How many of my leisure hours – nay, hours of gainful employment – have been spent in video stores? It’s impossible to count, but such future hours can be numbered on one hand.
Mom and Pops
My life has seen six major video stores, some of which shifted locations or belonged to franchised chains. The oldest was Universal Video, a mom-and-pop store – mostly mom, owned by an Asian-American woman in Universal City, Texas. The store was staffed exclusively by women. Extant since the late ’70s, the place was so old that it still had Beta titles for the longest time, and I rented some. This was the store of my high school years.
The place had a “front room” that carried all the latest stuff, from family fare to disreputable items like Faces of Death, and later acquired a locked “back room” for members only. As the chain video stores grew like kudzu, this back room began to take over and keep the store afloat through relocation and expansion until it extended like the caves of the Vatican and encompassed everything from porn to mild “adult” titles, like the Russ Meyer collection.
The handwriting had begun flaming on the wall when the owner decided to retire and sell everything off in 2002-03, after more than 20 years in business. I bought The Man Who Haunted Himself, Juan-Luis Buñuel’s Leonor, and Frank Wisbar’s wonderful Strangler of the Swamp. The overstuffed front room still had some bulky old ’80s VHS boxes, and I was told a horror collector was buying lots of it on Half.com.
In the late ’80s, I patronized a store in Davis, California. When visiting an art house in Sacramento, a store across the street where the employees played the letterboxed VHS of Suspiria until it broke. I’d walk in late at night to hear the stereo blaring, “Witch!” That store had a nice “foreign films “section. While we’re on the subject, on the day I arrived in Davis in the fall of 1988, I went to the town’s only theatre (a two-screener) and watched David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers. By the time I left town two years later, there was a new multiplex with a big parking garage.
In the month I spent housesitting in Chico, California, during the summer of 1989, the town’s video store was running a special. If you returned a video by 5 PM the same day, it would only cost you a dollar, and also, you got a free rental after ten titles. Few things could make me set an alarm clock to get up at 9 every morning, but one of them was planning which freebie (about every two days) to keep overnight.
Get a Job
But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Before my California interregnum, there were still my early college years and Blockbuster, which provided yours truly with more than a year of full-time employment in 1987-88, plus all the free movies I could cram up my eyeballs. This was during a critical period in the company’s expansion and transition from private to publicly owned, and outlets multiplied like bunnies (eating kudzu?). The uniform requirements tightened so that we not only had to wear blue Oxfords but eventually strict khaki pants (as opposed to “nice dress pants”). That Christmas, we were screwed in the calculations of overtime.
Promotions from Customer Service Representative (CSR) to well-paid Assistant Manager and Manager were rapid. Still, turnover and purges were just as rapid, so I was the grand old man of the Ancien Regime by the time I departed willingly from San Antonio, Texas, to California. I’d been hired on the understanding that I would leave the following year, so I was never fired or promoted. I got chintzed on the six-month raise, too.
What mattered through all this, of course, were the videos. There was a Hitchcock section, complete with a muddy but spellbinding print of Under Capricorn and Video Yesteryear copies of The Lodger. There was something called Le Bad Cinema for unique items like Glen or Glenda, which wasn’t bad at all. The company preened itself on not carrying X-rated movies, but a few unrated items slipped in, like Ken Russell’s Crimes of Passion, and there was the transparent hypocrisy of the Special Interest section, which seemed to exist for videos of cheerleaders on spring break. I can’t be sure, but one might have been called Wet Bikinis.
I saw most of Preston Sturges’ output in one glorious week. There were revelatory silents (in a Silents section!) such as The Docks of New York, Old Ironsides, The Covered Wagon and The Student Prince, only one of which is now available on disc. There was a nice Foreign section with several Paul Verhoevens and many crisp and lovely Ingmar Bergmans, plus a fuzzy Persona in a big red box.
Sprinkled through the store were such titles as The Honeymoon Killers, The Arousers, Cry Uncle, Something for Everyone, and Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad. Well, one of those titles made it to Criterion.
Ours was a pretty big store, but there was another store in town that, oddly, had Jean Rollin’s Fascination and the Admit One copy of Peeping Tom. Could this have been Blockbuster or a rival outfit? The memory fades, but I recall one faraway Blockbuster that did have Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s TV serial, Berlin Alexanderplatz.
Hurray for Hollywood
I didn’t patronize Blockbuster in California, nor did I miss it. When I returned to Texas with a Master’s Degree, I continued to forsake my former employer for the better deals of Hollywood Video, a more satisfying rival originally known for its association with a grocery chain still going strong. They started by renting within the grocery stores, then moved to a separate building in the same strip centers and eventually became Hollywood Video.
Hollywood Video! In the early ’90s, I had its voluminous horror aisles and less spacious sci-fi inventory committed to memory, box by gaudy box. I sifted, examining the fine print of credits for clues to treasures I’d overlooked, and found many gems as well as various retitles. For example, it turned out that Death Game with Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp was also The Seducers. Here, I stumbled on Vampyres and recommended it to a friend, who agreed with me on its merits. As an afterthought, I asked him, “What happens in that movie?” He replied, “I have no idea.”
When Hollywood Video closed store by store in the summer of 2010, coincidentally with my door-to-door wanderings for the U.S. Census Bureau, there was a two-week financial bonanza as the final two outlets nearest me dropped their stock to a dollar or 50 cents. I shuttled back and forth to a second-hand CD/DVD chain, where I made several hundred dollars while still retaining about 200 titles I wanted to watch.
I entertained thoughts of writing an article on “The Death of Hollywood Video” and capping it with capsule descriptions of these odd miscellaneous films, which remain unviewed in a box in the garage. Glancing through it now, I note such curious titles as Sleep Dealer, Klepto, The Kovac Box, Quench, The Sky Crawlers, Puzzlehead, Chrysalis, Moscow Zero and A Model Employee. When to get around to them?
The store’s closing reinforced how little I’d patronized the place in the digital era when I watch either review copies (lucky me) or public library copies (lucky all of us). Walking the horror aisles, I was baffled by plentiful unfamiliar titles and sobered to realize that less than ten or a dozen films dated from before the DVD era, for only a few lucky classics (e.g., The Exorcist) had made the trip from VHS.
In Hollywood Video’s transition from VHS to DVD, it had become a store without a sense of history. The genre aisles were stocked with the most recently harvested goods, put on digital ice as their sell-by dates approached rapidly. The list of ingredients was intriguing and baffling, giving evidence of a healthy indie and direct-to-video industry supplying a dying form.
Blockbuster Bust
From there, it was only a blink until the predictable closing of Blockbuster in January 2014. In between, I flirted briefly with the dollar rentals at Redbox, an abruptly ubiquitous vending machine at gas stations and fast food places. It was quickly undermined by the major studios, which provided “movie-only” discs sans extras, as they’d been doing for certain sneaky “Blockbuster exclusives” — and as apparently happens via streaming. Movies are becoming easier to see, and you’re getting less and less. The last time I surveyed a Redbox, it appeared to my eyes a spectacular crap-apalooza.
For me, Blockbuster had essentially closed years prior, and that was part of its problem. Long out of the habit of visiting, I patrolled a nearby franchise during its closing weeks. At first, they tried to unload things for ten bucks; that wasn’t happening. When they dropped to one, two, or three dollars, I consented to give away some of my cash.
These final Blockbuster buys, possibly my last DVD purchases in any store, are a motley mix of indie and foreign horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. With their mix of charms and drawbacks, they testify to a breadth, vitality, and personal quirkiness that persist and flourish in the genre. Going on this jag has been a giddy experience, with the majority at least worth watching and a few quite rewarding. Maybe you’ll be able to see them somewhere someday.
Horrors From the VHS (and Other Formats) Storage Box
The ABC’s of Death (2012, Magnet) gathers 26 (actually 27) directors’ short films about a letter of the alphabet. Despite the wild variation, they’re united by beginning and ending on red, by a sense of tasteless provocation, and by the fact that most are without dialogue. However, some are in English, Spanish, Japanese or a few other tongues.
My vote for the most unpleasant and disturbing film is Lee Hardcastle’s T Is for Toilet, a stop-motion animation that feels truer than the live-action cartoons around it. It’s one of three films about toilets, including the other animated short, and that gives you an idea. Some films are arty and abstract (Orgasm, Pressure), and the finalé by Yoshihiro Nishimura is the most avant-garde, transgressive, and political. Directors include Nacho Vigalondo, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Angela Bettis, Ti West, Jorge Michel Grau, Simon Rumley, Ben Wheatley, Adam Wingard, and Xavier Gens, and all provide comments. Oddly for a film that revels in being uncensored, the cover image removes the baby seen in the theatrical poster.
Absentia (2011, Phase 4 Films) is a bunch of Los Angeles friends doing “let’s put on a show” for Monopoly money (actually Kickstarter), and it’s the scariest horror movie in forever. It begins with two sisters, one pregnant (Courtney Bell) and one a druggie (Katie Parker), as the former declares her husband legally dead after disappearing seven years ago. A richly layered script driven by character, surprise, and conceptual queasiness is affected through naturalistic playing and moments of sure-handed style that deliver the heebie-jeebies. Writer-director Mike Flanagan derives much Lovecraftian value from a simple access tunnel. The movie might be described as mumblecore horror, but that doesn’t convey how freaky it is. With Dave Levine, Justin Gordon, Morgan Peter Brown, James Flanagan and Doug Jones.
Antiviral (2012, IFC Films) combines formal, antiseptic white-on-white compositions with queasy images of decay, degeneration, and body horror. Pale ectomorph Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones, ready for the emergency room) works for a company that markets celebrity diseases so that fans can be injected with their idols’ germs. At a stroke (or a prick), this brilliantly conflates celebrity and fandom with illness. Syd infects himself with a virus from glamorous Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon, mostly seen on posters and TVs) and sinks into a clammy corporate conspiracy enacted by Malcolm McDowell, Nicholas Hammond, Sheila McCarthy, and Wendy Crewson. The deleted scenes are relevant. Brandon Cronenberg (David’s son, surprise surprise) wrote and directed this Canadian creepiness.
The Brass Teapot (2012, Magnolia) centers on a high concept: a floundering 20-something couple (Juno Temple, Michael Angarano) are living “two steps above trailer trash” when they find a magical artifact that spews money in return for inflicting pain on yourself. As their fortunes rise, they work out the variations. What about emotional pain? The pain of others? This comedy proves that when you surround a great idea with cartoonish characters and shaky plotting (like a crucial but illogical bit on Antiques Roadshow ), you still have a great idea. Ramaa Mosley directs Tim Macy’s story, which they also made into a comic book.
The Corridor (2011, IFC Films) begins when a man’s psychotic breakdown leads to his mom’s death and his friends’ injuries. Heavily medicated, he gets out of the loony bin and calls a reunion at the same snowbound Nova Scotia cabin. If that’s not a bad enough idea, the act of scattering his mom’s ashes apparently triggers a metaphysical or electromagnetic phenomenon that thickens the air and taps latent powers and uninhibited desires (cue the nosebleeds), possibly leading to gnostic holocaust. Writer Josh MacDonald and director Evan Kelly put a science-fictional, messianic spin on the standard cabin freak-out. As with several titles here, it’s about arrested adults and the process of grief. Stephen Chambers, James Gilbert, David Patrick Flamming, Matthew Amyotte, and Glen Matthews play the dysfunctional bonding chums.
D’Agostino (2013, Ariztical Entertainment) uses clumsy exposition and characterization to explain that Allan (Keith Roenke) is a successful and therefore unhappy corporate drone who inherits property in Santorini, Greece. There he finds a feral man wearing only a dogtag. A handy website explains that D’Agostino (Michael Angels) is an escaped clone for organ transplants. Their visceral, unpredictable scenes transform this movie from amateur hour into a daring existential drama. Oh yes, there’s an excruciating girlfriend named Silvia Kristel (Torie Tyson) who’s related to the actress of that name! Writer/director Jorge Ameer correctly calls the film off-putting, and as horror it’s highly individual. Extras include a memoriam to the 18-year-old cat who inspired the story, recording his final moments of life at the vet’s office.
Dante 01 (2008, Dimension) is a rough gem set on a space station where psychopathic prisoners are subjected to a company’s experiments while orbiting around a fireball planet. In the latest trial, the mute and traumatized St. George (Lambert Wilson) shows messianic, sin-eating qualities among the male inmates while the female medics (Linh-Dan Pham, Simona Maicanescu) argue. Based on an idea by Alejandro Jodorowsky, this metaphysical, literary, ugly-yet-beautiful French science fiction is helmed by Marc Caro, formerly Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s co-director. While Jeunet did the fourth Alien movie, this film owes something to Alien 3, including all the shaved heads. With Dominique Pinon, Bruno Lochet, Francois Levantal, Gérald Laroche, Francois Hadji-Lazaro, Lofti Yahya-Jedidi, Yann Collette, and Dominique Bettenfeld, several of whom are Caro/Jeunet familiars.
The Dead inside (2012, Monarch) takes place almost entirely in an apartment where a couple’s stagnant relationship is tested when the heroine suffers writer’s block on her zombie novel, then has a breakdown and gets possessed by a ghost. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Sarah Lassez and Dustin Fasching carry the whole film as this couple and their wry zombie counterparts. It’s also a musical, so they now and again burst into mediocre ballads. According to writer/director Travis Betz and DP Shannon Hourigan, the story was inspired by their own relationship, we hope not too literally. The trailer trumpets prizes from at least eight festivals.
Exhumed (2011, Wild Eye) avoids most concepts of realism for an expressionist, almost absurdist take on damaged people trapped in an interpersonal hell. A taut, overbearing “governess” (Debbie Rochon) and tall, bald, weary, mannequin-obsessed butler (Michael Thurber) rule over a damaged young woman (Sarah Nicklin) and other reclusive inmates (Rich Tretheway, Evalena Marie) of a boarding house until a college student (Michael Reed) moves in. The box claims this cleanly shot B&W film (with a few color inserts) is in the Hammer tradition, which doesn’t make as much sense as director Richard Griffin’s shout out to Lisa and the Devil. Writer Guy Benoit uses the idea of a dwindling cult’s self-induced paranoia and persecution; his Pinter-esque approach skips exposition in favor of queasy implications, while the horror aspects keep it brisk and efficient.
Extracted (2012, Phase 4 Films) finds the consciousness of Tom (Sasha Roiz of TV’s Grimm ) trapped for the last four years inside the mind of Anthony (Dominic Bogart), a convicted killer. In his garage (as in Primer ), Tom had invented a device for exploring others’ memories, and now both men are imprisoned differently. Anthony wants to prove he didn’t commit murder, leading Tom into a labyrinth of unreliable memories before his wife (Jenny Mollen) can extract him. Writer-director Nir Paniry juggles a smart, complex web of ideas, timeshifts, and realities on a budget. A blurb shouts “better than Inception“, though this isn’t about dreams and feels closer to Greg Bear’s novel Queen of Angels as it explores the mystery of our relation to the self.
A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (2012, Lionsgate) is an upbeat trifle about design, whimsy, memory, and free association. The trivial narrative hook is that a commercial artist (Charlie Sheen) gets dumped by his girlfriend (Katheryn Winnick) and indulges a spasm of crisis until he gets over it. This feels like a movie they forgot to make in the ’70s, a bastard son of Alex in Wonderland and Welcome to L.A. Writer/director Roman Coppola was partly inspired by airbrush artist Charles White III, interviewed in an extra. With Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Patricia Arquette, Dermot Mulroney, Stephen Dorff, and Colleen Camp.
Hidden (2011, E One) has mother issues. Brian (Sean Clement) inherits a huge, beautiful, spooky monastery-cum-hospital in the snowy mountains where his mad-scientist mom invented the Ventris machine to treat addictions by externalizing them as monstrous babes. (She clearly saw The Brood ). Legal agent Haley (Simonetta Solder) leads Brian’s gang of dead-meat bozos, including an ex-girlfriend (Jordan Hayes), to explore the Divine Sanctuary of Hope and its underground maze. Super-creepy atmosphere is the star of this basic story, one of those movies where somebody’s always saying “Let’s get outta here” and nobody does. Visual textures are similar to the TV serial American Horror Story: Asylum, a flat-out masterpiece that puts this movie in its place. Director Antoine Thomas and the writers took pseudonyms. This Canadian-Italian item played theatres as Hidden 3D (available on Blu-Ray).
Intruders (2011, Millennium) is about horrors created by storytelling and belief at the nexus of fear and faith. The brilliant Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Intacto ) directs a series of beautiful set pieces evolving swiftly from unease to hysteria, alternating serial-like between a little boy (Izan Corchero) having nightmares in Spain and an adolescent English girl (Ella Purnell) haunted by the same faceless bogey. Many viewers will guess the connection, but the movie’s not really hiding it. Clive Owen, Carice Van Houten, Pilar López de Ayala, Daniel Brühl, Kerry Fox, and Héctor Alterio are the concerned adults who may or may not be part of the problem. Kudos to writers Nicolás Casariego and Jaime Marques.
It’s in the Blood (2013, Monarch) follows morose young October (Sean Elliot, who co-wrote and co-produced with the director) as he goes hunting with his tough sheriff father (Lance Henriksen) in the Texas wilderness. The trip quickly goes south as something predatory triggers guilt-ridden memories of an event they don’t discuss. The story has problems (and we assume it’s before cell phones), partly because it’s symbolic or imaginary therapy about bonding, trauma, and “becoming a man”. It’s a hook for director Scooter Downey’s atmospheric, subjective mix of images in a manner once called avant-garde: past, present, imaginary, archetypal, supernatural, green forest, black nights, all layered with unnerving sound design. It has a thematic link to Last Will below.
Kiss of the Damned (2012, Magnet) is a gorgeous vampire tale about the costs of love and desire amid an ambivalent, self-hating minority. The sleek Djuna (Joséphine de la Baum) lives in a great Connecticut house, rents old movies, and slakes her thirst with forest animals. She falls for screenwriter Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia), whose obsession leaves him willing to be converted. Djuna’s dark sister Mimi (Roxane Mesquida) threatens all with her sticky appetites, a plot point that foreshadows Only Lovers Left Alive. The music and sound are eerie and beautiful, as are the editing, design and photography. The tone and elegance nod to Daughters of Darkness, and the credits look Hammer-ish. With Anna Mouglalis, Michael Rapaport, Riley Keough, and Ching Valdes-Aran as a servant worthy of her hire. Written and directed with complete assurance by Xan (Alexandra) Cassevetes, John’s daughter.
The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh (2012, RLJ Entertainment) is a very sad Canadian ghost story narrated, or rather suffused, by Vanessa Redgrave as the spirit reaching out to her estranged son (Aaron Poole), who inherits a mansion packed with wacky bric-a-brac and sour memories. Their schism arose over belief in the eternal soul. Mom was evidently right, but writer/director Rodrigo Gudiño takes a subversive approach to a conservative genre about punishing the faithless. A gliding camera makes the house claustrophobic and seductive; this amazing house with its amazing junk is a real location. There’s engaging, intelligent commentary and a strange, stylish short film about a photo. Clive Barker provides a glowing blurb.
The Millennium Bug (2011, Green Apple) asks the question, “So Joanie, would you still have married my dad if you knew you were spending your honeymoon in a ghost town?” This city trio (Jon Briddell, Jessica Simons, Christine Haeberman) is spending December 31, 1999, in Oregon’s fictional Sierra Diablos mountains, which they don’t think is a lousy idea until they’re kidnapped by inbred comic-relief hillbillies (led by John Charles Meyer) amid lots of screaming, mayhem, and truly grotesque gags, and that’s before a huge monster burrows out of the earth. Inspired equally by Godzilla and Rob Zombie, this aggressively tasteless brew is, as they say, what it is: fodder for beer-fueled crowds. A making-of shows how Kenneth Cran and his conspirators eschewed CGI in favor of miniatures and monster suits.
The Monitor (2011, Lionsgate) stars Noomi Rapace as Anna, a traumatized, hyper-protective mom hiding with her son (Vetle Qvenild Werring) in a depressing apartment block provided by a hostile Social Services. While she worries that the violent father may return, she buys a monitor for her son’s room and hears nerve-wracking things through it. A subplot follows another hurt soul (Kristoffer Joner) who makes friends with her. Viewers suspect things aren’t what they seem, especially when Anna admits she hallucinates. It becomes hard to know whom to trust or whether the supernatural is happening. While many films here are “scary” in a functional way, Norwegian writer-director Pål Sletaune crafts a truly disturbing, uncomfortable exploration of the ambiguous reality of damaged minds, the parent-child dynamic, and the depression of daily life.
Dusty Boxes Where Forgotten Films Seethe
The Moth Diaries (2011, IFC Films) is based on Rachel Klein’s novel, written as the diary of a girl whose BFF is hypnotized by a spooky newby in their exclusive school, and since our heroine is reading gothic horror such as “Carmilla”, she realizes something dark is afoot–or is it? It’s framed by the narrator’s intro of 30 years later discussing the diary as teen psychosis. Mary Harron updates the story by showing an iPad in the first scene and otherwise never having anyone use a computer or phone. Lily Cole looks so wondrously odd as the odd girl that I wondered if they CGI’d her face. The other girls (Sarah Gadon, Sarah Bolger) aren’t as striking, so it’s interesting that Gadon is also used as an uncanny face in Antiviral, listed above. Judy Parfitt and Scott Speedman play the grown-ups. This pretty Canadian-Irish film is modestly spooky, less even in tone than girls’ school jaunts such as Innocence, Cracks and The Beguiled.
Morgana (2012, Distrimax Inc.) depicts a young woman (Siouzana Melikian) haunted by dreams of drowning in the family lake, and also by a creepy old doll and a scary ghost-lady from the rat-trap next door. It never occurs to her to get the hell out, so she remains surrounded by people who think she’s cracking up, as played by Lilia Aragón (angry black-garbed auntie clutching crucifix), Alejandra Adame (slutty chum), Luis Felipe Tovar (creepy gardener with shears), Irán Castillo (sexy therapist), Eugenio Becker (bipolar boyfriend). Writer/director Ramón Obón constructs a traditional ghost story with lush oppressive design, blunt spookery, slow pace, and a very Mexican Catholic ending.
Mysteria (2011, Green Apple) opens with great-screenwriter-turned-old-soak Aleister Bain (Robert Miano) typing until a dark figure shoots him. Then he’s woken by the rotary phone, the only kind people have in this movie. Then he’s recounting fragmentary flashbacks from an interrogation room, describing his encounters with a student (Meadow Williams) and his dreams of a blonde who pays his rent after her murder, as it seems his dreams and writings come true. This is one of those existential puzzlers where you suspect the characters are dead or wish they were. The drab lighting is referred to as “noir”. Writer-director-editor Lucius C. Kuert scored Danny Glover, Martin Landau, Billy Zane, Michael Rooker, and Peter Mark Richman for supporting roles, but it doesn’t make these 90 minutes less ponderous.
Neverlost (2010, Grand Entertainment Group) begins with visual creativity and misleadingly witty ideas as depressed, passive Josh (Ryan Barrett) addresses the camera. It soon settles into a glum grind as he wallows in self-hatred about losing his perfect first wife (Emily Alatalo) in a fire, and then discovers that sleeping pills knock him into an alternate reality where he endures a different tragedy. His trials include an angry second wife (Jennifer Polansky) and crazy father-in-law (Sam Bornstein). We don’t know which life is real, but if it helps, they’re equally ridiculous. If this story wasn’t sufficiently therapeutic for Canadian writer-director Chad Alexander, we hope he’s got better meds now. Compare unfairly with Shuffle, listed below.
La Profecia de los Justos (2007, Distrimax) is the title on this 2011 DVD package for the Mexican film El Último Justo, yet the cover gives the correct English translation in subtitle: The Last of the Just (not “The Prophecy of the Justs”). War photographer Teo Arroyo (Diego Martín) feels distant from the horrors he witnesses until weird guys try to kill him. A secret cult believes he’s the last of the mythical 36 Just Men (not that he seems very likely) and that sacrificing him triggers an apocalypse, so he launches into a Dan Brown race while dodging bullets and sacred blades. Ana Claudia Talancón plays the hottie he picks up on the run, and vets Antonio Dechent, Federico Luppi, and Pedro Armendáriz Jr. lead various factions. With an eye for stylish shots and clever cuts, director Manuel Carballo keeps a good pace to this pulpy paranoia. Trivial but not stupid.
Prometheus Trap (2012, Phase 4 Films) is what’s called a “mockbuster”, an apparent cash-in made direct to video. It shares with a certain movie a title nod to the same Greek myth, a heroine cryonically frozen for a mission, a helpful android, and a device capable of destroying Earth. The difference is that one has a big budget and the other a brilliant story. Director Andrew Bellware and writer Steven J. Niles acknowledge debts to Groundhog Day and Star Trek in this ingenious, philosophical, suspenseful, and cheap tale of six characters, including two androids (Michael Shattner, Sarah-Doe Osborne) of fascinating contrast, caught in a disastrous time loop. It manages to be serious science fiction that even makes sense mythologically. With Rebecca Kush, Andrew Langdon, Kate Britton, and James Edward Becton.
The Raven (2012, 20th Century Fox) pulls aside history’s curtain to reveal that in 1849 Baltimore, a frustrated and alcoholic Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack) spent his final days tracking a serial killer who copied his stories with lavish resources. The film also makes it clear that the famed author had a pet raccoon. Atmosphere (provided by Belgrade and Budapest) and literary references give minor lift to a routine plot whose threads don’t hold together. Directed by James McTeigue, and co-starring Alice Eve, Luke Evans, Brendan Gleeson, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen.
The Scenesters (2009, Monterey Media) is one of the most creative and inventive American indies I’ve seen in years. It sounds like another unprepossessing serial-killer comedy with postmodern media satire, as indie producers in LA decide to make a documentary while being employed to videotape crime scenes, yet writer-director Todd Berger’s movie keeps reinventing itself as you watch. The collage of “source” and “real” footage is witty and ingenious, and amid all this creativity it keeps a grip on a story more intelligent than usual. When you press Play, the first joke is a coming attraction for a mumblecore talkfest supposedly made by these same filmmakers-within-the-film. It’s their joke on the difference between what no-budget artistes often make and the more ambitious, multi-layered thing they’re pulling off here. Plus it’s nice to see Sherilyn Fenn.
Shuffle (2011, Screen Media) finds depressed shutterbug Lovell Milo (TJ Thyne) afflicted with narcolepsy and waking on random days in his life, from age 8 to 92. His memories are cumulative more than internally chronological as he puzzles out clues to a tragedy he needs to prevent. It has something to do with his beloved wife Grace (Paula Rhodes) and emotionally closed father Orson (Chris Stone in such an uncanny resemblance that I took it as a dual role for Thyne). Lovell addresses the camera in a consistent, playful way that fits his self-conscious odyssey. This puzzler unwinds to a satisfying conclusion, as testified by several festival awards. A beautiful stylistic bonus is the preferred black and white version, while the color option offers a varied, often desaturated palette. Written, directed, shot, edited and scored by Kurt Kuenne.
6 Souls (2010, Anchor Bay) is a perfect example of the punishing conservative bent of religious-themed ghost/possession movies. Psychiatrist Cara Harding (Julianne Moore of the fully committed close-ups) tries to be “a doctor of science and a woman of God” as she seeks to debunk a case of multiple personalities and help the patient (Jonathan Rhys Meyers in an actor’s festival). The twisty investigation leads to Pennsylvania mountain witchery (apparently five minutes away) and much contradictory and harsh palaver about faith. An annoying doctor/father (Jeffrey DeMunn), a rural woman (Frances Conroy), an expendable brother (Nate Corddry), a blind witch (Joyce Feurring), and an endangered moppet (Brooklyn Proulx) populate this bleak, nihilistic, slickly produced item directed by Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein. Released in some countries as Shelter in 2010, this sat on the shelf in the US until 2013.
Stuck to Your Pillow, or Pegado a tu Almohada (2012, Breaking Glass Pictures), uses the tagline “A ghost in your bed” to sell a brightly colored, broadly cute, squeaky clean, overlong Spanish chick flick written and directed by Mari Navarro, who expanded a short film. After a swimming accident, the hunky Miguel (Suso Marín, not cast for line readings) wanders as a ghost with diving flippers into the dreams of Patricia (Paola Verdú), wooing her chastely although she’s married to a selfish, successful provider (Juan Dávila). The idea of a literal dream lover is good, though if you’ve seen Just Like Heaven, you’ll predict the twist that may offer love from the afterlife. From the same country as Almodóvar but not the same planet.
Thale (2012, XLrator Media) is a Norwegian film written, directed, edited and shot by Aleksander L. Nordaas, mostly in his dad’s basement. An unpromising opening uses vomit humor to establish that Elvis (Erlend Nervold) is unfit for scrubbing crime scenes with buddy Leo (Jon Sigve Skard). At the cabin of a dead recluse, they discover a bunker and a naked mute woman (Silje Reinåmo), and the tone shifts into a dark fairy tale of enigmatic, uncanny tensions between man, nature, science, words, silence, the feminine, and beauty. And death. Scandinavians will recognize the folklore of the “huldra”, a word used at one point, while a folksy score highlights fiddle and cello. Nordaas alternates underground claustrophobia with lovely forest scenes. Digital effects look cheap, but what they evoke is worth imagining.
A Thousand Kisses Deep (2011, Osiris Entertainment), with a Leonard Cohen title, finds Mia Selva (Jodie Whittaker) drifting though a lonely, wounded life in London until an old lady plummets to the sidewalk outside her building. In the woman’s apartment, Mia finds the wreckage of her own life. The magical curmudgeonly caretaker (David Warner) blames her for putting time out of joint, so Mia takes the elevator down through several eras, interacting with herself and her mother (Emilia Fox) to keep their lives from going astray over an abusive pseudo-Chet-Baker trumpeter named Ludwig (Dougray Scott). In an extra, the writers (who look and sound like grizzled East Euro cafe intellectuals) discuss metaphors for Freudian and Jungian therapy with Dante’s Purgatory thrown in, and the story indeed feels more metaphorical and musical than literal. Dana Lustig directs.
Tormented (2011, Well Go USA) redefines its narrative several times as it explores guilt and penance within a family via one surreal sequence after another. A little boy (Takeru Shibuya) and his mute older sister (Hikari Mitsushima) go to see Takashi Shimizu’s previous movie, The Shock Labyrinth, and find the 3D so realistic that the boy takes home a stuffed bunny from the screen. This leads to nightmares of a sinister Wonderland, proving that you shouldn’t watch horror movies. Meanwhile, their father (Teruyuki Kagawa) creates old-school 3D in a pop-up book of The Little Mermaid, of which this film is an odd reworking. Shot by Christopher Doyle in 3D (not on DVD, and I didn’t miss it, but there’s a 3D Blu-ray), with a piercing theme by Kenji Kawai. The better Japanese title is Rabitto Hora 3D (“Rabbit Horror 3D”).
Triangle (2009, First Look) is a gripping, beautifully shot, carefully written twister that shares a subgenre with a few other titles here, but we won’t give it away because, remarkably, the package doesn’t. Discovering the story’s nature is one of its surprises. Ironically, the package claims it’s set in the Bermuda Triangle, although the film never says so! Triangle is the sailboat on which Jess (Melissa George), the guilt-ridden mother of an autistic son, takes a fateful trip with a group of strangers. They discover an abandoned liner, the Aeolian, for this is another movie that knows its Greek myths. Writer-director Christopher Smith unfolds disturbing action and eerie reveals that keep revealing. Michael Dorman, Rachael Carpani, Henry Nixon, Emma Lung, and Liam Hemsworth are among those playing Yanks in this Aussie-UK humdinger.
2033 (2009, Cinema Epoch) is set in a dystopian Mexico ruled by a military technocracy that sedates everyone and forbids religion. In a plot stitched from 1984 and Metropolis, with a nod to Fahrenheit 451, spoiled wastrel Pablo (Claudio Lafarga) rebels against his prospective stepfather, the bald general in charge (José Carlos Rodríguez). A disguised priest (Marco Treviño) leads Pablo to a resistance movement where he finds three things: religion, his long-lost father (Raúl Méndez), and a revolutionary chiquita (Sandra Echeverría). After emphasizing graphic design within a predictable plot, writer Jordi Mariscal and director Francisco Larisgoiti end the story in the middle, like a TV pilot for a series or a project out of money.
Twixt (2011, 20th Century Fox) has 3-D in some scenes, but only on Blu-ray. Francis Ford Coppola’s dazzling visual mojo (especially post-production color effects) spruces up the story of a struggling horror novelist (Val Kilmer) who blows into a dying town where the sheriff-with-issues (Bruce Dern) turns him on to a local serial killer. Tom Waits’ narration warns us that time is mixed up in this burg whose steeple has many clocks at sixes and sevens. Val explores the goings-on via dreams, and the problem is solved for him while he sleeps. But wait, you also get Alden Ehrenreich (of Coppola’s Tetro ) as a James Dean vampire called Flamingo, Elle Fanning as a ghost, Joanne Whalley as Val’s angry wife (hmm), David Paymer as an agent who sees why The Vampire Executions is a great title, Don Novello as the clock guy, and Ben Chaplin as Edgar Allan Poe! This is a campfire tale dressed up with all kinds of bloody pizzazz, Rusty-James.
Upside Down (2012, Millennium) is the most eye-popping dazzler on this list. From a dream, Juan Solanas spun the premise of twin planets in a weird synchronous orbit to literalize the concept of the rich living “above” the exploited poor (not unlike Elysium), with the worlds connected umbilically by a skyscraper and nearby mountains. The planets can only be close at this small area, and the rest of the lands must have open skies, but we’re probably not supposed to think about it, nor about the simplistic messianic archetypes that bring about a revolution by wishing for it (also like Elysium, with less violence). The forbidden romance between downtrodden Adam (Jim Sturgess) and his angelic Eden (Kirsten Dunst) is aided by Timothy Spall as a handy plot device. Alex McDowell’s design, Pierre Gill’s photography, and the FX army deserve accolades.
Upstream Color (2013, Flatiron Film Co.) is clearly, brazenly from Shane Carruth (Primer ), and nobody can accuse him of going Hollywood, since this is even more elliptical and immersive in its intimate snapshots of what characters see and hear without exposition, indeed hardly any dialogue but lots of densely layered sound. It starts with some guy (Thiago Martins) using a grub or parasite to hypnotize a random woman (Amy Seimetz) into giving up her money, resulting in loss of job and ability to have children, and then she meets a man (Carruth) who doesn’t remember having a similar ordeal, and their experiences have been organically downloaded into pigs kept by a farmer (Andrew Sensenig) who records sound effects. That’s what I said. A gun is introduced, so the law says somebody’s got to use it for a dramatic ending to a movie that spins and wanders. What I extract is people dealing with the unfairness of life or victimized by systems beyond their control.
Vampire (2011, Lionsgate) is the first US or English movie written, directed, shot, edited and scored by Shunji Iwai (billed as Iwai Shunji, surname first), known for low-key, intently observed youth films. This uncomfortable anecdotal story follows Simon (Kevin Zegers), a mild-mannered, non-supernatural blood-drinker (it makes him vomit) who preys on suicidal internet hook-ups. The internet theme links it to Iwai’s All About Lily Chou-Chou, and there’s resonance with George Romero’s Martin and Dennis Cooper’s novels. Although some horror fans won’t dig it, this is one of the most worthwhile titles on this list. The slow, flat, minimalist surface bubbles with subtle tones: creepiness, pathos, shock, tenderness, and ghastly humor. With Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rachael Leigh Cook, Amanda Plummer (as Simon’s grunting mom, attached to balloons), Trevor Morgan (an aggressive Renfield), Kristin Kreuk and Adelaide Clemens.
Vamps (2011, Anchor Bay) is writer/director Amy Heckerling’s pleasant, cluttered, good-natured comedy of two BFF vampiresses (Alicia Silverstone, Krysten Ritter) who go clubbing in Manhattan, keep up with youth culture while remaining locked in the ’80s, and attend a support group for those who don’t bite humans. They face persecution from Homeland Security, where works a certain Van Helsing (Wallace Shawn). Nice riffs on aging and nostalgia make this a sweet co-feature for Neil Jordan’s Byzantium. With Malcolm McDowell (as Vlad Tepes), Sigourney Weaver, Richard Lewis, Dan Stevens, Justin Kirk, Kristen Johnston, Marilu Henner and a cameo from Edgar Allan Poe.
Woochi (2009, Shout Factory), subtitled The Demon Slayer on the box, is a pell-mell comedy-adventure about a jiggy upstart Tao master (Gang Dong-Won) who hunts magical whatnots and fights cartoony CGI animal-demons in frantic battles. The first part is set 500 years ago, and then characters adjust to modern times. 135 noisy minutes yield a few nice visuals and some Moebius-twist narrative lines written and directed by Choi Dong-Hoon. The martial arts Ghostbusters vibe proved a big hit in South Korea. Appearing in the complicated story, where everyone has multiple identities, are Kim Yoon-Suk (bad guy), Lim Soo-Jung (heroine), and Yoo Hae-Jin (comic relief). These are the credits on the movie; Wikipedia and IMDb spell people differently.
Wrong (2012, Drafthouse Films) begins its wrongness as an American indie by French guys: producer Gregory Bernard and writer/director/photographer/editor Quentin Dupieux, aka musical artist Mr. Oizo. This parade of surreal vignettes and whimsical details (such as a clock that flips from 7:59 to 7:60) feels like a friendlier Synecdoche, New York as it follows the anguish of put-upon Dolph Springer (Jack Plotnick), whose dog is missing. Will he get help from Master Chang (William Fichtner), the guru who writes of communion with your canine? There’s also a detective (Steve Little), a gardener (Eric Judor), and an irritating girlfriend (Alexis Dziena) in this tart bonbon about American absurdity. It subscribes to the insight of avant-gardist Stanislas Witkiewicz that a character’s death is irrelevant to his development; you don’t often see that.