In the Mouth of Madness (John Carpenter, 1994)

When celebrity horror author Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow) goes missing, insurance investigator Trent (Sam Neill) is assigned to track him down…

“This book is going to drive people absolutely mad!”

“Well, let's hope so. The movie comes out next month”

John Carpenter is one of my favourite directors. 

When I was starting to get into movies, I went on a tear through his work. There are few Carpenters left.

In the Mouth of Madness was one of them.

His filmography as a whole has seen a critical revival but I was always leery of checking out his work after the eighties. I had watched a couple of films from around this era - Memoirs, Escape from LA and Village of the Damned - but none of them made me want to do more of a deep dive.

Mouth was the one of his nineties films that sounded the most intriguing.

My local Arthouse screened it for its 30th anniversary so I decided to finally give it a go.

A follow up to 1992’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man, the film marks a return to Carpenter’s preoccupations: An unstoppable evil, a character learning that the world he believed in does not exist.

It was hard to watch this movie and not be reminded of Robert Cumbow’s book Order in the Universe. The film is about order - we open on books being produced and end in a movie theatre at the end of the world. Even as the world we know falls, the so-called chaos is even more controlling.

John keeps trying to leave Hobbs End and  finds himself driving back into town. Even when he leaves, that escape is an illusion. He is a character trapped in a story that has already been printed.

In a manner that feels like a more successful version of Halloween 3’s cliffhanger, our hero is too late to stop the apocalypse -  it has already been consumed and adapted into other media. He is reduced to experiencing the whole of the Sutter Kane cross-promotional campaign, from the posters to - in the film’s crescendo - the movie adaptation.

This is a movie not so much about the power of creation as its commodification. It also feels infused with the rage of a filmmaker tired of having to deal with the Hollywood machine. 

Considering the remainder of Carpenter’s career, it is hard not to view the ending as the last embers of the director’s enthusiasm for the career he had spent decades building. 

John Trent ends the film cackling at himself onscreen, losing whatever delusions of control. The wheels of industry cannot be stopped. One man cannot bring down the system. Like They Live, the power of the dollar is more compelling than any threat - whether it be a hidden alien menace, Lovecraftian horrors or Chevy Chase...

Related

Assault on Precinct 13

Eyes of Laura Mars

Christine

Black Moon Rising

Memoirs of an Invisible Man

Village of the Damned

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Revenge (Coralie Fargeat, 2017)

After she is assaulted and left for dead, Jen (Matilda Lutz) turns the tables on the men who attempted to destroy her...

Revenge is a movie that I have been meaning to watch ever since it burst into the public conscience in 2017.

Arriving in the first of the Trump presidency, and just before the Me Too movement gained newfound prominence, Revenge is a bracing, visceral experience. 

Introduced as the arm candy of a conniving bigwig Richard (Kevin Janssens), Jen is underestimated from the beginning. 

The camera manages to capture the leering threat of the men’s gaze, without feeling like it is revelling in Jen's body. Even before the initial horror, the film is building tension - the men are predators watching their prey.

Rather than caricature, the villains are horrifying human monsters - one of the men does not assault her; he walks in, interrupting the attack, and then leaves the room to let it happen.

The mens' complete lack of reaction to the attack carries an implication that this horror is merely the latest of a pattern.

Once the film enters the desert, it becomes more elemental.

After the initial attempt to kill her fails, Jen is revealed posed christ-like on a tree with a wound in her side.

It is the first of several images of resurrection that the film creates, as Jen reveals a MacGyver-level of ingenuity, a superhuman tenacity that ultimately overwhelms her attackers.

In order to cauterise her chest wound, she uses a can that leaves a scar embossed with the can brand, a Phoenix logo.

The shift into fantasy is matched by a shift in tone, towards a darkly comic joy as our heroine enacts her retribution.

While her opponents see her as disposable meat, the film uses every technique to show the destruction of their bodies. Featuring gruesome practical effects and hyper real sound design,  the film recalls the intensity of New French Extremity like Martyrs and Inside, but with a knowing irreverence - it is impossible to watch Jen’s rapist's (Vincent Colombe) deranged attempts to remove glass from the exaggerated, bloody cut in his foot without acknowledging the absurdity.

Revenge! It is a breath of fresh to watch a movie so robust, so alive. It is a movie with blood in its veins and on its hands. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

OUT NOW: Grafted (Sasha Rainbow)

Chinese exchange student Wei (Joyena Sun) comes to live and attend university in Auckland, New Zealand.

Scarred by her father’s death and the stigma of a distinctive birthmark, Wei channels her self-loathing into finishing his scientific work on skin grafts.

In collaboration with her unsavoury science lecturer (Jared Turner), she makes progress on the project. But as a scientific breakthrough draws closer, Wei’s own obsession with beauty - especially of the kind modelled by fellow student Eve (Eden Hart) - will lead her down a fatal path…

There is something rough and ready I like about Grafted, a ‘don’t bore us, get to the chorus’ to the storytelling that adds to its sense of escalation. 

Characterisation is minimal, in that characters have just enough motivation to justify their actions. The number of characters is small, as are the number of locations.

The movie feels like a fable, a more violent Twilight Zone episode with a clear moral: Don’t get what you wish for.

Bluntness of message can seem like a bad thing. In a stripped-down genre movie like this, it is an asset.

Despite some moments of pitch-dark wit, the film’s earnest treatment of it - that helps.

That wish is western beauty standards. Wei’s rampage could be reframed as a proximity to Whiteness, as she moves between different faces, and the expectations associated with each of them. Wei’s obsession with her facial scar laces her obsession with Whiteness to its links with ableism.

She is determined to ‘fix’ herself even though the improvement would be purely cosmetic. 

Wei’s fixation, Eve, is presented as a stereotypical blonde. The blonde hair is fake but that only adds to the film’s fixation on a particular kind of white beauty - even Eve has to make adjustments in order to achieve the ideal.

The performances - particularly when Wei has taken on the visages of other characters - are impressive.

Unlike a lot of face swap movies, there is an attempt at verisimilitude - Wei’s uneven smile is always present, no matter whose face she is wearing.

The three actresses, particularly Jess Hong, are effective at marking the drastically different personalities and physicalities of Wei and her NZ-born cousin Angela.

With minimal dialogue, she evokes the jealousy and conflicted feelings Angela has toward her cousin and her connections with her mother’s culture. She is stuck between worlds, despising her mother while yearning for an unseen father who will never return.

The only character who seems to be at ease with herself is Jasmine (Sepi To'a), Angela’s friend who takes a genuine interest in Wei. She presents a viable alternative to Angela - someone who is not willing to subordinate herself entirely in the same way Angela has, and actually wants to help Wei find her way in her new home.

The film is so economical that Jasmine barely gets a look in - it might be an effect of budget, but that narrowed focus matches the central character’s increasingly claustrophobic existence.

Dark, uncompromising but still empathetic, Grafted is a welcome addition to the New Zealand horror canon.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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Night of the Comet (Thom Eberhardt, 1984)

After a mysterious cosmic event wipes out most of humanity, teenage sisters Reggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) and Sam (Kelli Maroney) struggle to build a new life for themselves...

I had heard the title Night of the Comet years ago, but knew nothing about it. 

A few weeks ago, my local arthouse played it as a double bill with the similarly apocalyptic Miracle Mile. I had planned on watching both movies, but Comet started at 8:30 and I ended up heading home early.

A self-aware genre piece, Night of the Comet feels a decade ahead. In its favour, there is no sense of self-defeating irony.

The movie opens like it is on a sugar rush - throwing out movie references, winking at its own tropes, and throwing out legitimate horror and sci-fi moments.

It is juggling so many different tones, it is exhilarating how effortlessly it manages to keep them all in balance - for a while, at least.

It features the kind of strong female protagonist that feels almost like a cliche now. But in 1984? 

She flips the familiar dynamic with the male lead, taking charge of every situation, and proving to be a dap hand at (and super-knowledgeable about) handling firearms. 

There is a certain wish fulfilment quality to Reggie that feels designed by a man: she is a nerd (Introduced obsessed with beating her score on a video-game), a survival expert who is competent with guns, and a beautiful woman. 

While Catherine Mary Stewart has some great moments and lines, but the real standout is Kelli Maroney as her sister Sam.

 She seems to have a sense of the tone, and manages to make Sam feel like a recognisable person - she plays the stakes of being in the apocalypse where every aspect of life has collapsed, but also being a teenager who is still interested in sex, having fun and uh… makeovers.

The filmmakers were interested in mixing the end of the world with characters you would not see in that kind of scenario. Having teenagers - and specifically eighties teens - creates a unique clash.

We get all the familiar tropes of an eighties teen movie - from a love triangle to the John Hughes-style angst, to a shopping montage in a mall.

What is refreshing about both characters is that they see the potential of the new world. Even at its bleakest, there is a youthful optimism to the characters that provides a unique perspective.

If there is a problem with this aspect of the movie, it seems like the characters have no real problems with the basics - outside of connecting with other humans.

Where other survival movies focus on - and to some extent - romanticise the idea of the loner figuring out existence on their own, Night of the Comet is more concerned with finding interpersonal connections, whether that is the fraught sibling dynamic that the sisters have to overcome, to a potential romantic partner (Robert Beltran).

The movie does not seem to have a firm idea of where it wants to take these ideas - we end with our heroes forming a makeshift nuclear family, literally play-acting the roles of ‘mom’ and ’dad’. In this apocalypse, the eighties ethos of consumerism, militarism and the traditional family endure as parody, a performance for morale.

The film is often beautiful to look at - filled with neon and chiaroscuro, it evokes both the aesthetic of the era, but in a way that foregrounds its apocalyptic unease.

I was not aware of how low the budget was until after watching the movie. It cost less than a million dollars, yet it is filled with a variety of found locations. The real coup of the production is the number of exterior scenes showing empty city streets.

The film feels epic in scope and constantly reminds the viewer of how alone our heroines really are.

The never-ending soundtrack (including a cover of ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ in the mall montage) starts to feel like ghosts from the dead world, cheery spectres haunting the empty cityscapes. 

The third act is a bit of a damp squib. The secret base and the rogue scientists are fine, but this is the one part of the movie where you can feel the movie running out.

A fascinating blender of genres, Night of the Comet is a time capsule of its era, a progenitor of what was to come in genre cinema, and an inspiration for low-budget filmmakers.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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The Bat Whispers (Roland West, 1930)

With the transition to sound, Hollywood remade many of its past silent hits. Roland West returned to give such a makeover to his own 1926 film.

And what a makeover!

With the transition to sound, Hollywood remade many of its past silent hits. Roland West returned to give such a makeover to his own 1926 film.

And what a makeover!

There is a stilted quality to a lot of early talkies - the technology was cumbersome and a lot of filmmakers were put off from moving the camera.

I brought that assumption to The Bat Whispers and it punctures that notion definitively with the opening shot. 

We open on a model shot of a clock tower - so far, fairly standard. 

And then the camera tilts downward to show the street below.

AND THEN the camera itself descends to the street amid moving miniature cars and people.

It is the type of shot we do not even blink at today, but it is a bolt of energy that immediately sets this movie apart from its predecessor.

Using two cinematographers and shooting widescreen (one of the first films to do so), West has shaken off the source material’s staginess, turning The Bat Whispers into a more epic and dynamic entertainment.

The movie feels like it is always on the move: In addition to dolly shots, we get shots from inside  moving cars and shots tracking and panning rapidly across model landscapes.

Having a camera that can interact with and show more of the environment makes the old dark house feel bigger and more intimate. 

The more athletic aesthetic - and rampant use of model shots - also feels like a shift in genre, signalling the way the gothic melodramas the stage show was riffing on were being replaced, first by the pulpy action-focused paperback antiheroes, and later by comic book characters like Batman.

The acting is quite good in both versions - sadly the exceptions are the same roles (Lizzie Allan, the maid, is just scared), which feel like a collection of exaggerated mannerisms.

Chester Morris is excellent as Anderson - the cop who enters the action. Playing the no-nonsense cop with the lightest sliver of ham, he suits the tone, and the reveal at the end of the film.

After a movie that did everything it could to wrestle itself away from its theatrical source, the ending harkens back to it in a way that only works in its new medium.

The film ends and an offscreen voice screams at an unseen crew member to not bring out the end title card.

The camera pulls out to show we are staring at a stage.

The Bat abseils down from the ceiling, lands in a puff of smoke, and then asks the viewer to not divulge the twist ending to any other potential audience member - or else…

A playful, self-reflexive close to a movie that never seems to take itself too seriously. 

So is The Bat better when he Whispers? 

I watched both Bats back to back and I feel like this is the way to go.

While Whispers has that roving camera, The Bat feels more atmospheric. The changes between the adaptations are in terms of technology and how that affects the aesthetic choices. 

Despite its more immersive camerawork, the film misses some of the more expressionistic effects of the original. Richard’s death is re-staged in a similar way, but it feels more naturalistic - part of the issue is that the mansion set feels less stylised, and less conducive to chiaroscuro.

Both versions feel like they complete one another - where one is claustrophobic and tense, the other is spry and expansive. Together they feel like ideals for the imaginative potential of cinema - a fantastical space beyond time or environment, where anything we can imagine can happen.

Related

The Bat

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.