Devil

John Erick Dowdle | 2010 | 80 min | US

There was a time when an M. Night Shyamalan credit on a film was not a liability. No, really. I don't blame you for not remembering. It was quite a while ago. When Shyamalan's name appeared on screen during the trailers for Devil, however, audiences laughed and jeered loudly in theatres everywhere. Ouch.

It's a shame that his name is the reason so many people avoided Devil because this is exactly the kind of fun genre film that made him a golden boy in the first place. And of course, Shyamalan is only credited with the story. Poughkeepsie Tapes director John Erick Dowdle takes the reigns while veteran genre TV writer Brian Nelson handled the screenplay.

Devil is higher than high concept: five people are trapped in an elevator and one of them is the devil. Trouble afoot! Dumb, obviously, but stylish and fun, as well. The performances are solid, if none of them remarkable, and the movie benefits by clocking in at a brisk 80 minutes. Just right for this kind of one act supernatural thriller. Brian Nelson also wrote the screenplay for Hard Candy, so that gives you an idea of his skill in crafting and shifting a story with few characters in a small space and a single-sentence set-up.

It is not the calibre of The Poughkeepsie Tapes and doesn't pack anywhere near the same punch, but it is the kind of drive-in movie I expect Dowdle to keep making from now on to avoid being strung up in public. Devil may have lost some points at it's initial release because it isn't really of the scale or calibre to deserve a theatrical run. It's more like a "very special episode" of the Twilight Zone. Not necessarily what one is looking for when they shell out fifteen dollars for a ticket, though it would be a pleasant surprise to find when you're battling insomnia and watching Showcase at one AM. That sounds like the opposite of a recommendation, but I swear i enjoyed Devil.

Stir Crazy

I haven't been on my bike in five months because of this godforsaken city and it's record breaking winter.

Love Knife

Let's get some six degrees of Twitter action going on to hook Julia Roberts and this cat up with a date. What could go wrong? Godspeed, Mr. Miljenko Parserisas Bukovic.

Defending the Indefensible

The "Defending the Indefensible" film series starts tonight at the Toronto Underground Cinema. It is a great idea for a schlock fest: a title of questionable value is introduced by one who can eloquently convey why it is a hunk of junk. A defender of that title then takes the stage to explain why everyone is wrong and the work is, in fact, good. The stated format of the defense "must be grounded in some sort of close viewing of the film or in some sort of film theory." After the movie has been screened, the film's defender returns to the stage to say a few more words and take questions from the audience. As the programmers state, "For one of the first times ever in a public forum, a film writer will have to defend an unpopular viewpoint to the very public they have been writing for in the first place."

These have the potential to be great events. I do, however, wonder why the programmers have adopted the posture that disliking a film can be visceral while any defence of a movie has to be rooted in film theory, as though that is the only legitimate appreciation of film. I call bullshit on that. No one is ever called to explain that they don't like Shopgirl because the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axis aren't in sync. A viewer can simply say, "It's shit," which it is. So why does my enjoyment of Equilibrium have to be backed up by case studies and text books?

Regardless, I am sure the debates will be high spirited and a lot of fun. I just find their packaging of the debates make them sound stiffer than need be.

Tonight's selections are Alien: Resurrection, defended by Norman Wilner and hosted by John Semley, followed by Freddy Got Fingered. No word on the presenters for Freddy. Both are thoroughly awful movies, as far as I'm concerned, so I am curious to hear how anyone can back them up. At least Resurrection is pretty and the Underground's 35mm presentation should look great.

The ambitious series will run once a month through October and include such titles as MacGruber, The Butterfly Effect, Speed Racer, and Equilibrium (which is seriously a personal favourite of mine). All films which are destined to be classics, surely.

Admission is $10 per screening with a portion of the proceeds going to charities chosen by the the evening’s presenters. For schedule and more information check out Toronto Underground Cinema.

A Serbian Film

Srdjan Spasojevic | 2010 | 104 min | Serbia

Serbian Film is the new Necronomicon among horror dorks. I'm sure more total time has been spent tweeting and talking about the movie in hushed tones than has been spent by people actually viewing it. And like everyone who has flipped through the Necronomicon has learned, you can't believe the hype.

Broke and faded porn star Milos is approached by a mysterious wealthy benefactor who offers him scads of money to star in one more film. He is told the film will straddle the gap between obscenity and high art. Milos won't be be given a script, know the course of action, or meet his co-actors beforehand as part of the director's process and pursuit of stark realism. The finished film is to be delivered to a select, private clientele: aficionados of extreme cinema.

The first two thirds of Serbian Film are honestly chilling as Milos finds himself haplessly stumbling through a Lynch-ian porn feature surrounded by a stern men who appear to be mercenaries holding videocameras. Of course, we know exactly the kind of film Milos is going to find himself in. Imagining the lurid horror that surely takes place during the gaps in the narrative creates a jet-black mood in the earlier portions of the film. The entire uncomfortable experience hinges upon our imagination. So when Serbian Film heads to flashback territory and Milos begins walking the audience through those gaps step by step, the chill quickly dissipates. Lurid imagination is replaced with explicit sex and violence.

Serbian Film's claim to internet fame is that it ultimately leaves not a single act to the imagination. But where does that leave viewers after we strap in to passively witness a cataloguing of evil? Well, not quite bored, but certainly not interested. In fact, after all the build up, the reveals of the final act are predictable and often even cheesy. There are some awful, horrifying visuals, definitely, but when a narrative forces you to picture them an hour in advance, the actions on display simply feel like awkward retreads and the punch is reduced to a pat on the head.

Serbian Film is not as brutal as you've heard, but it is certainly sillier than you would expect. Perhaps it's more like Go Ask Alice than the Necronomicon? Serbian Film is far too brutal to appeal to viewers of regular horror fare and too cliched and clumsy for those who regularly wade into heavier horror. I don't know where this will ultimately sit. Maybe recommend it to your mom if she asks for a good starter snuff-gore movie.

Vigilante

William Lustig | 1983 | 90 min | US

There are many, many films of this era revolving around the topic of "this city has become a cesspool of crime; the legal system cannot protect us; ordinary citizens should start a-killin." Even the tagline for Vigilante is "You're Not Safe Anymore." This may be as close as we will ever come to Whitesploitation cinema.

Eddie Marino (Robert Forster) is a family man and factory worker in New York City. He loves his wife, his young son, his buds, an honest day of labour, and planning for the future. As soon as the talk of vacations with his wife starts, you know they are all doomed. Days later, Eddie's family is destroyed by a gang of thugs after a dispute over a ten dollar tank of gas. Understandable.

Eddie's coworker and friend Nick (Fred Williamson) floats the idea that he has a van, a gun, and a shit-ton of rage, so maybe they can start picking off gang members themselves? But no, Eddie isn't that kind of guy, the system works, et cetera. He trusts the authorities to deal with these career criminals. But when Eddie's court date rolls around, he witnesses a vulgar display of bribery and a suspended sentence for a killer in a bedazzled denim vest. He attacks the judge in a fit of righteous anger. No, Eddie! Luckily, this clears the way for the most interesting portion of the film. While Eddie tries to navigate a short prison prison stint for contempt, Nick and two other coworkers on the outside are climbing their way up the gang hierarchy using bats and dick kicking.

Once he is released from the clink, the boys welcome Nick and his new lust for street justice with open arms. What follows is a judgment-free depiction of serial assault and murder by the "good guys."

It's not best in class, but thanks to the gore-savy direction of William Lustig (of the Maniac and Maniac Cop films) and the yin and yang performances of Williamson and Forster, this is a satisfying offering of the subgenre. Thumbs up, take back the night, and so forth.

Tuesday Weld: Queen of the Druids

"During her childhood, Weld exhibited amazing clairvoyant gifts that quickly brought her to the attention of a concealed Druidic network of families, which Turner claims form the current Illuminati leadership. In this arena of behind-the-scenes world politics and ritual magic, Weld became a fast rising prodigy in the Illuminati, and at the youthful age of 15 was chosen as the new queen and high priestess of the Druids. The initiation rite that signalled her ascension into leadership was the plane crash that carried Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper to their deaths in February of 1958. According to Turner, the plane had been sabotaged by backers of Weld as part of this ritual which signifed her inauguration as Illuminati Queen and High Priestess."

The previous passage was excerpted from the article "Tiffany Overtakes Tuesday Weld" by Adam Gorightly and Douglas Hawes from the book Secret and Suppressed II published by Feral House.

The subject of the article, Jeffrey Turner, may be a man more familiar to you as one of the subjects of the documentary I Think We're Alone Now. In that feature Turner is portrayed as an unstable man with little in his life beyond his obsession with former pop star Tiffany.

While concentrating on theories regarding Tuesday Weld's influence in creating the Illuminati conspiracy known as the Summer of Love, the Gorightly and Hawes article also sheds greater light on Jeffrey Turner's supposed relationship with Tiffany, her role combating Weld's role in the Illuminati, and overcoming her own MK-ULTRA programming. Recommended reading! It just made me love Tuesday Weld all the more.

I Think We're Alone Now is now available on Netflix. Watch the trailer after the jump.

Things I Need

Double threat from Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold. What's classier than books filled with a bar set? Real books? Gedouddahere, Poindexter.

Wally Wood's Dirty Disney

I recently stumbled upon a monochrome 1970s print of Wally Wood's Disneyland Memorial Orgy piece available from dealer Steven Sclaroff. The original poster has been bootlegged high and low, including colour versions intended for black light and furniture-less apartments, but none of the older bootlegs come up very often.

Wally Wood was an artist for many, many comics, including EC horror titles and Mad Magazine. Wood originally illustrated Disneyland Memorial Orgy to appear in the pages of counterculture magazine The Realist before the publisher decided to print it as a poster, as well. Though Disney never took legal action against the original creators, they later sued one of the poster's bootleggers. Wally Wood himself long denied drawing the piece.

Land Ho

Today the Drawn and Quarterly blog published some landscape images from Zach Warton's forthcoming comic The Klondike. There's only a couple more months to wait for this beaut and my appetite has been sufficiently whet! More pages can be viewed here.

Another World We Have Yet To Conquer

Sad news concerning Trish Keenan of Broadcast.

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia

Julien Nitzberg | 2009 | 86 min | US

This is a documentary that makes Winter's Bone look like Oceans Eleven. Dancer and gasoline-enthusiast Jesco White has been the subject of both a prior documentary, The Dancing Outlaw, and a fantastic narrative feature, White Lightnin', but we've seen only a hint of his larger family until now. WWWWV is the film that shakes the family tree to see what falls out (spoiler: mostly pills).

Jesco still has a large presence in the documentary, but it's the women of his family who take centre stage this time. They are very gruff, very entertaining, and tell the story of not just the Whites, but the large number of disadvantaged living in West Virginia. A wealth of threats and drug annecdotes are tossed about as the Whites' explain how they have crept into the wider world of entertainment through their unique brand of dance. Their history is riddled violence and death, but music and dance are always a constant.

The county officials whose commentary is scattered throughout the film like to blame the welfare state and a perceived sense of entitlement on the part of the Whites as the cause of their dysfunction. However, repeated comments by the Whiles betray a total lack of agency felt by the family. Their dialogue is permeated with the conservative religious traditions of West Virginia. They believe they are cursed and continue to be punished for their sins. Where does such a deeply ingrained fatalist view leave a family? Snorting crushed Xanax in hospital rooms and hillbilly bar toilets as though they have no other choice, apparently.

It can be difficult to keep track of who is who and how they are related, but it doesn't really matter. The family is a legend and an archetype whose lifestyle has inspired and entranced musicians and friends. They are very charming in their self-destruction. Obviously the filmmaker was charmed as well, because WWWWV is a very romantic take on their lives.

The documentary ends on a hopeful note which feels out of place and slightly insincere. The feeling one is left with is not that they are going to pick themselves up and meet great success over the rest of their lives; it is that they are going to keep doing what they've been doing for generations and continue being a force in Boon Country. It is not the happy ending the text would like you to buy, but it is a fascinating tale nonetheless. Authentic outlaws are a rare breed. Watch the trailer after the jump.

Little Kvltists

Aaron's Top 11 Films of 2010

I will also readily admit to large gaps in my viewing this year, so this is really Best Movies of 2010 I Have Seen, With Glaring Omissions. Hopefully I will be filling those gaps over the coming week. Meek's Cuttoff and Our Day Will Come should be seeing wider release in the coming year. Now in no order. . .

Our Day Will Come (Roman Gavras)
Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
Winter's Bone (Debra Granik)
Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese)
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
Cyrus (Jay and Mark Duplass)
A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)
Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek)
The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)
Four Lions (Christopher Morris)
And honourable mention to a quiet little indie called:

Inception (Christopher Nolan)