MY FAVORITE FILMS

A compelling and hypnotic Kafkaesque vision of the social control of the future. The status quo attempts to create a workers' utopia via enforced conformity and fails miserably.

I am convinced this vision of supreme corporate evil in an overpopulated, poisoned future is one of the several most likely predictions of where we are headed. it is coming true now.

This was based on Harry Harrison's 'Make Room, Make Room. If one also views KING CORN, HOME, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, THE FUTURE OF FOOD and reads Schlesser's Fast Food Nation, it seems intuitive that we are barreling toward the reality depicted in this film.

This superb story is not so much science fiction as an Orwellian vision of our corporate future. Regrettably, much of it is already coming true.






A not so futuristic Orwellian study of corporate evil. A possible companion to American Beauty, North Dallas Forty, Office Space and Soylent Green.

The robotized vacation resort of the future where nothing can possibli go wrong. Er, ah, make that "possibly . . . That's probably the first time that anything has ever gone wrong.

This sequel lacked the dramatic punch of the first, but it was equally imaginative and exciting.

This environmental story might have influenced the production of Harry Harrison's novel, Make Room! Make Room! into Soylent Green. It is quite believable and profoundly disturbing and upsetting.

Top notch 1060's British Hammer style occult. If you like movies such as Quatermass and the Pit, (Five Million Years To Earth) you will enjoy it immensely.

Fine performances and classic 60's horror from the Brits.

If you like British 1960's sci- fi and horror, you'll love it. If you don't you'll probably think it's dated with cheesy special effects. I'm a fan, and I personally think it stands the test of time. I thought the effects were pretty good for the era, and best of all, NO CGI. A very creative creep-out. Even forty years later, it still beats the hell out of utter crap offered today such as Resident Evil.

A breathtakingly filmed cold war classic with cutting edge special effects for the release date. Good fun with a great cast.

This had some stretches, and the storyline strays into the supernatural unnecessarily. However the basic premise is so imaginative that it is noteworthy.

The most intelligent sci-fi film ever shot. Surreal and beautiful, it is the only sci-fi movie to date that has resisted the absurd convention of depicting audible sound in out space for the morons in the audience.

A damn funny stoner space odyssey from John Carpenter collaborator, Dan O'Bannon.

This is a serious gem of an obscure film. I never expected to find it in the database. Better than Lynch. And a great Earl Bostick tenor sax recording to boot. Arty and offbeat without deliberately trying to be (unlike Lynch's post Blue Velvet work, where I think he was trying to live up to his own image).

David Lynch meets Atom Egoyan; about what one would expect. Another dark satire/theatre of the absurd with Isabella Rossellini of Blue Velvet, Entertaining but not as clever a vehicle as the people involved could have come up with.

This could have been darker and more indicting, but aside from the tedious opening, it had the creepy feel of any film which reveals the sordid realities that underlie quiet tree lined streets and white pciket fences. Novel though not entirely original plot structure.

Roseanna Arquette

Catherine O'Hara

After Hours

After Hours, 1985. Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom, and Terry Garr.

Paul Hackett, (Griffin Dunne) an innocuous computer specialist goes on a quick blind date out of a sense of obligation one night after work. Along the way he encounters a lengthy parade of NYC extreme oddballs who all take some hand in misdirecting his evening. Everything goes horribly, horribly wrong. Heading toward Greenwich Village in a runaway taxi he loses all of his money. Every aspect of his trip is disturbing, every character is compelling, eccentric, and menacing. Every action he takes goes wrong or is poorly received.

His attempts to resolve each emerging crisis simply lead him deeper into a convoluted maze of dilemmas. Each misadventure escalates and is more serious than the last until finally he is pursued through the streets of Soho ("South of Houston Street") by an angry mob who thinks he is a serial burglar. The weather is foul, he has no money and he can't get home, which is a good 10 miles uptown. Desperate and out of options, he encounters one final misanthropic oddball. Does she hold the key to his deliverance or to his doom? All Hackett has to say by this point is a plaintive, "I just want to get HOME!"

A cast of well-established comedians effortlessly carry this dark, twisted satire of urban personalities and Murphy's Law

Here is an appropriate film for Halloween:

The Other

The Other (1972)
Written by Tom Tyromn based on his novel.
Directed by Robert Mulligan.
With Chris and Martin Udvarnoky, Uta Haen and John Ritter.
Production Designer: Albert Brenner
Cinematography by Robert Surtees

Some horror cinema doesn't have to rely on the supernatural to be horrifying. Set in the 1930's, The Other is a grim shocker about two cute, apparently wholesome twin boys who would seem to lead an idyllic existence on a picturesque family farm. There's just one problem -everyone around them begins to have gruesome accidents.

The boys are drawn into a convoluted good-versus-evil struggle that churns within themselves, and they struggle with each other to both exercise and exorcise it. As this conflict manifests itself, the bizarre circumstances surrounding the misfortune of family and neighbors begin to weave an increasingly twisted and captivating mystery.

The story includes many odd and unsettling elements, such as the fact that the twins' mother is inexplicably a terrified psychological invalid. Their Russian nanny seems to be able to teach the boys how to fly via astral projection. There is a very odd, cursed family crest ring complete with the severed finger of the corpse from which it was stolen. People and things connected to the twins seem to end up broken, on fire, paralyzed or dead.

The ring and finger are coveted and revered by the boys. They carry it with them constantly in their treasure box, and this morbid memento is somehow the key to all of the strange tragedy that unfolds. Surrealism is created by the uncertainty of who is who, and what is what. The Other is a thoughtfully presented nightmare of indulgence, madness and grotesque murder. The production is enhanced by Robert Surtees' striking and graceful cinematography, with a memorably haunting score by Jerry Goldsmith.

Horror and occult fans should take particular delight in viewing The Other for the following reasons. It has an original story that has not been perpetually copied since it was filmed. This work was shot in 1972 when there were fewer creative constraints on writer-director collaboration. The Other is conventionally well constructed, but neither formulaic, nor forced to be "accessible" to the public. There are none of the standard cliches. It withstands the test of time and is not dated. Set during the Great Depression, it looks like it could have been produced yesterday. The treatment of the subject matter, however, is refreshingly unconventional. Those looking for something fresh and unlike anything they have seen before should be especially pleased -that is, if one can locate a copy.

The Other - trailer

A very creepy haunted house film by Spielberg before he sold out.

A nice follow-up to The House That Screamed.

I loved the Ansel Adams style opening pan-in shot. This is one of the minority of plays that easily translates to film. As with most surrealism, I love it because I enjoy the surrealistic element of not being sure where reality ends andl fantasy (in this case, delusion) begins.

A very well conceived and executed vampire movie. The most interesting I have seen.

Subject Two

SUBJECT TWO (2006)
WRITTEN BY: Philip Chidel and Philip Chidel
DIRECTED BY: Philip Chidel
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Rich Confalone
FEATURING: Christian Oliver, Dean Stapleton, Courtney Mace, Jürgen Jones, Thomas Buesch, and Philip Chidel
GENRES: HORROR, SCI-FI
TAGS: GRIM, HEAVY, DISTURBING, TWISTED

PLOT: A medical student gets more than he bargained for when upon accepting an experimental internship, he discovers that immortality comes with a steep price. Subject Two is a fresh twist on the Frankenstein plot. It envisions being reanimated from the undead's perspective. It is deeply disturbing and every bit as repellent and hellish as one could hope.

COMMENTS: A misanthropic medical student named Adam who flunked his ethics exam receives a cryptic email from a Dr. Fanklin Vick. It offers him an opportunity to assist in unusual medical research and to subsequently share in revolutionary scientific advances in medicine.

He bites on the lure, but to accept the position, he must wait on an icy mountain road in the middle of nowhere to be offered a ride by a stranger. The alluring and mysterious chauffeur obviously knows more about what is going on than he does. His journey to meet the elusive Doctor Vick is itself a snowy odyssey into the isolated, surreal drifts and folds of the Colorado Rockies.

When Adam and his driver reach a landmark beyond which the driver is no longer allowed, Adam must hike up a snow covered mountain to the doctor's laboratory. Now he is stranded, beyond the point of no return. The research facility turns out to be a converted chalet. Something about it is reminiscent of Nikola Tesla's Colorado Springs retreat in The Prestige.

He meets Vick who tells him that the research is very unusual and important and that Adam is uniquely qualified. Vick avoids going into much specific detail. Adam accepts. What Adam doesn't understand is that what uniquely qualifies him is that he is now a captive audience. Nobody knows where he is, he has no means of departure, and his particular background makes him an entity who nobody will ever miss if he disappears.

On this isolated, snowbound mountain peak, Dr. Vick is indeed performing very unique research. He is experimenting with life, death, and reanimation. In combination with makeshift cryogenics, he is using a bizarre recombinant DNA serum that alters and restarts the process of cellular respiration. The problem is, because the serum, timing and method of administration are as yet unperfected and misunderstood, the process has some very unpleasant side effects. Guess who gets to be the new test subject?

VIck murders Adam, and not very nicely. Instead of shooting him up with an overdose of Seconal, he sneaks up behind him a violently strangles him. Then he reanimates him.

He ruthlessly butchers and reanimates Adam repeatedly, trying to get the serum component balance, dosage, cryogenic, and temporal factors just right. There isn't an objective control group. Adam is both subject and control group, which is to say that as Vick and Adam perfect the research, they proceed via trial and error. As Subject Two, Adam is captive to a continuum of horrible and invigorating side effects, continuously oscillating between two extremes of mortal perception.

Subject Two experiences his new reality as a twisted psychedelic nightmare. It is simultaneously clarifying and hellish. While continuing to inhabit the world of the living, he is now intellectually in the bizarre plane of the beyond.

Unsettling developments alter Adam's experience when he discovers the frozen, bloody remains of who is apparently Subject One buried in the snow. In a state of suspended animation, Subject One's head is riddled with an octopus of gruesome serum tubes. Subject One does not look pleased about it, but he is going nowhere for the time being. Then matters become complicated when a trespassing poacher stumbles onto the proceedings and Adam "corrects" him.

The film has been criticized on two counts. Adam's character is allegedly not well enough developed so that we care about him, and the film was shot in digital video. I emphatically contest these assertions.

Regarding character development, there isn't time in a standard movie to address every potential nuance. Subject Two is about a dreadful, inescapable cycle of perpetual violent death and reanimation. The film is a horrifying psychological thriller about the human condition in states of animation and morbid destruction. It grimly depicts what it means to be alive. It explores the existential nature and paradoxes of undeath. Subject Two is about the curse of immortality.

With cerebral horror paradigms like this to contemplate, I couldn't give a dead lab rat's ass about Adam's hopes and dreams, his life and loves. He is an unethical, bright, curious, but naive foul-up. I want to see how he handles the situation and what becomes of him, nothing more.

While the cinematography has been accused of giving the piece the cheap feel of a soap opera, I dispute this as well. The cinematography is as sharp and precise as the frozen alpine air. It enhances the rarefied, ionic ether of the crystalline subzero setting. One can almost feel the thin, icy atmosphere paralyzing the lungs, the sting of snowy crystals against bare skin. Direct to digital bypasses the gloomy dreary look of televised productions once shot on video tape.

True, direct digital tracks movement the way video tape does, and lacks the lustrous detachment achieved by film stock. However it is perfectly suited to the white, snowbound, blue-skied clarity of the locale in Subject Two. The precision of digital is blissfully married to the stark, cold reality of this severe story.

Subject Two is mostly a mental and physical dialectic between two actors. There is a cold calculation about their dispositions, rather than the emotionally wrought yelling and screaming that is standard to other horror scenarios of its type. There is no dramatically shrieked, "Give my creature life!" Subject Two is pure science fiction and squeamish dread. The appalling nature of the irreversible psychic and physiological mutilation inflicted on Adam combines with Vick's amoral descent beyond unorthodoxy into pure evil. This profane combination provides all of the excitement and turmoil that one can endure.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: "Set against the bright, breathtaking world of the snow-peaked Rocky Mountains . . . Subject Two is as much a clever inversion of the resurrection horror genre as it is a profound and ethical examination of the value of life and immortality." - Sundance Film Festival

Subject Two - CLIP

Nicely produced, thought-provoking surrealism.

Finally, a substantial role for the generic, but pleasant Anne Archer. Another interesting surrealist piece.

Liane Balaban - Happy Here And Now

Happy Here and Now 2002.

Written and directed by Michael Almereyda

With Clarence Williams III, David Arquette (who co-produced), Ally Sheedy, former super model Shalom Harlow, model Gloria Reuben, Karl Geary and rhythm and blues star Ernie K-Doe.

Happy Here and Now is a surrealistic satire in which a young woman tries to find her missing sister by investigating eccentric New Orleans characters who are entangled in a web of cyber-intrigue.

This movie is unusual in its story telling structure. It guides us through a netherworld of oddball people, their weird behavior and strange gadgets via a series of vignettes that are ultimately connected.

In this quirky odyssey, Canadian actress Liane Balaban plays Amelia. She has come to New Orleans to locate a missing sister who has erased every trace of herself. Clarence Williams III plays a limping ex CIA agent with an unexplained leg wound that just won't heal.

Williams forensically dissects the sister's laptop hard drive. He finds traces of cryptic conversations held online with a poetic but sinister misfit (Karl Geary). The stranger uses a special technology to change his real-time appearance and country of origin on webcam-conference.

Amelia attempts to determine the presence of a connection between the late night Internet chats and her sister's disappearance. She does so with Thomas' assistance by contacting Greary's puzzling character and conducting a fresh set of webcam conversations. What are his motives, what is he truly capable of? Why does he change his appearance and answer questions with questions?

Did this enigmatic stranger lure Amelia's sister to her fate in a snuff film? Amelia must figure out how to trace and outwit him by playing a game of deception online.

Throughout her quest for answers, Amelia encounters a cascade of artistic dilettantes. One of several exceptions is the real-life Ernie K-Doe, famous for his 1961 number one hit, "Mother-in -Law," who appears as himself in his actual New Orleans club.

Nearly all of the characters are in some way unknowingly interconnected via a subplot orchestrated by David Arquette's character, Eddie Mars. Mars is a creatively misguided, self-employed exterminator who entwines the protagonists via a film project. It is a soft-porn, direct-to-digital Internet film about a time traveling Nicola Tesla. (And there might be some termites and a spherical fire breaking out in a space station, he hasn't decided yet.))

is a dream-like atmosphere piece which artfully combines unusual visual and acoustic elements. It highlights a smattering of New Orleans lore and culture. Thomas' character weaves a narrative of local lore as the camera pans by local cemeteries, barbecue joints, The Napoleon House, and a few other unconventional landmarks. We get a nice sample of New Orleans homes and interiors, blues clubs, fauna, and steamy avenues by streetlight. Odd characters such as man wearing Napoleonic clothing wander the streets.

The conclusion, while not a blockbuster of revelation, amusingly ties all of the characters and vignettes together.

The film is open-ended as to its message. Enthusiasts of movies that conclude with a concrete sense of finality should look to Happy Here and Now as being a piece that is intended to inspire the imagination.

The film features musician, performance artist and electronics whiz "Quintron" (Robert Rolston's stage name) as himself. Quintron has distinguished himself in arcane circles for among other things, inventing clever but peculiar electronic musical instruments. One of his Tesla coils is featured in the film.

"Strange by even its director's ultra-eccentric standards, Happy Here and Now takes Michael Almereyda's usual reality-blurring, video-mediated experimentation to what the f*** new levels..." -David Ng, The Village Voice, December 6, 2005

MGM DVD.

Based on the raunchy pulp novel by Rodney William Whitaker, written under the pseudonym Trevanian. Clint Eastwood's most interesting film. A top notch intelligence community action thriller.

As relevant and believable today as ever. An excellent screenplay adaptation from the book, about a CIA within the CIA and what happens when unaccountable agencies don't follow their own rules.

Ex mercs claim this is one of the more realistic mercenary films. A great cast of my favorite, gristled, alcoholic actors (it's true -several had a provision in their contracts to stay off the sauce until production concluded) and a believable conclusion. Plenty of action and more importantly, political realism.

See also Sister My Sister.

I found this quite engrossing. If you enjoyed Heavenly Creatures, you may like this even more. It's a heavy film and the situation of the two protagonists is easy to empathize with . Historically well interpreted. Sensational events well depicted without the use of sensational exposition.

This is only a slight exaggeration of current life.

Tongue in cheek with a modest budget, but very imaginative with some distinctive sets, jokes, and scary creepiness.

Some shamefully corny exposition at the beginning, but not a bad story, some more good, creepy sight gags and yet more imaginative sets.

Quirky, surrealistic, arty, eccentric, fun nonconformism. Goes well with the film Powder.

Why one should pull one's blinds.

The most imaginative plot for any horror film ever.

Commentary on human nature and the devastatingly bleak prospects these teenagers had at their disposal. Peter Bogdonavich at his best.

One Of Robert Aldrich's best and funniest works.

A good companion to The Jacket and Jacob's Ladder.

Klepto

Klepto (2003)
Written by Ethan Gross and Thomas Trail.
Directed by Thomas Trail.
Production Design: Shelby Wood
With Meredith Bishop, Jsu Garcia, Leigh Taylor-Young, and Michael Nouri.

A mentally unstable kleptomaniac is blackmailed into a get rich quick scheme by an unscrupulous department store security specialist in this arty thriller.

Magnolia Pictures is a production company which finances, produces and distributes unusual independent films. Magnolia appears to have taken the clever strategy of marketing home theater equipment which provided the company with a substantial enough capital base to fund their cinematic projects. Now that their home entertainment products are in place in consumers' homes, they provide the entertainment to play on them, usually in the form of direct to DVD releases. Nearly all of their offerings are noteworthy in some way and Klepto is no exception.

In Klepto, Meredith Bishop plays Emily, an attractive but troubled, medication-addicted young woman. She fills the void left by the unexplained disappearance of her father by shoplifting a variety of items. Her favorites are Swiss timepieces which remind her of her father's. Leigh-Taylor Young (I Love You Alice B. Toklas!, Soylent Green) plays her shallow, compulsively shopping, absentee mother.

Emily is observed by a security specialist named Nick (Garcia) in the act of shoplifting. Nick is in dire financial straits and ensnares her into a desperate scheme to achieve financial independence. Unfortunately, Nick, while resourceful, is a chronic foul-up and his machinations become increasingly convoluted as each stage of his plan meets with devastating failure.

Emily meanwhile, is struggling with multiple medication addictions, pathological kleptomania, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and surprise, complicating visits from her naive mother. She is motivated to assist Nick in order to avoid being exposed as a thief, but also as part of an offer Nick makes to help her locate her father.

Nick, unaware of the severity of Emily's condition, drags her into his disintegrating life further complicating hers with disastrous results. The timing of the movie is precisely executed as its well paced, original plot cascades toward certain but indeterminate calamity.

A strong visual emphasis is presented of the coveting of expensive luxury commodities, a plethora of multicolored medications and a lot of surreal, CCTV imagery. The cinematography is artfully executed. It is crisp and concise. The shots are very creative.

There is an impressive, lengthy, continuous Steadiicam shot of Emily strolling through a parking lot, into a department store, up an escalator and through store aisles near the climax of the film. Despite drastic changes in lighting intensity and many obstacles, the exposure of this shot is perfect and the camera work is impeccably smooth.

The shot faces Emily, as if the observer is walking ahead of her facing backwards. This causes one to experience her stressful endeavor from her point of view. However, because one cannot see where she is going, only where she has been, the camera technique in this pivotal scene magnifies her tension and the suspense of the moment.

This is a well acted, tight, concise little gem of a film that will appeal to anyone with a desire for a movie with a different feel from more conventional and commercial entires in the crime thriller genre.

"A nifty little character study-cum-caper flick ... Performances are strong down the line ... a well thought out visual aesthetic." Dennis Harvey, Daily Variety.

Klepto - CLICK to play Trailer

The Shuttered Room

THE SHUTTERED ROOM (BRITISH, 1967)
AKA: BLOOD ISLAND
WRITTEN BY: D.B. Ledrov based on the book by August Derleth and H.P. Lovecraft
DIRECTED BY: David Green
FEATURING: Oliver Reed, Gig Young, Flora Robson, and Carol Lynley
GENRE: HORROR
PLOT: In this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, a newlywed couple inherits an abandoned mill only to discover that a long string of grisly incidents is linked to the unnameable creature inhabiting its loft. The Shuttered Room is a strange yarn of monsters and madness. The setting is claustrophobic and creepy, the characters are downright bizarre, and so are the situations that the protagonists stumble into. Despite this the cinematography is expertly and artfully executed. Thus the viewer expects a conventional storyline, and it is unsettling when shocking events unfold.

COMMENTS: A newlywed couple, Mike and Susannah Kelton (Young, Lynley) travel to an island off of the Connecticut shoreline to visit an old mill which Su just inherited. It was once her childhood home. From the start she has reservations, but the couple perseveres at Mike's urging. They need to view the property with the goal of renovating the mill into a bed and breakfast.

As soon as they arrive on the island, the locals begin subjecting them to the old "Yew ain't from around here!" treatment (even though Su is). Mike meets her uncle who insists that they should leave. The uncle's employee shows Mike his mutilated face, missing an eye and reports that the injury was caused by the devil when he got drunk and spent a night in the abandoned mill. The couple also meet the local ruffians, a gang of unsavory toughs led by a psychopath named Ethan (Reed) who happens to be Su's cousin. Mike is a dignified magazine editor. Both he and Su are cityslickers -and it shows. The hooligans, waste no time expressing their country-fried contempt for the educated, well dressed pair. They brazenly leer at Su and even her cousin Ethan has incestuous rape in mind.

The initial scene in The Shuttered Room furnishes a glimpse at some sort of childhood trauma caused by an insane relative who attacked Su when she was a toddler. A dirty back room secret, the miscreant is kept confined to special quarters in the family home which Su now learns was the old mill. The restraint chamber is blocked by a sinister red door with a very weird peephole protected by cruel spikes.

Su represses her early memories and the denial is causing her to have psychological issues. The couple find Su's old toys, family furnishings, and can't help but note that strange door. What was once behind the door holds the answer to Su's latent angst. Discovering answers about her past was part of her motivation to return to the island. Due to the bizarre nature of her return to the island, she quickly begins to question the virtues of digging them up

As soon as the couple settle in, they share an intimate moment interrupted by Ethan licentiously peeping at them through a window, He leads them to a decrepit lighthouse where Su has a reunion with her eccentric Aunt Agatha (Robson) who warns the Keltons about a curse on Su's family. She learns that her parents were silled by lightening and that the old mill harbors a deadly secret. Auntie implores the pair to leave the island at once lest the curse befall them too.

As the couple explores the mill and the island, they have several unsavory encounters with the gang of nutty, violent locals. Ethan's girlfriend shows up at the mill late at night to steal a coveted item from the Keltons and is mysteriously and monstrously slashed to death.

The old mill itself is as creepy as can be with a sinister overhanging loft several stories over the entrance. The loft features a mysterious trap door in its floor once used for winching up sacks of grain. An imposing structure, it is the room behind the creepy red door and holds the danger that the islanders dread.

Ultimately the thugs ambush and waylay Mike to divert him while Ethan attempts to rape Su. Mike gets away and rushes to his wife's rescue where they discover that Ethan has unleashed the dreaded family curse. When it manifests itself, Ethan and the Keltons fight for their lives in a bizarre and cathartic showdown.

The Shuttered Room is a Gothic style story about isolation, the unknown, dreadful places, and being trapped. It is not a fast paced spatterfest of a horror movie, but the setting and situations are dreadfully creepy, unusual and memorable. Basil Kirchin's (The Abominable Dr. Phibes) lively, innovative score enhances the film's atmosphere of psychic anxiety.

The Shuttered Room - CLIP

War is hell, ain't it?

Faithful to the novel. Top notch WWII gritty action. An all time fav.

This film has an ending so dramatic that it is difficult to equal.

Lake Nelson - Housekeeping

Housekeeping (1987)
DIRECTED BY: Bill Forsyth.
WRITTEN BY: Bill Forsyth based on the novel by Marilynne Robinson.
FEATURING: Christine Lahti,Sara Walker and Andrea Burchill.
PLOT: Two orphaned girls are joined by their transient aunt who becomes their unconventional guardian in this dreamy, pensive study of nonconformity and the breaking of social mores in a restrictive 1950's environment.

Housekeeping is a surreal atmosphere piece that questions right and wrong, debates the meaning of normality and examines the consequences of non-conformity. The story follows the erratic behavior of two teenage girls and their seemingly irresponsible caretaker.

In the 1950?s Pacific Northwest, a series of bizarre events unfold leading to the abandonment of two adolescent girls. In a dramatic early scene, the girls? misfit mother amiably asks some young boys for help in getting her car out of a muddy rut. When they do, she casually commits suicide in front of them by driving over a cliff. Her daughters, long abandoned by their father, become the wards of their grandmother and aunt, who see them into their early teens. When the deceased mother?s sister shows up, the grandmother and great aunt disappear into the night, leaving them in the care of the newly arrived ?Aunt Sylvie? (Lahtie).

Sylvie, as it turns out, is an avowed nonconformist with an unconventional lifestyle and unique view of the world. Her permissive parenting evolves into the enabling of an alternative existence for her nieces. This new freedom includes skipping school, stealing boats, riding the rails, and other risky, unstructured behavior?acts which are particularly outré when performed by young women in the conservative 1950s.

The film is an odyssey of self discovery as Ruth, from whose point of view the story is presented, begins to question social convention and accepted folkways. As Ruth comfortably gravitates toward Sylvie?s atypical values, her sister Lucille is upset by the lack of structure and begins to embrace social norms.

This evolution of the girls? characters and personalities is presented through a series of ethereal misadventures and explorations. This transition is further influenced by the recounting of early childhood impressions, and their observations of the unique geography of their home which is located on a surreal lake surrounded by wooded mountains. Different story segments are connected by symbolism of ice and snow, the depth of the huge lake they live on, and of railroads and trains, particularly a spectacular train derailment disaster that occurred many years in the past. The lake itself, a massive body of deep cold water holding the wreckage and bodies from the doomed train, embodies concepts of obstacles, boundaries, mystery and the transcendence of space and time.

Ultimately and inevitably, outside authoritarian interference descends upon the trio; the tale alludes to fear of witches by the unsophisticated locals. Nonconformity is equated with a dread of the unknown. At this point, the slowly building tension between the girls? independence and the mainstream establishment comes to a rolling boil. The three must choose between two extremes, either one of which will create dramatic and permanent consequences.

Some credit Housekeeping with exploring themes concerning transience, self reliance, dependency, female marginalization, and freedom. This may be true, but the literary eye rollers ?that crowd who seek to distinguish themselves intellectually via the effete discovery of a plethora of symbolism, real or imaginary, in any work?are likely to perceive Housekeeping as being an exploration of feminist issues. This would not be the best interpretation of the story. Housekeeping is not a women?s movie. It is a beautifully photographed, thought-provoking atmospheric fantasy about unconventionality and its consequences. The events are experienced from the point of view of a youngster who happens to be a girl. The choice of gender serves more to facilitate this study of social taboos than to make any sort of statement. Those who wish to interpret Housekeeping as being a feminist vehicle will miss the nebula for the stars.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

??one of the strangest and best films of the year? not a realistic movie, not one of those disease-of-the-week docudramas with a tidy solution. It is funnier, more offbeat, and too enchanting to ever qualify on those terms.??Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (contemporaneous)

A well written, surreal occult film that looks like a psychological thriller or intelligence community type film until the end. Clever and attention sustaining.

An odd and disturbing, surreal Aussiie film which incorporates several creepy themes into its plot. Very high production values. Fans of the film Powder should enjoy the sinister and quirky storyline.

Grotesque and very funny oddball horror film about a shipment of poison rotgut that drives winos homicidally maniacal before horribly deforming and liquefying them. I just rewatched this and it was better than I remembered. The special effects makeup is top notch, and ever so gross and disgustingly original.

4-D Man

4-D Man (1959)
Directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.
Written by Theodore Simonson based on an idea by Jack H. Harris.
With Robert Lansing, Lee Meriwether, James Congdon, Robert Straus, and Patty Duke.

A scientist walks through walls and feasts on human youthfulness.

A physicist (Lansing) discovers a way to will the coexistence of matter -such as his own with the wall of a bank vault -allowing him to reach through any substance or walk through any kind of wall. Having been exploited by his employer, Lansing decides to keep the discovery to himself and use it to his own advantage.

There's just one catch: It takes years off of his life each time he does so. Fortunately, or this would have been a 1/2 hour movie, he discovers that he can suck the life out of a youthful, vivacious Patty Duke, a barfly, another scientist, whoever happens to be convenient in order to restore his life force. While his mother night not approve, the ability to walk into a bank vault and helps oneself is so enviable that one finds oneself rooting for him.

Can he indulge his wantonness using the 4th dimension without being detected? This imaginative, classic late '50's sci-fi film has some memorable scenes and nifty special effects by the standard of the day. This film is a must for anyone who enjoyed The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963).

4-D Man - CLIP

Les Blessures assassines

Les Blessures assassines (2000)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Denis
Written by Jean-Pierre Denis based on the novel by Paulette Houdyer.
Production Designer: Bernard Vézat.
With Julie-Marie Parmentier, Isabelle Renauld, Dominique Labourier, François Levantal, Jean-Gabriel Nordmann, Tessa Szczeciniarz, and Charlotte Guille.

Jean-Marc Fabre's cinematography adds an element of artistry to this absorbing, racy story about isolation, deprivation, lust and murder.

This is the French film version of the 1930's Papin case in which class differences, mental imbalance, and the repression of an incestuous lesbian relationship led to predictable but bizarre results. Two teenage girls, with a mother from hell and an absentee father who may have had an incestuous relationship with the eldest, endure a harsh upbringing in a convent and in the service industry.

Tension develops as the sisters' relationship with their scheming, uncaring, amoral mother deteriorates. To make matters more stressful, the insecure pair deal with repeated separations. They end up working together finally, after being employed by successively snobbish, callous, and impossibly unreasonable employers.

Class differences are highlighted, as is lesbian tension between the latest employer's daughter and the youngest of the two sisters, resulting in an unstable and emotional triangle. Other factors, such as the general mental imbalance of most of the central characters, and the unjust application of the social status quo, cause potentially serious conflicts to mount and mount like a coiling spring as the film ascends to it's inevitable climax.

The other most recent film adaptation, Sister My Sister (1994), was an all woman production directed by Nancy Meckler, and was written by Wendy Kesselman, based on her play. Sister My Sister fictionalized the account a little bit to attempt enhanced audience accessibility. The film included less historical detail, and was not as lurid. However, it just as effectively caught the gist of the case and was no less compelling a story. I would recommend both to any fan of films such as Heavenly Creatures. There are some saliently sensational similarities between the Papin case and the Hulme/Parker case which occurred in New Zealand approximately twenty years later.

Beware -there are two versions of Les Blessures assassines. (Both with the Englush title, Murderous Maids) : a family friendlier version, and the appropriately more graphic and contextually detailed one. If this sort of thing isn't your kind of cup of tea, skip them all. If it is, do yourself a favor and see the unabridged version. The controversial scenes are tame by today's standards, and are non-gratuitously central to the plot. Both films, Sister My Sister and Les Blessures assassines are well crafted, pensive, captivating dramas.

Alternate trailer. - Les Blessures assassines (2000)

Sister My Sister

The Cremator

The Cremator (Czechoslovakian 1969)
Written by Ladislav Fuks based on his novel.
Directed by Juraj Herz.
Production Designer: Zbynek Hloch
Cinematography by Stanislav Milota.
Original Music by Zdenek Liska.
With Rudolf Hrusínský, Ilja Prachar, Milos Vognic, and Zora Bozinová

In this mesmerizing, Gothic horror film, a funerary specialist becomes obsessed with what he believes to be the nobility of his calling with terrifyingly tragic and bizarre results.

In late 1930?s Prague, Kopfrking (Hrusínský) is a misguided, enigmatic crematorium operator. He is an impeccably groomed, eerie, enigmatic and meticulous figure and always talks in a hypnotic, soft spoken, poetic manner. He is overly preoccupied with mortality, morbidity, the human soul, and deeply devoted to the funerary arts.

Kopfrking feels a physical affection for the instrumentality of his trade, lovingly caressing the equipment of the crematory process. He speaks constantly, literally and metaphorically of death and the liberation of the soul through the process of cremation.

As the story progresses, he becomes increasingly obsessed with his work, finding it glorifying and cathartic. He sees visions of the ghost of his living wife in her youth, along with his future incarnation as he begins a spiraling descent into fantasy and madness. He is on a mission to free the souls of the deceased (and in time the not so deceased) through the pyrolization of human flesh, be it living or dead -just as long as that flesh is consumed and vaporized by fire.

The influence of the pre-WWII German political machine is enveloping Eastern Europe, polarizing aspiring Nazis and oppositionists. Drawn toward the philosophy of the Third Reich, Kopfrking becomes morbidly obsessed with racial purity and the percentage of German blood flowing within his own veins -literally to the point of having his vessels opened and the contents examined. While The Cremator is not a raving anti-Nazi film, it uses the political ideology as an allegory for exploring the phenomenon of sweeping, consuming mass delusion and insanity.

The gathering of Nazi forces on the border offers Kopfrking an opportunity to realize his misguided aspirations on a grand scale, one much larger than he could have ever hoped for, one seemingly without limit. Before he can apply his fervor and passion to the task, he hatches a plan to betray and destroy his own acquaintances, colleagues and family.

While there are elements of black satire in the The Cremator, the movie is so compelling as to nearly overshadow it. The film insidiously and steadily flows to its inevitable and horrifying conclusion like a hot rivulet of liquefied fat.

The production design is crisp and symmetrical. Stanislav Milota?s stunning black and white cinematography is haunting and beautiful. It features successions of extreme closeups that emphasize slightly grotesque and disturbing features of the biological condition. Milota?s use of black and white film stock?s enhanced tonal range is artfully employed to focus attention on rich textures and multitudes of shades. This gives The Cremator a uniquely unsettling dreamlike quality. The musical score by Zdenek Liska is alluring, phantasmic, and aesthetically intriguing. Viewing The Cremator is akin to experiencing a nightmare that one is reluctant to wake from.

As a side note, Rudolf Hrusínský's grandson is now in the film industry in is also an actor in the Czech Republic.. Writer Ladislav Fuks allegedly fled the country to escape Communism. His publications have apparently been banned there for many years. The Cremator was a Czech nominee for the Best Foreign Film Oscar.

"Released in 1969 as a smart arthouse spine-tingler, The Cremator is being pitched today as a sui generic horror show." -Gary Dretzka, Movie City News

The Cremator was released on Dark Sky DVD, March 31, 2009.

Pretty Poison

Pretty Poison (1968)
Written by Stephen Geller (novel), Lorenzo Semple Jr. (screenplay)
Directed by Noel Black
Art Direction: Harold Michelson and Jack Martin Smith
With Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld.

A parolee initiates a bizarre episode of "intrigue" in a quiet New England town.

What is more dangerous, a schizophrenic accused of murder, or a high-functioning psychopath? Recently released from jail for a suspicious murder, the supposedly rehabilitated Dennis Pitt (Perkins) becomes enamored with local high school majorette Sue Ann Stepanek (Weld) in a conservative, sleepy Massachusetts town.

Pitt turns out to be an apparent schizophrenic in that he cannot seem to separate fantasy from reality. He is surprisingly able to attract the straight-laced, straight 'A' Stepanek who oddly returns his interest, Strangely, she does not seem to detect Pitt's possible mental illness. To the contrary, she returns his interest after he brags to her that he is a secret agent.

In her apparently gross naiveté in believing and trusting Pitt, she places herself in a seemingly precarious position, embarking with him as his confederate on his amateurish, staged, cloak and dagger misadventures about town. But why is she so willing to associate herself with such an obvious oddball?

As Perkins labors in a sinister mill inspecting vials of a mysterious red toxin distilled within, he hatches a bizarre and seemingly mysterious scheme to impress Stepanek, who quickly demonstrates her own talent for the clandestine and macabre. A question is raised as to who is manipulating who, and which one of the pair is really more diabolical. Is Pitt endangering an unworldly, innocent schoolgirl or has he underestimated her?

A succession of strange events spirals out of control as the pair initiate a a crime spree that leads to unpredictable, unsavory, and violently open-ended consequences.

Now on DVD.