Gothic

Gothic (1986)

Dir. Ken Russell

Written by Stephen Volk

Starring Gabriel Byrne, Natasha Richardson, Julian Sands, Timothy Spall

Ken Russell gets… classy? I guess? in this sumptuous (presumably) highly fictionalized tale of the night Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley (then Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin), her cousin Claire Clairmont, and perennial also-ran John Pilidori got together, fucked absolutely every last living thing in sight, and sowed the seeds that would become Frankenstein and The Vampyre. With its many cheeky references and quotes to their works, this is almost an ACROSS THE UNIVERSE style tribute to the artists involved, or would be if ACROSS THE UNIVERSE had a scene where the Beatles had a hallucinogen-fueled four-way and then summoned the devil which, obviously, it should have.

I was worried about this one because it stars Gabriel Byrne, and as we all know Gabriel Byrne is a fantastic actor who was unfortunately cursed by a gypsy to only appear in awful dreck. I know, I know, he was in USUAL SUSPECTS and MILLER’S CROSSING, but jesus, that’s two movies out of dozens of films he’s done since 1978, I mean, that’s still way less than simple luck would dictate. I always get excited to see the guy on-screen, hoping that this is the one that will turn things around for him, but if anything his luck seems to have worsened over the years.

The original Breakfast Club.

Well, GOTHIC doesn’t exactly shake the trend, but it’s still a pretty interesting not-quite-successful experiment. Basically, the fab five conduct a seance and possibly summon a spirit which menaces them with glimpses of their deepest fears and insecurities. But also possibly, they’re just a bunch of strung out aristocrats who let their fears get the better of them. Russell uneasily balances between the possibility that there is something genuinely supernatural going on and the (somewhat greater) likelihood that this is all in their heads. It’s a worthwhile tactic for awhile, and as usual Russell conjures a world pulsing with nightmarish menace and exaggerated style. But the problem for me is that it all feels a little like a tease; you get flashes which suggest a horror story, but they’re maddeningy brief and ethereal. There’s a ton of tense buildup, but then nothing very concrete ever really happens. Now, it’s fine to have a horror film of pure intimation (any given Val Letwon film), but Russell’s style is so soaked in intensity that after awhile you get a bit resentful about him being coy with the monsters. It all feels like a film which is constantly about to go somewhere that never quite arrives. It’s all pitched at the same hysterical frequency, so there’s not really any build, nor can there really be much tension since these are all historical characters who we know went on to have careers afterwards.

This guy needs to be in a rap video.

A stronger emotional angle might have helped amp up the tension, but despite the strong performances by everyone here I’m not convinced that the film successfully communicates the dynamics of this complex five-way relationship. Percy Shelley (Julian Sands) seems pretty out of it, a mess of generalized neurosis and addictions, while Mary Shelley (Natasha Richardson) gets the unfortunate role of whiny girlfriend, constantly fretting and chiding everyone else for being so awesome. Not really a lot to get invested in, there. Byrne as Byron has a much showier part, but he’s also written as a sort of mythic, sociopathic enigma, and we never really get any hint of a human side behind his devilish persona. Claire Clairmont (Myriam Cyr) has a likeable, free-spirited energy to her, but she spends most of the second half passed out or running around naked, so while you like her more than everyone else there’s not exactly a lot of character growth there. That leaves only poor Timothy Spall as the second-banana John Pilidori, who if the movie is to be believed is Byron’s gay lover and isn’t super happy to find three interlopers (especially Percy Shelley, who Byron is clearly lusting after) stuck in the house over the weekend. Everyone uniformly treats Pilidori like shit, and Spall makes the character sort of likably pathetic, coming closer than anyone else to an actual appealing characterization. But he’s also kind of a side story, barely interacting with anyone else during the film’s second half, so not a real big emotional hook there, either.

So without a core of human drama and without much in the way of traditional genre thrills, it eventually becomes more exhausting than engaging. That said, the film does have its moments. There’s a nifty attempted hanging which definitely does not go according to plan, a scene where Clairmont’s nipples suddenly become giant eyeballs, some kinda freakiness with a deformed goat, that kind of thing. The movie could have used more of this sort of weirdness to make its rich atmosphere a little more justified by events. But I will admit, despite its lack of build the climactic sequence is visually baroque enough to finally overwhelm you into falling victim to its sweat-soaked nightmarish intensity. And honestly, that’s a good thing. The last thing you want from Russell is subtlety; his strength is in mental and sensory overkill, so once the film finally stops pussyfooting around about the horror stuff and just goes all in, things resolve pretty nicely. There’s not really story enough in Stephen Volk’s) screenplay to allow him to do that all the way through (though no one told composer Thomas Dolby, who slathers every moment of the runtime with his bossy, histrionic score) but once Volk* gets out of the way and lets Russell do his thing, you have a pretty good time. Although judging from the film, a night with the real Lord Byron would have been an even better time, and probably a good deal more frightening.

*Noted writer of two other mildly interesting disappointments, Friedkin’s THE GUARDIAN and 2011's THE AWAKENING.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2013 CHECKLIST!

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: Although it's about the genesis of two famous works of literature, there is no direct adaptation.
• SEQUEL: No, unless you want to count FRANKENSTEIN as a spin-off.
• REMAKE: 1988's HAUNTED SUMMER depicts the same weekend, only with Philip Anglim as Byron, Eric Stoltz as Percy, Alice Krige as Mary, Laura Dern as Claire, and Alex "Bill" Winter as Pilidori. Now that's a fucking weird cast, right there.
• HAMMER STUDIOS: No
• SPAGHETTI NOCTURNE: No
• MORE (PETER) CUSHING FOR THE PUSHING? No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: Gabriel Byrne and Natasha Richardson, though both were very early in their careers (it was Richardson's first film).
• BOOBIES: Definitely.
• DECAPITATIONS OR DE-LIMBING: No
• ENTRAILS? No
• CULTISTS: No
• ZOMBIES: No
• VAMPIRES: There's one vampire scene, although it's a fantasy.
• SLASHERS: No
• CURSES: Yes, they believe the five of them have been cursed.
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS? No dolls.
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid, theatrical release once upon a time.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Awake, yeah.

Wake Wood

Wake Wood (2011)
Dir. David Keating
Written by: David Keating, Brendan McCarthy
Starring Aiden Gillen, Eva Birthistle, Timothy Spall

I was pretty impressed by this low-budget Irish WICKER MAN / PET SEMATARY riff. It concerns two parents of a recently mauled-to-death adorable precocious child who move to a creepy/quaint Irish village called Wake (wait for it) Wood, where they discover that the locals have a way to bring back the deceased. For a little while.

A few things make this simple setup interesting. For one, even though the ceremony for raising the dead is profoundly creepy (the weird and disturbing details of it are the film’s greatest strength) the townsfolk aren’t exactly portrayed as an evil cult out to get our innocent yuppie parents. In fact, the townsfolks (particularly Spall, looking dapper in his three-piece suit and bowler) seem pretty nice and straightforward about what they’re offering. It’s the parents who end up lying about how long their daughter’s been dead in an effort to skirt the rules and get in a few more precious days. Not one of their better ideas, in my opinion. Although in fairness, the townfolks really ought to mention, “be sure you do the math carefully, because anyone who has been dead over a year will definitely come back as an evil killing machine.”

The resurrected girl kills people in fairly dull and unimaginative ways (what do you expect, she’s just a beginner), but surprisingly the majority of the film is more about emotional horror than ax murders. It’s obviously low budget, but the cast* is strong enough to really drive home the unspoken horror of having to stay alive after the people you love have died, and the unnatural, wild hope that you can somehow bring them back. Combine that with the deeply weird resurrection ceremony and the impending sense of doom that hangs over the whole thing, and you’ve got something that packs unexpected punch. Given the effective emphasis on great atmosphere and strong emotional performances in this and THE WOMAN IN BLACK, I’m beginning to think that this Hammer Studios revival may actually be the real deal -- a production company that cares about getting the details right, not just buying up famous properties and remaking them.

It’s strength is in the details -- the convincingly isolated township with its single row of lived-in shops, the menacing wind turbines on the edge of town, the casual horror encountered by the veterinarian husband as he performs a c-section on a cow, stitches up the mangled face of a run-over mutt, and so on. There’s an authenticity and a significance to these details which make the whole film feel weightier than its cliche premise would suggest. And even if it starts to lose you towards the end with it’s DON’T LOOK NOW knockoff murderous child in a yellow coat, stick it out to the end. There’s a venomously clever little epilogue that sums up the whole thing with a genuine dark perfection.

As always with this Chainsawnukah season, be sure to check out Dan P's alternate take!

*Obviously it’s exciting to see The Wire’s Tommy Carcetti get to use his real accent, but it should also be noted that somewhere in here is Brian Gleeson, son of Brendan.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2012 CHECKLIST!

LOVECRAFT ADAPTATION: No.
BOOBIES: No (?)
> or = HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS LEVEL GORE: Maybe just enough kills to count.
SEQUEL: No.
OBSCURITY LEVEL: Uh, low-high I think. DTV, not gimmicky enough to call attention.
MONSTERS: None.
SATANISTS: ...something creepy and culty, but I don't think Satan is involved.
ZOMBIES: Yeah, definitely.
VAMPIRES: No.
SLASHERS: Ends with quite a bit of slashing, yes.
CURSES: Magic, but no specific curses.
ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Yeah!

Heartless

Heartless (2009)

Dir. Philip Ridley

Starring Jim Sturgess, Joseph Mawle, with Timothy Spall and Eddie Marsan.

Now he's a movie full of great ideas which seems competently made and yet somehow manages to bungle each and every one until it ends up feeling almost completely empty. How the fuck did that happen?

The premise seems like exactly the sort of thing I'd be into. Netflix says:

Reclusive Londoner Jamie Morgan (Jim Sturgess), who bears a prominent, heart-shaped birthmark on his face yet can't seem to find love anywhere, makes a deal with a devil-like figure to get a girl [who turns out to be Harry Potter's Fleur Delacour, by the way, if you were ever interested in seeing her naked]-- but there's a deadly price to pay. After his mother is murdered, the newspapers say thugs wearing devil masks committed the crime. But Jamie soon begins to suspect that they weren't wearing masks at all.

So that sounds pretty cool, right? Guilt, disfigurement, violence, paranoia, the slippery divide between what's real and what isn't. That sounds exactly like the kind of shit I'd be all over, kinda Cronenberg-y back when he was a little more surreal, or maybe like if David Lynch made a movie with a plot. Except it doesn't play out like that at all. All those elements are in the movie, but for whatever reason the movie focuses on exactly the wrong things in the wrong order, playing up the exact least interesting things and barely touching on the promise of that premise.

For starters, the film is disappointingly literal. That dreamlike quality that I so covet in a movie like this is completely undermined by the fact that the film doesn't really tease us at all about the demons being real. It shows us one about 5 minutes in, and never backs off the idea that this is literally some supernatural shit going down. As a result, you lose the scary ambiguity AND the apocalyptic sense of a collapsing society. This would be fine if you played up the scary supernatural angle, but instead they continue shooting it as if it were a gang running around. There's nothing done to make this concept seem otherworldly or incomprehensible; Its just a bunch of skinny demons in hoodies attacking people with molotov cocktails. It's LESS scary since demons are so one-dimentional; of course they're gonna be malevolent. That's their gig. Human killers are scarier and more interesting. You got a bunch of murderous human hoodlums running around, you got to ask some uncomfortable questions about what you are capable of, how they ended up this way, etc. Demons don’t work that way; they’re scary when you see their nonhuman power and characteristics, which this film largely robs them of. So right off the bat, a huge part of what could be interesting and frightening is rendered somewhat flat and diminished.

Secondly, the whole Faustian bargain thing is ill-handled. The devilish Papa B is obviously supernatural, but they mostly avoid giving him any kind of mystery. He’s played pretty much like a mid-level thug in a Guy Ritchie movie, all muscles and mullet and exposition. There’s nothing perverse or disturbing about this guy; he seems more like a wannabe Tyler Durden than the devil incarnate. His plan is to cause chaos because suffering is eternal or some stupid trite bullshit like that. So again, you’ve got this potentially creepy, weird scenario which is just completely undercut by making everything seem very literal and overexplained. Even Papa B’s cool-looking SILENT HILL apartment looks diminished and literal. Director Ridley shoots it like he’s shooting a regular conversation in a normal apartment, and as a result it all looks sort of normal and solid, like a cool set instead of like the inside of a nightmare.

(on the other hand, I'm of the opinion that SILENT HILL didn't have enough comfy green armchairs, so this one addresses that issue nicely).

Which is not to say that it’s badly shot, either. It looks, like everything in this film, competent, professional, even a little stylish. It just doesn’t cater to the film’s strengths and as a result, nothing has the impact that it should.

There’s a ton of crap like that in here. The film somewhat boldly subverts the usual Faustian bargain business by suddenly changing the rules on our poor protagonist. It’s a cool idea which could serve to throw the audience off balance and make them feel vulnerable and out of control. But nothing particularly shocking comes out of the new scenario, and without clear rules for the universe we actually don’t know what to fear and consequently lose tension, rather than gain it.

The real dealbreaker here, though, is that the film is ultimately much more about the human drama than the horror. That would be fine, except that the human drama is laughably vapid. Jamie has to realize his true beauty was within, and there’s some insufferable crap about his father telling him that the darkest moments are the ones we learn the most from which in context doesn’t even make sense. It’s all very shallow, and worsened considerably by the fact that it’s all done with the subtlety of a shotgun blast to the face. Again, you can’t help but notice that the film focuses on the least interesting aspects of the story (and in fact, the whole demon angle ends up feeling kind of incidental. You don’t need a gang of eyeless demons to tell the story of the ugly duckling. I guess if you’re going to do a live action version of that story, adding demons is the only way to go, but fuck, kind of a waste of perfectly good demons.) All good will is ultimately killed by the end, a standard twist that you’ve probably guessed already, which pretty much makes everything before it kind of confusingly meaningless.

I know, I know, it looks cool. But trust me when I'm tell you it's the demon equivalent of big fake titties.

Which is kinda a shame, because the elements for a great film are there. The usually bland Jim Sturgess creates a surprisingly memorable, sympathetic character and very effectively sells his painful shyness. He’s a clenched up recluse, perpetually waiting for the next cruel blow to fall, and Sturgess remarkably shares his crushing internal pain with the camera. The great Timothy Spall fiercely attempts to impart some truth and conviction into his cliché-ridden flashback scenes, and Eddie Marsan has a dryly memorable cameo as the workaday administrator for Papa B. Though criminally underutilized, the production design is great, the demons are neat-looking (would have been 100 times cooler had they been masks instead of CG, but oh well) and there’s a few memorably horrific scenes (including one genuinely shocking one featuring a reanimated severed head who finds that things can get even worse).

In the end, though, this is a story of squandered potential. Fear lies in the unknown. The more you explain, the more you show us, the more you tell us what’s going on, the less darkess remains for fear to lurk in. HEARTLESS is a film so eager to make sure we understand what it means that it loses sight of the elements that make the journey worthwhile. It has its own magic tricks, but right away it wants to explain how they work, and -- even more damningly -- why the trick was done. We want to see the trick, Ridley – you can leave the rest to us.

A "flawless" "horror"... the "best" film of the year.

EDIT: SPOILERS! Oh yeah, I wanted to mention that early on there's this weird awkward exposition on TV about this crazy looking gang leader with some sort of elaborate golden claw for a hand. Inexplicably, he's named "She" (he's a beefy black guy with facial tattoos). But it's clear that (S)he is the leader of some other gang, not the demons. Well, since they made such a big deal about it you figure it's gonna come up again later, and it does. Jamie is in his place of business with his nephew, who owes money to a gang (long, pointless story) when suddenly She comes crashing in and attacks Jamie, who promptly stabs him to death. And he just goes, "oh, I guess I killed She," and runs off to be pursued by the other demon gang, never to mention it again. And that's it! What the fuck was that all about? I get that being named She is probably even worse than being named Sue, but what's with all those weird details? Maybe this thing is deeper than I gave it credit for.