Stake Land

Stake Land (2010)

Dir. Jim Mickle

Written by Nick Damici, Jim Mickle

Starring Nick Damici, Connor Paolo, Danielle Harris, Kelly McGillis, Michael Cerveris.

When was it, exactly, that vampires got mixed up in the Apocalypse? It used to be a personal thing, with the vampires. They romanced ya a little, maybe tried to steal your women, but they also appreciated the finer things in life, they had castles, nice suits, capes, shit like that. Classy shit. A personal touch. But somewhere along the line they lost their way, gave up the chase, the intimate back-and-forth dance between ambiguously ethnic middle-aged European vamps and hypnotized women with heaving bosoms. They started running around growling and shit, shooting automatic weapons, and just generally experiencing some mission drift, finally setting their sights on the total collapse of civilization.* Man, standards slipping everywhere. Nowadays if you see a vampire, he’s liable to be wandering a dessicated hellscape, screaming incoherently and trying to bite your face off.** It’s a good thing Bela Lugosi didn’t live to see this day, because if he had…well, he would have been really, really old.

I wonder if maybe it’s Werner Herzog’s fault, by rewiring the NOSFERATU story into an apocalyptic allegory of Nazism? Or maybe Danny Boyle’s fault for turning zombies into athletic, predatory disease-carriers, which then somehow cross-bred with vampires in the collective mind of classic monster fans (what’s next, an apocalypse of mummies?) Who knows, but nowadays these fucking things are everywhere, from I AM LEGEND (the original novel of which is likely the first to imagine such a scenario) to PRIEST to NIGHT WATCH to UNDERWORLD. One person I know you can’t blame is Steven Seagal. He heroically tried to kill of the genre with his assertively anti-entertainment career nadir, AGAINST THE DARK, which even I, a trained and licensed Seagalogist who has seen literally every single Seagal movie, took an unprecedented four tries to finally make it through. If that roaring black hole of all artistic credibility, pop sensibility, and human compassion failed to rid us of this apocalyptic vampire trope, I’m afraid it’s here to stay.

try harder.

If that’s true, though, at least there are a few good role models for them. DAYBREAKERS was pretty damn great (shameless plug: every time don’t see the Spierig Bros' awesome new one, PREDESTINATION, a baby vampire loses its bat wings) and now we also got this STEAKLAND one, a sequel to Kristen Stewart’s 2009 coming-of-age tale ADVENTURELAND, this time set in a steakhouse later in life as she battles alcoholism and the lingering sense that she missed nah, I apologize, I just mistyped the title and couldn’t resist. I know that’s a weak pun to spend so much time on but come on, I’m only human. Cut me some slack. I’ve written 60 horror movie reviews in the last four months, and I’m just struggling to prevent them from melting into one long lumbering sludge of lukewarm praise and overuse of the word “phantasmagoric.” Actually this one is a mildly generic but well-appointed little apocalypse tale, you know, one of those one where there’s some grizzled badass (writer Nick Damici, all of Jim Mickle’s movies, plus one other) who roams the broken graveyard of our once noble civilization and gradually picks up a rag-tag group of survivors who bond and become a family but are menaced by robots, zombies, werewolves, mummies, Frankensteins, vampires, Black Lagoonians, whatever lazy pop-culture ghoul of yesteryear had the highest box-office number in the last quarter.

That sounds cynical, probably because it is. But if this one doesn’t exactly forge bold new territory, it makes up for it by at least doing a strong take on the familiar beats. Mickle has a good sense of atmosphere, and does a very credible job of making his vampiric postapocalyptic world feel rich, authentic, and lived-in. Tons of people with interesting, dirty faces (including producer and this year’s Chainsawnukah VIP Larry Fessenden as an ornery bartender), nice, quiet character moments, and a strong eye for detail and place. The movie’s best moments tend to be the smaller ones; the team sitting around the campfire together telling stories, bonding. The long, quiet marches through ragged Eastern woodland, basking in the natural beauty which is gradually taking back the world for itself. The characters feel authentic and likable, and I appreciate that despite the apocalypse, this isn’t one of those movies where the world is full of rape gangs on souped-up 4-wheelers. You see a few people who have taken to banditry and worse, but mostly when they come across new people everyone is frankly glad to be seeing another human face, and only want to help each other. There is a sense of community in most of the places they visit, the kind of bond that develops between people who have had to struggle together to survive. To me, that feels a lot more authentic than a lot of these ones like WALKING DEAD where it seems like the human groups are competing to kill each other faster than the zombies can.

A different kind of open carry.

The movie is a a little more clumsy when it comes to the nominal plot throughline, which is about the group’s adversarial relationship with this crazy cult of vampire worshippers who like to go around capturing people and feeding them to the bloodsuckers. I think this is a great concept -- fuckin figures that when you most need people to pull their heads out of their asses and band together to survive, a bunch of them still go in the exact opposite direction (not to generalize, but *cough*Republicans*cough*). Jeez, humanity, this shouldn’t be a controversial issue, but you’re seriously telling me there are people who will actively work to oppose mankind’s survival? It’s so infuriating that you have to admit, yeah, there would definitely be people who do this. So I like the idea, but unfortunately in execution it’s a bit corny and cartoonish, particularly when the head of the cult (Michael Cerveris, mostly known for his theatrical career but with occasional supporting film roles) decides to devote most of his time to hunting this particular tiny group of people. You gotta suspend a little of the ol’ disbelief in the air to accept a vampire apocalypse, but Mickle does a nice job of setting up a world which has its own consistent internal cadence and rules… except when it comes to these cult guys, who feel more like something out of a comic book universe, particularly in the unlikely way they keep running into our buds over and over. The best thing about STAKE LAND is that its universe --even with its silly vampire conceit-- feels grounded and authentic, so its a bit of shame to blow that by inserting some villainous antagonist that the movie doesn’t even need.

sounds legit

It’s not enough to bring the movie down, but it’s enough to keep it from being great, and that’s a shame because there are definitely long stretches here which flirt with real greatness. The actors (including THE INNKEEPERS’ Kelly McGinnis, reinventing herself rather elegantly as a genre staple) do a splendid job of breathing a rough life into their characters (even when they’re not always delivering the most believable dialogue) and Mickle excels at filling out his world with a sense of character and place which few movies --let alone horror movies-- manage as consistently. Several reviews I read compared this movie to John Hillcoat’s THE ROAD, which I consider both a valid comparison and a serious compliment. It’s obvious that Mickle is a real talent to watch, and his last few movies (this and WE ARE WHAT WE ARE) are an interesting look at a serious artist coming into his own, but not quite there yet. STAKE LAND is just a little too rooted in corny genre staples, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE is a little too much of an overcorrection, serving up stately class when maybe just a few more cheap thrills might be necessary. Hopefully his newest ---the crime/thriller COLD IN JULY-- is the happy medium between them, but even if not, I consider a ticket to his next horror movie already sold. Vampires may not be working as hard as they did in the old days, but Mickle sure seems to be.

*Or, worse, they gave up being mythic monsters and just embraced a life of sitting around mooning over relationships and whining about life while listening to trendy indy rock.

**Or, even more horrifying, he’s listening to Death Cab for Cutie with Jim Jarmusch and Kristen Stewart. Come on, Spike Lee, let’s at least avoid that fate with DA SWEET BLOOD OF JESUS.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2014 CHECKLIST!

The Hunt For Dread October

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No
• SEQUEL: None
• REMAKE: No
• FOREIGNER: No
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: Kelly McGinnis?
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: Larry Fessenden, Danielle Harris (numerous HALLOWEENs, HATCHETs, but most beloved for her classic take on the "Seagal's niece who gets menaced by baddies" role in MARKED FOR DEATH)
• BOOBIES: No
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: Unfortunately yes, but thankfully it's not graphic.
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: Gotta be some beheadings in there, although I gotta admit I don't remember specifically at this late date.
• HAUNTED HOUSE: No
• MONSTER: No
• THE UNDEAD: Vampires
• POSSESSION: No
• SLASHER/GIALLO: No
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): No
• EVIL CULT: Yeah, the Vampire-worshippers
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: No
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: Man into Vampire
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid, indie film but well-respected, even got a review in NPR.
• MORAL OF THE STORY: If your religion involves habitual robe-wearing in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, you just might be an asshole.
• TITLE ACCURACY: Our grizzled protagonist says "Welcome to Stake Land," but it doesn't really make much sense in context. Still, they say it and there are both stakes and land involved, call it 80%.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A

The Woman

The Woman (2011)

Dir. Lucky McKee

Written by Lucky McKee, Jack Ketchum

Starring Pollyanna McIntosh, Sean Bridgers, Angela Bettis, Zach Rand

THE WOMAN has a deceptively simple premise. Archetypical father figure and successful lawyer Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers, in an astounding performance that could not be more different from his tightrope walk playing a mentally ill character in JUG FACE) is hunting in the woods one day when he discovers a ragged, feral woman (Pollyanna McIntosh, BURKE AND HARE, THE OFFSPRING, FILTH) living on her own as a hunter-gatherer. He incapacitates her with a sucker punch, and brings her back home to his obedient family, where he informs them that she will be kept chained up in their garage until she is civilized. Of course, that civilization process is going to be a rough road, complete with physical abuse, stress positions, dehumanizing treatment, and, inevitably, sexual assault.

Does that sound familiar? Had this film come out in 2006 instead of 2011, everyone would have been talking about how the film was an obvious metaphor for the Bush administration’s disastrous occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, right down to its uncomfortable evocation of Abu Ghraib. You’ve got this affable, middle-aged white man, totally normal and nonthreatening on the surface, who evokes lofty notions of tradition and civilization as a pretext to dominate, brutalize, and satisfy his own whims. That brutality nearly always comes with some folksy chuckle, some appeal to authority, some subtly demeaning put-down of anyone who might question his authority or his motives, which just makes it all the more perverse and infuriating. He doesn’t even feel the need to hide or downplay what he’s up to, because he has nothing but violent contempt for anyone who might take issue with him. Bridgers, with his bright blue eyes and boyish features, is a perfect embodiment of the superficially aw-shucks professional good-old-boy, and perfectly portrays the sociopathic viciousness that simmers below his friendly patriarchal demeanor.

Prepare to hate this guy SO MUCH.

I use the word “patriarchy” intentionally, because it’s obviously on director McKee’s mind here. Mr. Cleek presides over a perfectly formed Cleaver household, harmonious and idyllic until you realize that it’s harmonious only to the extent that he’s been able to utterly and decisively beat down his mousy wife (Angela Bettis, MAY) and barely-present daughters, and convince them all that it’s both totally natural and for their own good. His wife knows that his plan is insane, that he’s become a monster and is gleefully turning their son (Zach Rand… GHOUL? Not the Boris Karloff one, the 2012 TV movie. WOMAN is his first credited film) into a something maybe even worse. But she’s too intimidated by him to offer even the most mild resistance. There’s a great moment when she and the captured Woman lock eyes, and both realize the only sane thing to do is to kill this maniac right there… but she chickens out, can’t quite bring herself to try it. The Woman just looks disgusted. Not to belabor the point, but even if the metaphor is not specifically political, the cultural critique is startlingly pointed. Most of the time, bullies don’t even have to do anything to keep their power; we do the work for them by being afraid and just going along with it even when we know, when it could not be more obvious, that the whole enterprise is horrifying and inhuman. We chicken out, we turn away. Sorry lady, I feel for ya, but I’m just trying to live my life here, I can’t throw the whole thing into chaos just to do the right thing.

The whole movie is about that control, it’s about how we allow insecure, desperate frauds to frighten us and bully us and turn the world into a nightmare if they’re sociopathic enough to push harder than we’re willing to resist. We’re not willing or able to go as far as they are, because we’re just trying to live our lives, and so we give them an inch, and another inch, and before you know it you’ve got these dehumanizing systems in place, so firmly entrenched that we don’t even really see them there anymore, blackening our souls and infiltrating our minds. It’s how the guys who vote to spend billions killing foreigners step over the homeless on their way to work and don’t think twice about it. It’s how kids resent their parents for abusing them, and then grow up to do the same to their own kids. But most importantly here, it’s how the more men dehumanize and dismiss women, the more women internalize their valuelessness, constrain themselves, even embrace and defend the systems that keep them there. Fitting, then, that only a true outsider --the feral Woman-- can see the sham that all this is, and without speaking a word Pollyanna McIntosh conveys a dark, endless contempt for every single person perpetuating this vicious cycle.

So many potential chain song references here, and yet that seems like it might be a little too far even for me.

It’s a rough movie, an infuriating one. You got to endure a lot of sadism here, and are offered very little satisfaction in return. Even more than the other two Lucky McKee movies I’ve seen (excellent MAY and THE WOODS) this has a decidedly unconventional horror structure; no jump scares, almost no gore for most of the runtime. No dark, shadowy atmosphere, no supernatural, unnamable horrors to pique your imagination. Almost no real narrative conflict, even, since the titular Woman is chained up and beyond any ability to help herself, and obviously no one else is going to try. It’s just a long document of cruelty and helpless suffering, finely tuned to provoke and enrage. I mean, if any movie could fairly be labeled “torture porn,” it would have to be this one. And yet, there’s nothing about this that seems exploitative or bloodthirsty; it feels more like Wes Craven’s early work, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT or HILLS HAVE EYES, the work of an angry, frustrated humanist lashing out at a world which brazenly supports real-life horrors while squeamishly sanitizing them on screen. But THE WOMAN has more focus and insight than either of those, and if you can manage to endure the journey, the destination offers something a little more satisfying and genre-friendly.

One thing that is often overlooked by scholars talking about horror cinema’s perceived misogyny is that it’s actually a genre which features, on average, more female protagonists than almost any other. That’s not necessarily an example of progress, of course, since horror protagonists are often going to be more effective if they seem vulnerable and victimized, and of course that’s a role Western society has always placed women in. But even so, simply having more female characters in general creates a (dispiritingly) unique opportunity to explore women, their worlds, their ideas, their issues. I mean, look at all the giallos I’ve reviewed that actually ace the Bechdel test, most with a female main character and some with nearly complete female casts. Try finding a Kubrick film that can do that, or, hell, even an action film or a sex flick. Alas, the downfall of the horror genre is that often it tends to regard its characters as more or less generic cannon fodder, so lots of times having more female characters does not really translate into having more interesting female characters, or exploring women and their experience in a way that more male-dominated films do not. McKee is a happy exception to that rule; MAY and THE WOODS are deeply female-focused, finding time and interest to explore their characters and the world they perceived and inhabit. In fact, of his seven full-length films, only one (2008’s RED, which I haven’t seen but which sounds good and has Brian Cox) has any significant male protagonists. But THE WOMAN may be his most explicitly feminist film; despite all the suffering endured by the women, McKee makes time to humanize them, to deal with their conflict and, crucially, their flaws. This is obviously a critique of patriarchy, but McKee doesn’t simply let his female character be passive victims; sometimes they’re active victims, sometimes they’re passive participants in victimization, but they’re all active agents, shaping their own worldview and destinies. Even when they seem to be wholly victimized, McKee reminds us that accepting victimhood is also an active choice, and it can have its own consequences.

Oh good, the Romney family finally got their own movie.

Of course, McKee isn’t the only voice here; he co-wrote the script with novelist Jack Ketchum, a kind of weird crime/horror writer known for so-called “splatterpunk” novels like Off Season and The Girl Next Door. Apparently it’s actually a sequel to his 1991 novel OFFSPRING (itself made into a movie, though not by McKee) which it turns out was itself a sequel to his 1980 cannibalism sensation Off Season. I didn’t know any of that going into this one, though I guess maybe it explains that otherwise confusing flashback early in the film where the Woman remembers something about children and wolves (actually come to think of it, I guess this is also why they don't feel the need to explain anything at all about who this feral woman is and how she got this way). I haven’t read any of Ketchum’s novels, but McKee must like him since this is the second of two novels he’s adapted, and he produced his buddy Chris Siverton’s weird-but-effective 2006 Ketchum adaptation THE LOST. Based on the film adaptations I’ve seen, I’m not sure Ketchum’s clear-eyed fixation on grueling, grinding human suffering is my cup of tea, but I’ll remain open-minded because his wikipedia entry claims he was mentored by Robert Bloch (PSYCHO, THE SKULL, THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD) who himself was mentored by none other than H.P. Lovecraft (every horror adaptation since 1950).* Anyway, who knows what Ketchum’s deal is, but perhaps he appeals to McKee because his brand of horror offers something a little different from your standard dark room/scary noise formula.

McKee does right by the material here; it’s tricky stuff that could easily have been a rote exercise in grim, unfocused shock tactics in the hands of a lesser artist. He’s got some serious chops as a filmmaker, and is especially good at casting and getting exactly the right performance from his actors. There are a couple odd choices in there, though; for one, the movie is structured well, but can be edited strangely. Like in I KNOW WHO KILLED ME, the towering masterpiece of arty ridiculousness by McKee’s friend and recent co-director (on the even more all-over-the-place ALL CHEERLEADER DIE) Chris Siverton, scenes can linger awkwardly, they can fade all the way out and back when a simple jump cut would have sufficed, and that can make the rhythm feel languid and dreamy in a way which I’m not sure benefits this particular material. Not a disaster, but a little odd. The bigger problem here is the music; the soundtrack is packed with these dorky 90’s-sounding alt-rockers with sometimes irritatingly on-the-nose lyrics by composer Sean Spillane. They would have been fine in a deleted scene from EMPIRE RECORDS, but they’re outrageously out of place here, and they’re impossible to ignore since the movie practically turns into a music video on a few occasions. I don’t recall McKee’s other films being like this, so I presume this was done intentionally. Is it supposed to be ironic to have these long, corny rock songs in the middle of this insanely grim story? I don’t know, if so it might have worked better with well-worn pop songs (See: Anger, Kenneth); these knock-off wannabe Marcy’s Playground also-rans won’t cut it. So I don’t know what the deal is. There is a remote possibility --and I almost hate to bring this up, it seems like a cheap shot, but as a journalist I am obliged to explore all possible angles-- that McKee is just personally into this stuff. I miss the 90's too, man, but these songs couldn't be more wrong for this subject matter.**

But those are minor complaints, unequivocally dwarfed by the impressive stature of what McKee has accomplished here. This is a difficult, abrasive, grueling, lacerating film experience, something confrontational and pointed in a way which very, very few American films attempt. It’s simple, and (aside from a few meandering subplots) elegantly focused on a single concept which manages to start off bad and somehow still build its own furious tension, despite extremely minimal actual change in the narrative. It's full of performances which are stylized but still psychologically rich, it's full of allegory but never explicitly polemical, it’s repellent but disquietingly seductive. I’ve said it before this Chainsawnukah, but this time I really mean it: I’m very glad most movies aren’t like this. But on its own this is a powerful, absolutely riveting work of horror cinema. You may hate it, but it’s the work of a real artistic voice trying something bold and different. In the prophetic words of Harry Belafonte, “that’s right, THE WOMAN is (uh) smarter.”

* I never heard that (or, actually, any anecdote in which a human had a positive encounter with Lovecraft) but it’s cool enough that I’m going to accept it.

** Man, looking online it seems like some people really love these tunes, I don't know if Spillane has a large extended family or if I'm just the asshole here. So your mileage may vary, but either way they seem super out of place here.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2014 CHECKLIST!

The Hunt For Dread October

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: Interestingly, though a sequel to two other novels, this one was originally co-written by McKee and Ketchum. In fact, Ketchum and McKee co-wrote a novelization of it as well, and it came out in 2012, after the movie. How often does that happen?
• SEQUEL: It is a sequel to the 2009 film THE OFFSPRING (not to be confused with FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM, also sometimes titled THE OFFSPRING). And also not to be confused with the 1990's punk band of the same name, who in 2009 would produce far more horror than some cannibal movie ever could. THE OFFSPRING isn't directed by McKee, but it does star Pollyanna McIntosh as the feral woman --the only character to appear in both films-- so it's definitely a sequel and not a reboot or something.
• REMAKE: None
• FOREIGNER: No
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: None
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: None
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: Angela Bettis was in MAY, TOOLBOX MURDERS, and she directed ROMAN (which actually stars McKee, ha!). She counts. Also I guess she was originally gonna be in SINSTER, but her scenes were cut. Bad move, bros.
• BOOBIES: I honestly can't remember, it's been too long. You wouldn't want to see 'em in this context anyway.
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: Yup.
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: Oh yeah. Finger removed. Torso removed.
• HAUNTED HOUSE: No
• MONSTER: No
• THE UNDEAD: No
• POSSESSION: No
• SLASHER/GIALLO: No
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): Yes
• EVIL CULT: No
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: No
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: None
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid. Well-regarded by people in the know.
• MORAL OF THE STORY: Men are just the absolute fucking worst. But we couldn't do it without you, ladies.
• TITLE ACCURACY: There is a woman, so pretty much 100%.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: She did!

The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976)

The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976)

Dir. Charles B. Pierce

Written by Earl E. Smith

Starring Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells, Charles B. Pierce

No getting around it, THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (1976) is a strange film. It’s part true-crime docu-drama (complete with grim-voiced narration), part legit white-knuckle slasher, part goofy comedy, part affectionate travelogue of its Texarkana* locale. It’s an odd beast, but it’s exactly what you’d want from director Charles B. Pierce, who spent the 70’s as an indie genre auteur long before that kind of thing had a name --let alone a business plan-- grinding out southern-fried ultra-low-budget DIY films which seamlessly blend charming amateurishness with some indisputable genre thrills, and many of which managed to actually end up a bit ahead of their time. He’s most known for his first film, the 1972 bigfootsploitation fauxumentary THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK, but by TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN he was already four years and four movies into his directorial career, and still finding time to work as a set dresser for stuff like COFFY and BLACK BELT JONES in his downtime. Does this guy need a congressional medal of valor or what?

TTtDS mimics the format of BOGGY CREEK, with its quasi-documentary structure complete with narration and references to specific dates and crimes (apparently with near-zero accuracy), but is also slightly more assured and intermittently competent. It’s certainly a strange film, but it wouldn’t, for example, pause for minutes on end while an off-screen voice sings a laid-back folk song, like BOGGY CREEK does. It’s a little more normal than that. Basically, it’s a ZODIAC (2007)-style chronicle of a series of slayings which occurred in and around Texarkana in 1946 (colorfully dubbed “the Texarkana Moonlight murders”), with a plot loosely tied together by the efforts of the law enforcement officers trying (and failing**) to crack the case. It doesn’t exactly have a traditional narrative, it’s more like a series of vignettes related to the case, though gradually some story shape takes form around the out-of-towner police captain J.D. Morales (Ben Johnson) loosely based on the real-life M. T. “Lone Wolf” Gonzuallas.

Let’s pause and take a second to consider just how god damn great Ben Johnson is. Here’s this guy, the son of a rancher, who arrived in Hollywood because he was delivering a carload of horses to Howard Hughes for THE OUTLAW (1943). While in the area, he took a few stunt jobs here and there in between horse gigs before heroically saving three men in a runaway wagon during a unexpected horse stampede on the set of John Ford’s 1948 FORT APACHE. Ford said he wanted to reward Johnson for his actions, which Johnson thought might mean another job as a riding double or an extra -- instead, he gave him a seven-year acting contract (Johnson signed it immediately after reading up to line 5, where the words “$5,000 a week” appeared). He went on to appear in a ton of classics, including SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON, RIO GRANDE, SHANE, HANG ‘EM HIGH, THE WILD BUNCH, and THE GETAWAY, and even won a god damn Academy Award for THE LAST PICTURE SHOW. Did he let success change him? Fuck no, he stuck to what he knew, kept himself humble, and was apparently not above appearing in zero-budget way-outside-hollywood THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN a few short years after his Oscar win. But it’s not just that he had an interesting and successful film career that makes him great; it’s that he brought such a strong sense of authenticity to his roles. I mean, this is not some John Wayne frat boy phony cowboy movie star; this is the guy they brought in because he actually knew how to do real-life badass things, not just pretend to do them in the movies. He lived a real life, had real experiences, instead of just acting like he could. And you can see it on his face every minute he’s on the screen; there’s a calm confidence and (dare I say?) true grit that just radiates from those sharp eyes. Here, he doesn’t always give the most convincing line readings in the world (not that the lines themselves are exactly convincing), but he is absolutely convincingly grizzled, and that matters a whole lot more. Words are important, but you can’t fake this kind of gravitas. They don’t really make ‘em like that anymore, so every movie you get to see with Johnson in it feels like a nostalgic look into a bygone era.

Speaking of bygone eras, one reason Johnson fits right in here is because the movie has a surprisingly strong sense of time and place. It’s possible that by 1976 Arkansas still looked pretty much the same as it did in 1946, but whatever the reason, even with its strange structure and low budget the movie has an authentic feel of the 40’s, which makes it pretty unusual for a slasher pic. Is there any other slasher movie set so far back in history? I guess the millions of Jack the Ripper movies, but those are almost a genre unto themselves. Seems like Slashers are almost exclusively a modern phenomenon, so setting one in this era has a distinctly different feel to it. The cops don’t really know what to do, they don’t know how to act when there’s something crazy like this.

The movie doesn’t exactly know how to act either, because it preceded the Modern American Slasher Period a bit. I mean, there had been a few stabs (heh) in that direction -- SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT in 1973, BLACK CHRISTMAS in 1974, and of course PSYCHO and a bunch of giallos before that-- but HALLOWEEN, the one which really started the American Slasher wave and established its rules, was still two years off. Left without much to model itself on, TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN finds itself without the usual rules and tropes, exploring new territory. Pierce seems to have a natural feel for the kill scenes, which are startlingly effective and seedy, complete with invented gimmick kills (one particularly inspired touch finds the killer murdering a band student by strapping a knife to her trombone and using its slide to stab her) and lurid (though not explicit) sexual suggestion. He struggles with the plot a little, however, mistakenly focusing on the police investigation, which is by definition in this genre going to be ineffective and the least satisfying story thread. Later slashers would mostly dump the law enforcement angle in favor of the “final girl” model, which suits the material a lot better. Fortunately you got Johnson in there, and he’s nicely assisted by Andrew Prine (THE LORDS OF SALEM) as a competent but overwhelmed local cop and Pierce himself as a (for my money) pretty funny deputy named “Sparkplug.” So even if they don’t have the best story, they’re enjoyable to watch. Oh, and Dawn Wells (“Mary Ann” from Gilligan’s Island), is one of the victims, so if you ever wanted to see her terrorized by a sadistic masked killer, I bet this is your only chance. Although to be fair I haven’t seen every episode of Gilligan’s Island, maybe one of those has a masked killer too.

The sequences with the killer are really intense, particularly since whoever’s behind that mask has a frightening physicality; he’s not a supernatural boogyman, and his victims aren’t always totally helpless, leading the murders to be prolonged, messy affairs highlighted by the hooded phantom’s perverse heavy breathing under his burlap mask. It’s a real person under there, not some mythological figure -- but who he is and what he thinks he’s doing, we’ll never know, making him all the more frightening. There's such a bizarre, incomprehensible sadism to this guy that it's hard not to feel genuinely unnerved. These scenes sit a bit uneasily with the other subplots, of course. A lot of reviewers have complained about the occasional goofy humor and inconsistent tone, and technically, they have a point. But I don’t know, for me it kind of adds both to the charm and to the horror. It’s charming because it highlights the homemade, DIY vibe here; even in 1976, no studio would ever let you get away with something like that, but Pierce thought it would be a good idea and he went with it. It helps with the horror too, though, by juxtaposing such repugnant brutality with wacky hijinks and broad mugging, resulting in something kind of grotesque and shocking, like if an episode of TAXI had a series of tangentially related scenes with the Son of Sam brutally murdering people, peppered throughout a normal sitcom plot. It’s an extremely odd balance, though, and I don’t blame some people for thinking that the movie would be better if it was as consistently serious and unnerving as the scenes with the killer manage to be. Fortunately by the movie’s climactic scene, the various plots and tones somehow manage to kind of, if not exactly meld, at least braid together for a seriously exciting chase scene between the cops and the killer. The final, ambiguous ending is perfect, though the “Captain Morales went on to…” intertitle text that follows it is perhaps unnecessary, since, uh, none of these characters are actually real people.

TTtDS is mostly remembered today for what it predicted: the iconic image of the bag-headed serial killer which would return in FRIDAY THE 13th PART II, the gimmicky killer, the rise of the true-life-serial-killer fad which is still going strong today, the idea of epilogue text describing what happened to fictional characters in a movie based on a true story (which Michael Bay revived for his nightmarish but semi-watchable PAIN AND GAIN), the cottage industry of non-Hollywood local indie film artisans that it inspired. But the charm to me is what it is: a true American original by a guy who decided to just up and try and make movies his own way, on his own terms. Pierce would make a few more movies (including the excellent and underseen THE EVICTORS with Michael Parks) but never quite broke into the mainstream again. His legacy, though, is a whole generation of young indie auteurs for whom he blazed a trail, who are even now making their own ill-advised, ungainly, amateurish, but authentically personal films about serial killers and bigfoots and whatnot. In fact, this very year a kind of meta-sequel remake of TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN was produced, with actor Denis O’Hare (21 GRAMS, MILK, DALLAS BUYER’S CLUB) portraying Pierce himself.*** Evidence enough of the enduring legend of one of indie cinema’s great originals.

*Man, that CCR song about the cotton fields really left out the whole part about the psycho slasher with a trombone fetish. Maybe the song was running long or something?

**Not a spoiler, the poster informs us that the killer “still lurks the streets of Texarkana, Ark,” apparently to the consternation of the local government there, who asked Pierce to remove the tagline.

***Edit: actually he's playing Pierce's fictional son, although another actor does portray Pierce himself in a brief flashback.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2014 CHECKLIST!

The Hunt For Dread October

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No, (loosely) based on a true story
• SEQUEL: Yes, one of those weird meta-sequel/ remakes came out this very year
• REMAKE: Apparently the sequel is also kind of a remake
• FOREIGNER: Nope, home-grown American
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: No, even though it's using a documentary format it doesn't attempt anything like that.
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: Academy-award winner Ben Johnson
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: Uh... Andrew Prine was in LORDS OF SALEM?
• BOOBIES: None
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: No
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: None, just stabbing
• HAUNTED HOUSE: No
• MONSTER: No
• THE UNDEAD: No
• POSSESSION: No
• SLASHER/GIALLO: Prototypical slasher. The format doesn't quite fit, but there's no mistaking it.
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): No
• EVIL CULT: No
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: None
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: No
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Fairly high, out of print until recently.
• MORAL OF THE STORY: Play the harp or something instead, a trombone is just asking for a serial killer to use it to ironically murder you.
• TITLE ACCURACY: Accurate! The murders were committed at night.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A

I enjoyed it, your mileage may vary depending upon how much you can stand weird comedy juxtaposed with brutal violence. Basically, the TUSK ratio test.