The Source of All Fear

In the annuls of horror movie history, there is only ONE movie that has had any kind of lasting impact on my psyche and I should have covered this AGES ago because THIS is the reason I won't go into water higher than my ankles unless it's clear as crystal.

Jaws is a kind of mish-mash of suspense/thriller/nature-hates-you genres that, ultimately, ends up being one of the most terrifying screen experiences ever filmed and it most definitely earned its place as horror movie royalty.  It is a movie that people STILL talk about today and, frankly, I try and watch it a couple of times a year because it's that awesome (and maybe to remind myself that it's only a movie and that I actually can enjoy snorkeling without paranoia).

It kills me that anyone would be unfamiliar with this movie but here's a quick rundown.

A summer resort town finds itself the collective victim of a man-eating Great White shark that comes with its own ominous, John Williams musical score.  It starts with an idiot teenager skinny-dipping at dusk.  Because idiot teenagers forget that dusk and dawn is when sharks hunt.  She gets dragged around and under by an unseen force (we'll touch on that in a bit).

Sheriff Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) discovers the body the next day and the medical examiner informs him that she was a victim of a shark attack.  Brody wants to shut the beaches down, because that's the smart thing to do, but due to political pressure from Mayor Vaughn (who is possibly the most idiotic mayor in the history of film except for that asshole from The Bay) the medical examiner rules the death a boating accident, Brody, like an asshole sheep, goes along with it and the beaches remain open.  Enter the screaming, panicking populous, a dead kid, a mother in rightful anguish, a bounty-fueled amateur shark hunt that pulls up the wrong shark, a tiny, bearded marine biologist and Quint.  The Fourth of July kicks Brody's ass into action when HIS kid is almost a victim.

This woman should have won an Oscar.  Chilling.

Brody hooks up with Quint and Hooper (the aforementioned tiny, bearded marine biologist) to hunt down the monster and, following a night of drinking, male bonding and the maudlin, creepy story of the USS Indianapolis, the shark rears its ugly head.  Manly things happen and the shark is destroyed.  HOORAY!  

Manly.

This movie is not only one of the most iconic films ever made but it's also got one of the most interesting "making of" stories ever told.

The film was originally offered to Dick Richards (The Cullpepper Cattle Co.) but since he didn't understand the difference between "shark" and "whale" he was scrapped in favor of Steven Spielberg who actually wanted the job... at first.  He tried to drop the project so he wouldn't be "the truck and shark guy" but Universal called in his contract.

ANYWAY, then they called in Peter Benchley, the author of the original novel, to write the first draft of the script.  He wrote three drafts in all, keeping the meat of the plot but dropping a bunch of sub-plots (like the affair between Hooper and Brody's wife) but Spielberg still felt the characters were assholes so there were a few more uncredited rewrites before basically giving Carl Gottleib the "head writer" chair so that the bleak was tempered with appropriate comedy.  All in all, there are 27 scenes that do not appear in the book.

It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure this is one of them.

Let's not talk about casting.  There was obvious tension between Dreyfuss and Shaw and it showed on camera.  It probably didn't help that Shaw was a tax-dodging, rum-soaked asshole.

The BEST part of the backstory, though, is "Bruce", the three prop sharks that were notorious for not working.  Because Spielberg is a fuckin' genius, though, he decided not to show the shark more than he had to.  The forced restraint made the film a paranoid fantasy.  This "eyes of the killer" approach made the movie the scarefest that it is today.  Yes, the shark is freaky-lookin' when we DO see it interact with the actors but it still scares us out of our fuckin' pants.  Popcorn and drinks-a-flyin'.

Bigger boat, indeed.

Much like Creepshow and Gremlins, this is a classic that should (and will) be left to our kids, and their kids, and their kids, etc.  The Oscar™-winning score is iconic and pervasive (and was used as a punishment in my house because my mother would play it and I would leave quietly so I didn't have to listen to it), the acting is superb, the creepiness is still evident to this day and the movie is eminently quotable.  My only regret is that it did not win the Best Picture award.  (Granted, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is probably more deserving but it would have been neat.)  Just consider the fact that beach attendance went down sharply while shark sightings went up in 1975 due, specifically, to Jaws.  Alien was pitched as "Jaws in Space".  After Jaws, the Man-Eating Animal genre exploded with Piranha being touted as the best of the Jaws ripoffs.

Jaws is, in all actuality, my Moby Dick.  I will continue watching it until I no longer feel the effects of its instilled paranoia.

In the meantime, sharks still fascinate and terrify me.  As they should.

Because they're fuckin' sharks.

Wake 'n' Bake

Occasionally, my friend Liam points me in the direction of movies I hadn't seen.  Because he's cool that way.

A couple of weeks ago, he told me about Hansel and Gretel Get Baked and I almost laughed it off but, DAMN YOUR EYES, BROTHERS GRIMM, I must watch anything fairy tale adjacent.

Duuuuuuuuuuude.  I don't even smoke pot (not that I have an issue with it) and this gave me the munchies.  I got a contact high from a movie.

See, Gretel and her boyfriend, Ashton, are totally potheads and they found this strain of pot called Black Forest which they ran out of and need to get more because OMG, this weed totally goes with gingerbread cookies and THAT little idea was put in their heads by Hansel who likes to make fun of his stoner sister and her boyfriend.  Ashton goes to get more from the little old lady that sells it (who is played by Lara Flynn Boyle who oozes her way across this movie like a stoned house cat and wears one of the best old age makeups I have ever seen on film) and, you guessed it, Agnes turns out to be a cannibal witch.

That is one gorgeous babushka.

Yeah, it's not news but it works.  Gretel gets kind of obsessed with finding her boyfriend (who was on the receiving end of a barbecue fork) and joins forces with her dealer and his fiery latina of a girlfriend.  There's a drug war.  There's cages.  There's zombies!  There's an angry doberman.  It's just fuckin' craziness and it's DELICIOUS!

I did NOT see this coming.  I expected it to be all Scary Movie stupid and shit but this is actually intelligent, well-acted and, gosh darn it, it's FUN!  

Ms. Boyle is AMAZEBALLS even given the fact that her plastic surgery is starting to reach American Mary levels of creepy.  I don't even care if she looks totally pissed that she's in this b-grade schlock to pay the bills!  It worked.  She was totally chill the whole time.  She has that kind of "I can't open my twinkies" frustrated look through the whole movie and I LIVE for it.

Hon... seriously... lay off the collagen. 

Yancy Butler is in the flick for all of 10 minutes and she looks HAGGARD but, bless her, she's trying. 

But, there are little things that make this movie kind of perfect.  Gretel's outfits have a decidedly "dirndl-like" flair and Hansel's tan pants and camera strap are reminiscent of lederhosen.  The fact that Agnes is peddling pot out of a former mortuary (thus, the built-in oven).  Gretel laying out a path of Skittles that dealer's girlfriend eats... These candy-like touches all add up to a horror movie that actually feels like the fairy tale it's telling.  "Witch Hunters" had it, too, but it was more literal.

Even if you're not a pot-smoker, raid the local mini-mart and check this one out.

And bring me some nachos!

Only Your Hairdresser Knows For Sure.

Anyone who knows me knows that when it comes to my hair, I get bored.  When I get bored, I break out L'Oreal Feria Extra Bleach Blonde 205 and go to town with the Manic Panic.

You'll notice that my hair does not STAY Blonde.  This is because I'm a dude, and blonde dudes in horror flicks are usually the bad guy.

We're not here to talk about guys, though.

Sorry, Marilyn.  Maybe next time, k?

Let me start with a tiny disclaimer, though.

I fully support feminism and a woman's right to be whoever the hell she wants to be, do whatever the hell she wants to do and choose what occupies her hoo-ha and associated parts at any time.  That said, this post is gonna be SEXIST AS FUCK.  Those who are in the throes of cramping, bloating, chocolate cravings, experiencing mood swings or are otherwise somewhere in the process of discharging of uterine linings should stop reading, now.  Those in the vicinity of such individuals should remove sharp objects from the immediate area and just start running because we all know they aren't going to listen because they are strong, independent women and ain't nothin' wrong with that.

That said, let's dig in.

RUN, TIPPI!  You're the last of a dying breed!

 

So.  Ladies.  Have you ever considered becoming a redhead or a lovely chestnut brown with some carefully placed highlights and lowlights?  Because if you're in Horrortown and you're a blonde, you might as well just walk around in corduroy pants and flip-flops with a town crier's bell chanting "I'm a tasty blonde, come tear my top off and use my face as a fellatio mask!" at the top of your lungs.

Why, you ask?  The answer isn't quite as simple as you'd think.

Let's go WAAAAAAY back to the beginnings of film and consider the fact that movies were in black and white.  NOW, let's take into account that the color white has long been associated with purity, particularly sexual purity, in Western culture.  If you're a film maker and you want to portray a sweet, virginal damsel in distress, who better to play it than a woman who already appears to have a halo on film?  Slap her in a white wedding dress and BAM, there's an angel that every red-blooded, muscular, virile, he-man wants to rescue because he would like a fuckin' sammich and something to rest his dick in later (after a proper church weddin', o'course).  (Please note that white wedding dresses had only recently come into style when film began and the reasoning behind them wasn't morality but consumerism.  You wore white to your wedding because that showed that you had enough money to wear a dress only once and that you didn't care if it got dirty.  The "white" thing was still pushed as a purity deal, though, most likely by the dressmakers.) 

Another thing to consider is that during the 20's and 30's  we were still very much in a hyper-patriotic frame of mind.  We were in the throes of not only the first Red Scare and the Palmer raids, which led to a cultural fear of the "foreign and exotic", and we were dealing with a conservative populace, a "return to Biblical values", Prohibition, and, finally, we were VERY tired of war.  Thus the virginal blue-eyed blonde was quickly becoming the American standard of beauty.  FYI?  She just had to LOOK virginal.  She was still allowed a modicum of sex appeal.

"You ain't so mild, little girl, but you certainly satisfy."

Actual ad slogan for Chesterfields.

No, seriously.

From Mary Philbin as Dea in The Man Who Laughs to Helen Chandler as Mina in Dracula, blondes with porcelain skin were the standard when it came to the girl that needs rescuing and this had little deviation.  One notable exception is Kay Lawrence in The Creature From The Black Lagoon.  The character was not a simpering waif and she broke the damsel mold quite handily.  You have to note, though, that she wore a white bathing suit for a good portion of the movie.  Another is Zita Johann in The Mummy, chosen not only to contrast with the light costume of the villain but to add a touch of the exotic, since she was supposed to resemble the Egyptian, thus foreign, Ankhesenamón.

In contrast, brunettes were largely the femme fatale who got her way with a slow wink and a cock of her curvaceous hip.  Blondes were for rescuing.  Brunettes were dangerous.   It was assumed that their legs spread like peanut butter and they'd sell you out in a second for a diamond tennis bracelet or the secret plans.  Brunettes were whores who were overstepping the bounds of acceptable femininity.  All because color film hadn't been invented, yet.  YAY, Hollywood slut-shaming!

But the 60s is where things get a little dicey for the blondes.  Due to the burgeoning feminist movement, people were getting sick of the tow-headed clumsy bitches that always needed rescuing.

Enter Alfred Hitchcock.  You smug bastard.

Alfred Hitchcock once said to Francois Truffaut that he preferred sophisticated blondes, "the drawing-room type, the real ladies, who become whores once they're in the bedroom" because "sex should not be advertised. . . . Because without the element of surprise the scenes become meaningless. There's no possibility to discover sex." Of course he's also noted as saying "They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints." These attitudes changed the face of blondes in horror forever.  The audience didn't want a damsel in distress, anymore.  They were thought to be too stupid to live.  The audience started to think, "How do you not just keel over, twitching?"

And thus came the flip.  Blondes were now available for the stabbing, so let's provide a REASON to stab them, so film expanded the stupid bitch who needs to be rescued all the time to include the slutty bitch nobody wants to rescue, the shady, manipulative bitch nobody wants to rescue, the self-righteous bitch nobody wants to rescue and the modern blonde who is only valued for her looks.

Have I mentioned that I hate this wig?

So, now let's take this to it's obvious extreme, the slasher film.  Because slashers are so formulaic we all know that a blonde is going to die.  Full stop.  The very FIRST so-called slasher, Peeping Tom, has a blonde being offed in the first ten minutes.  This trope is SO prevalent in slasher films that it's almost easier to list where it's been subverted, such as the first two Friday the 13ths wherein the final girls were both blondes and, everyone's favorite, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

A notable instance of INTENTIONAL invocation, though, is the polarizing film The Cabin in the Woods.  As an example of self-referential film making that is intended for fans to pick apart, Joss Whedon would have been remiss if he hadn't included the proverbial dumb blonde.  He did so by making a character dye her hair.  She did so seemingly by choice but it was specifically arranged through subliminal messaging and the dye contained chemicals that lowered her intelligence so that she would become the stereotypical stupid whore.

Someone likes the taste of dust...

This isn't to say that blondes still aren't a preferred look.  We're no longer a sexually repressed society so we still LIKE to look at the hot blondes (well, the straight boys do) even though the brunettes are now, cinematically, the smart, virginal ones.  As the roles of women in horror continue to evolve, though, hopefully one day we can have a strong female character that isn't bound to a particular shade of Miss Clairol.

I'll stick with candy apple red.

It's a Barbeque!

Y'all know how much I kind of despise "found footage" flicks, right?  I'm really fuckin' tired of shaky-cam bullshit.  Stop making me have to take Dramamine before going to the movies, film makers!  Somebody's gonna get a kickin'.

ANYWAY!  I'm going to prove my point.  Again.  

I had heard about Long Pigs a while back but I didn't get a chance to watch it until recently.  It was released to select theaters in 2004 but it's Canadian so US horror fans didn't get a lot of exposure to it.  It hit the film festival circuit but it didn't get a release on DVD until 2007.  Those DVDs?  Came with jerky.  Real.  Edible.  Jerky. 

It's about a documentary film crew that follows a cannibal around. 

Ummm...

Hmm.

Yeah.

That's it. 

Seriously?

Hooker butchering.  The next extreme sport.

Yes, there were statements about the implications of media and its affect on the world but, we've seen that before.  Yes, they actually tried to philosophically and ecologically justify cannibalism which made the film kind of disturbing.  Yes, the documentarians in the movie tried to use a cannibal to get revenge (and almost got caught when their car broke down at, appropriately enough, a pig farm).

And met a creepy pig farmer because I'm not sure there's any other kind.

And, yes, they discover that the cannibal is a CREEPY MOTHERFUCKER THAT KILLS PEOPLE AND EATS THEM!  Seriously?  We had to have the interview with the father of a little girl that the asshole ATE to learn this?  WITH THE KID-EATING ASSHOLE IN THE ROOM?!?

What the fuck?

I know there are a ton of gore-hounds that love this film for its butchery but I gotta say I was not a fan of this film.  It's not that it was badly made, it's just played out, bleak and their attempts at humor fell flat on their collective face.  If you want a horror mockumentary, watch Behind the Mask, instead.  It's a MUCH better film with a much more satisfying pay-off and better acting.

Long Pigs won a bunch of awards on the festival circuit but I really have no idea why.

This movie just made me feel dirty.

Good thing I invested in that Silkwood shower.

Celebrity Pathogens 101

Happy fuckin' Monday!

Did you know that more than a third of all sick days are on Mondays?  I did.

And that brings us to today's sick little infection, Antiviral, directed by Brandon Cronenberg, who appears to be taking up the reins from his father, David Cronenberg, in terms of body horror.

Syd March works for a pharmaceutical company that, instead of making drugs, makes, and copyrights, viruses.  Kind of.  They harvest viruses from celebrities, modify them and then inject them into adoring fans.

Yes, I said that correctly.  Fans of celebrities PAY to be injected with the diseases that these people catch.  Anything from the common cold to herpes.  Because herpetic sores are hot.

Of course, these same people pay for food products made from cultured cells of these celebs, too.  Because nothing gets you closer to a celebrity than having them over for dinner.

Can you throw an Angelina steak in there, too?

The protagonist (because I'm not really sure what to call Caleb Jones, AKA the freaky lookin' dude that pouts his trouty mouth through the entire movie that I hated in X-Men: First Class because he looks like Dagon and his mother had a muthafuckin' PARTY and he's the fish-faced, fetal alcohol syndrome ridden result) also sells these virii on the side in a black market operation.  He smuggles these virii out of wherever (work, harvesting trips) in his own body and cultures them at home.

Because WHO DOES THAT?!?  What the fuck, man?!?

Pale-face McGrouper-lips, that's who.

He manages to get a bug that kills the celeb he's working with.  (Or does it?)  Oops.  Now he has to figure out how to cure it.

OK, now, I have to say that Cronenberg's visuals are kind of stunning (except for close-ups on douche-nugget up there).  He's very into making a marked distinction between the clean and the dirty, the proper channels and the underground and so forth in this, BUT, in doing so, it comes across as very heavy handed.  On top of that, the "obsession with celebrity" that he gives us in his ultra-bleak, shitsack world is insulting in its anviliciousness.  It's insulting to celebrities who are shown to be disgustingly pandering to their fans, to the point of allowing this virus harvesting thing to happen in the first place.  It's insulting to the general public who are displayed as weak-willed assholes who live their lives vicariously through celebrity, devouring them both figuratively and literally, and through that, it's insulting to the audience.

On top of that, the fact that this... I can't even call him an anti-hero... is UTTERLY selfish disturbs me on a whole new level.  There is nothing that happens in this film that is not directly involved in making things work out for the protagonist.  There's no one else he's doing anything for.  It's all about him and it's recursive because even when it looks like he's doing something for someone else, it just circles back to something he wants, anyway.  And, other than the fact that he DOES get sick from his endeavors, it's only temporary and he profits off of it.

This is not to say that it's badly written and most of the actors, other than "I wanna punch him in his pouty fuckin' face", do a very good job.  It's a very slick, polished production.  My problem is that, as much as I'm totally OK with the "obsession with celebrity" angle, he not only crosses a line with it, he dances gaily across it wearing bells and day-glo Hammer-pants.

I know lots of folks love this movie because it's Cronenberg's kid and for a first time out of the gate, it's a good job.  I just can't recommend it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I need to invest in a new shower.

Like that one in Silkwood.