August 18, 2008
I have no idea how this film seems to slip and slide around in the consciousness of horror fans--it's not brought up much at all, not as a good film, a decent film or even as absolute crap to avoid. This is somewhat mystifying for a film that is composed of two Edgar Allen Poe st...( read more)ories, adapted and directed by George A. Romero and Dario Argento, with cast members including Tom Atkins, Adrienne Barbeau, E.G. Marshall, a Tom Savini cameo and even a jump in horror respectability with one segment starring Harvey Keitel--heck, even someone bringing up Buffy/Angel alumnus' Julie Benz' small role. I imagine if the alleged history of the film is true and had happened, with Wes Craven and John Carpenter also donating segments, or the Poe anthology television series with episodes directed by Michele Soavi (doing "The Masque of the Red Death") and Richard Stanley ("The Cask of Amontillado" with Michael Gambon and Jonathan Pryce cast in the two major roles--oh, what a loss, dammit!). It stumbles into conversation and websites on occasion, but not too often.
In the first segment (after a brief montage of Poe images dedicating the film to him), "The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar," Jessica (Barbeau) and her beau (argh, sorry) Dr. Robert Hoffman (Ramy Zada--uh, who? oh, a TV guest star) are perpetrating the theft of Jessica's dying elderly husband's (Bingo O'Malley...uh, Bingo?) estate through hypnosis, getting him to sign away his finances from his deathbed, even confirming his intentions with attorney Steven Pike (Marshall) through his hypnotized haze. Jessica is not overly comfortable with the methodology Hoffman is using, and makes her feelings clear, and an ambiguity about the acceptability of their actions (Pike having confirmed that she would get the money at Mr. Valdemar's death thanks to his will--but that it would be tied up for years before she got it), though a house nurse (played by Christine Romero, credited as Cristine [sic] Forrest) certainly blackens their actions, saying that their keeping him at home is terrible for him--of course, we know that's to keep him in their control. When he dies suddenly and without warning while hypnotized, they realize they can't let anyone know he has, or their machinations will fail and the money will be lost. What's to do? Well, of course, everyone has a basement with one of those top-door freezers, so in the body goes. But Jessica swears she continues to hear Ernest's voice, despite his death. Finally, Hoffman goes down to prove she's wrong and he's thoroughly dead and--no, this is not "The Tell-Tale Heart," let's just put it that way. George himself chuckles and admits that he was drawn to the story because, well, "the living dead!"
Barbeau performs in her usual style, always visible beneath her character, but simultaneously keeping the façade over herself complete and consistent, with a little greater depth and range than usual. Zada, well, let's just say I'm not surprised most of his credits are for recurring guest roles on network television. Christine is the most exciting in this respect, being able to go through numerous lines, probably a greater percentage of screentime (considering the one hour running time of Romero's segment) than any other. Her amateur background shows readily, but she's able to draw her energy into very real-looking anger, even if her delivery is lacking. I felt like applauding anyway, as strange as that might seem, just because she managed quite well for someone lacking in major film experience, who was in the film primarily because her husband directed it. Both segments are accused of lacking the touch of their respective directors on occasion, and it's true, in some ways, that they share a sameness between each other that I recognize from other anthology works--like, say, Masters of Horror--there is definitely a touch of George in "The Facts." His way of filming by telling a story, not focusing on visuals or "art" (said with up-turned nose), or even on effects is very clear. I'd say "documentary style," but that isn't it, nor is "television." It's some weird amalgamation of straightahead fictional film-making, television and documentaries. It works to tell the story--nothing more, nothing less. Savini's effects (c'mon, who else's?) are on, well, Savini level--though I agree with George and Tom themselves: that WAS his best head, ever. George is also right that the final supernatural scene could have used a little more work and subtlety, and that the sound editing was a little lacking, saying he never had a chance to really tweak it. It ended up reminiscent of Creepshow, but without the comic book colouring--the story was definitely turned very EC, though.
The second segment is Dario's: "The Black Cat." Rod Usher (Keitel) is a professional photographer whose primary subject is dead people, especially murder victims. Our first viewing of him at work is in a scene where a naked woman has been bisected at the waist, fully visible in gleeful Argento-style. We discover how when Rod pulls a lever--a swinging bladed pendulum. Sound familiar? Hey, wait, his name is what? This isn't the last, as Usher later photographs a woman exhumed by her cousin to remove all her teeth posthumously--one assumes her name was Berenice--a cousin we realize is, oh, hey, Tom Savini...dressed like Poe! At home he develops his photos, only to be interrupted by a black cat stomping on his photos. When he politely chides it and removes it, it claws him and his wife Annabel (yes! more!--played by Madeleine Potter) scolds him for, well, nothing. He didn't mess with the cat. (Um, more on this later). His submission for a published book is rejected for lacking variety because it's nothing but dead people, so he's sent to take more photos in the same tone. So, he takes the new cat in his life, which obviously hates him, and photographs it in front of an abstract background, then begins posing it, eventually strangling it. Rather inexplicably, I might add. Perhaps to preserve the tone of the book? His wife is devastated (no, really--devastated, she's pouring food for a cat that she doesn't know the location of, looks sallow, slumps around, etc) but Rod maintains the cat is no big deal, nor is its disappearance. She "knows" he killed it, but he denies it (in true Keitel style--profane, loud and with a real edge of burning anger). Soon she finds the now-published book and knows he has indeed killed the cat--for a picture of him strangling it graces the cover. She prepares to leave him as he sinks deeper into alcoholism and wanders into a bar where a bartender named Eleonora (last one I promise!--played by Sally Kirkland) gives him a very familiar looking cat, saying his fate is in the white mark on its chest. Soon an accidental murder becomes a conscious concealment and a fight with guilt and suspicion.
Keitel is thoroughly Keitel-y in this role, simmering constantly in that way he always does, exploding where appropriate, stumblingly drunk, but with that feeling of control that belligerent and arrogant drunks can have, sure they can control their movements and actions. The supporting cast is, well, it's irritating as hell. There's John Amos, always a friendly face, as both the police contact/associate of Usher, and his eventual investigator, and he's the exception. Potter plays Annabel as a melodramatic idiot, showing neither love for her husband, nor for the cat whose disappearance apparently destroys her entire life. She pours tears quietly and seems near catatonic after its "disappearance," but prior is like that irritating newage sister stereotype (see Illeana Douglas in A Stir of Echoes, for example, or Patricia Clarkson in Six Feet Under--just off the top of my head), swirling in myseriously and babbling about the mystic past and persectuion of cats. It's exceptionally irritating to me because that past is sick, sad and disturbing. I know some things I'm saying here might annoy cat lovers (I'm a cat, uh, liker?), but I really have nothing against them--except when people like this talk about them. The inflated importance grates on me. Anyway. Her students include a girl played by Benz (almost unnoticeable because you rarely see her face) and Christian (Holter Graham) who has the bleached blonde coif of the jock in 80s teen movies--you know, the jerk with the "great" hair. He's a schmuck, too, making weird assumptions about Rod--ok, they're accurate, but how the hell does he know that? Gimme a break. Strangely, the alcoholic cat murderer easily maintains his place as the protagonist without repelling me--and animal abuse does not sit well with me. That's how much I hate the other characters. But, realistically, I'm looking too closely at characters in a Dario Argento film. I talk about this every time I review one of his movies--characters, dialogue, usually acting, suffer under his watch, simply because they aren't that important to him, or aren't the most important part. He's helped this time by live sound recording (against his Italian roots, but apparently something he was excited to try) and the presence of, well, Harvey bloody Keitel. He had not yet lost his taste for brilliantly composed images--when Rod sees the image in the cat's fur that represents his fate, a beautiful image curled my lip into a smile, and the glee Savini says he exhibited when the pendulum was started was justified, it's a pretty amazingly unease-inducing sight. Colour only, then, bleeds into specific images, like the one that made me smile, so he has begun to tone down his use from his earlier efforts, but it was still present then. Creative camerawork, too puts his stamp on and separates his work on the film from Romero's, with POV shots from both Rod and the cat, and even from the pendulum.
The most interesting thing here was to see the contrasting approaches to gore--both had effects by Savini and his team, but you can see that George's approach could be summed up as "Yup, here's some gore, pretty neat, eh?" whereas Argento's approach (one which has only increased with time, reaching its apex in Mother of Tears) is, "Hey! There's going to be a gore shot! Look! Look! Hey, there it is! Here's another angle! Isn't this awesome?!" I'm not criticizing either, as both fir their approach to film-making--Argento is visual, George is matter-of-fact and story-oriented. He doesn't choose the "suggested violence" approach because that wouldn't be telling the entire story. Interesting to see them side to side, within a single production and by a single artist--narrowing the possible reasons for the variance to the two tastes. George has been clear about his appreciation of and affection for using gore, while Argento has never needed to voice this view, because it's on plain display, being so much more energetic, much like Argento himself.
Sidenote: Blue Underground's Limited Edition includes some "home" footage from the time of filming, including a 14 year old Asia Argento and a gleeful Argento in the streets of Pittsburgh, attempting to kick a football amongst other things, and the revelation shared by Savini and a grinning Romero that Argento apparently LOVES buffalo wings.
Share This Review
