Demons (1985)--4/5

Laura and I have had incredible luck in picking horror movies to watch on/around Halloween. One year she picked “Dead End” based on the title alone. It’s a surprisingly well-acted and -compacted ghost story starring Ray Wise, the dad from “Twin Peaks.” Last year we watched the canonical Italian zombie film “Zombie” and the Jodie Foster-showcasing “The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane.” This year was no exception.

“Demons” is an Italian-financed movie, filmed in Berlin, with European actors speaking (presumably) heavily-accented English. Dialogue is overdubbed by American actors. The multiple filters of cultural interpretation give the proceedings a committee-created pop-sensibility. In short, “Demons” may be the cheesiest, eighties-est, horror film ever made.

This is a film in which four punks* drive around the city while snorting cocaine out of a straw in a Coke can (ha ha) and listening to Billy Idol. Hey, remember the eighties? No? Just watch this scene.

A later—and extremely awesome—scene finds our hero and heroine tooling around a movie theater on a motorbike, hacking at demons with a samurai sword. The only thing missing is Bruce Campbell.

The plot (if you hadn't figured it out yet) involves a haunted movie theater that spawns demons to kill American stereotypes. One bite, scratch, or spray of demon goo turns someone into another demon. Maybe. The logic of the film’s world has a kitchen-sink nature to it. Some people transform instantly, some gradually, and some not at all. Late in the film, a different kind of demon is “birthed” from an already-mutated human. This only happens once, and no later mention is made of it. I’d like to think that the answers will be revealed in the further chronicles of the demons, of which there are many.

A motorbike? Really?


*You can tell they’re punks because of the leather jackets and mohawks.

Note the "American-style" pimp.

In This World (2002)--3/5

The British director Michael Winterbottom is incapable of making the same type of movie twice. Before and after “In This World,” he directed “24 Hour Party People” and “Code 46,” respectively. The former is an amusingly shaggy biopic of Tony Wilson, Joy Division, and other Manchester scenesters. The latter is an austere, futuristic Tim Robbins vehicle.

“In This World,” however, follows two Afghani nationals’ attempts to travel from a Pakistani refugee camp to London. The journey moves through Pakistan, Turkey, Italy, and France. Rigorously shot on location, the film is deeply embedded in the underground of each country. The camera lingers in the cracks of the shantytowns and city streets, catching unguarded moments of praying, eating, and working.

The verisimilitude extends to the actors. Jamal is playing himself, more or less. The sobering end-titles impart that, after not granting asylum, England will deport the actor one day before his eighteenth birthday. Enayatullah, his traveling companion, is equally untrained. No matter; they’re living rather than acting.

As a road movie, “In This World” is most fascinated by the refugees’ modes of transportation. Whether by foot, pickup truck, or bus, each step could be their last. Often the confusion and fear of Jamal and Enayatullah are palpable. They will give a seemingly arbitrary amount of money to a foreign stranger without knowing what exactly they’ll get in return. Maddeningly, this confusion extends to the style of the film; a tenuous logic connects many scenes. In the most hellish sequence of the film, they (and others) are locked in a trailer on a cargo ship to Trieste. The squalid trip lasts so long that only two people survive. Nobody is waiting for them at the end of the journey.

The only conventional touches are the humanitarian voiceover introduction and the insistent soundtrack. Plaintive strings are offset by Arabic (Afghani?) chanting. Otherwise, “In This World” is a new kind of film, reenacting as closely as possible the shared dangers of untold people. It’s a documentary of events that could never be documented.

"Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Season 1" (2008)--4/5

Unlike most time travel films, the Terminator series embraces its fundamental paradoxes. Kyle Reese is sent back in time by John Connor in "The Terminator" so he can save Sarah Connor and conceive, um, John Connor.* As seen at Cyberdyne Systems in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," the original T-800's (Arnold Schwarzenegger) arm and CPU have been preserved. The study of this futuristic technology leads to the development of Skynet and the Terminators!

The three films (so far) in the series should be appreciated for their superficial pleasures--action, special effects, moment-to-moment plot. Thinking about the temporal problems too much leads to madness.

Ignoring established continuity, "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" works in much the same way; it can be enjoyed for what it is. The Fox TV series seems to ignore the plot developments of "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." Jumping from 1999 to 2007, John (Thomas Dekker), Sarah, and Cameron (yet another new Terminator) skip over the action of that film. Also, John’s age doesn’t mesh with “T2.” In 1999, Dekker is only a year (or so) older than Edward Furlong was in 1991. (They jump forward in time in the first episode. Would it have been too hard to just start in 1991?)

"Sarah Connor" delivers thrills in the vein of “T2”--robots chasing cars, robots killing each other, flash-forwards, gunplay, etc. Since cutting-edge special effects from 1991 are cheap enough to be on a weekly series today, the "look" of the show is similar to an expensive feature film.

The new medium supports variations on the established themes of the series. On “monster of the week” episodes, Sarah and John encounter, for example, Terminators on different missions or people accidentally caught up in the main storyline.

And throughout the first season, the serialized adventure allows stories and characters to slowly build momentum. FBI Agent Ellison, curious to a fault, is gradually schooled in the ways of the future. Cromartie is a malevolent Bad Terminator whose head travels through time and—well, it’s sweet, but it takes some explaining.

Watch the show. Just don’t think about it as much as I did.


*Evidently, this is called a predestination paradox.

Forget you ever saw these losers.

The Strangers (2008)--2/5

"The Strangers" observations:

The bad guys:

They can get into and out of a dead-bolted house without making any noise.

They can shatter four car windows just as quietly.

Too many times to count, the camera--or Liv Tyler--spots a masked figure from afar. After a quick cutaway shot, the figure disappears! So apparently, they can also cover dozens of yards in a second.


The good guys:

At four in the morning, and without much hesitation, Scott Speedman opens the (conveniently windowless) door to a girl who's scouting for victims.

After accidentally shooting his buddy, Speedman illogically gives up the well-defended room he and Tyler are bunkered down in. Instead, he runs outside by himself to a decrepit barn to possibly find an old ham radio. This does not turn out well.


The three villains are actually morons as well. They're lucky enough to be slightly less moronic than the Speedman and Tyler. After being shot at by the defending couple, do they run away and try their luck on another, less well-defended house? No, they continue to wander around outside and inside of the house.

"The Strangers" has a reasonably realistic and scary setup; the ineptitude of the filmmaking ultimately renders it unsalvageable.

Michael Pitt in "Funny Games," a much better movie.

Hud (1963)--4/5

For maximum dramatic convenience, the denizens of “Hud” serve as surrogates for absent “traditional” family members. Fifteen years ago, a car accident caused by Hud Bannon (Paul Newman) killed his older brother. Hud’s father has raised Lonnie (Brandon De Wilde), the brother’s son. Hud is essentially Lonnie’s cool, dangerous older brother. Alma (Patricia Neal), the housekeeper, completes the group as a lone maternal voice.

“Hud,” based on a Larry McMurtry novel, is a rare western in which languor and repetition trump action and dynamism. The lone bar fight sequence is as sad as it is thrilling. Geneses of characters’ behaviors are buried deep in the events of their lives. By the end of the film, accumulated behaviors and imagery define a complete picture of each star.

Hud spends much of his time driving into and from town in his gaudy pink Cadillac. The amount of time the film spends on the road indicates the distance the farm is from anybody else. Over the years, this long, necessary journey has been the defining motif of Hud’s life. The accident that killed his brother hasn’t taught him to drive carefully. Rather, he drives faster, more recklessly (and drunkenly), as if to get it over with as quickly as possible.

“Hud” is also a rare modern western, taking place during the time of its release. Despite this, the film is not based on a pining for an earlier, purer cowboy archetype a la the McMurtry film “The Last Picture Show.” Instead, change is defined as incremental generational differences. The three ages of the Bannon family men effectively delineate these changes. And although the sequence screams “Symbolism!,” the shooting of a herd of sick cows later in the film speaks to encroaching government regulation.

Most of the strength of “Hud” stems from its gorgeous black-and-white photography. The camera lingers on the far horizon, sometimes populated with gloomy cows, sometimes free of any movement. Paul Newman plays such an electric character that his presence is felt even in the empty vistas.

Confessions of a Superhero (2007)--3/5

Among the hordes of sad, wannabe-actors in Hollywood, the costumed figures in the fascinating “Confessions of a Superhero” stand out. You know these guys. They greet tourists in front, but not on the property of, Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. In some ways, they have reached a certain level of success: tourists enjoy taking pictures with them; there’s this movie about them; they’ve appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” On the other hand, they’re glorified panhandlers, emphasizing to every passer-by that they work on “tips.” All of them want to be doing something in the film industry. This is just a temporary gig—that’s lasted five or more years.

“Confessions of a Superhero” examines four of these entertainers (Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and The Incredible Hulk) in sometimes painful detail.

Superman (Christopher Dennis) is the saddest and most deluded character in the film. He’s surrounded by mountains of eponymous memorabilia (worth “one million dollars”) in his one-bedroom apartment. He claims to be the son of Oscar-winning actress Sandy Dennis. In an interview with her living relatives, they say they’ve never heard of him.

On the street, Superman is the de facto role model of the costumed mass. It helps that he bears a remarkable resemblance to Christopher Reeve and that his costume is modeled authentically on Reeve’s. He has no problem finding paying tourists. In one amusing exchange, Superman chides Ghost Rider for smoking while on the job. Ghost Rider’s reply: “He’s made of fire.”

Although she conforms to a lot of stereotypes of the “country girl trying to make it in Hollywood,” Wonder Woman (Jennifer Wenger) has the most potential to break free. She’s still young, talented as an actress, and aware of the world outside the Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk. With any luck, she’s not there anymore.

Northside History, Vol. 1