Nightbreed: The Directors Cut (1990)

Nightbreed (1990)

Director: Clive Barker

Cast: Craig Schaffer, Anne Bobby, David Cronenberg, Doug Bradley

First time I saw Nightbreed was in theaters, way back in 1990. Back then I must’ve been thirteen or fourteen years old and while the film made a definitive impact on me, I also got the feeling that it was missing something. I mean, even the title sequence lets us know there were creatures that were filmed that never made it to the finished film, you got the feeling that more was filmed than what we ended up watching. Nightbreed had an epic feel to it, for a horror film anyways. Years later I would learn that Nightbreed was in fact a troubled production. Not from the creative side, because creatively it had energy and ideas to spare, but from the producing side. You see, the producers behind this film thought the film was ‘too weird’ and that it didn't play by the rules. Which of course was entirely true, Clive Barker meant to make a film that would turn the conventions of the traditional monster movie upside down! Sadly when a filmmaker wants to try something new, studios usually look down upon it, especially if it’s within the realm of horror and fantasy, two genres that are generally treated with disdain by producers and studios. In spite of its troubled post-production, plagued with creative differences, the studio still released the film.  How did it fare at the box office?

You might be asking yourself how can a producer read the script, greenlight the film and then not like the film that ends up getting made? My take on it is that producers probably said yes to Nightbreed because of the box office success of Barker’s previous film: Hellraiser (1987). They wanted Barker to produce another hit, they didn’t care what it was. But still, why greenlight a film only to give the filmmaker hell when they shoot the script that was approved? I mean, it was right there in black and white. Monsters, Midian, gore…why after its being filmed do they suddenly get cold feet? Did they even bother reading the script? Maybe once the shooting commenced they realized just what a strange and unorthodox film this was. Maybe then they realized that there’s no target audience to sell this movie to, it’s a blending of genres, its horror, it’s a love story, it’s a film in which the monsters are the heroes! And that last point is the one that irked producers the most; they didn’t know how to market a film in which the monsters are the “good guys”.

Another possible reason why this film was treated with such disdain by the studio had something to do with the films subversive message, the clear hatred towards authority and religious figures. I mean, this is a film in which a faithless priest ends up killing a cop! As you can see, many things lined up against Nightbreed which resulted in a shitty trailer that gave audiences the impression that this was a slasher film, even going as far as re-shooting some sequences to give it a slasher feel. And Nightbreed wasn't a slasher, it was a dark fantasy. And if there’s one thing audiences hate its being lied to. And so, the film tanked at the box office, this even though it was made with a mere 11 million dollar budget! In my opinion, a decent trailer and some faith in the filmmakers original vision would have increased Nightbreed’s chances of making a bit more money upon its release. I mean, sure it’s not a mainstream film, but it could have made more than 8 million, which is what it ended up making at the box office. 

  

But as if often happens, audiences discovered Nightbreed on home video and turned it into a cult classic. People love this movie so much that someone did their own cut of the film called “The Cabal Cut”  which included deleted scenes never seen on the theatrical cut! They even made special screenings to show this cut of the film. Fans have always wanted a director’s cut of this film, and well, their screams were heard because the fine gals and ghouls at Shout Factory made it possible. They gathered all the deleted scenes which were in a vault somewhere, they got the original cast to dub some new dialog and they re-edited the film which is now twenty whole minutes longer! And they got Clive Barker to oversee the whole process! How cool is all that!? Freaking sweet is what it is. But the question remained: which cut of the film is better? What are the differences between theatrical and directors cut?

The main thing with this new cut is: we get more monsters! I can’t believe they cut some of this stuff out, I guess they cut out the weirder looking monsters for whatever the reason, but there’s a ton of new monsters you never got to see before, even if just for a second, but they are finally here, which is of course cool because that’s what this whole film was always about, the monsters! This cut of the film is a bit gorier, but not by a whole lot. We get to see that Boone was a mechanic, and that Lori was a lounge singer, which is completely unnecessary for the film if you ask me. I mean, with regards to these two scenes where we see Lori and Boone during their day jobs, well, I can see why the studio thought that they could be cut out. We really didn't need to see Lori singing a whole song. But anyways, getting back to the good stuff, the biggest changes come during the ending of the film, which is all different. Scenes are switched around, and happen at an entirely different pace and order than in the original theatrical cut. We get to see extended scenes involving Baphomet, which I always wanted more of. I mean, Baphomet is the weirdest thing about the movie. What the hell is he exactly? I still don’t fully understand, but I wanted more and I got it. On this new cut certain characters have a different demise, and so we get to see them die in entirely different and violent ways. Priests turn evil (as they often do in Clive Barker films) and evil cops get their due, which is probably why these scenes were cut out, cops are depicted as evil, racist, violent bigots. There’s a lot of hatred on this film for intolerant bigots in general.  

The director's cut is a bit more violent!

And finally, the very ending of the film was changed drastically; Lori and Boone have more moments together and their relationship takes a very interesting twist that I loved. Basically, the film ends on an entirely different note, with the doors left open for a whole series of films to continue. I would have loved to see this series take off the way Barker had intended. After all, Barker wanted to make the “Star Wars of Monster Movies” and if that isn’t an enticing enough remark about Nightbreed, I don’t know what is. My only gripe with this cut is that they deleted the ending we saw in the theatrical release, the one in which Ashberry (the evil priest) puts his hands inside Decker’s chest and brings him back to life as Decker screams! When I originally saw the film, that ending had such an impact on me! I still love it, I wish it hadn’t been taken out, so you might want to hang on to your theatrical cut, because it still has that original ending which is pretty cool. But whatever, watching this directors cut is a real treat. And it’s a reason of celebration for Clive Barker fans and fans of the horror genre in general. While the film still retains its flaws, like for example it’s often times cheesy situations and dialog, Nightbreed still has a lot of heart, for underneath its monstrous exterior, this is a film about learning to accept each other for who we are. There is space in this world for all of us, isn’t there?

Rating: 4 out of 5

Scanners II: The New Order (1991) and Scanners III: The Takeover (1991)

David Cronenberg’s Scanners (1981) introduced us to powerful beings known as ‘scanners’. Scanners can do all sorts of nifty things with their powers, for example they can move things with their mind, read people’s thoughts, probe your brain and oh yeah, blow your head into smithereens. So of course somebody is going to want them, somebody is going to hunt them down. To me, the original Scanners was an allegory for people who wake up and see the world for what it is, they are intelligent, they are not sheep, they know what’s going down, so of course they are chased down by the powers that be for this. Their minds are too powerful! It’s one of Cronenberg’s finest films. And like most Cronenberg films, it’s filled with psychological themes. To me, Scanners was a story meant to be told in one film, it said what it had to say with the first film and that was that. It’s not the kind of film you want to see a sequel to, the original was good, it shocked, it impacts you, leave it there. But you know how Hollywood works, they like to squeeze ideas till they can’t be squeezed no more and so this is how we come to Scanners II: The New Order and Scanners III: The Takeover (1991).

Good Scanner

 Scanners II: The New Order plays with the ideas presented in Cronenberg’s film, but goes in another direction; a cheesy direction. In this films scanners start to surface in the world and dirty politicians want to control and use them for their evil purposes. Same as in Cronenberg’s original film, in Scanners II we meet a good scanner and a bad scanner. The good scanner is called David and he’s studying to become a vet. He is just learning to discover his abilities. On the dark side of the spectrum we got Peter Drak, the bad scanner who has turned to the dark side of the force and uses his powers for evil, like controlling video games with the power of his mind and joining a band of corrupt cops and politicians. Can David stop Peter from helping the corrupt politicians from reaching power?

Bad Scanner

The thing with this second film is that it’s a low budget straight to video sequel to a good movie, so you can automatically expect the quality levels to go down. And yeah, this film technically feels like a low budget version of Cronenbergs film, at times it feels like a tv movie, but the thing about it is that it is actually a fun movie, fast paced and entertaining. Yeah it’s cheesy and yeah it’s got some bad dialog in there, but overall, I think this movie is a hell of a lot better than it has any right to be and I think a lot of that has to do with the director and the fast paced/gory nature of the film. The film grabs you right from it’s opening sequence where Drak, the bad scanner enters an arcade and starts to control a video game with the power of his mind, people freak out, so he goes nuts and starts pushing people with his powers. The scene is great, it establishes that this character’s a nut case! The film keeps going like that all the way through, something exciting or shocking happening all the time; which is good news for us the viewers because even though the film is low budget, it still grabs you and keeps your attention, which is not always the case with low budget b-movies like this one.

Films dealing with telekinesis have always interested me, if you’d like to read more about these films go here. So anyways, of course this one had me glued to the screen. The ample gore also got my attention. Cronenberg’s film has that famous head explosion that everyone loves and this one delivers a similar and equally successful head explosion, but it focuses even more on gory effects than Cronenberg’s film did. Yes my friends, this film comes to us from that wonderful era in filmmaking when make-up effects were king and so we get tons of cool make up effects! Faces get distorted, heads get blown up and all sorts of nasty stuff happens. So the high gore level keeps things interesting. I also enjoyed how they played around with things that the Scanners can do with their powers, like controlling somebody from a distance. All in all, this is an entertaining sequel, and it actually has some cool shots and locations. So it’s not a total waste of a sequel. It’s not a “worthy” sequel to the original, but as a b-movie you could do a heck of a lot worse. 

Then we have Scanners III: The Take Over; which to me takes a nose dive into stupidity. I mean, where the first film tried is best to retain a “serious” tone to it, this second one turns into a pretty stupid film. Weird part is that it was made by the same director and producer, but for some reason this film doesn’t work as well as the second, I think it might have something to do with having less money. Okay, so here’s the thing with these Scanner films, they don’t have a continuity to them. They might reference some small detail from one of the other films, but for the most part all these films are stand alone films, unrelated to one another. The only thing that holds them together are the scanners and the drug used to control them, the Ephemorol. Since this one is the third film, they now call the drug EPH-3, on the second film it was called EPH-2. That’s about as far as we go in continuity my friends. But anyhow, speaking of plot, this movie actually has an interesting concept to it. Sure it’s bathed in cheese and bad, bad dialog, but the idea behind the film is actually a cool one.  

While on previous films Ephemerol was administered through a syringe, on this third film it is a patch that you wear on your neck and only lasts 24 hours. So anyhow, the main character on the film is this news reporter named Helena Monet. She starts out really kind hearted and nice, she doesn’t even use her scanner abilities for evil; but once she starts taking EPH-3 she turns into this evil lady who suddenly decides to use her scanner powers to control the world! Or something like that. The film isn’t very clear in explaining exactly what she wants to do. So here’s where the cool concept works itself in: since she works on television, she gets this nifty idea that she can use her powers to control people through television! And her channel gets 75 million viewers…so if she does things right she can end up controlling them all! Cool idea right? Kind of reminded me of the plot for Batman Forever (1995), where The Riddler wanted to do the same exact thing. So anyhow, I thought that was a pretty cool concept but it makes no sense whatsoever.

Sexy Bad Scanner

The thing with this movie is that it’s so cheesy that I couldn’t help but laugh throughout the whole damn thing. Me and my friends couldn’t stop watching, or laughing. In my book this one is a notch below the second one because it’s a terrible script that fails to explain things clearly. Like why does Helena want to suddenly control the world? There’s this laser that does something to the scanners, but what the hell is it and how does it work? Who the hell knows, it just does. It’s a pretty stupid (and therefore funny) film. Take for example the main character in the film, a scanner named Alex. He ends up killing a friend of his by mistake during a Christmas party, so in order to deal with this he pulls a Rambo III and goes to Thailand, to a monastery, to train with monks. A scanner training with monks, that’s gotta be good for something. Without a doubt the single worst moment in the whole franchise is this moment in which Helena makes this guy dance and strip in the middle of a restaurant, again, a lame attempt to infuse the film with some comedy. Even funnier are the faces that the actors make when they are using their powers! After a while they crack you up. There are many goofs all over the movie, like actors waiting for the camera to pass by, scenes where you can tell that it’s the double and not the main actor, visible cables, so yeah my friends, this one has goofs galore. Yet another element that makes it hilarious.

Scanners III isn’t as gory as the second one. For some reason they decided to downplay the gore and inject comedy into the film, which didn’t work at all. The filmmakers had this strange idea to add some evil scanners that were supposed to serve as comedy relief? Unfortunately they simply stand out, as if they belonged in some other movie. How funny were these three scanners? Well, one of them dies inside of a revolving door! The death is simply put: cartoony. Another thing that brings this third film down for me is that they obviously had less money to make it because there is less of everything. For example, the final confrontation, which we’ve come to expect as gory and violent, ends with nothing but a wimper. It was not very exciting if you ask me. I would have to say that the best thing the film has going for it is Liliana Komorowska, the beautiful actress who plays Helena, she plays her character really over the top, and she has no problems with nudity! Speaking of nudity, this film has tons of it!

At the end of the day, Scanners III: The Takeover is one of those movies that is so “bad” you won’t be able to stop watching. Ever wanted to see a scanner blowing up a pigeon with the power of their minds? Well it happens here! It’s one of those films where you want to see just how bad they can get. And trust me, this one just keeps going and going and going with its bad movie self. So yeah, don’t expect a good movie, just a funny goofy one that you can make fun of and you’ll be fine. There’s more Scanner movies…there’s Scanner Cop (1994) and Scanner Cop II (1995), both of which I have erased from my memory banks. I’ll re-watch them at some point, unfortunately they don’t seem to be available on DVD, maybe I’ll simply have to watch them on YouTube, which I hate to do. I’ve gone on long enough about these movies. I recommend you watch Cronenberg’s film instead which is the superior of all these films. Just remember, Scanners II, gory and fast paced semi-decent sequel, Scanners III so bad that it’s a laugh riot.

Scanners II: The New Order (1991): 3 out of 5

Scanners III: The Takeover (1991): 2 out of 5 

eXistenZ (1999)

Title: eXistenZ (1999)

Director: David Cronenberg

Cast: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Willem Dafoe, Ian Holm

eXistenZ comes to us from David Cronenberg a director who loves to swim in the waters of the philosophical, the psychosexual, the violent and the just plain horrifying. Cronenberg explores the most basic parts of human nature: violence and sex. If we look through most of Cronenberg’s films, they all deal with many of these same themes. Take for example The Fly (1986); a very sexual film about a scientist who embraces his aggressive side once he starts turning into the monstrous Fly; everything ends rather violently on that one. The Brood (1979) is about a woman who externalizes all her worst feelings by giving birth to these violent, murderous little kids. Scanners (1981) is all about the power of the mind! And the abuse of that power! Again, on Scanners humans embrace their violent side, the end result is a confrontation between two powerful Scanners and the end result is not a happy one. A History of Violence (2005), well, the title says it all, but again, a very violent and sexual film.

Videodrome (1983) is a good example as well; aside from the themes Cronenberg usually addresses in his films, Videodrome is a film that explores the media and humanities obsession with it. Why do we love television so much? Why are we so obsessed with what we see? “The television screen is the retina of the mind’s eye” Cronenberg goes on to explore our obsession with all the sex and violence shown on television. It seems Cronenberg is making a case for humanity; as if he wants us to live in the real world rather than spending our time sitting in front of a television, obsessed with porn and graphic violence. The image of a television gobbling up James Woods lets us know exactly what Cronenberg was concerned with while making Videodrome; television is consuming us! It’s no wonder that at some point a character yells “death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!”  It’s as if Cronenberg’s characters had a personal battle against television screens, a battle between freedom of the mind vs. a mind enslaved by television programming; a battle that I’m sad to say humanity has lost. Many take for granted whatever is spewed out of the television screen.

What eXistenZ does is play with these themes presented in Videodrome, but from the point of view of video games. Same as television, videogames offer an escape. In fact, if we get right down to it, video games are a much more immersive experience. You essentially get to live a ‘second life’; you control an alter ego through imaginary worlds. In these games you live or die by the decisions you make, in this way, videogames serve as an allegory for real life. You make the right choices; you just might make it to the end. Modern society is just as obsessed with videogames because they offer an escape not unlike the virtual reality worlds that appear in films like Johnny Mnemonic (1995) or The Matrix (1999). You plug yourself in and you’re in another world for hours on end if you like. But, at what point does the videogame world become more interesting than the real world?

In eXistenZ we meet Allegra Geller, a video game programmer who is trying out her new game with a test audience, just to see how they like it and to work out any kinks. In a way, eXistenZ reminded me of Total Recall (1989) because in eXistenZ, once you plug into the virtual reality world of the game, things start to get bat shit insane, which of course is where the fun starts. The thing about eXistenZ is that same as as in Videodrome, there’s people out there fighting to disconnect humans from the fakeness of the game world, fighting for humans to live out their real lives instead of their virtual ones. So we have these guerilla groups who are out to kill videogame programmers, which is what the film is mostly about. Allegra Geller and her bodyguard Ted Pikul running from these anti-gaming terrorist organizations.

Many things make this one extremely watchable, first of all is that feeling of ‘what the hell is going on here’ you’ll feel throughout the whole film. The feeling that you know something’s wrong, but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is. Are we in the game? Or are we in the real world? Then we have Willem Defoe playing a character called ‘Gas’; really freaky type of character. Then there’s the body horror element, in the form of the actual gaming system. The best way I can describe it is imagine if your gaming system was a living being that you had to take care of and that you plug directly into your spinal cord whenever you want to play? Like in many Cronenberg films, there’s some really gory scenes, overall, exactly the type of thing you’d expect from Cronenberg. So yeah, this is one of those movies with a real weird vibe to it, similar in someways to Cronenberg’s own Videodrome and films like Tron (1982) or The Matrix (1999), where most of the film takes place in a virtual reality world; only this virtual reality world comes from the twisted mind of David Cronenberg, which is a-okay in my book.  

Rating: 4 out of 5

Naked Lunch (1991)

Title: Naked Lunch (1991)

Director: David Cronenberg

Writer: David Cronenberg (script) and William S. Burroughs (novel)

Cast: Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, Julian Sands, Roy Scheider, Joseph Scoren, Monique Mercure

Review:

Naked Lunch is a film that many consider to be incomprehensible, the kind of film that some will watch and inevitably reach a point where they’ll think “what the hell is going on here?” I can understand anyone who ends up feeling this way while watching Naked Lunch because it certainly has various levels of bizarreness going for it, but in my opinion the film is not the unintelligible mess that some make it out to be. Personally I think you can watch Naked Lunch as a comment on drug addiction and nothing more and you’ll be fine, but you’d understand the movie on a whole other level if you go in knowing and understanding the films background, where it’s coming from and how it came to be. So with this review my dear readers I offer you a small glimpse of the tale that comes before the movie, so it’ll help you understand it just a little better. But going into Naked Lunch what you must first keep in mind is that it’s a film about writers and writing. It’s a film that explores that whole world of literary guys and gals who live, breath and die for writing. As one of the characters says in the film: "It's a literary high, a Kafka high" 

Naked Lunch the film, is based on William S. Burroughs novel of the same name. Now Naked Lunch isn’t any old novel, it was written by Burroughs in 1959 and it is based on Burroughs own experiences with various forms of drug addiction. Upon it’s first release the book was considered highly controversial, it was banned in many states and countries because it was considered too vulgar.  Burroughs was a Junkie in the worst sense of the word. He was not only addicted to Heroin, he also dabbled in all sorts of drugs. He got into all sorts of legal troubles throughout his life because of his drug addiction, he even did some jail time. In a way, I’d compare him with Hunter S. Thompson; both of their writings where based on their own personal experiences with drugs. It’s like they went into this crazy drug addled trip and then came back and reported everything they saw in their hallucinatory states. This is why in the film; the main character takes a drug that takes him to an “alternate universe” called ‘Interzone’. Being “in the zone” is a term often times used to refer to being under the influence, so in the film, whenever the main character says he’s in Interzone, he’s in a drug trip. In the same way that Dorothy visited the magical Land of Oz when she got hit in the head, William Lee, the films main character visits Interzone when he takes the drug called ‘Black Meat’. So you have to pay attention to the moments when we are in Interzone, and the moments when we are in the real world.

I saw Interzone as Burroughs own literary fantasy land, where everyone is a writer, everyone has their own living typewriters; that’s right, on Interzone typewriters are alive (actually they resemble giant insects!) and they also speak. The typewriters in Interzone are sexually excited when they like what you type into them. Of course, this is a metaphor for a writers own desire to write things that are worth a damn. In Interzone, if your writing is good, maybe your typewriter will have an orgasm. The theme of writing and the things that writers care about permeates the whole film. In this film characters talk about things like the validity of stream of consciousness writing vs. a more coherent form of writing. They talk about writing what comes out of your brain, vs. constant rewriting and so forth. So if you’re not into writing, then don’t bother with this film! If on the other hand you like to explore the nature of writing, and the crazy world of writers, then indulge, this movie was made for you.

Now something that we need to keep in mind when watching Naked Lunch is that it’s more of a Cronenberg film then an actual adaptation of William Burrough’s novel, so don’t expect a literal translation of the book. Cronenberg himself has gone down as saying that this film functions more as an amalgamation of many of Burroughs novels, including Junkie, which is also one of his most famous ones. Cronenberg explains that Naked Lunch the film, captures a lot of who Burrough’s was as a human being, it tries to capture the kind of life he lived, which is probably why the film dives deep into the life of a man who struggles with his own homosexual desires. Other similarities with Burroughs life include, same as the main character in the film, working as an exterminator, being addicted to various drugs and accidentally killing his wife, an event that marked Burrough’s life and writing till the end of his days. In fact, he said on one occasion that it was her death that pushed him to become an accomplished writer. So do not expect an exact literal translation of the book, rather, expect a mix up of events and elements from Burroughs life, elements from various Burroughs novels and Cronenberg’s own visual perks as a director and storyteller, for example, the insect typewriters are all Cronenberg, who admits to having something of an obsession with insects, what can you expect from the guy who directed The Fly (1986)? In my opinion, this melding of two genius minds makes for an extremely interesting and unique film, one that you won’t soon forget.

Naked Lunch cost something from 16 to 18 million dollars, but only made about 2.6 in theaters, something to be expected from a film that’s so offbeat. I sometimes wonder how David Cronenberg continues to make movies! Sure he has a hit every now and then, like The Fly (1986) and A History of Violence (2005), but a lot of his films don’t make their budget back or don’t make enough to be considered a success, so how does he do it? He makes flops yet always finds someone to finance his next one. Take for example Cosmopolis (2012), a film that cost 20 million to make yet only made 6! It flopped because it was so dense, so stale, 90% of the film takes place inside of a limo! I’m not saying I didn’t like Cosmopolis (I actually enjoyed the themes) but I will say that it’s not an easy film to see on one sitting because everything happens inside of a car and there comes a point where you can’t avoid thinking it’s monotonous; a fact that ensured its failure even though it starred current ‘it’ boy Robert Pattinson. And yet there’s Cronenberg, slated to direct yet another film called Maps to the Stars (2014). But who cares if they make money or not as long as he keeps making his movies. I’ve always admired Cronenberg as a director, in my opinion, he has never sold out. He refuses to make stupid cinema, and for that I respect the guy immensely. Cronenberg caters to those that like brainy films, films with meat to them, this of course does not sit well with the masses who love only explosions and special effects. Cronenberg aims to feed your mind, his films always have a philosophical angle to them, which is what attracts me to them.

Cronenberg (right) next to Burroughs

     

Naked Lunch is a film that speaks in symbolisms, so when you see something terribly strange like a person who kills bugs with his breath, well, you just gotta ask yourself what the filmmakers are trying to say with these visuals. Same goes for all the bizarre things you’ll see in this movie which range from giant half caterpillar, half human creatures, to alien like beings known as ‘Mugwumps’. But when we look at it from a Cronenberg perspective, and the kind of films that Cronenberg makes, all this weirdness fits in perfectly, after all, we’re talking here about the guy who made films like Videodrome (1983) and eXistenZ (1999)! Bottom line with this movie is that you must strap yourself tight for one bizarre trip. It’s not a film for everyone. This is a film for those who have a resistance to the bizarre, the dark, the depressive, if you can take a trip to the dark side of the moon, then go for it. Otherwise you’ll just be weirded out.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Videodrome (1983)

Title: Videodrome (1983)

Director: David Cronenberg

Cast: James Woods, Deborah Harry

Review:

Videodrome is a film that I’ve re-watched many times over and honestly, every time I see it I see a whole other level of it opening up before me like some giant, pulsating vagina of the mind! What? You don’t know what I’m talking about? Well, after you see this Cronenberg masterpiece, you’ll understand. At first glance, Videodrome might come off as a movie that’s simply out to shock you with its gory, slimy body horror (and does do that exceedingly well) but if we peel back the layers of shock and titillation, we discover that this film has a whole lot to offer us. It speaks, above all things about the over saturation of sensory input we live in. As Debbie Harry’s character ‘Nicky Brand’ puts it “I think we live in over stimulated times, we crave stimulation for its own sake, we gorge ourselves on it. We always want more, whether its tactile, emotional or sexual, and I think that’s bad” Problem is, she’s a complete hypocrite because she herself is a sensory addict! And at the end of the day, aren’t we all? I see many of Cronenberg’s films as essays on any given subject, he’s films are always so psychological, so Freudian, that I find myself searching for themes and symbolisms as soon as I push that play button. Let’s see what Cronenberg was dissecting this time around shall we? 

With Videodrome Cronenberg aims his scalpel at the media and how its constant hammering of our psyches allows it to program us and make us see things in a certain way, ultimately serving as a tool for our manipulation. Television is a truly powerful tool that is used to send out ideas to the masses, to program them. To quote the film “the television screen is the retina of the mind’s eye”. On Videodrome this is represented by a living, breathing video cassette that the bad guys insert into Maxx Renn’s stomach! The video cassette tells him what he must do, like a program, then, like some robot, Maxx goes and does what he’s been programmed to do. Maxx is a tool of the system, he is a product of Videodrome, addicted to television, and he will do what it tells it to. This is why at one point in the film, Maxx says “I am the Video Word made Flesh”. We don’t realize it, but little by little the media can mold our thoughts, this is the main reason why I can’t watch television. I am a self proclaimed television hater; I can’t stand the endless barrage of commercials! Of course, there are selected shows that I’ll watch, but I don’t watch them on television, I get them on dvd and watch them without the commercials, because commercials are my bane! I hate those things with a passion! I hate the brain branding! I hate their manipulative nature! I hate the fact that everywhere I look, every moment of my life, someone is trying to sell me something, so in order to cut down on the amount of commercials I see per day, I avoid television like the plague. Habitual television viewers submit themselves to an obscene amount of commercials, that, same as the living breathing video cassette in Videodrome end up programming them into buying things they don’t need. This is what Cronenberg speaks of, how television can choke you, create a “tumor in your brain” that can change your thoughts or make you do things you don’t have to.  

But Cronenberg's Videodrome offers us the way out of all of this. The answer is simple, de-program yourself and get yourself reborn into “the new flesh”! The idea behind this film is not so different from what the Wachowskis were trying to say with The Matrix (1999). It’s about disconnecting from The Matrix and living in the real world. Videodrome plays with the idea that society as we know it exists under a veil of illusions and lies, and that we need to wake up to the truth, to the way things really are. This is why James Wood’s ‘Maxx Renn’ ends up saying “Death to Videodrome, long live the new flesh”, with this action taken by Maxx Renn, Cronenberg is saying that we need to cut with the programming and become a new person, reborn to a world where the media manipulating our actions or our way of thinking or seeing things. The New Flesh refers to the rebirth of the self, that moment when we disconnect with all the lies, and the illusions that exist in our world and wake up into the real world; no matter how ugly, corrupted or sad it can be, whatever it is, it’s real. The film of course puts its point across in an extremely violent fashion, but the point is made, kill your old self, disconnect from Videodrome, from the Cathode Ray, from the proverbial “system” and become a new, self thinking, inquisitive person. The films grand finale is not made to be taken literally; it’s a symbolism for what needs to be done to become psychologically free.

In many ways, Videodrome was prophetic of many things that were to come in the future. How so? Well, for example, even though this film was made in 1983, it was already talking about “virtual reality” which would eventually become what we now know as “the internet” that cybernetic world that exists somewhere out there in cyberspace, wherever that may be. The place we all connect to on a daily basis, the new religion of the world. Videodrome predicted that “in the future, everyone will have special names” same as you, my dear reader, probably have a pseudonym you use when online. My most recent watch of Videodrome made me realize that it also predicted another invention, albeit a more modern one. You see, there’s a new technology in diapers called ‘Google Glass’ that will apparently put the power of a smart phone on a pair of glasses. The idea being that instead of fiddling with your phone, swiping things with your fingers, you can simply speak commands at your glasses and they will send a message, make a call, take a picture or film a video. All you have to do is start a sentence by saying “Ok, Glass” and the glasses will do what you ask them to, even do a search on Google! In Cronenberg’s film, when Maxx Renn wants to meet the makers of Videodrome, he has to walk in through an optical shop because the creators of Videodrome are getting ready to launch their latest invention that resembles  Google Glass!  Glasses for the public that will allow the powers that be to control people easier! So according to this film, Google Glass is the devil!  Ha ha! Well, you have to admit, this new invention has its advantages as well as disadvantages. Wearing these babies will be like carrying around a spy camera everywhere you go. And I don’t even want to think how commercials will fit into these little eye glasses…the commercials will not be even closer to your brain! The film speaks about how “the eyes are the windows of the soul” and I agree, you can tell a lot from looking a person in the eyes, but what goes in through those eyes matters a lot too.  

If you end up enjoying Videodrome, which I think you will, then I highly recommend checking out Cronenberg’s spiritual sequel to Videodrome called eXistenz (1999), which plays with a lot of the same themes, but from the standpoint of video game technology. On that film people reject reality by connecting themselves into this video game world that mimics, almost to perfection, the real world. But the world of eXistenz isn’t the real world, and so, people live in a lie, a fake world. Which is true, take for example how kids today will play more sports on their Playstation’s then in the real world, with their real friends and you’ll see just how prophetic eXistenz also was. These two films would actually make a great double feature, so if you’re in the mood for that, I highly recommend it! Now if only Cronenberg would do a film like Videodrome or eXistenz, but about the internet! I’d love to see what sort of things he could prophesize about that! Geez, now that I think about it, Cronenberg is a prophet for our times! Videodrome is probably his masterpiece, it sends out a strong resonant message that is even more relevant today than it was back in 1983 when this film was made. Highly recommend it, let Professor Brian O’Blivion show you the way!

Rating: 5 out of 5 

Blood and Donuts (1995)

Title: Blood and Donuts (1995)

Director: Holly Dale

Cast: Gordon Currie, Louis Ferreira, Helen Clarkson, David Cronenberg

Review:

Blood & Donuts is this very strange kind of film, I caught it on VHS back in 1995 when it was first released and immediately fell in love with it because of this strange sort of vibe that it exudes. I mean, I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s the fact that it’s one of these films that takes place entirely during the nighttime, there’s something about movies that take place during the night; they have the weirdest characters and this eerie sort of vibe to them that I enjoy a lot, the dark empty streets, the dim glow of the street lights, the fog, the shadows, the moon. Two movies come to mind that are like this: Martin Scorcese’s After Hours (1985) and Sam Raimi’s Crimewave (1985), cue ‘The Freaks Come Out at Night’ by Whodini. These type of films focus on those unique individuals who enjoy the wee hours of the night; I am one of these individuals, in fact, if it was by me, I’d work during the night and sleep during the day, just like a vampire. There’s less of a hassle to life during these hours, less people out, no scalding hot sun, no traffic jams  and no stress. The downside of course is that this is the time for the ghouls to emerge; in the case of Blood & Donuts we’re talking about vampires, taxi drivers with thick New York accents, 24 Hour Donut Shop employees and wannabe gangsters who work for David Cronenberg; welcome to the strange world of Blood & Donuts.

The story focuses on an age old vampire named Boya. When we first meet him, Boya is sleeping the sleep of the undead, when suddenly, a  golf ball breaks through the window of the basements where he rests and awakens him from a 25 year old slumber. He is then faced with having to adjust to the 90’s. He knows no one, and for a time is all alone in the world. Thankfully he has some clothes and money buried inside of an old tomb which he unearths. Later he befriends Earl, a taxi driver and falls for a Donut and Coffee shop employee named Molly. He now has to protect these two friends from a pair of gangsters who have unfinished business with Earl while at the same time dealing with a vengeful ex-girlfriend, it's not easy being a vampire!  

For me the main attraction with Blood & Donuts is how offbeat it is. The performances are quirky and unpredictable as is the rest of the film which by the way is very low-key. This isn’t a film about legions of vampires fighting werewolves or a film with an emphasis on gore or action. Nope, this film is more personal and minimalist in nature, it’s an artsy fartsy sort of vampire flick, which of course makes it unique in my book. The scope of the story centers on these two gangsters who want to use Earls taxi to  conduct their gangster business. If they have someone they want to go and kill, they want Earl to drive them there. Of course, Earl wants nothing more to do with these guys; he just wants to be a regular old cabbie; but not these two guys, they want to carry corpses on Earls cab!  And so, since Earl and Molly are entwined, Boya ends up having to protect the both of them, that’s about as far as the story goes. Basically, it’s a film that’s really all about friendship and self sacrifice, same as The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), this film is about a monster looking for some friendship in this big bad world; more than anything what Boya wants is love. And this is the one element that Blood & Donuts shares with many vampire films, that rampant romanticism, that love obsession that vampires are known for.

The character of Boya, played by actor Gordon Currie is one of the most interesting elements in the film. He is the reluctant vampire, he doesn’t want to be one, yet he is, so he relies on feeding on rats and pigeons to survive. He tries to hide his vampirism, yet vamps out whenever he truly has to in order to protect his friends and loved ones. He is a humanist, he believes everyone is special; everyone deserves a day in the sun, a shot at happiness. Boya’s and endearing sort of character, you’ll get to like him even though he’s a vampire. He muses on things like the sadness he felt when humans first walked on the moon, when they corrupted it by walking on it. When he wakes up from his slumber, he looks like Jim Morrison just woke up from his grave to roam the modern world;  a hippy out of the 60’s and into the 90’s, so in some ways this films plays a bit like a fish out of water story. Most of the performances are solid, for example we also get a great David Cronenberg playing a gangster called Stephen. Cronenberg can really play a psycho extremely well.  Cronenberg’s character radiates a controlled sort of evil. He says clever lines like: “Am I employing retards? I have nothing against retards myself, I just can’t afford to  employ them” Unfortunately, the only downside in terms of performances is the character of Earl played by Louis Ferreira. He speaks in this bad Christopher Walken impersonation that can get a bit annoying at times, but it’s not so bad you’ll want to stop watching the film. In fact, Earl kind of grows on you with his dim wittedness.

Blood & Donuts is also a film that explores the ins and outs of relationships. Boya falls in love with Molly, his new love interest, but an old girlfriend named Rita has a grudge with Boya and follows him everywhere he goes, searching for revenge. Boya is afraid of relationships because they always end somehow, he knows this because he’s lived far longer than any human and all of his previous lovers have died. Will this knowledge stop Boya from letting love into his life again? Should we be afraid to love because it might some day end? These are some of the ideas the film explores. In conclusion, Blood & Donuts is an offbeat film; it won’t go where you expect it to in terms of vampire lore. Performances are quirky and different, Boya is likable and the film has an eerie, dream like vibe to it. The film was made with very little money, which is probably why the story is so simplistic in nature, but it is saved by decent performances and originality. It has cult following written all over it, honestly don’t understand why this film hasn’t made its way onto dvd yet. 

Rating 3 ½ out of 5 

Rabid (1977)

Title: Rabid (1977)

Director/Writer: David Cronenberg

Cast: Marylin Chambers

Review:

Cronenberg’s films are always laced somehow with a couple of recurrent themes. Amongst them are: psychological woes, sexuality, body horror and violence. To this day, Cronenberg’s films are like this. History of Violence (2005) being a good example of just that. Cronenberg’s films started out this way with Shivers (1975) and continue to be this way all through out his illustrious career. Rabid, Cronenberg's second feature film is another example of how his films are sexually and psychologically charged head trips. I recently did a blog entry (in collaboration with two excellent blogs Cool Ass Cinema and The Celluloid Highway) on 16 Unusual Vampire Films. On this list we included a bunch of off beat vampire films that can be considered strange and unusual. Unfortunately, I failed to include Rabid on that list, but only because I had not seen it. I would definitely include it on that list now!

Marylin Chambers plays Rose

Rabid is the story of young girl named Rose who suddenly finds herself involved in a motorcycle accident. Her abdomen is horribly maimed so she has to undergo experimental plastic surgery. The procedure works, but a side effect of the operation is that she develops a taste for human blood! A phallic like tooth grows out of her underarm (of all places!) and she starts to feed on people like a vampire! It’s not long before the whole town is infected and turned into mad murderous zombie/vampires!

The oddest thing for me about Rabid is that Rose is a vampire who bites people with a tooth that emerges from her underarm. Essentially, she has to hug her victims in order to feed on them. This phallic tooth that emerges from her and bites people and infects them made me think about Cronenberg’s reoccurring themes, and that he was probably commenting on sexually transmitted deceases with this film. Leave it to Cronenberg to make a vampire movie that is actually about sexually transmitted deceases! The reason I say this is because Rose’s vampire tooth is phallic, it is introduced into another person, and this is how they get infected, that to me is a sexual reference right there no matter how you look at it. On the film, in order for Rose to feed on her victims she seduces them and when she finally has them in her arms, that’s when she strikes! When she has gained their trust and confidence, when they are most vulnerable. Kind of the same way a person who has an STD will lure you in and have sex with you even if they know that the end result will be infecting you.

There is another scene where Rose is confronted with the fact that she is infecting people with this decease and her answer to it is “I have to do it! I need to have it!” Kind of like the same plea that a person with a sexually transmitted decease might make when confronted with the fact that he or she is spreading a decease when he or she has sex with others. I mean, there is a reason why STD’s get spread around, it’s because people who have them have sex with people who don’t. And often times the people doing the spreading know what they are doing, but they do it anyways, because their sexual urges are stronger than their moral values. Same as Rose’s impulse to feed on human blood is strong in spite of the fact that every time she feeds, she turns her victim into a rabid, murderous zombie/vampire. A person who does this is type of thing is morally reprehensible, because essentially, you are harming other people just so you can get your own personal satisfaction. It is a selfish thing to do. Cronenberg makes his final statement on these themes with the last frames of the film, which I of course will not comment on so you can see it for yourself, but it is a chilling last frame.

The decease spreads through the town until at one point the whole town is infected with it and people go on violent feeding binges! At one point, one of the infected starts attacking people inside of a mall, so a cop starts shooting his gun and a dude dressed in a Santa Claus suit gets shot right in the middle of a shopping mall, while little kids are watching! One awesome moment has a doctor who is performing surgery suddenly turn rabid and he chops off a nurses finger with a pair of scissors so he can feed on her blood! A lady turns into a zombie while riding on the subway station, chaos ensues! Things get crazy after the contagion spreads. Will they ever catch Rose? Will the contagion be stopped or will it spread across the nation?

Cronenberg wanted Sissy Spacek to play the role of Rose, but the studio didn’t think she was a well known actress so they went with porn star Marylin Chambers instead. Thing is, that as they were shooting Rabid, Carrie was released and went on to become a huge hit! Unfortunately, it was too late to get her since they had already started shooting the film with Chambers who by the way does a decent job with her performance! I think having Chambers on this film actually helped since Rabid is a very sexually charged film. At one point Rose goes on a hunting spree and ends up actually walking into a porn theater to picks up her next victim! Having Chambers on this film was a plus for me, she was an porn actress trying to go legit in real films, she was hungry, she was giving it her all and it shows. There is one awesome scene in which Rose is twisting and turning in the floor because she hasn’t fed in a long time, she looks like a junky in need of her fix, awesome acting right there. Too bad her career never went any further.

This movie has a lot of similarities with Cronenberg’s previous film: Shivers (1975). It has the same basic premise of a decease spreading and turning people violent, but in my opinion, Rabid is the superior picture of the two. My guess is that Cronenberg was simply trying to do a better version of Shivers. One thing always amazed me about Cronenberg as a filmmaker: he improved by leaps and bounds with each movie he made. Rabid was his second feature film, and it was already a million times better technically speaking than Shivers ever was. To me Shivers is a very flawed film, I liked it, but technically speaking it wasn’t Cronenberg’s best, the sound and the lighting were very weak in that picture. This was of course due to the fact that Shivers was Cronenberg’s first feature film. I find it kind of strange how Rabid turned out to be one of my favorite Cronengerg films, I left it for last thinking it wasn’t going to be all that good and it turned out to be a solid sophomore effort from Cronenberg, and one that cemented Cronenberg’s career as a the king of psychological horror.

Rating: 4 out of 5