are oddly fabulous, as everything from arcade games to a drawbridge take their pent-up rage against all things human (and in the case of a toy car, canine). Sure, the main attraction and biggest baddies is the well-trained army of mack trucks that round up a ragtag band of survivors at a gas station, but we should never forget that for all its bad movieness, Maximum Overdrive does boast a few unique kills. Who knew playing arcade games could be so dangerous?

Final Destination

Technically, it's more of an Invisible Man version of the Grim Reaper that does most of the slaughtering in this modern franchise, but considering the fact that every installment featured an inanimate killer, I couldn't not include it on this list. Examine:

Part 1: Killer water spill, Ginsu knives, violent computer

Part 2: Naughty sink holds jerk hostage in a complicated series of events leading to his eventual death via fire escape. The stovetop serves as an accomplice.

Part 3: Frisky tanning beds

Part 4: Clumsy lawnmower, cheeky chair

Poltergeist

It was not my intention to include any form of satanic or demon possessed doll on this list, as that warrants an entire encyclopedia of films that can't even be touched here. So ignore, for a moment, the laughing clown-faced elephant in the room and instead consider the many tangible and typically household objects turned angry meanies: a swimming pool, bucket o' chicken, kitchen chair, braces (Part 2) and mirrors (Part 3). This house can't be clean if you're afraid to touch the vacuum!

I expect--and really, kind of hope--I’ve missed an entire pantry worth of violent appliance films. Share yours below...right after you shut down the power and dispose of all batteries.

Horrible Non-Horror! Cool As Ice

When I describe myself as a self-proclaimed “film snob with bad taste,” I’m being about as honest as I possibly can. There’s something to be enjoyed in misguided, miswritten, miscalculated and overall mistakes of cinema that takes on a weird level of satisfaction I can’t possibly explain. The only ones who can? Netflix, perhaps, as their crack team of analyzers predicted that if given the chance, I would award 4.5 out of 5 stars to a certain little cubic zirconia of a film called...

Yeah. I went there.

Quick Plot:
Big haired, puffy pants Johnny (you know who) hangs with his homeboys, driving neon-hued dirt bikes through town and earning the resentment and terror of older square white folks in the neighborhood. When one of the gang has some mechanical trouble, Johnny leads his friends to the Nice Part of Town where he immediately falls in love with an overachieving high school senior named Kathy (though he dubs her Cat, which confuses her poor non-feline owning mother).

But hold up homie! This KitKatt hottie has a secret even she don’t be knowin! Turns out, Pops Michael Gross is in the Witness Protection Program but once two bad boyz catch on to his identity, there be trouble in the hizouse. Kidnap-youngest-child trouble, yo.


I could go on, but you already know this is one of the best films ever made. Here are a few reasons why:


1. Because this is a W-A-C-K-Y movie, Ice and pals find Mae & Roscoe, the WACKIEST mechanics EVER, a married couple who finally prove that Pee-Wee Hermann did indeed come from somewhere. Between the candy-colored walls, Easter eggs on the table, oversized salt and pepper shakers, and audacity of Mae’s red hair, this kooky pair exist solely to make Vanilla Ice not look like the stupidest thing onscreen

2. In a further display of wackiness, Johnny’s pal enjoys a lunch sandwich composed of peanut butter, pickles, mustard, pineapple, and anchovies while waiting for Mae & Roscoe to fix his bike. Meanwhile, Johnny passes the time by, duh, dancing. Yup. No magazines or crochet needles here!


3. Johnny awakens his sleeping soon-to-be-first-date by dripping ice water on her lip. Isn’t this how you make your frenemies pee in their pajamas at slumber parties?

4. The amount of records that were scratched to death while making this movie rival the death toll of the American Civil War. It’s something of a tragedy


5. When being kissed, Johnny makes the noise I tend to release when eating a really good cheeseburger


6. The first date receives not one, but TWO musical montages wherein the young lovebirds prance around a construction site, play with a hose, drive a horse, ride a motorcycle, frolic in a grassy field, exchange hats, dance on a beach, make out, jog, and shake the wind out of their hair. Those Naked Gun kids were positively dull


7. Johnny wears shorts. A lot.

8. Johnny proves his literacy by spelling, in both rap and dialogue, actual words including G-O and O-U-T. Take that, high school dropout Renee Russo!


Also, there’s a lot of education to be found here. Observe:


Lessons Learned
The best way to flirt with a girl is probably not by knocking her off a horse and risking lifetime paralysis. Then again, that might not matter if your hair is 6” high, your chest mildly hairy, and your demeanor about as pleasant as a twenty year old jogging shoe stored inside a block of cheddar cheese


But seriously, why isn’t this girl dead?





Villains in pairs only come in tall and skinny and short and fat. Should you be a mesomorph of average height, consider an alternate career


If you’re a participant in the Witness Protection Program, appearing on the local news isn’t the best idea you’ve ever had


Along with that, one should probably write down the phone number to the Witness Protection Program and keep it handy in case of emergency. Or remember to call someone in the position of authority when two men who want you dead stop by your house to threaten the lives of your entire family. Much like chlamydia, ignoring the problem generally just makes it worse


The Winning Line
“Here’s one for the mother: Ugh!* Ugh ugh!*

*aggressive pelvic thrusting aimed at my mother


Rent/Bury/Buy
Long out of print, Cool As Ice is currently on Netflix’s Instant Watch and by golly, why are you still reading this review as opposed to slicking up your hair, popping open a New Coke and stuffing yourself with all the empty calories this movie has to offer? What’s wrong with you homie? You zonin? Finish making sex and get on this! Quit driving your horse, yup yup, check this, and homeboy this. What what?*

*So I’ve been reading The Exorcist and I should probably tell you that I occasionally black out, during which time my body seems to do things I don’t remember later. Did I say something out of character?