-
CFF 2024: GHOST GAME is a worthy followup to THE STYLIST
The Stylist, which World Premiered at the virtual Celebration of Fantastic Fest back in 2020, was an impressively crafted exploration of female pathos by Jill Gevargizian, who infused the story of a killer stylist with her own life experiences as a hairdresser. I think that grounded that particular character in a way that gave the young auteur her breakout and would have the film winning over audiences at every festival thereafter. Well, here we are, four years later and Jill is back with her follow up. This is of special note to me, since the film was written by Philly’s own Adam Ceaser, the hardest working man in teen horror literature, who’s probably best known for his Clown in a Cornfield series. (Third book dropping soon!)
Jill’s latest, Ghost Game is a clear statement on the current climate on social media hijinks, where terrible behavior online is rewarded with digital clout. This sentiment manifests itself in the film as an online trend called “Ghost Game”. This has its players breaking into and then hiding in strangers homes and terrorizing them, making their houses appear haunted. Cameras are also placed in and around the home and of course the footage then is ingested and digested and posted online. This film follows a young couple who hope to galvanize their troubled union by partaking in their first Ghost Game together in the rumored haunted Halton House. Embracing one of the most time honored tropes in haunted house movies, it also just got some new owners in the form of a family who are just moving in.
The hook is, it becomes quickly apparent however, to both our players and their prey that something else is going on as our players and the family start to experience phenomena that wasn’t intentionally set up by their unwanted guests.
Like her last film, Game relies on a solid cast of fresh faces to invest us in this story that feels nearly plausible. I did, however, happen to notice one of the cast was fellow female director Emily Bennett (Director of the excellent Alone with You), who plays the mother of a young woman on the spectrum caught in this game. The player couple at the center of the film, played by Zaen Haidar and Kia Dorsey, really invests you in not only the game itself, but its moral implications as the writer father of the family turns out to be not only an alcoholic, but abusive and this splits the couple on how to handle this development. It’s a layer, like the little girl’s autism that added flourishes to a story that could have been just your standard haunter or broad horror thriller.
Jill Gevargizian’s follow up to The Stylist, has the same scrappy charm, energy and ultra-violence as her previous film along with toying with some timely issues this time around. It’s also a bit more ambitious in its world building and scope, which makes me wonder what the future holds for the director, who shows yet again how far she can stretch a budget. The smart move here given that there were more than a few social media-esque narratives recently in the indie sphere is, Jill realized the real story is the people behind the screen rather in front of it. I think that what really made Ghost Game work for me and this was no doubt thanks to Adam’s script, is it wasn’t purely about the game, but the folks caught up in it, and their tangled relationships.
-
MURDER COMPANY Deals out a half DIRTY DOZEN
Hitting theaters and VOD July 5th just in time for independence day is Murder Company, a man on a mission flick that understood the assignment. “Based on actual events”, the film has a group of stray soldiers who after being deployed to Europe are separated from their various units and united under General Haskel (Kelsey Grammer) for a new mission. The film definitely shares a lot of DNA with Robert Aldrich’s combat classic The Dirty Dozen, but has our troops not facing the death penalty as motivation for their mission, which gives them some leverage in their moral lament about what they are tasked to do.
Taking place at the tail end of World War 2 the five soldiers are charged first with rescuing a member of the French Resistance, who will then guide them to a secluded mansion where they are to kill a high ranking SS officer in charge of transportation. There’s also a bit in there about a bridge that Kelsey Grammer’s platoon is trying to hold down and how this mission would impact that. But the weight of the narrative is on the soldiers’ backs who are having some rather intense discussions of the morality of their mission, since they are being used as assassins rather than soldiers.
[L-R] James Wiles as “Verrill” and Kelsey Grammer as “Haskel” in the war/action film, MURDER COMPANY, a Maverick Film & Complex Corp release. Photo courtesy of Maverick Film & Complex Corp. While the story is fine for a man on a mission flick, what makes this title worth the watch like most of these films is the cast. The solid and diverse cast makes the group feel organic, while also allowing each man to dig into the differences and motivations, from each of their POVs. Standouts for me were Jilon VanOver as Stubbs, the Bill Paxton-esque comic relief and Joe Anderson who feels like a young Charlie Hunnam here as their reluctant leader Smith. Honorable mention goes to Gilles Marini, the French Resistance fighter, who of course is affectionately nicknamed “Frenchie”. His motivation is purely personal, and that helps to give the mission some real weight for one of our soldiers.
Essentially the breadth of the narrative is this mission thread, and every now and again we check in with Kelsey Grammer, who feels actually vested in this film unlike some bigger names on smaller budget films. While this film’s performances were definitely engaging and kept me vested, once in a while the less convincing CGI and some of the bigger battles betrayed that trust. Luckily those battles felt like they were placed in such a way, that the performances earned the viewer back in after the fact. That being said, like a Dirty Dozen or even a Saving Private Ryan it’s the troops that we’re there for, and this film definitely sold me on that angle.
-
Criterion Review: THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD (2021)
Barry Jenkins’ miniseries remains a boundary-pushing masterwork in a surprising physical media release
Packaging artwork courtesy of The Criterion Collection. In the second chapter of Barry Jenkins’ epic miniseries, The Underground Railroad, white spectators tour a living museum that claims to truthfully depict the journey of slaves from “uncivilized” Africa to the hardships of plantation life. A tour guide delivers comforting yet racially charged falsehoods to the crowd while actors pantomime their dubious roles. One woman, wearing a tribal mask that hides her identity, finishes her shift and reveals her true self—Cora (Thuso Mbedu), a slave whose quest for freedom has culminated in daily re-enactments of the horrors she tried to escape. Despite removing her costume, Cora’s invisible mask remains: as a runaway under constant pursuit by slave catcher Ridgeway (Joel Edgerton), her identity must continuously shift for survival.
These museum sequences are striking in their alternation between humor and horror. By showing how eagerly the patrons consume narratives that confirm rather than challenge their beliefs, Jenkins and his team seem to skew traditional slave narratives and their function for audiences eager to seek them out. As critic Anjelica Jade Bastién notes in her accompanying essay for The Underground Railroad’s Criterion release, “Slavery films rarely give Black folks space to honestly reflect on America’s second original sin or how its legacy ripples into the present. Instead, these movies tend to soothe the guilt of masochistic white liberals and grant them a feeling of edification, allowing them to avoid reckoning with the racism inside themselves.” However, what sets The Underground Railroad apart is that Jenkins’ insightful reflection on America’s slavery past doesn’t end at this satiric distance. Rather, these tropes and imagery are used as initial entry points to deeply explore the history and emotional consequences of slavery, as well as the lives of his characters beyond more than just the trauma inflicted upon them. Yes, The Underground Railroad is its own slave narrative, depicting the same horrific imagery necessary to accurately portray these atrocities. Yet, like in his past films Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk, Jenkins doesn’t reduce his Black characters to a singular, unreadable mask or canvas of trauma that we can pour a collective grief or suffering into–or, as Bastién puts it, “a canvas on which the horrors of this barbaric system are projected.” Instead, Jenkins explores the rich interior lives beneath the superficial and morbid fascination, delving into the complex, confrontational emotions each character wrestles with in a world of systemic cruelty.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, the miniseries follows Cora as she follows her best friend Caesar (Aaron Pierre) in escaping the horrors of their Georgia plantation in search of freedom in the North. While the introduction is familiar in traditional Slave narratives, Whitehead and Jenkins radically break from this by introducing a literal underground railroad–a refined, gorgeous operation completely anachronistic to the antebellum terrorism raging aboveground. Across the series, Jenkins explores a wide range of beliefs and emotions tied to racism and hate, resonating beyond this period of American cruelty. Through the development of central slavecatcher Ridgeway, we see how hate can take root even in families driven by progressive ideals. In a Georgia town secretly sterilizing former slaves, Jenkins shows how progressivism can warp to mask deeply racist underpinnings. A village that turns racism into a God-mandated spectacle reveals the insidious nature of social conformity, where hate requires an endless supply of others to thrive. One of the most fascinating arcs involves a freed, financially independent Black town, examining the unattainable standards of “excellence” imposed on Black identity as much from within as from external pressures of White society. While these themes echo throughout the series as a whole, Jenkins never guides his audience to a place of gentle resolution. Instead, Jenkins instills an urgent immediacy and agency upon his viewers, encouraging present reflection and action.
Alongside such penetrative meditations, Jenkins crucially carves out time for show-stopping moments of beauty and passion. Cora wrestles with her trauma through deepening relationships with others, such as fellow escapee Caesar and freeman Railroad worker Royal (William Jackson Harper). There’s an elegance as well to the Railroad itself, with its labyrinths of brass and marble amidst harsh outcroppings of untamed rock, that stands in defiant opposition to the barbarity on the surface above which only pantomimes as “civilization.” Where characters are able to remove themselves from the trappings of White society, there’s space for earnest beauty and joy–whether it’s in a shucking bee filled with pranks and courtships, or in the pageantry of a formal ball in a more “progressive” part of town. Even in the most evil sections of the world, Jenkins and Cora root out kernels of hope–in the form of subversive acts of human kindness. This focus on an ever-existent duality between horror and beauty is born from how Cora’s journey in The Underground Railroad isn’t just one of escaping plantation life, but of escaping the imagery and roles thrust upon her in that environment. While Ridgeway’s relentless pursuit of Cora and her vanished mother (Sheila Atim) instills paranoia and mistrust in Cora, showing how her experiences inform her unpredictable present, so does Cora’s relentless drive to evolve beyond the limitations of her imposed identity. While her scars may remain, Cora remains in constant conversation with her trauma without allowing herself and others to limit her to it. As such, The Underground Railroad evolves our ideas of what stories about American slavery can be capable of because it captures and dramatizes so many other aspects of America’s unending conversations about race, hate, and our human capacities for both compassion and evil.
Bastién has noted elsewhere that Jenkins’ camera “is never a neutral observer. It is curious, empathetic, and deliberate;” that empathetic curiosity reaches new heights in The Underground Railroad. It finds beauty in moments both deserved and not, championing empathy as much as providing a chilling contrast to where it’s expected to be wholly absent. It finds a patient empathy with all, from the downtrodden to the horrifying–yet Jenkins never lets us confuse this patience for comfort. I love Barry Jenkins’ work because of how this signature empathy extends across all aspects of both form and content; he’s someone whose care for the images he crafts shines through each linked frame. Every setting and character has a history, the end result of so many triumphs and prejudices. There’s as much as a link between past and present as between one image and the next. The past’s relevance doesn’t decrease as its distance grows, but is instead something thrumming with life and its messy contradictions. As much as we look at the events of his films as removed spectators, themselves already separated by the passage of time in production and post, Barry Jenkins seizes every moment to close this gap by having his characters lock their gaze upon us. The empathetic bond forged in those linked gazes has as much consequence as any event in the past.
In this sense, The Underground Railroad ambitiously aims to be more than a living museum. It earnestly embraces anachronism alongside accuracy, fantasy with reality, to foster a vibrant and visceral connection with our present. Rather than leave audiences with the opportunity for a bright future born from the ashes of a horrific, distant past–Jenkins acknowledges and urges audiences to take up the work that is still left to be done, and to reckon with our ancestors’ actions in an active, current way.
It’s remarkably fitting that this Criterion release of The Underground Railroad also serves to evolve conversations about media and its consumption. While one may have expected either of Barry Jenkins’ other masterful films to have followed his debut Medicine for Melancholy in their Criterion canonization, it feels nothing more than monumental that we’ve instead received a sumptuous packaging of his 2021 miniseries. While predominantly curating a selection of what we’d strictly consider to be “cinema,” Criterion has released packages containing episodic and other form-pushing pieces of media–including the series Fishing with John, any of Ingmar Bergman’s television cuts of his films, the experimental shorts of Stan Brakhage, and, yeah, the greatest hits of the Beastie Boys. In more current years, the Cinapse team has charted Criterion’s crucial collaborations with streamers like Netflix and Railroad’s own Amazon, including Cold War, The Irishman, and many more–with these releases acting as a radical act of preservation in a present whose attention spans and economy seem predicated on consuming and forgetting as quickly as possible. By adding The Underground Railroad to the collection in such an extensively labored-upon package, this collaboration recognizes not just how Barry Jenkins’ miniseries effectively evolves our ideas of how modern audiences should confront Slavery, but also how The Underground Railroad’s daring sense of experimentation renders it just as worthy of cinematic canonization as its more formally traditional counterparts.
VIDEO/AUDIO
Criterion presents The Underground Railroad in a 1080p HD transfer in the original aspect ratios of 1.78:1 and 2.39:1, cited as being sourced from Amazon Studios’ original 4K masters. The transfer is accompanied by the original Dolby Atmos audio track and a 2.0-Channel stereo downmix, as well as SDH subtitles and a descriptive audio track for every episode.
As with their five previous Amazon collaborations, The Underground Railroad thrives in its physical media presentation now that it’s freed from the individualized limitations of streaming bandwidth. Regular Jenkins collaborator James Laxton’s cinematography is resplendently realized here, with a vibrant color palette in sequences both beautiful and terrifying. There’s a premium placed on the natural world and earthy tones, rich with wood grain, crumbling dirt, towering dark caves, and rainbow prisms through glass. It allows for a stark visual contrast to civilization, with constructed, sterilized buildings providing a visual externalization of the disturbing, unnatural societal structures that inhabit them. While the transfer is stunning in most respects, mileage does vary depending on your player’s methodology in upscaling Blu-ray Discs to UHD exhibition. While it’s disappointing that this originally 4K transfer isn’t receiving the UHD treatment, the care in creating this presentation is evident across all 585 minutes.
The presentation’s most rewarding aspect is the preservation of the Dolby Atmos mix to the series. Much like the visual approach, Jenkins prizes the thrums and echoes of the natural world and the busy noise of existence, constantly making The Underground Railroad’s 1800s setting feel so current and alive. Atop it all, though, is Nicholas Britell’s score–which passionately compliments the beauty and pain of The Underground Railroad with compositions that alternate between piercingly meditative bombastically orchestral.
SPECIAL FEATURES
The Package
- Audio Commentaries by co-writer and director Barry Jenkins are provided across all ten episodes of The Underground Railroad, recorded in 2023 by Criterion exclusively for this release. Cinematographer James Laxton (Chapters 5, 6, 8, 9) and lead editor Joi McMillion (Chapters 5, 6, 9) occasionally join Jenkins to provide their insights and anecdotes. Given his position as co-writer, director, and showrunner, Jenkins’ commentary provides vast amounts of information across all aspects of production, including the emotional and historical origins that drew Jenkins to the project, translating Colson Whitehead’s occasionally ambiguous prose into the show’s rich visuals, navigating the shifting logistics of capturing the wide scope of production on an ever-increasing budget shortfall, and the experimental editing process.
- Genesis: A wonderfully-realized graphic novel written by Nathan C. Parker and Barry Jenkins, illustrated by Valentine De Landro, and adapted and colored by Eric Skillman. Adapted from an episode of The Underground Railroad that was cut for logistical and budgetary reasons, this lost chapter illustrates just how the railroad came into creation, a piece of lore hinted at in a mural in one of the episodes. Jenkins’ care for his material translates well to this vastly different medium, capturing the same urgency and empathy central to how the rest of the show functions.
- Booklet featuring an essay by Vulture film and TV critic Anjelica Jade Bastién. Here, Bastién highlights how the series portrays Cora as a fully developed character despite the dehumanization of American slavery, allowing her and others to transcend mere symbols of trauma that modern viewers use to distance themselves from the evils of the past. She also discusses how Jenkins and his creative team bring biting nuance to common slavery narratives and motifs, from the corrosive degrees of White violence and inaction to the equally complicated depictions of Black characters, through which Jenkins examines different responses to systemic prejudice and subjugation.
Disc One – Chapters 1-2
- The Commentary Hub: Jenkins provides an introduction to the set’s overall commentary experience, noting that he recorded his tracks in production order rather than chronologically. To guide viewers through the logical flow of his insights, he suggests the following order: 2 – South Carolina, 1 – Georgia, 10 – Mabel, 8 – Indiana Autumn, 9 – Indiana Winter, 3 – North Carolina, 7 – Fanny Briggs, 5 – Tennessee – Exodus, 6 – Tennessee – Proverbs, concluding with 4 – The Great Spirit.
- Deleted Scenes spanning the length of the miniseries, with four from Chapter 1, two from Chapter 2, two from Chapter 3, one from Chapter 5, one from Chapter 8, two from Chapter 9, and one from Chapter 10.
- Teasers: Similar to Jenkin’s camera tests which would eventually comprise the experimental film The Gaze (see Disc Four), these Britell-scored snapshot teasers provide a tonal glimpse of the series, often featuring footage in reverse to provide an intriguing, temporal-defying grasp of the series to come. Accompanied by a nearly three-minute introduction by Jenkins.
Disc Four – Chapters 9-10
- The Gaze: Originally born of camera tests of actors’ costumes on location, Jenkins’ evocative moving tableaux became one of The Underground Railroad’s most important recurring visual motifs. As post-production continued, Jenkins and editor Daniel Morfesis were inspired to create a silent compilation of these tests set to composer Nicholas Britell’s lush score. The resulting 52-minute art piece serves as a piercing microcosm of the series, breaking down the barrier between past and present, viewer and subject. Through Jenkins’ compassionate lens, a simple gaze fosters empathy that defies centuries. Accompanied by a 6-minute introduction by Barry Jenkins delving into the film’s origins.
- Building the Underground Railroad: A four-minute promotional featurette featuring interviews with crew about the project’s origins and production, prepared by Amazon ahead of its 2021 streaming debut.
The Underground Railroad is now available on Blu-ray and DVD courtesy of The Criterion Collection.
-
MAXXXINE is a Seedy Slasher with a Star Turn from Mia Goth
Ti West’s X and Pearl get a fitting (if unfocused) conclusion
After the gritty horrors of X, and the technicolor frenzy of its prequel Pearl, Ti West’s horror trilogy centered around his muse (and collaborator) Mia Goth comes to an end with Maxxxine. A capper to the feminist fueled journey of her character Maxine Minx who, six years her brush with death, has made it all the way to Hollywood as she intended. She’s made a name for herself in adult entertainment, but craves the bigger limelight of mainstream cinema. An opportunity to leave the porn and peep shows behind comes with Puritan II, a sequel to a horror hit that has entertained and sparked controversy in equal measure. After crushing her interview, she’s taken under the wing of her director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki) to shape her into a big screen starlet. But, even as her future looks pretty rosy, her past rears its ugly head. This comes in the form of private detective John Labat (Kevin Bacon in full sleaze-ball mode) who having tracked her down, informs Maxine that his employer not only has evidence that ties her to the murders in Texas, but is looking to use it as leverage to bring her to heel. A missed rehearsal later and the stakes for Maxine become clear, deal with this threat and eliminate the distraction, or lose her shot at stardom.
Grit and determination can get you far in life. It’s an idea codified by Maxine Minx’s mantra, “I will not accept a life I do not deserve“. Despite the obsessive, occasionally shitty, and sometimes illegal acts, you can’t help but root for her. The allure of self-confidence aside, this is also someone overcoming humble beginnings as well as the lingering trauma of being the sole survivor of a massacre at a Texas farmstead. The 80s backdrop add an additional angle, planting her firmly in the man’s world that is show business. Something neatly embodied by Debicki’s character and commentary as well as the more overt power dynamics evident within the studio system, which mark it as not too dissimilar from the porn industry, at least for women. Adding to this male/female struggle is the ongoing news reports of a serial killer leaving dead women strewn across town. Drawing from the actual serial killer that stalked LA in the mid-80s killing over a dozen people, this Night Stalker adds another edge to Maxxxine‘s plot and themes.
This juxtaposition, of porn vs the studios is mirrored in terms of the glitz and glam of Hollywood contrasting with the seedy underbelly of LA. The film captures the era with authenticity and leverages it into Maxine’s story with aplomb. It also continues West’s efforts to leverage cinematic nods into the series. While X paid homage to the low-budget indie efforts that gave us The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Pearl was a throwback to the silver screen splendor of old Hollywood. With the 80s in mind, Maxxxine has a sprinkling of 80s slasher, nods to heretical fare (and other video nasties), a good dose of Italian giallo, and perhaps most strongly a brooding sense of pulpy noir. With this in mind, the film aims for a different vibe that the gore soaked visuals of it’s predecessors, even with a scene in an alleyway that will rank as one of the most squeamish and visceral in the trilogy.
X was clearly more of an ensemble picture, but Mia Goth still stood out, notably with her tackling two roles. Pearl planted her centerstage and indelibly in the mind. Maxxxine seeks to blend the two, Goth is still the key figure, but surrounded by a larger cast. Her performance is less madcap, but still impactful and tremendously nuanced. Especially in scenes where she impressively conveys both the trauma hanging over her from what occurred, as well as her conviction to push it down and push on, clawing with tooth and nail (and stiletto) to realize her dream. Bacon commits to his role with relish, while Giancarlo Esposito is glorious as Maxine’s agent Teddy. The rest of the cast feel like something of an afterthought in terms of development and integration, which is a shame as the idea of pairing Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale as a pair of 80s LAPD cops has tremendous potential. This all comes across in a broader sense with a feeling that various elements and characters in the film should converge, but they don’t. Other aspects also feel a little underdeveloped too, especially when the film barrels towards it’s reveals and wrapup. The villain of the piece and the ties Maxine’s past just isn’t as impactful as it could be, and it’s here where the knowledge that Maxxxine was written after completion of X and Pearl starts to become all the more apparent.
While the weakest of the three films, Maxxxine still showcases a filmmaker not just having a firm grasp of genre cinema, but crucially having fun while doing it. It’s worth taking a step back at the achievement here, which is the telling of an original cinematic trilogy that not only is led by a woman, but has a strong feminist backbone to it. It’s meant to be the capper for a trilogy, but there’s a feeling, and I’ll add my own hope, that we’ll have another decade feel the impact of Maxine Minx.
Maxxxine opens in theaters July 5th
-
Cinapse Goes BACK TO THE BEACH
This week, we open our Back to the Beach month with… BACK TO THE BEACH, a Frankie and Annette reunion complete with Fishbone, Pee-Wee, and helmets made of hair
Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
This month, we are heading to the beach with everything from goofy comedies to dramatic heartfelt films to off-the-wall slashers. As the one who originally pitched the idea, I decided on this first week to give you a personal intro… complete with a blurb from my mother – retired pastor, beach bum, and wonderful grandmother, Jane Harlan.
For those who don’t know much about me, I’m a pastor’s kid whose mother was a youth pastor when I was young before taking a call as a lead pastor in my late teenage years. Oddly, my pastor mother’s favorite movies were always Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman, which always made me chuckle. She always loved Hallmark too… and these days she almost exclusively watches Hallmark to my film loving soul’s great dismay.
However, she also brough me up on two other film “genres”: classic American musicals and the beach films of Frankie and Annette. When Back to the Beach released as reunion of the beach party heroes, the whole family was dragged to the theater. Little did I know it would make such an impression on me, from being one of my earliest encounters with ska music (a scene that would play a prominent role in my teenage years) to informing my cinematic sensibilities in ways I still am discovering today.
My mother may not be a film nerd like me, but her tastes definitely helped cultivate certain preferences in me (outside of Hallmark, of course), so let’s kick it off with a few words from her:
When I was younger, I loved watching all these movies. Perhaps, because I was a sap for love stories, and still am, and love the beach, I was drawn to these movies. Loved the Gidget movies too. Boy, am I old and now have “graduated” to Hallmark.
Perhaps it was also because I adored the stars, many accomplishments they have had in their life, and think often of the Big Kahuna.
It’s a teenage memory etched in my heart and I was glad to share that with my kids.
(@janeharlan on Instagram)
Ed Travis
I was born in 1980 so I’m not even sure how or why I know that Frankie & Annette were, like, a cultural thing, and that beach movies and beach culture were associated with them? I always assume it was the existence of Nick At Nite that taught me about older cultural things from before my time. But until minutes before I started watching Back To The Beach I had absolutely no idea what the film was or why Justin would have picked it for us as a Two Cents title.
An 80s movie about the 60s, I had a blast with all the 80s stuff and was largely clueless about all the 60s stuff in this self-aware/meta romp. In fact I just read Annette Funicello’s IMDb bio in the middle of writing this paragraph and finally understand all the peanut butter jokes in the film referenced her real life series of Skippy commercials. Those jokes all landed with a thud for me because I had no idea why I was supposed to find a mom feeding her child tons of peanut butter to be humorous. Such is the challenge with comedies like these: They’re a real “if you know, you know” kind of thing. And I largely didn’t know.
But I guess the premise here is that the Frankie & Annette characters from a series of early 60s harmless beach comedies left the beach and raised kids and by chance end up back on the beach decades later with their punk teen boy and their young adult Lori Laughlin daughter, and 1980s hijinks ensue. Pee Wee Herman does a song, Fishbone does a song, Frankie gets back on a board, and Annette Mama Bears her way into all of our hearts. I would have enjoyed this film more if I’d had even the slightest inkling of awareness of who Frankie and Annette were, really, or had I been familiar with them as a cultural touchpoint. But as it is, with my limited understanding of what I was watching, I can appreciate the self-deprecating, self-aware nature of the throwback project and in some ways it feels ahead of its time as a lega-sequel before there were lega-sequels.
(@Ed_Travis on Xitter)
Austin Vashaw
I’m not sure what my expectations were for this throwback to the 60s beach party subgenre, but it surely surpassed them.
Frankie Avalon and (my wife’s namesake) Annette Funicello star as fictionalized versions of themselves, a married couple living inland with their beach party days long behind them. A visit to their adult daughter (Lori Loughlin) in their old stomping grounds on the California coast ignites old memories, new rivalries, and an impasse in their stagnating marriage.
It’s a thin premise, but Avalon and Funicello aren’t afraid of having a laugh at their own expense, and throw themselves into the pleasantly corny self-parody. The film has a feel-good vibe with several musical numbers, and I was in no way prepared for the completely random euphoria of Pee-Wee Herman (who is not otherwise a character in the movie) suddenly appearing to sing a rendition of Surfin’ Bird before vanishing into the night.
Like Ed, I was also sent down a rabbit hole of research, but whereas he caught up on the history of the beach party movies and their stars, I dug into the history of third wave ska, which I was extremely surprised to see more or less fully formed in a film from 1987.
Frank Calvillo
I always fancied myself more of a Sandra Dee/Troy Donahue type of guy with a splash of Tab Hunter thrown in for good measure, but I always respected the legacy left by both Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. It only takes a single viewing of any one of beach-themed movies from the 1960s to know both their formula and appeal. The genre that Frankie and Annette practically pioneered all but encapsulated the idealized existence of California youth as the world believed it to be, or at least, wanted to believe it to be. While it didn’t make sense that to revive their on-screen personas two decades later, it’s easy to see why it was such a tempting idea.
Back to the Beach is far from a quality movie, but it is a clever one. The movie’s ability to send up both its two leads and itself is breathtakingly relentless. There’s no time wasted in getting keyed into the comedy angle of the whole affair, establishing its tone and managing to stupefyingly hold it all the way through. Frankie and Annette are both as game as can be even if a handful of the jokes are bond to fall flat, especially in the movie’s back half. Yet the nostalgia factor remains through the roof, playing into the hearts of those who grew up with the beach movie genre, and even a few of those who didn’t. It’s fair to feel that the cameos (Pee Wee Herman and Bob Denver, in particular) push things a little too much. Still, they don’t diminish Back to the Beach’s aim of reminding audiences to not take life so seriously, and more specifically, not to take getting older so seriously.
(@frankfilmgeek on Xitter)Justin Harlan
Despite this likely being the first time in a decade or more I’ve watched the film, I remembered virtually every plot point and was able to revel in the warmth and nostalgia of this beach blanket blast from the past. As I noted in the intro, this movie means a lot to me… one of a handful of movies from my youth that I know I’d never have been into if I saw in recent years, but am so happy was etched into my very soul as a youngster.
The gang has highlighted most of the film’s ups and downs. Is the plot very strong? No. Are some of the 60s ideals a bit old fashioned, perhaps even offensive to modern sensibilities? Sure. Is is an extremely well made film? Absolutely not. But it’s fun 80s cheese rooted in fun 60s cheese and I can’t fault it for that.
It put a big smile on my face to get Ed and the gang to watch this one and I was even able to have my mom chime in. For me, this is a perfect way to kick off a month of Cinapse heading to the beach and I hope you felt the same. If not, I’ll get Bobby to leave a cherry bomb in YOUR toilet!
(@thepaintedman on Xitter)
CINAPSE GOES BACK TO THE BEACH!
Every week in July, we’ll be headed to the beach. Sometimes it’ll be fun, other times it’ll be a difficult journey, and yet other weeks it may end up deadly! Join us this month by reaching out to any of the team or emailing [email protected]!
July 8th – Cast Away
July 15th – A Perfect Getaway
July 22nd – Evil Under the Sun
July 29th – Club Dread
-
KILL is The Raid meets Snowpiercer
Once in a while we get a scrappy little action film that reminds fans what’s possible with the right story and the right man behind the camera. The Raid was one of those films, same with John Wick, and now we have Kill a film that will soon be seeing an American remake courtesy of the folks behind John Wick no less. The film written and directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat just hit American theaters and it’s a two-fisted dose of blood splattered insanity. The film focuses on Amrit Rathod (Lakshya) an elite commando who has just celebrated his four year dating anniversary with Tulika Singh (Tanya Maniktala), who has also just been promised to someone else by her wealthy father. Tulika and her family board a train en route to New Delhi to meet her new suitor, when Amrit also shows up on the train and proposes marriage.
The only problem is unbeknownst to them there is a family of about 40 bandits on the train, who soon begin to methodically rob the train car by car. Of course Tulika’s rich father who is also on the train makes her a prime target for Ransom and Amrit will stop at nothing to save her.
Kill is The Raid meets Snowpiercer, since the bulk of the film is Amrit relentlessly battling from car to car, brutal exchange after brutal blood drenched exchange working his way first to Tulika, and then her sister. That being said, what makes these sequences shine is the claustrophobic environment of these fights that have cameras nestled in every nook and cranny of these spaces to make these fights appear larger than life in their confined spaces. The fight choreography works hand in hand with the cinematography to really hammer home some truly brutal action set-pieces, because once we hit that 45 minute and the title card hits for Kill, Amrit goes from trying to subdue those he come across, to killing every bandit who crosses his path in some truly gut wrenchingly inventive ways since guns aren’t an option in India.
The energy of these sequences are no doubt thanks to South Korean action director and long time Bong Joon Ho collaborator Se-yeong Oh. He worked on not only Snowpiercer, but Tiger 3 showing not only an eye for action, but also having the experience shooting in tight spaces.
The other piece of this narrative that I feel like really elevates the stakes, is of course we have the trope of the hero, fighting for his girl. But we also have the bandits, who are indeed bad guys, but also a tight knit family. There’s a point in the film where Amrit has killed about half of them, we get to see not only their mourning, but the regret within their ranks, as some just want to get the hell out of there after watching their loved ones eviscerated by this monster. That added perspective added a fresh dynamic, since of course these guys are in the wrong, but at a point, it’s not just about financial gain. There’s a battle for vengeance and survival on both sides, while you may even at some points feel sympathetic to the bandits.
Kill more than lives up to its name and is a gut punch of a fight film that’s a visceral assault to the senses. It’s a film that adds a completely new ingredient to this tried and true formula of a guy rescuing his girl, as basically the entire family tree is also looking for revenge against one dude, who just keeps killing the branches. This all while Amrit takes his fair share of barbs, it’s something that definitely continues to up the stakes keeping you on the edge of your seat for the film’s runtime wondering if he will make it out alive. I’ve been looking forward to checking Kill Out since I missed it at Fantastic Fest last year and not only did it live up to my expectations, it completely obliterated them to a bloody pulp. Not only can I not wait for more folks to discover this action masterpiece, but I can’t wait to see what Nikhil Nagesh Bhat will cook up next.
-
MAXXXINE Sticks the Landing for Ti West’s Blood Soaked Feminist Trilogy
MaXXXine has Ti West and Mia Goth teaming up yet again to cap off a trilogy they started with 2022’s X, a film that followed a group of adult film stars in 1979 who are picked off one by one by an homicidal elderly couple, while shooting an X-rated film on their farm. That first film had Goth doing double duty as an ambitious adult starlet Maxine Minx and Pearl, the elderly murderous matriarch, who sees something of herself in the young woman. While a horror film first and foremost, that first film was a very sex positive look at the porn industry in a way that I found equally progressive and smart. Maxine was the only one who survived that massacre, and when we last saw her, she didn’t wait for the police, but was fleeing on her way to Hollywood to make it as a star.
That first film established Minx as a force to be reckoned with, when it came to fighting for her life and also her dream of being a star, by almost any means necessary.
The second film, Pearl was a prequel if you will and had both West and Goth exploring the origin of Pearl’s life in a technicolor nightmare that was equal parts Wizard of Oz and American Psycho. Shot back to back with X during the COVID pandemic, while the first film was more of an ensemble piece, Pearl was a powerful singular character study. This gave Goth the spotlight and the ability to dig into Pearl as a person and somehow get us to genuinely feel empathy for the troubled woman as she falls in love with the cinema, only to have her dreams of stardom dashed. That’s when Pearl begins to unravel and the bodies begin to pile up. While the first film was about the beginning of Maxine’s journey, this film showed a possible outcome of what would happen to someone as driven as Maxine if she got to Hollywood and was denied entry.
Now with MaXXXine, we catch up with Minx six years after the events of X as Maxine is trying to attempt a Traci Lords and parlay her hard earned adult stardom into her first mainstream role in a horror film. Taking place in 1985 in Hollywood, we have the Satanic Panic in full swing along with the very real Night Stalker, who from 84 to 85 killed 14 people casting an ominous shadow over LA. Unlike Pearl, Maxine proves she’s got that X-factor by landing the role in Puritan 2 thanks to director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki), in a move that allows the film to comment on the mark left on female actresses when they do adult films and try to go mainstream. Just as Maxine gets her big break however, a sleazy private detective (Kevin Bacon) shows up threatening to pin the deaths of all her friends from the first film and the couple on her, if she doesn’t comply with his mysterious employer’s requests.
This employer is also using every trick from the Dario Argento black gloved, trench-coated killer hand book to kill those around Maxine copying the Night Stalker’s M.O. thus making Maxine a person of interest.
Like the two films before it, there’s an undercurrent subtext, this time about women in Hollywood and how hard it is for them both in front of the camera and behind it. Elizabeth Debicki is very candid that she cast Maxine against the wishes of the studio who wanted to avoid the controversy, because she thought she was simply the best choice for the role and she was willing to fight for her. It’s her candor and compassion that endears her to Maxine, so when she tells her that “whatever she’s got distracting her needs to be taken care of” so they can concentrate on the film, this has Maxine going full Linda Blair in Savage Streets on those who oppose her ascension to stardom. To add some more pathos to Maxine’s struggle with survival versus vengeance, we see her still processing the trauma and survivor’s guilt from the slaughter on the farm six years ago. It’s something Goth uses to fuel some of the film’s more gnarly kills, when she’s forced to defend herself.
Given the second film, I was actually resigned to what kind of narrative gymnastics West would probably employ to make Maxine the killer, but thankfully West and Goth show us another path and one that leaves the door just open enough for another adventure. The bastard child of a 70s Italian Giallo and an 80’s American exploitation flick, MaXXXine manages to cap the series, with a satisfying conclusion, delivering unto horror fandom an sex-postive, kick ass cocaine addicted female antihero. It’s a role that Goth is no doubt having the time of her life playing along with everyone else in the film who also seem to be loving the seedy decade of decadence. That coupled with a script that understands the tropes, and their pitfalls, gives us a nostalgic foray that manages to not get lost in the neon drenched sauce, which is my biggest complaint when you have throwback films like these. MaXXXine feels just enough like its own entity, even though it traffics in these nostalgic cinematic vices.
It’s impressive that not only do we have a serialized feminist horror trilogy, but all the films are all directed/written by the same director starring the same actor, which is an accomplishment in itself in genre. They somehow also managed to wrap up the story in a way that narratively makes sense along with sub-textually. Because while Maxine’s journey was similar to Pearl’s, both ambitious women who’s journeys were fraught with the pitfalls of their gender at the time. We do however see some hope in Maxine’s story, that she was able to get the role, and not have to become an old lady feeding porn stars to alligators. MaXXXine was a neon drenched nightmare with its tongue firmly in its cheek and one that I hope will continue in the future. Goth and West have created something special here, that felt completely uncompromising in its trajectory, and while it flirted with these icons of genre, these inspirations only worked to birth its latest addition – Maxine Motherfuckin’ Minx.
-
Kino Lorber Curls Up with the Literary Noir
“You had something to do with those murders in the Rue Morgue, didn’t you?”
Film Noir has always drawn inspiration for many of its films from the best and pulpiest of fiction writers, many of whom would be seen as future masters of their craft. Names such as Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and especially, Cornell Woolrich are responsible for some of noir’s most treasured and memorable titles. But once in a while the vast treasure chest that contained these authors, and others like them, came up empty, forcing the genre makers to look elsewhere for material. Typically, this meant taking works from authors not necessarily associated with the dark alleys and corridors of noir and refashioning them to suit the needs of the genre.
Recently, Kino Lorber released a collection of films based on works from three authors not quickly associated with the darkness of noir: Tiffany Thayer’s Chicago Deadline, W.R. Burnett’s Iron Man, and Edgar Allan Poe’s Mystery of Marie Roget.
Chicago Deadline
Thayer experimented with a variety of genres throughout his career with none of them garnering him much acclaim or respect. Chicago Deadline seems to have been the exception as far as his film adaptations are concerned. This story about a newspaperman (Alan Ladd) tasked with finding out what happened to a beautiful woman (Donna Reed) who turns up dead was not only a box-office hit but also earned the author a bit of acclaim and credibility. Using the heroic figure of a reporter instead of a cop (as many film noirs were want to do) certainly helped set the film apart. But it’s the way Chicago Deadline weaves in undercurrents of romance and slight fantasy to present a mystery around a person who only exists in other people’s memories. It’s an intriguing way to tell a story as both the audience and Ladd find themselves questioning everything and everyone as they wonder which is to be believed about the dead woman: The version our reporter character is told, or the version he’s conjuring up in his head?
Mystery of Marie Roget
Only very specific tastes enjoyed reading Poe in high school, myself included. The writer’s poem “Bells Bells Bells Bells” still haunts me all these years later. Mystery of Marie Roget was one of his few forays into anything close to being considered adaptable for the noir world. Not much care is taken with authentic period trappings as the movie deviates from the source material so much, that it eventually opts for a Poe tie-in that’s downright sloppy. Still, this story of a young actress (Maria Montez) and the detective (Patric Knowles) tasked with solving her murder does manage to be part noir, part costume drama, part whodunnit. Mystery of Marie Roget suffers from its runtime with every scene feeling horribly rushed, even by lower-rank noir standards. You’d think the central mystery wouldn’t have much of a chance to play out under such circumstances, yet it still manages to survive, if only just. While the reaction to the short story has always been mixed, Poe’s text is ultimately still better than the B-movie treatment Hollywood gave it.
Iron Man
In between his novels and screenplays (including both The Great Escape and the original Scarface), Burnett could rightfully be called one of the best who ever did the thing when it came to his knack for depicting conflicted characters and the unescapable hells they found themselves in. Iron Man, the story of a reluctant boxer (Jeff Chandler) who finds it hard to control his killer rage when in the ring, is just such a tale. The movie is a sturdy character-driven piece of dark melodrama that has the mark, or stain, of noir despite the absence of many of the genre’s signature trademarks. The internal battle our main character faces with the monster inside of him very quickly becomes the pulse of Iron Man, while Evelyn Keyes as the female lead functions as a reverse femme fatale, encouraging our hero to embrace the sport and, in essence, his dark side. Iron Man functions as a B-movie with solid performances and a level of storytelling that pulls you in thanks to its level of despair, tragedy, and the battle of a man’s very soul.
As is the custom whenever I do a noir-themed piece, the time has come for me to once again tip my hat to the Film Noir Foundation, the non-profit San Francisco-based organization dedicated to restoring and preserving film noir through the rescuing of titles once thought lost or destroyed. Headed by TCM’s Eddie Muller, the group has been tirelessly working to keep the spirit and legacy of film noir alive through continuous efforts, not least of all being Noir City, their traveling retrospective film festival where many of their restoration efforts are put on display for fans to enjoy. If you’re a fan of film noir, I hope you consider taking some time to discover the film noir foundation and discover all of the great work they continue to do.
Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XVI is now available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Kino Lorber. For more information about the Film Noir Foundation, please visit https://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/.
Alan Ladd, Blu-ray, Chicago Deadline, Cornell Woolrich, Crime, Donna Reed, Drama, Eddie Muller, Edgar Allan Poeen Poe, Evelyn Keyes, Film Noir, Film Noir Foundation, Home Video, Iron Man, James M. Cain, Jeff Chandler, Kino Lorber, Maria Montez, Movies, Mystery of Marie Roget, Patric Knowles, Raymond Chandler, Scarface, Tcm, The Great Escape, Thriller, Tiffany Thayer, Turner Classic Movies, W.R. Burnett -
Emmy-nominated Editor by Day, Indie Filmmaker by Night – an Interview with EONBLADE’s John Soares
John Soares has been in the entertainment industry for two decades, and if you’re a fan of animation in particular, chances are you’ve seen some of his work. In recent years he has risen as a prominent motion picture editor for Dreamworks and Warner Brothers, lending his editing skills to a number of projects including Looney Tunes Cartoons (for which he was nominated for a Daytime Emmy), My Adventures with Superman, Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo, Veggie Tales in the House, and more.
Prior to his Hollywood career, Soares made a splash online with viral action-comedy series like Sockbaby and Go Sukashi (both created with Doug TenNapel), and Agamemnon Tiberius Vacuum, and it’s here that his multi-hyphenate skillset first took shape, both in front of and behind the camera. After scripting, directing, editing, and acting in many such shorts and videos, this path eventually led to a long-in-the-making feature film, The Danger Element, completed in 2017.
Soares is returning again to the world of indie filmmaking, and chatted with us to discuss the next chapter in his journey.
John editing Looney Tunes Cartoons for Warner Brothers Cinapse: You wear a lot of hats in your work. You’re currently a film editor for Warner Brothers, but you also enjoy making your own films as a writer, director, martial artist, and actor (and I’m probably missing some). Do you have a favorite type of creative work? Are there some parts that feel like more of a slog?
John Soares: I like to write. I’ve spent a lot of time since my last feature just rewriting one script over and over. It’s become much more important to me as time has passed. But of course I like production. I like to be outside, doing physical things, feeling the air, smelling the fuel burn. It tends to be the first notion that I get that something is actually going to work.
Fundraising is stressful. It’s a roller coaster. I wouldn’t say that it is a slog, but you are riding a high in one moment and tearing your hair out the next, wondering if you’ve done everything that you can, if you’ve reached out to every person that wants to hear about it.
Cinapse: In your day job you’ve had the opportunity to get to work on huge, familiar properties like Looney Tunes and Superman. What is it that keeps you coming back to independent filmmaking? Is it more about the challenge, the creative control, or the finished product?
My Adventures with Superman – Warner Bros. JS: I’ve always just wanted to make my own films. The skills that I’ve gained just lend themselves to work for these larger corporations. Editing is a good job and it supports my personal goals. And the skills I’ve developed to produce those skills lend very well to my ability to do jobs for other people quite well. So it becomes kind of an obvious pursuit.
Working all the time on these other stories also does a lot to sharpen my skills as a storyteller. If you edit 200 Looney Tunes shorts or 20 Superman episodes, you start to notice things that you never realized before when it comes to story. But in the end, the real joy has always been in making something of my own. Even though it takes years and there are times when you want to give up.
Cinapse: You’ve already touched a bit on the stress of fundraising. Your next film production Eonblade is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. What can you tell us about Eonblade?
JS: In this business, you find a lot of people who develop many different ideas so that they always have something else to pull out of their pocket in a pitch meeting. I’ve done a bit of that myself, but this one character, Jitni, has been something I’ve been developing beyond the scope of what you might expect from a simple pitch for a character. He started out as a kind of catch-all character for experimental stunt and martial art films that I did around 25 years ago. And his world has just continued to grow and evolve.
My first feature, The Danger Element, was an attempt to bring him into the public view a little bit. Eonblade is technically a sequel, but will serve quite well as a first-time introduction for many viewers.
It’s an action-adventure film with no shortage of martial art and car-chase action, but also with a bit of a supernatural edge to it. Mix Indiana Jones with a little bit of Jackie Chan’s Armour of God. Maybe throw a little Batman and The Exorcist in there. It’s a good time, trust me. I’m very proud of the script.
The Danger Element (2017) Cinapse: How does Eonblade fit in with the world you’ve created with The Danger Element and Book of Lies?
JS: Eonblade takes place around 8 years after the events of The Danger Element. But I really wanted to write something a bit more accessible. A traditionally structured story; Less experimental.
Book of Lies was actually the proof-of-concept for this film. It contains scenes from the Eonblade script. I called it Book of Lies back then because originally there was going to be a scene in there that revolved around an object called the Book of Lies. But COVID actually shut us down and I wasn’t able to get that scene. So it kind of doesn’t make sense. The full-length version of the story is called Eonblade because the greater story revolves around this ancient mystical bladed weapon.
Cinapse: COVID was a huge challenge for a lot of film productions. I’m glad to see you getting back into it.
You’ve worked with a lot of cool people over the years, perhaps most notably having a long history with Doug Jones, who returns in Eonblade. What’s it been like to work with a collaborator like Doug?
JS: As has been said many other times, Doug Jones is the nicest person in the film industry. He’s incredibly generous and equally skilled in his art. He always shows up with all his lines memorized and he leaves everything on the screen for you. The first few times you play a scene with him, you have to get used to looking into his eyes. He is on a whole other level and whatever it is he is playing is truly there in his eyes in a way I don’t get from all of the actors I’ve worked with. It can really throw you and it lifts your own efforts to a new level as well.
He’s always incredibly kind, though, and always ready for a laugh.
The Danger Element (2017) Cinapse: He strikes me as a very genuine guy who has a lot of real love for his fans. How amazing has it been to see him become a major character in the Star Trek universe and play the co-lead in a Best Picture winner [The Shape of Water]?
JS: I remember talking to him on the phone right as he was starting Star Trek: Discovery. I have been a huge Star Trek fan since the early 90s and it was kind of surreal. Once you become a part of Star Trek, that’s going to stay with you for the rest of your life. Star Trek fans will never let you go.
When Shape of Water won Best Picture at the Oscars, that was exactly one week after Doug had come with me to my home town to do a free premiere screening of The Danger Element. He climbed into my tiny Kia with 3 other people and rode for 300 miles with me, appeared at the screening, signed autographs, greeted guests, stayed overnight, then rode 300 miles back. Just out of pure kindness. Then literally one week later I was at the Editors Guild Oscar party watching him go up on stage for the Best Picture category. It was crazy.
Cinapse: Thanks so much for sharing with us today. Good luck with your ventures and especially with Eonblade. Where can readers follow your work online?
JS: Thanks so much! Right now the campaign is running at Kickstarter. And beyond that you can find me at johnallensoares.com
Thanks to John for chatting with us!
Eonblade Part 1 is currently funding on Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/JohnAllenSoares/eonblade-part-1 -
CFF 2024: DRACULA: SOVEREIGN OF THE DAMNED is an Unhinged Shot of Animated Marvel Madness
In their latest Red Eye slot, which is a virtual anything goes mystery selection from the Chattanooga Film Festival programmers, I witnessed the insanity that was Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned. With a nostalgic pedigree that would whet the appetite of any hardcore Marvel fan, this was a 1980 animated feature length (loose) adaptation of the Tomb of Dracula Marvel Comic by Toei animation (One Piece, Dragonball, Sailor Moon). If you’re wondering why you haven’t seen this on Disney+ and probably won’t, I’ll get into that in a minute. But what I will say is this is something those who are burned out on the current MCU offerings could use as a hard reset and a breath of fresh air of just how weird and wonderful comics used to be.
Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned feels like a grab bag of about 7 or 8 different comic arcs. The film opens as Dracula steals an intended bride for Lucifer from a Satanic cult. He oddly is unable to kill or feed on her, so he goes on the prowl and kills a few other women which lands on the news. In this iteration, not only do his teeth glow before he attacks someone, but afterwards their lifeless body turns Smurf blue. Well these random attacks happen to unite a group of rather ineffectual vampire hunters with a descendant of Dracula, who is also a Tai Chi master (!?), a descendant of Van Helsing (of course) and another descendant of someone else who’s not that important. With one of the team being a direct descendant of Dracula, it’s safe to say, in this version Dracula most definitely fucks, which leads us to the primary conflict at the heart of the film.
When the Satanic cult checks in with the Devil to see when they can expect to have their request fulfilled for their bride sacrifice, Satan is like, what bride? Dracula took her and you’re going to have to get revenge for me, but first wait a year.
In this year, Dracula has a kid with the sacrificial bride, marries her and on the child’s one year birthday confesses to his wife – that he is in fact not Satan, but Dracula, King of the Vampires, to which she says, Duh, I have media literacy. Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned is the deliciously deranged kind of weird, that has Dracula at one point stripped of his powers and forced to begrudgingly eat a hamburger. It’s the kind of weird that not only does this film feature the Mavel’s iteration of Satan, but God as well, who also gets into the battle, along with my favorite and probably weirdest of them all, a character called “White God”. This is a massive black dog that wears a giant gold cross and can smell evil. This is because he was raised in a church and was fed only Holy Water from a pup. Seriously, I am really confused why I am just hearing about this animated Marvel masterwork.
The film itself is also gorgeously animated in this amazing anime inspired take on 80s comics. It’s not super detailed like some anime from that period, but it’s stylized in a rather charming imperfect hand drawn way. This flawlessly captures that old school comic feel, but with all nudity and violence you probably didn’t expect. The version screened was from a rather battered 16mm print and that only solidified the experience for me, that gives this every visually nostalgic commodity coveted today. That being said this narrative adaptation feels like the stream of consciousness from an unhinged 10 year-old all hopped up on Pixie Sticks and I was there for it. That and the fact that this film’s use of Christian iconography and customs, without the reverence you might expect in the West gives it a rather anti-establishment vibe and further highlights its foreign otherness.
As a once ride or die for the MCU, it’s great to see this time capsule from a much different time, when this media wasn’t such a big part of the culture and it could be weird, entertaining and sometimes dumb. As a monster kid this also hits differently given it sort of encapsulates all these things I love into one very weird piece of forgotten media that I can’t wait to share with others. Don’t get me started there was a sequel that featured Frankenstein! The Chattanooga Film Fest once again comes through with another hidden gem that is everything I want when it comes to junk food cinema, and I couldn’t ask for anything more.
