The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies (Mammoth Books)
Page 13
Ultimo Mondo Cannibal or Last Cannibal World (1977) had been Deodato’s precursor to this shocking episode, which was essentially an action-packed cannibal movie with precious little in the way of gore. His approach to this feature, however, observed a distinct transition, choosing to make use of the documentary filmmaking techniques of Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi. There was a disconcertingly rough edge to the second half of the film, which in a series of powerful scenes revealed only the slightest suggestion of gore rather than the anticipated visceral excess.
Soon after its Italian premiere, Cannibal Holocaust was confiscated by a magistrate and Deodato was arrested on charges of obscenity. It was the magistrate’s belief the director had produced a vile snuff movie and rumours abounded as to the onscreen killing of some of the actors. Deodato was later cleared, but his film was banned in his home country and then later in the UK. Such was its reputation it faced prohibition across almost the entire globe. The appalling levels of physical and sexual violence were borne out to be highly controversial, as was the unnecessary cruelty displayed towards the animal life featured in the film. This callous disregard had already angered and caused a significant amount of tension among the members of the cast and crew. Furthermore, the unrelenting violence detailed in the grainy documentary sequences, recorded on hand-held cameras, proved a little too realistic for the censoring authorities. In February1982 Cannibal Holocaust was released to video in the UK, but by July 1983 its notoriety had ensured it a place among the Director of Public Prosecutions’ list of seventy-four videos that proliferated the country without having been certified by the BBFC. The film was successfully prosecuted for obscenity and banned until 2001 when it was passed with an “18” certificate following the extensive editing of the animal cruelty and scenes of sexual violence. Owing to its graphic content, several different versions of Cannibal Holocaust have been peddled in various countries with countless edits to the “Last Road to Hell”.
Several films have since attempted to pose as Cannibal Holocaust II, although an official sequel has never been released and isn’t likely to be following a recent breakdown in negotiations between Deodato and potential financiers. Mario Gariazzo’s Schiave Bianche: Violenza en Amazzonia (1985), also known as Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story, hoped to exploit the movie’s infamy when it saw release as Cannibal Holocaust 2: The Catherine Miles Story. Antonio Climati’s jungle adventure Natura Contro (1988), while also going by the name The Green Inferno, assumed the title Cannibal Holocaust II on its UK release. Bruno Mattei later produced Mondo Cannibale, Cannibal World in 2003, which was released as Cannibal Holocaust 2: The Beginning to an expectant Japanese audience. His film bore an uncanny resemblance in plot to Deodato’s original, but lacked the original’s abominable groundbreaking impact. Thirty years later, Cannibal Holocaust remains a unique moment in the history of cinematic horror.
MARCOS (VINCENTE PARRA) toils amidst the blood and guts of a slaughterhouse as livestock fall to the butcher’s knife ready to be carved up and packaged for the shops and markets of his hometown. When he leaves work, he returns to his old whitewashed house in one of the poorer areas of town close to a recently constructed block of flats. While out on a date with his girlfriend Paula (Emma Cohen), the two get a little too passionate on the backseat of a taxi, which annoys the driver. In the ensuing confrontation, the enraged Marcos kills the belligerent taxi driver. The following day Paula insists they should confess his crime to the police. Marcos knows the authorities will never believe his explanation of those tragic events and he does not have the kind of money that can afford a reliable lawyer. Paula persists and threatens to turn him in; unable to curb his anger he slits her throat with a butcher’s knife and conceals her body beneath the bed. Soon after Marcos confesses his crimes to his brother Steve, he too insists the police should be informed. Marcos’s situation becomes even worse when he once again shows himself incapable of controlling his temper. In the ensuing melee, he bludgeons his own brother to death with a handy wrench. People continue to arrive at his humble abode; first comes his brother’s girlfriend, then her father and finally a waitress, none of them ever to be seen again. The bodies are kept hidden in his bedroom, and the odour of decay is disguised by a copious supply of air fresheners. In a rare moment of clarity, Marcos decides to chop his victims into little pieces and take them to the slaughterhouse, where he can then grind them down and mix them with the ordinary supply of meat. As Marcos’s world descends into madness, so develops a suggestively homosexual friendship with a curious young man named Nestor (Eusebio Poncela), who spends much of his time walking his dog. From his thirteenth-floor apartment in the flats adjacent to Marcos’s house, he has observed the gruesome secret contained within. Maybe he recognizes another social outcast, but for whatever reason he chooses to remain quiet about what he has seen and for once Marcos chooses to spare his life.
La Semana del Asesino, which translates as “The Week of the Murderer”, was entitled Apartment on the 13th Floor and was also given the exploitative title of Cannibal Man in the hope of arousing more interest when it was released in the UK and North America. The title, however, is somewhat misleading, for there are no scenes of flesh eating evidenced anywhere in this film. Instead, Eloy de la Iglesia’s feature is a character study of a seemingly reserved man’s struggle in the squalor of his environment and the subsequent anger that so often becomes manifest in such urban decay. It also goes on to reveal how in a single moment a person’s life can fall into utter chaos. As a character study, it bears comparison to James McNaughton’s equally austere Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and is reminiscent of the claustrophobic insanity of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965). Raul Artigot’s grainy cinematography added to the air of despair, which history has shown to be a reflection of a country that thought so little of its poor.
While this wasn’t a particularly gory film, with the notable exception of the opening scenes in the slaughterhouse, it still managed to make it to the Director of Public Prosecutions’ list of video nasties in July 1983 following its previous release to video in November 1981. It was finally granted an issue to video in 1993, on the understanding three seconds of unpleasantness were removed from the final cut. The relationship between Marcos and Nestor was also considered as being highly provocative and it has been suggested that there was concern among the censors in the UK as to its subtle homoerotic subtext. This wouldn’t be the last time Iglesia incorporated a homosexual theme in one of his films, which, in the fiercely Catholic Spain of the day, was considered a challenge to the country’s authority.
THREE PETTY CRIMINALS, Roberto, Lina and Mario, conspire to kidnap the daughter of a rich couple and hold her hostage until they agree to pay their ransom. The police, however, are wise to their scheme and arrive on the scene forcing the villains to take leave of the country with the little girl still their hostage. Their escape leads them to an old friend, Antonio, and his young wife Manuela. While in the jungle, their jeep breaks down and their desirable guide is captured by a cannibal tribe. As she is dragged away, the camera moves in to dwell on her struggling body as it is sliced open and eaten. The kidnappers manage to escape the flesh-hungry tribe and get the jeep back on the road, soon after arriving at Antonio’s retreat. The despicable Mario returns his host’s hospitality by tying Manuela between two trees and raping her. When Antonio discovers what has happened he lures the kidnappers into the jungle and once he has overpowered them, returns their treachery by binding them to a tree ready for the cannibals to savour fresh meat. Meanwhile, the battered Manuela comes to the aid of the parents of the kidnapped girl, as the cannibal tribesman track them further into their jungle domain.
Terreur Cannibale was released just as the boom for cannibal movies was about to implode and included within its running time several sequences from Jess Franco’s equally exploitative Mondo Cannibale (1980) with rumours abounding that Franco had been brought in to re-film certain scenes. For many years, it
was also intimated that Franco had directed this film, but that had fallen to Alain Deruelle. He has never been able to escape the criticism launched at him for his use of so much stock footage, low-budget locales more than likely set in France and a cast of pallid natives, some of whom were overweight, with ever so delicately styled hair. However, there was just enough gore along with a smattering of voyeuristic sex and that provocative title to arouse the interests of the Director of Public Prosecutions in July 1983 following the film’s release to video in October 1981. In July 1985, however, Cannibal Terror, along with The Evil Dead, Inferno and Dead and Buried would win a case at Snaresbrook Crown Court leading to their removal from the DPP’s list of banned videos. It was finally passed without cuts by the BBFC in 2003.
IN AN INVENTIVE turn that would demand hours of work in post-production, Lucio Fulci plays a tormented version of himself. After years of gory filmmaking, we are witness to his descent into complete and utter madness. His psychiatric consultant, with a mind to murder his own adulterous wife, is far from sympathetic, taking the director back to relive the sadistic depravity of his and several other directors’ bloodthirsty films. Tormented by these terrifying visions of rape and butchery, each cut and spliced from a variety of graphic horror movies, Fulci fears he has to be the skulking psychopath in the raincoat as his sense of reality swirls into a visceral kaleidoscope of hallucinatory carnage. As his fragile state of mind deteriorates still further, he alludes to a cat eating away into his brains.
Cat in the Brain, which in Italy was known as Un Gatto Nel Cervello, and later entitled Nightmare Concert and I Volti del Terrore, was a film created for only the most ardent of Fulci’s fans. With only a tenuous plot, he and editor Vincenzo Tomassi cut and juxtaposed a variety of extremely gory horror clips to create a grisly pastiche from his most notorious cinematic years. These films would include Fulci’s Touch of Death (1988) and Il Fantasma di Sodoma (1988), along with five films he was brought in to oversee, Mario Bianchi’s The Murder Secret (1988), Andrea Bianchi’s Massacre (1989), Leandro Lucchetti’s Bloody Psycho (1989), Giovanni Simonelli’s Hansel and Gretel (1989) and Enzo Milioni’s Luna di Sangue (1989). This unrelenting tide of torturous blood and guts was in many ways a homage to his own achievements, but also dropped a cynical wink to those experts who would have you believe that onscreen violence was precipitant for the atrocities in the world around us. Almost every character in this film was there for the slaughter, whether it was by chainsaw, hatchet or knife. Such was the intensity of the continuous flow of blood, it was almost impossible for the censors to cut, except in Germany where twenty minutes of footage was removed.
When the film was submitted to the BBFC for video release in February 1999, it was rejected because it contained so many sequences detailing unacceptable levels of violence committed against women, which were often sexual in nature. There was a relish apparent in this violence, with the women in certain instances seemingly enjoying their plight. While the BBFC considered the possibility of cutting certain frames, it concluded that the excessive quantity of violence made such an endeavour ultimately fruitless, as it would be unlikely to change the general tone presented in Fulci’s film. However, four years later the Board unleashed Cat in the Brain on the British public as an “18” uncut. In 2009, Fulci enthusiasts in the United States finally had the chance to see this film just as the Master of Gore had intended.
CHARLES LEE RAY (Brad Dourif), also known as the Lake Shore Strangler, chases through Chicago’s night-time streets, his serial killing ways about to be brought to an end by the gun of Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon). Just before he dies he manages to break into a toyshop and chants a mystical incantation. Huge dark clouds engulf the sky as his evil soul is transferred into the lifeless body of a child’s doll. In the same city, Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks) struggles as a single parent, working on a jewellery counter in a busy department store, to maintain the apartment where she lives with her six-year-old son Andy (Alex Vincent). He can’t get enough of the children’s television show “Good Guys”, and yearns for a Good Guy doll. When he opens his birthday presents and can’t find the doll of his dreams, his disappointment is all too obvious. Karen will do anything to put a smile on her son’s face and manages to buy one of the dolls from a peddler for only $30. However, this turns out to be the same doll that was possessed by the monstrous Charlie Lee Ray, who now goes by the name Chucky. Chucky remains lifeless for much of the film, but his blank unfeeling stares are enough to raise a sense of alarm. When he embarks on his bloodshed he uses the stealth and cunning of Charlie Lee Ray to ensure his victims can’t slip away. Who would ever suspect a child’s toy?
Tom Holland’s creepy direction was to surprise the world of horror cinema. With a contrived premise that offered very little flexibility, he created a gripping horror movie with an imaginatively orchestrated air of suspense, much the way Wes Craven had only four years before in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Chucky’s point-of-view shots kept the audience guessing, but the shocks soon followed as the levels of violence became ever more intense. Holland didn’t resort to the more commonplace annoying teenagers and gratuitous sex; instead he cleverly lured his audience and then applied the shock treatment. Maybe he was lucky in that such dolls such as the Cabbage Patch Kids were very much in vogue at that time, or maybe Holland was just born to direct impossible horror movies. His record speaks for itself – he directed Fright Night (1985) and has entries in HBO’s Tales from the Crypt and the Masters of Horror series. The final shot of an open door was a portent to the sequels to come, Child’s Play 2 (1990), Child’s Play 3 (1991) – which was surrounded by controversy during the trial of the murder of young Jamie Bulger when the video was found at the house of Jon Venables – Bride of Chucky (1998) and Seed of Chucky (2004). It was then announced that a darker retelling of this film was scheduled for a release in December 2011. The Chucky character was also an ideal design for comic books and so followed Innovation Publishing’s adaptation of Child’s Play 2 in 1990 along with an ongoing series that commenced a year later, which sadly only ran to five issues. Chucky fans had no need to worry; an adaptation of Child’s Play 3 soon went to press. It wasn’t until 2007, when Devil’s Due Publishing obtained the licence that the malevolent doll finally returned to comic books. Almost twenty years later Charles Band picked upon this theme to give the world the dubious pleasure of the Gingerdead Man (2005), which was followed by a surprising sequel in 2008.
WITH THE GOLDEN years of the slasher at an end, Chopping Mall was released to cash in on the increasingly popular video market. The title proved misleading as a group of teenage mall employees attempted to conceal themselves in the store in preparation for a late night party. It could have been an ideal setting for a slasher movie, but this isn’t quite what it appears. The automated security system malfunctions and then goes wild. One by one the three robots try to exterminate the intruders, giving out very little in the way of gore. A suggested title for the film was “Killbots”, which would have been far more appropriate.
ON THE CHRISTMAS Eve of 1947, Harry sees his mother being fondled by Santa Claus, who, unbeknown to his young eyes, is actually his father. Unfortunately, this episode of yuletide passion has a traumatic effect upon their son, which becomes manifest thirty-three years later.
Harry (Brandon Maggart) now works hard making toys at the Jolly Dreams toy factory. His home life is a little strange, for he sees himself as Santa Claus and is keen to instil his love for this seasonal jolly giant on all of his colleagues at the factory. From a rooftop vantage, he watches the children to see those who have been good and those who have been bad, recording his observations in a book that he keeps safely tucked away. However, while he works hard, he comes to realize his colleagues have little regard for him. He is laughed at when he tries to get them to give their unwanted toys to a local children’s home. Their laughter triggers his downward spiral; in his mind he really is Santa Claus and he is about to give them all a Christmas they will never forg
et. Secreted away in his workshop beneath his home, he begins to create toy soldiers armed with swords and axes. He returns to the factory, taking the toys to give to the children, and soon after follows the slaughter with the most graphic murders of the film coming at midnight mass. As Harry’s night of slaughter runs out of control, an angry mob carrying flaming torches sets out to find him and chases him through the streets in scenes vaguely reminiscent of Universal’s Frankenstein features.
Christmas Evil was released as You Better Watch Out and on one of its dubious later releases became known as Terror in Toyland. It pre-dates the more successful Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) and follows both Black Christmas (1974) and Halloween (1978) in setting a mass murderer on the loose during a holiday celebration. While Silent Night, Deadly Night invited condemnation, Lewis Jackson’s obscure film had a somewhat low-key reception. However, it went on to acquire cult status, and was accepted as being an essential part of the seasonal fare. This was in part due to the presence of character actor Brandon Maggart and the film’s subversive comedic streak, which included the slapstick being-stuck-in-the-chimney routine, imagining his van is being pulled by reindeer and a police identity line-up of the most scurrilous looking Santas you are ever likely to see. This feature, however, can be looked upon as a psychological study of a man whose obsession becomes so twisted he can’t help but lose his mind. Jackson’s aim was to make a horror movie, and while it wasn’t to adhere to all of the emerging slasher precepts, its violence was graphic, particularly the attack outside the midnight mass where he gouges the eye of one of his victims with a toy soldier and then turns, administering a few machete blows to the head. The title was changed to Christmas Evil without Jackson’s knowledge; he has since acquired the rights to his film and future releases will go by the original name You Better Watch Out.