Deathdream

Deathdream (1972) aka Dead of Night aka The Night Andy Came Home aka the Veteran aka Whispers

Dir. Bob Clark

Written by Alan Ormsby

Starring Richard Backus, John Marley, Lynn Carlin

When young Vietnam vet (that's "veteran," not "veterinarian") Andy (Richard Backus, basically nothing) returns home to his family in spite of an earlier notice that he’d been killed, his parents (John Marley  --recipient of the famous “horse’s head” in THE GODFATHER-- and Lynn Carlin, TAKING OFF)* and sister (Anya Ormsby, CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS) are thrilled to have him back. Sure, he seems a little bit “off,” but who could blame him after what he’s been through? Dad tries to counsel his son by relating his own war experiences, Sis tries to help Andy get his social life back, and Mom is happy just to fawn over him as much as possible. But it becomes clear pretty quickly that Andy is a little beyond their help. For example, he kills a dog. In a movie, we might forgive him for murdering the occasional trucker, but a dog-killing tells us he’s an irredeemable villain. Also, he wears a turtleneck, a clear signal of evil on any white man who is not named Steve McQueen. And as if that weren’t enough, he spends all day and night sitting in a rocking chair in his room, maniacally ratcheting back and forth in the dark. All worrisome warning signs that Andy may be some sort of undead blood-fiend who drains corpses of their lifegiving bodily fluids (well, the blood, anyway) to prolong his own unholy existence. .

Will Smith was right. Parents just don't understand.

I gotta admit, I was pretty unimpressed by the last Bob Clark foray into horror, 1972’s overrated and irritating CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS. But this one, which came out the same year from the same writer and director, is undeniably great, a splendid, surreal nightmare packed with tension, gore, and a light dusting of social commentary. It begins at a confidently slow pace while the tension is allowed to gradually mount, but it’s never dull, and there’s always a sense of creepy strangeness hovering over the proceedings, even before it gets outright violent. Everyone is so overjoyed by Andy’s unexpected return that they’re overwhelmingly reluctant to admit that something is not right here; hell, not even sure if they ought to say anything. I mean, jeez, are you gonna be the one to tell this guy’s poor mom that he’s a dangerous psychopath? But the longer things go, the more it becomes impossible to ignore that the fact that the Andy who has returned is most definitely not the same one who left. Eventually, everyone knows it; they can’t say it aloud, but speak volumes in worried glances and awkward pauses in conversation. But they have no idea what to do about it. There’s something wonderfully upsetting about a scenario like this, where everyone has to know, on some level, that something is terribly wrong, but no one seems willing or able to outwardly acknowledge it. And how can they? It would seem shamefully judgmental, even hypocritical, to condemn this kid who suffered so much, who, in fact, was willingly sent into danger by the very people now thankfully welcoming him home. Who wants to be the first one to accuse a combat veteran, who miraculously made it home alive against all odds, of having turned into a monster? So they all try to talk around it, to pretend. Until there’s no possible way of pretending anymore.

It’s a great scenario, and full of wonderfully executed sequences. But the thing that truly pushes it into the sublime is its star. Richard Backus is nothing short of amazing as the mysterious, coyly sinister returned soldier. His smile alone is enough to make you shiver -- the eyes never smile, but the mouth does. So when he starts to get more openly aggressive, it’s even more disconcerting. As an actor he did almost nothing else --a few roles on daytime soaps in the 80’s and a handful of now-forgotten TV movies-- but fuck it, this is the role of a lifetime. He’s so blandly handsome and soft-spoken and yet utterly, skin-crawlingly alien. He’s perfectly able to talk and interact with others, and eerily even does so quite charmingly when it suits him. But most of the time he barely even needs to bother. He’s predatory and reptilian, secure in the knowledge that his family is so desperately glad to have him back that they’ll convince themselves he’s fine regardless of what he does. He’s clearly able to think and plan and move with his own motivations, but what precisely is on his mind is as unknowable as the circumstances which brought him to this state.

Ol' blue eyes.

Andy is intentionally a cypher, and it suits the movie marvelously. I do wish the parents were a little better defined as characters, since their vagueness sometimes makes it a little difficult to know why they’re acting the way they are. There are implications that Dad may have been abusive or neglectful (perhaps even as a result of his own combat experience?) but the audience never sees him being anything other than reasonable and supportive. Meanwhile, Mom seems to go straight fucking bananas, to the extent that she becomes actively hostile to the rest of the family. I get that mom may have the most trouble coming to terms with the idea that her son’s miraculous return is actually even worse than having him dead, but in my opinion she still goes a little overboard here. Neither parent seems to necessarily behave in what I’d consider a natural or realistic manner, so you get the feeling the movie is trying to tell us something about who they are and how they got this way, but damned if I know what it is. 

The same problem kinda applies on a larger scale, too: this was one of the first movies which dealt with the Vietnam war and the cultural trauma it produced, and it arrived at cinemas nearly at the height of American involvement. I mean, the war was everywhere in '72, and it had been going on long enough that the ugly truths of our military actions there were well established, even in the mainstream. In fact, at least one person on this production had actually spent time in Vietnam: makeup artist Tom Savini (in his first movie!) had served as a combat photographer. So there's clearly no way of avoiding talking about the war here. But while it seems like the idea of a returned soldier becoming a blood-drinking psychopathic ghoul must be intended as some kind of metaphor, it’s a little too vague to parse out exactly what it’s trying to tell us. Is it a metaphor for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, with Andy coming back a shell of his former self? Is Andy actually a metaphor for America as a whole, the country that thought it could just have a morale-boosting little proxy war half a world away and chalk it up as a win for truth justice and the American way, only to become a monster in the process? Or is it more along the lines of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT -- less explicitly a metaphor than an angry lashing out, a harsh reminder of how ugly death and violence are?

Apparently this is the actual cover they went with for the Gorgon video betamax release.

I don’t really know the answers there, but in the end, DEATHDREAM doesn’t need an explicit moral to be good. The shots of Backus maniacally rocking back in forth in the dark, just by themselves, are such a wonderful little moment that it’s kinda a miracle they haven’t been ripped off a million times by now. But then again, I don’t know another movie with a character even remotely like this. Whatever it means, DEATHDREAM is an intense, blackly comic little nightmare, and a fascinating snapshot into a world nearing a half-century in the past.** It’s elusive, evocative, and still manages to be an enormously entertaining horror film that delivers some genuinely scary images and even some respectable bloodletting. Clark would go on to make one more horror movie --the excellent BLACK CHRISTMAS-- but honestly, this thing is one-of-a-kind. There’s really nothing else like it. That seems like kinda a shame since it’s such a good one, but then again, maybe it’s just as well. As we discover herein, sometimes you just can’t go home again, even if you go through the motions well enough.

*Marley and Carlin also played a married couple in John Cassavetes’ FACES, for which Carlin was nominated for Best Actress. While we're down here, I should also mention that a bunch of actors from CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS have cameos.

**For contrast: consider that the amount of time between DEATHDREAM and today is the same amount between DEATHDREAM and the Great Depression! And the odds are you're reading this even further in the future than that! Feel old yet?

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2014 CHECKLIST!

The Hunt For Dread October

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: None
• SEQUEL: None
• REMAKE: None. Although we already encountered a movie called DEAD OF NIGHT (the movie's alternate title) this Chainsawnukah, they appear to be completely unrelated.
• FOREIGNER: Filmed in Canada
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: Well, neither Marley nor Lynn was exactly A-list, but both quite respectable at the time, and Lynn even had an Oscar nomination.
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: None
• BOOBIES: None
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: No
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: No
• HAUNTED HOUSE: None
• MONSTER: No
• THE UNDEAD: Andy does appear to be some variety of undead.
• POSSESSION: None
• SLASHER/GIALLO: Andy could almost be looked at as a slasher, but the structure of the movie doesn't really support it (in fact, director Bob Clark would make arguably the first true American slasher with his next film, 1974's BLACK CHRISTMAS)
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): Here we go. This feels more right.
• EVIL CULT: None
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: Nope
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: Nah
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid, too little known for such a good one.
• MORAL OF THE STORY: Be extremely suspicious of any white man wearing a turtleneck. I cannot stress that enough, people.
• TITLE ACCURACY: A mess. I have no idea what a "deathdream" is, but I'm pretty sure it's not this. The other American title, DEAD OF NIGHT, is no better, since mostly it happens during the day. Some of the seemingly hundreds of video titles they slapped on this thing are a little more accurate: THE NIGHT ANDY CAME HOME, for example, is a literal thing that happens in the movie. But both American theatrical titles are totally meaningless.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Yes!

The Dogs of War

The Dogs of War (1980)

Dir John Irvin

Written by Gary DeVore, George Malko

Starring Christopher Walken, Tom Berenger

You know how most of these 70's and early 80's painted posters have an awesome image which never even remotely happens in the movie? Not this one. 

What we got here is an interesting oddity from 1980, a kind of weird blend of mercenary action movie and war drama, but coming from a perspective which makes it a bit unique. It has all the trappings of any number of genre mercenary movies: a team of cynical, hardass character actors, a fictional African country with a sunglass-favoring dictator, a whole bunch of guns, and enough explosions to easily send a commercial tanker ship carrying nothing but cinder blocks to the moon and back a few dozen times. But unlike the sort of movie you’re immediately imagining, this one scales back on the giant muscles and outrageous stunts in favor of a focus on the planning and execution of a mercenary’s work. There’s a few big explosions at the very beginning, and then no action whatsoever until the film’s finale. In between, we get to watch as veteran merc and victim of a double girl name Jamie Shannon (Christopher Walken) goes on a recon mission, considers leaving the trade, gets contracts, and puts together a crack team to smuggle weapons, infiltrate enemy territory, and then (finally) blow up absolutely every goddamn thing in sight. Once the guns finally do come out we get a pretty spectacular light show, but the emphasis of the runtime is on the non-shooting parts of the mercenary’s life, from the loneliness of the downtime to the haggling over gun prices to the clever methods of skirting customs officers. It’s almost a mercenary procedural!

Signing 8x12 glossies for fans.

Part of the oddness of the film comes from the unusual casting. This is the sort of movie you’d expect to star Tom Berenger or somebody (which is good, because he’s in here too) but instead the lead is Walken, fresh off THE DEER HUNTER and HEAVEN’S GATE and not looking at all like your typical Hollywood image of a mercenary tough guy. He’s thin --almost emaciated-- and with his pale skin, red lips and blue eyes casts a decidedly feminine image (it also looks like he’s wearing enough makeup to qualify for a side gig as a geisha, not sure if that’s part of the character or what). We see that he’s pretty hardcore from the movie’s opening where he drives a jeep through an exploding airfield and hijacks an airplane, but the character skews realistic rather than towards the usual exaggerated ubermench trope; Walken’s Shannon is well-prepared and well-trained, but three guys attacking him at once quickly reduce him to the fetal position. He never says one-liners or looks like he’s enjoying himself very much, and in fact by the movie’s end it’s pretty obvious (without being overtly stated) that this line of work has not been good for his psyche.

Likewise, his teammates are a long way from Jesse Ventura and Carl Weathers; they’re mostly dumpy middle-aged guys, their scalps fighting a stalemate battle between greying and receding hairlines. One looks kind of like Denholm Elliott, another sort of like a nerdy Michael Ironside, a third looks like Ed O’Neill because it is him. Interestingly, you got Tom Berenger in there too, playing exactly the kind of macho tough guy you would expect Tom Berenger to play in a merc movie like this. But he’s a minor character and seems like the odd one here, maybe a guy who has watched too many of these movies himself and has a warped idea of how he should be reacting. Nobody else seems very amused by his cowboy antics, but they just seem to accept that this is how he rolls. Even though it’s the same character that is common to more outlandish versions of this same story, the context makes him seem kind of believable here, sort of a nod to real life macho assholes who might do this sort of thing for kicks. In this line of work, it’s actually realistic to have a few larger-than-life, exaggerated personalities. Just don’t expect things to work out for them as neatly as they do in the movies.

Riding dirty.

There’s an odd instinct toward realism here, which sits maybe a bit uncomfortably with the movie’s premise but also makes it kind of unique. Turns out director John Irvin might just have a leg up in the realism department over most directors, having been a cameraman in combats zones ranging from Vietnam to Algeria during the 60s. That probably explain a lot of the unusual structure of the movie and it’s interest in the minutiae of the operation, particularly since Irvin got in touch with some of his old mercenary contacts from that era to discuss the film. Moreover, writer Frederick Forsyth (author of the novel the film is based on) actually went undercover and posed as a venture capitalist attempting to finance a coup in Equatorial Guinea, allowing him to meet various mercenaries and underworld figures and ask them how this kind of thing could be done (a few years later, someone actually tried it for real). So as crazy as it sounds, I suspect this movie is not as far from reality as we might like to imagine. There are real guys out there who are probably completely capable of pulling something like this off. What’s the ratio of fact to fantasy? Well, Irvin would go on to direct HAMBURGER HILL (which an ex-Vietnam vet with a fake leg and only one eye would once tell me was the most realistic movie ever made about the Vietnam war) and the BBC TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY with Alec Guinness, another model of subtlety and realism. Of course, he also made Schwarzenneger’s RAW DEAL so there’s that side of him too.

One obvious fantasy which remains is the uncomfortable neocolonialist subtext. The U.S. action film industry was using this period to go back and win the Vietnam war (RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, THE GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK) but Irvin, an Englishman, has a different cultural scab to pick at, so what we got here is a bunch of Europeans getting to go back and re-fight the colonial wars of independence. The new democratically elected dictator of the fictional African “republic of Zangaro” is specifically juxtaposed against the more moderate, losing candidate (a nice guy who winds up in jail for his efforts) who we’re told suggestively “wanted to maintain ties with the mother country.” A number of characters suggest, mostly subtly, that the people of Zangaro were not ready for democracy yet, and that Europe needs to step in and set things right. That sentiment might have been forgivable in the less enlightened time of AFRICA ADDIO (1966), but it’s a little less so in fucking 1980.

I guess this big grenade launcher type gun was a selling point for this movie, but I'm honestly more in love with Walken's original Grumpy Cat face.

Fortunately, the film only pushes this logic so far; it’s clear that the Europeans pushing for the coup are rapacious capitalists who are only interested in securing the mining rights from the new government, so at least they’re not pretending to be heroes. Still, it’s a pretty uncomfortable fantasy to set up a scenario where the white heroes have to re-conquer a former colony in order to secure justice. It doesn’t really help much that virtually every African we meet in the film is openly villainous, and the ones who aren’t are treated with open scorn over the their collaboration with the dictatorship.* Interestingly, though, race doesn’t seem to factor into it as much as Europe’s sensitivity to being told it isn’t needed.** The Europeans even get a fun comeuppance when they take on a troupe of African Mercenaries, who Berenger scoffs are “bush league,” but who quickly shut him up with a demonstration of their skill. Walken even gets an African potential love interest, who the film treats as intelligent and glamorous. So it’s not necessarily about black and white, it’s just about the abiding notion that everyone should stop worrying and admit that they love Europe. It’s a weird kind of subtext, I don’t think I know any other movie with one like it.

So, in some ways it’s a bit ungainly and morally suspect (although perhaps not any more so than your average mercenary action movie). But still gotta give this one credit for trying something a little different. And hey, you can’t get too mad at a movie that has the good instincts to spend it’s first 10 seconds doing this:

Short of adding the implied exclamation point, I don’t know what else they could do to announce their intention of badassery. Except maybe cast future Oscar winner Jim Broadbent as a non-speaking extra. Sorry Jim, no time for your shenanigans here. Instead, we got an simple, straightforward focus on watching a bunch of hard, amoral pros do what they do best. No time for feelings; If you’re gonna cry, cry havoc! That’s how these dogs do it. Less bark, more bite.***   

*I suppose there’s another way to read this, especially since Walken is an American: Africans= Europeans, dictator= Hitler, Mercs = Americans.

** By the way, Ghanaian actor and future STAR WARS EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE side player Hugh Quarshie is an unnamed extra in this. His IMDB page says he refuses to play Othello because he finds it racist, so the fact that he appears in this must mean he thinks it’s at least less racist than Othello. And I guess he’s got no beef with Shakespeare quotes, either.   

*** In fairness, I should admit that there is a brief section near the middle which involves Walken and his ex-wife, a weird performance by JoBeth Williams. They make a big deal about her crippled father, who apparently forced her to divorce Walken's character so she could care for him. Wha? That's not a thing, is it? Not sure what they were going for with this (except maybe to emphasize Walken's increasingly precarious psychological state?) but fortunately Walken fucks her, GTFO's, and then she's never mentioned again.