Creepy Stories, Adventures, reviews, waxing and waning about lost amusements, pop culture and nostalgia http://www.onepagewonder.com/ Copyright, 2011 OnePageWonder Pride. That's the problem with the younger generation, they simply don't take pride in their work. They come to my door daily, peddling their goods, but they don't have their hearts in it. At least, not like people used to- not like I still do. People aren't interested in alarm systems or credit card services, they're interested in service. They want to know that they can count on someone to keep their business safe at night, or to set them up with a good interest rate off the bat. You shouldn't have to negotiate these things. It's simply not necessary to nickel and dime someone. You take care of your customers and they take care of you. That's how business is done. I've been in business for a long time and the last thing I need is some punk half-heartedly trying to explain how a website will generate a positive R-O-I while intermittently trailing off to read his latest text message. Maybe that makes me a dinosaur, a relic in my own time. Take this kid, for instance. He's trying to tell me that getting people to like me on Book Face will help me generate more revenue. Did he not see the sign on the door? Of course not, and that's the problem. He's trying to sell me something. He doesn't care who I am or what I do. He wants a sale and he's wasting valuable time. Or maybe his time isn't valuable, but nevertheless, the clock ticks and all he can do is prattle on about likes and fans and statuses, the poor soul. He's dismissed at once. But time marches on. It finds me sitting here with the Lowes. The poor couple. He's devastated. He tries to maintain his composure, but his shoulders are listing and it's clear he hasn't slept. She doesn't fair well either. He urges her to lift her chin as I pass the gilded box of tissue. He's afraid of me. It's been so long since he met someone like me- someone who takes pride- that he suspects me of just being another man bent on making a dollar. This wasn't their fault. Tragedy sought them out and found them unprepared. Emotionally. Financially. They simply aren't equipped to handle this. Not that you could prepare for a tragedy of this nature. But, fortunately for them, I am. “There, there, Mrs. Lowe. It's going to be okay. This is came as a shock to both of you. I cannot say that I know how you feel, but I can tell you that Thanos & Sons has been in business for over eighty-five years. I've personally dealt with similar situations. Your loss will take a long time to get over, but I am here for you in the short term. Over the next few days, I am personally at your disposal. I will arrange every detail and see that everything is attended to.” “Do we have to choose the casket now?” she asks. “We have an assortment of caskets that cater to every taste and budget, yes, but before we do that, why don't you take a moment to tell me about Joshua. I never had the opportunity to meet him, so it's the most we can do to make sure that we say goodbye to him as he would have wanted.” They both take a moment to digest what I have just told them, but I meant what I said. Above all else, we at Thanos & Sons make sure that we do everything in our power to please our client. Unfortunately, in our line of work, our clients are unable to speak for themselves. “He was wonderful,” he starts, catching himself to keep from breaking down. He loved playing outside, he was smart, inquisitive, nice, honest . . . we loved him more than anything in the world.” He reaches for her hand and I produce a handkerchief. They did love him more than anything, he wasn't lying when he said that. Of course, every parent says that in my presence, they'd appear barbaric not too, but you'd be surprised how many of them leave the burial looking as though a tremendous weight were suddenly lifted from their shoulders. We strive to deliver a stellar service to all of our clients, of course, but some we truly go above and beyond for. “There, there, I'm sure he was,” I say as the tears begin to ebb. “I'm afraid it's getting late, so I don't have time to explain the finer points, but what would you say if I told you we could forgo with these preparations all together?” “What are you saying?” He says brashly. “Are you suggesting that we just dump him somewhere to save a buck or two? This is our son for God's sake!” “No, of course not.” I respond immediately. He must really think I'm a monster if that's the first thought he conjured up. But why shouldn't he think of me as a monster. I do have his son's body in my basement after all. “No, Mr. Lowe, exactly the opposite. You see, I've had an opportunity to examine your son. He is pristine and I am sure we can all agree that this was not his time.” They nod in agreement over it not being his time, but it's clear that they do not understand. “But the clock is ticking, so let me explain the best I can. You see, I believe you when you say that you loved him more than anything. Just like I know you believe me when I say that it simply was not his time. That's why his body is so immaculate; it isn't meant to be put into the ground.” They look at each other now, each wondering if the other is thinking the same impossible thought. “Cutting to the point,” I add, “the fact of the matter is that he can be brought back.” That did it, what they both wanted and simultaneously dreaded. “I know it sounds impossible, but it's true. Your son wants to be called back to this world and you have the power to do it.” “But how,” he finally asks. “We all know that's not possible otherwise people would be coming back left and right. Are you trying to play us for fools?!” “No, I assure you I'm not.” I say cautiously. It's sad, really, the world being as it is, where you would actually suspect someone of taking advantage of you over the death of a child. “But every second is crucial and I'm afraid I'm running out of time. You see, it's like I said: he isn't meant to be put into the ground and your love for him can bring him back. This is no more a tragedy than a fluke of the clock, so to speak.” “And how much to you intend to rob us of for this service?” He interrupts. “Mr. Lowe, please. This is an ancient practice that people in my trade have been practicing for years. But you are correct on one point, this will cost you something. You see, in order to get back that which you love the most, you will have to sacrifice that which you hate the most.” “Now I'm really confused,” she says. “What do you mean we have to give up what we hate the most?” “It's just like I said, so tell me: what do you hate the most?” They pause, but only for a second. “Our debts,” they both say. It's funny, it only ever takes someone a second to think of what they hate the most. Ask someone to name what they are most grateful for and they may take minutes to answer. “Your debt?” I confirm and they both nod emphatically. “Well, then it's simple. You hand over your debts to me and I will return Joshua to you.” “You're saying that you can bring Joshua back to us alive like before, but in order for that to happen, we have to give up a burden?” she says. “This doesn't make any sense at all!” “It's like I said before. This is a fluke, this was not supposed to happen. Now because you are good parents and truly love him, he will be returned to you. The giving up a burden part is considered a recompense, a settlement of sorts, for your unnecessary suffering. Believe me, this is all standard, I've mediated these situations before. It comes with the job.” “Now,” I continue, “I can begin at once, I just need you to fill out this short form detailing the debts you'd like to surrender to me and sign this declaration that the debts you surrender are for the return of the one you love the most.” She examines the document. “It's all standard boilerplate,” I add to speed up the process, but she shakes her head. “I'm sorry,” she says. “I don't believe for a second that this was Joshua's time to go, but this isn't right either. I want him back more than anything, but this just seems wrong to me.” I excuse myself as Mr. Lowe tries to dissuade her. He's clearly angry, but this only brings on another fit on her part. They really weren't prepared for any of this. I return to find them both standing. She's sobbing. He shakes my hand with an unsteady grip. “I'm sorry,” he says, “but this is too much for us right now. You'll understand if we make other arrangements?” “Of course,” I answer. “But if you feel as though you are going to change your mind, please do it quickly, our window is closing.” The clock strikes nine. I open the door to find Mr. Lowe presenting the document with a wavering hand. “Here,” he says, “take it.” I peruse it to find that it has been duly executed. “These are both of your signatures,” I ask. He nods. “Then if you both agree, I will set to work at once. Be here at noon tomorrow and be prepared to take Joshua home.” Mr. Lowe lingers on the porch for a second unsure if he should say anything. But in the end he just nods and turns into the night. It's nearing 11:30 in the morning by the time I have Joshua cleaned and dressed. The clothes are not his and perhaps they're a bit dated, but they fit well enough. He doesn't speak, but he is already responding to simple commands. The doorbell rings and he follows me up from the basement as instructed. We meet the Lowes at the door. They burst into tears at the sight of him. Mrs. Lowe takes him in her arms and rushes him to their car without so much as a hello. Mr. Lowe starts to follow, but turns to shake my hand and thank me. “But this is real, right?” He asks after a thoughtful pause. “Just like I explained last night. He wasn't meant to go; it wasn't his time. But let me caution you, Joshua has been through a lot. It might take a few days for him to return to normal. He's still cool to the touch and he may refuse to eat at first, but that's just his body readjusting itself.” “Is there anything else we can do?” he asks. “Just love him and treat him like he's recovering from the flu,” I say. “Welcome him back gently.” It's 6:17 the next morning when Mr. Lowe calls. “He won't stop talking,” he says. I try to assure him that these things take time. That Joshua has been through a lot. “Look, I don't know what you did to him, but I'm coming over right now and I want you to explain this to me step by step. Mr. Lowe must have had a devil on his tail because he arrives by 6:38. “Come in,” I say, “I've prepared some tea.” I lead him to the receiving room and pour us each a cup. He cradles it in his hands. “Why won't he stop talking?” he asks. “It's like I said, he wasn't gone long, but he needs to readjust to his body. It takes time.” “You don't understand,” he replies emphatically. “Joshua was non-verbal. The doctors said it was autism and a lot of other jargon, they said he'd never progress mentally beyond a two year old. Now he won't stop talking. He kept us up the entire night!” If I hadn't been in this business so long, I might be taken aback. “It's the recompense,” I say. “You see, you simply asked for your debts to be forgiven. Debt is a relatively new phenomenon in this business and apparently the makers of this deal do not put a lot of weight in money. So in order to right the fluke, they gave you back your son as he should have been. I once serviced a client whose daughter was born with a terrible disfigurement. When it came time for recompense, she only stated that the thing she hated most was her daughter's suffering in life. I can't name names, but she grew up to become a famous starlet.” “But it's not like that!” he insists. “Listen to me, he's talking, but he's saying terrible things. He called my wife a harlot. He said that I wasn't his father. He said adulterers burn alone. You call that recompense? What did you do to him!” “Mr. Lowe, please. You are obviously quite upset and I understand why. However, you must understand that the makers of this deal are just. They returned Joshua to correct a wrong. I cannot claim to speak for them or to understand their ways, but we must trust them.” “But why is he saying these things?” Mr. Lowe asks pleadingly. “These things take time, Mr. Lowe. Joshua's brain is no doubt struggling to make sense of what has happened. I'm sure that there wasn't any meaning behind his words. Now Joshua and Mrs. Lowe need you,” I add, “being with them is the best thing you can do right now. Of course you can call me if anything else unusual happens, but I honestly wouldn't worry about it.” I show Mr. Lowe to the door. It has been a busy day. It's nearly eight o'clock by the time I have the viewing room in proper order. It's then that I hear the door chime. Eight is a strange hour for visitors, but in my business you always have to be prepared for new clients. I cross to the receiving room to find Joshua standing by the front door. “Hello, Joshua,” I say. He doesn't respond. “So you've said your peace then?” He shuffles past me, his eyes intent on the basement door. Mrs. Lowe bursts into the room not a minute later. She's clearly upset and holds a blood soaked towel to her forearm. “Is he here?” she shouts demandingly. Mr. Lowe is not long on her tail. “Mrs. Lowe, it's good to see you again. Yes, Joshua is here, though I must say that it was a surprise to see him. Shall I get him for you?” “No,” she insists, “you can keep him for all I care. That thing you gave us isn't our son.” She falters to her knees and breaks into a guttural sob. “Is it true?” Mr. Lowe asks me. His voice is cold and his face wears a matching pallor. “Is what true, Mr. Lowe?” I ask. “The things Joshua said. He continued talking. He said I was a fool, that he pitied me for not knowing. I didn't know what he was talking about, so I asked him. He said I was too pathetic to save him. Then he laughed again and that's when he bit her and took off running. You need to tell me what's going on here.” Mrs. Lowe continues sobbing. The blood from her arm threatens to soil the carpet as dark fissures spider their way up her arm. Mrs. Lowe's clock is winding down. “Mr. Lowe, it's like I said. It wasn't Joshua's time. Perhaps you could have saved him. Perhaps, if you'd known you could have prevented his death.” Joshua was right, Mr. Lowe is clueless to the ways of this world, good men generally are. His gaze follows mine to Mrs. Lowe. “No,” he says, “I don't believe it.” Mrs. Lowe's sob intensifies. “I didn't mean for it to happen,” she says. “I didn't know what I was doing. I tucked him in and the next thing I know there's a pillow over his face and I can't bring myself to take it away. I was so exhausted I couldn't think, I just knew I couldn't stand another day of taking the tantrums or the diapers or the stress because none of it would make him better.” Mrs. Lowe attempts to wipe the tears from her eyes and that's when she takes sight of her arm. It's turned entirely black. She screams. “What's wrong with me?” she asks pleadingly. Mr. Lowe cannot look at her. Her eyes dart frantically about the room until they meet mine. “What did he do to me?” she asks pleadingly. “Mrs. Lowe, it's like I said before, the makers of this deal are just. Joshua was not meant to be taken from this world and that decision was not yours to make. But that is neither here nor there now. Joshua bit you and the wound is necrotizing. Nothing can be done for that.” “I'm dying?” she asks. “We're all dying, Mrs. Lowe, it's really a question of timing.” “Then call me an ambulance, I need to go to the hospital,” she pleads. People's selfishness never ceases to surprise me and I see more than my fair share of it in my business. But a few grains in the hourglass and she wants nothing more than to save herself. She should be repenting, she of all people should know that filicides burn forever. Mr. Lowe steps away. I nod at him, he trusts my professionalism, that I will see to the details with the care and competence I show all of my clients. With that he turns to the door. He has suffered more than anyone when you think about it, but as he leaves a perceptive man would notice the subtle, but long dormant spring in his step. “So that's it then, you're not going to help me?” Mrs. Lowe asks me spitefully. “Of course I am, Mrs. Lowe, I wouldn't dream of turning my back on you,” I say to her relief. “I have every intention of helping you. Now tell me, how do you feel about mahogany?” Pride. That's the problem with the younger generation, they simply don't take pride in their work. They come to my door daily, peddling their goods, but they don't have their hearts in it. At least, not like people used to- not like I still do. People aren't interested in alarm systems or credit card services, they're interested in service. They want to know that they can count on someone to keep their business safe at night, or to set them up with a good interest rate off the bat. You shouldn't have to negotiate these things. It's simply not necessary to nickel and dime someone. You take care of your customers and they take care of you. That's how business is done. I've been in business for a long time and the last thing I need is some punk half-heartedly trying to explain how a website will generate a positive R-O-I while intermittently trailing off to read his latest text message. Maybe that makes me a dinosaur, a relic in my own time. Take this kid, for instance. He's trying to tell me that getting people to like me on Book Face will help me generate more revenue. Did he not see the sign on the door? Of course not, and that's the problem. He's trying to sell me something. He doesn't care who I am or what I do. He wants a sale and he's wasting valuable time. Or maybe his time isn't valuable, but nevertheless, the clock ticks and all he can do is prattle on about likes and fans and statuses, the poor soul. He's dismissed at once. But time marches on. It finds me sitting here with the Lowes. The poor couple. He's devastated. He tries to maintain his composure, but his shoulders are listing and it's clear he hasn't slept. She doesn't fair well either. He urges her to lift her chin as I pass the gilded box of tissue. He's afraid of me. It's been so long since he met someone like me- someone who takes pride- that he suspects me of just being another man bent on making a dollar. This wasn't their fault. Tragedy sought them out and found them unprepared. Emotionally. Financially. They simply aren't equipped to handle this. Not that you could prepare for a tragedy of this nature. But, fortunately for them, I am. “There, there, Mrs. Lowe. It's going to be okay. This is came as a shock to both of you. I cannot say that I know how you feel, but I can tell you that Thanos & Sons has been in business for over eighty-five years. I've personally dealt with similar situations. Your loss will take a long time to get over, but I am here for you in the short term. Over the next few days, I am personally at your disposal. I will arrange every detail and see that everything is attended to.” “Do we have to choose the casket now?” she asks. “We have an assortment of caskets that cater to every taste and budget, yes, but before we do that, why don't you take a moment to tell me about Joshua. I never had the opportunity to meet him, so it's the most we can do to make sure that we say goodbye to him as he would have wanted.” They both take a moment to digest what I have just told them, but I meant what I said. Above all else, we at Thanos & Sons make sure that we do everything in our power to please our client. Unfortunately, in our line of work, our clients are unable to speak for themselves. “He was wonderful,” he starts, catching himself to keep from breaking down. He loved playing outside, he was smart, inquisitive, nice, honest . . . we loved him more than anything in the world.” He reaches for her hand and I produce a handkerchief. They did love him more than anything, he wasn't lying when he said that. Of course, every parent says that in my presence, they'd appear barbaric not too, but you'd be surprised how many of them leave the burial looking as though a tremendous weight were suddenly lifted from their shoulders. We strive to deliver a stellar service to all of our clients, of course, but some we truly go above and beyond for. “There, there, I'm sure he was,” I say as the tears begin to ebb. “I'm afraid it's getting late, so I don't have time to explain the finer points, but what would you say if I told you we could forgo with these preparations all together?” “What are you saying?” He says brashly. “Are you suggesting that we just dump him somewhere to save a buck or two? This is our son for God's sake!” “No, of course not.” I respond immediately. He must really think I'm a monster if that's the first thought he conjured up. But why shouldn't he think of me as a monster. I do have his son's body in my basement after all. “No, Mr. Lowe, exactly the opposite. You see, I've had an opportunity to examine your son. He is pristine and I am sure we can all agree that this was not his time.” They nod in agreement over it not being his time, but it's clear that they do not understand. “But the clock is ticking, so let me explain the best I can. You see, I believe you when you say that you loved him more than anything. Just like I know you believe me when I say that it simply was not his time. That's why his body is so immaculate; it isn't meant to be put into the ground.” They look at each other now, each wondering if the other is thinking the same impossible thought. “Cutting to the point,” I add, “the fact of the matter is that he can be brought back.” That did it, what they both wanted and simultaneously dreaded. “I know it sounds impossible, but it's true. Your son wants to be called back to this world and you have the power to do it.” “But how,” he finally asks. “We all know that's not possible otherwise people would be coming back left and right. Are you trying to play us for fools?!” “No, I assure you I'm not.” I say cautiously. It's sad, really, the world being as it is, where you would actually suspect someone of taking advantage of you over the death of a child. “But every second is crucial and I'm afraid I'm running out of time. You see, it's like I said: he isn't meant to be put into the ground and your love for him can bring him back. This is no more a tragedy than a fluke of the clock, so to speak.” “And how much to you intend to rob us of for this service?” He interrupts. “Mr. Lowe, please. This is an ancient practice that people in my trade have been practicing for years. But you are correct on one point, this will cost you something. You see, in order to get back that which you love the most, you will have to sacrifice that which you hate the most.” “Now I'm really confused,” she says. “What do you mean we have to give up what we hate the most?” “It's just like I said, so tell me: what do you hate the most?” They pause, but only for a second. “Our debts,” they both say. It's funny, it only ever takes someone a second to think of what they hate the most. Ask someone to name what they are most grateful for and they may take minutes to answer. “Your debt?” I confirm and they both nod emphatically. “Well, then it's simple. You hand over your debts to me and I will return Joshua to you.” “You're saying that you can bring Joshua back to us alive like before, but in order for that to happen, we have to give up a burden?” she says. “This doesn't make any sense at all!” “It's like I said before. This is a fluke, this was not supposed to happen. Now because you are good parents and truly love him, he will be returned to you. The giving up a burden part is considered a recompense, a settlement of sorts, for your unnecessary suffering. Believe me, this is all standard, I've mediated these situations before. It comes with the job.” “Now,” I continue, “I can begin at once, I just need you to fill out this short form detailing the debts you'd like to surrender to me and sign this declaration that the debts you surrender are for the return of the one you love the most.” She examines the document. “It's all standard boilerplate,” I add to speed up the process, but she shakes her head. “I'm sorry,” she says. “I don't believe for a second that this was Joshua's time to go, but this isn't right either. I want him back more than anything, but this just seems wrong to me.” I excuse myself as Mr. Lowe tries to dissuade her. He's clearly angry, but this only brings on another fit on her part. They really weren't prepared for any of this. I return to find them both standing. She's sobbing. He shakes my hand with an unsteady grip. “I'm sorry,” he says, “but this is too much for us right now. You'll understand if we make other arrangements?” “Of course,” I answer. “But if you feel as though you are going to change your mind, please do it quickly, our window is closing.” The clock strikes nine. I open the door to find Mr. Lowe presenting the document with a wavering hand. “Here,” he says, “take it.” I peruse it to find that it has been duly executed. “These are both of your signatures,” I ask. He nods. “Then if you both agree, I will set to work at once. Be here at noon tomorrow and be prepared to take Joshua home.” Mr. Lowe lingers on the porch for a second unsure if he should say anything. But in the end he just nods and turns into the night. It's nearing 11:30 in the morning by the time I have Joshua cleaned and dressed. The clothes are not his and perhaps they're a bit dated, but they fit well enough. He doesn't speak, but he is already responding to simple commands. The doorbell rings and he follows me up from the basement as instructed. We meet the Lowes at the door. They burst into tears at the sight of him. Mrs. Lowe takes him in her arms and rushes him to their car without so much as a hello. Mr. Lowe starts to follow, but turns to shake my hand and thank me. “But this is real, right?” He asks after a thoughtful pause. “Just like I explained last night. He wasn't meant to go; it wasn't his time. But let me caution you, Joshua has been through a lot. It might take a few days for him to return to normal. He's still cool to the touch and he may refuse to eat at first, but that's just his body readjusting itself.” “Is there anything else we can do?” he asks. “Just love him and treat him like he's recovering from the flu,” I say. “Welcome him back gently.” It's 6:17 the next morning when Mr. Lowe calls. “He won't stop talking,” he says. I try to assure him that these things take time. That Joshua has been through a lot. “Look, I don't know what you did to him, but I'm coming over right now and I want you to explain this to me step by step. Mr. Lowe must have had a devil on his tail because he arrives by 6:38. “Come in,” I say, “I've prepared some tea.” I lead him to the receiving room and pour us each a cup. He cradles it in his hands. “Why won't he stop talking?” he asks. “It's like I said, he wasn't gone long, but he needs to readjust to his body. It takes time.” “You don't understand,” he replies emphatically. “Joshua was non-verbal. The doctors said it was autism and a lot of other jargon, they said he'd never progress mentally beyond a two year old. Now he won't stop talking. He kept us up the entire night!” If I hadn't been in this business so long, I might be taken aback. “It's the recompense,” I say. “You see, you simply asked for your debts to be forgiven. Debt is a relatively new phenomenon in this business and apparently the makers of this deal do not put a lot of weight in money. So in order to right the fluke, they gave you back your son as he should have been. I once serviced a client whose daughter was born with a terrible disfigurement. When it came time for recompense, she only stated that the thing she hated most was her daughter's suffering in life. I can't name names, but she grew up to become a famous starlet.” “But it's not like that!” he insists. “Listen to me, he's talking, but he's saying terrible things. He called my wife a harlot. He said that I wasn't his father. He said adulterers burn alone. You call that recompense? What did you do to him!” “Mr. Lowe, please. You are obviously quite upset and I understand why. However, you must understand that the makers of this deal are just. They returned Joshua to correct a wrong. I cannot claim to speak for them or to understand their ways, but we must trust them.” “But why is he saying these things?” Mr. Lowe asks pleadingly. “These things take time, Mr. Lowe. Joshua's brain is no doubt struggling to make sense of what has happened. I'm sure that there wasn't any meaning behind his words. Now Joshua and Mrs. Lowe need you,” I add, “being with them is the best thing you can do right now. Of course you can call me if anything else unusual happens, but I honestly wouldn't worry about it.” I show Mr. Lowe to the door. It has been a busy day. It's nearly eight o'clock by the time I have the viewing room in proper order. It's then that I hear the door chime. Eight is a strange hour for visitors, but in my business you always have to be prepared for new clients. I cross to the receiving room to find Joshua standing by the front door. “Hello, Joshua,” I say. He doesn't respond. “So you've said your peace then?” He shuffles past me, his eyes intent on the basement door. Mrs. Lowe bursts into the room not a minute later. She's clearly upset and holds a blood soaked towel to her forearm. “Is he here?” she shouts demandingly. Mr. Lowe is not long on her tail. “Mrs. Lowe, it's good to see you again. Yes, Joshua is here, though I must say that it was a surprise to see him. Shall I get him for you?” “No,” she insists, “you can keep him for all I care. That thing you gave us isn't our son.” She falters to her knees and breaks into a guttural sob. “Is it true?” Mr. Lowe asks me. His voice is cold and his face wears a matching pallor. “Is what true, Mr. Lowe?” I ask. “The things Joshua said. He continued talking. He said I was a fool, that he pitied me for not knowing. I didn't know what he was talking about, so I asked him. He said I was too pathetic to save him. Then he laughed again and that's when he bit her and took off running. You need to tell me what's going on here.” Mrs. Lowe continues sobbing. The blood from her arm threatens to soil the carpet as dark fissures spider their way up her arm. Mrs. Lowe's clock is winding down. “Mr. Lowe, it's like I said. It wasn't Joshua's time. Perhaps you could have saved him. Perhaps, if you'd known you could have prevented his death.” Joshua was right, Mr. Lowe is clueless to the ways of this world, good men generally are. His gaze follows mine to Mrs. Lowe. “No,” he says, “I don't believe it.” Mrs. Lowe's sob intensifies. “I didn't mean for it to happen,” she says. “I didn't know what I was doing. I tucked him in and the next thing I know there's a pillow over his face and I can't bring myself to take it away. I was so exhausted I couldn't think, I just knew I couldn't stand another day of taking the tantrums or the diapers or the stress because none of it would make him better.” Mrs. Lowe attempts to wipe the tears from her eyes and that's when she takes sight of her arm. It's turned entirely black. She screams. “What's wrong with me?” she asks pleadingly. Mr. Lowe cannot look at her. Her eyes dart frantically about the room until they meet mine. “What did he do to me?” she asks pleadingly. “Mrs. Lowe, it's like I said before, the makers of this deal are just. Joshua was not meant to be taken from this world and that decision was not yours to make. But that is neither here nor there now. Joshua bit you and the wound is necrotizing. Nothing can be done for that.” “I'm dying?” she asks. “We're all dying, Mrs. Lowe, it's really a question of timing.” “Then call me an ambulance, I need to go to the hospital,” she pleads. People's selfishness never ceases to surprise me and I see more than my fair share of it in my business. But a few grains in the hourglass and she wants nothing more than to save herself. She should be repenting, she of all people should know that filicides burn forever. Mr. Lowe steps away. I nod at him, he trusts my professionalism, that I will see to the details with the care and competence I show all of my clients. With that he turns to the door. He has suffered more than anyone when you think about it, but as he leaves a perceptive man would notice the subtle, but long dormant spring in his step. “So that's it then, you're not going to help me?” Mrs. Lowe asks me spitefully. “Of course I am, Mrs. Lowe, I wouldn't dream of turning my back on you,” I say to her relief. “I have every intention of helping you. Now tell me, how do you feel about mahogany?” http://www.onepagewonder.com/atnight/alone/ Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:09:58 CDT http://www.onepagewonder.com/cat// Pitch black. You can't see a thing. Cold hard floor. Head throbbing. Hard to think. Jogging. You were jogging through the park. It's starting to come back now. You had just crossed the lane by the cherry trees. You were rounding the maintenance shed. Hurts to think. You were jogging through the park. It was warmer than usual. You were rounding the maintenance shed. You quickened your pace because you never trusted the look of that old shed. You're shivering. The floor is cold and hard. It saps the heat from your bare legs. You sweep the immediate area with your arms, but find only the hard cement floor. You try to stand but immediately fall to your hands and knees. Your head spins. You can't get your bearings in the dark. You crawl a few feet until you run into a wall. You turn and use the wall to guide you along the perimeter of the room. There must be a door. You only make it a few more feet before hitting your head against something metal. The impact causes your headache to flare. Bars. Iron bars. They're cold and sturdy. You push but they don't give. You were rounding the maintenance shed. You quickened your pace because you never trusted the look of it. You saw someone lying by the side of the path. You again follow the bars. There's no way out. Iron bars and a concrete floor. You could try climbing over them, but you can't trust your legs to stand. You hear a quiet rumble. You slowed your pace as you approached the body. It was a woman lying face down. She was wearing jogging gear. You stopped. You asked her if she was okay, but she didn't respond. You crouched down and gave her a gentle shake, but she was limp. You hear the rumble again followed by a sniffle. The sound reverberates through the room making it impossible to locate the direction. Another sniffle. You realize that you are not alone. You gave her a gentle shake, but she was limp. That's when you noticed the pool of blood forming around her head. You put your fingers to her neck, but could not find a pulse. She was cold. You hear the quiet rumble again. The muffled sniffle. “Hello,” you whisper: “is there someone there?” “I'm here.” The voice is shaky but you can make out that is a girl. She sounds young. “What's your name?” you ask. “I'm Eleanor,” she whispers. “Be quiet or he'll get mad.” “Who will get mad?” you say in a hushed voice. “I'm not allowed to talk about him,” she says, “but he always gets mad when he loses one.” You hear the rumble again. “I'm sorry,” she says, “I'm just so hungry.” Her words make you realize that you could die here. You need to get out. You cannot rely on the mercy of a man who keeps a little girl locked away like this. You need to escape and you need to bring Eleanor with you. God only knows what he's done to her. You need a plan. “Doesn't he feed you?” you ask. “Yes, but sometimes he forgets or gets mad and then he doesn't. Sometimes there's no food for a long time.” “Does he do anything else?” you ask. “Does he hurt you?” She whimpers and says she doesn't want to get in trouble for talking. “How long have you been locked in this room?” you ask in the quietest voice you can. “I don't know,” she answers, “a long time.” “You must miss your parents.” “They're dead. He told me that.” You need to find a way out. You need to find it now. He knows you're injured. He might not be expecting you to be up and moving yet. You could surprise him if you act quickly. Your vision is blurry, but your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. You can make out the shapes of the bars. They run to the ceiling. You shake the bars again looking for a weak link, but you cannot find one. “Is there a way out of here?” you ask, trying to sound calm for Eleanor. “There's a door, but it's always locked,” she answers. Your throat burns and your mouth tastes metallic. Your head throbs relentlessly. You need to move fast. There's the door. You need to get to it. But first you need to get out of this cage. You search your pockets, but they have been picked clean. Time passes. Eleanor stopped answering your questions. She's so afraid. You could save her. You could stand beside the door and rush him when he opens it. You could run. You could carry her if you had to, if she couldn't keep up. You hear a metallic click. It came from the bars. You search the bars again until you find the latch. It's no longer locked. You open the door to your cage and quietly call for Eleanor. “I'm here,” she says. It is so dark, you don't notice her until she's standing right in front of you. You kneel down to whisper in her ear. She is small and thin, wearing only a white nightgown. Your pulse quickens as you run the plan through in your head. “Eleanor,” you say, “we need to get out of here. We need to escape so he won't hurt you anymore. We'll make some noise and when he comes we'll run through the door. Do you understand?” “Yes,” she says meekly. “Okay, good. Now why don't you start calling out for him so he comes and we can get out of here?” “I don't think that's a good idea,” she says. “Why,” you ask. “Because he gets mad when I play with my food,” she says pleadingly into your ear. You are so surprised by the rows of saber pointed teeth burying into your neck that you don't even think to scream. Pitch black. You can't see a thing. Cold hard floor. Head throbbing. Hard to think. Jogging. You were jogging through the park. It's starting to come back now. You had just crossed the lane by the cherry trees. You were rounding the maintenance shed. Hurts to think. You were jogging through the park. It was warmer than usual. You were rounding the maintenance shed. You quickened your pace because you never trusted the look of that old shed. You're shivering. The floor is cold and hard. It saps the heat from your bare legs. You sweep the immediate area with your arms, but find only the hard cement floor. You try to stand but immediately fall to your hands and knees. Your head spins. You can't get your bearings in the dark. You crawl a few feet until you run into a wall. You turn and use the wall to guide you along the perimeter of the room. There must be a door. You only make it a few more feet before hitting your head against something metal. The impact causes your headache to flare. Bars. Iron bars. They're cold and sturdy. You push but they don't give. You were rounding the maintenance shed. You quickened your pace because you never trusted the look of it. You saw someone lying by the side of the path. You again follow the bars. There's no way out. Iron bars and a concrete floor. You could try climbing over them, but you can't trust your legs to stand. You hear a quiet rumble. You slowed your pace as you approached the body. It was a woman lying face down. She was wearing jogging gear. You stopped. You asked her if she was okay, but she didn't respond. You crouched down and gave her a gentle shake, but she was limp. You hear the rumble again followed by a sniffle. The sound reverberates through the room making it impossible to locate the direction. Another sniffle. You realize that you are not alone. You gave her a gentle shake, but she was limp. That's when you noticed the pool of blood forming around her head. You put your fingers to her neck, but could not find a pulse. She was cold. You hear the quiet rumble again. The muffled sniffle. “Hello,” you whisper: “is there someone there?” “I'm here.” The voice is shaky but you can make out that is a girl. She sounds young. “What's your name?” you ask. “I'm Eleanor,” she whispers. “Be quiet or he'll get mad.” “Who will get mad?” you say in a hushed voice. “I'm not allowed to talk about him,” she says, “but he always gets mad when he loses one.” You hear the rumble again. “I'm sorry,” she says, “I'm just so hungry.” Her words make you realize that you could die here. You need to get out. You cannot rely on the mercy of a man who keeps a little girl locked away like this. You need to escape and you need to bring Eleanor with you. God only knows what he's done to her. You need a plan. “Doesn't he feed you?” you ask. “Yes, but sometimes he forgets or gets mad and then he doesn't. Sometimes there's no food for a long time.” “Does he do anything else?” you ask. “Does he hurt you?” She whimpers and says she doesn't want to get in trouble for talking. “How long have you been locked in this room?” you ask in the quietest voice you can. “I don't know,” she answers, “a long time.” “You must miss your parents.” “They're dead. He told me that.” You need to find a way out. You need to find it now. He knows you're injured. He might not be expecting you to be up and moving yet. You could surprise him if you act quickly. Your vision is blurry, but your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. You can make out the shapes of the bars. They run to the ceiling. You shake the bars again looking for a weak link, but you cannot find one. “Is there a way out of here?” you ask, trying to sound calm for Eleanor. “There's a door, but it's always locked,” she answers. Your throat burns and your mouth tastes metallic. Your head throbs relentlessly. You need to move fast. There's the door. You need to get to it. But first you need to get out of this cage. You search your pockets, but they have been picked clean. Time passes. Eleanor stopped answering your questions. She's so afraid. You could save her. You could stand beside the door and rush him when he opens it. You could run. You could carry her if you had to, if she couldn't keep up. You hear a metallic click. It came from the bars. You search the bars again until you find the latch. It's no longer locked. You open the door to your cage and quietly call for Eleanor. “I'm here,” she says. It is so dark, you don't notice her until she's standing right in front of you. You kneel down to whisper in her ear. She is small and thin, wearing only a white nightgown. Your pulse quickens as you run the plan through in your head. “Eleanor,” you say, “we need to get out of here. We need to escape so he won't hurt you anymore. We'll make some noise and when he comes we'll run through the door. Do you understand?” “Yes,” she says meekly. “Okay, good. Now why don't you start calling out for him so he comes and we can get out of here?” “I don't think that's a good idea,” she says. “Why,” you ask. “Because he gets mad when I play with my food,” she says pleadingly into your ear. You are so surprised by the rows of saber pointed teeth burying into your neck that you don't even think to scream. http://www.onepagewonder.com/atnight/alone/ Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:04:38 CDT As a kid, the holidays were about ritual. There was pumpkin carving, costume choosing, and planning the trick-or-treating route that would bring in the most candy. When the festivities were all said and done, I would return home each Halloween to sort candy and watch the Disney Channel. Every Halloween from the early 80's to mid 90's Disney would air a Halloween special called A Disney Halloween. The special consisted of animated shorts and clips from Disney movies that featured ghosts, villains, or generally spooky themes. To top it all off, the special was hosted by the Magic Mirror from Snow White. Unfortunately, I don't believe A Disney Halloween ever made it to VHS or DVD, but it did have a cousin called Disney's Halloween Treat that was released to VHS in the 80's. Disney's Halloween Treat is basically a shorter version of A Disney Halloween only it's narrated by a foam jack-o'-lantern instead of the Magic Mirror. That's forgivable though because they made a song especially for this special. There's nothing quite like Disney's ability to come up with catchy holiday themed jingles to put you in the Halloween spirit. The special gets going with the wizard's duel from the Sword in the Stone in which Merlin and Madam Mim fight to the death by turning themselves into animals. Up next is the harrowing Night on Bald Mountain scene from Fantasia. This has to be one of the flat out creepier things Disney has ever done. The Watcher in the Woods scared me as a child, but this scene always struck me as downright demonic. I think it has something to do with all the demons. This is quickly followed up by clips from some old timey Disney shorts that involve haunted houses and some other spooks. Wikipedia says that these clips are called Pluto's Sweater and Mickey's Parrot and they date to the 30's and 40's. Up next is Donald Duck and the Gorilla, another short featuring Donald and his nephews. This is a fun segment in which the nephews try to scare Donald by dressing up as a gorilla only to find that a real gorilla has escaped and somehow landed himself in their house. The next short is a mish-mash of old Pluto cartoons in which he repeatedly goes after cats. In the end he has a terrible nightmare where he is dragged to hell and judged by a court of evil devil-cats. All in all, you should definitely check this out if only for the shorts. They're fun and really make you realize how much animation has changed. There's something about Disney's classic hand drawn animation that is really striking. Everything from the colors to the vivid layering to the music proves that Disney took his art seriously. This is followed by some old movie clips that feature the worst Disney villains showcasing their worst villainy. They showcase Captain Hook, Cruella Deville, and Grimhilde, the evil witch from Snow White. For the finale they play the Headless Horseman. The shorts are entertaining, but the Headless Horseman was what kept me glued to the tv as a kid. The whole thing is sung/narrated by Bing Crosby and full of plenty of suspense as well as physical comedy. I could go on and on about the Headless Horseman, but it truly deserves its own post. The good news is that, while the Halloween Treat was never put out on DVD, you can get your mitts on the Headless Horseman. It's called the Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and contains exactly what the title says. As far as the Halloween Treat- I found that most of it is on Youtube, so if you're interested in seeing more, I'd definitely recommend searching around. If anything, it's worth watching for the opening credits. As a kid, the holidays were about ritual. There was pumpkin carving, costume choosing, and planning the trick-or-treating route that would bring in the most candy. When the festivities were all said and done, I would return home each Halloween to sort candy and watch the Disney Channel. Every Halloween from the early 80's to mid 90's Disney would air a Halloween special called A Disney Halloween. The special consisted of animated shorts and clips from Disney movies that featured ghosts, villains, or generally spooky themes. To top it all off, the special was hosted by the Magic Mirror from Snow White. Unfortunately, I don't believe A Disney Halloween ever made it to VHS or DVD, but it did have a cousin called Disney's Halloween Treat that was released to VHS in the 80's. Disney's Halloween Treat is basically a shorter version of A Disney Halloween only it's narrated by a foam jack-o'-lantern instead of the Magic Mirror. That's forgivable though because they made a song especially for this special. There's nothing quite like Disney's ability to come up with catchy holiday themed jingles to put you in the Halloween spirit. The special gets going with the wizard's duel from the Sword in the Stone in which Merlin and Madam Mim fight to the death by turning themselves into animals. Up next is the harrowing Night on Bald Mountain scene from Fantasia. This has to be one of the flat out creepier things Disney has ever done. The Watcher in the Woods scared me as a child, but this scene always struck me as downright demonic. I think it has something to do with all the demons. This is quickly followed up by clips from some old timey Disney shorts that involve haunted houses and some other spooks. Wikipedia says that these clips are called Pluto's Sweater and Mickey's Parrot and they date to the 30's and 40's. Up next is Donald Duck and the Gorilla, another short featuring Donald and his nephews. This is a fun segment in which the nephews try to scare Donald by dressing up as a gorilla only to find that a real gorilla has escaped and somehow landed himself in their house. The next short is a mish-mash of old Pluto cartoons in which he repeatedly goes after cats. In the end he has a terrible nightmare where he is dragged to hell and judged by a court of evil devil-cats. All in all, you should definitely check this out if only for the shorts. They're fun and really make you realize how much animation has changed. There's something about Disney's classic hand drawn animation that is really striking. Everything from the colors to the vivid layering to the music proves that Disney took his art seriously. This is followed by some old movie clips that feature the worst Disney villains showcasing their worst villainy. They showcase Captain Hook, Cruella Deville, and Grimhilde, the evil witch from Snow White. For the finale they play the Headless Horseman. The shorts are entertaining, but the Headless Horseman was what kept me glued to the tv as a kid. The whole thing is sung/narrated by Bing Crosby and full of plenty of suspense as well as physical comedy. I could go on and on about the Headless Horseman, but it truly deserves its own post. The good news is that, while the Halloween Treat was never put out on DVD, you can get your mitts on the Headless Horseman. It's called the Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and contains exactly what the title says. As far as the Halloween Treat- I found that most of it is on Youtube, so if you're interested in seeing more, I'd definitely recommend searching around. If anything, it's worth watching for the opening credits. http://www.onepagewonder.com/cat/Holidays/Disney's+Halloween+Treat Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:30:01 CDT THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #30 -- Nabonga A 1940s jungle picture with Buster Crabbe better damn well have some hot gorilla action in it, and NABONGA does not disappoint. It even has 'rasslin gorillas! Unlike COUNTRY BLUE, this movie lays out pathways to awesome and takes every step to get there. Well, not exactly. One of the twists in the plot is an unheralded jump of say ten years between scenes. It's not a bad shock; in fact, compared to something like the TRANSFORMERS movies, this movie treats you like you're Sherlock Holmes. We're so used to certain types of plot developments being spelled out in dialogue, especially the "ha ha I know, we're totally doing exposition and pointing a big red arrow at it" form of dialogue we see a lot of today. Somehow actually showing what you need the audience to know is hokier than the four millionth explanation of what an EMP is, only to have M say "I totally knew that. Stop wasting my time". If you're not aware of Buster Crabbe, you're in for a pleasant surprise. Crabbe was an Olympic swimmer who made good in Hollywood, especially in serials. The guy was only Tarzan, Flash effing Gordon, and Buck Rogers. He had an easy charm and spoke lines without sounding brain damaged; plus he could fight like the devil onscreen. The kind of fights we have onscreen these days are technical, masterful, and impossible as hell in many cases (and therefore extra cool); but the actors that learned to fight the old Republic Pictures way mixed it up but good. Every punch was a haymaker, and every fight a tussle. I look at the fights in NABONGA and they look like Jack Kirby or Russ Heath or god knows how many of the great comics artists drew them. They look like they're beating the crap out of each other. For a movie about Africa done in the 40s, it's not horribly racist. Sure, the natives are superstitious and call all the white guys "bwana", but I pretended "bwana" was local tongue for "colonialist jagoff" and my honky unease was quelled. Crabbe's character, Ray Gorman, made a point of treating the natives well, especially his pal Tobo. He meets Tobo in a small village run by Carl and Maria. We'll get to them. Tobo is attacked by another native over some local native stuff and Gorman breaks it up, saving Tobo's life. So they're pals. When they venture into the jungle together, Gorman insists on taking his share of time hacking at the studio jungle plants with a machete. Gorman's an egalitarian. There's even a great bit where Gorman fights an alligator. It's after one of the several opportunities the movie takes to remove Buster Crabbe's shirt. If there's a doorway to gay for me, it's gotta be a shirtless Buster Crabbe sticking a knife into a rubber alligator. Maybe Rick Santorum should watch this movie; it might calm the guy down a little. Seriously, there are nearly zero moments in the movie where they want you to be ogling the ladies. The jungle girl wears a frock down past her knees (oh Maureen O'Sullivan, where have you gone?) and Marie is meant to be sultry, but she's more like Mom's divorced friend sultry. The plot's a little convoluted, until you realize that about half the action in it involves the careful dissemination of all the plot points to all the characters in the movie. NABONGA wants you to know what everyone knows, but everyone pretty much knows everything, so none of the drama comes from ignorance of something that someone else already knows. So, it's filler. After watching two dudes in gorilla suits wrestle to the death, everything else is filler. A great thing about this movie is that nobody is fooled by anyone's bullshit. When Gorman is in town, Carl and Maria, the white locals, think he might be a cop. Maria chats Gorman up while Carl searches his room; Gorman claims he's looking for King Solomon's Mines, but the movie doesn't waste a second on Maria wondering if that story's true. Carl finds three newspaper articles, kindly held for closeup so we can see too, that explain the plot so far. A fellow named Stockwell stole some jewels and banknotes and flew off with his daughter. They crashed in the jungle and were never found. It turns out that by the time Gorman arrives in the movie, ten years or so have passed. Gorman's dad was accused of abetting Stockwell and the insult to his honor was so great that he committed suicide; all Gorman wants is to find the stuff and return it to...um...make his dad...that wouldn't really make his dad look any less guilty. Anyways, Stockwell had his young daughter with him in the crash. When the pilot sees the strongbox of goodies Stockwell has with him, Stockwell kills him while he's trying to fix the radio on the crashed plane. That's a moment you regret later; let the guy fix the radio, then pretend he fell on some bullets, in an alligator's mouth. So Gorman and Tobo go off in search of a white witch who came from a giant bird that fell from the sky because even Corky Thatcher could put those clues together. Doreen Stockwell, the little girl, is now a lovely young woman in a surprisingly modest jungle gown. She spends her time placing cockatoos in trees and hanging out with Samson the gorilla. Weirdly, there are hints that Daddy Stockwell was the one who tamed Samson and taught him to protect Doreen and the strongbox. Nobody in this movie is entirely nice. Gorman is noble, but he has his moments of selfishness. Until Samson comes along, when Gorman first comes upon Doreen and the jewels, he tells her that they're all coming back with him. But Doreen only knows the jungle and there are some awkward bits where the standards of the time got in the way of some randy discussion. Hot girls ignorant about sex but speaking quasi-innocently about behavior that can only lead to the nasty goes back to ancient romance novels like Daphnis And Chloe (in which two young lovers cannot figure out how to have sex and try to emulate the sheep they tend by jumping on each other's backs without penetration. Daphnis sits and cries afterwards for being dumber than a sheep.). Here the code is "sleeping in the cave"; that's where Doreen sleeps, see? Samson gets agitated when Gorman's even near Doreen, so our hero prudently sleeps in a tree instead. Meanwhile, Carl and Maria, abandoned by their native party over fears of the white witch (which did not scare noble Tobo, but he gets trampled by Samson so that he's not playing third wheel in the Gorman/Doreen scenes later), venture on, for they too are looking for that strongbox. They make hilarious use of stock footage to create a bit of drama. First you have a shot of Carl and Maria pausing at a dramatic offscreen sight. Cut to stock footage of real lion standing there. Cut back to Carl and Maria. Carl says "Hold still; they won't charge you then." This, for all I know, is solid advice. But I can't help but wonder about swapping the lion image for a small child staring blankly into the camera. "Just...hold...still. It won't charge you." After the stock footage lion wanders off, Carl twists an ankle for plot purposes and sends Maria ahead. Get ready for the plotgasm: Gorman's stalemated on his efforts to get the strongbox and Doreen away from Samson. She doesn't want to leave and feels that stuff is hers. Maria shows, provoking instant jealousy in Doreen. Maria tells Gorman that she knows how to build a gorilla trap and if Gorman agrees to give her some loot, she'll build one. He agrees and they do this. Once Samson's trapped, Maria runs off to Carl and says she's paved the way. Carl shoots Gorman and they make off with the box. Doreen confronts them and Carl decides to take Doreen too. Maria objects and Carl tells her to piss off. And in the best pissed ex-girlfriend post-breakup move ever, she makes a bee-line to Samson's cage and releases him. She immediately regrets this when Samson kills her. Meanwhile, Gorman, wounded and stumbling through the forest, confronts Carl and they fight some more. Carl is winning when Samson appears. Carl shoots five or six times and Samson beats him to death and then dies on the spot. With every last impediment dead, Gorman takes Doreen's arm and informs her that he, she, and the box are headed back to civilization. "Perhaps it's better this way," says Gorman, when he really means to say "easier". Ain't it grand how nature and plot conspire to pave the way for the handsome white guy? Stayed awake for the whole thing because you can't help but love a movie where everyone behaves like a selfish turd and there's gorillas fighting. Five wide awake eyes for this one, because this is a true B-Movie--75 minutes and out. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He knows NABONGA means "gorilla", but he said it out loud a couple times during the fight with the alligator anyway. NABONGA! For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #30 -- Nabonga A 1940s jungle picture with Buster Crabbe better damn well have some hot gorilla action in it, and NABONGA does not disappoint. It even has 'rasslin gorillas! Unlike COUNTRY BLUE, this movie lays out pathways to awesome and takes every step to get there. Well, not exactly. One of the twists in the plot is an unheralded jump of say ten years between scenes. It's not a bad shock; in fact, compared to something like the TRANSFORMERS movies, this movie treats you like you're Sherlock Holmes. We're so used to certain types of plot developments being spelled out in dialogue, especially the "ha ha I know, we're totally doing exposition and pointing a big red arrow at it" form of dialogue we see a lot of today. Somehow actually showing what you need the audience to know is hokier than the four millionth explanation of what an EMP is, only to have M say "I totally knew that. Stop wasting my time". If you're not aware of Buster Crabbe, you're in for a pleasant surprise. Crabbe was an Olympic swimmer who made good in Hollywood, especially in serials. The guy was only Tarzan, Flash effing Gordon, and Buck Rogers. He had an easy charm and spoke lines without sounding brain damaged; plus he could fight like the devil onscreen. The kind of fights we have onscreen these days are technical, masterful, and impossible as hell in many cases (and therefore extra cool); but the actors that learned to fight the old Republic Pictures way mixed it up but good. Every punch was a haymaker, and every fight a tussle. I look at the fights in NABONGA and they look like Jack Kirby or Russ Heath or god knows how many of the great comics artists drew them. They look like they're beating the crap out of each other. For a movie about Africa done in the 40s, it's not horribly racist. Sure, the natives are superstitious and call all the white guys "bwana", but I pretended "bwana" was local tongue for "colonialist jagoff" and my honky unease was quelled. Crabbe's character, Ray Gorman, made a point of treating the natives well, especially his pal Tobo. He meets Tobo in a small village run by Carl and Maria. We'll get to them. Tobo is attacked by another native over some local native stuff and Gorman breaks it up, saving Tobo's life. So they're pals. When they venture into the jungle together, Gorman insists on taking his share of time hacking at the studio jungle plants with a machete. Gorman's an egalitarian. There's even a great bit where Gorman fights an alligator. It's after one of the several opportunities the movie takes to remove Buster Crabbe's shirt. If there's a doorway to gay for me, it's gotta be a shirtless Buster Crabbe sticking a knife into a rubber alligator. Maybe Rick Santorum should watch this movie; it might calm the guy down a little. Seriously, there are nearly zero moments in the movie where they want you to be ogling the ladies. The jungle girl wears a frock down past her knees (oh Maureen O'Sullivan, where have you gone?) and Marie is meant to be sultry, but she's more like Mom's divorced friend sultry. The plot's a little convoluted, until you realize that about half the action in it involves the careful dissemination of all the plot points to all the characters in the movie. NABONGA wants you to know what everyone knows, but everyone pretty much knows everything, so none of the drama comes from ignorance of something that someone else already knows. So, it's filler. After watching two dudes in gorilla suits wrestle to the death, everything else is filler. A great thing about this movie is that nobody is fooled by anyone's bullshit. When Gorman is in town, Carl and Maria, the white locals, think he might be a cop. Maria chats Gorman up while Carl searches his room; Gorman claims he's looking for King Solomon's Mines, but the movie doesn't waste a second on Maria wondering if that story's true. Carl finds three newspaper articles, kindly held for closeup so we can see too, that explain the plot so far. A fellow named Stockwell stole some jewels and banknotes and flew off with his daughter. They crashed in the jungle and were never found. It turns out that by the time Gorman arrives in the movie, ten years or so have passed. Gorman's dad was accused of abetting Stockwell and the insult to his honor was so great that he committed suicide; all Gorman wants is to find the stuff and return it to...um...make his dad...that wouldn't really make his dad look any less guilty. Anyways, Stockwell had his young daughter with him in the crash. When the pilot sees the strongbox of goodies Stockwell has with him, Stockwell kills him while he's trying to fix the radio on the crashed plane. That's a moment you regret later; let the guy fix the radio, then pretend he fell on some bullets, in an alligator's mouth. So Gorman and Tobo go off in search of a white witch who came from a giant bird that fell from the sky because even Corky Thatcher could put those clues together. Doreen Stockwell, the little girl, is now a lovely young woman in a surprisingly modest jungle gown. She spends her time placing cockatoos in trees and hanging out with Samson the gorilla. Weirdly, there are hints that Daddy Stockwell was the one who tamed Samson and taught him to protect Doreen and the strongbox. Nobody in this movie is entirely nice. Gorman is noble, but he has his moments of selfishness. Until Samson comes along, when Gorman first comes upon Doreen and the jewels, he tells her that they're all coming back with him. But Doreen only knows the jungle and there are some awkward bits where the standards of the time got in the way of some randy discussion. Hot girls ignorant about sex but speaking quasi-innocently about behavior that can only lead to the nasty goes back to ancient romance novels like Daphnis And Chloe (in which two young lovers cannot figure out how to have sex and try to emulate the sheep they tend by jumping on each other's backs without penetration. Daphnis sits and cries afterwards for being dumber than a sheep.). Here the code is "sleeping in the cave"; that's where Doreen sleeps, see? Samson gets agitated when Gorman's even near Doreen, so our hero prudently sleeps in a tree instead. Meanwhile, Carl and Maria, abandoned by their native party over fears of the white witch (which did not scare noble Tobo, but he gets trampled by Samson so that he's not playing third wheel in the Gorman/Doreen scenes later), venture on, for they too are looking for that strongbox. They make hilarious use of stock footage to create a bit of drama. First you have a shot of Carl and Maria pausing at a dramatic offscreen sight. Cut to stock footage of real lion standing there. Cut back to Carl and Maria. Carl says "Hold still; they won't charge you then." This, for all I know, is solid advice. But I can't help but wonder about swapping the lion image for a small child staring blankly into the camera. "Just...hold...still. It won't charge you." After the stock footage lion wanders off, Carl twists an ankle for plot purposes and sends Maria ahead. Get ready for the plotgasm: Gorman's stalemated on his efforts to get the strongbox and Doreen away from Samson. She doesn't want to leave and feels that stuff is hers. Maria shows, provoking instant jealousy in Doreen. Maria tells Gorman that she knows how to build a gorilla trap and if Gorman agrees to give her some loot, she'll build one. He agrees and they do this. Once Samson's trapped, Maria runs off to Carl and says she's paved the way. Carl shoots Gorman and they make off with the box. Doreen confronts them and Carl decides to take Doreen too. Maria objects and Carl tells her to piss off. And in the best pissed ex-girlfriend post-breakup move ever, she makes a bee-line to Samson's cage and releases him. She immediately regrets this when Samson kills her. Meanwhile, Gorman, wounded and stumbling through the forest, confronts Carl and they fight some more. Carl is winning when Samson appears. Carl shoots five or six times and Samson beats him to death and then dies on the spot. With every last impediment dead, Gorman takes Doreen's arm and informs her that he, she, and the box are headed back to civilization. "Perhaps it's better this way," says Gorman, when he really means to say "easier". Ain't it grand how nature and plot conspire to pave the way for the handsome white guy? Stayed awake for the whole thing because you can't help but love a movie where everyone behaves like a selfish turd and there's gorillas fighting. Five wide awake eyes for this one, because this is a true B-Movie--75 minutes and out. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He knows NABONGA means "gorilla", but he said it out loud a couple times during the fight with the alligator anyway. NABONGA! For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! http://www.onepagewonder.com/cat/TMS/Nabonga Fri, 30 Sep 2011 09:41:02 CDT THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #29 -- Country Blue The one investment that any crappy movie can make to make you wonder if it isn't up to some Art after all is a good Director of Photography. If it's shot well, even the worst choices are up for consideration as deliberate artistic impulses. I'm even sitting here wondering what the hell the title means. The truth is very simple. Jack Conrad, the co-writer, director, editor, and star, thought he could make a naturalistic redneck failure plot that would win us all over with location shots and and almost verite style in some scenes. Two things work against it: the lame-ass chases and the dubbing. To pick on the acting would barely count as being snarky. Of course the acting doesn't work; either you have actual actors who seem to have been told to just pile on local color without adding anything else, or you have the two leads, who are only acting when they're speaking. The rest of the time they're waiting for the other person to stop talking so they can do some acting too. It's like they're in a radio play. Much of the dialogue appears improvised around one or two redneck-isms per scene, like "Whatchoo wanna hear me play?" "Yank my doodle, it's a dandy." "Yank my...Heh hah! My daddy used to say that." The rest is crosstalk or obvious awkward silences occasionally overdubbed in post-production. "We were both in jail. Know what I mean by that?" The setup is that Bobby Lee Dixon is a massive failure at life. He really has no idea how big. He's set up in the early scenes as a great driver of certain illegal items, but when the movie's four car chases occur, he clearly sucks at escaping the cops. A lot of the problem is how the chases are shot. It's hard to convey speed on film; you wouldn't think so, but it is. This is why in other movies a lot of chases are shot at a distance or with the aid of a camera car. All the chases here are are shot POV with cuts to views of the drivers through their windshields. They look like they're doing thirty, tops. It made me miss Oosh and Doosh from IN HOT PURSUIT. "You found me in the bargain basement, but I'm gonna take you to the top of the penthouse." Chase One is after Bobby and Ruthie rob the bank in Havana, GA and a lone police car goes after them. They pull up by a house, then hide in the woods. While the cop gets out and looks around the house, they steal his car and get away. At best, a C-minus. Chase Two is after they rob a convenience store; they go until the cop just isn't there anymore, as if they'd stayed around the corner long enough in a Grand Theft Auto game and the cop just lost interest. That one's a D. Chase Three starts when Bobby and Ruthie try to cross the Georgia state line; they are met by state cops blocking the road. They pull a u-turn, roll a couple hundred yards and abandon the car, only to be immediately captured. That one gets an Incomplete. Chase Four ends with a move by the editor to make the cloud of dust they obviously throw up making a hard turn on a dirt road disappear in time for the cop car to miss it utterly and go the wrong way. That's an F. All this chasing occurs because Bobby wants to get a divorce for his girlfriend so they can be together. He's a couple days out of jail and decides that robbing a bank is just the ticket. Ruthie resists a bit, but goes along in that way that so many screen redneck girlfriends have gone before. "Bobby Lee loooooves me!" Fine, then; rob a bank, why don't ya? So they do. Later, after having weird chaste embrace-y sex in a swamp, they discover a newspaper, I dunno, discarded by a damn frog, and it gloats about how the bank suckered Bobby and Ruthie into thinking they didn't have much money. Well, Bobby can't stand that, so they go back that day and re-rob the bank. "You puke-suckin' maggot!" Okay, I have to double-back and talk about the sex. This is another weirdly chaste movie that clearly wants you to think there's a lot going on. I can see the temptation for a star/writer/director; it's totally within his power to be in a scene with a naked girl, so why the hell not? After the first bank robbery, they horse around in a lake and Bobby slides Ruthie's dress off, then removes her bra. They kiss. He lifts her from the water and turns to give us a bit of the view. Him being fully clothed to this point is fine. But then they're embracing on the ground, rolling in ecstasy and bits of grass; he's kissing his way down her sternum. Passionate faces abound. It just keeps on going with Bobby fully clothed and Ruthie with her dress suddenly back on and bunched at the waist. Then there's a crossfade to after and he's still got his pants on. I'm not arguing to see a guy naked; the juxtaposition is just weird. Is it a power thing? Did he think he didn't look good without a shirt? Is it not adultery in Georgia if you keep your pants on? "It's not inside of me to do that!" There are some long sequences in this thing; there's a lot of panning across nature. There's a lot of walking. There is almost no exposition, which is kind of refreshing, actually. There's a lot of riffing on redneck topics of conversation; the commitment to color over content is so powerful that several character introductions are done with freeze-frames and title cards. There's a lot of shots of some seriously economically depressed Georgia towns. Every effort is made to take the load off the actors; even during some of the longer staring sequences, there are a few full-on inexplicable freeze-frames to preserve a worthy look by actors who are mostly looking around like confused birds. You keep waiting for any of it to mean something, because the chases suck and even the goofy redneck with the EX-LAX t-shirt isn't all that entertaining. There's even a jailbreak sequence that utterly fails to excite. The shootout where a couple people get shot in the face is okay, but the best bit is the direct result of Bobby's appallingly bad driving and judgement. Bobby's zooming off-road with Ruthie and Arnita, a nice old lady who wanted to give Bobby a job running cigarettes from North Carolina, but he had to go and rob a damn bank. They're tearing cross country and Bobby's talking about the plan where they go to the coast and hop a shrimp boat to Mexico. Ten seconds after this brilliant plan is uttered, they fly off the bank of the Appalachicola River and the car sinks without a trace. For a second, I thought this was completely awesome. What an ending that would be! The river just swallows them up and that's it. Then Bobby surfaces and I despair that I've just witnessed another of what passes for an action sequence in this thing. But nobody else surfaces. Yep, he's killed the love of his life and the nice lady who broke him out of jail. It's a pretty solid piece of redneck failure. He cries a while then drives off into the sunset in another stolen car. This movie actually would have been better as a downloadable add-on to Grand Theft Auto--GTA: Valdosta. All the chases are like mini-missions where you just have to drive outside the flashing circle of police attention without being seen for ten seconds and the chapter's over. All the exposition happens while characters are driving somewhere. It's a threadbare plot with long setups. The women don't survive. That's completely GTA. Signs of life do appear in the movie. When Ruthie is tossed into the cell with the very gay and the shut up I'm totally not gay ladies, there's a real energy in the performances. If Ruthie had busted out with the two of them, that would have been a great twist. The awesome title track is a nice sugar shock: "Country old/Country blue/Easy Growin/Country high/Far and wide/Easy Flowin'/Country boy/By my side/Easy knowin'/Country blue/I'm comin' home/Country blue/I'm coming home to you/Country smile/Country mile/Easy rangin'/Country star/Country child/something something changin'". Amazingly, there is a single shot done from a helicopter, so there was some money in the movie. Plus, if you like that website with the pictures of people at Wal-Mart, this movie is for you. Stayed awake for the whole thing for no damn good reason. I kinda resent this movie. If you're not actually gonna be Art and you promise some car chases, then you damn well better deliver. Actually it was worth it for the few seconds where I thought everyone died in the river. Seven wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He also would have used the one helicopter shot for something besides an overhead shot of a damn racetrack. This the the thing with auteurs; there's no-one to tell them to save it for one of the car chases. For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #29 -- Country Blue The one investment that any crappy movie can make to make you wonder if it isn't up to some Art after all is a good Director of Photography. If it's shot well, even the worst choices are up for consideration as deliberate artistic impulses. I'm even sitting here wondering what the hell the title means. The truth is very simple. Jack Conrad, the co-writer, director, editor, and star, thought he could make a naturalistic redneck failure plot that would win us all over with location shots and and almost verite style in some scenes. Two things work against it: the lame-ass chases and the dubbing. To pick on the acting would barely count as being snarky. Of course the acting doesn't work; either you have actual actors who seem to have been told to just pile on local color without adding anything else, or you have the two leads, who are only acting when they're speaking. The rest of the time they're waiting for the other person to stop talking so they can do some acting too. It's like they're in a radio play. Much of the dialogue appears improvised around one or two redneck-isms per scene, like "Whatchoo wanna hear me play?" "Yank my doodle, it's a dandy." "Yank my...Heh hah! My daddy used to say that." The rest is crosstalk or obvious awkward silences occasionally overdubbed in post-production. "We were both in jail. Know what I mean by that?" The setup is that Bobby Lee Dixon is a massive failure at life. He really has no idea how big. He's set up in the early scenes as a great driver of certain illegal items, but when the movie's four car chases occur, he clearly sucks at escaping the cops. A lot of the problem is how the chases are shot. It's hard to convey speed on film; you wouldn't think so, but it is. This is why in other movies a lot of chases are shot at a distance or with the aid of a camera car. All the chases here are are shot POV with cuts to views of the drivers through their windshields. They look like they're doing thirty, tops. It made me miss Oosh and Doosh from IN HOT PURSUIT. "You found me in the bargain basement, but I'm gonna take you to the top of the penthouse." Chase One is after Bobby and Ruthie rob the bank in Havana, GA and a lone police car goes after them. They pull up by a house, then hide in the woods. While the cop gets out and looks around the house, they steal his car and get away. At best, a C-minus. Chase Two is after they rob a convenience store; they go until the cop just isn't there anymore, as if they'd stayed around the corner long enough in a Grand Theft Auto game and the cop just lost interest. That one's a D. Chase Three starts when Bobby and Ruthie try to cross the Georgia state line; they are met by state cops blocking the road. They pull a u-turn, roll a couple hundred yards and abandon the car, only to be immediately captured. That one gets an Incomplete. Chase Four ends with a move by the editor to make the cloud of dust they obviously throw up making a hard turn on a dirt road disappear in time for the cop car to miss it utterly and go the wrong way. That's an F. All this chasing occurs because Bobby wants to get a divorce for his girlfriend so they can be together. He's a couple days out of jail and decides that robbing a bank is just the ticket. Ruthie resists a bit, but goes along in that way that so many screen redneck girlfriends have gone before. "Bobby Lee loooooves me!" Fine, then; rob a bank, why don't ya? So they do. Later, after having weird chaste embrace-y sex in a swamp, they discover a newspaper, I dunno, discarded by a damn frog, and it gloats about how the bank suckered Bobby and Ruthie into thinking they didn't have much money. Well, Bobby can't stand that, so they go back that day and re-rob the bank. "You puke-suckin' maggot!" Okay, I have to double-back and talk about the sex. This is another weirdly chaste movie that clearly wants you to think there's a lot going on. I can see the temptation for a star/writer/director; it's totally within his power to be in a scene with a naked girl, so why the hell not? After the first bank robbery, they horse around in a lake and Bobby slides Ruthie's dress off, then removes her bra. They kiss. He lifts her from the water and turns to give us a bit of the view. Him being fully clothed to this point is fine. But then they're embracing on the ground, rolling in ecstasy and bits of grass; he's kissing his way down her sternum. Passionate faces abound. It just keeps on going with Bobby fully clothed and Ruthie with her dress suddenly back on and bunched at the waist. Then there's a crossfade to after and he's still got his pants on. I'm not arguing to see a guy naked; the juxtaposition is just weird. Is it a power thing? Did he think he didn't look good without a shirt? Is it not adultery in Georgia if you keep your pants on? "It's not inside of me to do that!" There are some long sequences in this thing; there's a lot of panning across nature. There's a lot of walking. There is almost no exposition, which is kind of refreshing, actually. There's a lot of riffing on redneck topics of conversation; the commitment to color over content is so powerful that several character introductions are done with freeze-frames and title cards. There's a lot of shots of some seriously economically depressed Georgia towns. Every effort is made to take the load off the actors; even during some of the longer staring sequences, there are a few full-on inexplicable freeze-frames to preserve a worthy look by actors who are mostly looking around like confused birds. You keep waiting for any of it to mean something, because the chases suck and even the goofy redneck with the EX-LAX t-shirt isn't all that entertaining. There's even a jailbreak sequence that utterly fails to excite. The shootout where a couple people get shot in the face is okay, but the best bit is the direct result of Bobby's appallingly bad driving and judgement. Bobby's zooming off-road with Ruthie and Arnita, a nice old lady who wanted to give Bobby a job running cigarettes from North Carolina, but he had to go and rob a damn bank. They're tearing cross country and Bobby's talking about the plan where they go to the coast and hop a shrimp boat to Mexico. Ten seconds after this brilliant plan is uttered, they fly off the bank of the Appalachicola River and the car sinks without a trace. For a second, I thought this was completely awesome. What an ending that would be! The river just swallows them up and that's it. Then Bobby surfaces and I despair that I've just witnessed another of what passes for an action sequence in this thing. But nobody else surfaces. Yep, he's killed the love of his life and the nice lady who broke him out of jail. It's a pretty solid piece of redneck failure. He cries a while then drives off into the sunset in another stolen car. This movie actually would have been better as a downloadable add-on to Grand Theft Auto--GTA: Valdosta. All the chases are like mini-missions where you just have to drive outside the flashing circle of police attention without being seen for ten seconds and the chapter's over. All the exposition happens while characters are driving somewhere. It's a threadbare plot with long setups. The women don't survive. That's completely GTA. Signs of life do appear in the movie. When Ruthie is tossed into the cell with the very gay and the shut up I'm totally not gay ladies, there's a real energy in the performances. If Ruthie had busted out with the two of them, that would have been a great twist. The awesome title track is a nice sugar shock: "Country old/Country blue/Easy Growin/Country high/Far and wide/Easy Flowin'/Country boy/By my side/Easy knowin'/Country blue/I'm comin' home/Country blue/I'm coming home to you/Country smile/Country mile/Easy rangin'/Country star/Country child/something something changin'". Amazingly, there is a single shot done from a helicopter, so there was some money in the movie. Plus, if you like that website with the pictures of people at Wal-Mart, this movie is for you. Stayed awake for the whole thing for no damn good reason. I kinda resent this movie. If you're not actually gonna be Art and you promise some car chases, then you damn well better deliver. Actually it was worth it for the few seconds where I thought everyone died in the river. Seven wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He also would have used the one helicopter shot for something besides an overhead shot of a damn racetrack. This the the thing with auteurs; there's no-one to tell them to save it for one of the car chases. For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! http://www.onepagewonder.com/cat/TMS/Country+Blue Fri, 23 Sep 2011 08:08:58 CDT THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #28 -- Breakout From Oppression First off, let's talk about this title. I kept this flick at arm's length for a while on the basis of the name alone. It's not a bad title, but it has nothing to do with the movie. You look at that title and you think maybe political thriller, sadistic regime with a message of hope or power to the people. As it turns out, Sha chu chong wei is a pretty great Hong Kong giallo, even if none of the online translators can make sense of the original title. The oppression from the title is really more of a jinx experienced by Fonda, a lady who could use a real breakout. This title bothers the hell out of me; what about Breaking The Spell? Undoing The Hex? Escaping Fate? Braveheart? All the traditional giallo tropes are here, with the exception of a killer POV shot with black leather gloves. But it does have the advantage of a culture in which wearing a half-size sword in your belt isn't a cause for suspicion. Like in BLOOD MANIA, the director of this movie (a one-timer named Karen Yang) seems informed by the Italians, Argento in particular. There's imaginative use of color, sudden bizarro cutaways, a really cool fuzztone Goblin-like soundtrack, and a killer with a hell of a plan. Even the story beats and pacing hew much closer to Italian genre filmmaking rather than Hong Kong. It was written by Godfrey Ho, who wrote more movies with "ninja" in the title than you can name. Make a list of every movie you can think of with "ninja" in the title; now imagine writing a script for every one of those and a dozen more. It ain't easy being Godfrey Ho. So I mentioned before about Fonda's jinx. She turns up in a new town with a letter offering her a job at a newspaper. Much of the opening is Fonda on a boat going to her new life, peppered with voiceovers and flashbacks to her time in prison. It made me think of DEAD MAN briefly, and left me wondering if she was some crusading reporter who'd been sent to jail because of her fiery articles about a cruel and oppressive government. And now she'd have to write puff pieces to stay out of jail and away from psychopaths who bury razorblades in your soap so that just the slightest edge peeks out. But that isn't it at all; the goddamn title is distracting me! Snapping The Losing Streak? Ending the Slump? Dodging The Razor? Major League? See, Fonda's never worked for a newspaper. A random letter arrived offering her the Assistant Editorship to a newspaper and she thought "What luck!" and off she went on her new adventure. Still, after the crap she's been through, if she'd gotten a letter saying she'd just been made Assistant Feral Hog Inseminator somewhere she'd have probably taken that one too. Fonda went to jail for a crime she didn't commit, and her inability to convince anyone of her innocence has her thinking she's jinxed. She's got a noir character's sense of fatalism; when more accusations occur, she mostly just sits there and takes it. The character to keep an eye on in this is Sheena, the publisher's secretary; they keep calling the publisher the president, but he's the publisher. Sheena is seventeen, has a full-time job at the newspaper, takes care of her invalid grandmother, and has the publisher locked up in her basement. Dig this plan: Sheena abducted her boss and sent a letter to Fonda, in his name, offering her a job. She does this so the publisher isn't there to ask what the hell, and also to nut Fonda's credibility right out of the gate. When Fonda goes to the newspaper office with her letter expecting a job, nobody knows who the hell she is. The job she's offered is already filled by a whiny busybody who moves unscathed throughout the movie. Enter editor Simon, who smooths things over by making Fonda a paste-up girl. Simon's a dreamy Chinese fella with a blow-cut, a mustache, and a heart of gold. Here are the dynamics. Sheena isn't fond-o Fonda for historical reasons and has lured her here for humiliation and eventual doom. Simon digs Fonda; Sheena digs Simon. This doubles Sheena's rage at Fonda. I mentioned Sheena taking care of her invalid grandmother; it's not so much that as a straight-up case of elder abuse. Sheena resents having to take care of her grandmother because her parents are dead. Her dad was stepping out on her mom and her mom killed her dad and killed herself. If you haven't guessed that Fonda was the other woman in that situation, back three spaces and lose your turn. See, Sheena didn't think it was enough that Fonda was wrongly accused of the stabbing death of her father and went upstate for eight years. In her mind, Fonda killed her father, made her mom crazy, stuck her with a drooling grandma in a wheelchair and robbed her of a childhood. The whole thing emanates from the resentful way Sheena "cares" for her grandmother. All of her actions are rationalized through a lens of being the one with all the shitty jobs. This becomes a compulsion to insert herself cleverly and violently into situations best left entirely alone. She's the one with a bag of shit to hold, so she's the garbageman. Follow her reasoning on this chain of events: she lures Fonda to town and starts making her life hell while playing pal to her. She even goes so far as to put glass shards into some spring rolls that are served by Fonda to the daughter of the busybody; the kid nearly bleeds out and everyone is mad at Fonda, who blames Sheena and attacks her. Sheena reacts with horror and Fonda looks even more guilty, all according to plan. Shit, I'm lost. Right, Sheena's resentment over her lost childhood. She wears little girl dresses at home and hauls around a Holly Hobby knock-off doll that she decapitates in a fit of rage. When she reveals herself as the killer and chases Fonda all over the damn place, she wears what looks like kid's actionwear, complete with mini-sword tucked in her belt. But Simon's fallen in love with Fonda, dammit, and he believes her when she says she didn't put glass in the spring rolls. So Sheena lures him to her house with a fake plumbing problem and pops him on the head with a pipe wrench. His new room-mate is the publisher, who died after he refused to eat, played dead, attacked Sheena, and got his brains bashed in. Sheena's reason why the publisher's dead is great: he wouldn't eat. Sheena's performance takes over the movie right when she visits Fonda in the hospital. See, after Fonda attacked Sheena, Fonda was sedated and put in the hospital to calm down. Sheena slips in to Fonda's room and reaches out in a great POV shot to Fonda's neck. Instead of strangling her, Sheena caresses Fonda's face with both hands to see if she's playing possum. Satisfied, she puts a pillow on Fonda's face to smother her. Fonda awakens and gets a lucky flail in, knocking Sheena back. Not missing a trick, Sheena gets up to comfort Fonda, telling her she was just adjusting the covers. By this time, Fonda's doubting her own theories even as they form; she accepts this explanation and they chat amiably. The chase at the end clearly evokes everything we know about psycho killers: they're relentless, they're tougher than they look and they are never ever dead the first time you kill them. The fight is good and realistic; even the fall that apparently kills Sheena doesn't look all that bad. Her arm gets broken and the movie stands by it. Simon's escape from the basement is great, with invalid grandma pulling a clever save by reaching up to tip over a large glass pitcher so Simon can use the glass shards to cut his bonds. There's a visually powerful scene, wrecked by the crappy transfer, where Sheena throws some of Simon's stuff off a rocky cliff and arranges an apparent drowning and loss at sea to get everyone to stop looking for him, and also to further break Fonda's will. She even pulls a fantastic samurai-style slash-and-run to kill a nosy photographer in two speedy passes. Sheena's so disciplined that when she finally gets Fonda in her clutches, she has a plan to blame every single death on Fonda. She sets up a noose and makes her put it on. Even now, Sheena is wildly successful at compartmentalizing. Sure, she wants Fonda dead ultimately; but if making her hang herself and take the rap generates more shame, then that's Sheena's path. She's taking care of everything. And really, Sheena wins. Sure, Sheena dies and everyone finds out what she did, but Fonda ends up going to jail for killing Sheena. And it's played like a happy ending! Simon tells Fonda that he'll get her a good lawyer AND he'll wait for her. Fonda nods, happy that someone is willing to wait for her personal shitstorm to blow over. There is no breakout from oppression here. This is a noir masquerading as a giallo; it's meatballs with black coffee, stirred with a glass-laced spring roll. Stayed awake for the whole thing because I couldn't get the title problem out of my head; what you need is a short neat phrase that evokes escaping from a straitjacket only to find you're locked in a trunk at the bottom of a lake. The Germans would have one. In English all those phrases end up sounding like post-90s metal bands--REGRETFUL FREEDOM, PITEOUS ESCAPE, CONSEQUENTIAL WEIGHT. Although, come to think of it, FATES WARNING would be a good title. Six wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He peed himself a little during the scene where they go to investigate the triple murder. That was a good scare. For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #28 -- Breakout From Oppression First off, let's talk about this title. I kept this flick at arm's length for a while on the basis of the name alone. It's not a bad title, but it has nothing to do with the movie. You look at that title and you think maybe political thriller, sadistic regime with a message of hope or power to the people. As it turns out, Sha chu chong wei is a pretty great Hong Kong giallo, even if none of the online translators can make sense of the original title. The oppression from the title is really more of a jinx experienced by Fonda, a lady who could use a real breakout. This title bothers the hell out of me; what about Breaking The Spell? Undoing The Hex? Escaping Fate? Braveheart? All the traditional giallo tropes are here, with the exception of a killer POV shot with black leather gloves. But it does have the advantage of a culture in which wearing a half-size sword in your belt isn't a cause for suspicion. Like in BLOOD MANIA, the director of this movie (a one-timer named Karen Yang) seems informed by the Italians, Argento in particular. There's imaginative use of color, sudden bizarro cutaways, a really cool fuzztone Goblin-like soundtrack, and a killer with a hell of a plan. Even the story beats and pacing hew much closer to Italian genre filmmaking rather than Hong Kong. It was written by Godfrey Ho, who wrote more movies with "ninja" in the title than you can name. Make a list of every movie you can think of with "ninja" in the title; now imagine writing a script for every one of those and a dozen more. It ain't easy being Godfrey Ho. So I mentioned before about Fonda's jinx. She turns up in a new town with a letter offering her a job at a newspaper. Much of the opening is Fonda on a boat going to her new life, peppered with voiceovers and flashbacks to her time in prison. It made me think of DEAD MAN briefly, and left me wondering if she was some crusading reporter who'd been sent to jail because of her fiery articles about a cruel and oppressive government. And now she'd have to write puff pieces to stay out of jail and away from psychopaths who bury razorblades in your soap so that just the slightest edge peeks out. But that isn't it at all; the goddamn title is distracting me! Snapping The Losing Streak? Ending the Slump? Dodging The Razor? Major League? See, Fonda's never worked for a newspaper. A random letter arrived offering her the Assistant Editorship to a newspaper and she thought "What luck!" and off she went on her new adventure. Still, after the crap she's been through, if she'd gotten a letter saying she'd just been made Assistant Feral Hog Inseminator somewhere she'd have probably taken that one too. Fonda went to jail for a crime she didn't commit, and her inability to convince anyone of her innocence has her thinking she's jinxed. She's got a noir character's sense of fatalism; when more accusations occur, she mostly just sits there and takes it. The character to keep an eye on in this is Sheena, the publisher's secretary; they keep calling the publisher the president, but he's the publisher. Sheena is seventeen, has a full-time job at the newspaper, takes care of her invalid grandmother, and has the publisher locked up in her basement. Dig this plan: Sheena abducted her boss and sent a letter to Fonda, in his name, offering her a job. She does this so the publisher isn't there to ask what the hell, and also to nut Fonda's credibility right out of the gate. When Fonda goes to the newspaper office with her letter expecting a job, nobody knows who the hell she is. The job she's offered is already filled by a whiny busybody who moves unscathed throughout the movie. Enter editor Simon, who smooths things over by making Fonda a paste-up girl. Simon's a dreamy Chinese fella with a blow-cut, a mustache, and a heart of gold. Here are the dynamics. Sheena isn't fond-o Fonda for historical reasons and has lured her here for humiliation and eventual doom. Simon digs Fonda; Sheena digs Simon. This doubles Sheena's rage at Fonda. I mentioned Sheena taking care of her invalid grandmother; it's not so much that as a straight-up case of elder abuse. Sheena resents having to take care of her grandmother because her parents are dead. Her dad was stepping out on her mom and her mom killed her dad and killed herself. If you haven't guessed that Fonda was the other woman in that situation, back three spaces and lose your turn. See, Sheena didn't think it was enough that Fonda was wrongly accused of the stabbing death of her father and went upstate for eight years. In her mind, Fonda killed her father, made her mom crazy, stuck her with a drooling grandma in a wheelchair and robbed her of a childhood. The whole thing emanates from the resentful way Sheena "cares" for her grandmother. All of her actions are rationalized through a lens of being the one with all the shitty jobs. This becomes a compulsion to insert herself cleverly and violently into situations best left entirely alone. She's the one with a bag of shit to hold, so she's the garbageman. Follow her reasoning on this chain of events: she lures Fonda to town and starts making her life hell while playing pal to her. She even goes so far as to put glass shards into some spring rolls that are served by Fonda to the daughter of the busybody; the kid nearly bleeds out and everyone is mad at Fonda, who blames Sheena and attacks her. Sheena reacts with horror and Fonda looks even more guilty, all according to plan. Shit, I'm lost. Right, Sheena's resentment over her lost childhood. She wears little girl dresses at home and hauls around a Holly Hobby knock-off doll that she decapitates in a fit of rage. When she reveals herself as the killer and chases Fonda all over the damn place, she wears what looks like kid's actionwear, complete with mini-sword tucked in her belt. But Simon's fallen in love with Fonda, dammit, and he believes her when she says she didn't put glass in the spring rolls. So Sheena lures him to her house with a fake plumbing problem and pops him on the head with a pipe wrench. His new room-mate is the publisher, who died after he refused to eat, played dead, attacked Sheena, and got his brains bashed in. Sheena's reason why the publisher's dead is great: he wouldn't eat. Sheena's performance takes over the movie right when she visits Fonda in the hospital. See, after Fonda attacked Sheena, Fonda was sedated and put in the hospital to calm down. Sheena slips in to Fonda's room and reaches out in a great POV shot to Fonda's neck. Instead of strangling her, Sheena caresses Fonda's face with both hands to see if she's playing possum. Satisfied, she puts a pillow on Fonda's face to smother her. Fonda awakens and gets a lucky flail in, knocking Sheena back. Not missing a trick, Sheena gets up to comfort Fonda, telling her she was just adjusting the covers. By this time, Fonda's doubting her own theories even as they form; she accepts this explanation and they chat amiably. The chase at the end clearly evokes everything we know about psycho killers: they're relentless, they're tougher than they look and they are never ever dead the first time you kill them. The fight is good and realistic; even the fall that apparently kills Sheena doesn't look all that bad. Her arm gets broken and the movie stands by it. Simon's escape from the basement is great, with invalid grandma pulling a clever save by reaching up to tip over a large glass pitcher so Simon can use the glass shards to cut his bonds. There's a visually powerful scene, wrecked by the crappy transfer, where Sheena throws some of Simon's stuff off a rocky cliff and arranges an apparent drowning and loss at sea to get everyone to stop looking for him, and also to further break Fonda's will. She even pulls a fantastic samurai-style slash-and-run to kill a nosy photographer in two speedy passes. Sheena's so disciplined that when she finally gets Fonda in her clutches, she has a plan to blame every single death on Fonda. She sets up a noose and makes her put it on. Even now, Sheena is wildly successful at compartmentalizing. Sure, she wants Fonda dead ultimately; but if making her hang herself and take the rap generates more shame, then that's Sheena's path. She's taking care of everything. And really, Sheena wins. Sure, Sheena dies and everyone finds out what she did, but Fonda ends up going to jail for killing Sheena. And it's played like a happy ending! Simon tells Fonda that he'll get her a good lawyer AND he'll wait for her. Fonda nods, happy that someone is willing to wait for her personal shitstorm to blow over. There is no breakout from oppression here. This is a noir masquerading as a giallo; it's meatballs with black coffee, stirred with a glass-laced spring roll. Stayed awake for the whole thing because I couldn't get the title problem out of my head; what you need is a short neat phrase that evokes escaping from a straitjacket only to find you're locked in a trunk at the bottom of a lake. The Germans would have one. In English all those phrases end up sounding like post-90s metal bands--REGRETFUL FREEDOM, PITEOUS ESCAPE, CONSEQUENTIAL WEIGHT. Although, come to think of it, FATES WARNING would be a good title. Six wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He peed himself a little during the scene where they go to investigate the triple murder. That was a good scare. For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! http://www.onepagewonder.com/cat/TMS/Breakout+From+Oppression Sun, 11 Sep 2011 06:14:58 CDT He hasn't always been here. I enjoyed a good seven years as the only child. But that all changed after picture day. More precisely, it changed when I brought the pictures home from school. They were your run of the mill school pictures; an assortment of wallet size photos and a few larger ones to share with relatives. I wore a green and yellow Izod shirt and brown corduroy pants all topped by a mop of disheveled blond hair. Typical 80's third grader. Mother took a special liking to an 8” x10” photo and by the next day it was framed and hanging in the hallway. From the moment I noticed it hanging there, I felt as though it was a picture of someone else. You'd think a mother would pick up on that sort of thing, wouldn't you? Shouldn't a mother, of all people, recognize her own child? Instead she praised me for finally taking a nice picture, she said it showed my sweet side. If I had known, I would have disposed of it. I would have thrown it into the river and let it float away. Orthodox Christians do that with their icons when they are too worn to be used in their ceremonies and I've always admired the reverence behind the practice, but I guess that's neither here nor there. A few days later it happened. I was sitting in our living room watching the afternoon cartoons when I saw something dart across the hall to my room. It was only from the corner of my eye, but sometimes your peripheral vision can be very keen. I thought it was just my reflection at first, only it was wearing the same yellow and green shirt and corduroy pants from the picture. After that, I would see myself almost daily, mousing around the house from the corner of my eye- always wearing the same green and yellow shirt with brown pants. I thought I was my imagination at first, but the sightings were unmistakeably real. He generally showed up when Mother was in the house. If she was doing dishes, he'd be watching from around the corner; he'd follow her down the hall; he'd spy on her in the yard from the attic window. He kept his distance, but he was always following her, wearing the same cherubic expression as the photo. And then he started to act. Dishes did themselves. Laundry was folded and put away when left out. They were always little chores, the kind you might think you absentmindedly did yourself then forgot about. But they were always done, and I always got credit. Mother would say “thank you” out of the blue with her radiant smile. She would say, “that's a good Walt for putting away the dishes,” or “what a nice thing to do, folding your own laundry.” Every time, I would catch sight of my little doppelganger absorbing the praise from the corner of my eye. Every act of kindness and every bit of praise emboldened Good Walt. I think mother thought I was trying to fill the role of man of the house since Father died. As I grew older and puberty started to kick in, Good Walt continued to stay the same. He wasn't me. He was some pale reflection of the son I could have been. He was the one mother continued to love throughout my trials and tribulations of junior high and high school. I tried so hard to rebel, so hard to get into trouble, but good Walt was always there to patch things up before mother found out. Cigarettes would mysteriously disappear from my sock drawer, Playboys would vanish from between the mattresses, and the botched vivisection on the neighbor's cat? Let's just say that old Mrs. Stephens never saw the blood trail that painted her porch that night. I almost felt bad for her, seeing her tacking missing posters to the utility poles the next morning. Okay, so I may have had a chuckle or two, but if you had seen that mangy creature frantically trying to escape- determined it was being pursued by the intestines trailing from the flaps in its abdomen- well, you get the picture. I was a good student. I knew that good grades were my only escape from this small town and I can't tell you the elation I felt when Good Walt didn't follow me to college. The dutiful son decided to stay at home to keep Mother company. Those were the best years of my life. I was finally free of my diminutive self constantly getting between me and my desires. And the city? It's everything you can imagine and more. The food, the nightlife- it's magical, manifold even, catering to every desire. But two years into graduate school, my world came crashing town. A late night phone call and the next thing I know I'm racing to the hospital to find Mother waiting in ICU. Good Walt beat me there, of course, but there was nothing he or the doctors could do. She passed minutes after I arrived. I caught sight of Good Walt sitting in the back seat on the ride from the hospital. He was grieving. Her funeral was pleasant enough. I never realized that Mother knew so many people. They all paid their respects to me and offered to help in any way they could. I thought I had ended a chapter of my life until I looked up from the grave and saw her standing several yards away watching her own funeral. But like the photograph, there was something different about her. Mother was always sweet and genteel, but this mother wore a look of scorn that I had never seen before. Good Walt noticed her too and cowered like a whipped dog. I nearly burst out laughing. I had helped Mother by co-signing on an equity loan on the house. Without an income to speak of and bills to pay, I was forced to leave school and move back. Dr. Coleman at the community college was nice enough to offer me a job teaching literature and, ten years in, I realized that this will be the rest of my life. It's lonely being one of the few educated people in this hellhole. Oh, don't look at me like that, you know you feel the same way I do. You said as much in the poem you recited in class last semester. What was that verse again, something about being marooned in a cocoon, solitary and reaching? I don't remember the verse exactly and forgive my if I say that it wasn't particularly well written. I don't mean to insult you, it's just that nobody in that class has ever penned anything that wasn't deserving of being incinerated. A lost art, I guess. Anyhow, it wasn't the poem, but the sentiment behind it. About being alone and out of water. This isn't where you want to be, but you also know you'll never leave even though you have nothing keeping you here. A paradox. Like me returning to the town I loathe to live with my eternally youthful copy. You see, I know just how you feel, that's why I invited you over. Though I must admit that I can't take all the credit, Good Walt helped too. Those flowers you found on your doorstep yesterday? That was his doing. I think you remind him of Mother- you share the same warmth, the same radiant personality, and I think he sees the same loneliness inside you. Please don't, you're just going to make this harder on all of us. I miss Mother too sometimes. But that's not why I asked you over tonight. I know what you're thinking and I can assure you it's not that. I mean there's a certain something to the confirmed bachelor poetry teacher who wants nothing more than to spend every moment with his mother, but that isn't the case here. Can I be honest? I'm the same as you. I know that you're the only person in this town that I could be happy with. But there's something missing. I know you agree- I can see it in your eyes. Imagine the gift that is: a slight alteration that transforms two people who are compatible but not in love into soul mates. What would Byron say about that? Something great, no doubt. Do you realize how lucky we are? Maybe not Good Walt, of course, but you, me and New Mother will be so happy. I guess that's Good Walt's paradox. He had to have known what would happen if he helped me, but it's like I said before, he must see so much of Mother in you. Right down to her loneliness. Maybe it was her loneliness that caused him to appear in the first place. The kind of loneliness that means everyone will assume you just up and left like you'd always said you would. Struggling isn't going to solve this. Can't you see I'm trying to help you. I know how miserable you are. How empty. I can fix that. For both of us. Admit it, wasn't dinner wonderful tonight? Didn't you feel the sense of family you've been longing for? Didn't you feel a connection? I know I did. The four of us sitting down to a proper meal together? I apologize about what I put in your wine, but it was the only way I could think of. Things could get out of hand if you struggled, and then where would we be? See, that was barely a pinch, not nearly as bad as you'd think it would be. Not like that time with the cat. Why you're looking more beautiful already. You can see them now can't you? Do you see how happy you've made New Mother? And why not, it's no small thing, welcoming a new daughter-in-law into her home. I know Good Walt must be grieving, but he'll warm up to the new you. He chose you after all. You're probably wondering about all this mess. But it's like I said, Good Walt would never let me get into trouble. I'm sure he'll treat it all with reverence of an icon. Now why don't you take a moment to all get properly acquainted while I prepare the dessert? He hasn't always been here. I enjoyed a good seven years as the only child. But that all changed after picture day. More precisely, it changed when I brought the pictures home from school. They were your run of the mill school pictures; an assortment of wallet size photos and a few larger ones to share with relatives. I wore a green and yellow Izod shirt and brown corduroy pants all topped by a mop of disheveled blond hair. Typical 80's third grader. Mother took a special liking to an 8” x10” photo and by the next day it was framed and hanging in the hallway. From the moment I noticed it hanging there, I felt as though it was a picture of someone else. You'd think a mother would pick up on that sort of thing, wouldn't you? Shouldn't a mother, of all people, recognize her own child? Instead she praised me for finally taking a nice picture, she said it showed my sweet side. If I had known, I would have disposed of it. I would have thrown it into the river and let it float away. Orthodox Christians do that with their icons when they are too worn to be used in their ceremonies and I've always admired the reverence behind the practice, but I guess that's neither here nor there. A few days later it happened. I was sitting in our living room watching the afternoon cartoons when I saw something dart across the hall to my room. It was only from the corner of my eye, but sometimes your peripheral vision can be very keen. I thought it was just my reflection at first, only it was wearing the same yellow and green shirt and corduroy pants from the picture. After that, I would see myself almost daily, mousing around the house from the corner of my eye- always wearing the same green and yellow shirt with brown pants. I thought I was my imagination at first, but the sightings were unmistakeably real. He generally showed up when Mother was in the house. If she was doing dishes, he'd be watching from around the corner; he'd follow her down the hall; he'd spy on her in the yard from the attic window. He kept his distance, but he was always following her, wearing the same cherubic expression as the photo. And then he started to act. Dishes did themselves. Laundry was folded and put away when left out. They were always little chores, the kind you might think you absentmindedly did yourself then forgot about. But they were always done, and I always got credit. Mother would say “thank you” out of the blue with her radiant smile. She would say, “that's a good Walt for putting away the dishes,” or “what a nice thing to do, folding your own laundry.” Every time, I would catch sight of my little doppelganger absorbing the praise from the corner of my eye. Every act of kindness and every bit of praise emboldened Good Walt. I think mother thought I was trying to fill the role of man of the house since Father died. As I grew older and puberty started to kick in, Good Walt continued to stay the same. He wasn't me. He was some pale reflection of the son I could have been. He was the one mother continued to love throughout my trials and tribulations of junior high and high school. I tried so hard to rebel, so hard to get into trouble, but good Walt was always there to patch things up before mother found out. Cigarettes would mysteriously disappear from my sock drawer, Playboys would vanish from between the mattresses, and the botched vivisection on the neighbor's cat? Let's just say that old Mrs. Stephens never saw the blood trail that painted her porch that night. I almost felt bad for her, seeing her tacking missing posters to the utility poles the next morning. Okay, so I may have had a chuckle or two, but if you had seen that mangy creature frantically trying to escape- determined it was being pursued by the intestines trailing from the flaps in its abdomen- well, you get the picture. I was a good student. I knew that good grades were my only escape from this small town and I can't tell you the elation I felt when Good Walt didn't follow me to college. The dutiful son decided to stay at home to keep Mother company. Those were the best years of my life. I was finally free of my diminutive self constantly getting between me and my desires. And the city? It's everything you can imagine and more. The food, the nightlife- it's magical, manifold even, catering to every desire. But two years into graduate school, my world came crashing town. A late night phone call and the next thing I know I'm racing to the hospital to find Mother waiting in ICU. Good Walt beat me there, of course, but there was nothing he or the doctors could do. She passed minutes after I arrived. I caught sight of Good Walt sitting in the back seat on the ride from the hospital. He was grieving. Her funeral was pleasant enough. I never realized that Mother knew so many people. They all paid their respects to me and offered to help in any way they could. I thought I had ended a chapter of my life until I looked up from the grave and saw her standing several yards away watching her own funeral. But like the photograph, there was something different about her. Mother was always sweet and genteel, but this mother wore a look of scorn that I had never seen before. Good Walt noticed her too and cowered like a whipped dog. I nearly burst out laughing. I had helped Mother by co-signing on an equity loan on the house. Without an income to speak of and bills to pay, I was forced to leave school and move back. Dr. Coleman at the community college was nice enough to offer me a job teaching literature and, ten years in, I realized that this will be the rest of my life. It's lonely being one of the few educated people in this hellhole. Oh, don't look at me like that, you know you feel the same way I do. You said as much in the poem you recited in class last semester. What was that verse again, something about being marooned in a cocoon, solitary and reaching? I don't remember the verse exactly and forgive my if I say that it wasn't particularly well written. I don't mean to insult you, it's just that nobody in that class has ever penned anything that wasn't deserving of being incinerated. A lost art, I guess. Anyhow, it wasn't the poem, but the sentiment behind it. About being alone and out of water. This isn't where you want to be, but you also know you'll never leave even though you have nothing keeping you here. A paradox. Like me returning to the town I loathe to live with my eternally youthful copy. You see, I know just how you feel, that's why I invited you over. Though I must admit that I can't take all the credit, Good Walt helped too. Those flowers you found on your doorstep yesterday? That was his doing. I think you remind him of Mother- you share the same warmth, the same radiant personality, and I think he sees the same loneliness inside you. Please don't, you're just going to make this harder on all of us. I miss Mother too sometimes. But that's not why I asked you over tonight. I know what you're thinking and I can assure you it's not that. I mean there's a certain something to the confirmed bachelor poetry teacher who wants nothing more than to spend every moment with his mother, but that isn't the case here. Can I be honest? I'm the same as you. I know that you're the only person in this town that I could be happy with. But there's something missing. I know you agree- I can see it in your eyes. Imagine the gift that is: a slight alteration that transforms two people who are compatible but not in love into soul mates. What would Byron say about that? Something great, no doubt. Do you realize how lucky we are? Maybe not Good Walt, of course, but you, me and New Mother will be so happy. I guess that's Good Walt's paradox. He had to have known what would happen if he helped me, but it's like I said before, he must see so much of Mother in you. Right down to her loneliness. Maybe it was her loneliness that caused him to appear in the first place. The kind of loneliness that means everyone will assume you just up and left like you'd always said you would. Struggling isn't going to solve this. Can't you see I'm trying to help you. I know how miserable you are. How empty. I can fix that. For both of us. Admit it, wasn't dinner wonderful tonight? Didn't you feel the sense of family you've been longing for? Didn't you feel a connection? I know I did. The four of us sitting down to a proper meal together? I apologize about what I put in your wine, but it was the only way I could think of. Things could get out of hand if you struggled, and then where would we be? See, that was barely a pinch, not nearly as bad as you'd think it would be. Not like that time with the cat. Why you're looking more beautiful already. You can see them now can't you? Do you see how happy you've made New Mother? And why not, it's no small thing, welcoming a new daughter-in-law into her home. I know Good Walt must be grieving, but he'll warm up to the new you. He chose you after all. You're probably wondering about all this mess. But it's like I said, Good Walt would never let me get into trouble. I'm sure he'll treat it all with reverence of an icon. Now why don't you take a moment to all get properly acquainted while I prepare the dessert? http://www.onepagewonder.com/atnight/alone/ Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:40:08 CDT THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #27 -- Blood Mania BLOOD MANIA is dead awesome at what it aims to be, and even better at the rationale I made up that they probably never thought about at all. The filmmakers clearly wanted a softcore nasty with lots of nudity and they got that. They also made a deconstructionist erotic thriller. It actually goes a bit farther than that. Other than a couple of lines, you have literally heard every single line uttered in this thing in a load of other movies. Even lines like "Didn't you know? I'm listed in the Yellow Pages under 'Sex'," or "Victoria, we're young souls; young and evil" might as well have been in a bunch of other movies. Now I'm going to tell you something that may freak you out a little. Lots of nerds (yes, like me) only recently became aware that an actress named Maria de Aragon played Greedo in Star Wars. If the thought of this turned you on even a little, this movie was made by God for you. Maria is naked all over this thing and she's pretty amazing. Actually, it was made by Robert O'Neill, who also directed ANGEL and AVENGING ANGEL; he also wrote the classic VICE SQUAD. My Golden Age of Playboy Centerfolds alarm went off twice, after spotting Reagan Wilson and Vicki Peters. One of the two non-nude performances was by a lady I remember from a MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. episode (The Thrush Roulette Affair). The oddball connections almost knocked me clean over. The movie wrestles with its less-convoluted-than-it-looks plot and its goal of showing naked women in vaguely Argento-like lighting schemes and camera angles. There are a lot of what we now read as killer POV shots when the idea is merely to disorient. O'Neill seems more informed by Russ Meyer than Argento, and for this I thank him. It can only be an homage to RM when Victoria strips for the poolboy and we get a sudden zoom shot of Victoria's boobs. Even the sex and drug sequences have that Meyer sensibility, with quick cuts, gorgeous statuesque women and crazy angles. Victoria (de Aragon) kept reminding me of Erica Gavin; heck even the leading man was in VIXEN! But enough trivia; the plot's important! A rich old doctor is recovering at home from a heart problem. He has a doting nurse (the other non-nude actress in the movie) and Victoria to look over him. Daddy and Victoria hate each other. Whenever Dr. Cooper from the clinic Daddy runs comes to check on him, Daddy laughs at Victoria's efforts to get him into bed. In this respect, this is an anti-Russ Meyer film. It's a man's world even when the men don't amount to much. Victoria even tries to seduce the poolboy, but he runs in terror when she makes her move. Anyways, Dr. Cooper is happily married and isn't succumbing to Victoria's advances. But Dr. Cooper has a . . . say it with me kids . . . a deep dark secret. Plus he has a blackmailer, Mr. Mills, a tiparillo-smoking douchebag of the sort that Steve Coogan could play in his sleep. Turns out Dr. Cooper performed abortions while in Med School to make ends meet; Mills wants 50 thousand bucks in two weeks or he'll have Cooper arrested. BLOOD MANIA was made three years before Roe v Wade, see. Cooper confides in his wife during her second nude scene and she says they'll find a way to pay Mills off. Wait, no, he tells her during her third nude scene. Her second nude scene was during Cooper and Mills' conversation about the money. Cooper asks his wife to go into the next room while he and Mills talk. The acting's so dreadful and the dialogue so damn bad that we are treated to a cutaway of Mrs. Cooper eavesdropping on the conversation while stripping. This movie knows how to cover its shortcomings. Indeed, every time I started to write down crap dialogue examples, one of the three female leads took her shirt off. This strategy has fallen away in recent years; for instance, did the FRIGHT NIGHT remake really need to have a multi-fuck dialogue injection to get the "R"? You had Imogen Poots right there the whole time. But BLOOD MANIA didn't waste its treasures, no sir. I lost track of the number of nude scenes, and yet it managed to keep the excuses fairly reasonable. So Cooper is a good guy in a bad situation, right? Well, I suppose he is, right up until Victoria shows him a painting she made and then kisses him; oh, and she says she can take care of the $50K. Down the rabbit hole he goes. In bed, Victoria cracks a popper under Cooper's nose and triggers a psychedelic sequence. There's no real body on top of body business (well, a bit later on, but there's an actual plot reason), just fast cuts and lots of sexual touching while standing. The movie manages to feel pretty sleazy while keeping a mostly chaste gap between lovers--room enough between you for the Holy Ghost, as the nuns used to say at the dance. So Cooper tells Victoria that poppers are dangerous, especially if you have a heart condition. Victoria goes straight into Daddy's room and cracks one under his nose and he dies. Next scene, a lawyer tells Victoria that it'll be two weeks before the reading of the will, and you start to think the rest of the movie will play out in that time. Ha! It goes BAM, Victoria's sister Gail and her mature ladyfriend Kate appear and BAM, it's will time. There are a few lead-pipe hints that Gail and Kate are a couple, and Kate even warns Cooper off of Gail. Kate's pretty astute. There are later scenes where Kate, Gail and the nurse are sitting around enjoying each other's company and you wonder what a film of that would have been like. They seem to genuinely like each other. Anyways, since there's thirty more minutes in the movie, Victoria's plans are thwarted when the nurse gets a small chunk of the estate and Gail gets the rest. Since Victoria can't give Cooper his $50K now, he immediately seduces Gail. Kate is powerless to stop this, because in this movie's game of cock-paper-scissors, cock beats scissors. Cooper takes Gail to a freaking REN FAIRE and scores, having sex with her in the living room that night. That's marking your territory. Kate knows she's beaten, so she packs and leaves that night. She does not return. Speaking of which, what happened to Mrs. Cooper? Well, Mr. Mills visits her to hear her offer: sex with me to let Dr. Cooper off the hook. He says sure and proceeds to rape her. Afterwards he says she wasn't very good and indicates that the money's still owed. For the sin of being an inadequate rape victim, the movie hands her a red card and she does not return. Victoria is now recovering from a wooly-headed freak-out she had at the will reading. She's in Daddy's old room, locked in for her own safety. The nurse mentions the possibility of putting her in a hospital, which is one of the more deliciously catty moments in the film because Victoria and the nurse hate the holy hell out of each other but never quite have a big fight. It's the only unconsummated relationship in the movie, lemme tell ya. There's even a wild bit when Cooper is having sex with Gail on the living room floor that bears a bit of analysis. He's on top, all is well; but then Gail starts flashing back to a time when apparently Daddy used to rape her in the same position (hinted at in the confusing opening sequence but clear now). We flash back and forth between current nice sex and old bad sex and she starts to freak out. But Cooper doesn't even notice and soldiers on, and soon the flashes stop and she's enjoying herself. Cock beats everything in this movie. Victoria ends up beating Gail's brains in, but not before Gail strips down one more time; they do not miss a single opportunity in this movie. It wants to entertain you. Cooper comes over, freaks out at Gail's corpse, then decides that rather than use his magic dork to wipe the rape memories out of his own wife, he'll help dispose of the body and stick with Victoria. He puts Gail's body in his car and goes back in to give Victoria some instructions when AAAAAAAAAAA there's Gail's corpse standing by the door! After a second Gail goes thump on the floor and we see that she was being held up by Mr Mills, whose price just went way up. More movies need to end with the "you're so screwed" moment. The 70s are full of them--think THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE. Stayed awake for the whole thing because: "I did it for you." "For me?" "He was going to die anyway." "Victoria. That was your father." "Don't look at me like that." "How the hell do you want me to look at you?" Only here does the movie fail us by not having Victoria take her top off. Every other time, this movie pays like a slot machine. Six wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He needs to work out what the paper is in cock-paper-scissors. It's gotta be money, right? For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #27 -- Blood Mania BLOOD MANIA is dead awesome at what it aims to be, and even better at the rationale I made up that they probably never thought about at all. The filmmakers clearly wanted a softcore nasty with lots of nudity and they got that. They also made a deconstructionist erotic thriller. It actually goes a bit farther than that. Other than a couple of lines, you have literally heard every single line uttered in this thing in a load of other movies. Even lines like "Didn't you know? I'm listed in the Yellow Pages under 'Sex'," or "Victoria, we're young souls; young and evil" might as well have been in a bunch of other movies. Now I'm going to tell you something that may freak you out a little. Lots of nerds (yes, like me) only recently became aware that an actress named Maria de Aragon played Greedo in Star Wars. If the thought of this turned you on even a little, this movie was made by God for you. Maria is naked all over this thing and she's pretty amazing. Actually, it was made by Robert O'Neill, who also directed ANGEL and AVENGING ANGEL; he also wrote the classic VICE SQUAD. My Golden Age of Playboy Centerfolds alarm went off twice, after spotting Reagan Wilson and Vicki Peters. One of the two non-nude performances was by a lady I remember from a MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. episode (The Thrush Roulette Affair). The oddball connections almost knocked me clean over. The movie wrestles with its less-convoluted-than-it-looks plot and its goal of showing naked women in vaguely Argento-like lighting schemes and camera angles. There are a lot of what we now read as killer POV shots when the idea is merely to disorient. O'Neill seems more informed by Russ Meyer than Argento, and for this I thank him. It can only be an homage to RM when Victoria strips for the poolboy and we get a sudden zoom shot of Victoria's boobs. Even the sex and drug sequences have that Meyer sensibility, with quick cuts, gorgeous statuesque women and crazy angles. Victoria (de Aragon) kept reminding me of Erica Gavin; heck even the leading man was in VIXEN! But enough trivia; the plot's important! A rich old doctor is recovering at home from a heart problem. He has a doting nurse (the other non-nude actress in the movie) and Victoria to look over him. Daddy and Victoria hate each other. Whenever Dr. Cooper from the clinic Daddy runs comes to check on him, Daddy laughs at Victoria's efforts to get him into bed. In this respect, this is an anti-Russ Meyer film. It's a man's world even when the men don't amount to much. Victoria even tries to seduce the poolboy, but he runs in terror when she makes her move. Anyways, Dr. Cooper is happily married and isn't succumbing to Victoria's advances. But Dr. Cooper has a . . . say it with me kids . . . a deep dark secret. Plus he has a blackmailer, Mr. Mills, a tiparillo-smoking douchebag of the sort that Steve Coogan could play in his sleep. Turns out Dr. Cooper performed abortions while in Med School to make ends meet; Mills wants 50 thousand bucks in two weeks or he'll have Cooper arrested. BLOOD MANIA was made three years before Roe v Wade, see. Cooper confides in his wife during her second nude scene and she says they'll find a way to pay Mills off. Wait, no, he tells her during her third nude scene. Her second nude scene was during Cooper and Mills' conversation about the money. Cooper asks his wife to go into the next room while he and Mills talk. The acting's so dreadful and the dialogue so damn bad that we are treated to a cutaway of Mrs. Cooper eavesdropping on the conversation while stripping. This movie knows how to cover its shortcomings. Indeed, every time I started to write down crap dialogue examples, one of the three female leads took her shirt off. This strategy has fallen away in recent years; for instance, did the FRIGHT NIGHT remake really need to have a multi-fuck dialogue injection to get the "R"? You had Imogen Poots right there the whole time. But BLOOD MANIA didn't waste its treasures, no sir. I lost track of the number of nude scenes, and yet it managed to keep the excuses fairly reasonable. So Cooper is a good guy in a bad situation, right? Well, I suppose he is, right up until Victoria shows him a painting she made and then kisses him; oh, and she says she can take care of the $50K. Down the rabbit hole he goes. In bed, Victoria cracks a popper under Cooper's nose and triggers a psychedelic sequence. There's no real body on top of body business (well, a bit later on, but there's an actual plot reason), just fast cuts and lots of sexual touching while standing. The movie manages to feel pretty sleazy while keeping a mostly chaste gap between lovers--room enough between you for the Holy Ghost, as the nuns used to say at the dance. So Cooper tells Victoria that poppers are dangerous, especially if you have a heart condition. Victoria goes straight into Daddy's room and cracks one under his nose and he dies. Next scene, a lawyer tells Victoria that it'll be two weeks before the reading of the will, and you start to think the rest of the movie will play out in that time. Ha! It goes BAM, Victoria's sister Gail and her mature ladyfriend Kate appear and BAM, it's will time. There are a few lead-pipe hints that Gail and Kate are a couple, and Kate even warns Cooper off of Gail. Kate's pretty astute. There are later scenes where Kate, Gail and the nurse are sitting around enjoying each other's company and you wonder what a film of that would have been like. They seem to genuinely like each other. Anyways, since there's thirty more minutes in the movie, Victoria's plans are thwarted when the nurse gets a small chunk of the estate and Gail gets the rest. Since Victoria can't give Cooper his $50K now, he immediately seduces Gail. Kate is powerless to stop this, because in this movie's game of cock-paper-scissors, cock beats scissors. Cooper takes Gail to a freaking REN FAIRE and scores, having sex with her in the living room that night. That's marking your territory. Kate knows she's beaten, so she packs and leaves that night. She does not return. Speaking of which, what happened to Mrs. Cooper? Well, Mr. Mills visits her to hear her offer: sex with me to let Dr. Cooper off the hook. He says sure and proceeds to rape her. Afterwards he says she wasn't very good and indicates that the money's still owed. For the sin of being an inadequate rape victim, the movie hands her a red card and she does not return. Victoria is now recovering from a wooly-headed freak-out she had at the will reading. She's in Daddy's old room, locked in for her own safety. The nurse mentions the possibility of putting her in a hospital, which is one of the more deliciously catty moments in the film because Victoria and the nurse hate the holy hell out of each other but never quite have a big fight. It's the only unconsummated relationship in the movie, lemme tell ya. There's even a wild bit when Cooper is having sex with Gail on the living room floor that bears a bit of analysis. He's on top, all is well; but then Gail starts flashing back to a time when apparently Daddy used to rape her in the same position (hinted at in the confusing opening sequence but clear now). We flash back and forth between current nice sex and old bad sex and she starts to freak out. But Cooper doesn't even notice and soldiers on, and soon the flashes stop and she's enjoying herself. Cock beats everything in this movie. Victoria ends up beating Gail's brains in, but not before Gail strips down one more time; they do not miss a single opportunity in this movie. It wants to entertain you. Cooper comes over, freaks out at Gail's corpse, then decides that rather than use his magic dork to wipe the rape memories out of his own wife, he'll help dispose of the body and stick with Victoria. He puts Gail's body in his car and goes back in to give Victoria some instructions when AAAAAAAAAAA there's Gail's corpse standing by the door! After a second Gail goes thump on the floor and we see that she was being held up by Mr Mills, whose price just went way up. More movies need to end with the "you're so screwed" moment. The 70s are full of them--think THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE. Stayed awake for the whole thing because: "I did it for you." "For me?" "He was going to die anyway." "Victoria. That was your father." "Don't look at me like that." "How the hell do you want me to look at you?" Only here does the movie fail us by not having Victoria take her top off. Every other time, this movie pays like a slot machine. Six wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He needs to work out what the paper is in cock-paper-scissors. It's gotta be money, right? For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! http://www.onepagewonder.com/cat/TMS/Blood+Mania Sat, 03 Sep 2011 09:21:06 CDT THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #26 – Mad Dog MAD DOG is meant to be an evocative, almost dreamlike thriller with Peckinpah-style balletic violence. The dreamlike bits seem like cross-channel interference compared to the accidentally dreamlike bits, which bothered me a lot more than any deliberate weirdness. As for the Peckinpah stuff: slo-mo is just slo-mo anymore. It used to be an effective tool to underline violent acts in film, or to inhabit a moment of calm before violence. Hollywood's gone the other direction entirely, as nothing shows the limits of your neato cgi quite like watching it move slowly. Four crooks in street clothes spill out the front door of a prison with a gun on one of the guards. They pile into a car and start beating the guard for kicks. They mock him for not having bullets in his gun and he explains between fist impacts that he's not allowed any. Did they ever pick the right guard to overpower. I wonder if this is what the endgame of Barney Fife's law enforcement career looks like. They dump him out of the speeding car just as Inspector Santini gives chase in his vehicle. They trade bullets until the goons hit the packet of explodium, standard in all movie vehicles, in Santini's car. He leaps from the flaming mess and swears he'll get those guys. This also yield one of the two idiomatic translation boners in the movie: "That was a nice sight--a well-done dick." The other is late in the game when someone threatens to "knock them up" in a fight. There's a good bit at a gas station where the four goons pull up, tell the guy to fill her up, then kick the crap out of the entire staff of the gas station and rob it. MAD DOG! Cut to police headquarters, where Santini can barely make it through a listing of the goons and their various crimes without losing interest himself. You can't give Italian movie cops a lot of exposition; it just doesn't fit the image. Santini calls his dad, who was the judge that put the Mad Dog away. Read nothing into that detail, unless you want to ruin one of the movie's surprises. Hey, if kids made this movie, you'd throw 'em a bone on this. Pretend it's kids. Anyway, Judge Santini reminds Inspector Santini that the Mad Dog was imprisoned on the word of an informant. Cut immediately to the informant looking mighty glum, wedged in between two of the goons in a car headed to the quarry. In a better movie, the cut would have been done for a laugh; Guy Ritchie woulda done it in a heartbeat. Here it feels like there's a three hour cut of the movie somewhere, one with the whole prison break and where you can figure out if it's even the same damn day or not. The goons had even changed clothes. I thought it was a whole new set of people. One reason for this is that one of the goons suddenly isn't there now. Nothing is made of this. Julianna is there too. She's the informant's girlfriend. She's not happy to be here either. So what we get here is a mini-rendition of the first reel of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT out in the quarry. The informant is beaten up while the Mad Dog rapes Julianna. The informant nearly overcomes them and is killed by the Mad Dog, who, while raping Julianna, sees the other goons having fun without him and makes them stop so he can finish the beating personally. So we know that while Mad Dog enjoys beatings and rape, he does in fact prioritize. It all goes a bit plotty from there. The Mad Dog has a plan to rob a factory payroll by using Julianna; she's to reconcile with her father, a guard there, to distract him while they rob. The rest of the plan involves bum-rushing the front door with machine guns, so I dunno why they thought they needed an elaborate ruse to get things going there. Well, it turns out Julianna managed to sneak off and contact Inspector Santini and he's got the whole thing set as a trap. Good for Julianna; I thought this was going to turn into one of those HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK deals where the rape victim decides that a good raping was what she really needed. There are two random scene inserts that should be mentioned. One is three seconds of a body lying on the ground with water being poured over it shot through a filter bluer than Cookie Monster's butt. This is probably the informant. Then there's also a hyperkinetic cut of Mad Dog shooting a machine gun to kill a guard while Julianna runs around screaming with her arms over her head like an excited Muppet. They're just plunked in and add nothing but random amusement. They're meant to make the story less linear, but the effect is more like flipping channels. It's not as dreamlike as they'd hoped. The dreamlike shit is going through this movie keeping count of the goons. Hear me out, now. There are four, including Mad Dog, at the beginning. Inspector Santini names four goons in his recap. When we cut to the informant and Julianna in the car with them, there's three. Dude, I know, but listen: where did that guy go? Soon as I realized there was one missing, I couldn't remember which one it was; it was either Mario the arsonist or Bruno the carjacker. I still can't remember, and it's freaking me out a little. They faked me out with the formalist dream-state shit and then there were only three goons. WHERE IS HE? WHO WAS HE?!?!? Dude, stop touching me, I'm fine, I'm fine. So when they're beating up the informant and he fights back and almost gets away, at that point there's two guys beating on him and Mad Dog raping Julianna, so that's three right? This isn't a math error. There are three goons. Then when Mad Dog stops raping Julianna and runs over to kill the informant, something changes. As Mad Dog glowers menacingly at Julianna, the goons file through the background, each with a shovel. Three goons with shovels walk behind him! This is what the movie's really trying to tell us, but the tragedy is that it's probably no smarter than any of the film's other messages; they just realized they were gonna have to stick six adults into a little Italian car and figured who'll miss the fourth goon for a scene. They thought it was an innocent omission; they had no idea it would freak me out like that. Society is to blame, Your Honor. The rest of the movie is cat and mouse stuff. Mad Dog uses his sister to make the cops think he's in the countryside when he's really in the city taking revenge by kidnapping Santini's dad and sister and taking them...into the countryside. Wait. That was the plan? Oh, he also takes a sniper shot at Julianna, the new rat in his life. He only get her in the leg, but it's really gruesome. They actually made it the best bit of violence in the film, so I really thought Julianna was a trooper when she shrugged it off and told the cops he didn't get her that badly. There's also a really long slo-mo Peckinpah bit when Mad Dog and new associate Bimbo (you heard me) let two cops peacefully advance on them before gunning them down. It's meant to show Mad Dog on a slow burn, but the only time that really comes out in in the last scene. I've discussed Last Scenes In Italian Movies before; they are angling to get you to an indelible image, a freeze-frame so mind-mangling that you'll walk out of the theater, rise from your la-z-boy, click back to your porn, whatever, thinking only about that image. There he looks crazy. For the rest of the movie he looks like a young James Remar crossed with Peter Sarsgaard, but in a rapey way. Stayed awake for the whole thing because I kept getting surprised by the all the nasty language (unusual in a translated Italian import), and because I kept feeling like I'd actually nodded off and missed something between a few of the cuts. Six wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He is already writing a sequel set in the near future. Look out for MAD DOG 2020! Or a sequel where he gets lazik surgery. Look out for MAD DOG 20/20! For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #26 – Mad Dog MAD DOG is meant to be an evocative, almost dreamlike thriller with Peckinpah-style balletic violence. The dreamlike bits seem like cross-channel interference compared to the accidentally dreamlike bits, which bothered me a lot more than any deliberate weirdness. As for the Peckinpah stuff: slo-mo is just slo-mo anymore. It used to be an effective tool to underline violent acts in film, or to inhabit a moment of calm before violence. Hollywood's gone the other direction entirely, as nothing shows the limits of your neato cgi quite like watching it move slowly. Four crooks in street clothes spill out the front door of a prison with a gun on one of the guards. They pile into a car and start beating the guard for kicks. They mock him for not having bullets in his gun and he explains between fist impacts that he's not allowed any. Did they ever pick the right guard to overpower. I wonder if this is what the endgame of Barney Fife's law enforcement career looks like. They dump him out of the speeding car just as Inspector Santini gives chase in his vehicle. They trade bullets until the goons hit the packet of explodium, standard in all movie vehicles, in Santini's car. He leaps from the flaming mess and swears he'll get those guys. This also yield one of the two idiomatic translation boners in the movie: "That was a nice sight--a well-done dick." The other is late in the game when someone threatens to "knock them up" in a fight. There's a good bit at a gas station where the four goons pull up, tell the guy to fill her up, then kick the crap out of the entire staff of the gas station and rob it. MAD DOG! Cut to police headquarters, where Santini can barely make it through a listing of the goons and their various crimes without losing interest himself. You can't give Italian movie cops a lot of exposition; it just doesn't fit the image. Santini calls his dad, who was the judge that put the Mad Dog away. Read nothing into that detail, unless you want to ruin one of the movie's surprises. Hey, if kids made this movie, you'd throw 'em a bone on this. Pretend it's kids. Anyway, Judge Santini reminds Inspector Santini that the Mad Dog was imprisoned on the word of an informant. Cut immediately to the informant looking mighty glum, wedged in between two of the goons in a car headed to the quarry. In a better movie, the cut would have been done for a laugh; Guy Ritchie woulda done it in a heartbeat. Here it feels like there's a three hour cut of the movie somewhere, one with the whole prison break and where you can figure out if it's even the same damn day or not. The goons had even changed clothes. I thought it was a whole new set of people. One reason for this is that one of the goons suddenly isn't there now. Nothing is made of this. Julianna is there too. She's the informant's girlfriend. She's not happy to be here either. So what we get here is a mini-rendition of the first reel of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT out in the quarry. The informant is beaten up while the Mad Dog rapes Julianna. The informant nearly overcomes them and is killed by the Mad Dog, who, while raping Julianna, sees the other goons having fun without him and makes them stop so he can finish the beating personally. So we know that while Mad Dog enjoys beatings and rape, he does in fact prioritize. It all goes a bit plotty from there. The Mad Dog has a plan to rob a factory payroll by using Julianna; she's to reconcile with her father, a guard there, to distract him while they rob. The rest of the plan involves bum-rushing the front door with machine guns, so I dunno why they thought they needed an elaborate ruse to get things going there. Well, it turns out Julianna managed to sneak off and contact Inspector Santini and he's got the whole thing set as a trap. Good for Julianna; I thought this was going to turn into one of those HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK deals where the rape victim decides that a good raping was what she really needed. There are two random scene inserts that should be mentioned. One is three seconds of a body lying on the ground with water being poured over it shot through a filter bluer than Cookie Monster's butt. This is probably the informant. Then there's also a hyperkinetic cut of Mad Dog shooting a machine gun to kill a guard while Julianna runs around screaming with her arms over her head like an excited Muppet. They're just plunked in and add nothing but random amusement. They're meant to make the story less linear, but the effect is more like flipping channels. It's not as dreamlike as they'd hoped. The dreamlike shit is going through this movie keeping count of the goons. Hear me out, now. There are four, including Mad Dog, at the beginning. Inspector Santini names four goons in his recap. When we cut to the informant and Julianna in the car with them, there's three. Dude, I know, but listen: where did that guy go? Soon as I realized there was one missing, I couldn't remember which one it was; it was either Mario the arsonist or Bruno the carjacker. I still can't remember, and it's freaking me out a little. They faked me out with the formalist dream-state shit and then there were only three goons. WHERE IS HE? WHO WAS HE?!?!? Dude, stop touching me, I'm fine, I'm fine. So when they're beating up the informant and he fights back and almost gets away, at that point there's two guys beating on him and Mad Dog raping Julianna, so that's three right? This isn't a math error. There are three goons. Then when Mad Dog stops raping Julianna and runs over to kill the informant, something changes. As Mad Dog glowers menacingly at Julianna, the goons file through the background, each with a shovel. Three goons with shovels walk behind him! This is what the movie's really trying to tell us, but the tragedy is that it's probably no smarter than any of the film's other messages; they just realized they were gonna have to stick six adults into a little Italian car and figured who'll miss the fourth goon for a scene. They thought it was an innocent omission; they had no idea it would freak me out like that. Society is to blame, Your Honor. The rest of the movie is cat and mouse stuff. Mad Dog uses his sister to make the cops think he's in the countryside when he's really in the city taking revenge by kidnapping Santini's dad and sister and taking them...into the countryside. Wait. That was the plan? Oh, he also takes a sniper shot at Julianna, the new rat in his life. He only get her in the leg, but it's really gruesome. They actually made it the best bit of violence in the film, so I really thought Julianna was a trooper when she shrugged it off and told the cops he didn't get her that badly. There's also a really long slo-mo Peckinpah bit when Mad Dog and new associate Bimbo (you heard me) let two cops peacefully advance on them before gunning them down. It's meant to show Mad Dog on a slow burn, but the only time that really comes out in in the last scene. I've discussed Last Scenes In Italian Movies before; they are angling to get you to an indelible image, a freeze-frame so mind-mangling that you'll walk out of the theater, rise from your la-z-boy, click back to your porn, whatever, thinking only about that image. There he looks crazy. For the rest of the movie he looks like a young James Remar crossed with Peter Sarsgaard, but in a rapey way. Stayed awake for the whole thing because I kept getting surprised by the all the nasty language (unusual in a translated Italian import), and because I kept feeling like I'd actually nodded off and missed something between a few of the cuts. Six wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He is already writing a sequel set in the near future. Look out for MAD DOG 2020! Or a sequel where he gets lazik surgery. Look out for MAD DOG 20/20! For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! http://www.onepagewonder.com/cat/TMS/Mad+Dog Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:41:59 CDT “I didn't want to say too much over the phone because I didn't want to jinx this,” Karen said, pulling into the driveway of a small mid-century bungalow. “The moment I saw this house, I thought of you. But it gets better, it was a foreclosure and I know for a fact that the bank is eager to get it off their hands.” Peter stepped from the car and surveyed the house. It was small, but the architecture was exactly what he was looking for. “And just look at the neighborhood,” Karen said, “Many of the owners on this street have been here for decades and there's a real pride of ownership.” She was right, the neighboring homes all had manicured lawns and fresh paint. “Honestly,” she continued, “for your budget, this is your one chance to live so close-in.” They approached the front door and Karen retrieved the key from the lock box. “Before you look inside, you should know that foreclosed homes aren't always in the best condition. My contact at the bank said the previous owners stripped the house down pretty good.” “That's fine,” Peter responded, “I was planning on doing some work anyways, to really make it mine.” The two entered through the front door which opened to a small living room. The house was dark and Peter could see that all the sockets and light fixtures had been removed. But it still had built-in cabinets with leaded glass and a fine bookshelf. The hard woods creaked underfoot. The living room opened to a small breakfast nook with a galley kitchen and another narrow hallway led to the two small bedrooms and bath. It was small, what a real estate agent would call cozy, but Peter felt it was perfect. He could look beyond the stripped hardware and dingy paint to what the house could be, if he lived there. “This is it,” he exclaimed. “Let's put in the offer today and make sure we get it.” “Don't you want to run this by Annie first?” Karen Inquired. “No, she'd agree and this is too good of an opportunity to miss out on.” Peter knew Annie would find it equally as perfect and besides, they didn't live together, so it was ultimately his decision to make. Karen did as he instructed and three weeks later, the deal was sealed. Peter spent that time planning his big move. He threw out is old furniture and futon, planning to start from scratch with the house to ensure every piece of decorum suited the age of the home and reflected his aesthetic. He and Annie had countless conversations about appropriate colors, furniture pieces, and even what size bed to buy. She was just as excited as he was and even though he hadn't brought up the subject of her moving in, she was already treating the home as her own. Moving in was a breeze as Peter now had very few possessions. He took a week off from work and planned to get the house in a livable condition right away. That first night he and Annie camped out on the floor of the living room. They listened to music and talked long into the night about their new lives. They woke early the next morning, groggy, but eager to get to work. They had just finished breakfast when Annie stopped: “Did you have strange dreams last night?” “I don't remember dreaming at all, I guess I was really tired,” Peter answered dismissively. “I just remembered I had this terrible dream,” she said. “We were sleeping in the living room when suddenly I woke up with this bad feeling. I looked into the nook and there was this shadow, this big black thing. I couldn't make out what it was, but I knew it was watching us and it felt awful. I kept trying to wake you, but you wouldn't budge.” Her memory had made her uneasy- Peter saw her shiver as she recounted what details she could remember. “It's probably just the side effect of sleeping in a new place. Besides, it's not like the floor was all that comfortable,” Peter responded, wildly stretching his back and groaning. Peter and Annie worked long into the evening that day painting and replacing the fixtures the prior owners had absconded with. They were in the middle of painting the living room earlier that day when Peter made a discovery. “Hey Annie, do you remember seeing if the house has a chimney?” Annie stopped and thought, “Yes, it does, I'm almost positive, why?” “I didn't notice until just now, but there's a mantle and brickwork, but no fireplace.” They examined the old brick fireplace, having no explanation as to why someone would obscure a feature that increased the home's appeal. “Weird,” Peter said, “These thin bricks here face vertically, opposite of the rest of the mantle, and form an oval, that must have been its original shape. I'm definitely going to take care of that this week.” Annie dismissed the curiosity, saying that it was probably just the fashion of a certain day like shag carpeting or wallpaper. They set back to work, but the thought had wedged itself in Peter's mind. That night, they got take-out and once again spread out the camping mats for another night on the floor. They complimented themselves on a job well done, satisfied that the house was now ready to be furnished. That night Annie woke from a restless sleep with the same sense of dread as the night before. She tilted her head to see her alarm clock flashing 12:00. The power must have gone out. “Tomorrow's Sunday,” she thought, “we can sleep in.” She rolled to her side, stealing a glance into the breakfast nook. It was watching her. She tried to reach for Peter, but she couldn't move. She squinted, trying to make out what it was, but all she could see was darkness. She steadied her breathing so as not to draw attention to herself while her eyes adjusted to her new surroundings. But still, it was just darkness; a darkness that was without shape- a darkness set curiously out of place against a wall that should have otherwise been illuminated by the moon. She tried to kick Peter, but she could not move. She to look like she was sleeping. She was overcome with intense feelings of fear and loneliness. Panicked, she clinched her eyes shut and repeated the Lord's Prayer. She must have fallen asleep because she woke with a start the next morning to the sounds of birds chirping and the sun illuminating the freshly painted room. Despite the apparent cheeriness of her surroundings, Annie could not shake the chill from the night before. “Did you dream last night?” she asked Peter who thought for a second, but couldn't remember. “You know, I know you don't believe in it, but you could have the house blessed. I know Father Demming would be happy to come over and it only takes a couple of minutes.” She tried to broach the subject gently, but it was obvious Peter was annoyed. “Why don't we get a shaman to come in and burn some sage while we're at it,” he said. “Then it would be twice as blessed. Throw in a witch doctor and maybe money will rain from the ceiling.” Peter was typically respectful of Annie's beliefs, but the house brought his frustrations with their relationship to the surface. He'd love for her to move in, but she stated that they couldn't live together until they were engaged. He loved her, but didn't feel like he was ready. He said if they lived together, it would be easier to save the money to get married, which brought the two to an impasse. Annie was tired and annoyed. “I was just trying to help,” she said. “I should go, I have to work tomorrow and I still have laundry and things to do at home.” Peter didn't try to dissuade her. He set to work that day unpacking the few possessions he brought with him, but his thoughts soon turned to the fireplace. If he knocked those bricks out now, he reasoned, it would be easier to clean than when he had furniture in that room. Accepting this justification, Peter took a hammer and chisel and set to work. The patch job must have been shoddily done because the bricks came loose with hardly any effort. As Peter removed them, he noticed something rather large in the fireplace. He removed the last brick revealing a piece of furniture with a sheet over it. He thought it was an end table, until he removed the sheet to reveal an old television. The television was in perfect condition, an old cabinet style set from what he guessed to be the late sixties. It would be the perfect addition to the living room, a real conversation piece. He strained but was eventually able to shimmy the old set out of the fireplace and into the corner of the room. He dusted the set off. The wood could do with some oil, but other than that, it looked brand new. He plugged the set in and turned it on. At first there was nothing, but then he could make out a high pitch whir as the tubes warmed and the screen slowly illuminated showing a field of static. He couldn't believe it still worked. Peter adjusted the antenna and ran through the dial, but there was no picture. “Digital transition,” he muttered, recalling all those announcements about updating analog televisions. Absentmindedly, he turned the UHF dial through a series of static when suddenly a picture appeared. Displayed before him was an image of a heavyset man reading a newspaper at a small kitchen table. Even better, the picture was in color, albeit a bit muted and orange tinted. Peter watched as the man intently read the newspaper. He was wearing a white t-shirt with suspenders and the room hung heavy with cigarette smoke which was tinted orange under the amber lights in the small chandelier which hung above him. Peter watched, but the man never looked up from the paper. He would extinguish a cigarette and mechanically light another, sometimes turning the page of the paper, but he never looked up. Peter studied the man. He was balding and kept the remainder of his dark hair slicked back, exposing a layer of sweat on his shiny forehead. It looked like a scene from an old movie or TV show, only somehow grittier. “What kind of show is this?” Peter thought to himself after watching intently for a good ten minutes. He grew edgy, waiting for something to happen, but the man kept reading the paper and smoking. Peter grew distracted by the mess of bricks and dust he'd have to clean up and turned off the set to get back to work. Peter returned home later that night after meeting a few friends for drinks at their local bar. He told them about the television and they speculated as to the origins of the strange show and, more pointedly, how the set was able to receive the signal. They hypothesized about a pirate TV broadcaster, but more than likely, it was just a hiccup that had gone unnoticed. Peter felt relaxed after a few drinks and settled in for another night on the living room floor. But before he could fall asleep, he was compelled to check the television. The set again whirred to life and the same orange image illuminated the screen. The same man was there, just as before, reading his paper and smoking cigarettes. “What the hell?” Peter said, not knowing what to make of the image. He studied the scene again, but there was nothing noteworthy. The room was dingy and the wallpaper was painted yellow with nicotine. Other than the wallpaper and the chandelier, there was nothing else in the frame. He laid on the floor and watched the set, but he must have had more to drink than he realized because he was soon fast asleep. When he woke the next morning, the TV was still on and the image was the same, only now it was just an empty room. Peter put his hand to his head. He had a dull headache from the night before. He studied the image for a second before turning off the set and wandering into the shower. It struck Peter that the image was odd, but he dismissed it as some sort of art film, something some film student looped together- or perhaps one of those Warhol films where it's nothing but eight hours of someone sleeping. After all, if someone were going to go through the trouble broadcasting themselves, why not show their art? In a city like Portland, a stunt like this was well within reason. He spent the remaining days of his vacation time putting the house together. He had a bed and sofa delivered to the house and spent his afternoons combing vintage stores for furniture. When he was home, he would turn on the set from time to time to check in on the man. He would see the man playing solitaire, reading the paper, or conversing with some unseen actor. The scenes were all mundane slices of life. But one morning he turned the set on to see the man reading his paper as normal when a woman suddenly walked into the scene. She was small and mousy in a humble dress and apron, only she was carrying a live chicken. The man looked at her soberly, laid his newspaper flat on the table and took the chicken. Then he grabbed it with both hands and, in a single motion, snapped its neck. The chicken fell flat on the newspaper with the man looking down on it for a minute before picking it up and handing it back to the woman. Peter was speechless. An amateur filmmaker pandering for shock value wasn't anything he hadn't seen before, but what he saw play out before had unnerved him. He turned the set off and tried to busy himself with moving furniture, but the succession of events kept playing in his mind. Later, he turned on the set to see the man eating dinner by himself. The table was set for four, but he was alone. Peter watched as the man tore at a roasted chicken with his hands, chewing wildly with his mouth open and discarding the bones by tossing them onto the floor. It was grotesque, the scene of a scavenger on fresh carrion. Juices streamed down the man's chin and he'd occasionally pause for a moment to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand then return greedily to his dinner. Peter had lost his appetite and decided it best to turn in early for the night. His week long vacation was nearing its end and there was still a lot he wanted to accomplish. He showered and performed his nightly routine only to find himself staring at his ceiling. Was it the new bed? No, it was comfortable enough. The noise? There wasn't any discernible noise. It was neither too dark nor too light, the temperature was comfortable and he was definitely tired enough. He checked the clock, it was already eleven, eleven-o-one, eleven-fifteen, eleven-eighteen. It was useless, he knew why he could not sleep, but refused to even think about what he had witnessed earlier. It was just some stupid art film. It wasn't even well made, it was childish. It only got to him because he was under a lot of stress. That was all there was to it. He woke to a sharp pain on his arm. It was burning. Three-fifty-three. He had fallen asleep, but why was he in such pain? He felt his arm and immediately winced. He got up and turned on the light. He had four freshly painted welts running the length of his left forearm. “What the hell?” he muttered, examining the wound. What would have caused such an injury. Did he scratch himself? An allergy to his new detergent, perhaps? His arm was on fire, his head ached and his throat burned. Flesh eating bacteria? Peter went to the kitchen for a glass of water, but was distracted by a light in the living room. He must have left the television on. He went to turn it off when he noticed the picture had changed. It was the same room, the same amber glow of the chandelier, only it was the woman who was seated at the table. She was wearing a robe and her hair was in curlers. Her head was bowed in reverence to the small glass of liqueur cupped between her hands. She looked sad, was she crying? Peter was caught off guard at the sight, he approached the television and that's when it happened. The woman looked up, directly at him as though she had sensed his approach. Peter froze, his eyes glued to the screen and that's when he noticed the woman's eye was swollen shut and dyed dark hues of blue and red and purple. The woman stared pathetically at Peter. Peter stared back in shock. He instinctively grabbed his arm, it burned. He felt despair. The woman broke the gaze and looked off-screen for a moment before scurrying away. That's when the man came back. He sat himself in the chair as usual and lit a cigarette, and looked directly at Peter. Their eyes met. The man was grotesque, sweating and unwashed, but he commanded Peter's full attention. Peter began to tremble and the man's lips cracked forming a wry smile. Peter could not look away, his mind raced, feelings of blind hatred and emptiness coursed through his veins. The man's smile parted wider, revealing uneven rows of stained teeth, agape in the throes of a silent laughter. Peter woke to a loud banging. His head ached and his mouth was dry. He opened his eyes to find himself pressed against the hardwood floors of his living room. The banging persisted, he could hear Annie's cries coming from the other side of the door. “Peter, Peter, are you there? Peter, open up.” He strained, his muscles ached and he wondered if he had the strength to stand. Slowly, he lifted himself to his feet. He felt woozy. “Peter, open up, Peter!” The banging was relentless. He instinctively looked to the television, it wasn't on. He rubbed his temples and took a step. His pants were stiff. He looked down to see dried urine stains running down the length of his pajamas. He opened the front door. “Peter, Peter, oh my god, what's wrong?” Peter didn't know how to answer. “Why didn't you answer your phone? I've been calling for days. I thought you were mad at me, but when you didn't show up for work today . . .” the words kept trailing from Annie's mouth. Work? Did he miss work? He wasn't supposed to be at work until Monday and today was . . . Peter stopped. Annie kept talking wildly, but he could not understand her. He tried to piece together what had happened, there was the crown molding, the electrical sockets, the basement, the television; his mind raced trying to piece together his memories, but they were too diffuse. He took a step forward and abruptly vomited all over Annie's sensible pumps. Annie regained her composure, and seeing the gravity of the situation, promptly bathed Peter and marched him to bed. She was an adept caregiver; both soothing and stern when the need arose. “Now you stay here and I'll get you a glass of milk,” she said, turning once upon leaving the room to make sure he was following her orders. Peter allowed his body to relax, but his mind would not stop racing. He could not explain his absence from work, or even account for what he had been doing the past few days. Was he sick? Was he suffering the ill-effects of a mold or fungus? Carbon monoxide poisoning? That would account for the headaches and the man in the television. Surely none of that was real, how could it be? He wasn't witnessing the paranormal any more than he was tripping balls. “You're looking better already,” Annie said, returning with a glass of milk. “Now drink this and , if you keep it down, we'll work on getting some food in you.” Peter gulped the milk and instantly felt his strength returning. It was a bug and nothing more, he thought to himself. He might even be ready for work in the morning. He'd forgotten about that, the real world. Annie smiled, apparently happy he'd so readily downed his milk. “See, your color is coming back already,” she said, “now how about dinner, any requests?” Peter thought for a moment then answered: “I'd really love some chicken.” “Okay, any particular requests?” she asked. “Roasted,” he answered. “I'd like roasted chicken.” He commanded, hardly aware of what he was saying. “Oh, okay, we can do that,” Annie answered, startled by his tone. “I saw some in the fridge, why don't you rest and I'll make us some roasted chicken.” She took his audible sigh to indicate that he was placated and proceeded to the kitchen. The moment Annie left, Peter felt a weight lifted from his shoulders. His tone was not warranted and he should apologize. What had come over him just then? He never talked to Annie like that. He must have wrestled with the question longer than he realized because before he could make up his mind as to whether or not to apologize, Annie poked her head in and informed him that his roasted chicken was ready. Beside himself, Peter rose from bed and nearly knocked Annie over in his race to the kitchen. She attempted to brush aside his behavior, thinking that he really must be hungry, but when she entered the nook to see him sitting at the table, waiting to be served, her indignation set in. “Do you want me to serve you?,” she asked with more than a note of sarcasm. “Look,” he said, “I've had a long enough day as it is, are you going to give me my chicken or not?” “Fine, fine, it's okay,” she said, “I understand, let me get that for you. You must be starving,” she added, “ because I found this chandelier in the oven, so I know you haven't cooked a thing since you moved in.” Peter examined the fixture dangling from her hand. It looked familiar, amber and honey hued, but he could not place it; he was too hungry to think clearly. “Are you going to give me my chicken?” he demanded. She placed the chicken thighs neatly on a plate and presented it to Peter, who greedily descended on it. The lip smacking, the chewing, the bursts of somatic fluid that escaped his greedy lips and streamed down his chin; it was all too much for her to bear. But the chicken bone, roasted black and gray and reverberating at it bounced on the hardwood, that was the final straw. “You look well enough,” she finally said, “I'm going home, I have things to do.” She started towards the door, but Peter interjected. “Don't,” he said, “please.” Annie stopped. He was sick, his body chemistry was obviously awry, maybe just a tad off kilter. “Don't go,” he pleaded, “please, take the bed, I'll sleep on the couch, it's just, just that I'm afraid.” That small admission of defeat was all Annie needed. “Okay, but you stay on the couch and if you get sick or even feel like you might get sick, I'm taking you to emergency.” That was the statement she needed, the statement to bring the stars back into alignment. “Don't give me that look,” she chided, “you can either accept my help or . . . or suffer.” She regretted the choice of words, but that was how she felt. He was in distress, she could help, or he could be an ass about it- it was his choice, but she wasn't going to put up with it. “I'll take the couch,” he finally muttered in defeat. “Just please don't go. I can't even begin to explain what's happened to me the past few days.” “Fine, but I'm going to bed, so get your things and make yourself comfortable.” “Thank you, but please set the alarm, I'd like to get to work early tomorrow.” “I talked to your work, we'll cross that hurdle in the morning.” Peter gathered his pajamas and a pillow and settled in for an uncomfortable night on the couch. He tried to rationalize his behavior, but found himself at a loss for words. Low blood sugar? A lack of salt? Hunger? He woke up to the whirring of the television and the unmistakable crackle as it came to life. Static at first, then a pop, and finally an illumination. Too little sugar, he told himself, but it was no use. The set was aglow only dimmer now and the honeyed hues of the previous episodes were replaced by aqua and graphite. Did he accidentally change the channel? Did Annie? Then all was saved, he was just suffering from a momentary hallucination. But as his eyes focused, Peter's hopes for a misfiring brain were quashed. In the contrast of the moonlight and shadow, he recognized his alarm clock and the bed frame, even the fraction of the nightstand made visible by the angle of the unseen cameraman. The sight of Annie, nestled predictably on her side with her hands cradling her knees was a cause of alarm. Peter gazed intently; mute to the sight displayed before him when he saw the woman looking down upon Annie- she looked up mournfully at Peter then stole herself away through some off-camera exit that he was certain did not exist. The man wasn't obvious at first. His movements were light and swift considering his size. He looked at Peter through the television and grinned as he averted his gaze down upon Annie who was sleeping soundly. Peter stared wide eyed, unable to comprehend what exactly was laid out before him. His eyes took in the sight, but it wasn't enough to convince him that the impossible was happening. The man brushed his fat sausage fingers against Annie's hair then looked up and laughed a hearty silent laugh before his expression turned to a mask of sheer malice. “No!” Peter cried at the top of his lungs as he raced from the couch to the bedroom. He banged on the door, but it would not give. “Annie wake up!” He repeated as he banged the door. He threw his weight against it again and again, but it would not open. Then the screaming started, high pitched and almost unrecognizable were it not for Annie's pleas interrupting the agonizing and involuntary cries of pain. “Annie! Annie! Annie!,” Peter wailed as he slammed his shoulder into the door. But her cries persisted, rising to a viscerous crescendo both deafening and inhuman. Then silence. Peter paused and drew and breath. Still nothing. His hand still gripped firmly on the doorknob, he twisted his wrist and the door gave. Inside, the room was dark. He didn't dare turn on the lights, he didn't need to. He saw Annie's silhouette sat there and the edge of the bed. And he heard the gurgling. Glug glug glug glug brug She was slumped slightly at the edge of the bed with her hands clenched together before her eyes. “Oh god,” he exclaimed, trying to process what was laid out before him. He came close to Annie wide eyed. He'd never been in a situation like this before: he'd never experienced trauma. He kneeled before her and clutched her hands in his. They were wet. Gwa gwa gwa gwa gwa The sounds emanated from her throat. She was slumped forward. Peter put his hand beneath her chin and elevated her head in an attempt to assess her wounds, but was greeted by an absence that should have been the dimple in her neck; the one he had often spent too much attention on with his tongue, according to Annie. He was still holding her clenched hands, but it was only now that he felt that she was holding something. Fingers groping, he felt it; sinewy, wet and moist. It was part of her, the missing part. It was the moistness. It was all over him, her, the sheets, everything. He paused, she fell over; wet and pallid. He paused, claustrophobic, there was no escape. This is real. This is happening. He must have been contemplating the scene, her hands still clutched between his, for some time; he couldn't be sure. But he was finally roused from his stupor by the raucous. But what was it? Trembling and tunnel-visioned, Peter emerged from the bedroom. There was shouting. He made his way into the hallway towards the nook, but the shouting only grew louder. His hands were tense, clenching Annie's final gift. Porous, mut hure ghands ug! Again and again. Porous, mut hure ghands ug! He felt the moisture emanating from his hands, then looking down, finally focused. It wasn't the blood so much as the tissue. The cells, the mucous, still technically alive and now posthumously Annie's. It was her's but what was it? Why was he holding it. Bewildered, he raised his hands. Police, put your hands up! It wouldn't have mattered- the hands, the trachea held firmly in his hands, the blood. The sound was deafening, though he felt the shock first, repeatedly. Each time, the shock, then the sound- gunfire. “He's down,” a voice said. “Good, God,” the other replied. “The fucker deserved it!” It wasn't until the second day that the detective noticed it. The scene being played before his eyes in sepia tone. “This is perfect,” the detective said. “What's that?” the recruit asked. “This set, the wife has been bugging me for something like this ever since we got that jew-priced bungalow. You know, I think this set is important, we're going to need to bring this into evidence.” “Sure thing, sir,” the recruit said. “But what is this show? There's no sound.” “Probably just some old sitcom,” the detective responded. “Not one I've ever seen, it's just two white couples eating.” “That's probably why you've never seen it,” the detective snorted, wondering who was late to the two unoccupied place settings: “just get it into evidence.” “Sure thing, boss.” “I didn't want to say too much over the phone because I didn't want to jinx this,” Karen said, pulling into the driveway of a small mid-century bungalow. “The moment I saw this house, I thought of you. But it gets better, it was a foreclosure and I know for a fact that the bank is eager to get it off their hands.” Peter stepped from the car and surveyed the house. It was small, but the architecture was exactly what he was looking for. “And just look at the neighborhood,” Karen said, “Many of the owners on this street have been here for decades and there's a real pride of ownership.” She was right, the neighboring homes all had manicured lawns and fresh paint. “Honestly,” she continued, “for your budget, this is your one chance to live so close-in.” They approached the front door and Karen retrieved the key from the lock box. “Before you look inside, you should know that foreclosed homes aren't always in the best condition. My contact at the bank said the previous owners stripped the house down pretty good.” “That's fine,” Peter responded, “I was planning on doing some work anyways, to really make it mine.” The two entered through the front door which opened to a small living room. The house was dark and Peter could see that all the sockets and light fixtures had been removed. But it still had built-in cabinets with leaded glass and a fine bookshelf. The hard woods creaked underfoot. The living room opened to a small breakfast nook with a galley kitchen and another narrow hallway led to the two small bedrooms and bath. It was small, what a real estate agent would call cozy, but Peter felt it was perfect. He could look beyond the stripped hardware and dingy paint to what the house could be, if he lived there. “This is it,” he exclaimed. “Let's put in the offer today and make sure we get it.” “Don't you want to run this by Annie first?” Karen Inquired. “No, she'd agree and this is too good of an opportunity to miss out on.” Peter knew Annie would find it equally as perfect and besides, they didn't live together, so it was ultimately his decision to make. Karen did as he instructed and three weeks later, the deal was sealed. Peter spent that time planning his big move. He threw out is old furniture and futon, planning to start from scratch with the house to ensure every piece of decorum suited the age of the home and reflected his aesthetic. He and Annie had countless conversations about appropriate colors, furniture pieces, and even what size bed to buy. She was just as excited as he was and even though he hadn't brought up the subject of her moving in, she was already treating the home as her own. Moving in was a breeze as Peter now had very few possessions. He took a week off from work and planned to get the house in a livable condition right away. That first night he and Annie camped out on the floor of the living room. They listened to music and talked long into the night about their new lives. They woke early the next morning, groggy, but eager to get to work. They had just finished breakfast when Annie stopped: “Did you have strange dreams last night?” “I don't remember dreaming at all, I guess I was really tired,” Peter answered dismissively. “I just remembered I had this terrible dream,” she said. “We were sleeping in the living room when suddenly I woke up with this bad feeling. I looked into the nook and there was this shadow, this big black thing. I couldn't make out what it was, but I knew it was watching us and it felt awful. I kept trying to wake you, but you wouldn't budge.” Her memory had made her uneasy- Peter saw her shiver as she recounted what details she could remember. “It's probably just the side effect of sleeping in a new place. Besides, it's not like the floor was all that comfortable,” Peter responded, wildly stretching his back and groaning. Peter and Annie worked long into the evening that day painting and replacing the fixtures the prior owners had absconded with. They were in the middle of painting the living room earlier that day when Peter made a discovery. “Hey Annie, do you remember seeing if the house has a chimney?” Annie stopped and thought, “Yes, it does, I'm almost positive, why?” “I didn't notice until just now, but there's a mantle and brickwork, but no fireplace.” They examined the old brick fireplace, having no explanation as to why someone would obscure a feature that increased the home's appeal. “Weird,” Peter said, “These thin bricks here face vertically, opposite of the rest of the mantle, and form an oval, that must have been its original shape. I'm definitely going to take care of that this week.” Annie dismissed the curiosity, saying that it was probably just the fashion of a certain day like shag carpeting or wallpaper. They set back to work, but the thought had wedged itself in Peter's mind. That night, they got take-out and once again spread out the camping mats for another night on the floor. They complimented themselves on a job well done, satisfied that the house was now ready to be furnished. That night Annie woke from a restless sleep with the same sense of dread as the night before. She tilted her head to see her alarm clock flashing 12:00. The power must have gone out. “Tomorrow's Sunday,” she thought, “we can sleep in.” She rolled to her side, stealing a glance into the breakfast nook. It was watching her. She tried to reach for Peter, but she couldn't move. She squinted, trying to make out what it was, but all she could see was darkness. She steadied her breathing so as not to draw attention to herself while her eyes adjusted to her new surroundings. But still, it was just darkness; a darkness that was without shape- a darkness set curiously out of place against a wall that should have otherwise been illuminated by the moon. She tried to kick Peter, but she could not move. She to look like she was sleeping. She was overcome with intense feelings of fear and loneliness. Panicked, she clinched her eyes shut and repeated the Lord's Prayer. She must have fallen asleep because she woke with a start the next morning to the sounds of birds chirping and the sun illuminating the freshly painted room. Despite the apparent cheeriness of her surroundings, Annie could not shake the chill from the night before. “Did you dream last night?” she asked Peter who thought for a second, but couldn't remember. “You know, I know you don't believe in it, but you could have the house blessed. I know Father Demming would be happy to come over and it only takes a couple of minutes.” She tried to broach the subject gently, but it was obvious Peter was annoyed. “Why don't we get a shaman to come in and burn some sage while we're at it,” he said. “Then it would be twice as blessed. Throw in a witch doctor and maybe money will rain from the ceiling.” Peter was typically respectful of Annie's beliefs, but the house brought his frustrations with their relationship to the surface. He'd love for her to move in, but she stated that they couldn't live together until they were engaged. He loved her, but didn't feel like he was ready. He said if they lived together, it would be easier to save the money to get married, which brought the two to an impasse. Annie was tired and annoyed. “I was just trying to help,” she said. “I should go, I have to work tomorrow and I still have laundry and things to do at home.” Peter didn't try to dissuade her. He set to work that day unpacking the few possessions he brought with him, but his thoughts soon turned to the fireplace. If he knocked those bricks out now, he reasoned, it would be easier to clean than when he had furniture in that room. Accepting this justification, Peter took a hammer and chisel and set to work. The patch job must have been shoddily done because the bricks came loose with hardly any effort. As Peter removed them, he noticed something rather large in the fireplace. He removed the last brick revealing a piece of furniture with a sheet over it. He thought it was an end table, until he removed the sheet to reveal an old television. The television was in perfect condition, an old cabinet style set from what he guessed to be the late sixties. It would be the perfect addition to the living room, a real conversation piece. He strained but was eventually able to shimmy the old set out of the fireplace and into the corner of the room. He dusted the set off. The wood could do with some oil, but other than that, it looked brand new. He plugged the set in and turned it on. At first there was nothing, but then he could make out a high pitch whir as the tubes warmed and the screen slowly illuminated showing a field of static. He couldn't believe it still worked. Peter adjusted the antenna and ran through the dial, but there was no picture. “Digital transition,” he muttered, recalling all those announcements about updating analog televisions. Absentmindedly, he turned the UHF dial through a series of static when suddenly a picture appeared. Displayed before him was an image of a heavyset man reading a newspaper at a small kitchen table. Even better, the picture was in color, albeit a bit muted and orange tinted. Peter watched as the man intently read the newspaper. He was wearing a white t-shirt with suspenders and the room hung heavy with cigarette smoke which was tinted orange under the amber lights in the small chandelier which hung above him. Peter watched, but the man never looked up from the paper. He would extinguish a cigarette and mechanically light another, sometimes turning the page of the paper, but he never looked up. Peter studied the man. He was balding and kept the remainder of his dark hair slicked back, exposing a layer of sweat on his shiny forehead. It looked like a scene from an old movie or TV show, only somehow grittier. “What kind of show is this?” Peter thought to himself after watching intently for a good ten minutes. He grew edgy, waiting for something to happen, but the man kept reading the paper and smoking. Peter grew distracted by the mess of bricks and dust he'd have to clean up and turned off the set to get back to work. Peter returned home later that night after meeting a few friends for drinks at their local bar. He told them about the television and they speculated as to the origins of the strange show and, more pointedly, how the set was able to receive the signal. They hypothesized about a pirate TV broadcaster, but more than likely, it was just a hiccup that had gone unnoticed. Peter felt relaxed after a few drinks and settled in for another night on the living room floor. But before he could fall asleep, he was compelled to check the television. The set again whirred to life and the same orange image illuminated the screen. The same man was there, just as before, reading his paper and smoking cigarettes. “What the hell?” Peter said, not knowing what to make of the image. He studied the scene again, but there was nothing noteworthy. The room was dingy and the wallpaper was painted yellow with nicotine. Other than the wallpaper and the chandelier, there was nothing else in the frame. He laid on the floor and watched the set, but he must have had more to drink than he realized because he was soon fast asleep. When he woke the next morning, the TV was still on and the image was the same, only now it was just an empty room. Peter put his hand to his head. He had a dull headache from the night before. He studied the image for a second before turning off the set and wandering into the shower. It struck Peter that the image was odd, but he dismissed it as some sort of art film, something some film student looped together- or perhaps one of those Warhol films where it's nothing but eight hours of someone sleeping. After all, if someone were going to go through the trouble broadcasting themselves, why not show their art? In a city like Portland, a stunt like this was well within reason. He spent the remaining days of his vacation time putting the house together. He had a bed and sofa delivered to the house and spent his afternoons combing vintage stores for furniture. When he was home, he would turn on the set from time to time to check in on the man. He would see the man playing solitaire, reading the paper, or conversing with some unseen actor. The scenes were all mundane slices of life. But one morning he turned the set on to see the man reading his paper as normal when a woman suddenly walked into the scene. She was small and mousy in a humble dress and apron, only she was carrying a live chicken. The man looked at her soberly, laid his newspaper flat on the table and took the chicken. Then he grabbed it with both hands and, in a single motion, snapped its neck. The chicken fell flat on the newspaper with the man looking down on it for a minute before picking it up and handing it back to the woman. Peter was speechless. An amateur filmmaker pandering for shock value wasn't anything he hadn't seen before, but what he saw play out before had unnerved him. He turned the set off and tried to busy himself with moving furniture, but the succession of events kept playing in his mind. Later, he turned on the set to see the man eating dinner by himself. The table was set for four, but he was alone. Peter watched as the man tore at a roasted chicken with his hands, chewing wildly with his mouth open and discarding the bones by tossing them onto the floor. It was grotesque, the scene of a scavenger on fresh carrion. Juices streamed down the man's chin and he'd occasionally pause for a moment to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand then return greedily to his dinner. Peter had lost his appetite and decided it best to turn in early for the night. His week long vacation was nearing its end and there was still a lot he wanted to accomplish. He showered and performed his nightly routine only to find himself staring at his ceiling. Was it the new bed? No, it was comfortable enough. The noise? There wasn't any discernible noise. It was neither too dark nor too light, the temperature was comfortable and he was definitely tired enough. He checked the clock, it was already eleven, eleven-o-one, eleven-fifteen, eleven-eighteen. It was useless, he knew why he could not sleep, but refused to even think about what he had witnessed earlier. It was just some stupid art film. It wasn't even well made, it was childish. It only got to him because he was under a lot of stress. That was all there was to it. He woke to a sharp pain on his arm. It was burning. Three-fifty-three. He had fallen asleep, but why was he in such pain? He felt his arm and immediately winced. He got up and turned on the light. He had four freshly painted welts running the length of his left forearm. “What the hell?” he muttered, examining the wound. What would have caused such an injury. Did he scratch himself? An allergy to his new detergent, perhaps? His arm was on fire, his head ached and his throat burned. Flesh eating bacteria? Peter went to the kitchen for a glass of water, but was distracted by a light in the living room. He must have left the television on. He went to turn it off when he noticed the picture had changed. It was the same room, the same amber glow of the chandelier, only it was the woman who was seated at the table. She was wearing a robe and her hair was in curlers. Her head was bowed in reverence to the small glass of liqueur cupped between her hands. She looked sad, was she crying? Peter was caught off guard at the sight, he approached the television and that's when it happened. The woman looked up, directly at him as though she had sensed his approach. Peter froze, his eyes glued to the screen and that's when he noticed the woman's eye was swollen shut and dyed dark hues of blue and red and purple. The woman stared pathetically at Peter. Peter stared back in shock. He instinctively grabbed his arm, it burned. He felt despair. The woman broke the gaze and looked off-screen for a moment before scurrying away. That's when the man came back. He sat himself in the chair as usual and lit a cigarette, and looked directly at Peter. Their eyes met. The man was grotesque, sweating and unwashed, but he commanded Peter's full attention. Peter began to tremble and the man's lips cracked forming a wry smile. Peter could not look away, his mind raced, feelings of blind hatred and emptiness coursed through his veins. The man's smile parted wider, revealing uneven rows of stained teeth, agape in the throes of a silent laughter. Peter woke to a loud banging. His head ached and his mouth was dry. He opened his eyes to find himself pressed against the hardwood floors of his living room. The banging persisted, he could hear Annie's cries coming from the other side of the door. “Peter, Peter, are you there? Peter, open up.” He strained, his muscles ached and he wondered if he had the strength to stand. Slowly, he lifted himself to his feet. He felt woozy. “Peter, open up, Peter!” The banging was relentless. He instinctively looked to the television, it wasn't on. He rubbed his temples and took a step. His pants were stiff. He looked down to see dried urine stains running down the length of his pajamas. He opened the front door. “Peter, Peter, oh my god, what's wrong?” Peter didn't know how to answer. “Why didn't you answer your phone? I've been calling for days. I thought you were mad at me, but when you didn't show up for work today . . .” the words kept trailing from Annie's mouth. Work? Did he miss work? He wasn't supposed to be at work until Monday and today was . . . Peter stopped. Annie kept talking wildly, but he could not understand her. He tried to piece together what had happened, there was the crown molding, the electrical sockets, the basement, the television; his mind raced trying to piece together his memories, but they were too diffuse. He took a step forward and abruptly vomited all over Annie's sensible pumps. Annie regained her composure, and seeing the gravity of the situation, promptly bathed Peter and marched him to bed. She was an adept caregiver; both soothing and stern when the need arose. “Now you stay here and I'll get you a glass of milk,” she said, turning once upon leaving the room to make sure he was following her orders. Peter allowed his body to relax, but his mind would not stop racing. He could not explain his absence from work, or even account for what he had been doing the past few days. Was he sick? Was he suffering the ill-effects of a mold or fungus? Carbon monoxide poisoning? That would account for the headaches and the man in the television. Surely none of that was real, how could it be? He wasn't witnessing the paranormal any more than he was tripping balls. “You're looking better already,” Annie said, returning with a glass of milk. “Now drink this and , if you keep it down, we'll work on getting some food in you.” Peter gulped the milk and instantly felt his strength returning. It was a bug and nothing more, he thought to himself. He might even be ready for work in the morning. He'd forgotten about that, the real world. Annie smiled, apparently happy he'd so readily downed his milk. “See, your color is coming back already,” she said, “now how about dinner, any requests?” Peter thought for a moment then answered: “I'd really love some chicken.” “Okay, any particular requests?” she asked. “Roasted,” he answered. “I'd like roasted chicken.” He commanded, hardly aware of what he was saying. “Oh, okay, we can do that,” Annie answered, startled by his tone. “I saw some in the fridge, why don't you rest and I'll make us some roasted chicken.” She took his audible sigh to indicate that he was placated and proceeded to the kitchen. The moment Annie left, Peter felt a weight lifted from his shoulders. His tone was not warranted and he should apologize. What had come over him just then? He never talked to Annie like that. He must have wrestled with the question longer than he realized because before he could make up his mind as to whether or not to apologize, Annie poked her head in and informed him that his roasted chicken was ready. Beside himself, Peter rose from bed and nearly knocked Annie over in his race to the kitchen. She attempted to brush aside his behavior, thinking that he really must be hungry, but when she entered the nook to see him sitting at the table, waiting to be served, her indignation set in. “Do you want me to serve you?,” she asked with more than a note of sarcasm. “Look,” he said, “I've had a long enough day as it is, are you going to give me my chicken or not?” “Fine, fine, it's okay,” she said, “I understand, let me get that for you. You must be starving,” she added, “ because I found this chandelier in the oven, so I know you haven't cooked a thing since you moved in.” Peter examined the fixture dangling from her hand. It looked familiar, amber and honey hued, but he could not place it; he was too hungry to think clearly. “Are you going to give me my chicken?” he demanded. She placed the chicken thighs neatly on a plate and presented it to Peter, who greedily descended on it. The lip smacking, the chewing, the bursts of somatic fluid that escaped his greedy lips and streamed down his chin; it was all too much for her to bear. But the chicken bone, roasted black and gray and reverberating at it bounced on the hardwood, that was the final straw. “You look well enough,” she finally said, “I'm going home, I have things to do.” She started towards the door, but Peter interjected. “Don't,” he said, “please.” Annie stopped. He was sick, his body chemistry was obviously awry, maybe just a tad off kilter. “Don't go,” he pleaded, “please, take the bed, I'll sleep on the couch, it's just, just that I'm afraid.” That small admission of defeat was all Annie needed. “Okay, but you stay on the couch and if you get sick or even feel like you might get sick, I'm taking you to emergency.” That was the statement she needed, the statement to bring the stars back into alignment. “Don't give me that look,” she chided, “you can either accept my help or . . . or suffer.” She regretted the choice of words, but that was how she felt. He was in distress, she could help, or he could be an ass about it- it was his choice, but she wasn't going to put up with it. “I'll take the couch,” he finally muttered in defeat. “Just please don't go. I can't even begin to explain what's happened to me the past few days.” “Fine, but I'm going to bed, so get your things and make yourself comfortable.” “Thank you, but please set the alarm, I'd like to get to work early tomorrow.” “I talked to your work, we'll cross that hurdle in the morning.” Peter gathered his pajamas and a pillow and settled in for an uncomfortable night on the couch. He tried to rationalize his behavior, but found himself at a loss for words. Low blood sugar? A lack of salt? Hunger? He woke up to the whirring of the television and the unmistakable crackle as it came to life. Static at first, then a pop, and finally an illumination. Too little sugar, he told himself, but it was no use. The set was aglow only dimmer now and the honeyed hues of the previous episodes were replaced by aqua and graphite. Did he accidentally change the channel? Did Annie? Then all was saved, he was just suffering from a momentary hallucination. But as his eyes focused, Peter's hopes for a misfiring brain were quashed. In the contrast of the moonlight and shadow, he recognized his alarm clock and the bed frame, even the fraction of the nightstand made visible by the angle of the unseen cameraman. The sight of Annie, nestled predictably on her side with her hands cradling her knees was a cause of alarm. Peter gazed intently; mute to the sight displayed before him when he saw the woman looking down upon Annie- she looked up mournfully at Peter then stole herself away through some off-camera exit that he was certain did not exist. The man wasn't obvious at first. His movements were light and swift considering his size. He looked at Peter through the television and grinned as he averted his gaze down upon Annie who was sleeping soundly. Peter stared wide eyed, unable to comprehend what exactly was laid out before him. His eyes took in the sight, but it wasn't enough to convince him that the impossible was happening. The man brushed his fat sausage fingers against Annie's hair then looked up and laughed a hearty silent laugh before his expression turned to a mask of sheer malice. “No!” Peter cried at the top of his lungs as he raced from the couch to the bedroom. He banged on the door, but it would not give. “Annie wake up!” He repeated as he banged the door. He threw his weight against it again and again, but it would not open. Then the screaming started, high pitched and almost unrecognizable were it not for Annie's pleas interrupting the agonizing and involuntary cries of pain. “Annie! Annie! Annie!,” Peter wailed as he slammed his shoulder into the door. But her cries persisted, rising to a viscerous crescendo both deafening and inhuman. Then silence. Peter paused and drew and breath. Still nothing. His hand still gripped firmly on the doorknob, he twisted his wrist and the door gave. Inside, the room was dark. He didn't dare turn on the lights, he didn't need to. He saw Annie's silhouette sat there and the edge of the bed. And he heard the gurgling. Glug glug glug glug brug She was slumped slightly at the edge of the bed with her hands clenched together before her eyes. “Oh god,” he exclaimed, trying to process what was laid out before him. He came close to Annie wide eyed. He'd never been in a situation like this before: he'd never experienced trauma. He kneeled before her and clutched her hands in his. They were wet. Gwa gwa gwa gwa gwa The sounds emanated from her throat. She was slumped forward. Peter put his hand beneath her chin and elevated her head in an attempt to assess her wounds, but was greeted by an absence that should have been the dimple in her neck; the one he had often spent too much attention on with his tongue, according to Annie. He was still holding her clenched hands, but it was only now that he felt that she was holding something. Fingers groping, he felt it; sinewy, wet and moist. It was part of her, the missing part. It was the moistness. It was all over him, her, the sheets, everything. He paused, she fell over; wet and pallid. He paused, claustrophobic, there was no escape. This is real. This is happening. He must have been contemplating the scene, her hands still clutched between his, for some time; he couldn't be sure. But he was finally roused from his stupor by the raucous. But what was it? Trembling and tunnel-visioned, Peter emerged from the bedroom. There was shouting. He made his way into the hallway towards the nook, but the shouting only grew louder. His hands were tense, clenching Annie's final gift. Porous, mut hure ghands ug! Again and again. Porous, mut hure ghands ug! He felt the moisture emanating from his hands, then looking down, finally focused. It wasn't the blood so much as the tissue. The cells, the mucous, still technically alive and now posthumously Annie's. It was her's but what was it? Why was he holding it. Bewildered, he raised his hands. Police, put your hands up! It wouldn't have mattered- the hands, the trachea held firmly in his hands, the blood. The sound was deafening, though he felt the shock first, repeatedly. Each time, the shock, then the sound- gunfire. “He's down,” a voice said. “Good, God,” the other replied. “The fucker deserved it!” It wasn't until the second day that the detective noticed it. The scene being played before his eyes in sepia tone. “This is perfect,” the detective said. “What's that?” the recruit asked. “This set, the wife has been bugging me for something like this ever since we got that jew-priced bungalow. You know, I think this set is important, we're going to need to bring this into evidence.” “Sure thing, sir,” the recruit said. “But what is this show? There's no sound.” “Probably just some old sitcom,” the detective responded. “Not one I've ever seen, it's just two white couples eating.” “That's probably why you've never seen it,” the detective snorted, wondering who was late to the two unoccupied place settings: “just get it into evidence.” “Sure thing, boss.” http://www.onepagewonder.com/atnight/alone/ Tue, 19 Jul 2011 10:51:52 CDT http://www.onepagewonder.com/cat// THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #25 – The Lazarus Syndrome The Lazarus Syndrome is explained as when patients treat their doctors like they’re God; this is a condition only a doctor could dream up. THE LAZARUS SYNDROME is a bit mysterious as well; but it turns out to be a pretty good movie when you realize nobody in this movie actually has the Lazarus Syndrome and that this is clearly a pilot. How do you know when you’re watching a 70s-80s pilot? Simple: a partnership is forged in the final minutes and there’s a freeze frame of two former antagonists smiling and enjoying the chemistry. And the credits usually run under the sound of a single trumpet warbling out a sketchy theme song that’ll be a full orchestra intro if the pilot gets picked up. People watching this movie nowadays wouldn’t have the same disconnect watching Lou Gossett Jr be a really nice guy doctor than people who still have AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN still fresh in their heads. You want to be afraid of Lou Gossett Jr, go check that one out. But this all fits in nicely if all you know is, say, IRON EAGLE. Gossett is McArthur St. Clair, a mild but dedicated and oh my God almost unbearably reasonable cardiologist. His marriage is troubled, but only in a 70s tv-movie way; he’s too dedicated to his work and he’s gotten kinda boring, apparently. But given that this is tv in 1978, we should be glad they didn’t have him deliberately living in a ghetto to keep it real. Enter Joe Hamill, newspaper reporter and philanderer. He’s playing tennis with his mistress when he has a clear heart incident. It’s all accurate enough; in fact it looks like they were told to dial the realism back a bit to a point that’s only barely recognizable to us now with ER and its almost Star Trek level of the Scientific Wall Of Sound that makes your eyes glaze over when they feel the need to explain things. Here it works well because the core idea of the pilot (and I assume the series) is that the patient experience is not a concern of hospitals, that, as Joe puts it, “the hospitals are set up for the doctor’s convenience, not the patient’s.” St. Clair objects to this, but Joe is patient (tee hee) and determined to make his point. The day he’s discharged from the hospital, he produces a two page list of suggestions to St. Clair about improving the patient experience. Sadly, the only one mentioned nukes the credibility of the rest; he suggests conjugal visits. No, I’m not kidding. St. Clair mentions it to his wife, and tells her it basically goes on all the time anyways. A good pilot from this era can fool you in ways that a standard movie can’t. For one thing, pilots defy the Ebert law that says there are no wasted characters; the idea being that nobody with more than a couple lines is in a movie unless they’re put to use in the plot. When you’re setting up a series, though, the goal is to gin up as many plotlines as possible for later. When St. Clair’s wife admits she once had an affair, she mentions it was with an intern at the hospital. This character is not named and does not appear in the movie. That’s an episode at least; a friendly antagonist recurring-role, even. “Look, Dr. St. Clair, let’s put this behind us. This man is DYING!” That shit writes itself. There’s a lot of effort to put in edgy plot elements here; I suspect the intent was to get them pre-approved for later by already being in the pilot. Consider Joe Hamill, the newspaper guy who gets the heart attack. He’s got a mistress, a very nice lady hoping for a recurring role in the series. He also has a devoted wife and kids; the wife’s a bit of a dishrag but she might make it to series. The kids, unseen, are doomed unless they want a special drug episode later. While in the hospital, he makes a deal with his illegal alien roommate to bugger off while he has sex with the mistress in his room. He starts divorce proceedings while in hospital as well. He admits she’s a nice lady and that it would be easier if she weren’t. That’s all mighty edgy for 1978 tv. Joe is not judged for any of this; even St. Clair refuses to offer an opinion when asked. Likewise, St. Clair accepts that his wife had an affair and moves on with things. They are almost unbearably happy by the end. The enjoyably clunky dialogue delivers a keeper there: “Let’s not pull the plug on us yet, okay?” THE LAZARUS SYNDROME probably first saw light as an attempt to do a feature; otherwise, they really did meant to say “sheepdip” instead of “shit” and “If you call my fiancée a bimbo again, I’m gonna knock you on your can so hard, you’re gonna need a plumber to remove the floor tiles” instead of, I dunno, “I think about your ass a lot”. The threats in this movie sound like they came from a Writer’s Guild version of MadLibs. How about…verb, menstruate…noun, show horse…noun, toilet…verb, insert…noun, penis…noun, vagina…verb, ejaculate…plural noun, testicles. So: “If you menstruate my show horse a toilet again, I’m gonna insert you on your penis so hard, you’re gonna need a vagina to ejaculate the testicles.” Don’t sit there and tell me that’s not how you play MadLibs. So, EG Marshall’s in this too. In this era, he’s either the fatherly source of wisdom or the bad guy. Since this movie’s about challenging the status quo, EG is The Man. He’s Dr. Mendel, the head of the hospital. Joe also notices that Dr. Mendel is a speed freak, taking greens even when he’s in his hospital room talking to his roommate Mr. Dominguez. St. Clair isn’t having it, but Mendel is pretty erratic and manic. Joe ends up putting St. Clair right in the way of a great manic episode when he convinces Mr. Dominguez that the triple bypass Dr. Mendel ordered probably isn’t necessary. Mendel does the totally sane thing and calls St. Clair at home after bedtime, demanding he come in to get yelled at, then also demands a written apology for Joe’s behavior. Mendel and St. Clair have a running argument about Medicine. Mendel believes that research and team-oriented patient care is the way to go, as opposed to the old Marcus Welby (look it up, kid) one on one approach championed by St. Clair. Hilariously for us, the inhabitants of their sci-fi future, we know who’s right about this. Consider that the current #1 medical show is about a pill-popping doctor and his team of doctors. That cast would take your lunch money for making St. Clair’s argument now. So, Dr. Mendel dumps all of Dominguez’ records and such on St. Clair and tells him either prove I’m wrong about the bypass or do the written apology. St. Clair watches a video of an angiogram and agrees that Dominguez needs the bypass. He even does a consult; but something’s wrong. But St. Clair is a team player, so he tells Dominguez he needs the bypass. Joe is skeptical; Joe’s a tv newspaperman, so of course he suspects something. Joe comes to watch the surgery and Dominguez confesses he’s an illegal named Herrera; just in case he dies, he wants the right name on his tombstone. He also babbles on about having a couple ribs removed in an operation years ago. Ta da! It’s the tell! St. Clair rushes back to look at the angiogram and that tape has all the ribs in it! Mendel passed off someone else’s angiogram to…um…well…wait. We need a statement of intent from the bad guy to clarify things, and Dr. Mendel delivers. “Medicine is a business, cash and carry…that operation buys life.” This is another time where the movie works hard against itself. EG Marshall has a famous, trustworthy voice. Even when playing all speed freaky, the man makes sense. He talks about Medicine itself being a patient, needing money and attention. If only he’d used the phrase Medical-Industrial Complex; but we can’t have everything. He now seems to lament that Medicine is getting to be a big business, but the reasons are unclear and it sounds like it’s a bad thing that we do so many life-saving procedures. But then when St. Clair says he wants to stop the bypass operation on Dominguez, Mendel’s reply is basically: hell, it’s a billing. He’s strong enough to take a little unnecessary surgery. So we have a murky bad guy, and I again blame the network execs. The simplest narrative thing to do would be to have him hungry for billing and fees. But he can’t be evil; he’s got to represent a system at war with itself. We’re setting up a series here, people! In the end, Dominguez is fine, even though he’d already had his chest cracked and spread. Joe is getting better and is happy with his new lady. And St. Clair has a new job; well, half a job. They offered him Mendel’s old gig, but he said I’ll take half the job. I know just the man to take the other half. They agree on two rules: 1) Joe cannot countermand any doctor’s order; 2) Any patient with a complaint can bypass their doc and go straight to Joe. There’s your series bible, right there. The eventual show ran six episodes, which seems a shame; it’s a setup that you could easily do today. Patient rights are a bigger issue than ever and it’s rarely touched upon in medical shows unless something really horrible is about to happen. Anybody wants to try this premise for a show, I’m in. Call my agent; er, actually just call me. Stayed awake for the whole thing because the leads do a good job and since it’s a pilot they don’t have to burn each other down by the end. Seriously, I think pilots are vastly underappreciated for their wide-open approach to narrative. Five wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He has never eviscerated a vaginal penis using bees as an abattoir to matriculate paving stones on veiny scabs, but now if the anus shirks it’s totally green. For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #25 – The Lazarus Syndrome The Lazarus Syndrome is explained as when patients treat their doctors like they’re God; this is a condition only a doctor could dream up. THE LAZARUS SYNDROME is a bit mysterious as well; but it turns out to be a pretty good movie when you realize nobody in this movie actually has the Lazarus Syndrome and that this is clearly a pilot. How do you know when you’re watching a 70s-80s pilot? Simple: a partnership is forged in the final minutes and there’s a freeze frame of two former antagonists smiling and enjoying the chemistry. And the credits usually run under the sound of a single trumpet warbling out a sketchy theme song that’ll be a full orchestra intro if the pilot gets picked up. People watching this movie nowadays wouldn’t have the same disconnect watching Lou Gossett Jr be a really nice guy doctor than people who still have AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN still fresh in their heads. You want to be afraid of Lou Gossett Jr, go check that one out. But this all fits in nicely if all you know is, say, IRON EAGLE. Gossett is McArthur St. Clair, a mild but dedicated and oh my God almost unbearably reasonable cardiologist. His marriage is troubled, but only in a 70s tv-movie way; he’s too dedicated to his work and he’s gotten kinda boring, apparently. But given that this is tv in 1978, we should be glad they didn’t have him deliberately living in a ghetto to keep it real. Enter Joe Hamill, newspaper reporter and philanderer. He’s playing tennis with his mistress when he has a clear heart incident. It’s all accurate enough; in fact it looks like they were told to dial the realism back a bit to a point that’s only barely recognizable to us now with ER and its almost Star Trek level of the Scientific Wall Of Sound that makes your eyes glaze over when they feel the need to explain things. Here it works well because the core idea of the pilot (and I assume the series) is that the patient experience is not a concern of hospitals, that, as Joe puts it, “the hospitals are set up for the doctor’s convenience, not the patient’s.” St. Clair objects to this, but Joe is patient (tee hee) and determined to make his point. The day he’s discharged from the hospital, he produces a two page list of suggestions to St. Clair about improving the patient experience. Sadly, the only one mentioned nukes the credibility of the rest; he suggests conjugal visits. No, I’m not kidding. St. Clair mentions it to his wife, and tells her it basically goes on all the time anyways. A good pilot from this era can fool you in ways that a standard movie can’t. For one thing, pilots defy the Ebert law that says there are no wasted characters; the idea being that nobody with more than a couple lines is in a movie unless they’re put to use in the plot. When you’re setting up a series, though, the goal is to gin up as many plotlines as possible for later. When St. Clair’s wife admits she once had an affair, she mentions it was with an intern at the hospital. This character is not named and does not appear in the movie. That’s an episode at least; a friendly antagonist recurring-role, even. “Look, Dr. St. Clair, let’s put this behind us. This man is DYING!” That shit writes itself. There’s a lot of effort to put in edgy plot elements here; I suspect the intent was to get them pre-approved for later by already being in the pilot. Consider Joe Hamill, the newspaper guy who gets the heart attack. He’s got a mistress, a very nice lady hoping for a recurring role in the series. He also has a devoted wife and kids; the wife’s a bit of a dishrag but she might make it to series. The kids, unseen, are doomed unless they want a special drug episode later. While in the hospital, he makes a deal with his illegal alien roommate to bugger off while he has sex with the mistress in his room. He starts divorce proceedings while in hospital as well. He admits she’s a nice lady and that it would be easier if she weren’t. That’s all mighty edgy for 1978 tv. Joe is not judged for any of this; even St. Clair refuses to offer an opinion when asked. Likewise, St. Clair accepts that his wife had an affair and moves on with things. They are almost unbearably happy by the end. The enjoyably clunky dialogue delivers a keeper there: “Let’s not pull the plug on us yet, okay?” THE LAZARUS SYNDROME probably first saw light as an attempt to do a feature; otherwise, they really did meant to say “sheepdip” instead of “shit” and “If you call my fiancée a bimbo again, I’m gonna knock you on your can so hard, you’re gonna need a plumber to remove the floor tiles” instead of, I dunno, “I think about your ass a lot”. The threats in this movie sound like they came from a Writer’s Guild version of MadLibs. How about…verb, menstruate…noun, show horse…noun, toilet…verb, insert…noun, penis…noun, vagina…verb, ejaculate…plural noun, testicles. So: “If you menstruate my show horse a toilet again, I’m gonna insert you on your penis so hard, you’re gonna need a vagina to ejaculate the testicles.” Don’t sit there and tell me that’s not how you play MadLibs. So, EG Marshall’s in this too. In this era, he’s either the fatherly source of wisdom or the bad guy. Since this movie’s about challenging the status quo, EG is The Man. He’s Dr. Mendel, the head of the hospital. Joe also notices that Dr. Mendel is a speed freak, taking greens even when he’s in his hospital room talking to his roommate Mr. Dominguez. St. Clair isn’t having it, but Mendel is pretty erratic and manic. Joe ends up putting St. Clair right in the way of a great manic episode when he convinces Mr. Dominguez that the triple bypass Dr. Mendel ordered probably isn’t necessary. Mendel does the totally sane thing and calls St. Clair at home after bedtime, demanding he come in to get yelled at, then also demands a written apology for Joe’s behavior. Mendel and St. Clair have a running argument about Medicine. Mendel believes that research and team-oriented patient care is the way to go, as opposed to the old Marcus Welby (look it up, kid) one on one approach championed by St. Clair. Hilariously for us, the inhabitants of their sci-fi future, we know who’s right about this. Consider that the current #1 medical show is about a pill-popping doctor and his team of doctors. That cast would take your lunch money for making St. Clair’s argument now. So, Dr. Mendel dumps all of Dominguez’ records and such on St. Clair and tells him either prove I’m wrong about the bypass or do the written apology. St. Clair watches a video of an angiogram and agrees that Dominguez needs the bypass. He even does a consult; but something’s wrong. But St. Clair is a team player, so he tells Dominguez he needs the bypass. Joe is skeptical; Joe’s a tv newspaperman, so of course he suspects something. Joe comes to watch the surgery and Dominguez confesses he’s an illegal named Herrera; just in case he dies, he wants the right name on his tombstone. He also babbles on about having a couple ribs removed in an operation years ago. Ta da! It’s the tell! St. Clair rushes back to look at the angiogram and that tape has all the ribs in it! Mendel passed off someone else’s angiogram to…um…well…wait. We need a statement of intent from the bad guy to clarify things, and Dr. Mendel delivers. “Medicine is a business, cash and carry…that operation buys life.” This is another time where the movie works hard against itself. EG Marshall has a famous, trustworthy voice. Even when playing all speed freaky, the man makes sense. He talks about Medicine itself being a patient, needing money and attention. If only he’d used the phrase Medical-Industrial Complex; but we can’t have everything. He now seems to lament that Medicine is getting to be a big business, but the reasons are unclear and it sounds like it’s a bad thing that we do so many life-saving procedures. But then when St. Clair says he wants to stop the bypass operation on Dominguez, Mendel’s reply is basically: hell, it’s a billing. He’s strong enough to take a little unnecessary surgery. So we have a murky bad guy, and I again blame the network execs. The simplest narrative thing to do would be to have him hungry for billing and fees. But he can’t be evil; he’s got to represent a system at war with itself. We’re setting up a series here, people! In the end, Dominguez is fine, even though he’d already had his chest cracked and spread. Joe is getting better and is happy with his new lady. And St. Clair has a new job; well, half a job. They offered him Mendel’s old gig, but he said I’ll take half the job. I know just the man to take the other half. They agree on two rules: 1) Joe cannot countermand any doctor’s order; 2) Any patient with a complaint can bypass their doc and go straight to Joe. There’s your series bible, right there. The eventual show ran six episodes, which seems a shame; it’s a setup that you could easily do today. Patient rights are a bigger issue than ever and it’s rarely touched upon in medical shows unless something really horrible is about to happen. Anybody wants to try this premise for a show, I’m in. Call my agent; er, actually just call me. Stayed awake for the whole thing because the leads do a good job and since it’s a pilot they don’t have to burn each other down by the end. Seriously, I think pilots are vastly underappreciated for their wide-open approach to narrative. Five wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He has never eviscerated a vaginal penis using bees as an abattoir to matriculate paving stones on veiny scabs, but now if the anus shirks it’s totally green. For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! http://www.onepagewonder.com/cat/TMS/The+Lazarus+Syndrome Fri, 17 Jun 2011 06:40:54 CDT http://www.onepagewonder.com/cat// THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #24 – Women Of Devil’s Island There are things you expect from a sixties Italian movie about French atrocities called WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND, but the way memory and time work it comes out as a disappointment if you don’t orient yourself properly. One of my old professors, Jack Holtsmark, says that there’s too often a temptation to imprint current attitudes and moral conclusions onto people in the past, damning them for things that simply didn’t register to them, as they are not people from the future. This isn’t a justification for the attitudes of historical figures (I always think of that great bit from JUDGMENT IN NUREMBERG when Maximillian Schell quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes giving legal approval to sterilizing dumb people and how it makes your guts shrink a little), just a reminder that your expectations as a person from their science-fiction future should take the time into account. What’s my point? This movie isn’t porn, not even softcore, and it’s wrong to damn it for this. Despite all the stag reels that have been made since Edison, pre-MOM AND DAD (or I AM CURIOUS YELLOW or whichever flick you think opened the door) porn was not as pervasive as we like to think until, well, not too long after WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND. A whole lot of adult males in 1962 had never seen a woman completely naked, even. We take that for granted now. I recently saw THE DIRTY GIRLS by Radley Metzger. That movie was 1965, three years after WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND. Radley made a lot of porn in his time, but when he started out, it was still a crime to put the old P into the V on camera. So he cooked up a steamy movie with very little sex and a lot of petting. Some teenager watching voyeur drunk girl clips would laugh his ass off at the thought that it was a sex movie. Watching WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND is like doubling that chasm. It’s really, really good at the level of prurience it inhabits. This movie in fact aims so squarely at a certain image and hits it as often as possible, that it becomes fetishized, even though all that’s being fetishized is cleavage. You know how that one time someone kinda random told you about some not exactly sexual thing that makes them so hot they almost freak out and it just sounds like some mundane thing and then suddenly you’re worried because it might be a preamble to asking you to hold the chain or call him a good boy or whatever? Yeah, me either. Anymore, when something is not obviously sexual, it’s assumed to be a fetish when someone shows prurient interest in it. To a modern eye, my interest in WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND would be fetishistic; but frankly it’s guilt-free exploitation. I mean, I just spent three paragraphs setting you up for the idea that this movie turns my crank a bit; obviously it got to me in some weird way. When you hear the title WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND, there are expectations, depending on your age. If you’re ten years old, the expectation is that it’s gay and probably boring. If you’re twenty years old, you hear the word women and wonder if any of them are hot. If you’re thirty years old, you may have seen TERMINAL ISLAND when your brother rented it and that women on a prison island thing sounds pretty hot. If you’re forty years old, you hope the movie’s Italian, too, because they have that kind of thing nailed. If you’re fifty years old, I dunno; maybe you want a nap or something. As if clicking neatly into the collective male id, what you get is an Italian movie about a French all-female (wait for it) penal colony. It’s a period piece, so they’re all wearing long, frilly, off the shoulder dresses with garters and the whole deal. They all range from cute to hot (until a couple hawk-nosed ones pop in during the shootout at the end, as if they’re the ones posing for the eventual coin or mural of the event) and spend their days knee-deep in a lake panning for gold, dodging crocodiles, and singing a jaunty French ditty while the sun beats down on them. If you think this sucks, you are not processing these elements correctly. Pretend I’m the guy from your sci-fi future and listen to me: this is sexy. The ladies are strong-jawed and defiant. Because it’s a sixties Italian movie about the French, the women occasionally use sex to get what they want, but are mostly smart enough not to fall for the head guard’s bullshit. You go with him, you get thrown in a room with a dozen dudes. Then the door closes and we are left to wonder. Being left to wonder is actually pretty refreshing these days. The plot? Okay: Martine is sent to Devil’s Island. Her sister is already there, but when she seeks her out she claims not to know her. She took the name of a prostitute who died on the ship she came in on so they wouldn’t know she’s the daughter of nobility. Martine didn’t do that and nothing happens because of her name, so who knows what that’s about. Turns out the sister is the Big X of this camp and she’s got a plan to get everyone out. It’s a pretty good plan, but the sister’s virtue does her in. She figures that even if they get to the nearest island, they have no money and would have to sell themselves to get anywhere. She resolves to steal some of the gold they pan and that’s where it all falls apart. One of the prisoners, Melina, is consumptive, so she agrees to sex with the guards to get bedrest; this is a pretty great long game to play on the guards when you think about it. This movie glams up the prisoners so much that you would have sex with the consumptive lady, even. Trouble is, Melina’s also a rat. She tells the cruel Lt. LeFarve of the plan and Martine’s sister ends up shot dead while making off with two bags of gold. The rest of the escapees are rounded up and tied to timbers of an old shipwreck; partly this is because LeFarve still needs them to work to meet the gold quota. It’s also partly to work the cleavage. As if there were a rule about this somewhere, the homeliest prisoner dies of exposure while the rest grit their teeth and stay pretty. Now at this point, I was thinking: okay, European movie, Devil’s Island, it could end right here. Problem is, this was the thirty minute mark. A ship arrives ahead of the gold ship and Captain Valiere arrives alone from it. He informs Lt. LaFarve (who has been eagerly anticipating a promotion off the island and even promised extra gold production to get it) that there’s no promotion, that all he gets for all his trouble is a boss, namely Capt. Valiere. Valiere is a reformer. He forbids the whipping of the women and says he will hang any guard who does so. Le Farve grouses that the women won’t work if you don’t beat them, and Valiere says oh just starve them a little for punishment instead. Valiere even rescues Martine from a crocodile. What a guy, right? There are some interesting touches in this movie with regard to message. Early on, when Martine’s sister uses sex to get access to the treasury to help everyone escape, she backs Lt. LeFarve off a little by gently reminding him that even he knows that sex is better when you don’t take the woman. Valiere expresses the same idea later; both the good and bad guys of the piece agree on this point. Even LaFarve wants them to want him, even if it’s really a choice between another damn day out there with the crocodiles and ten minutes twiddling his piddler. As far as sexual politics go, the movie shoots for an exaggerated (and oversimplified) realism: men have the power but obey certain invisible rules that the women successfully navigate to get what they want. Before we get too enamored of the idea that this is actually the case, we hear Martine’s sister’s disappointment that LeFarve’s last pre-shag promise to let her leave the island didn’t come to fruition. That didn’t work? Really? The guys are no geniuses, either. LeFarve is completely fooled by Valiere, who’s actually a revolutionary posing as a French Captain in a daring bid to steal all the gold of Devil’s Island. It’s a good trick, and it’s all well-played onscreen. Valiere gets away with all the gold, but he’s gotten sweet on Martine. So he goes back for her, despite his buddies saying hey we got away with a gigantic amount of gold. But being a revolutionary, he’s also an idealist in love. He goes back and cracks up his little boat on the rocks. The prisoners find him and send him off to a part of the island where the guards don’t go but they themselves occasionally access by removing their dresses and swimming there. With all the wet 18th century underclothes, it looks a lot like a remake of ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. It all ends breathlessly, with Valiere arming the prisoners and leading them against LeFarve and his regiment. Melina the rat even redeems herself by grabbing a torch and blowing up the powder magazine in a suicidal move. This is when a couple less than pretty prisoners emerge; they know how to shoot the guns. I refuse to correlate these events. Valiere and Martine and many of the prisoners make it to the revolutionaries’ boat and they are happy together. No more hunching over in low-cut dresses for them, no sir! So, alas, the movie ends tragically. Stayed awake for the whole thing because there were dozens of pretty women leaning over in low-cut dresses. Plus the scenes where they all flail around their bunkhouse pretending to be really tired until the guard leaves is pretty great cinema too. Six wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He has never written a junior-level Film Studies paper using WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND as a prism to determine Italian attitudes on French sexual mores, but now if the need arises it’s totally covered. For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! THE MOVIE SOMNAMBULIST #24 – Women Of Devil’s Island There are things you expect from a sixties Italian movie about French atrocities called WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND, but the way memory and time work it comes out as a disappointment if you don’t orient yourself properly. One of my old professors, Jack Holtsmark, says that there’s too often a temptation to imprint current attitudes and moral conclusions onto people in the past, damning them for things that simply didn’t register to them, as they are not people from the future. This isn’t a justification for the attitudes of historical figures (I always think of that great bit from JUDGMENT IN NUREMBERG when Maximillian Schell quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes giving legal approval to sterilizing dumb people and how it makes your guts shrink a little), just a reminder that your expectations as a person from their science-fiction future should take the time into account. What’s my point? This movie isn’t porn, not even softcore, and it’s wrong to damn it for this. Despite all the stag reels that have been made since Edison, pre-MOM AND DAD (or I AM CURIOUS YELLOW or whichever flick you think opened the door) porn was not as pervasive as we like to think until, well, not too long after WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND. A whole lot of adult males in 1962 had never seen a woman completely naked, even. We take that for granted now. I recently saw THE DIRTY GIRLS by Radley Metzger. That movie was 1965, three years after WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND. Radley made a lot of porn in his time, but when he started out, it was still a crime to put the old P into the V on camera. So he cooked up a steamy movie with very little sex and a lot of petting. Some teenager watching voyeur drunk girl clips would laugh his ass off at the thought that it was a sex movie. Watching WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND is like doubling that chasm. It’s really, really good at the level of prurience it inhabits. This movie in fact aims so squarely at a certain image and hits it as often as possible, that it becomes fetishized, even though all that’s being fetishized is cleavage. You know how that one time someone kinda random told you about some not exactly sexual thing that makes them so hot they almost freak out and it just sounds like some mundane thing and then suddenly you’re worried because it might be a preamble to asking you to hold the chain or call him a good boy or whatever? Yeah, me either. Anymore, when something is not obviously sexual, it’s assumed to be a fetish when someone shows prurient interest in it. To a modern eye, my interest in WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND would be fetishistic; but frankly it’s guilt-free exploitation. I mean, I just spent three paragraphs setting you up for the idea that this movie turns my crank a bit; obviously it got to me in some weird way. When you hear the title WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND, there are expectations, depending on your age. If you’re ten years old, the expectation is that it’s gay and probably boring. If you’re twenty years old, you hear the word women and wonder if any of them are hot. If you’re thirty years old, you may have seen TERMINAL ISLAND when your brother rented it and that women on a prison island thing sounds pretty hot. If you’re forty years old, you hope the movie’s Italian, too, because they have that kind of thing nailed. If you’re fifty years old, I dunno; maybe you want a nap or something. As if clicking neatly into the collective male id, what you get is an Italian movie about a French all-female (wait for it) penal colony. It’s a period piece, so they’re all wearing long, frilly, off the shoulder dresses with garters and the whole deal. They all range from cute to hot (until a couple hawk-nosed ones pop in during the shootout at the end, as if they’re the ones posing for the eventual coin or mural of the event) and spend their days knee-deep in a lake panning for gold, dodging crocodiles, and singing a jaunty French ditty while the sun beats down on them. If you think this sucks, you are not processing these elements correctly. Pretend I’m the guy from your sci-fi future and listen to me: this is sexy. The ladies are strong-jawed and defiant. Because it’s a sixties Italian movie about the French, the women occasionally use sex to get what they want, but are mostly smart enough not to fall for the head guard’s bullshit. You go with him, you get thrown in a room with a dozen dudes. Then the door closes and we are left to wonder. Being left to wonder is actually pretty refreshing these days. The plot? Okay: Martine is sent to Devil’s Island. Her sister is already there, but when she seeks her out she claims not to know her. She took the name of a prostitute who died on the ship she came in on so they wouldn’t know she’s the daughter of nobility. Martine didn’t do that and nothing happens because of her name, so who knows what that’s about. Turns out the sister is the Big X of this camp and she’s got a plan to get everyone out. It’s a pretty good plan, but the sister’s virtue does her in. She figures that even if they get to the nearest island, they have no money and would have to sell themselves to get anywhere. She resolves to steal some of the gold they pan and that’s where it all falls apart. One of the prisoners, Melina, is consumptive, so she agrees to sex with the guards to get bedrest; this is a pretty great long game to play on the guards when you think about it. This movie glams up the prisoners so much that you would have sex with the consumptive lady, even. Trouble is, Melina’s also a rat. She tells the cruel Lt. LeFarve of the plan and Martine’s sister ends up shot dead while making off with two bags of gold. The rest of the escapees are rounded up and tied to timbers of an old shipwreck; partly this is because LeFarve still needs them to work to meet the gold quota. It’s also partly to work the cleavage. As if there were a rule about this somewhere, the homeliest prisoner dies of exposure while the rest grit their teeth and stay pretty. Now at this point, I was thinking: okay, European movie, Devil’s Island, it could end right here. Problem is, this was the thirty minute mark. A ship arrives ahead of the gold ship and Captain Valiere arrives alone from it. He informs Lt. LaFarve (who has been eagerly anticipating a promotion off the island and even promised extra gold production to get it) that there’s no promotion, that all he gets for all his trouble is a boss, namely Capt. Valiere. Valiere is a reformer. He forbids the whipping of the women and says he will hang any guard who does so. Le Farve grouses that the women won’t work if you don’t beat them, and Valiere says oh just starve them a little for punishment instead. Valiere even rescues Martine from a crocodile. What a guy, right? There are some interesting touches in this movie with regard to message. Early on, when Martine’s sister uses sex to get access to the treasury to help everyone escape, she backs Lt. LeFarve off a little by gently reminding him that even he knows that sex is better when you don’t take the woman. Valiere expresses the same idea later; both the good and bad guys of the piece agree on this point. Even LaFarve wants them to want him, even if it’s really a choice between another damn day out there with the crocodiles and ten minutes twiddling his piddler. As far as sexual politics go, the movie shoots for an exaggerated (and oversimplified) realism: men have the power but obey certain invisible rules that the women successfully navigate to get what they want. Before we get too enamored of the idea that this is actually the case, we hear Martine’s sister’s disappointment that LeFarve’s last pre-shag promise to let her leave the island didn’t come to fruition. That didn’t work? Really? The guys are no geniuses, either. LeFarve is completely fooled by Valiere, who’s actually a revolutionary posing as a French Captain in a daring bid to steal all the gold of Devil’s Island. It’s a good trick, and it’s all well-played onscreen. Valiere gets away with all the gold, but he’s gotten sweet on Martine. So he goes back for her, despite his buddies saying hey we got away with a gigantic amount of gold. But being a revolutionary, he’s also an idealist in love. He goes back and cracks up his little boat on the rocks. The prisoners find him and send him off to a part of the island where the guards don’t go but they themselves occasionally access by removing their dresses and swimming there. With all the wet 18th century underclothes, it looks a lot like a remake of ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. It all ends breathlessly, with Valiere arming the prisoners and leading them against LeFarve and his regiment. Melina the rat even redeems herself by grabbing a torch and blowing up the powder magazine in a suicidal move. This is when a couple less than pretty prisoners emerge; they know how to shoot the guns. I refuse to correlate these events. Valiere and Martine and many of the prisoners make it to the revolutionaries’ boat and they are happy together. No more hunching over in low-cut dresses for them, no sir! So, alas, the movie ends tragically. Stayed awake for the whole thing because there were dozens of pretty women leaning over in low-cut dresses. Plus the scenes where they all flail around their bunkhouse pretending to be really tired until the guard leaves is pretty great cinema too. Six wide awake eyes for this one. (One eye equals 15 minutes of runtime.) John Ira Thomas writes graphic novels for Candle Light Press. He has never written a junior-level Film Studies paper using WOMEN OF DEVIL’S ISLAND as a prism to determine Italian attitudes on French sexual mores, but now if the need arises it’s totally covered. For more Movie Somnambulist fun, check out the archives! http://www.onepagewonder.com/cat/TMS/Women+Of+Devil's+Island Fri, 10 Jun 2011 10:47:48 CDT