Damnation

1988 Bela Tarr existential feel-good movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A somber guy in a gray world wanders around in slow motion. His reason for living is a lounge singer he occasionally sleeps with who, unfortunately, is married. He comes up an ingenious scheme to get rid of the husband for a while so that he can have sex with his mistress in slow motion while it rains outside and dogs scavenge in the streets.

I decided some time last year that I was going to limit myself to one movie directed by Bela Tarr, the likely chipper fellow who directed the best new-to-me movie that I saw in 2011, per year, one that I would watch without my pants on a sunny summer day. They're not exactly uplifting, and as much as I enjoyed Werckmeister Harmonies, more than one movie a year like that would more than likely lead to me taking my own life. This one is just as dismal with its grayness, its long shots, its nasty weather, and its sad characters. Perhaps my expectations were just a little too high, but I was disappointed in this one. The biggest issue for me was that it was too talky. And I'm not sure if it was weirdly translated or just weirdly written, but the philosophical mumbo-jumbo the characters uttered in this was really hard for me to keep track of. I found myself losing interest and then losing track of what the main character was talking about in the middle of his sentences. His story was deceptively simple, so simple that stretching it into a little over two hours might seem excruciatingly boring for a lot of people. This wasn't quite the visual thrill of Werckmeister, and I can't believe I just used the word thrill and the title of that movie in the same sentence. The slowly panning camera, the drab settings, the lingering on objects or characters long after the typical viewer would be done with them, and the choreographed glacial sludge won't fool anybody into thinking this is a different director though. It's all so quietly, often motionless enough to make a viewer uncomfortable, the most exciting movements often being the perpetual drizzle. In fact, when there is activity in some scenes, it's almost shocking. I felt my heart rate go up during a shot when a guy danced on a slab of concrete in the middle of a downpour following a slow pan over all these dismal faces. And there are a couple scenes I guess I would call party scenes--flutes/accordion/piano/drum quartets, holding hands and walking in slow circles, a guy being swung in a chair held by two other guys--that show that Hungarians really know how to throw down. There's another weird scene where the music being played doesn't come close to matching what the musicians are doing which was weird. The mood is also strengthened with sound effects--a reverberating hum throughout the first ten minutes, inexplicable creaks and clicks and drips. In fact, following the alien ambiance of the first couple scenes of this movie, when some somber accordion music begins, it almost sounded like LMFAO to me. It builds to a depressing (of course) climax with a thrilling (oh, there's that word again) fight scene between a man and a dog.

I believe the Hungarian Will Ferrell is in this.

Bela Tarr, by the way, was apparently booted from a philosophy program for being too extreme. He's also announced that he's retired from film making to concentrate on his film school.

The Wolf Man

1941 monster movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The second son of a rich guy, a guy rich enough to own his own telescope, ventures into town to pick up chicks. He buys a cane with a wolf's head in order to impress one, a gal he Peeping Tommed with the use of his daddy's telescope, and she recites poetry about werewolves. Then, they meet another character who recites the same poem about werewolves. Then, a pair of gypsies tell the guy all about werewolves and tell him he's about to be bitten by one. Then, he's surprised when he's bitten by a werewolf and turns into one himself. This ruins his plans to boink the gal he spotted with his daddy's telescope.

Some rich atmosphere, quality writing (despite what I wrote up there), and a monster you can connect with and feel sorry for save this one. The titular monster (is it obvious that I really like using the word titular?) is really pretty goofy looking. He really just looks like a hirsute guy with a terrible haircut who might be getting ready to go to a discotheque or might just stay home for the evening, sipping brandy and smoking his phallic pipe while leering at women through a telescope. And the wolf man really isn't in the movie very much. The back of the dvd box tells me that it took make-up people six hours to make Lon Chaney Jr. look like a wolf man and then three hours to make him look like Lon Chaney Jr. again. I think that was for only a single day (or night) of filming though because the wolf man doesn't do a lot. The great Bela Lugosi, here playing a gypsy wolf man and apparently too lazy to spend time with the make-up people so that he gets to be a wolf man on screen, also isn't in this movie nearly enough. Actually, you could argue that there's not nearly enough movie here. At a zippy seventy minutes, it all seems kind of rushed. I would have liked a little more character development and a lot more scenes of the wolf man raping people or biting chickens' heads off or doing something other than just running around the same few trees over and over again. And less lycanthrophy poetry! I do like some of the ideas the makers of this hint at about the duality of human beings (the werewolf as a metaphor), but just like a lot of the rest of this, it's only hinted at.

Titular.

Island of Lost Souls

1932 science fiction funk

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A ship carrying a menagerie to a mysterious island picks up a shipwrecked nondescript guy. The captain doesn't like him very much and decides to maroon him on the island. And living on the island happens to be Dr. Moreau and the mutant results of his animal experiments. The nondescript guy isn't happy about it and has to wait for his girlfriend to pick him up.

A lot of this is surprisingly very modern for the early 1930s, mostly because of the very realistic make-up for the half-man/half-beast things. They're the real show here--monkey men lurking in the shadows, dudes with missing ears, guys with more back hair than my Uncle Barry. Nic Cage even makes an appearance at the 1:05 mark, his first movie role, I believe. The on-location shooting adds a realism and moodiness. The jungle island (probably not really an uncharted one) looks good. There's a lot about this that dates the movie, too. You've got goofy fisticuffs; any time the characters start punching each other, the film speeds up for some reason. There's also a great scene where an obvious dummy is thrown overboard. There's also some dialogue that is very written ("They're vivisecting a man!") but the acting doesn't have that over-the-top stagy feel at all. Charles Laughton is really good as Moreau, but he really didn't even need to be all that good with that facial hair. I also like the fact that every guy in the film (except the monkey men, of course) are wearing white suits. One thing really interesting about this was the complete lack of music. I almost always like it when movies don't have music. It usually adds to the tension and realism, I think. Here, however, I thought there were some moments that just seemed weird sans score. It was strange to see a movie without a score from this time period. Did it happen often? Overall, this is a great adaptation of a classic novel, realistically tense, quickly paced, and mysteriously entertaining. Or entertainingly mysterious?

A Cory recommendation.

Bride of the Monster

1955 horror movie

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Dr. Eric Varnoff, expelled from his own homeland, experiments with radiation in order to create a race of superhumans who will do his bidding. He's got rotund Lobo and a rubber octopus to help him with his evil plans. A newspaper reporter tries to uncover his secrets.

There's a lot wrong with this movie. There's typically Woodian embarrassing writing, a lack of variety in the sets, and some really goofy special-ed effects. The much-maligned rubber octopus really is ridiculous. At one point in the movie, a guy falls on top of the octopus and sort of flails around, occasionally picking up a tentacle himself to simulate an attack. Then he actually gets up for a little bit only to fall down on top of the octopus again. The story's ludicrous, just barely making enough sense to qualify as a plot. However, Wood-regular Tor Johnson is a menacing presence, and Bela Lugosi, in his final speaking role, is brilliant. His performance alternates between creepy and powerful and strangely touching. He should have won an Academy Award for this. It's his performance that actually makes this a real movie. No, it's not enough of a real movie to fool anybody into thinking it's actually good. People are still only going to enjoy this because of the complete ineptitude, but it's not nearly the travesty that some of Wood's other movies are.

Killer octopus! Oh, no! I just picked up its tentacle and put it on top of myself again! Somebody help me!

Plan 9 from Outer Space

1959 B-movie

Rating: 2/20

Plot: The first eight plans didn't work, so aliens (from outer space) try a ninth plan to contact humans (on earth) and attempt to stop them from building some sort of super-weapon capable of destroying the entire universe. Plan nine involves resurrecting the dead and having them move about a really lame graveyard set very slowly. Some brave police officers and a handsome airline pilot try to get to to bottom of things and put a stop to. . .plan nine from outer space!

Contrary to what Seinfeld things, this isn't the worst movie ever made. It is a really entertaining B-movie with everything a B-movie buff would want in a crappy movie--crummy repetitious sets, atrocious dialogue, visible wires, actors who die and need to be replaced by shorter actors who don't look all that similar, actors who seem too confused by what they're supposed to say to deliver their lines well, continuity errors galore. For me, it's hard to separate this movie from the other immortal works of Ed Wood Jr. Together, they're an amazing display of ineptitude. This one's special because it's Bela Lugosi's final screen appearance and because somehow some iconic imagery (Vampira or The Beast of Yucca Flats' Tor Johnson menacingly penetrating gray fog as they approach the camera) sneaks in. It's also got Criswell's enigmatic narration, another thing that links this to Yucca Flats. But really, it's that dialogue that stands out and makes this the classic that it is. At times, it seems like it's written by a person who has never actually heard human beings communicate. As bad as this movie is, you've got to credit Wood for making something that is impossible to forget and likely a film that will be enjoyed for another 50 years.

The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood Jr.

1996 documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Alternatingly loving and loathing look at the life and career of B-movie director Ed Wood, from his completely normal childhood to his first film (a short Western) to his last (Plan Nine from Outer Space) which happens to be considered the worst film ever made.

There are some tender moments, some humorous moments, and some moments (mostly from the bizarrely vain Vampira and Bela Lugosi's bitter son) that get downright hateful. Most of the interviewees look back lovingly and/or sadly at the man. The majority of this documentary is made up of well-assembled interview segments and scenes from Wood's work that showcase his flaws and his complete ineptitude. And although there are some fascinating bits of insight (Vampira's claim that Orson Welles gave her the clap, the details of Tor Johnson's baptism and family's eating habits), there's not much that can be garnered from this that you can't get directly from "enjoying" Wood's oeuvre or from Tim Burton's exceptional biopic. I was a bit annoyed with the sets designed for interviewees (Vampira, for example, had skulls and webs all around her; maybe that was her bedroom though), but I did like how one guy had a ventriloquist dummy for no reason at all. Messy in spots and annoyingly beginning with an overture, this is overall a hit and miss affair. It's worth watching for fans of Wood's work though.

White Zombie

1932 horror film

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Honeymooners in Haiti have their trip ruined by a jealous third wheel, some corpses, and Bela Lugosi's ridiculous facial hair. Zombies roam about. To help out that jealous third wheel, Bela Lugosi does some trick involving staring intently and interlocking his hands to turn the bride into a (pause for effect) white zombie.

Madge Bellamy doesn't roam with arms extended and breasts exposed as the poster might suggest. And since this is 1932, the performance of "his every desire" is not shown on screen. Blame 1932 for the abysmal acting, especially from the honeymooners. It's hard to tell when Madge Bellamy is playing a zombie and when she's not. Her bad performance, however, is topped by the soap opera melodramatic sing-song delivery of the male lead, a guy who obviously still felt the need to emote just like they did in the silent era in which he no doubt worked quite a bit. Bela Lugosi is a fantastic exception, and his facial hair actually does steal the show. There are also some clever camera shots, and there are a couple scenes (zombies working in a mill, a graveyard scene) that stir up enough mystery to give White Zombie some atmosphere.