The Theatre Bizarre

 The Theatre Bizarre is an ambitious showcase for the work of six directors, an anthology-style piece of cinema that borrows the structure of Amicus movies such as Tales From The Crypt, The Vault of Horror, The House That Dripped Blood, and Asylum. There is a traditional wrap-around segment from which the individual short films are launched, and this segment, in itself, is visually impressive. The British spelling of 'Theatre' in the title is indicative perhaps of the British background of the film's originating producers.

 The film was made for a very small budget and is a terrific example of what can be done with love, passion, sacrifice and commitment. The feel of the introductory segment is Grand Guignol-inspired, but the six films themselves don't necessarily adhere to that theme, and better represent the individual, unfettered dreams of directors Richard Stanley (The Mother of Toads), Buddy Giovinazzo (I Love You), Tom Savini (Wet Dreams), Douglas Buck (The Accident), Karim Hussain (Vision Stains), and David Gregory (Sweets).

 What you, as a viewer, will take from the film will depend on where your tastes lie as far as horror goes. Stanley's segment, which references Bava, Argento, Fulci, and Warren publications, is a Lovecraftian journey into witchery set in a foggy, visually stunning section of rural France. Lacking structure, it even feels like some of Fulci's more puzzling works. Giovinazzo's I Love You, set in a Berlin apartment, is an intimate essay on the disintegration of a relationship that ends as you would expect a Giovinazzo movie to end. Referencing Zulawski's Possession (at least tonally), its greatest asset is its strong cast of two. Wet Dreams, directed by Tom Savini, delivers a tasty feast of gore, sex, and sleaze. A cheating husband pays for his deeds with foul, paranoid dreams. Without a doubt, this story is in closest proximity to the spirit of the old EC-inspired anthologies. The Accident, by Douglas buck, opens with images that echoed, for me, Agnes Varda's Vagabond. Probably the most deeply disturbing of the offerings, it plays and feels like European arthouse horror, and involves an accident that affects a mother and daughter.

 Director Karim Hussein, who also shot Stanley's Toads, serves up Vision Stains, a pleasingly subversive and wet entry with a strong premise that, unfortunately, is not as well explored dramatically as it could have been. Some additional writing might have helped. Still, it's visually invigorating, and the lead performance is strong. Finally, David Gregory (also one of the anthology's producers), follows up with Sweets, his first directorial effort since Plague Town. Of the bunch, this was the most outright entertaining for me, and its subject of extreme gluttony had me squirming. Reveling in a cinematic form of Grand Gastronomic Guignol, it consciously or unconsciously references the surreal excesses of Marco Ferreri's La Grande Bouffe with its lurid tale of a  young couple and their sweet tooth. As its focus is a familiar subject, the "relate" factor to its putrid, vomitous horror is high.

Anthologies directed by one person (Creepshow, for example) are difficult to rate because success is based on the effectiveness of multiple stories, not one. Anthologies directed by six directors, such as this, are an even more difficult proposition. The Theatre Bizarre is an appropriate title because each tale is bizarre, and the theatre serves as a gallery for the exhibition of multiple genre efforts with very loose thematic connections. Also worth mentioning is the fine atmosphere and strangeness director Jeremy Kasten achieves with his wraparound segment in which a young woman is drawn to a strange theatre filled with mannequins, odd machinery, and Udo Kier. I couldn't help thinking that there is a story about this theatre and its inhabitants somewhere.

Not as consistently Grand Guignol as the title suggests, this unusual anthology is, nevertheless, well worth the admission price.

A DVD (from Image) with excellent commentaries on most segments and some brief behind-the-scenes snippets is now available. Unfortunately, Image didn't deem the film worthy of a BluRay release. Hopefully, they'll get a clue and address that error in judgment.

Get the ZOMBIE Blu-ray or Die, Fucker!

 Fuck!!!

I don't know why, but the idea of Dr. Menard (Richard Johnson) being interviewed at the Cinema Wasteland convention for the Zombie Blu-ray got my engines whirring this afternoon. It was like fantasy becoming reality.

 The man who immortalized "The boat can leave now, tell the crew," is interviewed on this superb disk.

Al Cliver, too. He's also interviewed.

Does it get any better?

Hell, yeah!

Guillermo del Torro goes nuts over Zombie!... and shows us he's a big fan of on-screen nudity, too. Kudos to him for his honesty and passion.

Cinematographer Sergio Salvatti speaks, and he gives us a true sense of the love he brought to this movie. That love imbues every frame! Behold the new transfer. Finally, we can appreciate Salvatti's fine work. 

The writers reminisce, too. Dardano Sacchetti, in particular, discusses the script at great length, and demonstrates his affection for Fulci.

Even producer Fabrizio De Angelis shows up for a great interview. Keep in mind that this bloke produced Violent Naples, The Beyond, Zombie Holocaust, The New York Ripper, and The House by the Cemetery, to name just a few. He gets plenty of respect from me.

This new Blu-Ray from Blue Underground, with stellar technical production work from Red Shirt Pictures (great audio and lighting on the interviews, boys!) is a fucking goddamn revelation

It gathers the creme de la creme of the folks who brought this classic to the big screen, and asks them all the right questions -- even Fabio Frizzi, who composed a theme that I've hummed and whistled and played in my car more than anything else I can remember.

 So what's the transfer like?

Incredible. The wooden shard in the eye has never looked better or more beautiful.

The fat zombie's first appearance on the boat has never looked this awesome, or been quite this impactful.

Salvatti's night cinematography of the zombies shambling down the center of the village has never been more atmospheric or richer.

It's like a Haitian nightmare springing to life with its toasty golden sheen and swirling, dancing fog.

The rotting bastards feasting on the innards of Olga Karlatos has never been redder, more garish, and clearer.

The ripping of flesh, the throwing of zombies at the church doors, the zoom in to the bloody ear of the shambling dead man... these sequences have never looked so brilliant... or felt so damn right.

Zombie did not look this good at the drive-in. Not through a dirty windscreen, anyway.

What about the shark? What about about the shark???!!! WHAT ABOUT THE FUCKING SHARK???!!!

It's absolutely incredible. The images of Mexican stuntie Ramon Bravo wrestling that shark and taking a bite out of him have never looked more pristine, more dangerous, and  more surreal. Bravo, Fulci, you nailed it, son!

And that teeny weeny bikini of Auretta Gay is even sexier on Blu-ray, and you just wish you could rip the damn thing off and start feasting on what it almost fails to contain (Zombie-style, of course, without the teeth!).

Unfortunately, the Blu-ray won't help you to do that, but you can sure enjoy this horror classic on Blu-Ray like you've never enjoyed it before... or not since you saw it on its first run at a hardtop or a drive-in.

If you don 't buy the Zombie Blu-ray, you might as well kill yourself... because life without the Zombie Blu-ray is just eating, shitting, and dying.

Does Piranha Deliver The Sausage?

Exploitation films are notoriously guilty of selling the sizzle and failing to deliver the sausage. Us cinephiles carry histories of bitter cinematic disappointment, a disappointment that occasionally kills the passion. Of course, the passion, like a craving for a drug, doesn't stay dead long.

Long rhymes with schlong, doesn't it?, and there's a bonza visual gag featuring one in Alexandre Aja's fantastic remake of Joe Dante's Piranha. Thanks to Aja and his team of enlightened collaborators, this 3-D monster movie delivers the above-mentioned sausage, the sausage beneath the sizzle, and every exploitation element a true exploitation fan could dream about.

Bottom line -- See it!

The story is simple and logical , a skeleton on which to hang set pieces. An earthquake causes the rock shelf between two lakes to split. Prehistoric piranhas from one lake are released into the other. The other lake is currently playing host to a bunch of inebriated Spring Breakers. The inevitable result is bloodshed, suspense, and nudity on a grand scale.

Thanks to ace cinematographer John R. Leonetti, this exploitation masterpiece looks positively amazing; it's directed (by Aja) with precision, care, great invention, and enormous craft; and is graced with some of the bloodiest set pieces this side of Saving Private Ryan. For the gore-hound, it is a smorgasbord of human dismemberment.

Thanks to the supreme efforts of FX maestros Howard Burger and Greg Nicotero, we get Fulci*-level violence in a Jaws-like scenario. Faces are pulled from skulls, breasts are chewed to the rib cage, and a penis is torn from the body of a sleazy porno producer. And if that isn't enough (of course it isn't! Ed.), we get an angry little fishy eating its way out of a co-ed's face. It's all in the name of fun, of course, and the pacing, thank Christ, never lets up.

There's nothing to really dislike in Piranha -- unless you went in expecting a serious marine documentary or a film populated with real people (nobody here is real, and the teen love story is appallingly written). Script depth notwithstanding, this hits all the right notes, and it's a sausage that wears its aesthetically rich skin proudly. The mayhem is directed with relish and passion, and the non-stop boobage on parade may give the late Russ Meyer a reason to jerk off in his grave.

Unfortunately, the film was not as passionately embraced by the public as distributor Dimension would have hoped. The redundant but enjoyably brutal Stallone action pic, The Expendables, outgunned Piranha (3-D***), and may have prevented it from swimming into the public's periphery, which is a shame. Hopefully, this exploitation gem, which truly delivers because the makers truly cared (about everything but decent characterization*), will be rediscovered elsewhere.


* Fulci (Lucio) directed watershed gore classics such as Zombie, The Beyond, City of the Living Dead, and The House By The Cemetery in the late 70's and 80's, and became notorious for the extremity of his work (admittedly, the stuff between the gore in Fulci's films was often dull)

** Worth noting that the original Piranha was written by a real writer, John Sayles, and though the film had a much lower budget, it possessed several more "dimensions" than this

*** I continue to detest 3-D, and this didn't alter my view of the process. During the more frantic sequences, the blurring and strange, uncertain focusing made my eyes and brain ache

Horror for Breakfast

With a big day of reading and writing ahead, I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't go back to sleep.

So, at 5:05, I showered, prepared my usual oatmeal with pineapple and cranberries, then plonked City of the Living Dead into the DVD. I like a breakfast horror feature.

I hadn't seen the film for ages.

At 6:55, I decided that I never want to see the film again. I had a similar experience with The House By The Cemetery a couple of weeks ago.

I guess I've changed. While enjoying the wonderful gore and ghastliness, I used to tolerate the ludicrous, puerile drama that was sandwiched between the gore scenes. I must have overlooked the (mostly) terrible acting, too. And then there's the pacing. These films are just pasted together. There is no finesse in the cutting. No rhythm. The music, which is often sensational, often cuts out abruptly between scenes. The zooming is non-stop.

Enough!
Zombie is definitely my favorite Fulci horror film. It's the most coherent. The score is hypnotic, the action moves quickly, and the special effects become more graphic as the horror intensifies. The images of the undead throwing their worn, torn bodies against the wooden doors of the hospital are evergreens.

The Beyond isn't perfect, either. More bad acting. Uneven pacing. Shitty English. Still, it has enough classic moments to be deserving of its status.

I discovered a great piece of news last night -- Denny Harris's Silent Scream ('80) is finally coming to DVD in November.

Sold and remembered as a slasher movie, it is more accurately a haunted boarding house movie.

I saw it when it was first shown in Australian theaters and was very impressed with its deliberate pacing, strong lead performance from Rebecca Balding, a stellar supporting role from the wonderful Barbara Steele, and a terrific turn from Mason Engels, who plays the chief nutbag son of a very nutty family.

It does have some unnecessarily soapy moments and a sax solo, but it's a nice throwback to a more restrained, moody type of horror film.

I'm hanging out to revisit it.

I caught up with District 9 and loved it.

There's no point me adding words to the millions already written about it.

I'll just say that it was one of the saddest films I've seen in a long time.

A solid achievement, and a smart, grounded piece of science fiction.

TM Wright's Blue Canoe with cover art by the author.

I've just been sent the new TM Wright novel, Blue Canoe, and I'm aching to get into it.

Mr. Wright is one of the most original voices in fantastique fiction, and I'm always bowled over by his talent.

Some words on that in a day or two once I've participated in and processed the journey.