DVD of the Week: The Invasion

To say that The Invasion (2007) had a troubled production history is a mild understatement. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel set out to make an artier and edgier take on Jack Finney’s classic science fiction novel, The Body Snatchers. However, Warner Brothers did not like his version and producer Joel Silver was brought in along with his pals, the Wachowski brothers to rewrite the ending with director James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) to reshoot it. The result was a film that flopped both commercially and critically. Now that all of the dust has settled and it is finally being released on DVD, The Invasion can be reassessed. Is it really that bad?

When a space shuttle breaks up and is destroyed re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, strange fungus-like stuff is found on the debris. Anyone who comes in contact with it and then goes to sleep becomes unfeeling hosts for an ever-growing alien menace. Psychiatrist Dr. Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman) meets with a patient (Veronica Cartwright, in a nice nod to Philip Kaufman’s 1970s take) who claims that her husband is not her husband and recounts a chilling story about how he killed their dog in cold, ruthless fashion. Later that day, while taking her son (Jackson Bond) trick or treating, a dog attacks one of his friends who doesn’t seem the least bit upset or traumatized.

The next day, she witnesses more strange incidents and people who act in almost robotic fashion – they lack any kind of emotion. Carol mentions this to one of her colleagues, Dr. Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig), on their way to a black tie dinner. Later that night, she’s attacked by an anonymous census taker. Carol, with Ben’s help, researches this strange new phenomenon and uncovers a pandemic – a virus that infects the DNA and reprograms how we act and behave. The film becomes a surprisingly effective race against time as Carol and Ben try to stay awake while finding a way to repel these invaders from another world.

Hirschbiegel gradually ratchets up the tension as Carol races to find her son, who has been kidnapped by her ex-husband (Jeremy Northam), one of the first people to be zapped by the alien fungus. Along the way, she witnesses people who are still human being taken off the street by alien-controlled police and helped by others who tell her to act emotionless. There are a few annoying jumps in logic, like Carol abandoning her vehicle for no good reason and dropping a gun on two occasions that she could have used later on. For a supposedly intelligent character, she doesn’t make very smart decisions at times.

This is the fourth adaptation of Finney’s novel and so far all of them have paled in comparison to the first one, directed by Don Siegel, which was also the most faithful to the source material. This latest incarnation’s take is that the alien threat is virus-based, but it still adheres to the book’s threat of sleeping as the process to becoming one of them. The reason that this story keeps being remade is that the allegory for the stifling oppressive nature of conformity is so powerful and still relevant after all these years.

I’ve always had soft spot for Nicole Kidman and she is quite good in The Invasion. She has great chemistry with Jackson Bond, who plays her son. He is refreshing free of the annoying little acting tics that often mar the performances of kids in films. They really convey the deep, meaningful bond between mother and son and their scenes together are some of the best in the film. Kidman, as always, looks great and fares much better in this thriller than she did in the flawed, yet interesting The Interpreter (2005).

While the aliens offer a world without pain and suffering, it is also one without joy or happiness. The Invasion updates this classic story for our times as it channels some of the anxieties of our age: avian flu, SARS, 9/11, the Patriot Act, and so on. In a nice change, this film also deviates from previous adaptations by going in a different direction with how it ends. Some may cry sell-out but it feels true to the rest of the film. The Invasion is hardly as awful as some critics would have you believe. If you go in with low expectations you may come away pleasantly surprised by the end result.

Special Features:

“We’ve Been Snatched Before: Invasion in Media History” examines how the Body Snatcher films commented on the times in which they were made and this new one is no different. This featurette also examines the fears that the film addresses, including virus-based threats and how he deal with them, in this informative extra.

“The Invasion: A New Story” takes a look at how this film updates Finney’s original story for our times in this brief, pretty standard promotional featurette.

“The Invasion: On the Set” examines how they shot on location whenever possible and picked Washington, D.C. because it is the centre of power in the United States.

“The Invasion: Snatched” takes a look at how the alien menace spreads in the film.

Arbogast on Film has an excellent look at this film that manages to convey my feelings about the film in much more eloquent fashion than I ever could. Check it out.

Seven

Living in any major metropolitan city in North America can be a dangerous experience. Ask anyone who lives in places like New York City, Philadelphia or Los Angeles. There is a certain amount of fear and paranoia that exists in these densely populated, often congested areas. When you have that many different types of people living in one place problems are bound to arise. In the past, these problems have always seemed containable, maybe even solvable, but now there is a certain sense of pessimism or apathy that pervades the public consciousness. Where once there was hope, now there is only despair, or worse yet, disinterest. Seven (1995) is a film that taps into these feelings with startling accuracy and clarity. It is a disturbing descent into a dark, urban hell that is at once powerful and unpleasant. Call it an urban horror film.

Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is a thoughtful man on the verge of retirement and clearly tired of the uncaring city he is forced to protect. His early retirement is a way out, an escape from this horrible place that keeps him awake at night with its noises of people yelling, blaring sirens, and incessant traffic. As the film begins, he is assigned a new partner and a new case. David Mills (Brad Pitt) is a young, up-and-coming detective who is energetic and hopeful — everything that Somerset is not.

The case starts off simply enough: an extremely obese man is found dead in his squalid apartment. It seems that the man had been force fed at gunpoint. At first, Somerset wants nothing to do with the case, but then a second murder occurs. A prominent defense attorney is found dead in his office with the word, "greed" written on the carpet in his own blood. After going back to the previous crime scene and finding the word, "gluttony," Somerset realizes that there is a pattern forming — these murders are in fact fashioned after the seven deadly sins: sloth, wrath, pride, lust, envy, greed, and gluttony. Still, he does not wish to get involved in the investigation, but the unique style of these murders continues to nag at him. So, he and Mills team up and find themselves delving deeper and deeper into this increasingly disturbing case.

Seven's origins lie in a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker, whose previous credits include a string of forgettable films like Brainscan (1994) and Hideaway (1995). To his credit, these scripts were altered significantly by other people to the point where they barely resembled his original idea. This is all changed with Seven, which remained relatively untouched throughout the entire production. Even the downbeat ending was not changed, thanks in large part to the influence of the film's two big stars, Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, and the film's director, David Fincher, who insisted that the ending was not to be changed in any way.

The primary influence for the Seven's screenplay came from Walker’s time spent in New York City while trying to make it as a screenwriter. "I didn't like my time in New York, but it's true that if I hadn't lived there I probably wouldn't have written Seven." This distaste for big city life is readily evident from the first exterior shot of the film that features an urban abyss filled with crowded, noisy denizens while an oppressive rain always seems to fall without respite. This look was an integral part of the film as Fincher wanted to show a city that was "dirty, violent, polluted, often depressing. Visually and stylistically, that's how we wanted to portray this world. Everything needed to be as authentic and raw as possible."

After the Alien 3 (1992) debacle, Fincher did not read a script for a year and a half. He said, “I thought I’d rather die of colon cancer than do another movie.” He was drawn to Walker’s script because he found it to be a “connect-the-dots movie that delivers about inhumanity. It’s psychologically violent. It implies so much, not about why you did but how you did it.” Fincher approached making Seven like a “tiny genre movie, the kind of movie Friedkin might have made after The Exorcist.” Fincher worked with cinematographer Darius Khondji and together they adopted a simple approach to the camerawork. One starting off point was the television show Cops and “how the camera is in the backseat peering over people’s shoulder.”

Fincher turned to production designer Arthur Max to create a dismal world that often eerily mirrors its inhabitants. "We created a setting that reflects the moral decay of the people in it," says Max. "Everything is falling apart, and nothing is working properly." The film's brooding, dark look was also created through a unique chemical process whereby the silver in the film stock was re-bonded which in turn deepened the dark, shadowy images in the film and increased its overall tonal quality. Max and Fincher do such an impressive job on the setting that the city begins to take a life of its own, almost becoming another character.

However detailed and impressive the setting is, it never overwhelms the characters that dwell there. In particular, the three main characters, played by Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, and Gwyneth Paltrow (who plays Pitt's wife in the film), are so strong and distinctive that they refuse to be lost in the atmospheric mise en scene. Freeman is excellent as the jaded policeman who is ready to call it quits. Somerset is a world apart from the stereotypical, shoot-first-ask-questions-later cop that is usually depicted in these kinds of films. Freeman portrays him as a patient man, who is methodical and thorough in his methods — much like the killer and much like the film itself, which takes its time and draws you in with an almost hypnotic intensity. Somerset is also a thoughtful and reflective person. There are many shots of Freeman just standing or sitting in silence as he tries to figure everything out, to make sense of it all. Most films would never take the time to show these kinds of things. When Walker wrote the screenplay, he originally envisioned William Hurt as Somerset and the character’s name came from one of his favorite authors, W. Somerset Maugham. During pre-production, Al Pacino was considered for the role of Somerset but decided to do City Hall (1996) instead. Watching the film now one can’t imagine anyone else playing the role but Freeman.

For such an ominous and forbidding film, there are some real moments of warmth and compassion and these are provided by Paltrow. There is a great scene where she invites Freeman's character over for dinner. The way she greets them, “Hello men,” with a warm, inviting smile, instantly draws you in. The three characters talk and laugh over a meal and this scene comes as a welcome relief from the horror that we have experienced so far. Paltrow, with her engaging smile and gentleness, imbues Seven with a much needed touch of humanity and transforms what could have easily been a standard wife role into a touching portrayal of a woman torn between the love for her husband and her doubts of living in such a threatening city.

Credit must also go to Fincher and Khondji, who create a visually evocative world and take the time to develop the characters. No rapid-fire MTV editing here, which is a surprise considering Fincher's background as music video director. He only breaks the suspenseful pace for a truly exhilarating chase through a run-down building as the two detectives pursue a mysterious figure that might be the killer. We are suddenly thrust into an adrenaline-driven scene fueled by jarring, hand-held camera shots that are quick and disorienting. This approach enhances the scary, unpredictable quality of the scene as we frantically try to get our bearings. Up until then, nothing prepares us for this sudden jolt and the effect is very powerful indeed.

In his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-a-half stars out of four stars and wrote, “Seven is well-made in its details, and uncompromising in the way it presents the disturbing details of the crimes. It is certainly not for the young or the sensitive. Good as it is, it misses greatness by not quite finding the right way to end.” Janet Maslin, in her review for the New York Times, wrote, “Mr. Freeman moves sagely through Seven with the air of one who has seen it all and will surely be seeing something better very soon. His performance has just the kind of polish and self-possession that his co-star, Mr. Pitt, seems determined to avoid.” In his review for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers wrote, “It's not the identity of the killer that gives Seven its kick – it's the way Fincher raises mystery to the level of moral provocation.”

Desson Howe, in his review for the Washington Post, wrote, “But what makes things watchable is Fincher's direction. He has a gift for building understated menace. His cinematographer, Darius Khondji, puts a silky contrast into the colors, making things seem velvety, dark and intense.” In his review for the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote, “the filmmakers stick to their vision with such dedication and persistence that something indelible comes across—something ethically and artistically superior to The Silence of the Lambs that refuses to exploit suffering for fun or entertainment and leaves you wondering about the world we're living in.” Finally, Sight and Sound proclaimed the film to have “the scariest ending since George Sluizer’s original The Vanishing . . . and stands as the most complex and disturbing entry in the serial killer genre since Manhunter.”

Seven is ultimately a mesmerizing condemnation of life in sprawling, urban areas. For such a negative view, one would have to look back to Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1973), a film that also presented a nightmarish vision of a big city. While the two films share some of the same thematic preoccupations, Seven's stylish predecessor would seem to be Blade Runner (1982) with its noisy, congested, rainswept landscape and film noir look. Seven is a powerful, distinctive film that offers a refreshing take on the tired serial killer genre.

Some of the screenshots that accompany this article came from the excellent Movie Screenshots blog.

SOURCES

Montesano, Anthony. “Seven’s Deadly Screenwriter.” Cinefantastique. February 1996.

Taubin, Amy. “The Allure of Decay.” Sight and Sound. January 1996.

DVD of the Week: The Happening

In retrospect, M. Night Shyamalan peaked with The Sixth Sense (1999), a film that was a massive critical and commercial success. Naturally, it would be the yardstick that every subsequent film he made would be judged by. To Shyamalan’s credit, he tried his hand at other genres with the superhero film (Unbreakable), science fiction (Signs), and fantasy (The Lady in the Water) with varying degrees of success. Once a critic’s darling, Shyamalan has become their whipping boy with his last two films, The Village (2004) and The Lady in the Water (2006) – the latter was particularly savaged.

With the announcement that his next film, The Happening (2008), would be an R-rated apocalyptic horror film, there was hope that this might be a return to form for the enigmatic auteur. The film performed well at the box office and was predictably vilified by critics. Now that the dust has settled, is The Happening really that bad?

The opening credits play over clouds moving ominously across the sky to tense music reminiscent of the opening of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) – one of the films Shyamalan has credited as an influence on The Happening. One day in New York City, strange things start to happen: a woman stabs herself in the neck and construction workers inexplicably jump off a building that they are working on to their death.

Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is a Philadelphia high school science teacher who tells his class about the disappearance of bees. The principal of his school sends everyone home early once word of what is going on in New York gets out. The authorities conclude that this is a result of some kind of chemical attack by terrorists and order the evacuation of Manhattan.

Fearing that this might happen in Philly, Elliot, his best friend Julian (John Leguizamo) and his daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), and Elliot’s wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) get out just in time as Rittenhouse Park in the city is hit with the same bizarre behavior – people inexplicably killing themselves. This threat spreads throughout the north east portion of the United States and is so widespread that the likelihood that this is an act of terrorism is pretty remote.

Shyamalan does a pretty good job of building the dread with some chilling shots, like that of the construction workers jumping off a building en masse like lemmings, and a man walking into a lion exhibit in the zoo only to be willingly ripped apart by the animals. The fact that these things happen suddenly and with no explanation is all the more disturbing. What is causing people to kill themselves on such a large scale?

However, there’s an awkward subplot involving the strained relationship between Elliot and Alma that is unnecessary and distracting. This should have been jettisoned entirely with additional time spent on Julian’s quest to find his wife, which is given very superficial treatment in the film and comes across as almost an afterthought by Shyamalan. His clumsy attempts at humor are also a distraction but are thankfully few and far between. Shyamalan also insists on getting very mannered performances out of his actors, in particular Mark Wahlberg’s overly earnest performance and the normally wonderful Zooey Deschanel’s lifeless delivery of her lines, which can be annoying at times.

You have to give Shyamalan credit for having the balls to deliver his harshest film to date as he coldly dispatches men, women and children in somewhat grisly fashion. The Happening has its flaws, of which are numerous, but it certainly is not the cinematic train-wreck most critics would have you believe.

Special Features:

There are four deleted scenes with optional introduction by M. Night Shyamalan. The original opening scene of the film featured Elliot and Alma have a big fight which informs the tension between them later on. However, it provided too much backstory and isn’t very well-written or well-acted and was thankfully not used. A more gruesome version of the lion attack is included, as is another death scene that takes place at a piano recital but was taken out for being one too many. Finally, there is an extended death scene that takes place towards the end of the film that is slightly more graphic.

“The Hard Cut” examines Shyamalan’s desire to make a hard R-rated horror film and one scene, in particular, which definitely earned the rating. Ironically, it was the studio that first suggested going for an R-rating and then the director agreed.

“I Hear You Whispering” takes a look at the sequence in the film where our heroes meet the crazy Mrs. Jones (Betty Buckley), a woman far removed from society and who serves a warning for that kind of isolationist attitude.

“Visions of The Happening: A Making Of” features plenty of on the set footage of Shyamalan and co. working on the film. The filmmaker wanted to tell an apocalyptic story that harkened back to paranoid thrillers of the 1970s. He wrote the role of Elliot for Wahlberg who studied Shyamalan in order to get a handle on his character. This is a nice look at how the film came together.

“A Day for Night” takes us through a typical day of Shyamalan’s while working on The Happening. It shows the mundane task of setting up shots, and so on.

“Elements of a Scene” examines how they did the car crash scene in what looks like one shot. Naturally, CGI was used to pull off this impressive shot. This featurette takes us through it step-by-step.

Finally, there is a gag reel that shows the cast and crew goofing off in between takes and having fun.

Planet Terror

Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino are hardcore film buffs that grew up to become very successful filmmakers and friends who have collaborated on several projects over the years. Recently, they decided to indulge their love of Grindhouse movies from the 1970s (low budget exploitation films that pushed the boundaries of good taste) by each making their own motion picture and then releasing them together on a double bill just like the original films back in the day. The Weinstein brothers, god bless ‘em, went for the idea but made the critical mistake of releasing them on Easter weekend (cheeky counter-programming that backfired) and failed to emphasize that people were going to see two films for the price of one. As a result, attendance was poor and those who did go, some left after the first film. The Weinsteins freaked and when it came to distributing the double bill outside of North America, they split them up. Thus ended an interesting experiment and the first financial flops for both Rodriguez and Tarantino (although, both of these films should easily make their money back on DVD).

Rodriguez’s film, Planet Terror (2007), introduces Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan), a beautiful go-go dancer who dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian even though nobody finds her particularly funny. Meanwhile, at a nearby military base, a deal between Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis), a no-nonsense officer, and Abby (Naveen Andrews), a shady scientist, goes bad and some nasty, toxic fumes are released into the atmosphere. Back in the town, Dr. William Block (Josh Brolin) and his wife Dr. Dakota (Marley Shelton) deal with a patient (Nicky Katt) suffering from a nasty looking bite wound. Pretty soon, more and more people show up with similar kinds of wounds. Cherry crosses paths with her ex-boyfriend, a tow truck driver by the name of El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez). They get involved in a car accident and she loses her leg to some diseased and infected zombies with gross, puss-filled wounds. Before you know it, infected townsfolk turned zombies start over-running the town, forcing Cherry, El Wray, Dakota and others to team-up and start kicking ass.

Two of the most significant cinematic influences on Rodriguez’s films are genre filmmakers George Romero and John Carpenter. After all, The Faculty (1998) was Rodriguez’s nod to Carpenter’s remake of The Thing (1982) while From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) had the same kind of siege mentality as Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1979) and Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and featured long-time Romero collaborator Tom Savini. Much of Planet Terror’s soundtrack features an atmospheric Carpenter-esque electronic score with a dash the Goblins’ menacing soundtrack work from Dawn of the Dead.

With Planet Terror, Rodriguez gets to make his own zombie movie with a Carpenter-esque badass protagonist. Rose McGowan and Freddy Rodriguez make for an ideal, no-nonsense couple right out of a Carpenter film. El Wray harkens back to tough guy protagonists like Snake Plissken from Escape from New York (1981) or Nada from They Live (1988) complete with his own recurring credo, “I never miss” that is reminiscent of Jack Burton’s “It’s all in the reflexes,” from Big Trouble in Little China (1986). Like them, Wray has a mysterious past, is a man of few words, and lives for the next 60 seconds, while Cherry starts off as a homage to the beautiful and jaded go-go dancers in Russ Meyer’s Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! (1965) during Planet Terror’s opening credits as McGowan bumps and grinds her way through an appropriately sleazy tune. Over the course of the film, Cherry is transformed into a machine gun-toting babe . . . it just so happens that the gun is strapped to her stump. McGowan is definitely not the most skilled thespian but her limitations are perfect for this tribute to schlock. And like Carpenter, Rodriguez knows exactly how to make his heroes look cool, like in the scene where Wray stabs and slashes his way through a hospital of infected zombies.

Rodriguez pays homage to 1980 and 1990s genre character actors with the casting of Michael Biehn as the town sheriff (The Terminator, Aliens), Jeff Fahey as a grizzled chef (Body Parts), and make-up effects legend Tom Savini as an incompetent deputy who meets his demise in a sequence reminiscent of one of his most spectacular gore gags from Day of the Dead (1985). These guys have suffered through quite a few lean years filled with forgettable direct-to-video fare and it’s great to see them getting juicy, prominent roles to remind everyone how great they were and can still be given the right material. Fahey, especially, is excellent as J.T., owner of the local diner and who keeps his delicious BBQ sauce a secret from everyone. He starts off as a source of comedy, the grizzled chef stereotype (“Now that’s rump roast,” he says as hew watches the curvaceous Fergie drive away) but towards the end of the film he gets a rather poignant scene as he’s reunited with his brother. Fahey really sells the scene with his sad eyes and he has great chemistry with Biehn – someone should really pair these guys together in a buddy action flick. Biehn, who had such a great run in the ‘80s as James Cameron’s go-to guy, gets to do what he does best by playing a gruff, intense man of action. His antagonistic relationship with Rodriguez’s El Wray is established early on and plays well over the course of the film until they finally develop a grudging respect for each other.

In comparison to the energetic Planet Terror, Tarantino’s Death Proof feels bloated and stagnant. The three girls we meet at the beginning of the film are all wrong. Girls that age don’t talk like that. They don’t name-check Vanishing Point (1971) and they don’t listen to the kind of music that they do in the film – songs by the likes of Joe Tex and The Coasters?! Maybe one of the girls but not all of them. The dialogue they spout sounds like girls trying to impress a director like Tarantino. I expected to be disappointed by this film but it was even worse than I had feared. If the mandate set forth by Rodriguez and QT was to pay homage to the Grindhouse films of the 1960s and 1970s, than the former succeeded where the later failed. QT created a talkie instead of a Grindhouse film. What is the prevailing motif in Death Proof, boring dialogue? The only Grindhouse-esque touch is QT’s foot fetish with lots of lingering close-up shots of young women’s feet. That’s not really my thing, but hey, whatever floats your boat, I suppose. Is Death Proof actually Steel Magnolias (1989) for the Fergie set? It is hard to make Kurt Russell look bad in a film but he hasn’t looked this bad since Captain Ron (1992).

To further the homage to the Grindhouse aesthetic, Rodriguez digitally altered the transfer so that it resembles a crappy, worn-out print that you would see back in the day, complete with bad splices, lines through the image, fading colors, and even a missing reel. It’s ironic that he is using cutting edge technology to make an old school, low-tech film. Rodriguez is clearly having a blast with the genre as he gleefully throws in all sorts of over-the-top gore, sex, random large explosions, and wildly inventive action sequences as you would come to expect from one of his films. He is also not afraid to kill of animals, women, and the ultimate Hollywood taboo – children. Would Planet Terror ever have appealed to a mainstream audience? Probably not. It was destined to develop a cult following which home video will no doubt help develop. All I know is, if I was a teenager, Planet Terror probably would have been my favorite film of all time. Rodriguez is more successful at emulating/paying homage to the Grindhouse genre than QT and Death Proof, especially with his faux trailer for Machete (which I hope he makes good on his promise to make into a feature-length film), even if he’s really celebrating ‘80s genre films.

My Best Post Blog-a-Thon: The Devil's Rejects

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the My Best Post Blog-a-Thon being coordinated at the He Shot Cyrus blog by elgringo.

In an effort to appeal to the largest audience possible, Hollywood studios have neutered so many horror films into PG-13 movies that they lack any edge or ability to scare beyond the usual fright tactics. They then release the slightly more explicit R-rated or unrated versions on DVD to exploit devotees who don’t want the sanitized theatrical version. Lion’s Gate, a small, independent studio, flies in the face of this trend by distributing R-rated independent and international horror movies like High Tension (2003) and Saw (2004) that push the boundaries of on-screen violence. Hard rocker turned filmmaker Rob Zombie has taken advantage of this by making and releasing his first two films through Lion’s Gate. The Devil’s Rejects (2005) is a gritty, balls-to-the-wall horror movie cum road picture – imagine The Hills Have Eyes (1977) directed by Sam Peckinpah.

Not quite a sequel to Zombie’s first movie, House of a 1000 Corpses (2003), but rather the further adventures of a few of its characters – the notorious Firefly family. Early one morning, the police raid their farm. In the ensuing chaos, Otis (Bill Moseley) and his sister Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie) manage to escape with Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe) in hot pursuit and bent on revenge because they killed his brother (see House of 1000 Corpses). Otis and Baby take a country and western band by the name of Banjo & Sullivan hostage in a motel room. They eventually hook up with their partner Captain Spaudling (Sid Haig) and take refuge at a whorehouse owned by Spaudling’s brother, Charlie Altamont (Ken Foree). They get ready for the inevitable confrontation with Wydell.

When Zombie wrote House of 1000 Corpses, he had a “vague idea” for a story about the brother of the sheriff that the Firefly clan killed coming back for revenge. He did this just in case the film did well enough at the box office and created interest in another film. After Lions Gate made back all of their money on the first day of Corpses theatrical release, the studio wanted Zombie to make another film and he started to seriously think about a new story. With Rejects, he wanted to make it more horrific and the characters less cartoonish than in Corpses. He was interested in making “something that was almost like a violent western” and has cited films like The Wild Bunch (1969), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), and Badlands (1973) as influences.

Zombie hired Phil Parmet, who had shot the legendary documentary Harlan County USA (1976) because he wanted to adopt a hand-held camera/documentary look. To prepare for the film, Parmet watched many horror films but when he and Zombie started talking about the approach they wanted to take on Rejects, they actually connected on revisionist westerns like Hang ‘Em High (1968), Monte Walsh (1970), and El Topo (1970). They also looked to films like The French Connection (1971), In Cold Blood (1967) and Fat City (1972) for inspiration. During pre-production, they decided to shoot the film on 16mm and Zombie cited films like Amores Perros (2000) and 21 Grams (2003) as jumping off points for how he wanted to shoot his own film. Zombie told Parmet that he wanted to use two cameras at all time and for certain scenes, like the chaotic gunfight at the Firefly house at the beginning of the film, to have as many as six cameras running simultaneously.

Zombie has populated his cast with an impressive collection of B-horror character actors: Sid Haig (Spider Baby), Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead), P.J. Soles (Halloween), and Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes). They are not cast for kitsch or novelty value but because they have the acting chops to pull off these meaty roles. Zombie cast actors with interesting faces that have character. Every line or glint in their eyes says so much and he captures them in close-ups a la Sergio Leone. And no one personifies a fascinating face more than Sid Haig who plays Captain Spaulding as the scariest clown with evil make-up that includes black lips and horrible yellow teeth augmenting his already grizzled looks.

After starring in numerous forgettable direct-to-video efforts, William Forsythe finally gets a substantial role. Every once in a while, he pops up in a mainstream film, like Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead (1995) and The Rock (1996) usually playing some generic bad guy role. He harkens back to a bygone era of tough guys, like Lee Marvin or Robert Shaw, who naturally exuded a ferocious intensity that is exciting to watch. With his deep, gravelly voice Forsythe plays an unstoppable force of nature that is just as ruthless in his methods as the Firefly clan.

The dialogue crackles and pops with its own profane rhythm. The tough guy-speak works because it is believable and the actors deliver it with conviction. Zombie breaks it up with some very funny bits and truly laugh-out-loud moments of black humor. For example, the Firefly clan uses aliases of names of Groucho Marx characters. To crack this code, Wydell brings in movie critic Marty Walker (Robert Trebor) and they end up getting into an argument about the merits of Elvis Presley movies that is hilarious and helps relieve some of the unrelenting tension that this film generates.

The Devil’s Rejects is a good looking movie that features a lush glow of reds, greens and blues during the night scenes and then Zombie cuts to one with a minimalist single light source with nothing in the background so that we focus on the two actors in the scene and what they are saying. In contrast, the day scenes have a warm, saturated sun-burnt look. The darkest scene in the movie in terms of tonality actually takes place at high noon and this makes it even more sinister because there is nowhere to hide.

Zombie references all kinds of movies and not just the usual horror movies that other filmmakers quote. When he does refer to other films he does so in a subtle way and not in a look-how-clever-I-am way that Quentin Tarantino does. Tarantino is a cinematic show-off who is content to sample his favorite scenes from other movies without showing any kind of understanding about how they work. The Devil’s Rejects is a down ‘n’ dirty celebration of outlaw 1970s cinema complete with a fantastic score of southern rock classics from the likes of the Allman Brothers Band, Joe Walsh and Lynyrd Skynyrd. In case of the last band, the way their anthem “Free Bird” is used in this movie is incredible. What could have been so clichéd comes across as a poignant and iconic scene in the film, befitting the song itself.

Not surprisingly, the film garnered a mixed reaction from critics. Roger Ebert actually enjoyed it, giving it three out of four stars and wrote, “There is actually some good writing and acting going on here, if you can step back from the material enough to see it.” In a later review for the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes, he referenced Zombie’s film and wrote, “I admired two things about it: (1) It desired to entertain and not merely to sicken; and (2) its depraved killers were individuals with personalities, histories and motives.” In his review for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers also gave it three out of four stars and wrote, “Let's hear it for the Southern-fried soundtrack, from Buck Owens' "Satan's Got to Get Along Without Me" to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird," playing over the blood-soaked finale, which manages to wed The Wild Bunch to Thelma and Louise.”

In her review for the New York Times, Dana Stevens wrote that the film "is a trompe l'oeil experiment in deliberately retro filmmaking. It looks sensational, but there is a curious emptiness at its core.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "C+" rating and wrote, "Zombie's characters are, to put it mildly, undeveloped.” Robert K. Elder, of the Chicago Tribune, disliked the movie, writing "[D]espite decades of soaking in bloody classics such as the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and I Spit On Your Grave, Zombie didn't absorb any of the underlying social tension or heart in those films. He's no collage artist of influences, like Quentin Tarantino, crafting his movie from childhood influences. Rejects plays more like a junkyard of homages, strewn together and lost among inept cops, gaping plot holes and buzzard-ready dialog.”

Horror author Stephen King voted The Devil's Rejects the 9th best movie of 2005 and wrote, "No redeeming social merit, perfect '70s C-picture cheesy glow; this must be what Quentin Tarantino meant when he did those silly Kill Bill pictures.”

This film does not quite look like it was shot in the ‘70s but made by someone who grew up in that decade. Rejects was made by a horror film fan for horror film fans. Zombie has created a truly disturbing horror movie with no real redeemable characters, that is refreshingly unpredictable and this is what makes it so scary, like the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Both movies are feverish nightmares except that in Massacre you felt sympathy for the female protagonist. The Devil’s Rejects does not even have that. You may find yourself rooting for the Firefly family early on but Zombie quickly rejects this notion by portraying them as truly irredeemable people. There is no sappy love story or cop-out ending and this remains true to many of the nihilistic movies of the ‘70s. Horror film obsessives always brace themselves for the wimp out ending — it is the downfall of so many horror films — Rejects does not make this mistake. Zombie has shown a real growth as a filmmaker, creating I daresay a modern horror masterpiece.


SOURCES

Lutman, Danny. "INT: Devil's Rejects." JoBlo.com. July 15, 2004.

"Meet the Rejects". Fangoria. August 2005.

Ridley, Jim. "Sympathy for the Devils." Nashville Scene. July 21–25, 2005.

Tobias, Scott. "Rob Zombie." The Onion A.V. Club. August 2, 2005.

Paul Newman (1925 - 2008)

Legendary actor Paul Newman died on Friday after a long battle with cancer. He leaves behind a very impressive legacy that includes a diverse body of work. Newman had movie star good looks but wasn’t afraid to play complex, sometimes unlikable characters. Instead of providing an overview of his great career I thought I would talk about two films of his that stand out in my mind as prime examples of his remarkable range as an actor.

The Hustler (1961) is a significant milestone in Newman’s career. It not only launched him into the Hollywood stratosphere but also marked the beginning of an incredible run in the 1960s, with films like Hud (1963), Cool Hand Luke (1967), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Newman became a movie star but acted like a character actor, creating one memorable character after another. Arguably, The Hustler is where he really came into his own, delivering a powerful performance as small-time pool hustler Fast Eddie Felson.

The Hustler is not so much about the game of straight pool as it is about the meteoric rise and fall of Fast Eddie. The prologue introduces him and his partner Charlie (Myron McCormick) as they hustle a bar with a handful of customers (including a young Vincent Gardenia as the bartender). Fast Eddie knows how to act like he’s an erratic pool player even feigning being drunk. But when it counts and when other people’s money is on the line, he makes the crucial shot to win it all. Fast Eddie’s goal is to play and beat the best pool player there is: Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). Fast Eddie is young, cocky and full of life but he meets his match with Fats who wears him down over 36 hours straight of pool, defeating him financially, physically, and, most importantly, spiritually. Fats breaks Fast Eddie who now has to figure out how to pick up the pieces.

Paul Newman plays Fast Eddie with youthful exuberance. He is young, good-looking and plays a mean game of pool. Fast Eddie’s got the world by the tail, that is, until Fats beats him and he then stupidly (and arrogantly) hustles the wrong guys, getting his thumbs broken in the process. Over a short amount of time Fast Eddie ages emotionally, changing into a bitter, angry man. Newman does a great job of conveying this transformation as Fast Eddie begins to resemble one of the world-weary characters in Jack Kerouac’s Beat novels.

Fast Eddie’s salvation, in a weird sort of way, lies with a woman he meets at a bus terminal. Like Fast Eddie, Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie) has been chewed up and spit out by life. She’s an alcoholic but seems to have more deep routed problems and Piper Laurie subtly hints at them. She plays Sarah like a classy barfly, although, she says that she’s an ex-actress turned college student. Sarah and Fast Eddie are drawn to each other because they are both marginalized figures. They recognize the damaged qualities in each other.

The Hustler went on to become a critical and commercial hit. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won for its cinematography and art direction. Many years later, Newman would revisit Fast Eddie in The Color of Money (1986) co-starring Tom Cruise and directed by Martin Scorsese. The Hustler flies in the face of traditional 9-to-5 suburban living by presenting characters who live on the fringes and who refuse to conform. They are deeply flawed and this is what makes them so compelling to watch. They are capable of being so cruel to each other and the film explores the origins of this behavior. Director Robert Rossen doesn’t judge the characters and instead leaves that up to the audience. Ultimately, the film is about winning and losing in America and the toll it takes on an individual as represented so powerful by Newman.

The Verdict (1982) came along at just the right time in Newman’s career. He hadn’t had a hit film in some time or a role that really challenged him (Absence of Malice being a notable exception). This would all change when he signed onto this troubled production. Based on the book of the same name by Boston malpractice lawyer Barry Reed, The Verdict was adapted for the screen by David Mamet and to be directed by Arthur Hiller. However, Hiller left due to “creative differences” and Jay Presson Allen was brought in to rewrite the script. She eventually left for the same reasons Hiller did and James Bridges came aboard to write and direct with Robert Redford starring. They couldn’t agree on certain story points and the project stalled. Newman and Sidney Lumet were hired and decided to go back to Mamet’s script.

Frank Galvin is an alcoholic lawyer who scans the obituaries for potential clients. He hasn’t won a case in ages, losing four of them in three years, and his office, like his life, are in shambles. It’s located in an old building where the elevator doesn’t even work. His friend, Mickey Morrissey (Jack Warden) throws him a case that is a guaranteed moneymaker. Its two weeks away and Galvin hasn’t even read the file or met the client.

A pregnant woman goes into a hospital to deliver her third child. She is given the wrong anesthetic and lapses into a coma that kills the child. It leaves the woman brain dead with zero chance of recovery. Galvin figures that the case won’t go to trial and that the Archdiocese, who owns the hospital, will settle out of court. That would suit him just fine as he’s been reduced to an ambulance chaser deathly afraid of going to court. He talks to a doctor who’s willing to testify and figures the case is a slam dunk. Then, something happens to him: he visits the comatose woman and realizes that the offer the Archdiocese gave him isn’t enough, not by a long shot. This woman deserves justice. Someone needs to pay for what happened to her. Galvin feels compelled to stand up for her rights and decides, against his better judgment, to go to court, facing off against Ed Concannon (James Mason), a real shark who has infinite resources at his disposal and is not afraid to use them (and any other means) to win the case. Frank, on the other hand, only has Mickey.

Paul Newman is excellent as the alcoholic attorney who develops a conscience and is determined to win his case despite the odds. Even though his character is a lush, Newman doesn’t resort to the usual drunk stereotype or showy theatrics. Galvin is the kind of alcoholic that needs a drink to steady his hand and calm his nerves. Newman plays a flawed character but with noble intentions and his story is one of redemption, the underdog against the system as it were. James Mason is the ideal opponent for Newman. He’s got the Hollywood pedigree that is comparable to Newman’s and brings a rock solid gravitas to the role. There’s a scene where his character is coaching one of the witnesses and it is incredible to watch how he manipulates the poor man. Mason’s character has an air of supreme smug confidence that makes you want to see Newman win, if only to wipe that superior expression right off his face.

I think that one of the reasons Newman resonates so much with me is that he reminds a lot of my grandfather. They came from the same generation and shared a lot of the same values. In a weird way, watching Newman was almost like watching my grandpa. Paul Newman was an original and he will be greatly missed.

As you would imagine, the tributes to Newman have been flooding in. Here are three of my faves: Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, a nice collection of clips from YouTube, and a tribute written by Shawn Levy, who has completed a book on the actor that should be out soon.