(Fake) Trailer of the Week: Tape-Man

A fake grindhouse trailer. It's been one of my favorite videos ever since I discovered YouTube. To this day, I'm impressed with the filmmaking techniques used here. It deserves more views.

TAPE-MAN!!

Haunts (1977) Review

Haunts opens to a run of the mill throwaway kill, just like any schlocky slasher flick would. After all, the supposed plot is “a woman is stalked by a mysterious killer wielding a pair of sewing scissors”. It’s predictable, straightforward, and yet, how could you go wrong with it?

But at about the five minute mark the film’s tone switches drastically. It becomes a slow drama told in a lot of flashbacks and shots of the protagonist staring out rainy windows. More kills are still thrown in about every ten or so minutes, but they only distract from the slow melodrama that takes center stage.

The plot is all over the place, but from what I gather, a woman's dealing with some trauma from her past. She goes to church every day to cope, but one night, on the walk home, she's attacked by a mysterious man who tries to stab her with a pair of large scissors. She gets away, and this raises some questions: why was he after her? Who was it? She becomes convinced it's her uncle, whom she's currently living with. But perhaps it's someone else.

This film is hard to judge because overall it's an inconsistent mess-- like I said, dull drama one minute, nasty slasher the next-- but at the same time, it has moments where it teeters on brilliance. For example, there's a totally bizarre goat milking scene near the beginning that, to me, bumps the film's score up a whole extra star. Same thing goes for a remarkably-shot death scene outside a bar, about halfway through.

But unfortunately, solid death scenes like this didn't seem to belong with the rest of the film. It's a psychological drama, first and foremost. The brutal killing doesn't ring true. It stands out, like it's not meant to be there. It’s almost like the exec at the production company told the filmmakers they needed to make it more marketable. Obviously this means adding some good ol’ hacking and slashing. It’s happened before.

Which, if this was true, would explain a lot. The film is for the most part a quiet drama, but every ten or so minutes an ugly, oftentimes unimaginative kill scene is thrown in. These scenes barely ever effect the plot, and stand out most of the time as things that were thrown in as an afterthought.

Overall it's a slow, kind of boring film with a lot of extra padding to fill its 90 minute runtime. But it does have some good ideas, and it wants to be better than it is. It's an ambitious film made by people who weren't exactly sure what they were doing. That's made clear by the ending, which attempts to pull a huge plot twist but fails and just gets plain confusing.

I think this proves that having a unique idea is one of the most important things about writing. A bad movie with a unique vision, and something to say is interesting, more so than an average by-the-books Hollywood movie that has no idea behind it. You can hit all the bases-- proper format, good dialogue, neat story structure-- but it doesn't matter unless your story has something to say.

Screenwriting Influences

One of my favorite movies is An American Werewolf in London. While it may not be the greatest film ever, no film has had more influence on my writing than this. It's a very uneven, odd film. It opens to a slightly corny gothic horror sequence, then spends the next 45 minutes on the main character recovering from a werewolf attack in a hospital. From here it's almost a romance film, until the next full moon, when all hell breaks loose. My only issue with it is that there isn't really an ending at all, but you could argue it just adds to the style.

Almost everything I've written since has been influenced by the style of John Landis's script. The odd, anything-goes vibe is always what I'm shooting for, whether romantic comedy or slasher.

More films that influenced me are Breathless (1960), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and Pulp Fiction. Though when it comes to Pulp Fiction, it's not in the way you would expect.

I don't write pages and pages of worthless dialogue like most Tarantino copycats. The film influenced my writing in other ways: focusing on creating memorable characters over plot. It's more of a novel than a conventional movie. Just characters going through their days.

Breathless is important to me because it's relatable.

Jean-Luc Godard got together a couple actors and a camera and went out and shot his movie. It's something I could do. Whether or not I end up making one of the best films ever is something we'll have to wait and see, but it's nice to know that it's something basically in reach. You don't need a budget to make a great film people still watch fifty years later.

I also admire the story of Breathless, if there even is one. It's 90 minutes following an interesting car thief around town, getting into deeper trouble. It's an anything-goes, poetic story, exactly what I'd love to make someday.

And lastly, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Every film I've mentioned so far is in my top ten, including this one. Yes. My top ten. Many people discount it as a cheap gore flick, but they're the ones that haven't seen it. It's a very effective film, and has stood the test of time better than almost any other horror film. It's been copied countless times. And like Breathless, it is a film made without many things at their disposal. It's just some filmmakers with a cool idea, a few thousand dollars, and a farmhouse.

When I write horror, I try to channel the feeling of dread this film uses so well. If you want to learn how to write horror, this film is perfect. It masterfully executes dread, suspense, shock, disgust, and pure tension. With what? A van, a farmhouse, less than a dozen actors and barely any blood... oh yeah, and a chainsaw. Copycats over the years have slightly stained this film's reputation, but anyone who's actually seen it knows how effective it can be.

That's my list. Other notable films are Goodfellas, Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Signs, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Battle Royale and Back to the Future.

If you're a writer, which films or books-- maybe even music-- have influenced your work the most?

Trailer of the Week: Alien 2: On Earth

No, not the Alien you know and love. Not even Alien. You probably don't even know about this one.

Alien 2: On Earth is an unauthorized Italian ripoff of the Ridley Scott classic. I'm not sure about the budget, but I assume this was made for about twenty bucks, and that's being generous.

Don't watch if cheapo effects scare you. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Yeah, the trailer kind of speaks for itself. The film itself is very obscure, and was pretty much impossible to find until they released it on Blu-Ray.

Switchblade Sisters (1975) Review

AKA The Jezebels, but I like "Switchblade Sisters" better.

It's hard to review movies like this. When it comes to grindhouse cinema, almost every film is totally unique. You judge them like typical Hollywood films-- if you did, you probably wouldn't enjoy many "cult" movies.

To me, the biggest difference when it comes to these low budget gems is the writing. In Switchblade Sisters, almost every scene has something to like about it. There's always a quirky, odd thing going on, combined with over-the-top characters and great dialogue... all in all, it's something you haven't seen before. But in full, the film is pretty messy. There are a lot of little things to like, and it keeps your interest-- but the film as a whole is all over the place. It's like they were making it up as they went along.

That's what I'm saying about these films, and how different they are. There's no three act structure, no midpoint, no resolution. Screw that crap. You notice the same thing in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and even in Coffy. The stories are almost told in this free-form style you would never see in a Hollywood production. And sometimes it works for the film... but more often than not, it doesn't. Despite everything there is to like about Pussycat, the film as a whole feels messy and padded. But does this free-form style work for Switchblade?

The film follows a gang of women-- women with names like Lace, Patch, and Donut-- and their endeavors. They get thrown in jail, recruit new members, clash with rival gangs, and that's about all there is to say. There's really no plot to speak of-- it's just one event after the other until the film ends. Yet, to me, this actually works for the film. It's the hodgepodge of incidents and over the top characters  that adds to the feel of the film. It's something you have to see to really understand.

Switchblade is something else, a film some have tried to emulate over the years-- most notably Quentin Tarantino. I noticed a couple similarities to Reservoir Dogs here-- from the rhythm of the dialogue to the violent finale in the gang's warehouse. Makes sense, since this film was recently rereleased by Rolling Thunder Productions, Tarantino's own production company.

So overall, is it worth the watch? Yeah, sure. I feel like it's good for writers-- screenwriters especially-- to take a break from cookie-cutter Hollywood films and check out some of cinema's oddballs. It's a good way to learn for yourself why conventional story structure is a good thing-- and why you don't always need it.

Dawn of the Dead (1978) Review

A follow-up to my Night of the Living Dead review. When I get around to seeing Day of the Dead, I'll probably review that too.

George A. Romero's second zombie film picks up right where its predecessor, Night of the Living Dead, made ten years earlier, left off. Why he waited this long to make another one, I'm not quite sure. As far as I know, Night was pretty dang successful, spawning an entire horror subgenre and creating a whole new list of horror cliches (which Dawn added to immensely).

I think one reason Romero waited a decade for the sequel is that the Living Dead films are social commentaries as much as they they are zombie films (which is why so many other zombie films fail. Most big-budget zombie films can't hold a candle to Romero's low budget 60s flick, and that's because Night has substance... something a $60 million gorefest does not have, nor will it ever).

But I'm getting off track here. What I'm saying is, Dawn is a social commentary about the times (well, those times-- the 70s), so it makes sense to wait a decade for the next installment. Night covered themes relevant in the 60s, and Dawn updated the series for a 70s audience.

And I think that's why this is such a well-received film, even now. It makes many Top 10 horror lists, despite being dated and (a little) flawed. It says something very true about the times. Which is funny. When you think about films with symbolism and relevant messages, you'd think pretentious art house garbage. Who would think a 70s grindhouse zombie film would do it better than 90% of dramas, overly long stageplays, and war movies?

But enough of that stuff. This may be a social commentary, but it's also a zombie film, and that's what keeps new fans coming.

So as a zombie film, does it stand as one of the greats? Well, yeah. There isn't much competition here. One of the greatest horror films? Again, there isn't that much competition when you get down to it. I mean, let's face it... aside from the limited amount of truly great horror, everything else is either mediocre or terrible. The bar is so low for horror that yes, this is definitely much better than a lot of other films. It's entertaining to this day, despite its longer runtime (by today's standards, at least) and it's pretty gory (even by today's standards).

I'm sure you probably know the story by now. I mean, who doesn't? Even if you haven't seen it, chances are you can guess. A zombie epidemic has gotten out of hand, and now four people (a news reporter, her boyfriend and two S.W.A.T. troopers) seek refuge from zombies. It's a format pretty much every zombie movie has followed since. Here, they're in an abandoned mall. Or maybe it's not abandoned, if you count the horde of zombies outside.

That's them.

The four lock themselves inside the mall with only some glass to keep the zombies out, which leads us to the first real issue of the film: the zombies weren't very threatening. They spent most of the film feebly pounding on the glass rather than actually breaking in. And while it does get pretty intense when a hundred zombies are piling up on the only exit, they still aren't as threatening as, say, a fast zombie, or a strong zombie.

But as it is, this is still an effective film. It could almost be played as a dark comedy, with characters riding through the mall on dirt bikes, bashing slow zombie skulls left and right.

(Like I said, gory even today.)

And that's the other issue. The gore itself just isn't great. I get that it's an older film, but still... the blood is bright red, almost orange, and the flesh is too rubbery. For such a big part of the film, this aspect is particularly disappointing. Still, I give the filmmakers props for getting this brutal, because up until this film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was about as gruesome as you could get, and anyone who's seen that knows how un-graphic it actually is.

So overall, this was a very solid film, and unlike pretty much every other grindhouse horror film, this is well-written, well-shot, and well-acted. There's a lot to like here... from zombie hunting hillbillies to the big, empty mall scenes (almost like The Shining before there was The Shining).

Not to mention, this is a two hour zombie movie with a majority of slow survival scenes, and almost forty years later, it still keeps our interest. Most two hour action thriller movies can't do that.

Recommended if you're into zombie films, or horror in general. Actually, scratch that. If you're looking for a good story, this is it.

Trailer of the Week: The Astro-Zombies

The Astro-Zombies (1968). Perhaps the cheapest trailer I've seen in my life (it even gives Drive-In Massacre a run for its money).

Featuring Tura Satana, better known for her role in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965).