The Unrepentant Cinephile

by Jason Coffman

  The Resident has a decent small cast, and first-time director Antii Jokinen (along with cinematographer Guillermo Navarro) does a good job of creating unsettling atmosphere, but once the mystery of what is happening to Juliet is revealed– rather surprisingly, about thirty minutes into the film– there’s not much left to do but watch as Juliet has very creepy things done to her and then make some very bad decisions. That lack of mystery drains the film of any momentum it had built up to that point, and Juliet’s “typical horror film victim” behavior once what is happening to her is made clear makes very little sense. The climactic chase scene at the end is particularly frustrating as Juliet seemingly ignores an obvious escape route to inexplicably draw out the ending even further.

  While the first half-hour of the film seems to promise something much more intriguing, in the end The Resident is a sadly typical (if particularly well-photographed and acted) stalker horror film. It is great to see Christopher Lee in his small role, but his presence is really the only thing here that calls to mind anything about the Hammer horrors of the past. Here’s hoping The Wake Wood and the upcoming The Woman in Black are more a return to form and an indication of the direction the new Hammer Films will be taking from here on out.

  Role Models (2008)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 9 November 2008

  David Wain’s previous feature films have been steadfastly non-commercial. Along with his frequent partners in crime from his days in The State, Wain has made some extremely divisive, challenging comedy. Wet Hot American Summer, his debut feature as director, managed the seemingly impossible trick of being a parody of and loving tribute to early 1980s summer camp sex comedies. Not too many people seemed to get the joke. His second feature, The Ten, was made up of ten interconnected short stories (sometimes very) loosely based on the Ten Commandments. The weird, surreal tone of both pictures seemed to doom them to cult notoriety.

  So it was a huge surprise when the news got out that Wain’s next film would be produced by the Apatow comedy machine and star Wain regular Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott. And it would be released by Universal Pictures. Even weirder, the script would be an existing property, not an original by Wain and his cohorts (although by all accounts, they did heavy rewriting of the original screenplay by Timothy Dowling and W. Blake Herron). Not surprisingly, the end result is both very, very different from Wain’s previous films and absolutely hilarious.

  Rudd and Scott star as Danny and Wheeler, representatives for Minotaur energy drink. They go from school to school, Wheeler dressed as a school mascot-styled Minotaur who urges kids to “Taste the Beast!” while Danny suggests they drink Minotaur instead of doing drugs. Unfortunately, Danny’s been working for Minotaur for 10 years, and has become completely jaded and hateful. His girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks) finally dumps him after becoming fed up with his negativity, and Danny loses it. He tells an auditorium full of kids what he really thinks of life (and drugs), and manages to get himself and Wheeler arrested for a decent list of felonies in one fell swoop.

  Beth, a lawyer, gets the judge to give Danny and Wheeler either 30 days in jail or 150 hours of community service in 30 days. They take the latter and are sent off to Sturdy Wings, a Big Brothers-style organization run by former alcoholic and drug addict Gayle Sweeny (Jane Lynch). Sweeny is immediately suspicious of the two and assigns them as “Bigs” to the organization’s most difficult “Littles”: Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson), a foul-mouthed son of a single mother who has run through eight “Bigs” in less than six weeks, and Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a teenager who spends most of his time with his Live Action Role Playing (LARP) group.

  Even though the film is often predictable in its broad strokes (will these mismatched pairs become friends and teach each other life lessons? No fair guessing!), the film earns its laughs in making the specifics as funny as possible. Wheeler is a huge KISS fan and finds a way to connect with little hellion Ronnie through their mutual admiration for “boobies.” Danny gets roped by Augie into giving LARP combat a try. The characters in the LARP segments of the film are especially enjoyable, and not far removed from those seen in such recent documentaries on LARP as Darkon and Monster Camp. It’s to the film’s credit that LARPing comes across as both completely ridiculous and as a valid, constructive social outlet for Augie and his friends. Special mention must also be made of Jane Lynch, who is always very funny but who turns in what may be her most outrageous, hilarious role to date.

  Role Models is easily David Wain’s most accessible film to date, but it’s also just as funny as The Ten or Wet Hot American Summer. There’s always been a streak of dirty adolescent humor running through his work; Role Models just brings that aspect to the surface and pushes the surreal, disturbing stuff out of the spotlight. However, Wain regulars and The State alumni such as A.D. Miles, Joe Lo Truglio, Peter Salett, Ken Marino (as Jim Stansel!), and Kerry Kenney-Silver all make appearances, and Wain himself has a cameo, giving the film the same ensemble flavor as his previous work. While some fans of the less commercial aspects of Wain’s comedic stylings may be a little disappointed, Role Models is such cheerfully foul-mouthed infectious fun that it’s tough to find too much to complain about, and it’s easily one of the funniest films of the year.

  Runaway Nightmare (1982)

  Originally posted on Daily Grindhouse 23 June 2014

  Vinegar Syndrome tested the waters of limited edition Blu-ray releases earlier this year with their limited double feature set of The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio and A Clockwork Blue, and the response was positive enough that they have given another niche title a shot at Blu-ray. Like that set, the film released here is one that is likely to appeal to a fairly small audience: Runaway Nightmare is a very odd super low-budget film originally released in 1982, and when the film found its way to home video, unscrupulous distributors shot extra scenes of nude women (on VHS!) to insert into the film. This new release restores the film to filmmaker Mike Cartel’s intended version, which is a lot harder to define without the utterly gratuitous nudity.

  Ralph (writer/director/editor/producer Mike Cartel) and Jason (Al Valetta) are business partners running the Death Valley Worm Ranch. One day while hanging out in the desert, Jason bemoans the fact that nothing interesting ever happens in the desert. Seconds later, Ralph sees a truck pull off the barely-defined dirt road in the distance and two men bury a large box in the sand. When the men leave, Ralph and Jason go dig up the box and find an unconscious woman inside. They take her back to the Worm Ranch, and soon find themselves surrounded by a large group of well-armed, angry women. The women take Ralph and Jason with them back to their desert compound, and the two men eventually find themselves in the middle of a conflict between the women and the crime syndicate they double-crossed with both parties after suitcase full of platinum.

  While this may sound relatively straightforward, Runaway Nightmare is much weirder than any plot synopsis could really convey. After the two men are taken to the women’s compound, not a whole lot happens. Seemingly half of the movie is made up of shots of characters surrounded by complete darkness, the dialogue feels stilted and disconnected, and it takes a good long while before the film circles back around to any semblance of a plot with the most laid-back warehouse heist in film history. The ladies take Jason as a sex slave almost immediately, but Ralph is always on the outside of the action, just wanting to sleep, while one woman threatens to kill him if he “molests” any of the women and another keeps trying to seduce him. Runaway Nightmare, true to its title, unfolds with a frequently humorous dream logic, all the way to its inexplicable conclusion.

  While it is technically a much better made film, Runaway Nightmare shares some similarities with Doris Wishman’s A Night to Dismember, which was released around the same time. The surreal tone and dreamlike proceedings are much more intentional than in Wishman’s film, as is the humor. However, both films use black backgrounds to distort the audience’s sense of space and time, and they both use editing in
interesting and sometimes disorienting ways. Runaway Nightmare is considerably more accessible than that film, though, and it’s not hard to imagine it doing very well as a midnight movie for adventurous theaters doing retro programming.

  Vinegar Syndrome has restored Runaway Nightmare in 4k, scanned from the original 35mm negatives, and the Blu-ray presentation is fantastic. Fans of film grain are going to be really excited about this transfer, but if you’re looking for a super-sharp digital image you probably aren’t in the market for this in the first place. The limited Blu-ray features the exact same bonus content as the standard DVD release: the alternate VHS scenes that were cut into the film for its home video release, and a lively commentary track with Mike Cartel, Mari Cartel, Vinegar Syndrome’s Joe Rubin, and film historian Howard S. Berger.

  While it certainly made sense for Vinegar Syndrome to release The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio and A Clockwork Blue in limited edition Blu-ray form, given the limited audience for those films, it seems that Runaway Nightmare is the kind of cult oddity that will likely find a much wider audience once word gets out about it. If that’s the case, future demand for this Blu-ray set will be very high, and justifiably so. If you are a fan of weirdo regional American filmmaking, the Runaway Nightmare Blu-ray should be high on your wish list.

  Savage (2009)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 20 September 2011

  After a boom in Bigfoot -related horror films in the 1970s, the enduring urban legend has mostly kept to himself, popping up in the occasional horror movie. And, of course, Harry and the Hendersons. There have been a number of new Sasquatch-related independent horror films in the past few years (including a new entry in the long-dormant Boggy Creek series), and now they are making their way to home video. Will they be any better than their 70s counterparts? Probably not, if Savage is any indication of the general quality of the New Wave of Bigfoot Movies.

  A forest fire is threatening the tourist season at Bear Mountain National Park, the site of some famous Bigfoot sightings in the 60s and 70s. A team of firefighters has the blaze mostly under control when they get a surprise visit from something that kills them all. Meanwhile, a couple of criminals on the run (Anna Enger and Quint Von Canon) come to the park to hide out while a young scientist (Dale Davis) who believes Bigfoot exists hires local hunter Jack Lund (Martin Kove) to help him track the beast. All this adds up to a pretty busy day for park ranger Owen (Tony Fremont), whose pregnant wife Ellen (Lisa Wilcox) is at their home in the woods, where the forest fire is heading now that there’s no one to manage it.

  If that sounds like a lot going on in one movie, that’s because it is. Clocking in at 85 minutes with fades to black every 10-15 minutes, Savage has the look and feel of a SyFy Original, although it’s not quite as fun as that would suggest. The tone is set in the pre-credits sequence when one of the firefighters is interrupted before he can say a four-letter word, and the level of gore is pretty low. The one scene with a lot of blood looks like the filmmakers borrowed a bucket of Kensington Gore from an old Hammer production and dumped it in a creek, but then had to replace it with some comically unconvincing CGI for the wider shot. Dealing with all the characters’ interactions with each other makes up the bulk of the film, with Bigfoot himself rating barely more than a cameo.

  There’s not much to recommend Savage unless you’re a die-hard Martin Kove fan. He looks like he’s having a good time as the psychotic tour guide, chomping cigars and reminiscing about how he first met Bigfoot as a child. Nobody else seems to be too excited to be here, although Tony Fremont is pretty good as the park ranger who came to the forest to get away from the noise and crime in the city. Savage is too competent to be enjoyed as a “bad movie,” and instead barely registers as a weirdly tame effort that fails to deliver the thrills any horror audience would want.

  Scalene (2011)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 7 November 2011

  Zack Parker’s Scalene has been getting attention recently from horror web sites like Dread Central and Bloody Disgusting, which is somewhat confusing since it is not a horror film at all. What Scalene actually is, however, is considerably more difficult to define. While not quite as graphically violent as Simon Rumley’s recent Red, White & Blue, Scalene almost inevitably calls that film to mind with its three-character focus and depiction of extremely unusual and unpleasant human behavior. While Rumley’s film was about dismantling the concept of the revenge film, Scalene examines both the fallout from and the events leading up to an irrational act that changes the lives of everyone involved. This is definitely not a fun movie.

  As the film opens, Janice (Margo Martindale) shows up at the home of Paige (Hanna Hall), forces her way in, and attacks Paige. From here, the film works backwards to show Janice’s life falling apart and the events leading up to her attacking Paige. Janice is the mother of Jakob (Adam Scarimbolo), a young man who suffers from brain damage that prevents him from speaking or communicating with anyone. The audience is clued in early that something has happened between Jakob and Paige, who has been acting as Jakob’s part-time caregiver, and the film runs on a parallel track back to that event as well.

  The structure of the film is explained by its title: a “scalene” is a triangle of three unequal sides. The three principal characters each have a section of the film in which their story is told, and each story is structured differently. To say much more would spoil the film’s many surprises, but the film definitely demands careful attention to be paid. Some events happen differently in different sections of the film, which may reflect the characters’ state of mind or suggest that they may be an unreliable narrator. Scalene also seems to suggest that in situations like the one depicted in the film, perhaps there is no such thing as a “reliable narrator.”

  The fact remains, though, that at its center Scalene hinges on an act so unbelievably bizarre and irrational that any motive the surrounding story may provide is insufficient to explain it. It is, in fact, so outlandish that it is possible that it is derived from a true story in that it is often impossible to imagine what could drive a person to do things that are completely insane to anyone other than the person responsible. The attempt at depicting the situations and events that could lead a person to this kind of behavior is at the heart of Scalene, but this may be a case in which the filmmakers have simply taken a shot at the impossible: explaining that which is truly, fundamentally inexplicable.

  The film’s structure is certainly unique and ambitious, and luckily the film’s three leads are all excellent. Margo Martindale is devastating as Janice, the harried mother who desperately loves her son and cares for him at the expense of her own personal life. Honestly, she is often difficult to watch as Janice has more and more difficulties and misery piled on her already awful situation. Hanna Hall is excellent as Paige, and she has some traumatic scenes that she makes genuinely uncomfortable. Adam Scarimbolo has the unenviable task of making Jakob an actual character without using any dialogue, which he handles deftly. To his credit, director Zack Parker has unquestionably created a provocative, difficult, and unique film in Scalene. It’s certainly not for everyone, but for anyone looking for a film that gives them plenty to think about after it’s over, Scalene is worth seeking out.

  Scherzo Diabolico (2015)

  Originally published on Film Monthly 6 May 2016

  Adrián García Bogliano made a big impression on horror fans with his first English-language feature Late Phases, which was also a pretty big departure for the filmmaker in other ways. He didn’t write the screenplay, and the subject matter–a blind veteran taking on a werewolf terrorizing a retirement community–couldn’t have been more different from most of his previous work. Bogliano and his brother Ramiro García Bogliano first caught the attention of the international horror scene with nasty exploitation films like Rooms for Tourists and I’ll Never Die Alone, but his more recent work has been based more in the supernatural. His latest feature Scherzo Diabolico is something of a return to the kind of films
he was making a decade ago, although with much higher production values.

  Aram (Francisco Barreiro) is a family man working an office job. He’s ambitious, but all his hard work has been getting him lately is a lot of unpaid overtime and a litany of complaints from his wife. He seems to have taken up a new hobby to help pass the time: trailing teenage schoolgirl Anabella (Daniela Soto Vell), learning her routine, and timing it to an album of classical piano that he listens to obsessively. Every day he goes to work, makes nice with the boss whose position he clearly lusts after, then leaves and follows Anabella around and takes meticulous notes. Finally the big day arrives: Aram dons a skull mask and kidnaps Anabella, taking her to a remote, abandoned factory and chaining her to a pole with a tattered mattress, a blanket, energy bars and bottled water. As Aram’s plan begins to take shape, things in his life start to improve drastically. But has Aram really pulled off the perfect crime, or is it just a matter of time before the consequences of his actions come back to haunt him?

  No points for guessing the correct answer. Scherzo Diabolico deals with some very unpleasant ideas, and Bogliano mines both unexpected observation and humor from his characters’ bleak situations. Aram is certainly no hardened criminal, and his preparations for specifics of the kidnapping are darkly funny. Once he has the girl, though, Bogliano examines how someone who is doing something he knows is wrong might react to being in this position. Aram has a wife and son who he loves very much, but he also can’t help himself from taking advantage of being in a situation far outside the bounds of civilized behavior. He does things that are reprehensible and although he clearly feels horrible about it to the point of being physically ill, he still goes through with his plan. He’s an interesting character if not a particularly sympathetic one. When the inevitable karmic retribution starts, he has no one to blame but himself.