TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE (2000)

Country :

South Korea

Genre:

SF / Action

Running Time:

60'

Director:

Gee-woong Nam

Cast: Lee So-Woon, Kim Dae-Tong, Bae Soo-Baek, Kim Ho-Kyum, Yang Hyuk-Joon

GHOUL RATING:

0 (ZERO)

Story: The first 7 minutes, out of the 60, are made of opening credits. Nothing interesting whatsoever happens during them. In the following 32 minutes, a hooker (I'm not sure if she's teenage, but she's certainly nothing to write home about) is impregnated and killed by her 'teacher', revived by hack-saw 'scientists' and turned into a poor man's cyborg. She is unleashed upon her wrongdoers in the 39th minute of this mess (that's only 17 minutes before the end credits). Of course, nothing interesting whatsoever happens during the entire 49 minutes of the film proper. The end credits are mercifully shortened to mere 4 minutes, and, of course, just like in the opening 7, nothing interesting whatsoever happens during them. 

Review:  TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs!

 

I'm not against opening credits: they can be an art-form in themselves. They prepare you for the film, introduce the mood, the setting, the atmosphere, they can be enjoyable in themselves, like a short movie of a kind... But, those you get in REAL cinema. The opening of TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE perfectly announces the insipid time-waster that follows by showing 7 worthless minutes of a girl roaming around the city streets, accompanied by a forgettable, stupid music and the endless crawl of names no one should ever bother to read or remember.

TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie. It is a title that never bothered to provide a substance to be attached to. And by 'substance' I do not mean a profound meditation on human condition and the plight of raped schoolgirl hookers around the world. No, I mean the kind of substance one can reasonably expect from something that advertizes itself as a TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE. Rape, tits, perversity, mayhem, slaughter, gore, body parts, imaginative death scenes, weird cyberpunk imagery. Stuff like that.

 

None of that will be found here. The only 'sex' scene consists of repetitive close up shots of a guy's ass (luckily, in trousers) pumping at the 'teenage hooker' against the wall. Cyberpunk imagery? How about a group of giggling 'scientists' with a hack-saw, whose overlong 'operation' is intercut with a pointless opera singer? Their creation is surrounded by cheap plastic tubes. GHOST IN THE SHELL, eat your heart out! Gore and mayhem? Gotta be kidding me. A tit blown-off, a few splashes of red, and that's all. Here's a free advice: if you're after sleaze which, unlike this crap, actually delivers, try GUTS OF A VIRGIN and ENTRAILS OF A VIRGIN for a change. They ARE stupid, but at least they do not cheat you with endless nonsense. They deliver on their promise.

It is one thing to try something, and fail. But it is a completely different, and most despicable affair when a product (I refuse to consider this a movie) does not even try. TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is a spiritless affair whose makers were assured there would be enough morons in the world to buy or rent a DVD solely because of its title, cover and basic plot. Since the director Gee-woong Nam was too lazy and talentless to even bother trying to develop the concept into something resembling a movie, he decided to stretch scenes way beyond the running time they require, so as to forcefully fill the 60 minutes. Other than the 11 minutes 'worth' of credits, you're also treated with a 2 minute long wailing of a granny who hates the noise in the streets. Two minutes of an ugly crone thrashing on the floor: "Why are they making all this noise? Why don't they leave an old woman like me alone? Why, oh, why? etc." Other memorable scenes include the 5 (five!!!) minutes of the hooker's single uniterrupted close up in which she slowly mumbles insufferable platitudes about her love to her teacher, willingness to leave the job for him etc. Whatever could be stretched – was stretched. Emptiness had to be filled somehow. With no budget, no imagination, no spirit, no inventiveness, no care, no regard for the audience – all they could think of was: prolong everything. This may be 'only' 60 minutes long – but if you're foolish enough to watch it, it'll seem like eternity. 

Because this thing is not a movie, it does not deserve to be treated as one. That's why this is not a movie review, but a warning: TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs! TEENAGE HOOKER BECAME A KILLING MACHINE is not a movie but a terrible cheat: don't be fooled. Avoid at all costs!

BAD TASTE by Jim Barratt

BOOK REVIEW:

BAD TASTE by Jim Barratt

Wallflower Press

(London, UK – distributed in the US through Columbia University Press)

2008

106pp

The guys of the 'Cultographies' series are back at it again, with some new titles! We've already presented their first three books on this site: THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, DONNIE DARKO and THIS IS SPINAL TAP. You'll remember them as the slightly more accessible variety of what BFI is doing in their 'classics' series: small, serious but readable accounts of the production, evaluation and influence of some major modern titles – in this case, devoted entirely to ''the weird and wonderful world of cult cinema''. The series editors, Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton, now proudly present Jim Barratt's analysis of Peter Jackson's cult classic, BAD TASTE.

            In its form, the book stays close to that envisioned for the whole series: it opens with a personal note (how the author came across the film, what it meant for him back then, what it means for him now), continues with behind-the-scenes facts of the painful birth process (always a fun read when it comes to the usual guerilla filmmaking in the low budget arena!), culminating, of course, with the analysis (what, exactly, makes the particular title the object of a cult following? what does it all mean? what's the significance? etc.) and further relevance for the genre it belongs to and to (cult) cinema in general.

            The author, Jim Barratt, is a fine choice for this book: as a former Film and Video Examiner for the British Board of Film Classification he can provide some rare facts about the various censorship issues that BAD TASTE sometimes encountered, and how, eventually, it was cleared of that danger in most countries, passing uncut in spite of its copious amounts of splattering gore, vomit, goo and the like. Obviously, BAD TASTE was one of those rare instances in which someone actually paid attention to the context of its set-pieces, and the context justified the exception. 

Even the censors were able to recognize that all of the 'bad taste' on display, including exaggerated dismemberments, geysers of blood etc. were used for obvious humorous purpose, in a context that's more infantile than 'nasty'. Barratt also rightly points to the similarities between Jackson's peculiar 'splatstick' (splatter + slapstick) and Monty Python's memorable uses of similarly extreme and intentionally goofy effects, like in the famous gore-galore sketch of "Sam Peckinpah's SALAD DAYS" or in the unforgettable episode from MONTY PYTHON'S THE MEANING OF LIFE with the gluttonous, obese man who gorges himself (and vomits every once in a while) until he explodes all over the fancy restaurant.

            Because of its comedic elements, together with bits and pieces of other genres (Sci-Fi, action, etc.), Barratt claims that BAD TASTE is not really a horror film at all: other than the splatter effects (used for comedic effect), there is no evidence of suspense, fear, creepiness or anything remotely scary (unlike, say, some other splatter-horror comedies, like THE EVIL DEAD or RE-ANIMATOR). Thanks to its light-hearted tone BAD TASTE could expect a better understanding among the frowning censors around the world, and it is certainly one of the keys of its general appeal. Nothing is really dark or edgy about it: it's a series of juvenile 'sick', but essentially inoffensive jokes in which no one (and nothing of value) is really hurt. There is no deeper point, no relevance, no subversiveness to speak of, except the most basic puerile provocation of lavatory humor and childish 'bad taste'.

            It's an exercise in style by a budding filmmaker trying to draw attention to himself by a calculated effort to make a CULT film. There is plenty of evidence in the book that Jackson knew what he was doing, right from the start (see the excerpt from the letter in which he asked for financing from the officials). "BAD TASTE was actively marketed and distributed in ways designed to solicit cult status", says Barratt (page 52). But, significantly, he adds: "But for the film to be adopted as such by its audience, it has to offer them something different, some special qualities worthy of their devotion." Jackson did offer something new and, eventually, rightly got where he is now. 

            The first three films analyzed in the 'Cultographies' series all dealt with some significant issues: gender roles in ROCKY HORROR; time, death and sacrifice in DONNY; rock culture and documentary genre in SPINAL TAP. Unlike them, BAD TASTE is not really about anything, and that may be the reason why this volume is some 20 pages slimmer than the previous entries. Although short, this book is by no means lightweight, and serious tools are used to analyze what little there was to be analyzed. 

It also provides numerous amusing anecdotes and facts about the film (especially the local, New Zealand specific references lost on many international viewers), but one feels much more of the similar material could've been used to make the text somewhat weightier. At least, the book points to numerous sources (articles, books, even web sites) which might be valuable to those cultists willing to explore more background of one of the most inauspicious debuts in the history of cinema. From rags (BAD TASTE) to riches (LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, Oscars etc.).   

        

The other new 'Cultographies' titles are devoted to Orson Welles's TOUCH OF EVIL and SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY. On the other hand, those interested in BAD TASTE's older (and better) splatstick brother can eagerly anticipate the announced EVIL DEAD volume. Stay tuned!

 

Originally published at Beyondhollywood

PRAYER BEADS (2004)

 aka OMOINOTAMA

Director:

Masahiro Okano, Shigehito Kawata, Naoki Kusumoto, Toshikatsu Kubo

Cast: Joe Odagiri, Naota Takenaka, Masa Endo, Masaya Kato

Running Time:

4H 30

GHOUL RATING:

**(*)

3-

Story: PRAYER BEADS is a nine-episode horror series. Each 30 minute episode stands on its own (in spite of a lame attempt to tie them all together in the last one), and each will be dealt with separately.

Review:
EPISODE ONE: PRAYER BEADS (director/writer Masahiro Okano)

A pregnant woman, a psychologically unhinged friend and her missing husband, apparitions in their darkened apartment, mysterious connections between them all and the culminating zombie revenge are elements of this concoction.

I've always hated the phrase 'not bad for its kind', but it just sums up this episode perfectly: while not original or deep in any way, at least it tries to be as scary as possible with its limited means and déjà vu elements, and ends up as one of the creepiest episodes of this series.

EPISODE TWO: VENDING MACHINE WOMAN (director/writer Shigehito Kawata)

This is what happens when a young pair goes on a vacation unprepared: not only have they not checked on the place in advance, but even worse, they're going there with no soft drinks whatsoever. So, when the girl is thirsty in the middle of the night, her beau has no alternative but to go to a creepy shack several miles down the road through the woods, and take a few cans of queasy juice from a wending machine nearby. The effects of this juice, however, lead to a wonderfully extravagant conclusion.

This is a favorite episode among many, and I can see why: the isolated setting is creepy, and the outré ending is reminiscent of some crazy stories of early Stephen King, where weirdness awaits you just off the beaten path, with no rhyme or reason. It also features the series' most elaborate physical effect: it is a bit on the cheap, rubbery side, but is still quite effective in its merging of the organic and mechanic, sort of like a poor man's David Cronenberg meets a poor man's Screaming Mad George.

EPISODE THREE: IT’S ME (director Naoki Kusumoto)

Young thugs intend to extort some money from an old lady. But, in Japanese horrors, old ladies are not to be fooled with! Besides, who is observing the criminal behind the closet door?

For my money, this was an endurance test, a bore-fest with a predictable twist not worth waiting for.

EPISODE FOUR: REAL (director Masahiro Okano)

A respected surgeon (Masayo Kato, from GOZU, AGITATOR, SAMURAI RESURRECTION…) suffers from headaches which make him untrustworthy and unbalanced in the middle of an operation. So, this man of science goes to a comic-book-creepy guy who wears a cloak and hides his face even in his living room, and accepts a mysterious "cure" with a side-effect or two. That's when he really enters the world of pain…

I have a weak spot for downward-spiral LSD-trips, so this portrait of a madman as a young surgeon had its moments (i.e. his visions), but was mostly dull and uninvolving in the remaining part, and lacks a real punch.

EPISODE FIVE: MUSHROOM HUNTING (director/writer Masahiro Okano)

An otaku boy meets a nice girl meets a date-rape jock over the internet. What do they do on their first encounter in real life? Why, they go to the woods for some mushroom hunting, of course. And what do they do when a comic-book-creepy guy (cloak, rags, hidden face and all) warns them not to proceed any further, or at least not to enter a witch's cabin? Well, of course they continue until they come to a cabin where a creepy old woman offers some nice mushroom soup. They were asking for it!

Other than being completely silly, unbelievable and trashy, this episode is quite passable. The acting is somewhat better than the usual (low) standards of this series, while mushrooms grown from human bodies are always a nice thing to see. 

EPISODE SIX: EDDIE (director Toshikatsu Kubo)

It begins like a precursor of Korean THE HOST: in a river, under the bridge, there is a creature, and a bunch of spectators (and even a TV crew) are crowded on the bank. However, the said creature is a cute, seal-like thingee with those big sad-puppy eyes. How could it be dangerous? And what's a little telekinetic boy doing there?

You can never go wrong with giant vagina-monsters, and this episode proves this time-worn truth once again. OK, they are CGI, and rather poor CGI at that, but hell, it's giant vagina-monsters anyway, rampaging on the river bank and exploding all over the place. What else could you possibly want from your entertainment? Perhaps more money and physical creature effects instead of CGI, but… beggars can't be choosers!

EPISODE SEVEN: ECHOES (director/writer Naoki Kusumoto)

An old man and his wife exert a revenge on the men responsible for abducting their grand-daughter and selling her to the hospital for body parts. Is this a subtle satire on the underbelly of Japanese health-care system, unrivalled even by Michael Moore's SICKO, or just an excuse for some cheap CGI body-damage effects? You decide!

Once again, I wish they went with practical effects instead of (very poor) CGI! I mean, come on, guys, it's XXI century, and if you cannot make Joe Odagiri (BUGMASTER, SHINOBI, BLACK KISS, AZUMI) explode better than John Cassavetes did full three decades ago, in de Palma's THE FURY, you should bow your heads in shame! The story is dull and unconvincing on too many levels, even for this kind of Tales from the Crypt scenario.

EPISODE EIGHT: CAT’S PAW (director/writer Masahiro Okano)

A bullied boy (is there any other kind, except for bullies?) receives an unexpected help from an internet portal and a fuzzy cat-like creature through anime enactments of his three wishes.

Stylistically different at least in the sense that half of its running time is actually animated, this is a variation of the classic 'be careful what you wish for…' story, W.W. Jacobs' MONKEY'S PAW. We've seen millions of variations on the theme, including one on THE SIMPSONS, so why not an anime one?

EPISODE NINE: APARTMENT (director Masahiro Okano)

What starts as a grueling family dinner from Hell ends up as a mess of a very different and silly kind.

There are two completely disjointed halves here: in the first one, a psychotic father torments his wife and two kids; in the second one Mr. Okano tries to include visual references to all previous episodes, regardless of the fact that none of that makes any sense, and so 'wraps up' this series in a haphazard way.

All in all, PRAYER BEADS is a decent, though not too inspired attempt to make a Japanese version of TALES FROM THE CRYPT (without the Crypt Keeper foolishness). It means it's trashy, cheap, clichéd, unconvincing and mostly dull, over-reliant on special effects (Masahiro Okano's real profession), with occasional flashes of inspiration scattered here and there. It is very low on atmosphere, mood and scares; when it attempts something of the kind, it ends up being silly, comic-book-like in the worst, most dated sense (think EC comics of the '50s as the paragon). Obviously shot on video, its visuals are workmanlike, bland, often banal or downright ugly, more appropriate for the SCHOOLGIRL IN CEMENT kind of snuff-like horrors than to something that's supposed to be scary. Nevertheless, there's quite enough for undiscriminating viewers to enjoy here, so if you feel like some low-brow horror fun for the whole family, go for it!

CARL PANZRAM: THE SPIRIT OF HATRED AND VENGEANCE (2012)

GHOUL RATING:

****

4

            Carl Panzram is unique among serial killers in several regards. First of all, he was the most nihilistic and misanthropic of them all. He was not partial in his hatred because he did not hate only women, Blacks, Jews, hookers... "I don't believe in man, God nor Devil," he wrote. "I hate the whole damned human race, including myself." He had no hopes, no illusions about either himself or the world which he saw it in all its depraved and brutal clarity. "I wish you all had one neck and that I had my hands on it" said the man who described himself as "the spirit of meanness personified".

            The second quality which raises him above practically any other serial killer on record: he was a truly lucid, intelligent and sensitive (!) person, and the autobiographical writings and letters he left behind make for a uniquely profound read, at the same time shocking and touching. He's a true philosopher among the serial killers, and his words have the power to resonate like the best lines from Hemingway, Chandler and William Burroughs: clear, cruel, vivid, witty and precisely to the point. No bullshit there. No-nonsense, straight for the jugular, that's Panzram for you.

            Raised in poverty, hard labor, ignorance, bestial violence and abuse, Panzram met only cruelty wherever he turned: family, school, church... it was all the same. His Golgotha through the soul-crushing brutality of corrupt institutions culminated in the correctional center for youths which only strengthened his bleak worldview and proved that, sadly, "might makes right". He was fully formed when he was only 14: "I was so full of hate that there was no room in me for such feelings as love, pity, kindness or honor or decency, my only regret is that I wasn't born dead or not at all."

            A few years later, while still a teenager on the run from home, he was gang-raped by four hobos. "I cried, I begged and pleaded for mercy, pity, and sympathy," he wrote later, "but nothing I could say or do could sway them from their purpose. I left that box a sadder, sicker, but wiser boy." He felt literally and metaphorically fucked by everybody, and decided that from then on, HE would be the one to fuck everyone he could: "In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and last but not least I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all of these things I am not the least bit sorry. I have no conscience so that does not worry me." In a world in which you either eat or are mercilessly eaten, his motto became: "Rob 'em all, rape 'em all, and kill 'em all."  

            At long last, Panzram's colorful life story – and his views, inseparable from it – became the subject of a feature-length documentary. The long wait ultimately paid off because Panzram got the treatment he deserved from John Borowski, independent filmmaker and author of two previous, equally superb documentaries on America's serial killers from the late 19th and early 20th century: H.H. HOLMES (2004) and ALBERT FISH (2007). This means that Panzram ended in truly devoted and more than able hands. The resulting film, CARL PANZRAM: THE SPIRIT OF HATRED AND VENGEANCE, is a true paradigm of how to make a great documentary on a subject like this.

            Borowski presents Panzram from as many angles as possible. Understandably, his hands are somewhat tied by the fact that Panzram lived in the early decades of the 20th century (he was executed in 1930), which means that there are no living witnesses, no current first-hand accounts, no direct video or film footage of him or scenes relevant for his deeds. Borowski had to rely on the few existing photographs, news clippings and facsimiles of Panzram's writings. The closest he comes to a direct footage is an archive interview with Henry Lesser, ex-prison guard: the only person ever to treat Panzram like a human being and the one who made him write his autobiography, smuggling and preserving his papers later on. Without Lesser we wouldn't have any record whatsoever of a rich and inspiring human being that Carl Panzram certainly was. This interview exists only on a poor quality VHS cassette, but it's a valuable document and the worthiest asset among the extras on the DVD.

            What he couldn't get through direct footage, Borowski more than compensates with the use of said photographs and writings, but also through archive film materials from the period and, especially, through brief but colorful re-enactments. Three actors portray Panzram in the three crucial stages of his life: Brett Jetmund plays Charlie Panzram in his formative, pre-teen years, David Salmonson is the young Carl Panzram (in his 20s, when he did most of his killings) and Tom Lodewyck plays the somewhat older Carl Panzram as an inmate of various prisons before he was hanged at the age of 38. The perfect cast does a great job of embodying the abused abuser, "the spirit of meanness personified" but also the human being behind the mask of a monster.

            Another layer of quality is added by the narration by John Dimaggio (best known as the voice of Bender from FUTURAMA): he reads numerous well-chosen quotes from Panzram's writings using a grave whisper somewhat reminiscent of Kiefer Sutherland's "psycho" voice.

            The film provides an insight into the conditions which created this "monster", trying to understand his crimes without justifying them. This is a tricky thing: defending a person (as a victim of various circumstances) without defending his crimes, without glorifying him or turning him into a hero. Panzram's spirit of total negativity can be hypnotic and attractive for modern-day nihilists: his attitude of an almost Burroughsian TOTAL OUTLAW is very inspiring while many of his saying are highly quotable. Still, this shouldn't make us forget that this man has raped and killed at least 22 men. Especially unforgivable are his brutal rapings and killings of several pre-teen boys. They are mentioned in the film, briefly, but only in passing, while Panzram's cold-hearted reminiscences of them are NOT quoted. This is a pity, because paragraphs such as this one shouldn't be glossed over:  

"I grabbed him by the arm and told him I was going to kill him. I stayed with the boy about three hours. During that time, I committed sodomy on the boy six times, and then I killed him by beating his brains out with a rock... I had stuffed down his throat several sheets of paper out of a magazine. I left him lying there with his brains coming out of his ears."

This is the kind of crimes that earned him the label of a monster, much more than the one single killing (of an abusive prison employee) which eventually led him to the gallows. Other than that, the film does a fine job of balancing the life and times of this man and of putting him into a proper context. Panzram certainly was and is a telling sign of an age. Many bigger social, psychological, ethical and philosophical issues are reflected in and around him: from (in)human treatment of prisoners through the problem of psychopaths all the way to the questions of good and evil, right and wrong, human laws vs. higher laws... A big help in shedding some light on those questions comes from a superb selection of a wide array of relevant participants who talk on camera.

Thus, the documentary includes valuable insights from SCOTT CHRISTIANSON, PhD, author, investigative reporter, and scholar who specializes in crime and punishment; 

JOE COLEMAN, artist who has painted a portrait of Carl Panzram, who he sees as a "kind of unholy saint of nihilism: the very shadow of Christ"; 

MARK GADO, a police detective whose story "Carl Panzram, Monster of Minnesota" (2004) won a Page One award for one of the top three magazine articles of the year;

DR G. THOMAS GITCHOFF, a criminologist and professor of criminal justice at San Diego State University and associate clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSD School of Medicine in La Jolla;

JOEL GOODMAN, Federal Bureau of Prisons Retiree, an expert on jail, prison and community corrections operations; 

 

 KENNETH LAMASTER, Leavenworth Penitentiary Historian;

CHARLES DUDLEY MARTIN, Robert Stroud's Missouri Attorney;

ROBERT RAY, Head of Special Collections and University Archives at San Diego State University which holds the original, handwritten Carl Panzram Papers;

JASON SCHUBERT, curator of the J.M. Davis Gun Museum (which keeps several Panzram related paraphernalia, including the rope he was hanged by) 

and last but not least - KATHERINE RAMSLAND, PhD who has a master's degree in forensic psychology from the internationally esteemed John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a master's degree in clinical psychology from Duquesne University, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Rutgers. She has published thirty-one books, including The CSI Effect, Inside the Minds of Serial Killers, The Human Predator, and The Forensic Science of CSI.

            With their contributions CARL PANZRAM: THE SPIRIT OF HATRED AND VENGEANCE becomes as layered a story of the unique individual of Carl Panzram as one could possibly hope for. 

            Clocking at 80 minutes, the film could certainly use some more material without being overlong or repetitive. The extra features on the DVD actually contain many scenes which could've been used in the film. For example, most of the DELETED SCENES (approx 10 minutes of them) deserve to be IN the film itself, as they contain telling information and add further shades of Panzram's character (esp. the issue of being TRUTHFUL and /not/ honoring his word).  

            MAKING OF feature (approx 25 minutes) also contains at least 15 minutes' worth of material that could've been IN the film. It has very little actual footage of making of the film – instead, it offers many additional pieces of interviews and re-enactments not seen in the film proper.

INTERVIEW WITH HENRY LESSER (approx 45 minutes), like said above, is a priceless document and a more than welcome addition to the DVD (although most of the best bits are used in the film itself).

Other extras include: PRODUCTION STILLS (accompanied by a song about Panzram), TRAILERS and a DETAILED VIEW OF JOE COLEMAN'S PANZRAM PORTRAIT (which is helpful indeed, considering this artist's style of collage with numerous very tiny and minute details, photos, drawings and quotes otherwise hard to decipher).

            If I were to nitpick in an almost perfect film, I'd say that it could've presented some more detail about Panzram's afterlife in pop culture and elsewhere. The book PANZRAM: A JOURNAL OF MURDER by Thomas E. Gaddis and James O. Long, which was the first to reveal the full story about this man, including copious excerpts from his writings, is barely mentioned. The film KILLER: A JOURNAL OF MURDER (1995) by Tim Metcalfe, in which James Woods portrays Panzram, is not even mentioned. While Panzram is certainly not a "star" even among serial killer buffs, he has his own cult and his shadow spreads over some significant films. For example, his quote "I wish you all had one neck and my hands were around it" serves as a motto to a Serbian horror-comedy DAVITELJ PROTIV DAVITELJA (Strangler Vs. Strangler, 1984) by Slobodan Šijan, while his words "Today I am dirty, but tomorrow I'll be just DIRT" open the film DER TODESKING (1990) by Jorg Buttgereit. References to these and other possible examples would be just footnotes – but perhaps worthy of inclusion so as to further flesh-out Panzram's ghost which still haunts us.

            In spite of these quibbles, CARL PANZRAM: THE SPIRIT OF HATRED AND VENGEANCE is obviously a work of devotion, love and knowledge, self-financed and created among hardships which, thankfully, don't show up on screen. It manages to become the definite story about this unique man – and to show why his story is still relevant and haunting.

            Strongly recommended!

        The best way to get this DVD is to order it directly from the filmmaker's site http://www.panzram.com/.

PRAY (2006)

Country: Japan

Genre: Horror

Running Time: 1H 17M

Director:

Yuichi Sato

Cast:

Tetsuji Tamayama, Sanae Miyata, Asami Mizukawa...

GHOUL'S RATING:

*(*) (2-)

 

Story: Two twenty-something kidnappers take their prey (a tiny and very unscary little girl) to an abandoned school. When they call the girl's parents, they're told that their only daughter died a year ago. In the meanwhile, the girl  disappears, and the desperate amateurs must chase her down the endless corridors. Later on three more of their friends appear so that there would be some more 'cannon fodder' for the ghostly kills... In the abandoned school no one can hear you pray...

Review: PRAY attempts to be different. PRAY wants to be a ghost flick with a difference. PRAY believes in the audience's eternal desire for twists. Alas! The stress is on 'attempts', 'wants' and 'believes'. The end result, however, is yet another lackluster attempt to cash in on the J-horror ghost craze.

Oh, yeah, it is different in the sense that the characters are not chased by ghosts in their apartments but in a deserted school. Is anything gained by this environment? Not really. This particular school is a far cry from the really creepy one in HAUNTED SCHOOL 4 (a very well made little horror that I strongly recommend over this one!). The building and its interiors are mind-numbingly mundane and utterly devoid of creepiness that more accomplished directors, like Shinya Tsukamoto or Shimako Sato, were able to invest in their spooky schools in HIRUKO THE GOBLIN and EKO EKO AZARAK, respectively. The cheap direct-to-video shots deliver a boring murky setting with no deep shadows or inventive stylization. There is neither atmosphere nor eye-candy, just plain boring building that the characters roam through endlessly.

 

And yes, they attempt to 'surprise' you with some twists here. There is even a blurb on the back cover of this DVD which says: 'A ghost story with a twist... followed by another. And another...' After watching the film itself, I was reminded of that old joke, when a reviewer says something like: 'This film is incredible in its stupidity! It's amazing that anyone could watch more than 15 minutes of this nonsense!' and then they make a blurb which says: 'This film is incredible ...! It's amazing!' Well, something like that happens here. Yes, there is a twist after a twist here, but the fact that they are piled one after another is not necessarily a good thing. As all great films with a twist or two in them have demonstrated, twists are effective only in stories with characters to care about. And there's nothing remotely like that in this flick.  In PRAY, the twists are merely a lazy device, mechanical and ultimately self-demeaning. After an hour-long boredom of watching some dispensable ciphers run around the corridors you just won't care.

 

To sum up: no characters; no story; no suspense; no atmosphere; no real frights; no gore to talk about; no inventive kills; no eye candy; no memorable set-pieces... Why should anyone bother? To 'enjoy' the drab environment of an abandoned school in which all the inventory is somehow still there? To discover that a person can be 'killed' by merely cutting his hand off? How's that for an inventive (or physiologically, medically correct) kill? To be surprised by the 'couldn't care less' twists? Why, really? I cannot recommend this quickie to anyone but the most die-hard completists of Japanese horror. Everyone else should pray for the release of something worthier.

ON THE HILL OF ROSES – Stefan Grabinski

Hieroglyphic Press

July 2012

Hardcover

134 pages

From the standpoint of English-speaking world, Eastern and central Europe remain The Dark Domain teeming with creatures unknown and unknowable. The Iron Curtain has long gone, but the language barrier remains, and numerous great authors, living and dead, still dwell in the shadows of obscurity, waiting for their works to be translated into English. Stefan Grabinski (1887-1936) is just one of such writers still waiting for a full recognition.

In his native Poland he was an oddity while alive, at the dawn of the 20^th century. He was a writer without roots, without tradition to rely on, an outcast. One Polish reviewer noted: "His short stories could easily be translations realized beyond our borders." His predilection to imaginative, dark fantastic and poetic horror made him a foreigner in his own country. He wrote: "For nine years no one deigned to notice I was creating a new type of literature previously unknown in Poland, that I was a pioneer of fantastique in the strictest meaning of the word, a neo-romantic fantastique of a spontaneous and autonomous character." Typically, he is one of those authors rediscovered and recognized only long after their death.

His tales are told "in an old-fashioned style evoking the bygone era of provincial pre-war Poland, mixing elements of the supernatural with realistically depicted scenery, filled with a lingering lyricism suddenly rent by violent images, and laced with a menacing sense of entrapment and frustrated eroticism", as a foreword to one of his collections says. Sadly, his fate in the English-speaking world seems consigned to rare, pricey, slim, hard-to-find small press editions such as Motion Demon (2005) and In Sarah's House (2007). The only English edition of his tales which was substantial in both number of stories collected (not less than 11!) and number of copies printed, with a reasonable price and tolerable availability, remains The Dark Domain (1993) from Dedalus.

The latest collection of his stories, On the Hill of Roses, has just been published by Hieroglyphic Press: it is a lovingly produced, slim but beautiful volume, sewn and jacketed hardcover limited to 300 copies. This means that if you're intrigued by this review, better hurry before it's sold out.

            The contents are made of the full selection of Grabinski's original edition of On the Hill of Roses (Na wzgorzu roz, 1918) – plus one additional tale, "Projections", from his 1930 collection Passion (Namietnosc). These 134 pages contain a solid introduction into Grabinski's world of eccentric, alienated characters in the grip of either insanity or fantastic events which bring them to the verge of losing their minds – or lives. In either case, just as in Poe's best stories, they try to remain lucid and to analyze that which refuses to be named and defined; they try to contain the uncontainable, to understand that which surpasses them, and are usually crushed by the dark forces from within or without.

            On the Hill of Roses opens with a Foreword by Mark Samuels and a helpful Introduction by Miroslaw Lipinski, Grabinski's leading translator and proponent. These are the stories within the beautiful covers designed by Eleni Tsami.

            On the Hill of Roses: A solitary man is attracted to a walled-in garden with opulent scents. But there is a ghostly secret waiting there, and another smell – smell of death – becomes more prominent towards the end.

The Frenzied Farmhouse: This archetypal story of a Bad Place (TM) somewhat prefigures Lovecraft's "The Colour from out of Space" – although the origin of the "evil" which affects the inhabitants of a secluded farm remains shrouded in mystery: "K. maintained that in certain places certain events had to occur. In other words, that places exist whose character, nature and spirit await the fulfillment of events connected with them..." 

On a Tangent: A man's obsession with omens and signs turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and he is led i.e. he leads himself through a series of "accidental" encounters and portents to a grimly grotesque conclusion. 

Strabismus: A rather unconventional story of a split personality (or is it a Doppelganger? or a spirit possession?) about a man pestered by his complete opposite, and later haunted by his spirit from a walled-in room next to his own. This story is also in The Dark Domain. All the others are available in English for the first time in this collection.

Shadow: A man looking for a meaning of life and working on a treatise on "Symbols in nature" comes across a strange unmoving shadow image on a window of an isolated cabin in the woods. Intrigued by the mystery of the figures frozen in the act of violence, he befriends the old man who inhabits it, hoping to unravel the secret of the shadowy crime from the past... A haunting tale in more senses than one.

At the Villa by the Sea: Another atmospheric story about a past crime which refuses to stay in the past. A man's visit to his old friend at his isolated villa awakens the "ghost" of a poet killed there many years ago who won't stay buried.

Projections: Another lonely bachelor comes to his doom, this time through his attraction to the ruins of an old nunnery and to the signs of past Satanic shenanigans in its dungeons. The ending is original in its sadism and uncommonly gory for otherwise mostly restrained Grabinski.

* * *

On the Hill of Roses offers a number of delightfully old-school tales of the dark fantastic and chilly horrific which, at the beginning of the 20th century, created the missing link towards such later practitioners in the similar vein, like Robert Aickman and Thomas Ligotti. If you like them, you should definitely treat yourself with some Grabinski. He looms like a shadow from out of time and from behind the iron curtain – a spicy, exotic, Slavic Catholic taste of horror for demanding palates. His doom and gloom will certainly be refreshing in the midst of the feelgood light entertainment that passes for "horror" these days.   

Note: Some of the illustrations inspired by Grabinski's works used in this post are by Ryszard Wojtynski; more of them, here.