Weird doesn't always equal wonderful, and one needs to run the risk of spending ninety minutes on a dud in order to uncover a gem. I've seen a bunch of movies over the past several weeks that don't necessarily warrant a full-fledged write-up, but which are relevant enough to the interests of the Empire to merit mention here. Of course, I'll disclaimer this by stating that your mileage may vary, and I'm hardly the arbiter of good taste!
Tinto Brass' "Senso 45" [2002] is notable largely for not being nearly as cool as his previous foray into the sex lives of the Third Reich, "Salon Kitty." Much as that other film is a paragon of high-budget smut, "Senso 45" boils down to a Harlequin romance between a middle-aged woman and a low-level drug dealer all gussied up in fancy historical outfits. Make no mistake--the trappings of this film were lush and extremely well-realized. If I was in the mood to watch a fashion show set in fascist Venice, I'd have been in the right place! However, the human population of the film was more problematic. The Isabella Rossellini-esque female lead (Anna Galiena as bourgeois wife Livia Mazzoni) was lovely and put in an engaging performance, but the male lead was a disaster. Dear Tinto: a peroxided, overly-manscaped Billy Zane impersonator is no substitute for Helmut Berger. Really. The character of SS Officer Helmut Schultz (played by Gabriel Garko) is instantly unlikeable and--worse yet--slimily unsexy, thus making Livia's obsession with him incredibly difficult to understand. The plot seems to hinge on the fact that Livia is forty-one years old but... dude--she's hott. Also, every man in the film is in some fashion sexually interested in her, so I'm just not understanding her need to pay to keep a sleazy, disinterested, Metrosexual Nazi as a side piece. Sweeping romance, this ain't, and by the time Livia's sexual house of cards comes crashing down on her, I was exhausted from imploring her to USE HER BRAIN.
"Amazons and Supermen" is another movie that should have been quarter-past-fantastic but just fizzled for me. I mean--I like Amazons, and I like the idea of a magician, a strongman and a martial arts expert working as a team together but the comedy was just way too broad for this Ice Person's brain to handle. I'd caught the trailer on a Something Weird compilation several moons ago, and when I saw a DVD of this film I couldn't NOT pick it up. I really should've known better--the slide-whistle and El Kabong sound effects present in the trailer are sprinkled--nay, splatteredall over the film. It's not so much a kung-fu peplum (as I'd kinda hoped-against-hope for, what with the Shaw Brothers involvement) as it is a zany, lowbrow comedy with copious empty-coconut headbutting and pidgin English. Why is it that I love dark lowbrow entertainment, and yet I get the douche-chills when I'm exposed to lowbrow comedy? It seems unfair. And likely indicative of some pathologically dangerous streak in my personality... Yet I digress. Why don't you just enjoy the trailer for "Amazons vs. Supermen" and skip the other eighty-eight minutes of film?
I found "Deathwatch" to be a grim and ultimately confusing foray into the trenches of WWI. I appreciate the fact that the sets and costuming were painstakingly crafted, but astonishingly accurate mud is still mud. Maybe I'm a sensitive soul, but I also find it really, really easy to believe that War Is In Fact Hell, and don't need to have my face ground into this theory for ninety minutes. Watching the deteriorating relationship between the group of soldiers that is trapped in a trench with an unseen, probably-supernatural enemy was unrelentingly depressing. I appreciate the actors' performances (all of which were very fine!) and the skill with which the story was directed and filmed, but there was no sense of fun or wonder to be found. Essentially, this was a war film with supernatural elements, exploring man's inhumanity to man by employing a supernatural metaphor.
I saw Deathwatch and another similarly themed film that came out around the same time--I think it was The Bunker--when they were both getting lots of great press on various horror sites. Like you, I was nonplussed by the experience(s). Granted, I'm not a big War Movie fan, but I thought "haunted trenches" and "Nazi Ghosts" might lift these up to the appropriate levels for me. Sadly, no. As you point out, just a lot of unengaging people going through unengaging hardships, and IIRC the supernatural element was so underplayed as to be pretty much superfluous. And one or the other of the film even fell back on the "They're really dead and in Hell!" chestnut, which by this point in film history is just fucking lazy, IMO. It can be done well, but those exceptions prove the rule for me.
Haven't seen Senso 45, but I can't help thinking it's a little unfair comparing ANY sex-lives-of-the-Reich movies to Salon Kitty--I mean, seriously, that's not a level playing field. I do admit my ears perked up a "Isabella Rossellini-esque female lead" though. Rowr!
BTW, "Metrosexual Nazis" should TOTALLY be in development right now. Get somebody on this, Lionsgate!
>>the slide-whistle and El Kabong sound effects
I'll definitely be checking this trailer when I get to a trailer-checking space. :) But like SNL and other sketch shows need to learn, some things that are funny for two minutes are painful at any length beyond that.
Thanks for jumping on the grenade for us, Empress! Your service to the horror community is exemplary. ;)
Aren't these great? One of the vendors gifted my sister with one at a Horror Con. She was moping about, fighting with her BF, and acting like a brat. The guy was like: "Here. Cheer up!"
I made the mistake of lending it to a non-horror/weird person whom I believed had potential. Ignorant punk kept my sampler, and promptly deleted me from his MySpace Friend-O-Rama.
Speaking of Something Weird... I don't spose you're in possession of the awful film "The Curious Dr. Humpp," are you? I hated the movie, but I'm dying for the "Girl With Skeleton" clip hidden in the bonus features. I'm rather disappointed nobody has posted this: it's HOT!!!
Vicar--it was indeed "Deathwatch" that had the Chestnuttily Delicious ending :) Once again, we have a meeting of the minds on this topic! As to "Senso 45," why don't I just get some saucy screen grabs of the female lead and spare you the two-plus-hours of unpleasant people having unpleasant sex? You'll thank me, you will. We'll always have "Salon Kitty," though--thankfully! I am always at your service, liebling. I STILL owe you for giving me entree into La Vida Naschy :)
Damn, Kitty! I should send the Tenebrous Army to run this ne'er-do-well ragged and get yer sampler back. That's jut plain WRONG, dammit! I have seen "Dr. Humpp" and--perhaps shamefully--I kinda totally dug it :} I will look through my vast repository of sleaze and see if that is, in fact, part of the collection. I shall keep you posted!
People who make war-themed horror movies are usually Liberals who want to both condemn war (brave of them) and punish war-mongers for their mongering. So that means we have to sit through x number of minutes of soldiers being ridiculed by the filmmaker before x number of minutes of being stalked and killed by monsters/ghosts/themselves. It would be novel if someone did a war horror movie in which the soldiers were shown to be good at what they do, brave and resourceful... then the horror would have a payoff, there'd be a reversal and we'd be emotionally engaged and actually dread the supernatural complication. Instead we get 90 or 100 minutes of RADA trainees saying "bollocks!" and "sod off!" ad nauseam before they have to scream and flail around in the mud. Too bad Sam Fuller didn't do horror.
I have seen Dog Soldiers but not recently. I need a re-watch now that 90 percent of the cast has gone on to greater glory (unlike poor, unloved Sean Pertwee, who will remain a true dog soldier 'til they play "Taps" over his grave).
>>It would be novel if someone did a war horror movie in which the soldiers were shown to be good at what they do, brave and resourceful
Hah--indeed, Arbogast! It does seem as though the war-horror film is generally a Statement Piece. Another pet peeve of mine is the fact that all the soldiers Play A Role--the cowardly one, the crazy one, the innocent one, the effete officer. It's almost as if they're trying to tell us something... Hmmmm...
Vicar--I did dig "Dog Soldiers" when I saw it a few years back--I'll have to re-watch it with yours and Arbo's comments in mind! On account of you guys being bright sorts and all ;)
Tinto Brass' "Senso 45" [2002] is notable largely for not being nearly as cool as his previous foray into the sex lives of the Third Reich, "Salon Kitty." Much as that other film is a paragon of high-budget smut, "Senso 45" boils down to a Harlequin romance between a middle-aged woman and a low-level drug dealer all gussied up in fancy historical outfits. Make no mistake--the trappings of this film were lush and extremely well-realized. If I was in the mood to watch a fashion show set in fascist Venice, I'd have been in the right place! However, the human population of the film was more problematic. The Isabella Rossellini-esque female lead (Anna Galiena as bourgeois wife Livia Mazzoni) was lovely and put in an engaging performance, but the male lead was a disaster. Dear Tinto: a peroxided, overly-manscaped Billy Zane impersonator is no substitute for Helmut Berger. Really. The character of SS Officer Helmut Schultz (played by Gabriel Garko) is instantly unlikeable and--worse yet--slimily unsexy, thus making Livia's obsession with him incredibly difficult to understand. The plot seems to hinge on the fact that Livia is forty-one years old but... dude--she's hott. Also, every man in the film is in some fashion sexually interested in her, so I'm just not understanding her need to pay to keep a sleazy, disinterested, Metrosexual Nazi as a side piece. Sweeping romance, this ain't, and by the time Livia's sexual house of cards comes crashing down on her, I was exhausted from imploring her to USE HER BRAIN.
"Amazons and Supermen" is another movie that should have been quarter-past-fantastic but just fizzled for me. I mean--I like Amazons, and I like the idea of a magician, a strongman and a martial arts expert working as a team together but the comedy was just way too broad for this Ice Person's brain to handle. I'd caught the trailer on a Something Weird compilation several moons ago, and when I saw a DVD of this film I couldn't NOT pick it up. I really should've known better--the slide-whistle and El Kabong sound effects present in the trailer are sprinkled--nay, splattered all over the film. It's not so much a kung-fu peplum (as I'd kinda hoped-against-hope for, what with the Shaw Brothers involvement) as it is a zany, lowbrow comedy with copious empty-coconut headbutting and pidgin English. Why is it that I love dark lowbrow entertainment, and yet I get the douche-chills when I'm exposed to lowbrow comedy? It seems unfair. And likely indicative of some pathologically dangerous streak in my personality... Yet I digress. Why don't you just enjoy the trailer for "Amazons vs. Supermen" and skip the other eighty-eight minutes of film?
I found "Deathwatch" to be a grim and ultimately confusing foray into the trenches of WWI. I appreciate the fact that the sets and costuming were painstakingly crafted, but astonishingly accurate mud is still mud. Maybe I'm a sensitive soul, but I also find it really, really easy to believe that War Is In Fact Hell, and don't need to have my face ground into this theory for ninety minutes. Watching the deteriorating relationship between the group of soldiers that is trapped in a trench with an unseen, probably-supernatural enemy was unrelentingly depressing. I appreciate the actors' performances (all of which were very fine!) and the skill with which the story was directed and filmed, but there was no sense of fun or wonder to be found. Essentially, this was a war film with supernatural elements, exploring man's inhumanity to man by employing a supernatural metaphor.
7 comments:
I saw Deathwatch and another similarly themed film that came out around the same time--I think it was The Bunker--when they were both getting lots of great press on various horror sites. Like you, I was nonplussed by the experience(s). Granted, I'm not a big War Movie fan, but I thought "haunted trenches" and "Nazi Ghosts" might lift these up to the appropriate levels for me. Sadly, no. As you point out, just a lot of unengaging people going through unengaging hardships, and IIRC the supernatural element was so underplayed as to be pretty much superfluous. And one or the other of the film even fell back on the "They're really dead and in Hell!" chestnut, which by this point in film history is just fucking lazy, IMO. It can be done well, but those exceptions prove the rule for me.
Haven't seen Senso 45, but I can't help thinking it's a little unfair comparing ANY sex-lives-of-the-Reich movies to Salon Kitty--I mean, seriously, that's not a level playing field. I do admit my ears perked up a "Isabella Rossellini-esque female lead" though. Rowr!
BTW, "Metrosexual Nazis" should TOTALLY be in development right now. Get somebody on this, Lionsgate!
>>the slide-whistle and El Kabong sound effects
I'll definitely be checking this trailer when I get to a trailer-checking space. :) But like SNL and other sketch shows need to learn, some things that are funny for two minutes are painful at any length beyond that.
Thanks for jumping on the grenade for us, Empress! Your service to the horror community is exemplary. ;)
"Something Weird compilation "
Aren't these great? One of the vendors gifted my sister with one at a Horror Con. She was moping about, fighting with her BF, and acting like a brat. The guy was like: "Here. Cheer up!"
I made the mistake of lending it to a non-horror/weird person whom I believed had potential. Ignorant punk kept my sampler, and promptly deleted me from his MySpace Friend-O-Rama.
Speaking of Something Weird... I don't spose you're in possession of the awful film "The Curious Dr. Humpp," are you? I hated the movie, but I'm dying for the "Girl With Skeleton" clip hidden in the bonus features. I'm rather disappointed nobody has posted this: it's HOT!!!
Vicar--it was indeed "Deathwatch" that had the Chestnuttily Delicious ending :) Once again, we have a meeting of the minds on this topic! As to "Senso 45," why don't I just get some saucy screen grabs of the female lead and spare you the two-plus-hours of unpleasant people having unpleasant sex? You'll thank me, you will. We'll always have "Salon Kitty," though--thankfully! I am always at your service, liebling. I STILL owe you for giving me entree into La Vida Naschy :)
Damn, Kitty! I should send the Tenebrous Army to run this ne'er-do-well ragged and get yer sampler back. That's jut plain WRONG, dammit! I have seen "Dr. Humpp" and--perhaps shamefully--I kinda totally dug it :} I will look through my vast repository of sleaze and see if that is, in fact, part of the collection. I shall keep you posted!
People who make war-themed horror movies are usually Liberals who want to both condemn war (brave of them) and punish war-mongers for their mongering. So that means we have to sit through x number of minutes of soldiers being ridiculed by the filmmaker before x number of minutes of being stalked and killed by monsters/ghosts/themselves. It would be novel if someone did a war horror movie in which the soldiers were shown to be good at what they do, brave and resourceful... then the horror would have a payoff, there'd be a reversal and we'd be emotionally engaged and actually dread the supernatural complication. Instead we get 90 or 100 minutes of RADA trainees saying "bollocks!" and "sod off!" ad nauseam before they have to scream and flail around in the mud. Too bad Sam Fuller didn't do horror.
@Abrogast:
>>It would be novel if someone did a war horror movie in which the soldiers were shown to be good at what they do, brave and resourceful...
Have you seen Dog Soldiers? It gets some shit on some of the review sites--unfairly, imo--but I think it fits the bill of what you're proposing here.
I have seen Dog Soldiers but not recently. I need a re-watch now that 90 percent of the cast has gone on to greater glory (unlike poor, unloved Sean Pertwee, who will remain a true dog soldier 'til they play "Taps" over his grave).
>>It would be novel if someone did a war horror movie in which the soldiers were shown to be good at what they do, brave and resourceful
Hah--indeed, Arbogast! It does seem as though the war-horror film is generally a Statement Piece. Another pet peeve of mine is the fact that all the soldiers Play A Role--the cowardly one, the crazy one, the innocent one, the effete officer. It's almost as if they're trying to tell us something... Hmmmm...
Vicar--I did dig "Dog Soldiers" when I saw it a few years back--I'll have to re-watch it with yours and Arbo's comments in mind! On account of you guys being bright sorts and all ;)
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