horror

All that DUFF in Retrospect: The Druid Underground Film Festival 2014

Last week the Druid Underground Film Festival played at Anthology Film Archives for a two night engagement. Created by Billy Burgess in a punk venue in Los Angeles back in 2006, The Druid Underground Film Festival provides “a traveling powerhouse of the most bizarre and provocative films on earth!”

Poster for May 28th DUFF show at Spectacle Theatre — Not featured: testicles, wallet, and watch. Well actually, probably testicles.

But what does ‘underground film’ mean? ‘Underground’ is the type of word that provokes strong expectations, but those expectations will vary person to person. Underground implies both independence and some significant degree of obscurity; it’s rarely used as a pejorative but the implication is that it should be. With increased accessibility of the Internet, is anything truly ‘underground’ anymore?

In 2011 I attended the Alternative Film and Video Festival in Belgrade, a festival for ex-Yugoslavian and international experimental film. Each year during the festival the festival hosts hold a panel discussion where they discuss the semantics behind their choice of the term ‘alternative’ to describe the particular type of movies they show.

The problem is, many forms of experimental filmmaking are no longer really ‘experimental’ in the sense that the filmmakers making them are drawing from a rich tradition of specific cinematic techniques. Or to call it ‘amateur cinema’ implies that it’s unprofessional even though the original term ‘amateur’ meant ‘lover-of’ or lover practitioner instead of trade practitioner. ‘Independent’ cinema has not only been taken by more or less American groups of non-studio feature length filmmakers, but the dimunization ‘Indie’ refers to a genre of youth stories featuring specific tropes.

Sometimes it’s called ‘non-narrative’ or ‘anti-narrative’ cinema even though some of it has a narrative. Sometimes it’s ‘subversive’ cinema even if it doesn’t particularly subvert any real or theoretical authority. Bryan Konefsky of Basement Films in Albuquerque calls it ‘undependent cinema,’ as in cinema released from the dependence of market, genre, or other established forms.

So anyway, what the hell does ‘underground’ even mean? It turns out that this two day event was bookended by two found footage films (actual found footage, not the horror movie subgenre popularized by cheap disposable income teen money seeking substudios), the first by Billy Burgess himself and the second from a Massachusetts VHS mixup collective called The Whore Church. These presentations could be considered the thesis statement and conclusion of Burgess’ programming tastes respectively.

Still from Rich Polysorbate's "Smerdly's Seahorse" — Form follows function. You think this guy’s face is weird but if you had a mirror you’d see your reaction to this movie looks identical. (Still from Rich Polysorbate’s “Smerdly’s Seahorse”

Burgess’ Self Defense and the Occult for Teens and Law Enforcement is a mashup of Christian, instructional, law enforcement, cult movies, and related content featuring witches, troubled teens, and a fairly linear progression from outright existential anxiety to mystic world destruction. The story itself is fun, but Burgess’ selection of content (self-professed to be administered by a mixture of drunkenness and instinct) is pretty much like his curating of the festival as a whole: a sort of glorifying abject attraction to sensationalistic sub- or countercultural communities.

The Whore Church Mixtape Vol 1 is very similar, except that Night II turned out to be more explicit (perhaps even pornographic) than Night I, and so was this found footage film to Burgess’ own.

What do Christian hymn singers with baby voices for self-accompaniment, witch-hunting police officers, suicidely depressed teens, prurient pornography, movie monsters made of slime and torn skin, rednecks destroying cars and furniture, and television advertisements for clairvoyant ambulence chaser lawyers have in common? A hugely orgiastic celebration of pure excess.

Which would all be silly and even merely overstimulating if it weren’t for the fact that occasionally you can tell that the subjects featured in the films represent what some people actually feel, believe, or even do in real life. ‘Real life’ being somewhat of a misplaced term here, being that each of these people and communities represented all seem to live in their own warped geography of reality, whether they consider themselves to be the authority or anti-authority. Fear of witches isn’t significantly different than fear of communism or fear of youth, hence ‘witchhunt.’

Basically, the Druid Underground Film Festival makes the argument that boiling under the surface of culture are subcultures, one and all ready to pop… or preferably explode. And yes, most of the films are fictional, but those that are fictional often function in and of themselves as attacks on the overhead pressure of non-underground society. When not fictional, such as the Jan Soldat film ‘Law and Order’ featuring an aged S&M couple who’ve been together in East Berlin since before the wall fell, it just punctuates the fact that much of the content shown is not as much wish-fulfillment fantasy as perhaps some people would want it to be.

Most of the footage was lo-fi, either being shot that way or an accident of the copying and compression for presentation. There were a couple stand out technical films that only serve to make the whole presentation feel weirder. One was Clown Town, an Expressionist film either shot at a very low frame rate or possibly even stop-motion animated (of live actors) that leads an uncanny motion quality that will fuck your dreams. Another was the viral video “Danielle”, the compositing production where a woman ages from infant to elderly in five minutes (featured at the end of Night II after a series of videos that seemed to be about creeping fatality, more or less).

Thus as proclaimed by the mixtapes, the films Billy Burgess likes to select exist at the intersection of commingling spheres of alternative realities, whether those realities stem from histories pagan, punk, cult cinema, horror, or even anti-communist.

Fortunately, it’s not quite over yet. The Druid Underground Film Festival will be continuing at Spectacle Theatre in Brooklyn May 28^th for the long form shorts program. You still have a chance to watch Satanists and sex fiends release some of that workaday pent up frustration you’ve been emotionally snowballing.

Oh, and Billy Burgess gives away prizes. Though it’s unclear whether these would be the sorts of prizes you really want to win.

Oculus: Perspective Shifts between Past and Future

by Dane Benko

Ten years ago, the Russell family was met with tragedy. Young siblings Tim and Kaylie were separated after Tim shot their father to stop him from mauling their mother. Tim was taken to an insane asylum and Kaylie left with their parents estate, which she used to put herself through school in pursuit of antiquities to investigate the past of this mirror that their parents bought, and which Kaylie believes to be haunted.

Well now Timbo is getting out of the looney bin and Kaylie has, with a hefty bit of foreshadowing, managed to find the mirror once again. The two return to the house, where Kaylie has set up an elaborate system of cameras and safeguards to attempt to prove, objectively, that some paranormal force is responsible for the mayhem.

Oculus Poster feature Karen Gillan — Not to be confused with the virtual reality company Facebook bought recently, though the poster could double as the massive facepalm felt Internet-wide.

From this bare bones narrative, Oculus starts to do something a little different. Kylie’s set up is almost a direct answer to every horror filmgoer’s wish that the characters try a little scientific controlled setting observation of their perceived ‘supernatural occurrences.’ She has multiple cameras set up with alarms to alert her re: battery, recording media, and food breaks, and then various alarms to remind her of the alarms; outside check-ins, inside kill-switches, and replacement parts. Meanwhile, her manic flyover of these things are met by equal measure with the recovered patient psychobabble of Tim, who attempts to explain how Kylie and he clearly must have invented their memories of any particular ghoulish influence on an otherwise very real tragedy.

But as they go about gearing down to prove or disprove the impossible, the memories of that night resurfaces in each, and the movie cuts back and forth between the mirror’s seduction of their father in the past and the psychological tricks it plays on them in the present.

Structurally, Oculus is really interesting. It has to balance moving back and forth between Kylie and Tim’s perspectives, including moments where either character is not entirely sure what they are seeing is real, while also moving between the perspectives of the elder Russells, who aren’t prepared to know whether what they’re seeing is real.

With all the perceptual shifts and the motif of the cameras, one would think Oculus would go with the found footage subgenre, but writer/director Mike Flanagan keeps it clean and focuses on balancing the two tempers of his story while building up to the ultimate crescendo.

Oculus still — Well the mirror is pretty and all, but seriously, when’s the Rift coming out?

It’s not all as clean as it could be. The cross-cutting allows some opportunities for older Kylie and Tim to separate where otherwise their separation would have to be contrived. If you watch closely, their movements through the house don’t always follow a rational path. However, the movie excuses itself by doing two other things instead: the movements of the adult siblings do follow the movements they traced as a kid, in matched action between the tragedy of the past and the boiling intensity of the present; and the younger siblings seem to be as much haunted by their elder selves as visa verse, in some cases even crossing paths within the same frame.

Which choreography actually is quite pleasureable to watch, if you can handle things like peeled fingernails, broken teeth, and the occasional gleam of some floating demon woman’s eyes flickering along the movement of slamming doors with disproportionate hinge:oil ratio. Oculus is a pretty standard haunted object story, and, well, centers around a mirror. Expect tilt focuses revealing shockers from dark corners and lights to be persistently unlit.

This movie features some interesting casting choices from the wide world of geek chic, mainly Karen Gillan from Doctor Who and Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica and Riddick. With the situating of the recording gack, it seems like Oculus is aiming for a higher level of film nerd, but ultimately it wraps itself neatly in stock horror and is better for it, as with all the other structural things going on, the movie could have become messy quickly.

Preacher – An Awesome Comic; A Potentially Awesome TV Series

by Peter Foy

Well, there was one big pop-culture announcement for me this week: AMC is adapting Garth Ennis’ Preacher comic book series into a TV series, and it’s being executive produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, along with former Breaking Bad producer Sam Catlin. I’m a huge fan of the title and often blame it for making me a comic book enthusiast, so it immediately gestated a massive brain storm for me that went a little something like this: Is this what I really want? While I’ve often found it an intriguing process to ponder as to what would need to be done to adapt Preacher properly, I also have usually come to the conclusion that the series works far better on the printed page than it would on the small or large screen. Still, it’s hard to pass up how awesome this series could be if it lives up to it’s full potential! Therefore, allow me to enlighten those both new and faithful to Garth Ennis’ magnum opus, as to what we may possibly see when Preacher comes to AMC in the not-to-distant future.

What is Preacher?

Preacher is a comic book series published by DC Comics imprint Vertigo, that ran for 75 issues from 1995-2000. Written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Steve Dillon, the series tells the story of a Texan priest, Jesse Custer, who becomes possessed by the unholy love child of a demon and angel, which gives him the power to make any mortal being follow his command when spoken too. Upon achieving this god-like ability, the man decides to head out on a journey to literally find God, as it turns out that the big guy in the sky is a real jerk, who has abandoned his post in Heaven, yet still wants humanity to worship him despite his negligence. Accompanied by his gun-toting girlfriend Tulip, a wise-cracking Irish vampire named Cassidy, Jesse goes on a wild and unpredictable pulp adventure, that includes gore, dick jokes, western-esque action sequences, gore, the occult, sex, biting satire, gore, hidden government conspiracies, profanity, Bill Hicks, and did I mention it’s fucking gory!

Preacher proved to be an instant success upon it’s release, both critically and through fan word-of-mouth. Since then the comic has proven to be very influential, as so many adult mainstream titles carry a similar tone and story structure to Preacher, which is saying a lot as it came out after a very fruitful period for comics. While the late 80s and early 90s debuted many adult comic book titles that brought up consideration on the medium’s artistic and story-telling capabilities, Preacher still received attention for how it was both accessible yet highly intelligent, and just a whole lot of unfiltered fun! To put it in Layman’s terms, Preacher was a comic book series that seemingly had everything in it, and it all worked too!

The Long Road to Adaptation:

There have been numerous attempts to turn Preacher into a movie or TV series. Kevin Smith (a regular cited fan of the series) at one point was going to have his View Askew Productions banner make a film adaptation starring James Marsden as Jesse. The project ultimately didn’t happen though, due to budget concerns. Around 2007, however, rumors started to circulate that there were plans to turn Preacher into a TV series for HBO, which were actually accurate, as Daredevil writer Mark Steven Johnson revealed that he was talking to HBO about adapting the series, and even intended to turn every issue of Preacher into an hour-long episode. Unfortunately, HBO’s new executives found the content of the comic books to be too violent and controversial for the new direction that they were heading in, and they scrapped the project. Most recently, Columbia Pictures bought film rights to the property, and were going to have Sam Mendes direct it, but he turned it down to direct Skyfall instead.

There’s a number of reasons that all these past attempts ultimately fizzled. They can be attributed to the series long running length, graphic content, ostensibly blasphemous and offensive nature, and not to mention budget concerns as the comics’ most fantastic scenarios would certainly prove rather expensive to shoot. Still, it looks like this attempt is actually a go, as AMC has green-lit the pilot, and Garth Ennis has already talked to the parties behind the series and says he’s firmly satisfied with the way it’s looking. Of course, anything could happen in the interim between now and whenever, but for right now it appears that Preacher shall be airing in American households sometime within the next year or so.

Why the Show Could be Great:

Preacher is very humorous in nature, and Goldberg and Rogen have already shown that they can succeed at combining humor with supernatural elements to good effect. Last summer they gave us This is the End, a clever and affable comedy about the apocalypse, and it was one of the better genre films of 2013. Therefore, the two of them probably know exactly what it is that makes Preacher work, as even though it’s a grimy, gritty and disgusting story, it also has a lot of heart to it, and a playful mentality. Also, they certainly have enough friends in Hollywood at this point to make intelligent casting (James Franco as Jesse Custer?), and they’re working alongside a producer for Breaking Bad, a show that certainly does have plenty of similarly shaped sensibilities with Preacher.

Furthermore, AMC is a powerhouse station at the moment, that is known for allowing show-runners to handle their work in the way they’d like to. While sure, the station had had it’s fare share of disappointing programs (Rubicon, The Killing, Low Winter Sun), this hardly dismisses the fact that Breaking Bad and Mad Men are two of the greatest dramas ever put on TV, and the comic-book-derived The Walking Dead is the highest rated drama series in basic cable history. With Breaking Bad gone, viewers are looking for a successor, and AMC may have found it’s answer in this.

Why the Show Might be a Massive Disappointment:

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is this: AMC isn’t a premium channel like HBO or Showtime. So that means this: all the boobies and F-bombs from the comics are going out the window! I hate to say that the lack of such things could effect the quality of a series, but it’s just Preacher revels in how filthy it is. Whether it be the disturbingly hilarious images that come up after Jesse finds himself at an upper-class orgy, or the increasingly grotesque forms of dismemberment that villain Herr Starr finds himself in, it’s hard to imagine a lot of this stuff making it past the FCC, even on a station that airs boundary pushing titles like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. I feel that Rogen and Goldberg are going to have to be a little creative about how they present Preacher’s ugly world on television, and they may even have to decide if the series should have an identity that is distinct from the comic books.

Also, it should be noted that Preacher is a series that is very much a product of it’s era: the 90s. Even though it’s two creators are European (Ennis being Irish, and Dillon being British), the comic worked as a great satire for America at the time, with it’s occasionally grunge-y aesthetic. Now, 20 years after the comic came out, it’s perplexing to think how they will handle the material for a modern audience. Will the series still be set in the 90s? Will it be updated for modern times, but carry a semi-retro aesthetic? Whatever the case, I feel this is a primary case that the show’s creators should solve, and solve fast!

Also, the past has shown us that long gestating attempts at bringing a comic book property adaptation to life don’t always work out so well (remember when we were all so excited that Watchmen was finally being turned into a movie after countless failed attempts to do so?), so we shouldn’t exactly start counting unhatched chickens yet. Preacher worked wonders as a comic-book as it gave Ennis and Dillion free-reign to tackle an epic story that contained all their interests and fascinations in it. Television is generally a more confining medium, and it may prove far more limiting for the creators than they initially intended it to be.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, I’m very excited about this project though, as there seem to be so many valuable parties involved with it. I ultimately do think that Preacher the TV show should be fairly different from Preacher the comic book, whether that includes changing story lines or characters, or even modernizing things a bit. What should be kept in tact, however, is the series sense of tone and humor, as these are what ultimately define the series as what it is. Regardless of how the show turns out, I feel now is the perfect time to read the series in light of this news, whether for the first time or otherwise. I for one am happy to say I’ve been the proud owner of the entire trade paper back collection since freshman year of college…do I have any borrowers!

High Marks for Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

by Dane Benko

Viewer beware, you are entering into the lost land of imagination, after the warmth of Hollywood’s carefully placed and critically lauded hits have faded and you settle down to bed, intending to hit up the cineplexes over the next few weeks for a bit of catch-me-up before all those award shows hit, and upon scanning the listings, have the horrifying misfortune of seeing the new releases. It has arrived: January, Hollywood’s graveyard of zombie franchises.

And what better to start the toss off into lonely auditoriums than a new spin-off of the wildly successful Paranormal Activity series. The Marked Ones has all the warning signs of a train wreck: they’ve stopped numbering the iterations, the release was pushed back from the franchise’s annual holding space as the go-to Halloween movie, and except for a couple announced cameos, it’s dropping the lineage of the previous installments in favor of a brand new cast. You could almost say it was… marked… for failure?

Except I basically had all that written before I’d seen it. It’s actually a lot of fun, and if you’re getting tired seeing the giants of Hollywood clash over golden figurines, you might as well jump in for the ride.

Helmed by franchise writer Christopher Landon, The Marked Ones follows Jesse and Hector, two best buds recently graduated from high school, staving off boredom in their run-down apartment complex by toying around with the new camera Jesse’s received for graduation. Between smoking pot and pranking each other, the two manage to start poking their camera into places they don’t belong and end up finding a strange ritual they don’t understand performed by Anna, the old woman downstairs, who they quickly decide must be some bruja.

Which isn’t really enough to distract them from setting off fireworks and other shenanigans, until Carlos the school valedictorian shows up and offs the old lady in a spectacular manner while Jesse notices a strange mark appear on his wrist, not to mention suddenly acquires spectacular abilities of strength and levitation. Which is all well and good for his YouTube channel until strange noises start upsetting the electronics and his behavior starts to get weird.

Paranormal Activity The Marked Ones screenshot — “Yo Mr. White, what’d you do to my eye?” Oh wait, wrong Jesse.

From there it’s all exorcisms and shaky cam as Jesse and friends venture progressively deeper into lower levels of the bruja’s hellhole and even follow up on trying to find what caused Carlos to go loco. Ali Rey makes her appearance to provide tie-in and exposition, and the audience tries to tell the characters what not to do as they immediately proceed to do precisely that.

However what makes the movie really roll is the friendship between Hector, played by Jorge Diaz, and Jesse, the headlining Andrew Jacobs. As horror protagonists, they do predictably stupid things, but as Latino teenagers just trying to spend their last summer together and get laid, they’re those really goofy guys you know from that one party we don’t talk about.

Like how a good children’s movie will provide some references that will go over the head of the kiddos so that the adults can have a laugh, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones contains enough bumps, screeches, and scratches to keep the 14 year olds on edge while using the same elements of surprise and shock for some rather good slapstack pratfalls and screwball Spanglish. The found footage style lets the story jump cut and fast forward through all the boring stuff until Hector manages to get the neighborhood gangsters to pull out the big guns (literally) and it’s all Cholos versus Brujas in some empty plastic-and-dust mansion somewhere up in mapped but unmarked gringo territory.

It’s worth the price of admission as long as you allow your b-movies to be packaged in a brand name. The Paranormal Activity series has managed to keep a legitimate cult following from its beginnings as an actually independent breakout hit through its progressively commercial sequels (and prequel), and The Marked Ones indicates that the filmmakers are willing to expand the world and make it playful.

Mama Gonna Creep You Out: Review of the movie Mama

by Ryan Shea

This past weekend I paid the ridiculous $12.50 to go see the 2013 horror movie Mama. Mama is co-written and directed by Andres Muschietti, co-written by Neil Cross, and produced by Guillermo del Toro. The movie has a dark, cold feeling to it. The colors all seemed very ominous and frigid. The special effects were mediocre and the soundtrack was not memorable.

The story begins with a wall street broker gone rogue who shoots his work partners and then returns home to execute his wife. After brutally murdering his wife, Jeffrey, proceeds to kidnap his 2 daughters, Lilly and Victoria. The three of them flee in his Mercedes and, because of the icy roads and Jeffrey’s manic state of mind, crash into the woods. Of course, he finds a cabin to hide out in, because there’s always an abandoned cabin in an isolated wooded area (yes, I am being sarcastic). Turns out, the cabin is already inhabited by “Mama.” Mama is the ghost of a mental patient from the 1800’s who escaped and kidnapped her baby from an orphanage. Mama isn’t too fond of Jeffrey and he “disappears”,so Mama looks after his 2 daughters.

Cut to 5 years later. Lilly and Victoria are found in the woods, because of their Uncle Luke’s relentless efforts, and, after some psychiatric treatment, move in with their uncle Luke (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain). As one can imagine, the girls have adapted to living in the woods and the younger of the two, Lilly, being an infant when she was brought into the woods, walks on all fours and can barely speak. The elder daughter Victoria is slightly more adjusted. The creepiest part of this movie was the way the girls walked and spoke. Lilly contorts her body in ways that seem very unnatural. Also, the sounds Lilly made were completely unnerving, think The Grudge and Signs. Eventually, the girls start speaking to “Mama” and playing with her. The first entrance of “Mama” was actually unexpected and terrifying, causing everyone in the theater to jump out of their seats and scream, followed by a rolling laughter. Although the ghost looked a little to digital for my taste, she was disturbing nonetheless. Distorted face and disjointed limbs. The movie reaches its climax when we find out “Mama’s” story and her jealousy, over taking care of Lilly and Victoria, causes her to attack any adult in her way. The ending was actually quite unexpected and almost brought a tear to my eye. But you’ll have to see it I don’t want to spoil the whole thing for you!

Mama definitely had its scary moments. I would define it more as creepy than scary. The acting was actually pretty good, especially by the youngest daughter Lilly, played by Isabelle Nélisse. I have to say, as a horror movie buff, that I haven’t seen many good frightening flicks made in the past decade or so, but Mama was worth the watch, but maybe not the $12.50 movie ticket.

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