For Your Awareness: Kickboxer's Tears (1992)

I recall some time ago having a rather heated debate as to the value and necessity of dubbing movies, particularly those centering on Asian martial arts, a category that seems particularly subjected to problematic and often terrible dubbings. The friend I was discussing this with suggested that in a few instances dubbing managed to save a film from being altogether unwatchable, or manages to make dry plots and terrible dialogue seem humorous.  While many of his reference included some of the more obscure Godzilla spin-offs, I have come to understand his argument after my recent viewing of Kickboxer's Ters, tilted Xin long zhong hu dou, if you were to see the film in its original Chinese context.  A film that is preoccupied with the world of underground martial arts, in this case kickboxing, the movie is not of particular note and aside from some rather impressive cinematography and unusual gender commentaries manages to be lackluster and tragically dated.  Fortunately the particular version of the film I watched suffered from what may well be the worst case of dubbing I have ever encountered in a film.  I am not sure if the actors were Americans, English speaking Chinese guys trying to sound black or a set of Australians, because at not point is one characters voice consistently dubbed by the same person, nor is it delivered with a committed concept within the same scene.  I am sure some of the death scenes and moments of subtle intimacy were quite nice upon their initial release, but the reprehensible manner in which the various actors deliver the lines manages to take any sort of beauty out of scenes and any sort of seriousness out of even the most intimidating characters.  By about ten minutes into this work, I had convinced myself that it consisted entirely of b-roll footage from the television version of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, a notion that I have still not completely dismissed.

I am realizing that my "For Your Awareness" posts either take on the completely absurd or the completely artistic in their endeavor, only being connected by the obscurity factor.  Like my posts about Greed or Starcrash, I think a film like Kickboxer's Tears needs to be saved from obscurity, in this case not because it is a particularly profound piece of filmmaking, instead; because it is a thing to be viewed and pondered, much more in the vein of Troll 2 or Plan 9 From Outer Space.  Excluding the cinematic masterpiece that is obscure due to its lack of completion in Greed, each of the previous mentioned films have an aura of earnestness about their creation, it is clear that somewhere somebody was passionate about making Kickboxer's Tears, particularly the fight scenes which, while well choreographed take up a ridiculous amount of the filmic narrative.  Their are touches of Raging Bull within the film as well as some more than blatant references to Bloodsport, yet Kickboxer's Tears manages to exist as something less fantastic, certainly not aided by the previously mentioned dubbing.  I chose to mention the film though because it is so fun to watch and caused me to be surprised on multiple occasions, certainly by some of the POV camera work and some well-executed fight scenes.  Instead of offering this as a film of great cinematic value, Kickboxer's Tears is a midnight movie through and through, one that is quite deserved of its own drinking game and absurd cult following.

I would say buy a copy of this DVD, but my initial viewing of my copy was a result of discovering how valuable the disc was worth.  I went into watching it thinking I would hate it and sell it for the large profit immediately.  However, it is just too awesomely terrible to disown.  In which case I wish you luck finding a copy, mine came from a free bin at a used media store, which makes be consider the presence of a spiritual being even as I complete this sentence.  Also take note of how uneventful every persons death is within the film, it is laughably bleak.

My Dear, You Cannot Live In Isolation: Carnival Of Souls (1962)

For the final film of my Halloween oriented cinema spook-fest, I decided to go with the indelible cult classic, Carnival of Souls, which has become one of the premier scare movies that is....well, criminally under-appreciated.  For some time Carnival of Souls fell the way of dubbed copies and public domain twenty set movie releases, only to get somewhat of a resurgence after being shown at various independent theaters, as well as making constant appearances as a midnight movie.  In a matter of no time, Carnival of Souls became the movie to watch if you thought you were cool and knew the classics of horror, and deservedly so, Herk Harvey's only feature length work is something to be witnessed.  As is the case with many a b-movie, it starts off quite bland with some lees than stellar action shots and some of the worst dubbing imagined in a movie where the actors are speaking the same language.  However, less than ten minutes into this cinematic wonderscape, it becomes very apparent that Carnival of Souls will not be your run of the mill work and exists as something far creepier and thoroughly inexplicable.  It is hard not to see the clear influence this film has on directors like David Lynch and Steven Sodergbergh who love taking a completely normal scenario and inserting incredible amounts of absurdity into them without the characters seeming to completely fall apart in the wake of said deconstruction of the natural.  It could be argued that Carnival of Souls has very few scary moments within its entire seventy or so minute narrative, but I would contest that it is a far greater thing than simple scares when it comes to Carnival of Souls, for the entire diagetic world created within this film is scary, the landscapes defy logic, the characters interact in a vapid and disconnected manner, often engaging one another with such levels of paranoia that it is hard to feel comfortable.  Not to mention we are watching a woman slowly fall into such a existential mentality that her sanity begins to blatantly betray her, it is scary in a way many films are not, it does not provide you with explanations as to why ghost A is showing up or why ghost B is so damn mean, it simply places you in media res to a horror story directly consuming on persons life, and in this case Carnival of Souls may have been the first to commit such an approach, and is certainly yet to be challenged.

Carnival of Souls follows a young woman named Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) who is still centering her world after being the sole survivor of a rather unfortunate accident in which a car including her and her friends goes spiraling off the side of a bridge.  Shortly after her lucky survival Mary discovers that she will be taking a job in Utah as a church organist, something for which she somehow managed to get a college degree.  Upon her arrival to the small town things seem underwhelming with the exception of a rather contentious land lady and a incessant neighbor who feels it necessary to hit on her at what appears to be literally every waking moment.  During a trip to work, she notices a carnival in the horizon, which causes her to experience heightened states of paranoia, something that was initially signaled by her seeing a ghostly deep-eyed male apparition.  During a day of shopping, Mary experiences a delirium in which nobody seems to acknowledge her existence, despite her yelling and calling attention to herself.  This inspires her to investigate the carnival she previously saw on the road, an event that takes her through a bizarre house of illusions and on one of the most decrepit boardwalks ever filmed.  All the while she attempts to travel through her daily life, eventually being fired from her organ job after falling into a daze dreaming about the carnival and playing what the priest describes as profane music.  Furthermore, she has a falling out with the neighbor who takes her on a date and complains about her cold demeanor and disconnect, taking particular disdain in her refusal to to drink the beer that he paid out of pocket for her to have.  Eventually after another bizarre vision of being unable to contact the living Mary returns to the carnival only to find herself being chased by ghastly apparitions from the carnival.  After falling into the sand, the scene cuts to detectives as they attempt to track down Mary's body, noting that she seems to have just disappeared into the sand, while we are then shown Mary's corpse being extracted from the river, along with her friends in the car of the original accident.  It may be an overused plot twist at this point in film, but I can imagine it was quite the twist fifty years ago.

Carnival of Soul's in notable in its approach to a uniquely female experience of haunting and paranoia.  While the film does problematically incorporate notions of hysteria a bit more than is justified, it does manage to make it quite distinct that much of the experiences of horror plaguing Mary are a result of her  detachment from society based on gender.  To some degree, one could incorporate Simone de Beauvoir's notions of "the second sex" in order to explain why Mary is so distraught.  Sure she is seeing ghosts, but all of the threatening ghosts are notably male and could represent a means of patriarchal oppression, which relegates her to a position of lesser being and therefore irrelevant to societal discourse.  If we consider Mary as an other in the context of this film, it helps to explain her moments of being ignored by society as not her being a ghost, but rather; a being who realizes that in the context of the early sixties that her body is not only defined as lesser than a male, but also so arbitrary that it is literally overlooked by males who do not want to lose their point of power, as well as by women who have internalized the notion that they are lesser than their penis bearing counterparts.  Even the scenes of Mary's interactions with her neighbor reek of the sexual assumptions of the era, in which a man is able to traipse about sexually preying upon women and chastising them when they do not put out, going so far as to call Mary cold, a clever play on her being deceased, as well as a common term for a woman who even remotely cared about her sexual identity during the time.  Sure the film is absolutely a ghost story and a very good one at that, but it is not impossible to read heavily into the revolutionary questioning of gender constructs and performance within the text, after all it was a B movie that is where one could break free from the mold of normalcy with great success.

Key Scene:  There is a particular scene in the dance hall involving sped up dancing that is, factually, the scariest thing ever put on film.

Buy this movie, I would love to tell you that Criterion is going to re-release the work in high definition, but it tragically does not appear to be the case.  As such the DVD will have to suffice.

Hit, Kick, Claw, Unconscious, Sound, Skin, Burn, Worm, Guts, Needle: The Devil's Experiment (1985)

WARNING:  This blog post may contain images and descriptions that some individuals may find offensive or disturbing.  I went with the least gruesome pictures I could find, but even then...

I knew going into my study of horror cinema for this month that some of the films chosen would take me into some dark and less than appealing areas of horror genre films, particularly that of gore cinema.  While I only bought a copy of The Devil's Experiment with the express intention of reselling it, however, since it was in my possession I decided to make it a selection for this month of films.  Also known as Guinea Pig 1, The Devil's Experiment exists as part of a larger series of gore films created in Japan during the mid 80's to the early 90's up until a pre-Tiger Blood Charlie Sheen discovered a copy of one of the films and made it a crusade of his to find the creators and arrest them for what he believed to be real footage.  To describe The Devil's Experiment as grotesquely unwatchable is to undermine the extremely clear lack of reality that extends through the forty minute film.  At no point did I pick up a moment where I felt something was actually occurring, more so no snuff film, not that I have seen one, has that nice of cinematography.  The Devil's Experiment is a film of artistic expression, all be it, one very dark, twisted and disturbed vision.   Given its unavailability for quite some time, the film now exists more as a legend that is to be discovered hiding away on the back shelf of a movie or rental store, one that in my opinion is certifiably underwhelming.  Sure the film is a bit sickening and damn near unwatchable, but it has not managed to keep the factor of the sheer grotesque as a film like Cannibal Holocaust has, nor does it have the implicit and keen political commentary of Pasolini's disturbing, yet magnificent work Salo.  In essence, The Devil's Experiment exists for a certain kind of film viewer, one who wants their palette saturated with confrontational, grating images of gore and could care very little for plot or social approval, yet one might be able to glean some sort of social criticism out of this gore classic.

The Devil's Experiment is one of the rare films whose narrative truly extends beyond the filmic narrative, which is good because there is not really a plot and at only forty minutes it makes describing it in a paragraph a bit difficult.  Suffice to say the film, like many a found footage works, suggests that the material was mailed to an unwilling recipient who watched the work only to immediately call the police in total shock and disgust.  The film provides no names, dates or production info suggesting it to be some sort of home video filled with sadomasochistic acts.  These acts include everything from striking a young woman with hands and legs to the boiling of hot oil on her skin.  The acts do not always include torture of the physical or external sense as some scenes involve spinning the woman around and pouring whiskey down her throat until she is sick, or playing screeching noises in her ears until her sanity breaks.  Between scenes the woman is shown dangling from a net, suggesting a nearly inhuman quality about her, helping, but not justifying, to explain the men's ability to degrader her.  The film closes with a gruesome needle through the eye moment, reminiscent, but not nearly as cinematic as the infamous scene from Un Chien Andalou.  The aftermath of this film was intense, while it was allegedly a "found footage" piece the filmmaker and actors were forced onto a tribunal in which they were to prove that each scene was indeed created with cinematic illusion and that nobody was harmed. Furthermore, the Guinea Pig series received its ultimate condemnation in Japan when it was discovered that a prolific serial killer kept the movies in a personal collection, even going so far as to display one of the series in front of the rest of his disturbing collection.  Again, The Devil's Experiment exits more as a myth to be seen, as opposed to a classic to be enjoyed.

What then can be said about something like The Devil's Experiment.  In my opinion when one approaches a film of such a graphic nature and of political problematics, it is necessary to ask a simple question:  Does this film do anything to help advance or rethink cinema?  I am hesitant to say yes, but upon reflection I think an argument could certainly be made in its favor.  I think The Devil's Experiment to at least a minimal degree asks its viewers to consider their role in film viewing and to what degree violence should be condoned.  In the guise of scientific experimentation one can distance themselves from the acts performed and make an argument that it is purely a psychological reflection.  This is not true, because it is indeed the destruction of a human body, which is never acceptable, even in the name of science.  If this were indeed occurring to an individual we as a society would be up in arms and demanding the death penalty to all those involved.  If it is a reflection on psychology it is clearly on human's desire to see the taboo and grotesque, which can be tied to the death drive and some other Freudian rhetoric in which I am not well versed.  Of course the film too plays with notions of the gaze in cinema, something I am realizing is quite prominent in the horror genre, particularly since the film closes with the gouging of an eye, suggesting that the viewer should be threatened by a loss of vision and whatever form of unconscious pleasure they may have derived from the film.  Of course as a feminist I can only condemn this film because it is under no means acceptable on any level.

Key Scene:  Ummm....the end I guess if I absolutely had to pick a part, although if it is based solely on most disturbing scene I would say the Worm sequence.

So buying this film is not necessary, however, should you see a super cheap copy somewhere like I did, I would suggest purchasing it because it is worth a bit as it is and will likely only increase in price as the years pass, because from what I understand this film is doomed to never be released on any format again.

Hobo Stops Begging, Demands Change: Hobo With A Shotgun (2011)

Since the emergence of Tod Browning's 1932 film Freaks, a large group of directors have made it a goal of theirs to great the grotesque in moving imagery and continually push the boundaries on the unfilmable.  While much of this push towards more controversial filmmaking is spearheaded by autuer leaders like Takishi Miike, Lars Von Trier and Harmony Korine, independent cinema continues to provide its own slew of hyper-violent, bizarre and extremely watchable films. Jason Eisenger's recent offering of Hobo With A Shotgun is certainly no exception to this and is only made all the more entertaining by the always welcome presence of Rutger Hauer.  Hobo With A Shotgun is not a particularly profound movie and is far too on the nose to be a poignant social critique, but what a film like this does is allow for serious discussions on post-apocalyptic fears to become popular.  Like many zombie films, Eisenger's work really does beg the question of the values of morals when signifier of social order have become irrelevant.  The film is certainly exaggerated, but is clearly intended as a genre piece, yet if one can get through the seemingly unending stream of red corn syrup and the glossy help of technicolor, Hobo With A Shotgun is a thrill ride that will undoubtedly provide viewers with angst about the slow decay of Western civilization.

I could simply say that the title explains the entire film, because the film is more or less about a hobo ennacting justice with a shotgun.  Yet, there is a much larger plot that is well worth discussing.  The film begins with an unnamed hobo (Rutger Hauer) riding into a town on the rails of a train.  The town, once called Hope Town, is the center for all things depraved.  The hobo is aghast by the pure amounts of degradation occurring in the city, whether it be a filmmaker using his wealth to exploit the poor into demeaning themselves on film or the countless acts of rebellion enacted in the name of nothing.  The state of the town seems to be tied directly to the unchecked power of the wealthy Drake (Brian Downey) who along with this two sons Ivan (Nick Bateman) and Slick (Gregory Smith), act in a violent manner simply because they are without challenge.  While Drake is clearly in power, he outsources his actions to both Ivan and Slick, placing a heavy emphasis on his pride in Ivan.  The hobo has a run in with Slick at an arcade, in which Slick attempts to rape a young prostitute named Abby (Molly Dunsworth).  Enraged the hobo knocks over Slick and saves the girl completely ignorant to the status and power of Slick.  Grateful for the help Abby befriends the hobo, and with her help he is able to purchase a shotgun that provides him with power to counter the corrupt city.  The hobo is surprisingly successful in his actions making a name for himself as a super hero of sorts, while cleaning the city of scum.  Drake and his sons, however, loathe the actions of the hobo and make it a point to turn the city against him.   The hobo, despite overwhelming odds, confronts Drake and his cohorts known as The Plague in one final showdown, and when it appears as though he is to die, he is aided by Abby.  The hobo is given an opportunity to kill Drake only to be stopped at gunpoint by a group of police officers, who have to this point in the film been rather non-existent.  Realizing his death is inevitable he shoots Drake in the head, only to die in a storm of police gunfire.  The film then closes with Abby being invited to join The Plague as she is the only person to have successfully survived their onslaught.  The town is still in despair, but it appears as though the cleansing of the streets from the hands of Drake can assure some sort of decency in the future.

Hobo With A Shotgun mirrors a film like The Toxic Avenger rather nicely, in that it deals with a serious social problem in a very ridiculous way and makes no qualms about beating viewers over the head with its message.  The message is simple, those with power can exploit those without, and unless the powerless can unify together, the powerful will continue to rule with oppressive force.  Drake can control the city simply because he has the money, and those who are not easily persuaded by money can succumb to drugs.  This is clear when Slick uses cocaine to overpower a rival kid of relative wealth, causing the young man to become addicted and subsequently dependent on Slick as a source.  It also notes the problems of abject poverty and how nearly impossible it is to climb out of such a state.  The hobo simply desires to purchase a used lawnmower to begin his own business and survive.  Right as he is in the process of doing so he becomes stuck in the middle of a robbery which leads him to come into possession of a shotgun to stop the robber in his tracks.  Such a scene, amidst its violent nature, suggests that those in terrible situations often attempt to extradite themselves; however, those around them invariably influence them in negative ways.  Finally, the film posits the illogical nature of single person sacrifice.  The hobo tries desperately to avenge those who were degraded within Scum Town, but he never makes it clear that he is doing so for the entirity of humanity, in fact, in the epic scene in which he talks to a nursery full of babies, he makes it clear that the world will never change and that one must simply accept their task with a positive outlook, even if it means being a hobo who happens to wield a shotgun.  Though not sacrificial, it is clear that the hobo's death was not in vain, for he allowed other to realize that change is possible, but must be done so on a unified scale, for one man cannot perform the work of many.

Hobo With A Shotgun is a fun bit of film and a great piece of cinema to come from Canada.  It is exploitation filmmaking at its finest and well worth watching.  At the moment, it is on Netflix Watch Instantly and a quick flick that clocks in just under an hour and a half.