The American Scream: A Prelude to Chainsawnukah

The American Scream (2012)

Dir. Michael Stephenson

Or, “How Samuel Jackson’s Arm Made Me a Better Person”

This is a movie about what a few families in Fairhaven, MA do to decorate their yard for Halloween. But in a larger sense, it’s about obsession, creativity, community, loss, fear, and the American Dream. Which is good, because Halloween is a pretty big deal to me, too, and this is an interesting start to a discussion of why that is, and what it means.

First, though, the players. We meet Victor Barbiteau, in danger of losing his IT job by day, obsessive, visionary creator of the phantasmagoric by night, along with his amazingly accepting wife and somewhat more enthusiastic children. We meet Manny Souza, construction worker, family man, whose over-the-top Halloween show seems to grow more elaborate every year. And we meet Matthew and Richard Brodeur, an unemployed father/son duo who create their own ramshackled Halloween wonderland and are decidedly… odd. All three are “home haunters,” which as we learn is a small but fierce community of obsessive Halloween decorators around which there has sprung up a small cottage industry (which I myself have probably done more than my share to prop up). At first glance, the three protagonists --who all know each other-- seem to be on the same page. After all, they all share the same unusual fixation, they collaborate with each other and other “haunters,” they experience the same frustrations and lack of understanding from non-haunters who can’t figure out what’s motivating these nutballs to go to all this trouble.

But the more we get to know them, the more it becomes clear that although the symptoms are the same, the disease is different and distinct in each man. Barbiteau is motivated by his desire to recapture the youth he lost with the Branch Davidian cult (not his fault, his mom was a member). Souza is motivated by his desire to share a memorable project with his family. And the Brodeurs… uh, who knows what they’re thinking. If there’s a reason behind their efforts, they never mention it. They haunt because they must.

The Barbiteua clan. Who paints a coffin Lake Placid Blue? That truly is horrifying.

The movie tries to give us revealing suggestions from each man about why they’re compelled to build life-sized Egyptian statuary and buy discount (used?) coffins off craigslist and so forth. But really, I’m not 100% buying. Barbiteau, probably the most fanatical --he ends up directing a crew of volunteers and spending most of his disposable income in the quest for what admittedly ends up being an absolutely jaw-dropping creation-- offers a variety of explanations, from the lost Halloweens of his childhood, to the need to share a Holiday with the community (Thanksgiving and Christmas are for family, he says, but Halloween is for the whole world) to the power of fear in our psyche. All are probably part of it, as they probably are on some level for all the families we see. Really, though, I think these guys do it because they’re simply creative people. The have to build, they have to create, and this is simply the outlet that they’ve found. The specific motivations are probably complex and obscure, by the desire to do something is overwhelming. The proof is that they simply started one year by taking a shot a building something themselves, more or less on a whim, and that it’s spiraled out of control ever since. The creative impulse is powerful, and it will find a way. Whatever you tell yourself and whatever you can articulate about your motivation, the drive to make something bigger, better, crazier, and more elaborate will win the day.

Since we are entering the Chainsawnukah season, though, I think the most interesting aspect of the film is the one least explored. The question is not necessarily why do these guys build this stuff, but who are these complete strangers who come from far away to be scared by them, and also why do I want to do it so badly, too? Barbiteau offers a tantalizing explanation (and also sounds like he and the good Dr. Jonathan Crane would have a lot to talk about): “When you’re scared, you’re most alive.” There may be some truth to that. Fear is invigorating, fear has the capacity to remind you of the scarcity and fragility of life, reminding us to never take life for granted. And fear does it without the depressingness of having to watch Susan Sarandon die of cancer or something. Fear activates your brain in a way which makes it hyper-alert, releasing adrenaline, focusing your attention, forcing you to actively and intensely engage with the world. Treating ourselves to known artificial fears activates a very primal part of our brain and causes us to undergo a great intensity of experience without actually putting ourselves and loved ones at risk. So he may have a point, there’s definitely something there.

The Sauza clan.

But there must be a second part, too, that doesn’t have to do with fear. Or at least not the same kind of startled, heart-pumping fear that a guy in in a monster mask jumping out at you will produce. I mean, plenty of things trigger the fight-or-flight response in our brain; a loud air horn will do the job nicely, and you don’t see people lining up for that. So I maintain that there’s something about the macabre that may be related to fear, but isn’t at all the same thing Barbiteau is talking about. There’s something deeply, perversely appealing about the grotesque, the disgusting, the disquieting, which has nothing to with anything as superficial as a scare. In fact, Barbiteau eventually even acknowledges that “I don’t understand my reasons,” perhaps genuinely flummoxed at having to explain his objectively strange fixation, or perhaps a little afraid to probe much deeper. I mean, if you’re a guy with two adorable kids and a very understanding wife who is willing to tolerate this sort of shenanigan, maybe you’re not too keen to really dig deep into the motivation for your fixation on the icons of death.

Fortunately for me, I have no dependents who might get creeped out by psychoanalyzing the darker aspects of my soul, so I have the luxury of wondering what it is about horror that brings me back to it with such passion every year around this time. Why is it that every year, I seek out a universe of fucked up shit that so many people spend their lives actively avoiding? Why does THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE make me giggle like a schoolgirl, when to most people the very concept results in an immediate gag reflex? I mean, I’m a nice guy. In real life, I loathe violence and suffering and depravity, and to the best of my limited ability I try to work against it. So why do I love it when it shows up in my movies?

I’ve been asked that question a lot, for most of my life. And the best answer that I’ve ever come up with is that I can be a nice guy because I love this stuff. I think every human has the capacity to enact things which are unimaginably horrible. As this year’s most painfully horrifying film, THE ACT OF KILLING, makes clear, it’s a complete self-serving illusion to believe that there is some kind of clear dividing line between the good guys and the bad guys. We’re all people, we all live, we all love, laugh, cry, scream, eat, watch a movie every now and then. Sometimes we do wonderful things, sometimes we do terrible things. Most of us in our lives will do some mixture of both, though perhaps it’s easier to swing towards the positive in the relatively peaceful, resource-abundant modern Western world. I have one major advantage in this: most of my life, my destructive impulses have focused inward rather than outward. I am very seldom tempted to hurt other people, but with myself and my own life, it can be very difficult not to give in to negative impulses. If you’re in introverted person, it’s likely a fight that you’ll have to wage your whole life, and it’s also one that only rarely makes it to the surface long enough to involve anyone else. So you spend a lot of your time living down in the black pit, with all the nameless, formless vague thoughts that weigh down on you like the water at the bottom of a dark ocean. You either learn how to live with, and co-exist with these dark sirens of the subconscious, or, well, you don’t.

And that’s where the horror fan comes in. I was a sensitive child. I remember vividly the day of my youth that I first really listened to the lyrics to Warren Zevon’s immortal nightmare boogie “Excitable Boy” and it reduced me to tears. I used to feel the pain and horror of the world so, so vividly that some days it was paralyzing. Some days it felt like the world itself was screaming in horror, like the primal figure in Munch’s famous painting. I would shut my eyes tight and run out of the room at a death on TV, even a fictional one, because otherwise it would haunt me for days. I guess I was trying to deal with the awful permanence of mortality, with the abominable injustice of loss, and trying to reconcile the horror of the universe which would allow such cruelty with the sublime and awe-inspiring universe I already knew to exist. My response was to shut it out. Most children have adults to shield them from life’s uglier side; I suppose I did too, but like most kids it didn’t take long for me to put the pieces together and uncover the darker strands of the world at the edges of our perception. And once I’d seen them, I wanted to part of them. I didn’t need adults to try to censor the world for me; I took to that task myself, and with the dogmatic intensity only fear can really produce.

And then JURASSIC PARK happened. The moment with Samuel Jackson’s arm --which today plays as almost a parody of ridiculous unearned movie scares-- was at the time the single most horrifiying thing I had ever seen in my life. It happened too suddenly to look away, and once it had made it through my eyes, it took up residence in my mind. I had nightmares about it, that image burning itself into my brain to spring forward when I least expected it.

But a funny thing happened, too. The more it stuck with me, the more fascinated I became with it. JURASSIC PARK is a pretty scary movie for a fourth-grader, but it also has Spielberg’s unmistakable sense of rollicking fun, and that energy has at least as much power as the horror. And they were intertwined, somehow; as repulsed as I was by the image of death and terror, it was so closely interwoven with the power of the tale being told that it became impossible to entirely disentangle them. And my horror became entangled with excitement, and even a cautious, quietly urgent curiosity. The horror wasn’t going to leave my head, and so I simply had to get used to this new, frightening but subversively compelling permanent occupant. The horror wouldn’t leave leave the world I inhabited any more than it would leave my head, and increasingly, being paralyzed by the pain was turning me inward, planting seeds of despair and isolation that took root early and grew live creeping kudzu into other parts of my psyche. So the only option left became to give in to the pull of the dark. To live with it, I had to know it, and to know it I had to explore it. And so I started on my adventures in horror cinema, into House Haunting, into the music of Nick Cave and Warren Zevon and Metal and punk and horrorcore and, eventually, my personal heaven, the Theatre Bizarre.

The greatest haunt of all

Seeking out darkness in art did not desensitize me to horror, as you might first suspect and as censorship advocates might be quick to suggest. I still ache at the pain and cruelty in the world, and rage at the universe’s monstrous indifference to suffering. And there are still some things which go too far for even for me, mostly articles of simple puerile sadism, which I dearly hope I will always find repugnant, unpleasant, and --perhaps most damningly-- juvenile and unimaginative. But mostly, the dark arts have helped me become paradoxically more sensitive. Not only to the suffering of the world, but crucially to my own life, helped me actually face the darkness inside and discover it’s unique and ultimately ridiculous character. Ironically, our worst impulses are often the most blatantly absurd, and the easiest to tame and direct once we’ve managed to face them, to force them into the light where we can put a shape and a name to them and thus deny them the power of their more nebulous kin. Horror cinema and the whole Halloween season give us the gift of allowing us to, for a short while, bring the whole ridiculous circus of anger and fear and perversity and self-destruction and superstition and vulnerability out into the limelight, parade it about your our amusement, celebrate it as part of ourselves, and let it retire back to the twilight of applause and merriment. It’s part of us, it’s part of the human experience, and as such it has only the power over our lives that we give to it. It is, I think, the ultimate explanation behind the home haunters in AMERICAN SCREAM, and the reason why their fixation represents a triumph over fear as much as a celebration of it. And for me, personally? If I have to watch THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE PART III to find its face and make sure it stays where it belongs, well, it’s something I’ll do with a huge smile on my face, and hopefully with some good friends too. And some whisky.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, let the horror festival begin. Last year I watched in excess of 40 movies, and if October 1 was any indication, there’s plenty more out there for me to find this year. Join me, as we celebrate the grotesque, the depraved, the horrific, the macabre, the just plain bizarre, and of course the grindingly incompetent world of…

CHAINSAWNUKAH: 

FESTIVAL OF FRIGHTS 2013: 

THE SEARCH FOR SCHLOCK  

Album Review: Warren Zevon - "Transverse City"

 Warren Zevon

"Transverse City" (1989)

So recently when I reviewed FEAR NO EVIL I offhandedly called “Transverse City” Zevon's worst album. It's a backhanded insult, since all Zevon albums are worthwhile, but this one is generally acknowledged to be among his most ineffective (and it was a big expensive commercial flop which pretty much ended his career as a mainstream pop musician). In the comments, longtime friend of the show Dan Prestwich actually contacted me while on his honeymoon to tell me that, “... for what it's worth, I dig TRANSVERSE CITY and think it's seriously underrated.” Well, if he could take a break to defend the album while traveling the world with his lovely new wife, I figured I could sober up long enough to at least give the thing a chance to defend itself.

After an extended, painful hangover followed by a good, serious listen, I came to the conclusion that I do think Transverse City is underrated, but its still one of my least-favorite Zevon albums. I don't mind the big-studio bloat (the synths do sound a bit dated; still they're not as overbearing as some of his contemporaries) but I think the big production necessitated a little too much studio exactness from Zevon. His songs are so consummately constructed anyway that they tend to sound a little dry when he's so focused on studio-ready professionalism. But that can be ok when he's in a rollicking mood; his personality alone is big enough to propel most middling studio productions into a party, and his brilliant songwriting does the rest. Here, he's unusually dour and staid, which –combined with the overbearing production-- makes the album as a whole feel like a slog.

Worst album? I dunno. It's certainly his most dismal album, though. Zevon has always had a dark side virtually no other American songwriter could even approach, but his signature move has always been to camouflage the macabre and malevolent horror stories in his lyrics in mordant humor and a gleeful sense of wicked fun. "Excitable Boy" --off his record of the same name-- has to be about as disturbing a tale as has ever been told in American pop music, but it's also a wild party of rockabilly horns and sugary background singers. Zevon has frequently worn his heart on his sleeve as well, but when it come to the rough stuff his MO is usually to dress it up so it slips past our defenses a little easier.

Not here. While he stays away from murder and mayhem this time, "Run Straight Down" and "They Moved the Moon" are easily among the bleakest and darkest songs in his whole canon, and they're done without even a hint of gallows humor. "Run Straight Down" is as grim as they come, a ponderous, almost lethargic ode to despair featuring anxiously swirling synths and a David Gilmour guitar solo. "Went walking in the wasted city/ started thinking about entropy" Zevon sings over a maelstrom of keyboards and growling guitars. The song begins with a chanted chemical formula which manages to be utterly menacing and evocative even if you don't understand what it means, and gets creepier and more alien from there. "They Moved The Moon" is even more desolate, a glacial, disorienting haze of abstract paranoia and crushing loneliness (featuring --of all people-- Jerry Garcia on guitar, conjuring a pensive flurry of sharp, angular guitar picking.)

It's not all quite so grim, but the heavy stuff seems to be where Zevon's focus is this time. More fun (and more typically Zevon) fare, like the call-and-response "Long Arm of the Law" and the bouncy Cold-War shaggy dog tale "Turbulence" feel a little under-baked. Zevon has made his name telling intriguing tales with the vaguest suggestion in his minimal (but highly literate) lyrics, but most of the mid-tempo stuff feels slight even for him, coasting on endlessly repeated choruses and big-studio bloat (“Long Arm” could probably stand to lose a whole minute and a half of filler). The only one which really fires on all cylinders is the classic "Splendid Isolation," a erudite and hilarious ode to an agoraphobic misanthrope. Witty rants like "Networking" (co-written by FEAR NO EVIL star Stefan Arngrim as part of his generalized quest to be the pimpest motherfucker ever) "Gridlock" and "Down at the Mall" are pleasant enough but dispensable. "Nobody's in Love This Year" finds Zevon in the lone pocket of heart-on-his-sleeve warmth, but isn't quite a strong enough song to provide the needed balance to the rest of the album's despair and cynicism; instead, it feels like a jarring tonal change which doesn't hit hard enough to get the album moving in a different direction or linger long enough to draw us into its world.

A big part of the problem, of course, is the album's unfortunate 80's studio production. This was Zevon's attempt at a big-budget studio album and its meticulous production is at best ponderous and at worst painfully dated. The more you listen to the album the easier it is to roll with it, but the layers of synths and endless parade of unnecessary guest stars mostly serve to make the songs feel stilted and unwieldy. Occasionally it works out in the song's favor, as with the busy hubbub of overlapping effects on the title track (also co-written by Arngrim) which neatly mirror the song's densely layered description of frenzied modern life; more frequently, though, it just serves to make tracks like "Gridlock" feel turgid and to kill the spontaneity that might make them seem more fun.

It may not help that even though the album is certainly among Zevon's most expensive studio efforts, his backing band (though sturdily professional) feels a little bland. Little Feat drummer Richie Hayward brings little of that band's funkiness to this rhythm work here, instead opting for a more technical drum-machine approach while the appropriately named bassist Bob Glaub globs thick stabs of bass onto his tracks, weighing them down when they ought to be dancing.The reliable Waddy Wachel shows up on only a handful of tracks (alas, mostly the less memorable ones) and while he has the most innate understanding of how to play Zevon's material his usually strident style sounds a bit restrained here, as if he's trying not to show up his colleagues' lack of enthusiasm. The guest stars do fine, but can't do a lot to save tracks which are fundamentally weighed down. It's interesting to hear the likes of David Gilmour and Jerry Garcia try their hand at Zevon songs, but only Neil Young really heightens the material. His belligerently rough guitar lead brings the otherwise unexceptional "Gridlock" briefly to life, and seems to goad Zevon into letting himself loose a little on the vocals as he drops the studio magic and gives in to the sweet embrace of the unhinged yelp.

The album could have used a little more like that. It's probably his darkest album so he rarely sounds like he's having much fun or feeling much spontaneity -- fine for the material, but then the weight of the production also kind of blunts the desolate despair in his vocals. Zevon's voice is such a rich and powerful tool that dressing it up in effects and mammoth production merely encumbers the deft way he can mine a single syllable and caustic phrase for pathos. There's plenty of possible quibbles with the album's production, but the biggest problem is that there just isn't quite enough Warren in there. The clamor of the studio musicians squeezes him out on one side, while he's under asserting himself vocally and lyrically on the other. A bonus track of Zevon performing “Networking” solo --with a simple acoustic guitar and harmonica-- reveal that even a Benmont Tench organ solo can't rival the complex alchemy of pathos and hilarity of the man himself.

But the real issue may be that it's not entirely Zevon's own instinct guiding things. The whole album is his take on the works of cyberpunk author William Gibson, whose grim futurism (while admittedly prescient) doesn't really seem to bring out the best in the interpreting artist. Zevon is caustic, cynical, macabre... but I don't buy that he's as fatalistic as the lyrics here would have you believe. While the gloom is faithful to Gibson's work, I doubt Zevon is quite as horrified by the idea of a world of globally interconnected robot zombies as Gibson is; in fact, I imagine he'd find that pretty cool in a mordantly funny kind of way. Hence, the songs can feel like a respectful interpretation of the sci-fi author's concerns rather than a full-on assault of Zevon's own indelible personality. It's true that the lyrics are neigh-on prophetic (who else was singing about uploading and downloading in 1989? But its so spot-on for today's world that it seems almost laughably obvious). Gibson's work is fascinating and holds up remarkably well, which is undoubtedly what caught Zevon's interest – but despite his obvious respect, Zevon just isn't the artist best suited to approach Gibson's work and it dilutes a lot of the things which make his own work so potent and original.

                                        Soon to be a film by Joseph "TORQUE" Khan. Seriously.

The album's not a wash by any means; actually, its just good enough to frustrate you that it's not better. But despite its flaws, Zevon's dependably brilliant songwriting and eccentricities are fully evident, and the album delivers plenty of pleasure. It's just as well he didn't do any more albums like this, but there's enough of interest here to make anyone with any sense glad he did this one. We're pretty much already living in the dystopian future hinted at by “Transverse City,” but as long as we have Zevon's discography there's always the possibility of a pretty wild post-apocalypse afterparty.

And Stefan Arngrim, if you're listening, keep on rockin.

Fear No Evil

Fear No Evil (1986)
Dir. Frank LaLoggia

Starring Stefan Arngrim, Elizabeth Hoffman, Kathleen Rowe McAllen

     Frank LaLoggia is one of those odd directors who directed one movie interesting enough to take seriously, but never built up a big enough filmography to make a name for himself. His 1988 film LADY IN WHITE is somewhat flawed (its melodrama a tad overwrought, its performances uneven, its score overbearing) but also manages to be a unique and somewhat classy affair, unique to its time for its deliberate pace, classic storytelling, and emphasis on atmosphere over shock. I was curious to see if his debut film, 1986’s FEAR NO EVIL, would confirm that he was a worthwhile director who never got the chance to blow people away or if LADY was a fluke success.

      The answer --as is often the case with this movie-- is unclear. FEAR NO EVIL is a worse film than LADY, and lacks most of the things I liked about the later film (slow pace, classic style, atmosphere). This one is closer to a teen horror film than a classy ghost story, but its still packed with unusual touches and interesting ideas which give it a distinct personality.

      The story is this: Many years ago, the Devil was reincarnated and, at adolescence, prepared to bring about the apocalypse. He was stopped (via impalement) by this old Irish priest, who himself was apparently an arch angel in human form (didn’t get that from the movie, but I’ll trust the IMDB description, I guess. I was pretty drunk.) Now, it’s the 80s and Satan is back in human form again and under the guise of a 20something high school kid, he's moving closer to his dark purpose. Opposing him are the sister of that priest from before and also one of his high school classmates, a young lady tragically born without any personality whatsoever.

      This has all the clichés you’d expect from an 80s high school horror film, including the feathered-hair hot ride-stealing bully, the obligatory boiler room teen sexcapades, the inevitable locker room humiliations, the conspicuously hip punk soundtrack. But it also has a lot of stuff which is pretty much unique to this one, including a series of surprisingly overt escalating homoerotic scenes, a bunch of religious hand-wringing, an enormous crumbling castle location on a lake in New York, a death via dodgeball, a high school jock suddenly sprouting boobs, a severe case of man-bites dog, a crucifixion. So that much sets it apart from “Welcome Back Kotter” in my opinion (though to be fair I haven't seen every episode, its possible they got a crucifixion one in there).

      What makes this one kind of interesting is that despite all the worn 80s high school tropes on display, the film is surprisingly ambiguous. Everything is so familiar that you feel like you know where this is going, but the film craftily (or perhaps obtusely) confounds your expectations and does something weird instead. By the halfway point, you realize you have no idea where all this is headed, or even what kind of movie this is. Is it a campy gore-fest, as the film's memorable death-by dodgeball scene would have you believe? Is it a religious anxiety film soaked with atmospheric dread, as its OMEN-esque opening suggests? Is it a weird high school drama with some supernatural elements, as its long middle sequence seems to believe? The answer --as is often the case with this movie-- is unclear. It seems to be kind of its own thing, but then again its all sown together from the parts of more familiar things. It's a Frankenstein's monster kind of movie and I genuinely cannot say with any confidence if that reflects ambition or incompetence on the part of the filmmaker. It doesn't seem like anyone on set is aware of what a weird film they're making, but then there is is, boldly letting it all hang out (like a good portion of the male cast ends up doing by the film's end).

        Say what you want about the antichrist, but he knows how to rock some fab sideburns.

      The female lead is so milquetoast that I didn't even realize she was the protagonist until finally there just wasn't anyone else. But Stefan Arngrim*, who plays young Satan (now going by the name Andy Williams**) does a great job, and plays a key role in keeping the proceedings off-kilter and interesting. He plays Andy as an intelligent, somewhat effete (if not outright gay) loner, but manages to make him seem more sympathetic than menacing. We hear from his alcoholic, abusive, murderous father that he's “a manipulator” and “the devil's spawn,” but the father seems like a way worse guy himself and so we're not inclined to take him seriously. Are we being manipulated by him, or is just a poor misunderstood kid who doesn't know what he's doing any more than any other high schooler does?

      It gets even more confusing as we begin to see him manifest his powers. In one scene, a bunch of bullies (all fully naked) start abusing him (also totally naked) in the gym shower, and one, to demonstrate just how gay this weird kid is, grabs him and kisses him full-on the mouth (you know, like high school bullies always do?). Things get weird fast though and they end up getting kind of stuck together at the mouth as Andrew pulls some kind of supernatural soul-sucking business on him. When it ends, the bullies run for it, but the interesting thing is that Andrew looks even more traumatized than they do, slumping down in the shower and looking drained and upset. But the next thing you know, he's killing a dog with an ax and drinking its blood. So, what, is he starting to get all Antichrist-y and doesn't know what's happening to him, or is he just a weirdo sensitive Satan who gets tired after some strictly platonic male-on-male nude shower open-mouth kissing? The answer --as is often the case with this move-- is unclear. But the ambiguity makes it more interesting.

      Overall, the film is a little too uneven to really recommend, but it has a few sequences which genuinely work up some grotesque dread, and even more that are memorably crazy if not entirely successful. Like its central antagonist, it can be hard to tell what it's really trying to do, and even when it seems to know it's not always great at pulling it off. But its still pretty interesting to watch something this weird develop, even if you can't quite figure out what its going for. The mystery of whether or not LaLoggia is a director worth serious study remains unsolved, but I'd say this movie is a net gain for the world. 

*according to IMDB, Arngrim is a musician who co-wrote many of the songs on Warren Zevon's arguable worst album, “Transverse City” (wikipedia credits him with only two, the title track and “Networking,” but those are both pretty decent songs so we'll give him a pass). 

**Yes, Andy Williams. His father is John Williams. I have a hard time believing that they didn't realize the hilariousness of those names, but if it means anything I sure as hell have no idea what it might be.