White Dog (1982)

Directed by Samuel Fuller
Written by Samuel Fuller and Romain Gary

Rated PG for violence.

"White Dog" was initially shunned when it was released in the 80's. The story was too racially charged for the times, and the general viewing public seemed to mistake social commentary on racism for racism itself. I was initially drawn to this film both because of the controversy surrounding it's original release, and because I'd seen Sam Fuller's "Pickup on South Street" (1953), a black and white noir about stolen microfilm and communist spies and was curious if his later work was as good. I found "White Dog" to be even better than "Pickup...", though Fuller's strong sense of visual composition is present in both.

"White Dog" opens with Julie, a young actress (played by Kristy McNichol) hitting a white German Shepherd with her car on a winding road in the California hills. Julie feels terrible and takes the big dog in, even paying his expensive vet bills to keep him from being put to sleep at the pound as an abandoned animal. Julie's interaction with the giant dog is adorable. We see her nurse him back to health with playful affection. The happy dog and owner's peace is shattered when Julie is attacked in her home one night by a rapist. Before she is harmed, the dog mauls the rapist and pins him down until the police arrive. In one of the film's darkly funny but also sad moments, the cop who arrests the rapist says: "That's the same damn rapist I caught last year!"

Julie appreciates the dog more than ever now that he's saved her from the rapist. Even Julie's actor boyfriend feels better having the dog to look after Julie in her secluded house. When the dog follows a rabbit off Julie's property and makes his way to the city, we begin to see another side of the otherwise adorable and heroic pup. The dog attacks an African-American street-sweeper operator, causing him to crash the street sweeper into a storefront, killing him. When the dog returns to Julie covered in blood, she assumes he merely got into a scuffle with another dog and lovingly washes him off, blissfully unaware of his dark secret.

When (for some unknown reason I can't fathom) Julie takes the dog with her to an acting gig, the dog attacks Julie's friend, a black actress, hospitalizing her. This scene also includes a great film in-joke about the "flicker" effect caused by using a camera and projector with different frame-rates looking French and artistic. But really, I suppose the most important part of this scene is Julie's realization that the dog she's taken in and grown fond of is a trained attack dog.

Desperate to find a cure for her dog's attack training, Julie takes the dog to an animal training facility that trains a variety of exotic animals to act for films and commercials. Here she finds a man named Keys (Paul Winfield) who has experience reconditioning attack dogs and is the best in his field. When the dog tries to attack one of the black men working at the compound, Keys tells Julie: "You've got yourself a white dog." He explains that the term is not merely a reference to the dog's color, but that a "white dog" is a dog that racists have trained to attack and kill blacks.

Perhaps the most frightening part of "White Dog" is the fact that it's based on a true story. Romain Gary's short story is based on the experience of his wife Jean Seberg, who found a large dog that seemed friendly and playful. When she took it home, it attacked her black gardener. She confined it to the backyard, but it got out and attacked black men on two other occasions. Only after the third time did she realize that someone had trained the dog to attack blacks on sight. But this is not an isolated incident. As Keys explains in the film, "white dogs" have been trained to attack black people since slave times, when they were used to find and catch runaway slaves. After that, they were used to track down escaped black criminals. Now, they mostly only exist as personal guard-dogs for people racist enough to train dogs to kill blacks. For me the most horrifying aspect of the film is that there are people out there who would inflict their prejudices on an animal to turn it into a lethal weapon. [***See note at bottom of post for more info on the historical inspiration for the film.]

Director Sam Fuller with one of the dog actors from "White Dog".

Keys takes on the challenge of rehabilitating Julie's dog. He tells her he has made two attempts to retrain white dogs in the past, but both were unsuccessful, and both dogs had to be put down. He warns her that if he's unsuccessful with the reconditioning, he will have to shoot the dog himself. Julie reluctantly agrees, desperate to keep her dog from causing any more harm to blacks.

Julie asks how it is possible to train a dog to hate black skin. Keys explains that dogs experience the world visually. A racist can find a desperate black person and pay them to ritualistically beat puppies, the younger the better. These dogs will be gradually conditioned to hate and fear black skin to the point that they will viciously attack it with no provocation. Unlearning this racist conditioning can be dangerous too, as the dogs can snap under the pressure of reconditioning and become dangerous to people of any skin color.

Keys gradually breaks the dog's spirit with an exhaustive training regimen designed to teach the dog that it does him no good to attack black people. In leather pads, Keys spars with the dog, gradually earning its trust. When the dog escapes and kills another African-American, Keys and Julie must seriously reappraise their mission. Is it worth retraining a racist dog, or is the best option to kill it? Aren't the people who stand by and allow racism to happen partially responsible for it? Is it possible to cure racism, or foolhardy to even try?

I give "White Dog" an enthusiastic 10/10. It's a fantastic social commentary on racism, and features some of the most impressive animal performances ever committed to film. The cinematography is simple but elegant, and the acting is solid all around. "White Dog" also features a beautifully tense score by the amazing Ennio Morricone (who is most famous for scoring John Carpenter's "The Thing", Oliver Stone's "U-Turn" and Sergio Leone's "Fistful of Dollars" trilogy). Overall, "White Dog" is a somber and pessimistic film that poses questions about racism that are as relevant today as they were in 1982.













I also recommend:

























[***Historical Note: The Criterion edition of "White Dog" comes with several essays on the film in a booklet. One of these essays describes another bit of inspiration for the film that I found fascinating: In WWII, German Axis forces would train German Shepherds to sniff out Allied troops based on smell (differences in diet, etc.). They would paint the dogs' backs white and send them out at night to "point" to Allied soldiers' encampments. The Allies would not fire on the dogs, thinking them to be harmless. The Germans would then bomb the areas the dogs pointed to, wiping out the enemy without risking any of their own soldiers.]

Sorority Row (2009)

Directed by Stewart Hendler
Written by Josh Stolberg, Pete Goldfinger and Mark Rosman

Rated R for bloody violence, language, some sexuality/nudity and partying.

A remake of the 1983 slasher flick "House on Sorority Row" (which I unfortunately haven't seen), "Sorority Row" is another of several recent revivals of 80's horror franchises. With the remakes of "Halloween", "Friday the 13th", and "Nightmare on Elm Street" already out or in the works, some enterprising filmmakers have taken on lesser-known films to remake. I tried to watch the recent remake of "Prom Night", but it was too bad. REALLY BAD!!! I've seen better acting in movies-of-the-week. It's the first horror movie in nearly a decade that I've turned off without finishing. Luckily for me, "Sorority Row" is not a "Prom Night" style remake. Done with style and good humor, this self-aware horror flick redefines the slasher genre for a new generation of horror audiences.

The film starts with an epic sorority party, complete with horny jocks, women on trampolines (with their butts hanging out of their old-school pajama flaps) and lots and lots of alcohol. The senior sisters of Theta Pi, (left to right: Jessica, Megan, Claire, Cassidy, Ellie and Chugs) meet in an upstairs room to have a celebratory toast. But celebration isn't the only item on the menu. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and no one serves it colder than sorority girls. To get back at Megan's ex-boyfriend Garrett (who is also Chug's brother) for cheating on her, the girls have given him a "roofie" (really a vitamin) to give to Megan. Megan pretends to choke and Garrett freaks out, convinced she's dead. The girls add to his panic, giving cruelly realistic performances of grief over their friend's "death".

Garrett and the girls pack Megan into a car to drive somewhere to get rid of "the body". Megan has trouble keeping from giggling while playing dead. The not-so-funny joke becomes even less funny when Garrett drives a tire iron into the supposedly-dead Megan's chest (to remove trapped air so the body won't float to the surface when they dump it), killing her for real. At this point Cassidy (the most heroic and moral Theta Pi sister) insists that they go to the police, but bitch-queen Jessica insists that Megan would not have wanted the sisters to ruin their futures over a tragic accident that they cannot undo. The other sisters wrap Megan's body in Cassidy's jacket (so that if she goes to the police, she will implicate herself), and dumps it down an abandoned mine shaft.

Jump ahead 8 months. Graduation is just around the corner and the girls of Theta Pi are gearing up for a legendary year-end sorority party. Cassidy has grown away from Theta Pi since the accident, but still plans to show support for the other girls by coming to their last party as sorority sisters. But just as the festivities approach, the girls start receiving eerie picture and video messages from Megan's phone (which was with her body when they dumped it in the mine shaft). They immediately suspect Garrett, who has had serious psychological problems since the accident, but Chugs assures them that her brother (while not a great guy) would not joke about Megan's death. To make things more complicated, Megan's little sister Maggie is planning to rush for Theta Pi in the fall, and insists on coming to the year-end party to meet her sister's friends.

Convinced not to let the ominous phone messages ruin the biggest party of the year, the sisters of Theta Pi get into celebration mode. The party begins and sorority row is stormed by hundreds of drunken, horny graduates. The girls become worried when Chugs never shows up. As the night wears on, more people disappear, and the girls begin to catch glimpses of a black-hooded figure carrying a "tricked-out" tire iron. As the party starts to thin out, the girls begin finding bodies. In classic 80's slasher-flick style, there is no indication of who or what is behind the killings. Is it Mrs. Crenshaw (played by Carrie Fisher), the house-mum whose had enough of her girls' whoring ways? Is it Jessica's boyfriend, the son of a senator who sees Jessica and her friends as potential threats to his political campaign? Is it Garrett, the boy who was cruelly pranked, resulting in Megan's tragic death?

I give "Sorority Row" an 8/10. It's a tightly-woven, self-aware horror flick that takes gruesome delight in the torturous murder of vain, self-involved, oversexed college kids. It's what my mom would call a "dead teenager movie". Think "I Know What You Did Last Summer" only less sucky, with better death scenes and a more evolved sense of dark humor. If you shy away from slasher flicks, you probably won't get much out of this, but fans of the genre will appreciate it's modern twist on classic horror. The death scenes are creatively brutal, and the twists are predictable yet generally satisfying. A good popcorn flick for a lazy weekend evening.













I also recommend:

Eyes Without a Face (1960)

aka: Les Yeux Sans Visage (France)

Directed by Georges Franju
Written by Jean Redon, Thomas Narcejac, Claude Sautet and Pierre Boileau

Unrated

I only saw "Eyes Without a Face" for the first time about a year ago. I was immediately struck by the artful cinematography and Hitchcockian plot. Since then I have seen it at least five times, and each viewing further affirms my appreciation for this film. In a fairly short time, "Eyes Without a Face" has become one of my favorite films ever.

The film opens with carnivalesque organ music and footage of trees rushing past outside a speeding automobile as the credits roll. Tree imagery will become very important within the film, and will represent nature in all of it's sublime, untamable glory. Automobiles, conversely, will represent crude technology as a metaphor for man's attempt to exercise control over nature. In several shots throughout the film, we see trees reflected off of Dr. Genessier's very shiny car. I saw the image of trees reflected on the hood of a car as a metaphor for the way that Genessier tries to artificially reproduce nature in his depraved medical experiments. Pay attention to the trees throughout the film, especially at the end.

When the "maniac forest driving" credits sequence ends, we see that the driver of the car is Louise (played by Alida Valli), a middle-aged woman in a wide pearl choker who looks paranoid and panicky as she drives. A peek in the backseat reveals why: a faceless corpse wrapped in a jacket. Louise  pulls over near a body of water and dumps the corpse. As far as movie "hooks" go, this one is pretty rich. Who is Louise? Who was the dead girl? How did she die and why is it being covered up?

In the next scene, we see Doctor Genessier, an esteemed transplant surgeon, speaking before a group of medical professionals. He claims that he has developed a fool-proof method for performing organ grafts and transplants that will eliminate the need for blood-type compatibility between the organ donor and recipient. His speech immediately reveals all you need to know about his character: he's cold, clinical, headstrong, determined, and is not afraid to play God in the realm of medical science. Several of the audience members discuss the rumors circulating regarding Christiane, Genessier's missing daughter, who disappeared after being horribly disfigured in a car crash while Genessier was driving.

The police find a girl with wounds that match Christiane's when she disappeared: face completely removed except for the eyes. One cop remarks that the wounds look too surgical for a car crash. Because Genessier's daughter is known to have been wounded and missing, he is called in to identify the body. Another man whose daughter recently went missing is called in to look at the body too, but Genessier goes first and assures the other father that the body belongs to Christiane, preventing him from looking to see for himself.

Upon returning to his large, foreboding house in the country, we discover that Louise is Dr. Genessier's housekeeper, and that his daughter Christiane is alive, living in hiding and wearing a creepy prosthetic mask to cover her disfigured face. I strongly believe that "Eyes Without a Face" was one of the sources of inspiration for "Arbre Los Ojos" (aka "Open Your Eyes"), the Spanish film that was remade as "Vanilla Sky". In these films, the main character is a rich and influential man who is horribly scarred in a car accident by a jilted lover and becomes a creepy masked recluse. While I am a fan of both films, neither the Spanish lead nor Tom Cruise wear the creepy mask as well as Edith Scob's Christiane.

Scob's Christiane is in a state of near-catatonic misery for the whole film. She's had her face torn off in an accident caused by her father driving like a maniac, and is then forced to hide herself away while her father holds a fake funeral for her. She is separated from her fiance, who thinks she's dead, and her only hope for a semi-normal life is her father's demented experimentation with skin grafting. Unfortunately for Christiane, her father's desire to recreate her face comes not from love or even guilt for causing her deformity, but out of a selfish desire to crack the mysteries of medical science. He keeps his daughter like a prisoner when he's not using her as a lab rat to test his latest ideas.

But Christiane is not the only person to suffer under her father's knife. Dr. Genessier has taken to kidnapping beautiful young women in order to steal their faces for Christiane's skin grafts. The body that Louise dumped at the beginning of the film turns out to have been an unwilling donor of a failed skin graft. Dr. Genessier promises Christiane that he's close to perfecting his technique, that soon she'll have a face again and be able to start a new life. Ironically, Christiane has been through so much pain that she would actually welcome death as an end to her suffering, but her father refuses to give up on her.

Genessier uses Louise to lure women to the doctor's house. She befriends them and tricks them into accompanying her to the mansion, where they are promptly drugged and their faces removed. Christiane has mixed feelings about her father victimizing girls in this way. She's hopeful that the experiments will pay off, resulting in a new beginning for herself, but is also painfully aware that for every girl Genessier kills, he takes only small steps towards a successful transplant. One of the faceless victims escapes only to commit suicide. At this point, Christiane starts sympathizing with the victims of her father's work, and decides that her life (or what's left of it) isn't worth the lives of others.

Because she can't resume her love life in any conventional way, Christiane has been making phone calls to her fiance Jacques and then hanging up without saying anything. Once, Christiane says his name into the phone, but is quickly cut off by Louise, who forbids her from contacting him again. This scene is actually enacted by the fictional theater troupe in "Ring 0: Birthday", the dramatic prequel to the Japanese Ring series. Sadako (who fans of the series will know is doomed to become a vengeful ghost) plays Christiane's part, and throughout the film, her acting troupe reenacts several scenes, most notably the "forbidden phone call" scene. "Ring 0" is a damned cool horror flick all by itself, but gets extra brownie points for referencing "Eyes Without a Face".

The phantom phone calls push Jacques to go to the police. A few sharp policemen have noticed a marked increase in the number of faceless women's bodies being found, as well as the fact that they all are proportionally similar to Genessier's daughter. When Jacques tells the police he suspects that his fiancee is still alive, they plan a sting operation to test Dr. Genessier. They find an attractive shoplifter named Paulette (played by silver-screen beauty Beatrice Altariba) to check into Genessier's clinic under the pretext of having migraine headaches.

Paulette is treated and discharged from the clinic without incident, but the police discover that after leaving the clinic, she never made it home. The police rush to Genessier's house. The bone-chilling finale is one of my favorite movie endings ever, and beautifully ties up the dark tale of the mad doctor and his faceless daughter.

I give "Eyes Without a Face" a 10/10, and that's only because it's the highest rating possible on my scale. Films like this tempt me to add a 10+ rating to denote truly spectacular films. I don't mean to gush, but this is one of the most beautifully-crafted, haunting horror films I have ever seen. It is nearly perfect in every way. The acting is top-notch, the story is worthy of Hitchcock, and the cinematography is just plain gorgeous. If you are even a passing fan of Hitchcockian suspense, you owe it to yourself to watch this film.













I also highly recommend:

Zombieland (2009)

Directed by Ruben Fleischer
Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick

Rated R for horror violence/gore and language.

I feel like I was the last one to see this film, which is ironic considering my love of and devotion to the zombie genre (a devotion that even extended to writing and directing my own zombie film, "Spark of Life"). I am not even the first of my friends to review "Zombieland" for their blog. That honor goes to long-time friend and bowling buddy Jared Wadman (check out Jared's "Zombieland" review). But "better late than never" has always been a good motto, so without further, further ado, my review of the biggest zomedy since "Shaun of the Dead", "Zombieland":

I should start by saying that "Zombieland" is much more a comedy than a horror film. There is plenty of gore, but none of the hopeless claustrophobia of "Night of the Living Dead" or other classic zombie films. The overall tone is hopeful and the laughs rarely stop.

"Zombieland" stars Jesse Eisenberg as "Columbus", a nerdy shut-in who survives the zombie outbreak because he avoided people even before they became zombies. He is a bit obsessive compulsive, and lives his life in what he calls "Zombieland" by a strict set of rules. Among the rules: Cardio (because fat/slow people get eaten first), Double-Tap (shooting downed zombies in the head to prevent pesky reanimation), and "Don't be a Hero" (because it'll get you killed). Armed with a shotgun and hindered by irritable bowel syndrome, Columbus is trying to make his way back to Ohio from his East Coast college dorm. I was not a fan of "The Squid and the Whale", which also starred Eisenberg as an awkward teen, but his comic performance in "Zombieland" redeems him in my book.

Along the way, he meets "Tallahassee" (Woody Harrelson), a rough-and-tumble redneck with a fierce vendetta against the undead scourge. Harrelson's "Tallahassee" is the James Bond of zombie hunters. He kills zombies with style, poise, and prejudice as frequently as possible. Woody Harrelson has officially achieved the rank of "Major Bad-Ass" for his portrayal of Tallahassee in "Zombieland". In spite of initially thinking that Columbus is "...kind of a bitch," Tallahassee lets him tag along as they both trek westward through Zombieland. The two find two girls, "Wichita" and "Little Rock", who rob them of their car and guns.

 

In spite of the robbery and their instinctual distrust of one another, the boys join the girls and continue westward towards the promise of a zombie-free zone at a theme park called Pacific Playland. Being four of the only people still living in Zombieland, the survivors form a loose family, brought together by their shared will to survive.

One of the funniest segments of the film is when the gang visits the mansion of a Hollywood star "...who makes Tom Cruise look like a B-lister." (-Tallahassee). That's right, it's Bill Murray time! The survivors enjoy Murray's posh mansion for a while before realizing that Bill Murray's not dead yet. Well... not quite... exactly... Murray stars as himself and is at his funniest in years. But eventually the time comes to move on, and the gang continues towards Pacific Playland.

The film's climax is a zombie-palooza. Without giving too much away, there's an epic zombie battle that will warm the hearts of any long-time zombie fan. There's even a zombie clown! "Zombieland" ends satisfyingly in it's own right, but also leaves open the possibility of a sequel (which I believe is in the works for 2011).

I'd give "Zombieland" a 10/10. It was funny, gross, and a great satire of zombie disaster films. Parts of it will be funnier to fans of the zombie genre, but most of the humor is broad enough to be enjoyed by everyone. This is a great intro to the genre for people who don't like scary movies because it plays with all of the zombie cliches without being overly dark or horrific. Buy it, don't rent.













I also recommend:

Deadgirl (2008)

Directed by Marcel Sarmiento
and Gadi Harel 

Written by Trent Haaga

Rated R for strong aberrant sexuality, graphic nudity, bloody violence and pervasive language.

"Deadgirl" was recommended to me by my long-time horror film buddy Sean Hanson (who shared his review of Saw VI for my Movie Review Double Feature this month). In spite of its graphic depictions of sexual violence, "Deadgirl" is not an exploitation flick. It's a horrifyingly realistic portrait of humanity at it's best and worst (okay... mostly worst). 

Shiloh Fernandez stars as Rickie, a fairly empathetic (if somewhat creepy) high school loser. He skips class one day with his best friend J.T., and the pair decide to explore an abandoned insane asylum. In every horror movie, there are key plot points at which the whole horrific trajectory of the film could have been averted with a simple choice. The lesson?: DON'T HANG OUT IN ABANDONED SANITARIUMS!!!! Alas, I digress. Rickie and J.T. break in with relative ease, and drink warm beer while trashing and vandalizing the abandoned asylum. So far, nothing we all haven't done in high school (just kidding!). After they tire of their teen-angst antics, they decide to explore the tunnels in the asylum's basement.

Once in the tunnels, the boys start to get a little spooked. Their fear is justified when a big black attack dog chases them even deeper into the labyrinthine maze of tunnels and rooms. They are trying to find another way back out when they are strangely drawn to a door that's been rusted shut and has stuff piled in front of it. Clearing the debris, Rickie and J.T. pry the door open, uncovering the sanitarium's darkest secret yet.

Inside, the pair find a naked woman who has been gagged, chained to a bed and loosely covered with a plastic sheet. At first they think she's dead, but when J.T. touches the body, it moves. Rickie, as the only real moral compass in the film, insists that they free the girl and call the police, but J.T. sees a darker opportunity and asks "What if we kept her?". Rickie refuses to stand by while J.T. takes advantage of a defenseless woman, but when he tries to stop him, J.T. punches him, hard. Rickie leaves the sanitarium alone and conflicted, but ultimately enables J.T.'s perversions by not going straight to the police.

The next day at school, J.T. tells Rickie that he has to come back down to the sanitarium to "see something". Rickie follows hesitantly, expecting to find that J.T. has killed the woman. He's not far off. J.T. tells Rickie that the woman woke up when he was raping her and started growling and trying to bite him. He beat her brutally to quiet her, only to find that while she can be knocked out for periods of time, she can't die.

Finding that his unwilling sex slave is a "monster" seems to validate (in his mind) J.T.'s sub-human treatment of her. "She's just some dead girl" he says, as if that justifies his behavior. Instead of questioning the origins of a snarling naked woman who can't die and was found behind a door that had rusted shut in an asylum that'd been shut up for years, J.T. just goes with it, acting like she's a cool toy that he's found and is eager to show off to his friends. Enter "Wheeler", a stupid stoner who shamelessly follows J.T.'s lead and joins in the rape and objectification with great eagerness.

Rickie is horrified by the discovery that the woman is apparently not human (at least not in the conventional sense), but still feels compelled to protect her from his morally bankrupt friends. But J.T. is so enamored with his "find" that he begins sleeping in the sanitarium's basement, spending all of his time with the deadgirl. Rickie sneaks in and frees one of her hands one night only to discover that she has alarming, animal speed and strength when allowed to move. Rickie realizes with great consternation that though his goal is to set the deadgirl free, freeing her carries with it its own dangers.

When the boys underestimate the deadgirl once too many, she exacts bloody vengeance, turning the tables on her attackers. The gory finale leaves few standing, and is quite pessimistic. I felt that the ending was the film's weakest point. Without ruining any of the plot points, I'll just say that I was hoping for a more uplifting resolution. What can you do? It was a cynical movie to the end.

I gave "Deadgirl" a 9/10. It was gripping, scary, disgusting and funny. A sad but realistic look into the inhumanity of human behavior. The last few minutes left a bad taste in my mouth, but overall a very strong film. If sexual violence in films is a major deal-breaker for you, this film is probably one to avoid. Be willing to look  past the surface. I think you'll find this is a surprisingly deep film.













I also recommend:

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Directed by George A. Romero
Written by John A. Russo and George A. Romero

Rated R for strong horror violence, mild language, brief nudity and some disturbing imagery.

"Night of the Living Dead" is one of the old movies that is now public domain. This means that anyone with a print of the film can make, duplicate and sell copies with no copyright penalties. So go burn yourself a copy today! Or watch "Night of the Living Dead" for free right now online.

I should warn you before I start: "Night of the Living Dead" is one of my favorite movies ever. Though I will try to give an even, measured review of it, take my bias into account while reading this.

I was first introduced to "Night of the Living Dead" (henceforth to be referred to as "NOTLD") by a friend in high school who shall remain nameless. I watched it alone with the lights off, and basked in the ominous web of tension the film weaves. That initial viewing left me a little depressed and wondering what all the fuss was about. The second time I watched it, I liked it a little bit more, and after the third viewing, I became a fast fan. I have spoken to several other people who have had similar experiences. Like many films, "NOTLD" rewards repeated views. If you've seen it once and didn't love it, I strongly recommend you give it another go.

This time through, I watched the film with some friends who had never seen it before. We watched the digitally colorized version of the film with joke commentary by Mike Nelson of TV's "Mystery Science Theater 3000" turned on for kicks. While it's always fun to laugh at old movies, Nelson's audio track completely destroys the slow-burn suspense of "NOTLD". It is impossible to unnerve an audience with subtle horror while a wise-ass in the front row is making jokes every few minutes. Nelson (in typical MST3K style) tears the film to shreds, criticizing nearly every aspect of the film, from the costuming to the pacing and everything in between. Though many of his criticisms are valid (and many of his jokes are funny), I feel like some of the things that Nelson pokes fun at are the same things that make "NOTLD" such a revered cult-classic.

The acting is pretty bad, but it serves it's purpose, and I've definitely seen worse. Judith O'Dea stars as Barbra ("They're coming to get you, Barbra!"), a young woman who is at a cemetery with her brother Johnny (Russell Streiner) when they are attacked by a zombie (played by Bill Hinzman). Johnny is killed and Barbra flees to a nearby abandoned house to seek refuge. From this point on, Barbra is in shock and completely useless. She's the embodiment of what NOT to do in a panic situation. She's nearly catatonic for most of the rest of the film, little more than set-dressing that would have quickly fallen prey to the zombies if not for the arrival of-

Ben (played by Duane Jones), who comes to the house for shelter after being chased by a mob of the undead. Ben is the embodiment of the perfect horror movie survivor. (Or is he? See enlightening fan discussions of Ben's "heroism" here). He's organized, cool-headed, and doesn't take crap from anybody. Unlike Barbra, who wanders around the house in a catatonic stupor, Ben immediately springs to action reinforcing the house's doors and windows with scrap wood and nails.

In reference to the lengthy scenes of Ben nailing boards to doors and windows, Mike Nelson quips "More than anything, 'Night of the Living Dead' is a film about carpentry." While watching someone nail boards up may sound boring, I feel it adds to the overall sense of impending doom. This film was made before much of what we take for granted as "zombie theory" had developed. Reinforcing a safe location with improvised barricades is now considered to be a zombie movie cliche, but it all started here. The time and energy Ben spends reinforcing the house on-screen highlights the vulnerable nature of modern houses. While people often feel safest behind locked doors, the illusion of safety is quickly shattered when someone kicks down a door or throws a chair through a window. One is also acutely aware while watching these scenes that while shutting the zombies out, the survivors are also shutting themselves in, walling themselves off from the world.

Ben finds a radio and turns it on. The news broadcast informs them of a widespread epidemic in which corpses are coming back from the dead and attacking the living. The sound of the TV entices bald-headed Mr. Cooper, his wife Helen, and a couple named Tom and Judy to come up from the basement, where they had apparently been hiding since before Barbra's arrival.

There is immediate tension between the "upstairs people" and the "downstairs people" due to the uncomfortable fact that the "upstairsies" know that the "downstairsies" stayed in hiding like cowards even though they could hear people alive upstairs. They only came up out of self-interest when they heard that there was a radio upstairs.

Cooper and Ben find a TV, which the plug in so they can all watch the news together. Mike Nelson in his audio commentary quips sarcastically that "There's nothing more exciting than watching people watch stuff on TV." This fictional news broadcast has become another cliche in the zombie genre. In a way, seeing coverage of the outbreak on TV makes it more real for the survivors. They get validation that what they are experiencing is not an isolated fluke, but a widespread epidemic that they cannot outrun. Nearly every major zombie movie made since "NOTLD" has incorporated some sort of news broadcast to economically convey a sense that the epidemic is widespread. A clip of audio from this "NOTLD" news broadcast is even reused in Romero's "Diary of the Dead" (2007), reestablishing the fact that the cliche still works.

The pacing of the film is slow and steady, what would today be called "slow-burn" horror. The action of the film advances like the zombies, slowly but relentlessly, leaving the viewers as restless and agitated as the characters in the film. One of the truly terrifying things about "NOTLD" is that the ordeal could have been survivable if the people involved had cooperated and kept cool heads. The panic, hysteria and paranoia with which the characters responded to the situation was ultimately their undoing.

I won't ruin the end of the movie for those who haven't seen it, except to say that is one of the most memorable and disturbing film endings to come out of the 1960's. You will probably find yourself thinking about it for days after watching it. Something about the unique feel of this film stays with you. "NOTLD" has been the subject of numerous academic debates, including discussions of Ben's role as the first (and one of the only) African-American horror film heroes, as well as a whole debate as to whether or not Ben is the hero of "NOTLD" (which is a little like the theory that the evil Empire in "Star Wars" were really the good guys). I think it's a testament to "NOTLD"'s power as a film that it has spurred such conversation and controversy.

I gave "Night of the Living Dead" a 10/10. It is by far the movie that has had the greatest influence on modern depictions of zombies in film. The current zombie film "cycle" (which has included "Shaun of the Dead", the "Dawn of the Dead" re-make, "Land of the Dead", "Diary of the Dead", "Zombie Honeymoon", "Zombie Strippers", "Zombieland" and the upcoming "Survival of the Dead" to name a few) owes an enormous debt to "NOTLD" and George Romero for establishing zombie fiction as a part of American popular culture. While depressing and cynical, "NOTLD" contains valid social criticisms that are just as relevant today as they were in 1968. A true treat for fans of the genre! Check out the original B/W cut of the film for free right here:

A note on editions:
"NOTLD" is available in several different edits. There is the original black and white theatrical version; a 1998 re-edit with a new musical score; a 30th anniversary re-cut with newly-shot scenes starring the original "ghoul", Bill Hinzman; and a 2004 version that has been digitally colorized by "Off-Color Films" (not to be confused with the 1990 color remake of "NOTLD"), and features an optional comedy audio commentary by "Mystery Science Theater 3000" alumnus Mike Nelson. If you are a hardcore fan like me, you will probably want to own the following two DVDs, which between them include all the different versions of the film:

So after all is said and done, which is the best version to watch? If you've never seen "NOTLD", watch the original black and white theatrical cut. It's the way you would have seen it in 1968 at a late-night screening. If you've seen it before, try the color version. The colorization itself is pretty well-done, though I feel the film was a bit more dramatic in black and white. If you consider yourself a fan, watch the re-scored 1998 edit and the 30th anniversary edit with new scenes. I felt that the majority of the changes made to these edits were completely unnecessary, but they're novel and interesting in their own ways.

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U-Turn (1997)

Directed by Oliver Stone
Written by John Ridley

Rated R for strong violence, sexuality and language.

Oliver Stone apparently got into some drugs in the mid-90's. Some of his movies get so fragmented and psychedelic that it's hard to believe they come from the same filmmaker who made "Wall Street" and "JFK". Luckily for his fans, Stone's "stoned" period resulted in some of his most interesting films, including "Natural Born Killers" (1994, one of my favorites) and "Nixon" (1995), which both feature highly-stylized editing and hallucinatory, dream-like sequences. "U-Turn" takes the same drugged-out aesthetic to new heights in a dark comedy that is so over-the-top it'll put you six feet under.

The film opens with a psychedelic credit sequence featuring the protagonist, Bobby Cooper (played by Sean Penn) driving through the Arizona desert in his Mustang with one bandaged hand and a suitcase. Cooper is foul-mouthed and mysterious, apparently on the lam from something or someone. I have to wonder if Terry Gilliam was influenced by this stunning opening sequence when he shot the opening desert scenes for "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998), because they are remarkably similar. As we watch, Cooper's Mustang blows a radiator hose, forcing him to pull off the highway to a town called Superior.

Bobby's first contact in superior is a beer-bellied mechanic named Darrell (played expertly by Billy-Bob Thorton). Darrell is a stupid hick, and Bobby wastes no time telling him as much. Underestimating the locals is a mistake Bobby will make more than once, but his feud with Darrell becomes comically epic as the film progresses. As he waits for Darrell to fix the Mustang, Bobby wanders into Superior on foot.

The next of Superior's crazy residents to meet Bobby is a blind Native American who begs on the street corner with his lazy dog, spouting wise to anyone who will listen. The Blind Man is played by a barely-recognizable Jon Voight ("Deliverance", "Mission: Impossible") who gives perhaps the most impressive performance of the film. The Blind Man gets Cooper to buy him a Dr. Pepper from the corner machine for him, because "cola's nothing but flavored water." The Blind Man is also a compulsive liar. Though it didn't strike me until I thought back on it, he contradicts himself at least twice. When he first meets Cooper, he tells him that he lost his eyes in Vietnam, but later he says that he was blinded with acid for "getting smart with the wrong man's daughter". He also says early on that his dog is dead, but we see him walking with it later, alive. Nothing in Superior is as it seems.

As Cooper continues through town, he meets Grace, a half-Native American femme fatale who is carrying large, unwieldy packages down the street. Bobby offers to help her carry them to her car, and she ends up inviting him home. The two flirt for a while, but just when things are about to heat up, Grace pulls away and plays coy. Cooper gets fed up with Grace's games and starts to leave, but she calls him back and they finally kiss. Their kiss ends abruptly with the arrival of Grace's husband, Jake McKenna, who terrorizes Grace, clocks Bobby and throws him out of the house.

Jennifer Lopez is a better singer than an actress (and that's not saying much), but she does okay as Grace. Her attempt at a Native American accent is put to shame by Jon Voight's, but perhaps it's unfair to compare Ms. Lopez to a veteran acting god like Voight. The only part of Grace's character that Lopez really nails is her crazy bitchiness, a character trait that seems to find it's way into every J-Lo role.

Jake McKenna is a brutish, uncouth hick extraordinaire, and is played to perfection by Nick Nolte, in perhaps his most unusual role yet. After kicking Bobby out of his house, Jake catches up to him on the road and offers him a ride back into town. Bobby is distrustful of Jake's motives, considering their recent drama, but cannot refuse a ride in Arizona's deadly desert heat. In the car, Jake makes overtures to the effect that he would pay a lot of money to the man who would kill his cheating, whoring wife. When Bobby doesn't seem interested, Jake shakes the conversation off as a joke, dropping Bobby off back in town.

Bobby continues bouncing around Superior, having repeated run-ins with Darrell, Grace, Jake, a nosy Sheriff (Powers Boothe), and many other strange characters. Two of my favorite recurring characters are Jenny (Claire Danes), a doe-eyed trailer-trash girl who flirts shamelessly with any man that wanders into her line of sight and her boyfriend Toby N. Tucker, or "T.N.T." (Joaquin Pheonix), who feels the need to beat up anyone his girl talks to. The pair haunt Cooper throughout his stay in Superior, Jenny trying to seduce him and T.N.T. trying to start a fight with him.

So here you have the basic premise and cast of "U-Turn". The ensuing adventure is one I won't ruin for you. Suffice to say the plot contains many twists and u-turns, and features elements of suspense, horror, crime drama and dark comedy.

I gave "U-Turn" a 10/10. It is a star-studded masterpiece of cinematic storytelling, transporting the viewer to the middle of nowhere and stranding us there with a cast of unstable and potentially dangerous hillbillies. Like "The Wicker Man" (the original, not the crappy Nic Cage remake) "U-Turn" takes a man from one walk of life and puts him completely out of his element. Though he feels his lifestyle to be infinitely "Superior" to that of the locals, Cooper's sense of superiority is worth less than nothing in the sun-bleached community of Superior, AZ. A haunting score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone (who has composed scores for nearly 500 films, including the Fistful of Dollars trilogy, John Carpenter's "The Thing", "White Dog" and "Kill Bill") rounds out another fantastic film by Oliver Stone.













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