Frankenstein Shmankenstein

Wouldn’t Frankenstein’s monster make a great private detective? “Frankenstein no loose cannon!” “Frankenstein make them pay, pay with their lives!” “Frankenstien need to attend AA meeting since partner was killed in horrible way.”

Circus Devils

Robert Pollard (Guided by Voices, Boston Spaceships) and producer, multi-instrumentalist Tod Tobias’ side project straight from the DEPTHS OF HELL, Circus Devils. What David Lynch would sound like if he was fronting a prog-rock band. Spooky, sinister stuff, especially the first video, “Eye Razors” which looks like a public access show gone horribly wrong (wait, I guess that would describe most public access shows).

 

 

 

 

Edwige Fenech, Italian Horror Actress

October Movie Reviews: Lost Highway

Lost Highway (1997)

Director: David Lynch

(WARNING: Contains spoilers) Although not exactly a horror movie, David Lynch’s Lost Highway is without a doubt creepy and disturbing, and does have the underpinnings of that genre, but like some of Dario Argento’s films, specifically Susperia, it defies any sort of genre categorization. Perhaps his darkest movie, unrelentingly so, the film leaves so many questions on the minds of viewers as to its intentions.  Its ending is its beginning, the movie twisting in on itself like a Mobieus strip. And unlike most of his films, there is no redemption at its closing, its characters don’t emerge from the darkness for the better (think Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, even Inland Empire and Eraserhead to lesser extents). In this respect, it is the most terrifying of “horror movies” because there is no way out for the characters, nor is there one for the audience.

 When I first saw Lost Highway in the theaters I wasn’t immediately struck by it like other Lynch films. The images were astounding as usual, the music amazing, the pacing precise, but nothing stuck with me save a few amazing shots. But over the years it’s impression has grown on me; the themes of doppelgangers alternate worlds and questions of identity (very similar to it’s almost twin Mulholland Drive) are at once immersive and challenging because Lynch gives the audience no easy answers only more questions, the pieces of the puzzle never coming together exactly as you think they should.  Without going into a Freudian/psychological dissection of the movie (it’s been done enough certainly),  I will simply say that it’s amazing film, one that is indeed watchable over and over simply because there is so much about it that reveals itself over time.

The plot pulls heavily from film noir, but at the same time subverting expectations of that genre. An avant garde jazz musician, Fred Madison (Bill Pullmna) is living a strange, distant marriage with his femme fatale wife Renee (Patricia Arquette). They begin to receive videotapes in the mail, video footage shot from inside their home, while they are in bed asleep. Soon Renee is murdered and Bill is sentenced to death. But while in prison, a bizarre transformation occurs and he becomes Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty) an auto mechanic who works for a mob boss named Mr. Eddy (Robert Loggia). The plot then shifts to entirely different set of characters and circumstances that we later learn are strangely related to the first.

From the opening scene—a car speeding down a lonely highway at night, headlights cutting a path through the darkness with David Bowie’s amazing track “I’m Deranged” pulsing in the background—it is clear that this is a David Lynch movie, this is his universe and nothing is what it seems. The title itself is evocative; all at once calling up images of b-movies and film noir which again Lynch uses as a basis for luring the audience into a more desne, surrealistic movie than any standard film noir would offer. Co-written with author Barry Gifford (whose book Wild at Heart Lynch had previously made into a film) the story is laced with dead-ends and strange, awful coincidences, giving the audience a feeling of uneasiness, that they t00, like Fred Madison, are trapped in a nightmarish world that loops endlessly. The tag line at the top of the script sums of Lynch’s intentions in a typical Lynch fashion:

A 21st Century Noir Horror Film.

A graphic investigation into parallel
identity crises.

A world where time is dangerously out
of control.

A terrifying ride down the lost highway.

Nothing is ever what it seems in a Lynch movie, but even more so in Lost Highway. Just when it seems there might be a resolution, a way out so to speak, Lynch turns the film in on itself again. By the end we know who spoke into the intercom at the beginning of the film, but, as we soon realize, this doesn’t give us any sort of standard conclusion. There are allusions to further transformations, to more parallel lives, identities yet to be defined, another part of the film that will never be made, but exists, nevertheless, and continues to evolve in utterly phantasmagoric ways in the audience’s mind. As the tag line states, time is fragile in this film, not to be trusted, it is continually unraveling.

And as usual, it is the photography and lighting that play a big part in solidifying Lynch’s dream world upon the screen. Lurid, technicolor colors swirl around everywhere; Renee’s jet black Betty Page hair, the strikingly blonde of Alice’s gangster moll; dark reds throbbing and flashing in clubs; the humming, static blues of rolling videotapes. And more than any other Lynch movie this is a film about darkness, degrees of visual darkness that slowly swallow up characters. The darkness that envelopes Fred down the long narrow hallways of his house at the beginning of the film become almost a representation of his mind unraveling, of his very identify coming into question. Lynch has an eye for detail, for unearthing the strangeness in everyday objects. People, bedrooms, chairs, phones, curtains all become something beautiful to photograph.

From Bill Pullman to Patricia Arquette to Robert Blake giving an amazing turn as the Mystery Man, the casting is perfect; the characters are at once cartoonishly pulpy and thoroughly engaging and believable. There is tension between the characters that is unrelenting, even in the quieter scenes. It is especially devastating in the relationship between Fred and Renee, their distance personified by how they sit across from one another in the living room, to the strained and desperate love-making scenes. And of course there are those great Lynchian moments; the psychotic Mr. Eddy reacting to a tailgater and the Mystery Man telling Fred that he has phone call in a way that is anything but mundane.

In the end, Lost Highway is a film without any easy answers, one that stays with you until you see it again. And as a police investigator quips towards the climax of the film: “There’s no such thing as a bad coincidence.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posters of the Damned!

Sometimes the posters are as good as (if not better) than the movies they’re promoting. Here are some great examples of film poster art…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too Ghoul For School

Halftone Horrors

What’s better than the heady smell of aging newsprint and comics you can buy from a rotating wire rack at 7-11?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My, I Bet You Monsters Lead Interesting Lives…

There were many different Halloween and “horror-themed” shorts in the history of Warner Bros animation, but I thought I would post some brief reflections on three of my favorites.

First up are two great shorts from director Chuck Jones. The first is later period Jones, Transylvania 6-5000, which features Jones’ distinct redesign of the Warner Bros characters, as well as amazing backgrounds by Philip Degaurd. Maurice Noble is credited as “Co-director” however this short seems to have Nobles’ particular design aesthetic all over it as far as the backgrounds are concerned. The compositions, character blocking, writing, key poses are all wonderful and extremely thoughtful in this short.

 

 

Hare Rasing Hare doesn’t contain as much artistic refinement and that particular “Chuck Jones” look as Transylvania 6-5000, but it is equally as fun and funny and has some great lines. The scene in which Bugs poses as a manicurist and rambles on and on about monsters leading interesting lives is about the best thing next to eating a giant block of cheese in your underwear.

 

 

And this last short, The Great Piggy Bank Robbery by director Bob Clampett, although not specifically Halloween or horror-themed (although Daffy does dress up as Duck Twacy), does get kind of weird at the end with all of the Dick Tracy knock off villains pursuing Daffy, it seemed vaguely Halloween-esque, so I thought I would include it in this overview. Most of all, this has to be, hands down, the greatest Daffy Duck short (at least I think so). Daffy is at his most Daffy (before he became more of an asshole than a basket case) and Bob Clampett’s variety, and extreme nataure of many of the character poses rivals that of fellow Warner Bros director Tex Avery. The backgrounds are lush, with expert and thoughtful composition (again by Philip Degaurd) and the pacing, timing and dialogue throughout is spot-on.

 

I Remember Halloween…

Long before Glenn Danzig became a steroid-driven, nu-metal parody of his own image, his bands The Misfits and Samhain were creating b-movie/horror infused punk songs with amazingly catchy melodies, never taking themselves too seriously, but camping it up, much like fellow punk band The Damned. And unlike many other lead vocalists in punk bands, Danzig actually had a good voice, one owning some debt to Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley, but with  a presence and delivery that was utterly his own.

Long ago in, my high school days, the Misfits and Samhain were the bands I was relishing when I discovered punk, along with other stalwarts like The Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, DRI and TSOL. Like all good punk bands, they were weird, sometimes scary, really loud and created music and lyrics that equally enraged and frightened adults. Ah, the best kind of rock and roll.

 

 

 

 

Tomb of Vampirella