I Became An Instant Fan of Der Fan

One of the funniest scenes in Eckhart Schmidt's DER FAN ('82) shows the film's heroine, Simone (Desiree Nosbusch), accosting her mailman on the street and beating him up because he wasn't in possession of a letter she was waiting for. This scene reminded me of a time in my own life when my brother pointed an air rifle at our mailman because he failed to deliver a processed Super-8 monster film we were hanging out to see.

DER FAN is about a young woman who's obsessed with a Gary Numan-/John Foxx-style pop artist named "R". This fellow has the on-screen charisma of ice (which makes him cool, I suppose), and sings in a strange monotone with unique electronic backing that sounds like a cross between Kraftwerk, Serge Blenner, and an el cheapo Pet Shop Boys. The band credited with the film's tuneful music is Rheingold.

Schmidt made the movie after witnessing the way young pop music fans interact with their idols. He captures the madness and loneliness of obsession with authenticity, and, lucky for him, managed to cast a young lady who was just right for the job of portraying a sexy teenage psycho. A striking creature, Ms. Nosbusch takes her character from immature juvenile to nihilistic viper without missing a beat. And her voice-over documents a descent into greater madness that manages to feel logical and complete.

I had never seen DER FAN (also known as TRANCE) before, so my first viewing, on Mondo Macabro's BluRay, was a most satisfying experience.  Never released in the US, according to the jacket copy, it packs a punch content-wise, and earns its Unrated tag with some surprising violence, and nudity that would surpass any R-rating today.

It was released in the UK, but I'm uncertain if it was uncut. I'm sure a British reader could answer that question.

The film is a favorite of Japanese cannibal Issei Sagawa, and was released one year after he killed and dined on a female student in France.

Director Schmidt also made the fascinating LOFT. Perhaps Mondo-Macabro will give that a BluRay spin, too, if this one does some business. So don't pirate it, folks, buy it, or your options will soon diminish.

This excellent film from a by-gone era (which is a damn fucking shame) would make a fine double feature with DON'T DELIVER US FROM EVIL, another sweet tale of teenage temptresses gone nuts.

The distributor's Red Box BluRay is limited to 500, although it may remain available beyond the 500 as a standard issue disk.

In Deepest Laymon Country

On my way out of Northern California, I took a detour that led me to the door of this extremely troubling house.

I answered its call, and found myself sucked into its musky dark. Not unlike embracing a stranger.

I'm no believer in ghosts, but the house was oppressive, perhaps a once active venue for the horrors of bodily trespass, the murder of the young, and pure exclamations of hate.

Though truly unnerved by the house's rancid history, its bleak repose fascinated me, and made me its consenting prisoner. The light here was arrested at the slanted walls, denied its penetrative power. When I finally departed, several thorned vines tore at my coat and attempted to stop me from driving away.

For a moment, I was part of its residual hurt, and the thing welcomed my morbid fascination.

The images smart now within me like little blows to the head. The pleasure was worth the pain. I can't deny that.

I've driven thousands of miles and haunted lost towns for decades in search of gold like this. Nothing but reckless sexual abandon can come close to the bittersweet beauty of this. Like the whistles of the long dead in sunless woods, these places pierce the psyche, reminding us that time takes it all from us, so use it wisely, because you're dead and banished long time. 

Richard Laymon, the wonderful scribe who knew these places, and traveled these roads often, felt close on this journey.

I thought of Barlow, where The Woods Are Dark is set, as I wet my shoes in the soggy surroundings of this House of Hate. I thought of The Cellar also, and its villain's journey through darkest California where vile, natural deeds trailed him like permanent exhaust.

I'm alive in these places. Alive with the irreverent dead.

Australia's Rich and Revolting Criminal History

You wouldn't know it from watching bland Aussie movies such as Australia or The Man From Snowy River, but the Land Down Under has a rich and gloriously revolting history of true crime.

If you've seen the recent Animal Kingdom, The Boys, Snowtown, or the Blue Murder miniseries, you'll have some sense of the convict colony's lurid past and present. If any of the above have moistened your appetite for Aussie vice, I suggest you line up for these unbelievably lurid, stark, and graphic accounts of dozens of hideous, fascinating crimes.

 

Originally produced for network TV and the Aussie equivalent of America's Investigation ID, and hosted by a well known ex-'60 Minutes' journalist, these recreations of crimes that shook the Land Down Under caused considerable controversy for their graphic nature and upset more than a few victim' families and friends.

Personally, I think the series is a revelation, probably the best snapshot ever of a country's history of criminal behavior. A country under the Queen, mind you!

My problem with the recent feature film Snowtown (which I did like, by the way, and have reviewed here) was that it avoided key events of the crimes themselves and neglected to address the 'Bodies in the Barrels' aspect of the case. Fortunately, CIA's (Crime Investigation Australia) take on the case (made before the Snowtown film) leaves no stone unturned and captures the lurid "thrill" of murder the killers experienced. And this is the key to the series' success.

CIA doesn't whitewash its cases or spare us the gory details. It also does an excellent job of conveying the sweet juice of vice that criminals become addicted to. It is this  approach that, I feel, offends so many people. Producer Graham McNeice and director Gary Deans are to be congratulated for delivering a balls-to-the-wall true crime series that brutally injects us into frightening macro worlds of terror, lust, greed, racism, misogyny, and bigotry.  This is awfully scary stuff. 

Snowtown isn't the only story recently given both the CIA and feature treatment. The above disk contains a crime known in Australia as 'The Anita Cobby Murder'. Cobby was taken from a train station and brutally raped and murdered by three brothers. This episode can be watched in conjunction with Rowan Woods' powerful The Boys as, narratively, it is a sequel. The events of The Boys (one of the greatest crime dramas ever made) occur prior to the rape of Cobby. Woods' film ends with the brothers watching Cobby from their car. 

 

 

There is no reason for any horror, drama, or true crime fan to not have these in his or her collection. They are the duck's guts! For reasons unfathomable to me, the DVD's are particularly difficult to acquire and appear to have had very limited pressings in Australia. Only recently did I finally get my hands on the five disks comprising Volume I; there are three volumes so far.  

Ebay is a good place to start you're search for these if you're not living in Australia; even if you are living Australia, you'll have a tough time finding the first two volumes in stores. On a recent trip, I turned up empty-handed, but I did manage to pick up the just-released third volume.    

I can not overstate the value of this series to anybody interested in the human mind or curious about a side of the Australian psyche not often seen beyond its shores.

Australians do have a peculiar relationship with their criminals. Having virtually canonized bushranger killer 'Ned Kelly' in a series of films and a couple of TV manifestations, the public have recently lined up at pubs to hear the real Chopper Read ruminate on his life of crime. The likable Chopper, whose antics were immortalized in the film of the same name, maintains a healthy profile in Melbourne, and can be seen judging film festivals or making guest appearances at art openings. 

 

 

The Crime Investigation Australia series is bloody pulp perfection. 

Get a big motherfucking load of it. 

These discs are PAL, so you'll need a multi-system DVD player to view them.

If you haven't already invested in a multi-zone Blu-Ray and DVD player,

you're crazier than Mark David Chapman.