kindertrauma

Author: unkle lancifer

Silent Snow, Secret Snow

Posted on By unkle lancifer

First of all, allow me to suggest that if you are up late at night looking for something to watch, yet you feel you can't commit yourself to an entire film, then the answer to your dilemma is NIGHT GALLERY on Hulu. So there, THAT possible future problem is solved. I know because that is exactly the position I found myself in the other evening and I wish I had just jumped into GALLERY earlier rather than wasting so much time being indecisive. The episode I viewed contained a segment that was perfect for throwing my brain a bone to gnaw on as it closed up shop for the night. I'm talking about season two, episode five "The Phantom Farmhouse/Silent Snow, Secret Snow." "Phantom Farmhouse" is fine enough but it's "Silent Snow" I want to trudge through here.

Actually for more on that NIGHT GALLERY segment, just jump on over to the always necessary HAUNTED CLOSET over HERE ( & watch it HERE!), that way I can focus on an earlier version (‘66) that I found which is of equal interest. It can't boast an ORSON WELLES narration and the acting may be a bit off but what it lacks in polish it makes up for with sheer creepiness. As it turns out both tellings were directed and adapted by the same guy GENE R. KERNEY so don't feel you're stepping on toes if you prefer one to the other. The NIGHT GALLERY version is certainly slicker but who can deny the unquestionable emotional power of black and white? Check it out in two parts below…

NOTE: The end kinda cuts off the final line: "We'll tell you the last most beautiful and secret story. A story that gets smaller and smaller, that comes inward, instead of opening like a flower. It is a flower that becomes a seed, a little cold seed. Do you hear? We are leaning closer to you…"

How about that? It's like an after school special directed by DAVID LYNCH with a casting assist from JOHN WATERS. It's wild how closely it resembles the later version yet has a distinguishable vibe all it's own. After viewing both renditions I thought I'd read the original 1934 CONRAD AIKEN story too (find that HERE). The story ends with this even more provocative line: "The hiss was now becoming a roar-the whole world was a vast moving screen of snow-but even now it said peace, it said remoteness, it said cold, it said sleep." Like the snow it speaks about, I couldn't get the story itself out of my head. What is going on here? Is the kid going crazy and if so, why does crazy sound so fucking great to me? I sense that I should be feeling a dread that the protagonist is slipping away from reality and yet the words used are so exuberant that I can't help mentally congratulating the child on successfully adopting the fine art of escape.

I'll blame the world for my reaction, disasters both natural and man-made, a twisted soulless culture that worships the blatantly superficial, pure hate masquerading as morality …VICTORIA JACKSON. Ah, the snow, is the snow really so bad in comparison? The snow truly is beautiful and clean and it washes it all away. Some folks rashly believe that the kid in the story is buckling under advancing schizophrenia (or autism), but I just see a good ol' fashioned dissociative disorder galloping up to save the day. School sucks and that child wasn't born to entertain his parents, why not take a little snowy holiday in his brain? Am I just playing Devil's advocate when I say that there's not much wrong here and what a lucky dude for finding a trap door? If you ask me, it's as beautiful as a Tommy Ross poem. O.K. so there's a scary PINK FLOYD "Comfortably Numb" element as well, but did someone say sleep? Sleep sounds nice. Maybe it's me but I detect a valiant rejection of the mundane, a refusal to accept the norm and the understandable desire to commission beauty to counteract an ugly world. Reality shmeality I always say. No, serious I do always say that.

Truth told I had my own "secret snow" as a kid. On a trip to Universal Studios I discovered a machine that when activated with a quarter poured hot red wax into a mold and after a couple minutes of cooling, dispensed a too fragile, wax Frankenstein figurine. Now this was in grade school when horrible children brattier than even myself would call me Frankenstein because I had a scar on my forehead so this figurine doubled as an identity totem. Whenever a situation got scary or worse, lethally boring, I simply imagined a hole on the top of my head and red wax being poured into my body. It would start in my toes and rise until it started spilling out of the crown of my head. Another problem solved! While filled with my imaginary wax I could bare just about anything and the problems of the day would Calgon blur away. Oh, Frankenstein figure why'd you have to go and break into pieces? I guess I could have survived without my secret but is there anything more important than finding something in life that allows you to forge a private alliance with yourself? It's entirely possible that I am missing the whole point of the story, on the other hand the snow falling on my keyboard is encouraging me to think whatever I like.

Stream Warriors: Dagon & Dreams in the Witch House

Posted on By unkle lancifer

A recent traumafession regarding DOLLS left me filled to the gills with love of all things STUART GORDON, what better way to celebrate than with a double feature of streaming, screaming, crafty LOVECRAFT-ian tales? Grab some tartar sauce the first course is DAGON!

DAGON (2001)

DAGON keeps on swimming upstream through the river GORDON in my head. It seems every time I plunge my noggin into its soggy clammy world, I feel a little more at home there. Based (mostly) on the LOVECRAFT short story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," DAGON delivers non-stop nightmare atmosphere but beneath the waves of horror rests a satisfying transformative hero's tale dunked in GORDON's devious dark wit. EZRA GODDEN plays Paul Marsh, a bespectacled and twitchy graduate of Miskatonic U., who we gather has difficulty steering a direct course in life. Waking from a prophetic dream he is thrown via shipwreck into a savagely slimy battle for survival in an increasingly surreal dismantled town inhabited by unfriendly fish folk. DAGON may be low budget and there are a couple of missteps into curdling CGI territory, but all in all it creates an impressively distinctive universe of its own.

EZRA is golden and a succinct successor to GORDON affiliate JEFFREY COMBS. There are long stretches of the film with zero dialogue but you can read every single thought on EZRA's expressive mug. Also on hand is hypnotic BARBARA STEELE clone MACARENA GOMEZ (complete with CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR-style head gear!) who is somehow lovely enough to parlay tentacles into a fashion asset. A blasphemy is brewing inside me; could this, frog-warts and all, be my favorite GORDON film? Hmmm, usually my favorite GORDON film is whichever one I viewed last so I shouldn't carve anything in stone just yet but on a visual, textural and even inspirational level, I think it just might be. Gory, strange, funny and beautiful in its own grotesquely fantastic way DAGON is quite the catch especially if you have the imagination to blur away its budgetary blemishes.

MASTERS OF HORROR: DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE (2005)

EZRA GODDEN returns this time as Walter Gillman, a heartier Miskatonic student whose journey of the soul goes in the opposite direction as DAGON's Marsh. You'd think it would be a good thing to discover a portal to another dimension comes free of charge in the room you've just rented, but don't forget doorways to other dimensions go both ways. The last thing anyone needs while trying to study is the distraction of a pesky witch and her human-faced rat familiar, both of whom keep nagging you to kill your neighbor's infant. DREAMS is one of the stronger entries into the MOH series and much of what comes across initially as amusing or comical is soon convincing as the nonsensical stuff of true madness. Again EZRA excels and is a joy to watch this time channeling just as much BRUCE CAMPBELL as COMBS. Here's to hoping this guy returns to horror soon. He's effortlessly entertaining and unafraid to respond the way any true man would when faced with the phantasmagorical…by screaming like a tween struck with Bieber fever. DREAMS is delightfully dismal with its baby in peril storyline but is buoyed, like DAGON, with flashes of winking absurdity too.

If you ever find yourself like I did having a STUART GORDON attack I recommend watching both these gratifying streamers back to back (DREAMS is also available on Hulu)! GORDON and LOVECRAFT are a notoriously exceptional pairing and the inspired troika making addition of GODDEN makes these two dips into the abyss all the better.

Jaws of Satan (1981)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I have to stop listening to other people because I almost lived a life with no JAWS OF SATAN in it. A cursory scan of other folk's reactions to the film had me wrongly assuming it was just another bad movie. You know the drill, "Some movies are so bad they're good, not this one! This one is so bad, it's just bad." First of all, I'll be the judge of that and second of all, wrong. JAWS OF SATAN is not just another bad movie; it is a perfect amalgamation of everything that makes movies not good. I also find it highly entertaining and worth my time because there is never a second of it where it is not doing exactly what it shouldn't. I stand a bit amazed, here is a film that wasn't satisfied with being simply a failure of a Satan film, it had to take a crap in the animals run amuck cage too. Just think about the title for a moment, it tells you everything that you need to know.

A snake attacks a couple of men in the cargo area of a train, which naturally causes the entire train to quietly come to a halt. (Don't worry, a "train wreck" of another kind is imminent.) It's no ordinary snake because it is…Satan! The Satan snake is on a mission to kill a priest because well, priests burn brighter in hell apparently and this priest is extra special because he comes from a family of druids who kill snakes, so there's that. Maybe the less we get into that swamp the better, the point is the snake who is Satan hates the priest and wants to bite him and chase him around a graveyard. (Silly Satan, you don't have to chase priests these days, you can just sit back and they'll come to you!) I'm not sure what will happen once the snake catches the priest but in the meantime other snakes are getting rowdy and biting non-priests all over a small town in Alabama.

Thankfully Dr. Sheridan is on the case and don't assume like other people in this movie do that because I said "Dr." that I'm taking about a boy either because Dr. Sheridan is A GIRL! (Did you just spit your coffee out in shock? Sorry.) Yes, Dr. Sheridan (GRETCHEN CORBETT of LET SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH) is a new type of woman who is a professional doctor and don't you forget it! She's a real poster girl for women's lib too especially when after two people are bitten by snakes she exclaims, "It's an epidemic and I can't cope with it!" and then a snake shows up after she takes a shower and she calls a guy on the phone she just met to run over to her house to shoot it and then she breaks down crying hysterically and has to be slapped in the face before he sleeps with her and she makes him breakfast and then midway through the film for no reason whatsoever another guy on a motorcycle forces her car to the side of the road so he can make her fellate his hand gun until she is rescued by….a priest? No, a snake!

Considering the non-stop pilfering you'd think we'd end up with something that resembles a movie more than this mush but nah. We have a mayor who wants to keep the snake issue under wraps so as not to wreck the grand opening of a fancy dog racing track, a coroner who eats chicken right next to a corpse and ye old "It was only a cat!" routine. It's like a who's who of movie clichés. I don't want to complain too much about the clichés though because it's when then the movie decides to get creative that it really humps the daggit. As dumb as everything is throughout the course of the movie (the list of offences goes on and on) it's toward the end when we really fall into an almost abstract experience with weird shoehorned dubbing, people appearing in two places at once or out of nowhere and a climax that plays out like a battle between man and mop handle. Did I mention that Satan snake likes to stand straight up on his tail? Adorable much?

There's one great shot of Father Farrow (CREEPSHOW's FRITZ WEAVER) strolling past a gnarled tree but most of the film looks ho-hum which is astonishing considering the cinematographer is DEAN CUNDY who you might remember from such films as every movie I ever loved. (HALLOWEEN, THE FOG, THE THING, PSYCHO 2 etc.) Personally I'm comfortable throwing all the blame on director BOB CLAVER's lap on account of he went on to poke eyes out and scramble brains via television by directing two of the most lunatic series in the history of forever, SMALL WONDER and OUT OF THIS WORLD. Besides being hilarious as hell, one of the other things going for JAWS OF SATAN is that it marks the debut of CHRISTINA APPLEGATE as a tyke who gets locked in a closet with a snake at a dog race opening. Aw, how can you not like APPLEGATE after growing up with her as Kelly Bundy? Her real life mother NANCY PRIDDY even portrays her mom in the film. PRIDDY is apparently responsible for a well regarded psychedelic folk album and sang back up for LEONARD COHEN!

All in all, this movie does deliver on the bad movie front in spades. There's always something perplexing going on and the snake-eye view cemetery chase is an absolute ridiculous must see. This movie ssssssssucks but if you have a taste for terrible, you really couldn't beat it with a stick.

Stream Warriors: Rockula & Vicious Lips!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

UNK SEZ:: Only two stream warrior selections this week because trust me you will not want to see more after you are done with these two anyway. Also as you read this, myself and Aunt John are on a much needed vacation whooping it up like rock stars at a monster mania convention and by "whooping it up like rock stars" I mean embarrassing ourselves publicly and destroying our good names with behavior not befitting people half our age.

ROCKULA (1990)

I know you've seen this one on streaming and told yourself that you are not willing to stoop to such a degree just yet, but I am officially giving you permission to take the plunge and blame the after effects on questionable advice from me. C'mon you know you want to see it, ROCKULA stars DEAN CAMERON of such hits as SUMMER SCHOOL, BAD DREAMS and the exceptional SKI SCHOOL. If I had my way DEAN CAMERON would star in everything but since that is unlikely to happen we are left with only the stuff of reality and that means ROCKULA! How this movie never became a cult staple the world shall never know. It was directed by LUCA BERCOVICI the man behind the original GHOULIES and the so-so-so severely underrated hilarity machine THE GRANNY (1995) and it's roster of bow-worthy greatness includes DEAN, TONI BASIL, THOMAS DOLBY, BO DIDDLEY, BAD SANTA's TONY COX and the person I'll never shut up about SUSAN TYRELL. It's fun, it's weird and it boasts both wretched tunes and vampires. It's stupid true but without stupidity there can be no joy. Stupidity is the main ingredient of joy.

VICIOUS LIPS (1988)

I'm not entirely sure it's possible that anybody could sit through this entire movie beside myself but I shall direct your attention to it anyway. Directed by ALBERT PYUN who has helmed both above (THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER) and hilariously below (ALIEN IN LA) par trash, VICIOUS LIPS is a sense shredding onslaught of concentrated eighties junk culture crapitude that kinda sorta rules. The more you try to understand it, the more you'll hate yourself so just sit back and get clobbered by this nearly incoherent and certainly pointless tale of an all girl rock band stranded on the set of UNION OF THE SNAKE while being chased by ELM STREET-inspired mind demons. I assure you that you will hate yourself vehemently at least once while watching this cotton candy haired patience-pusher and that's part of the decadent fun. One fragment of this theoretical movie that does not fill my heart with vague shame is the fact that its songs are sung by should-have-been SUE SAAD, the woman responsible for singing the best theme song ever recorded "Looker" from LOOKER and also the second best song ever recorded "Highwire" which is also from LOOKER. I wish I could tell you LOOKER was streaming, but it's not.

Two count em' two streaming musical wonders with vague connections to horror. One will make you happy, one will make you saad. Both will make you feel as if you are loosing your mind!

The Hunger (1983)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

I totally relate to Miriam Blaylock (CATHERINE DENEUVE) in THE HUNGER. How many times has someone told me that they will love me "forever" only to transform into something resembling the contents of an ashtray a mere 200 years later? Speaking of ashtrays, if you're trying to quit smoking (or Venetian blinds for that matter) I advise you stay well away from TONY (brother to ALIEN mega-genius RIDLEY) SCOTT's neo-noir, gothadelic new wave eye-sorbet rendering of WHITLEY STRIEBER's novel of the same tag. On the other hand, if you are a fang-fan who has never stuck their teeth into this influential a-vamp-garde chic-er-than-thou milestone then take a gander in the mirror at a life half lived.

When it was released in 1983 the brain dead zombie critic chant was, "Style over substance"! Seriously, I just read a slew of reviews for this classic and nine out of ten drop the exact same go-to complaint. Lazy viewers! If a film is kind enough to ladle out the "style" then the least you can do is bring your own "substance." Just because a movie is drop dead gorgeous doesn't mean it's empty headed. C'mon, this is one of the few vamp movies that actually dives into a major source of the lasting power of the undead mythos, the universal fear of mortality and liver spots. If you want to say it kind of falls apart at the end, I'll back you up on that but time has proven that this baby's bite leaves a legit mark.

As much as I'll admit that the films final chapter is a tinge too dry and flaky (blame the crunchy past-love corpses!) THE HUNGER's divinely aggressive opening is one of the most fantastic and instantly enthralling I can think of, so let's not be greedy. If you are not instantly snookered by BAUHAUS' severely apropos BELA LUGOSI'S DEAD then you too must be a dried husk in a coffin waiting for oblivion to commence and that's coming from somebody with no black clothing in his wardrobe. It's not just the song itself, but the way the film thunders back and forth between the tune, the titles and the revving action and synth-sorcerous sounds of the film… OK, I admit I used to play this opening bit on VHS over and over again and now every beat of it is branded into my brain…

Much slobbery attention has been given to the semi-sappy Sapphic love scene between CATHERINE DENEVUE and SUSAN SARANDON and it is attention well earned. Anyone can present a cinematic montage that pushes the validity of a homosexual union but this assemblage of images presses the feared superiority of one. Y'all can keep your FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and the sand in the cracks it implies; if you're not hearing "lakme" while you're sealing the deal you're doing it wrong. I know it's "artsy fartsy" and therefore threatening to knuckle draggers and mouth breathers everywhere but it's also lusciously transcendent. I say kick RICHARD GERE off the fire escape, if any genre is brave enough to venture into the romantically sublime, my money will always be on horror and THE HUNGER is my proof that I'm backing the right pony.

Personally my pet favorite scene involves noted gender annihilator DAVID BOWIE enacting an episode from everybody's life in a doctor's waiting room. Realizing the old gray mare just ain't what she used to be and she ain't what she used to be at an alarming rate, he seeks out the advice of accelerated decrepitude specialist Dr. Sarah Roberts (SARANDON…and yes that was a BLADE RUNNER shout out! He ain't heavy, he's my RIDLEY!). Magazines are their usual zero help as the clock ticks and he is hit over and over again on the head with DICK SMITH's famous LITTLE BIG MAN stick. The set up is excruciatingly familiar yet horrifically exaggerated and there's a vaguely comic, "It's funny because it's true" element as well. Oh TONY SCOTT you were so very good when you tried to replicate your brother RIDLEY! I usually recommend that artists find their own voice but in your case I'll make an exception. (OK, that wasn't necessary,, but it will surprise no one that I have no use for TOP GUN.)

I love THE HUNGER, smoky SCOTT-isms and RIDLEY-aping aside, it ultimately stands as its own sleek beast. It may loose some steam in its final lap but as it is only too happy to point out, don't we all. I have an inkling that it might be dated but as my head exists in 1982, it is actually one year in the future for me. There's style to burn for sure but behind the non-stop artifice and unlikely attic doves, I contend there's plenty of existential gristle to gnaw on and a time to pay the piper addiction parable too. Just because this sculpture wasn't carved with axe blows don't underestimate the boiled down bleakness to be found bubbling beneath the polished surface. Oldster BOWIE's bloodletting of a trusting, young gum-smacking sidekick is alarmingly vicious and disturbing and, conscious or not, the films screeching death-throe lab monkeys and post-tryst, flesh betrayal must have squeezed lemon juice on the then fresh rug-burn knowledge that cupid could carry a scythe. THE HUNGER is only speaking of the fleetingness of human life after all. Don't be fooled by a pretty face.

Stream Warriors: With Special Guest Host Tenebrous Kate!

Posted on By unkle lancifer

UNK SEZ: We're lucky to have as guest host today the always amazing TENEBROUS KATE of the sensationally superior and awesomely eclectic LOVE TRAIN FOR THE TENEBROUS EMPIRE! You guys know KATE, she's been a favorite guest around these parts since back in the days when the Kindercastle was a mere lean-to! Ya'll listen to KATE's advice, I know I've already started work on her fine recommendations!

TENEBROUS KATE SEZ: One's movie diet should be approached in a similar fashion to one's diet-actual: strike a balance of sweet, savory, and nutritious in order to cultivate a healthy appreciation for all things cinematic. It's in this spirit that I've selected the following films. Also, it demonstrates that I have next to no respect for rules, since there are six titles here instead of the traditional three!

RED RIDING TRILOGY: 1974, 1980, 1983

These British crime dramas are as gritty, dark and captivating as they come. Spanning a decade of serial murder, police corruption, and political turmoil in England's northern countryside, the "Red Riding Trilogy" weaves in real-life events like the Yorkshire Ripper killings with fictional but entirely believable characters. This is chilling stuff that provides some tough commentary on the people who investigate and perpetrate crimes. The series earns bonus points for beautiful production values and artistic cinematography that enhance the noir-ish mood.

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: POD PEOPLE

If you've watched all five hours of the "Red Riding, Trilogy" you're probably looking for a bit of a mood-lifter! What better way to wash away the gloom than with a good laugh at the foibles of low-budget sci-fi? The teevee show "Mystery Science Theater 3000" is controversial in cult-film circles since some folks feel that its snarky commentary track ruins the joy of exploring little-known genre films. I can see where the nay-sayers are coming from, but I will testify that some of these movies are almost unwatchable without Joel, Mike and the ‘Bots. My fave episode of the show is "Pod People," which features a Spanish-French "E.T." knock-off with a whiny child star, hillbilly poachers, an ALF-like alien creature, be-fringed 80s fashion and a wayward rock band stranded in the woods. If you don't laugh when Joel and his puppet companions sing "Idiot Control Now" to the tune of the movie's feature song, then I weep for your barren, stony heart.

BLOOD FOR DRACULA & FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN

While not related by the traditional movie-sequel relationship, "Blood for Dracula" and"Flesh for Frankenstein" were made back-to-back by director Paul Morrissey and feature the same cast members. Often mis-attributed to financier Andy Warhol, these are the most off-the-wall, graphic, and witty versions of the classic monster tales you're likely to see. Genre vet Udo Kier stars as the titular villain of both films, delivering outrageous and semi-improvised performances as the vampire and the mad scientist. The heavy in both films is a muscular, virile working-class character played by Joe Dallesandro, who has one of the thickest Noo Yawk accents recorded on film, making his turns as Mittel European farm-hunks even more unlikely. Look close enough and you'll find some clever political subtext about class, wealth, and culture—or ignore all that and enjoy the infinitely quotable, blood-soaked mayhem. And just in case you question the art pedigree of these movies, keep your eyes peeled for a cameo by director Roman Polanski in "Blood for Dracula."