The Unseen #3: Circus Of Fear

Why I Bought It ?: Came with my dollar store copy of Carnival Of Souls.

Why I Haven’t Watched It ?: Would you watch a movie called Circus Of Fear rather then Carnival Of Souls?

How Was It?: Circus Of Fear isn’t actually a horror movie despite its misleading title, and present on a horror double feature DVD. Actually more of a crime film and mystery it follows a botched heist whose ill gotten gains end up stolen by someone (or SOMETHING, wait no it’s not a horror movie, someone) who works at a circus. Circus Of Fear is an agreeable enough movie that never quite becomes as fun as it should be. Despite the presence of Christopher Lee (!) as a Lion Tamer (!!) who wears a gimp mask (!!!) and Klaus Kinski at his most batshit Klaus Kinskiesque, this movie manages to occasionally be boring, for which there is simply no excuse.

The problem with the movie is that everything that goes on at the circus is reasonably entertaining it, but everything away from it is frightfully dull. The movie is half Freaks half pre Michael Caine, British Crime film (and thus, once again, dull). Anytime the movie cuts to British police genteely discussing Scallywags and Hooligans in a tastefully decorated office, my eyes couldn’t help but glaze over.

As the movie goes on we spend less and less time with the circus people and more and more time with the Agatha Christie Rejects (Band Name Trademarked). So despite the presence of lion attacks, Klaus Kinski acting like he’s a serial murderer, and The Dread Mystery Of What Lies Behind Christopher Lee’s Gimp Mask, things never quite take off.

The film comes to a suitably bizarre conclusion, involving an unsolved murder in South Africa (?). But by then it’s all a bit too little too late.

The Unseen #2: The House By The Cemetary

Reason Bought?: Came with my copy of The Beyond asking why I bought The Beyond is a very silly thing to do.

Why Haven't I Watched It Yet?: I was a bit Fulci'd out when I picked it up (Yes such a thing is possible) I was saving it for a rainy badly dubbed day.

How Was It?:So going from one disreputable Italian Genre film to another disreputable Italian Genre film. Today’s Unseen comes to us from Lucio Fulci. AKA The Curly of the three Godfathers of Italian Horror films.

The movie gets off to a promising start as a busty topless chick calls out for her boyfriend in the middle of the titular house. Because nothing screams romance like fucking in an abandoned house in the middle of a cemetery, and then leaving your girlfriend alone to enjoy the post coital bliss all by her lonesome. Try it guys it’ll earn you some major points. After the predictable happens, the movie, which makes little sense even for a Fulci film, decides to follow a family that moves from their safe New York home to Boston.

The horror THE HORROR, but fear not gentle readers, they haven’t moved to Dorchester, they’ve moved to the house by the cemetery, which means they have to only deal with one house filled with murderous ghouls and not a whole neighborhood of them. (By the way what is it with Fulci and moving? An inordinate amount of his movies begin with people moving into a new place and thus opening up the gates of hell/ Zombies/ catching the attention of a serial murderer. If there’s one thing that’ll get you killed in a Fulci flick it’s not sex, and it’s not drugs, it’s desiring a more prestigious area code.

Anyway what starts as a good old fashioned family moves into a house haunted by a killer in the cellar pic, gets needlessly convoluted, again even for a Fulci film. The jist of it is that the house used to belong to a mad scientist named Dr. Freudenstein (No Really) and some of the Doc’s experiments may still be kicking around. The family moves in, including their horribly dubbed child Bob (is it just me or is it wrong to call a child Bob?) and what ensues is basically a version of The Shining if everyone took a double digit IQ drop. The Dad gets obsessed with Dr. Freudenstein (No Really) The Mom gets nervous, and Bob, the child acts creepy. And every once in awhile a shambling zombie thing comes and kills someone innocent.

Still despite it’s many shortcomings the film does offer many of the pleasures you associate with Fulci films. Its got, extreme gore, interesting style, a great Eurotrash score, and some real scares. And the most prolonged Bat Attack Of All Time.



The house itself as shot by Fulci has a genuine personality to it, and a genuinely creepy one at that. I don’t think it’s one of Fulci’s best films but it’s certainly one of his most enjoyable.

The Unseen #1: A Minute To Pray A Second To Die

The Unseen #1: A Minute To Pray A Second To Die

Reason Bought: Are you kidding me it’s an Italian Western entitled A Minute To Pray A Second To Die. No way I could pass that up. Plus it’s RZA approved. And also under five dollars. Plus did you take a look at that poster? Did you?

Why Haven’t I Watched It Yet: I only picked it up fairly recently. Infact it was kind of the inspiration for this column.

How Was It?: Not very good. Which isn’t to say it was bad. Just mediocre. And no where near as fun as it’s lurid trashy title suggests it to be. A Programmer in the worst sense of the word. It’s as standard as a Spaghetti Western can be, without even a particularly developed sense of sadism to set it apart from the maddening crowd.

It’s a standard story of an Outlaw trying to go straight before a corrupt marshal or his epilepsy can kill him. Along the way he romances a senorita and kills an awful lot of men in hats. But it all feels perfunctory.

Robert Ryan comes in to pinch hit at the end, and he livens things up with his always welcome "weathered bad ass mother fucker"presence. But it’s a case of too little too late and his roll is little more then a cameo. Arthur Kennedy comes in to chew the scenery as the villain, and he’s always fun too, but Alex Cord makes for a frankly boring hero and the director, Franco Giruldi doesn’t bring anything special to the film.

There are a few nice moments of badassery, a scene where Cord makes a man whose son he’s just killed give him a shave is particularly nice touch. But I have yet to see a Spaghetti Western that doesn’t and in the end there’s just not enough here to let me recommend anyone seeking this film out.

The Unseen: Intro

Part of being a modern day film fan is having a few DVD’s on your shelf that you’ve just never gotten around to seeing. I don’t mean the latest blockbuster which you saw in theaters, picked up when it came out, and just never got around to opening up. I mean films you bought blind and plain haven’t seen.

And when you’re as obsessive a collector as I, that number can be faintly embarrassing. I don’t know the exact number but suffice to say it’ll be awhile before this column runs out of material. Well no more. I”ve rounded up the usual suspects, and I’m burning through all of them. Every film I own and haven’t seen is going to get checked off and I’m taking you along for the ride.

Now as my track record with continuing columns isn’t the best I can see how this could be met with incredulity. It might even cause Sweet Clyde to laugh derisively at me. Well to this I can only respond that I plan on doing the shit I say, which conveniently, will have little to no details. I plan to get at least a couple of these up a week starting tomorrow, and it should be a fun trip through some of the odder places in my collection. Hope you enjoy.

What Kind Of Man Are You: The Man Who Wasn't There

“I’m going to take this hair and mix it with the dirt. Common household dirt.”

The Man Who Wasn’t ThereThe Man Who Wasn't There goes on the very short list of Coen Brothers films I’ve seen less then a dozen time. It’s been a long while since I revisited it, I was inspired to by the lunatic trailer for A Serious Man, and I’m glad I did. It’s maybe the Coen’s most troubling film, but it’s well worth seeing. There’s a lot to like even if there’s little to love.

It’s not hard to see why The Man Who Wasn’t There isn’t exactly a fan favorite. It’s an intensely uncomfortable film. Stylized and arch even for the Coens, full of their warped vision, but undercut by an uncomfortable existential hum, even in it’s most straightforwardly funny scenes (Like the trip to Frances McDormand’s “Wop” family wedding) that undercuts the enjoyment that visiting the Coen’s fractured world provides. In a lot of ways it’s darker then No Country For Old Men. It’s a decidedly almost purposefully minor film. And I can’t help but think it’s sort of brilliant.

In The Man Who Wasn’t There, Billy Bob Thorton plays a barber who so deadpan that he surely has reached a stage of zen. In a weird way he’s like The Dude’s evil Doppleganger, a man so laid back, one who abides much that nothing, not Tony Soprano fucking his wife, not a trip to the electric chair, a visit from Aliens, or even a blow job from Scarlett Johanson can get much of a rise out of him. The only thing that does knock him off his even keel is the opportunity to invest in Dry Cleaning, the wave of the future. To do so , he blackmails Gandolfini who’s having an affair with his wife, not that he minds that much, basically threatening to tell himself. And for that little show of ambition he ends up doomed in the best of Noir fashion.

The film is so laconic it can barely be said to have a pulse. It’s not like we care all that much what happens to Ed, how could we? He doesn’t care what happens to himself. For those who accuse the Coen’s of elitism this film has to drive them bugnuts. It’s practically anthropological, noir with all the passion surgically removed. This is the film people who hate The Coen brothers see every time they watch a Coen Brothers movie.

The film doesn’t involve us in a traditional way it just passes by like a fever dream. There are some stunning moments, Frances McDormand shot with genuine (though albeit, bizarre) eroticism for the first time since Blood Simple, the moment where the pane of safety glass fissures right in the middle of Gandolfini’s rage filled face. Dream logic, dialogue that doubles and Coens, pervaded with a sense of unease that’s down right Lynchian. Maybe the aliens who show up later in the film (surely the most unexpected since the ones who turned up to berate Woody Allen in Stardust Memories) are a message, because I don’t know if there’s ever been a film which seemed so much like the product of non human intelligence.

Watchmen

Well Watchmen is finally over. The directors cut is readily available, and as a result 20 odd years of speculation can finally come to an end. Reactions from the fans have ranged from grudging respect to grudging disappointment with no one going apoplectic on either side. Personally I feel that Zack Synder did about as well as one could do with the source material. The only scene I felt was really butchered (heh heh) was Rorschach’s interrogation scene, which gave the pat easy answers the novel refused to.

But it’s only now that I can look at the film with any kind of critical distance. The first few viewings where spent slack jawed and pointing. The first time I realized that the film wasn’t really working as well as I thought, was when I dragged some friends who weren’t familiar with the source material to it, and watched them shift uncomfortably in their seats for two and half hours. This hasn’t been an atypical reaction from what I can tell either. In one of those weird exceptions that prove the rule the fans have been more forgiving with the adaptation then the general movie going public. Or as my friend called it “The Anti V is For Vendetta”.

In a weird way the fans bring the greatness to the movie. Yes there are flaws in the movie. Plenty of them. Since his casting was announced I went around telling anyone who cared (and a fair amount who didn’t) that Matthew Goode was a perfect Ozymandius. This has turned out to be only slightly less accurate then Matt Damon’s prediction that "Crush Groove would be bigger then ET" in Dogma. And yes Carla Gugino’s performance would not be out of place at a Drag Queen gala. Yes Silk Spectre and Nite Owl straight up executing those top knots was a little weird.

But the moments it gets right are so right. Moments that have colored my imagination since Jr. High brought to stunning life. Jon’s sojourn on Mars (and really how underrated was Crudup in this movie) Rorschach’s desperate doomed struggle with the police (and the way that Jackie Earle Haley found the sadness at that character’s core) “I’m very disappointed in you Adrian”, the best opening credits sequence since Se7en and all the rest. I can’t help but love this movie. Love it for all it’s little missteps and bat shit insane music cues, Love it for it’s ambition and it’s daring.

Really what this movie made me excited for is Zack Synder. He took some deserving lumps for those “Visionary” commercials that came out. But I can’t help but like him. He seems to have no greater ambition then to be the greatest genre filmmaker of all time. Someone with John Carpenter’s instincts who can shoot like Ridley Scott. Someone with the skills, the enthusiasm and most importantly the clout to pull this off. I can’t wait to see Sucker Punch, his first original film. In a lot of ways it’ll be his true proving ground, and I can’t help but hope he pulls it off.

John Hughes

Between Michael Jackson and Hughes, a whole lot of the 80’s died this summer.

I can’t help but feel a little hypocritical writing a tribute to John Hughes. While I’ve never actively disliked Hughes, I can’t say I ever really cared about him either. He’s like the Aerosmith of film directors. Not bad, but never anywhere near transcendent, with some embarrassing steps in their later careers that make you have second thoughts about just what it was you liked about them in the first place.

Still there’s no way to deny that Hughes death came as a shock to me. Hughes was truly ubiquitous in American pop culture in a way that very few directors ever have. He joins that small list of filmmakers like Spielberg and Capra, who truly have their name above the title. One of the few who anybody, no matter how little they cared or knew about movies knew who he was and what a film by him meant.

Most of the obits point to Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as Hughes enduring work, but my favorite has always been Sixteen Candles, his loosest and funniest piece. While I admire both as quality pieces of Hollywood craftsmanship neither ever really broke the skin with me. Which in all fairness is part of the Hughes appeal, just how easy this stuff goes down, complaining about how Hughes goes down smooth is like complaining that Coke does, or course it does, that's why everybody likes it. Despite it’s iconic feel The Club always felt a bit too calculated to me (again, duh) and for all the charms of Ms. Sheedy in that film, I still can’t help but kind of shake my head at the films “big” moments like Judd Nelson’s dance of anger, which even at thirteen struck me as profoundly silly.

I’ve always found the more grey shaded Pretty In Pink, just as I prefer the looser more manic Sixteen Candles to the calculated Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The problem with pointing out these kind of flaws in a Hughes movie, is that their faults are too tightly intertwined in their pleasures. Are they contrived, simplistic, calculated, yeah but who the fuck cares. As Woody Allen said in Annie Hall art is often just there to potray how life should be. And John Hughes potrayed the way life should be to a whole lot of people. You can’t discount that.