THE CINEMA OF DAVID CRONENBERG: FROM BARON OF BLOOD TO CULTURAL HERO

THE CINEMA OF DAVID CRONENBERG: FROM BARON OF BLOOD TO CULTURAL HERO

by Ernest Mathijs

(Wallflowers, 2008; The Directors' Cuts Series)

Dejan Ognjanović

David Cronenberg rose from the gutter of the Canadian backwater exploitation cinema (his "Baron of Blood" phase) to the red carpets of the most prestigious film festivals in the world (his "cultural hero" phase). As he started moving away from the former, almost imperceptibly, towards the latter (beginning in the mid-80ies with THE DEAD ZONE and his commercially most successful, THE FLY), wider audiences started noticing him. With wider viewers came wider (potential) readers, too, so in the past 10-15 years we've seen a virtual subgenre in the cinema studies: books about David Cronenberg. It also includes the books which feature his films prominently, though not exclusively, being devoted to such fashionable topics like "body", "gender", "queer studies", "post-human" etc.

Let's stick to the ones solely about "The King of Venereal Horror" – here's a brief selection: THE SHAPE OF RAGE: THE FILMS OF DAVID CRONENBERG by Piers Handling and Academy Of Canadian Cinema, 1983; CRONENBERG ON CRONENBERG edited By Chris Rodley, 1992; ORGANISCHER HORROR: DIE FILME DES DAVID CRONENBERG by Almut Oetjen, 1993; DAVID CRONENBERG: A DELICATE BALANCE by Peter Morris, 1994; THE MODERN FANTASTIC: THE FILMS OF DAVID CRONENBERG by Michael Grant, 2000; DAVID CRONENBERG : LA BEAUTÉ DU CHAOS by Géraldine Pompon and Pierre Véronneau, 2003; DAVID CRONENBERG: INTERVIEWS WITH SERGE GRUNBERG by Serge Grunberg, 2005; THE ARTIST AS MONSTER: THE CINEMA OF DAVID CRONENBERG by William Beard, 2006; DAVID CRONENBERG: AUTHOR OR FILMMAKER? by Mark Browning, 2007. Quite a pile, n'est-ce pas?

And, of course, without Cronenberg's movies titles like THEY CAME FROM WITHIN: A HISTORY OF CANADIAN HORROR FILM by Caelum Vatnsdal would be quite pointless (and empty). Cronenberg has rightly become synonymous not only with Canadian horror film, but with Canadian cinema itself. In many ways his films are the epitome of modern horror: a thinking man's visceral studies of the human condition. As for the books on him, the best one still remains CRONENBERG ON CRONENBERG, a selection of Cronenberg's interviews where, instead of the usual wise-ass academic jargon, you get all you need to know about these films, from the horse's mouth. As it turns out, Cronenberg is not only a great filmmaker, but also a very literate, clever, witty and analytical talker, and he is not reluctant to delve into the meanings and ideas of his films (unlike some other weirdo directors like, say, David Lynch or Takashi Miike). While no artist's "explanation" of his films should be taken as the last word on the subject, the depth and consistency of Cronenberg's interviews largely undermines the necessity for so many books on him. Wanna know what THE BROOD was all about? Talk to The Man, don't take the mediator's words for it. All you need to know is in CRONENBERG ON CRONENBERG already, where it is said clearly, succinctly, with no vague bull nor tiresome references to what some other critic has written. It's the essence.

Anyway, to this viable sub-industry within the academia another item is added now: THE CINEMA OF DAVID CRONENBERG: FROM BARON OF BLOOD TO CULTURAL HERO by Ernest Mathijs. Mr. Mathijs may be known to some cinephiles as co-editor of ALTERNATIVE EUROPE; EUROPEAN EXPLOITATION AND UNDERGROUND CINEMA (New York/ London: Columbia University Press/ Wallflower Press, 2004 – with Xavier Mendik) and also of Wallflower's CULTOGRAPHIES series of books, reviewed on this site. No stranger to the cult cinema, Mathijs devotes a whole book to one of those directors who (re)defined the term "cult". The key question is, of course: what's the angle? Does it bring anything new to the table already cluttered with books on Cronenberg?

The methodology used in this book is best described as a combination of reception studies and textual analysis. Actually, the stress is on the former. What it means is that this study is not so much about the author's interpretation of Cronenberg's output as it is his interpretation of other people's interpretations of it. This doesn't mean that Mathijs himself doesn't indulge in close readings of each and every Cronenberg project ever made (including the short ones, made for TV ones, even his cameo appearances in other people's movies), because he does. Most of his plot overviews are pretty insightful, and may draw the attention to some important details, meanings or connotations that even the most devoted fans may have missed. But just when you get a good starting point for the analysis of a film, and start expecting more, and deeper, what you get instead are pages after pages of what other critics said about the film in question. One thing cannot be denied: this book is meticulously well researched! One gets the impression that Mr. Mathijs has read every article, review, essay and book ever written about Cronenberg's films (no small task there!) as there are copious references to virtually all of them.

This impression is validated by Mathijs himself, who admits that in 1992 he turned his fascination with this director into a research project. He started researching the reception of Cronenberg's films when he wrote his MA thesis in the Film and Visual Culture degree at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, which discussed how Cronenberg's films seemed to attract auteurist interpretations, and how many critics elevate him to the status of artist. In 1996, he started working on a PhD. research project that went further in researching the reception of Cronenberg's films. In 4 years Mathijs analyzed over 1000 pieces of writing on Cronenberg's films, from 8 countries. They included every book and academic article written on Cronenberg, and numerous interviews, reviews, editorial comments, and letters. The PhD. dissertation was validated summa cum laude in May 2000. That's all very commendable; however, the problem is that those thousands of texts are largely nonsense, or, at best, misguided and superficial.

Having filled his head with all that baloney, Mathijs occasionally has the trouble providing a meaningful interpretation of his own. He especially has trouble with Cronenberg's earliest and most unconventional films, which are often reduced to simpleminded readings. For example, is this what SHIVERS is about? "It represents a revolution not in its effects or goals – for that would still invite a moral question – but its pragmatics: what succeeds in overthrowing an order, and who benefits?" (p. 35) And this revolutionary talk goes on and on: "One cannot help think that the sheer violence and distress involved in the infection – the forceful rape-like penetration of other's bodies – acts against the effectiveness of the revolution. Even if its procedures are effective, its methods may destroy what is supposed to be rescued." (p.37) Bogged down in the quagmire of over-intellectualization, Mathijs forces SHIVERS -this relatively straightforward piece of ingeniously vivid bio-metaphysics- into a far more limited and pointless political reading. It is evidenced even further when RABID is, basically, reduced to an allegory of the "October crisis" of 1970. in Quebec, and very little else is said about the layers of meaning inherent to that film other than production details (budget, shooting, reception, etc.). Placing SHIVERS and RABID in the context of the cultural climate of the 1970-ies and the state of horror genre at the time is done rather ingeniously (pp.42-43) but, sadly, his analysis of the films themselves leaves a lot to be desired.

THE BROOD, that most controversial (and complicated) of Cronenberg's early films also remains largely under-analyzed: instead of his own stance, Mathijs mostly deals with the queer and feminist nonsense written by Robin Wood and Barbara Creed which accused this film as a misogynistic pamphlet about a man suppressing his wife's rights within the family. Mathijs points that Frank (BROOD's main character) is a questionable type himself, but does not tell us what to make of the whole story he's part of. Instead, off we go into the far safer field of regurgitated theory about "the cult of horror" which started rising in the late 1970-ies and early 1980-ies that BROOD became part of. Always readier to jump at a political reading if the film offers even half a chance for that, Mathijs does not so much interpret SCANNERS as he labels it a conspiracy thriller which "swaps intimacy for spectacle" (p.89). Instead of dealing with its themes and ideas, Mathijs is more comfortable retelling (admittedly interesting, but mostly well-known) details about that film's most famous money-shot (the exploding head), special effects and, of course, the reception of the film.

VIDEODROME and THE DEAD ZONE are, predictably, analyzed in terms of politics and paranoia. At one point Mathijs claims that "VIDEODROME is the quintessential, comprehensive Cronenberg – the crux to cracking the code of the 'Cronenberg Project'" (p.105) This alliterative KKK sentence might be funny in a FANGORIA article, but it is a bit out of place in this academic study. What's even worse, the text which follows never really justifies this superlative claim and thus the 'Cronenberg Project' remains a code largely uncracked and uncomprehended. Oh, well, at least VIDEODROME made "an almost prophetic reference to reality television" (p.110).

Cronenberg's best two films, THE FLY and DEAD RINGERS, are practically begging the feminist nut heads to project their "theories" on them, and so of course, Mathijs quotes Barbara Creed's gonzo understanding of these two films representing "womb envy: the inability of men to come to terms with the superlative reproductive abilities. Frustration over this ability manifests itself in extreme explorations of the human body... etc. etc." (p.138). For Mathijs, THE FLY and DEAD RINGERS are about the modern system of health care and misguided ways of today's medicine and "the intricate connections between sex roles, health and commerce" (p.147). He wastes several pages on those who read the AIDS metaphor into THE FLY – only to negate them with a crystal clear quote from Cronenberg himself, who put them to rest convincingly: "AIDS is a metaphor for something else... (THE FLY) is about death as most horror films are... I'm really thinking of it as growing old" (quoted on p.150).

But even Croneberg's quoted protests against political readings of his films do not stop the author of this book. Consequently, he doesn't devote much time nor effort to the anthropology, deep psychology, philosophy and metaphysics of Cronenberg's body horror; it's always far easier to rely on the currently fashionable politics. Indeed, very little is said about the archetypal, universal appeal of Cronenberg's best films. Burroughs's reference to an Evil waiting for the settlers in America is "read" as a criticism of American foreign policy and colonialism. NAKED LUNCH and M. BUTTERFLY are viewed as "social comments". CRASH is too open for interpretation for Mathijs to even try one. Instead, he deals with scandal-mongers and shallow-brains who clamored for banning that film. The references to other artists, like Kafka, Nabokov and Beckett are merely quoted as existent (with numerous references to those who spotted the similarities) – but are not explored nor convincingly analyzed in this book.

Of course, Mathijs is on a much safer ground with Cronenberg's most obvious, simple-minded recent films like SPIDER, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and EASTERN PROMISES. Since their author himself intended them to be ambiguity-free, linear, non-provocative exercises in obviousness, they can readily be seen as "about reassessing values embedded in family traditions and habits" (p.226). "The topicality of these forces in American society makes both films cultural markers of our time" (p.227). Just like Tom Mes reduced the complexities and ambiguities of Takashi Miike to the social aspect of Japanese society today in his AGITATOR book, in a similar manner Ernest Mathijs placed too strong a stress on the societal topicalities of Cronenberg's multilayered oeuvre thus successfully pushing back precisely those other topics which made the 'Cronenberg Project' unique and unparalleled. His analysis, although not without its limited merits, makes Cronenberg look like a mere Atom Egoyan on LSD. But he is so much more.

To conclude: well-researched and multi-referenced, solidly supported and illustrated, THE CINEMA OF DAVID CRONENBERG: FROM BARON OF BLOOD TO CULTURAL HERO by Ernest Mathijs is a study whose main value lies in exploring the reception (and misconceptions) of Cronenberg's films, but has very little to add to clarifying them and enabling a better understanding of their essence. It tells you how and where they were filmed; what the budgets were; what their plots are; what some critics wrote about them; and what societal concerns can be projected on them (AIDS, gender, homosexuality, feminism, media, politics, paranoia, family, etc.). What it doesn't tell you is: what, exactly, IS the 'Cronenberg Project', what is the tissue that connects the issues behind his films.

As such, the book is far from being the authoritative last word on David Cronenberg. As James Spader says at the end of CRASH: "Maybe the next one, darling. Maybe the next one."

-Originally published on Beyond Hollywood: The Cinema of David Cronenberg

Richard Stanley's TERRA UMBRA – Empire of Shadows

New mind-wrenching site!

Terra Umbra – Empire of Shadows

I'm happy to inform you that a New Interactive Website by Richard Stanley is Launched!

Terra Umbra is a new mind-wrenching website drawing on over 20 years of research by filmmaker and anthropologist Richard Stanley and his associates in the Shadow Theatre. Learn the mysteries behind the material that inspired such authors as Dan Brown, Kate Mosse, Philip K. Dick, H.P. Lovecraft, Trevor Ravenscroft, Jules Verne and Otto Rahn.

Terra Umbra combines historical research with ongoing exploration into the direct experience of the mysteries. Extraordinary claims demands extraordinary evidence, which is why Terra Umbra also features exclusive video interviews and hundreds of photographs.

Learn the true history of your world.

www.shadowtheatre13.com

youtube.com/terraumbra13

facebook.com/terraumbra13

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http://www.terraumbra13.blogspot.com/

Richard Stanley is a filmmaker, anthropologist and esoteric scholar. He has written and directed such feature films as Hardware and Dust Devil.

DUST DEVIL (1992)

Directed by Richard Stanley

GHOUL RATING: ****(*) 4+

This is a review of the Optimum DVD release, which came out before the superlative, definitive one (4 DVD discs + 1 CD with the soundtrack), by Subversive Cinema.

DUST DEVIL is the best kept secret of horror film in the past 20 years.

Of course, the title is known among the cult aficionados and the initiated few, but as far as the wider public goes, including many who call themselves 'horror fans', Richard Stanley's masterpiece is yet to be discovered. It had a troubled production history with as many twists and turns as the movie itself, and its release has been virtually botched. Miramax excised more than 15 minutes from the director's cut, and since then the original version remained unavailable for quite a while. There was a German DVD (by Laser Paradise) in 2003, with a tolerable but far from perfect transfer, as the only chance to see the full, 104' version – until now. Optimum Release has come up with a new digital transfer (done by MGM in 2001), and the full glory of DUST DEVIL can finally be unleashed upon the Region 2 viewers.

It was worth the wait, since the film remains as powerful as it was 15 years ago, and its qualities are timeless just like the Namibian desert where it takes place. It is an eclectic blend of spaghetti western, serial killer thriller, dark romance and mysticism, crafted into a spiraling tale of a supernatural entity from the title. He/it assumes the form of a spooky Clint Eastwood as 'the man with no name' from Sergio Leone's westerns. Excellently played by Robert Burke, this 'devil' is the last image burnt into the retinas of unlucky drivers through the oldest desert in the world. Those who give him a ride are found later, their bodies cut to pieces, their blood used for 'primitive', though elaborate murals. But, as the tagline warns: ''He's not a serial killer: he's much worse.'' He/it is an ancient demon, trapped in the material world, attempting to get a release ''through the ritual of murder''. He frees the spark of light from his suicidal victims (for there's a catch: he only comes to those who have already given up on life) trying to come back to the original spiritual kingdom.

In this part of his journey he accompanies a young woman (Chelsea Field) running away from an abusive husband. She is contemplating suicide, but the hitcher stops her: even the ancient spirit gets lonely sometimes, and decides to use her company and affection for a while. In the meantime his bloody tracks are followed by a black policeman (Zakes Mokae, the creepy dictator from THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW) haunted by demons of his own and slowed down by his brutish, racist South African subordinates. This dance with the devil will eventually take all of them to the center of the spiral, a deserted town half-swallowed by the desert sand, for a blood-spurting showdown... The film is complimented by the beautiful cinematography (Steven Chivers, who also shot Stanley's HARDWARE) and the stunning score, maybe the best of his career, by Simon Boswell (why is this guy not more famous?). The soundtrack effectively merges Morricone's spaghetti western sounds with Goldsmith's THE OMEN large-scale doom'n'gloom and Boswell's own elegiac flute tones, as memorable here as they were in Jodorowsky's SANTA SANGRE.

DUST DEVIL is a unique piece of visionary filmmaking the likes of which are rarely found in horror genre lately. Other than its technical mastery, it is a horror that actually has something on its mind. It is rooted in the Gnostic belief that our world is a mistake, a failure. Material existence is a product of the Evil Demiurge, a malevolent deity. The real God is overthrown, powerless. The Gnostics believed that everything, from far-off stars to the nuclei of our cells carries the mark of the original imperfection inherent to the Creation. In the midst of this material darkness there is a spark of light, conceived by the original God, as a trace of our true being. The goal of a Gnostic is to tear through the veil of delusion and burst through the screen of false reality into his original homeland, the otherworldly realm of the True God. Stanley admitted this much about DUST DEVIL in one interview: ''It basically dispenses with conventional morality and tries to replace it with a totally different idea of movement toward the spirit or away from the spirit.''

The Devil is, obviously, a figure that Stanley deeply sympathizes with, and he's presented in the film knowingly, with numerous allusions to the multifaceted archetype invoked. Stanley's Devil is a Stranger, an Alien, a Man with No Name. A Shape-shifter: bringer of instability, enemy of fixity. The Great Pretender, Actor, Liar, Fool, the Man with a thousand faces. Dweller of the Crossroads, gateways, bridges, crosses where worlds intertwine; Guardian of the Gate of Passage, the top Initiator. Inhabitant of the Desert, bringer of extremes, Avatar of emptiness and desolation – or transformation. He's the One from the mirror, the other side of reflection: the double, the doppelganger. Defined by the fire, heat, flaming red, shimmering of the hot air above the desert dust or asphalt, the deceiving fatamorgana. A haunted, roaming soul. A Damned One who feeds on the damned. Ambivalent shadow of 'Evil' through the centuries. Anti-hero, dissatisfied with the assigned role. Ultimately, a puppet whose strings are in the hands of the Evil Demiurge.

Namibian desert, the oldest in the world, becomes the most adequate stage for the primeval, timeless drama. South Africa is at the Edge of the World, both geographically and symbolically. Stanley describes this place in his production diaries as ''a land that no longer seems to be part of man's universe, an untenanted, unfinished world, the terrain of Gods and Spirits''. Kubrick used a similar location for the opening segment ('Dawn of Man') of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and in Stanley's vision it is the stage for the 'Twilight of Man' as well.

This is the edge of the abyss.

What lies beyond?

It's either destruction or transformation.

In this place even the Devil is not a metaphor or psychological concept but a very possible, even tangible reality: a roaming spirit at the beginning and end of the world.

Optimum's presentation of the film is quite decent: the anamorphic image (in 1.85:1) is sharp most of the time, though certain contrasts leave some to be desired. The stereo sound is excellent, while occasional minor faults have to do with the original source and difficult circumstances of filming. There are four brief deleted scenes (all in poor transfer, probably from a VHS tape) that do not add much to the film, but the main extra is director's commentary. Highly vivacious, informative, funny, intelligent and personal, it is also helpful since Stanley explains some of the occult symbolism and points towards subtle visual and other allusions and signs throughout the film, thus further showing how much care, thought and passion has gone into its making. So, open up yourselves to the glories of DUST DEVIL, and if you're hooked, you'll probably want more. And more is coming this autumn, when Subversive Cinema releases the ultimate edition of DUST DEVIL on R1 DVD with a new commentary and a bunch of extras, plus ingenious documentaries by Stanley, dealing with voodoo and Nazi search for the Holy Grail.

ARANG (2006)

Country: South-Korea

Genre: Horror

Running Time: 98'

Director: Ahn Sang Hoon

Cast: Dong-Wook Lee, Jong-su Lee,Yun-ah Song

GHOUL RATING: ** (2)

Story: So-Young and her rookie assistant are investigating a series of bizarre (bloodless!) murders. All the victims seem to have died due to an acid released in their bodies. But wait a minute: what about the ghost-girl we see during each uninspired death scene? As they discover more about the case, they come to realize that the victims are somehow related to a young girl's death ten years ago. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to decide that it must be her ghost avenging upon the miscreants. Or, perhaps this whole ghost-thing is just a sham, and a human agent is behind it all? Will 90 minutes be enough to unravel this complicated mystery???

Review: Here we go again: yet another 'long-haired-ghost's revenge flick'! All the tropes that we've come to know and hate are back here, with no shame, no regret, and – worst of all – no attempt to upgrade them, to do something original with the trite motifs and devices.

-Urban legend that schoolgirls tell to one another? Check!

-Close-ups of bloodied ghost-eyes? Check!

-Sudden movements in front of the camera (accompanied by a loud noise)? Check!

-Black hair appearing in the most inconvenient places, growing insanely? Check!

-Black water oozing and announcing the ghost? Check!

-Pale fingers (with bloodied nails) slowly crawling towards the camera (and victim)? Check!

-Blue-faced kiddy-ghost? Check!

-Evil deeds from the past which haunt the perpetrators now? Check!

-Said evil deeds revealed by a convenient (fuzzy) tape? Check!

-Photo and film camera reveal the ghost, otherwise unseen? Check!

-Haunted web-site? Check!

-Ghost in the elevator (hovering, but not doing anything!)? Check!

-Autopsy revealing strange things about the victims? Check!

-Going to a small village community at the sea-side to discover the ghost's past? Check!

-Discovery of the dead woman's corpse in the culmination? Check!

-Surprising twist at the end? Check! Check! Check!

Rather than a real movie, ARANG is an anthology of clichés. Its sole claim at 'originality' is the fact that it's structured like a police procedural, with a policewoman investigator as the protagonist, rather than some journalist, accidental witness or the like. Even the crime-thriller aspect of the plot is not played honestly, as the key clue comes literally out of nowhere. During a ride in the car, So-Young's assistant mumbles: 'There must be a secret hidden in it.' That jumpstarts her light-bulb: 'A secret? Hidden? Of course, let's go and dig the dead dog buried in the first victim's backyard!' They go there, dig the corpse, she slices its stomach and – would you believe it? – out comes a roll of tape! The director never bothers to explain whether the dog swallowed it or if it was inserted into its carcass (which looked pretty undamaged to me). We're also supposed to take for granted that a loop of tape which spent some time in the decomposing fluids of a dead dog will be preserved enough to be watchable! Mind you, this is not some minor clue, but the key discovery in the investigation, as the tape reveals what, exactly, happened to the poor girl (now, apparently, a ghost) and who, exactly, did it to her.

The final twist is very underwhelming as it undermines THE HORROR aspect and stresses THE THRILLER-DRAMA. It's especially silly in a movie marketed as a horror, with ghosts, spirits etc. In the end it boils down to a crime-thriller laced with (as it turns out) rather haphazard and pointless apparitions. It might be excusable if at least the crime elements were treated honestly and originally, which they weren't. The investigation goes strictly by the numbers (with the aforementioned cheat of a discovery in the dead dog's stomach!), and its dominantly prosaic atmosphere ruins the spooky feel ARANG could otherwise have.

Neither fish nor fowl, it remains a strictly middle of the road affair. The tech credits are solid, but uninspired. Well-made movies are coming from Korea on the assembly line but this one has no substance beneath its professional gloss. As a mystery it's predictable and obvious; as a horror it's stale, déjà vu, and therefore ineffective. We want something fresh, not same-old same-old!

KAZUO UMEZZ'S HORROR THEATER 3 (2005)

Country: Japan

Year: 2005

Genre: Horror

Running Time: 90'

Directors:

Yudai Yamaguchi; Taichi Ito

Cast:

Mai Takahashi, Takamasa Suga, Hitomi Miwa, Tomorrow Taguchi

GHOUL RATING: 2-

*(*)

Story: As always, the disc contains 2 episodes, approx. 45 minutes each.

THE PRESENT is about a group of obnoxious teens (aren't they all?) who were very naughty, and Santa comes to get them. You heard that right: Santa is not only a giver of presents for the good kids but also a psycho-killer who tortures and slaughters those who were bad (which somehow makes him – good?). He likes to cut off their limbs and grind their meat in his dirty, water-leaking lair. One is left to wonder couldn't Santa at least afford a basement with good plumbing? Why aren't the elves dusting the place at least once a year, what with all the grime and dirt and all? One would expect Santa to rise a little bit above the pathetic level of some low-down Ed Gein, but no, his hideaway is right from the poor man's version of SAW…

DEATH MAKE tells the sad and uninvolving story of a group of uninteresting 'clairvoyants' brought to an abandoned warehouse, allegedly haunted. Their aim: to shoot a boring TV show sitting in front of white background sheets, chatting about the 'supernatural' – and to run at the first sign of the real deal. This concept is merely an excuse for a shitload of 'first person video-shots' and 'in-camera confessions' a la BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Up to that moment this flick is merely boring: when the 'haunting' takes the shape of a giant grasshopper (or something like that) it becomes downright silly. The grasshopper chases and kills (in entirely unimaginative ways) almost all of them, and then, in a twist ending… well, if you're really into masochism, rent this and see for yourself.

Review: Two more stories from Kazuo Umezz, a Japanese author of horror comics, best known for those adapted into THE DRIFTING CLASSROOM (with Troy Donahue!) and BAPTISM OF BLOOD. He seems to have a thing for giant insects, featured in CLASSROOM as well as in DEATH MAKE, and also for in vivo brain extraction (both in BAPTISM and THE PRESENT). Not exactly subtle, but some like it cheesy, and if cheese is what you want, this 'theatre' will deliver.

It's hard to judge Umezz's quality as a manga artist as none of the movies made from his work so far are any good, and if these two episodes are any sign… I think I had enough, thank you very much. But who knows: maybe Kyoshi Kurosawa made something worthwhile out of Mr. Umezz (born Umezu, but for some reason prefers the double 'z' spelling of his name) in HORROR THEATRE 2.

What we're left with here does not sound too bad – on paper. Just look at those names involved: THE PRESENT features actors from real movies, like Mai Takahashi (THE GREAT YOKAI WAR) and Takamasa Suga (DEATH TRANCE), and furthermore, it's directed by the cult fave Yudai Yamaguchi, who wrote the crazy VERSUS and directed an even crazier BATTLEFIELD BASEBALL. How could it possibly go wrong? Well, it could. And it did.

The script is utterly nonsensical even if you lower down your expectations for the Japanese equivalent of TALES FROM THE CRYPT as it is divested of its spirit of mischief, tongue-in-cheek and black humor. This does not even aim at, say, AND ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE segment of TALES FROM THE CRYPT, which made a GOOD use of horror Santa. Instead, annoying characters are being cut up by a white guy in a poorly fitting Santa costume so it ends up looking like some dumb Eli Roth torture porn. Oh, yeah, at least there are buckets of gore, severed limbs, nail-pulling and the like, but these scenes are neither gruesome nor funny as they're shot with no inspiration, lacking the spirit… and punch.

Then you come to DEATH MAKE, hoping for something like EVIL DEAD TRAP meets HAUNTING meets BLAIR WITCH. It's directed by Taichi Ito, a visual effects producer, and it (ab)uses the talents of Hitomi Miwa from THE GRUDGE and even the legendary Tomorrow Taguchi from the TETSUO movies. Of course, it's nowhere near the films it's trying to ape. It does not even try hard enough to be a respectable rip-off. No, it's strictly going through the motions, within the limits of a poor budget. While the limited funds can be a partial excuse for laughably bad (to put it mildly) CGI effects involving the giant grasshopper (what were they thinking?!), the poor visual style and non-direction are entirely Taichi's fault. Just look what GOOD directors did with a similar budget in a similar setting, like Toshiharu Ikeda in EVIL DEAD TRAP's abandoned warehouse or Michele Soavi in STAGE FRIGHT's abandoned theatre. There's no style and no substance here: just childish nonsense and waste of everyone's precious time.

If this series may sound like the Japanese equivalent of MASTERS OF HORROR, a few words of warning:

a) even the (mostly) American 'masters' turned out to be largely underwhelming, with only Miike actually PROVING to be a master;

b) UMEZZ'S THEATRE seems to be more intent on quick cashing in on the J-horror craze than on exploring the new boundaries of its genre and bringing new and SCARY stories to the West;

c) MASTERS OF HORROR, even at its stupidest, at least had the good production values and eye candy which this poor THEATRE is sorely lacking.

But obviously, the greatest fault lies in uninspired scripts and directing and rather poor acting, together with a misguided notion (actually shared by Showtime's MASTERS) that any amount of visual effects and splatter can evoke that subtle feeling of HORROR which they falsely invoke in their respective titles. Rather than horrific, this is just horrible.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A PORNO GANG (2009)

Directed by Mladen Djordjevic

Serbia 2009

Genre: Horror drama / road-movie / black comedy

GHOUL RATING: **** (4)

English subbed TRAILER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVUMAZ51vrE

Cast:
Marko-Mihajlo Z. Jovanović
Una - Ana Aćimović
Vanja - Predrag Damnjanović
Džoni – Radivoj Knežević
Maks - Srđan Jovanović
Ceca - Ivan Đorđević
Dragan - Bojan Zogović
Sofija - Nataša Miljuš
Rade - Aleksandar Gligorić
Darinka - Mariana Aranđelović
Franc – Srboljub Milin
Cane – Srđan Miletić
Strahinja – Dragan Đorđević
Sniper – Jovo Maksić

Written and directed by Mladen Djordjević

Director of photography: Nemanja Jovanov

Production design: Zorana Petrov

Costume design: Jelena Djordjević, Vesna Teodosić

Special make-up effects: Miroslav Lakobrija

Film editing: Marko Glušac, Milina Trišić

Music: Janja Lončar

Sound design: Vladimir Živković

Executive producer: Igor Kecman

Producers: Jelena Mitrović, Srdan Golubović

Production: Baš Čelik, 2009.

AWARDS

for THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A PORNO GANG:

- SPECIAL MENTION -RAVENNA NIGHTMARE FILM FESTIVAL 2009.

- “NEBOJSA DJUKELIC” AWARD (Awarded by The Jury of the Association of Belgrade's Film Journalists and Critics - Belgrade film festival - FEST, Serbia, national premiere)

- Special mention FIPRESCI Serbia (Cinema City Festival, Novi Sad, Serbia, national selection)

- Special mention, Screenplay Film Festival Vrnjacka Banja 2009, Serbia, national selection

Here is a film from Serbia which succeeds to be shocking and original: Zivot i smrt porno bande (The Life and Death of a Porn Gang, 2009), a debut feature by Mladen Djordjevic. He became known among horror fans with his short films Zivi mrtvaci (The Living Dead, 2000) and Glad (Hunger, 2002) and he earned a wider acclaim with his feature-length documentary about Serbian porn industry, Made in Serbia (2005). These concerns logically continue with his …Porn Gang. It deals with an aspiring filmmaker, Marko, who is unable to pursue a career in horror films. He ventures into the porn industry, but his unorthodox style fails to impress producers. Frustrated, he assembles a crew of junkies, homosexuals and transvestites and starts a traveling live porn show. It draws attention of the suspicious police, but also of the locals, unhappy with their provocative material. Soon a shady producer approaches them and offers real money in exchange for snuff films they are to make for his clientele…

Instead of copying the foreign generic models, as Serbian horrors like T. T. Syndrome and Zone of the Dead have done, …Porn Gang hits so close to home that it hurts twice as much. Its real inspiration lies in the years of (post)Milosevic Serbia in which civil wars and violence of all kinds brough about failure of all ideals. The director, Mladen Djordjevic, grew up among images of slaughtered, decapitated people from the civil wars in Croatia and Bosnia, shown in prime time Serbian news. He takes a documentary form as a way of capturing a stylized, but still very authentic portrait of the complex ways that Eros and Thanatos are merged in today's Serbia.

The motif of snuff metaphorically reveals a strong death-wish present among the disenchanted, disillusioned people for whom death is the only salvation. Thus, Djordjevic presents a line-up of voluntary victims of snuff films: a touching, melancholy cast of the ruined and forgotten ones. Unlike the victims in American torture-porns with snuff motif, who are so full of life and courage to fight until their last gasp, the Serbian ones come to their executioners voluntarily, searching a means of sustaining their impoverished families or a quick escape from unbearable life.

Although the film had a very low budget, this only augments its documentary look. Thanks to the expert digital camera of Nemanja Jovanov, it reaches an authentic feel rarely seen since the days of the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Largely unknown young actors and nonprofessionals invest their characters with honesty and frankness. Unlike their "movie stars" colleagues, they are unafraid to bare all, both physically and emotionally, thus making this shocking and harrowing film at the same time also very engaging and emotional. In its sympathy for the outsiders, but also in its road-movie structure, …Porn Gang continues the tradition of the Serbian "Black Wave" of the 1960s, especially films by Zelimir Zilnik like Rani radovi (1969), but infuses it with modern influences, especially the films of Takashi Miike.

The Life and Death of a Porn Gang exposes the underbelly of contemporary Serbia and pulls no punches in the process. The film throws away almost all taboos, such as group sex, murder, full frontal nudity, violence to animals, homosexuality, bestiality, snuff… only here they come with a socio-political context. What Naked Lunch by William Burroughs was for America in the 1950s and 1960s, … Porn Gang is for post-Milosevic Serbia.

Its significance is well summed up in the catalogue of the Puchon film festival where it shocked and enthralled the audience: "As you see the enthusiastic youngsters dreaming of art and revolution being murdered, raped, and kidnapped one by one, you get to wonder if you're witnessing one of the biggest turning points, or cinematic landmarks, of the Serbian film history."

SHIKOKU (1999)

Director:

Shunichi NAGASAKI

Cast:

Yui NATSUKAWA
Michitaka TSUTSUI
Chiaki KURIYAMA
Toshie NEGISHI
Taro SUWA

Country: Japan

Year: 1999

GHOUL RATING: *** (3)

'Shikoku' could easily be discarded as 'yet another long-black-haired-ghost story from Japan' but please bear with me. It is much more than a mere derivative attempt to cash-in on J-horror craze. While it was one of the first ghost stories to follow 'Ring' (1998) and was actually playing a double-bill with 'Ring 2' (1999), it is actually based on a novel by Masako Bando, and its literary origins are visible in its greater complexity and subtlety.

Unlike 'Ring' and most of its successors ('The Grudge', 'Dark Water', etc.), which were mostly urban tales, 'Shikoku' is firmly rooted in the depths of Japanese countryside and its ancient folklore. Shikoku is the name of the smallest of the four islands that make up Japan: its meaning is 'four kingdoms', but a very slight variation in spelling, depending on the type of kanji used, can turn it into 'land of the dead'. Still, before you think 'George A. Romero' be reminded that Japanese dead folks are more polite and subtle, and much less bloodthirsty than their Pittsburgh counterparts.

The film is based on an actual traditional belief that Shikoku is where the gateway to the Land of the dead lies, and in order to contain the spirits therein, the believers would go on a pilgrimage along the entire island, visiting one by one all 88 Buddhist temples there. But here is the catch: if one goes in reverse direction, visiting the last temple first etc. then… who knows?... perhaps the dead will walk the earth again? And that's exactly the kind of pilgrimage a certain woman goes on in order to resurrect her prematurely deceased daughter, Sayori (Chiaki Kuriyama).

The plot starts when a young woman, Hinako, comes from Tokyo back to her home, a secluded village in the mountains, to take care of her old house. She learns that her childhood friend, Sayori, had drowned. She is accompanied by Fumiya, the boy who used to play with these two girls, now a young man whose help will be vital when the mysterious events start taking place in the vicinity. Childhood romance is rekindled between these two, but also a certain bitterness and envy from the past on the part of Sayori, whose spirit is hovering over her ex-friend and ex-boyfriend, understandably displeased with their coming together.

'Variety' described this film as 'supernatural drama', and while I hate when horror films are labelled 'supernatural-this' or 'thriller-that', in this case that might be a more suitable label. At least it won't make you expect a full-blown horror and be disappointed by the rather restrained approach. The pace IS deliberate and the scares are subtle and quiet ones, mostly lacking the exploitative shock-value. In other words, SOME viewers might find this film boring or devoid of frights. However, for this reviewer at least, the first two thirds of 'Shikoku' were almost perfect. The opening provides a fine prologue of a childhood friendship and the anguish when one of the kids departs for the big city. It is followed by Hinako's elegiac return to her hometown and her past some fifteen years later, and the contrast between Tokyo and quietly creepy countryside in the misty mountains is pitch-perfect. The same goes for the unspoken, but very much present sentiment of meeting one's childhood friends still stuck in their backwater small-town existence, and their resentment towards the one who 'made it in the big city'. This point is most obvious in the vaguely-insulting words that a grocery girl reports to Hinako: apparently, she merely repeats what she'd heard from Sayori, but the relish with which she reiterates the insults speaks volumes. Hinako is not welcome: she obviously belongs to another world now.

The frights come unforced, naturally arising from the beautiful setting and its atmosphere: statues with their heads cut off in the woods, a shady shape behind the window of an abandoned house, a boy who glimpses his dead grandfather in the middle of the day (shot in a very simple but effective way), a visit to Sayori's house where hundreds of papers proving her mother's visits to all of the 88 temples are dancing in the night breeze… A scene in which Sayori stands unnoticed over Fumiya's shoulder is comparable to a similarly spooky scene from the original 'Ring' when Sadako visits Reiko in the park, in the middle of the day. 'Shikoku' makes an excellent use of such quiet moments to instill the chill down your spine. Sadly, in the last third of the movie, when one expects a worthy climax, it goes slightly downhill. Not so much to ruin the whole movie, but enough to make it a 'flawed classic'. I'll try not to spoil it, as this film deserves to be seen: suffice to say that the ending consists mostly of a lengthy discussion with Sakuya's ghost and clumsy attempts (by a grotesque-looking priest) to return her where she came from while our heroine Hinako stands passively out of the way.

'Shikoku', at least, will not insult your intelligence with some silly plot-twist in the last minute and, if you give it a chance and invest some patience, will provide some solid and lasting chills long after the anti-climactic ending. If you like your horrors (sorry: 'supernatural dramas'!) slow and creepy like an autumn mist, go for 'Shikoku'. It provides the kind of scares that are rarely attempted –or achieved – nowadays. The countryside setting is the real star of this film, and it is competently lensed. As for the human stars, their roles are rather thankless, as they have to convey a lot of the unspoken with their expressions and body language, but their acting is fine. A special reason to see 'Shikoku' is certainly to enjoy one of the first roles of the exquisite Chiaki Kuriyama ('Kill Bill', 'Battle Royale', 'Azumi 2', 'MPD Psycho', 'The Great Yokai War'…), here playing the most beautiful ghost of Japanese cinema.

The film is available in a recently released DVD box set 'The Kadokawa Horror Collection' (together with 'Inugami', 'Isola: Multiple Personality Girl' and 'Shadow of the Wraith'). The colors are slightly muted, but in this case it only adds to the misty feeling of the visuals. In the extra department the disc boasts (unimpressive) trailers for all four Kadokawa horrors, a 3-minute 'behind the scenes' feature (shooting a scene toward the end of 'Shikoku') and approx. 10 minutes worth of not-too-revealing interviews with the director and two leading ladies.