Breeders (1986)

My love for Douglas Cheek’s C.H.U.D. has been well-documented for some time now.  It is, for me, the best monster movie of the Eighties this side of John Carpenter’s The Thing.  It has a strong story that’s about more than one thing.  It has excellent performances from some great character actors (including interesting cameos from the likes of John Goodman, Jay Thomas, and Jon Polito).  It has an outstanding synth score by David A Hughes which is haunting, evocative, and melancholy, as the best synth scores are.  It has excellent special effects work by John Caglione, Jr.  It should be said here that Ed French, who was a member of C.H.U.D.’s makeup effects department, not only did the makeup effects for Tim Kincaid’s Breeders (aka Killer Alien aka Breeders: La Invasión Sexual) but also appears as Dr. Ira Markham in the film (special effects artist Matt Vogel also worked on both movies).  The popping up of French on both C.H.U.D. and Breeders makes for a nice, little coincidence, because the similarities between the two movies is enough to say that the former film was, at the very least, a heavy influence on the latter.  There is a monster that has a disgusting lair underneath New York City.  There is a crazy bag lady (Rose Geffen) who runs afoul of the monster.  There is a featured character, Gail (Amy Brentano), who is a photographer.  There is a scene where Gail’s lights go out, and she has to go down to the basement to investigate (like C.H.U.D.’s Kim Griest but, astonishingly, without the shock shower scene).  Now, I wouldn’t declare that Breeders is only a ripoff of C.H.U.D. because it “borrows” from so many other films -  Humanoids from the Deep, Scanners, The Fly, and Lifeforce just to name four – to the point that it feels a bit like looking at old photos of that time you tried to do yourself up as The Wolf Man for Halloween, and you wound up looking like an idiot with a bunch of brown cotton balls glued to your face.  

So.  Breeders.  The film concerns itself with the violent rape and mutilation of a bunch of virgin women by an oily, insectoid creature.  I’d get into more of the plot, but there isn’t one.

This film is a sleaze lover’s wet dream.  Every woman in it is a virgin (sometimes - okay, always -  unbelievably so; a coke-snorting, former-gymnast-turned-fashion-model is a virgin?  I suppose stranger things have happened), and that term is treated like a four-letter word.  The women are all attacked specifically because they are virgins.  The one character who isn’t a virgin is A) ugly, B) insane, and C) torn apart by the experience.  What does that say about the rest of the women?  Well, not much, since the filmmakers don’t really give a rat’s ass about any of them.  Gamble Pace (Teresa Farley) is a doctor, and she’s ostensibly the protagonist.  She’s also as weak-willed and ineffective as every other woman in the film (though Kincaid does give her a poignant scene at the very end that almost saves the film; Almost).  All the women feel a great desire to tell us why they are virgins, as if it were any of our affair.  Kathleen (LeeAnne Baker) states, “In this day and age, it’s almost some sort of dirty word to be a…virgin.”  She even has a hard time saying the word.  Alec (Adriane Lee), Gail’s stylist, explains to Gail about how she’s a virgin for no reason whatsoever other than to fly a giant red flag telling us that she’s the next victim.  All the women strip down at the most unlikely of times (while cooking dinner, while talking with their mother on the phone [okay, one is actually pretty likely], while on a break during a photoshoot, etcetera), and since there’s no reason for any of this, these scenes simply stand out as being the portions of the movie where Kincaid signals to the audience that this is what they are there for, and, hey, it’s been five minutes since you had a boner.  That the women ogled so heavily are virgins plays to men’s craving towards the Madonna/Whore Complex.  These women are willing to get naked for your eyes only, but they’re unsullied, and boy oh boy, unspoiled territory is the most irresistible, just so long as, you know, she’s also great in the sack.

The opposite side of this is, naturally, the Monstrous Male Sex Urge.  Going all the way back to, at least, 1931’s Dracula, the idea of being raped by (or at the absolute minimum, giving one’s body over to) an Other has been present in probably about half or more of every Horror film ever made.  The most famous example is the underwater ballet/sex scene from 1954’s The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and this is what begat Humanoids from the Deep once the walls had been broken down about displaying graphic monster-on-human sex on screen.  What’s kind of interesting in Breeders is that all of the attacks are initiated by normal guys who transform into (apparently) just the one monster.  He keeps popping up like the Great Gazoo.  The mere presence of a woman is enough to arouse sexual urges in men (even gay men are not immune) that cannot be overcome until their base desire is satiated (the film eggs this along by almost always having the women be naked in the men’s presence first).  Even when the men aren’t actual monsters, they’re lasciviousness is brazen and on full display.  Karinsa (the glorious Frances Raines, niece of legendary actor Claude) avers to the guy who barged in on her naked calisthenics, “It’s not like you were after my body” in an almost porno-coquettish come-on manner.  Kathleen asks creepy boyfriend Brett (Mark Legan) how much he saw of her taking a shower.  His unctuous response: “Enough that I know I want you to bear my children.”  But the monster is, as stated, The Other (read here as “non-white male”).  It wants to propagate its race, and it does so by stealing “our women.”  Further, it’s “semen” is described as a “thick, black substance.”  Have no fear, however, since all the beast’s victims later get to frolic together in a giant, gross, “semen”-filled (this time white in color, just to make all the men in the audience think of women frolicking in semen) hot tub, which I’m convinced was taken, unwashed, directly from Plato’s Retreat.  One can just imagine the bacteria in that thing.

This is not to say that Breeders doesn’t have a certain appeal.  After all, I’m a heterosexual male who enjoys seeing a naked woman (or several), and I have a love for special makeup effects going back to my pre-adolescence.  Both of these bins are filled to overflowing by Kincaid and company.  It’s just that the rest of the bins that a truly successful film needs to fill (compelling characters and a narrative, namely) are ignored almost entirely.  If nothing else, this film is an American-made Hentai, and it does that as well as it was going to be done in 1986.  It’s just disappointing that the non-exploitation elements are so clumsy and dull that it dragged down the whole experience for me.  I think I expected too much from a film titled Breeders.

MVT:  The nudity and special effects.  Well-done on both counts.

Make or Break:  The first attack scene is admittedly unexpected in how it plays out, and it raises some questions that the film quickly answers in the most ham-fisted way possible.

Score:  6/10

Silk (1986)

We’re all familiar with the expression “smooth as silk” (even the titular character in Cirio Santiago’s film knows it; “Because I’m so fuckin’ smooth”).  We’re all familiar with how the material is produced, as well (from the butts of caterpillars, amongst other creepy crawlies, just in case you weren’t).  For the life of me, however, I’ve never understood its appeal.  Sure, it looks nice and shiny and supernaturally wrinkle-free.  I get that it’s considered a luxury due to the arduous process of harvesting it (have you ever tried to milk a caterpillar?  Me neither, but I can’t imagine it’s easy).  I get that it’s exotic due to its origins in ancient China (at least to Westerners; Do people in the East just think of it like we do polyester?).  Thing is, I don’t particularly care for the feel of it.  It’s too smooth.  Despite its organic nature, it feels unnatural (again, like polyester, which I would, frankly, prefer).  I wore a pair of silk boxers once.  Once.  The constant, smooth sensation it provides just made me very self-conscious about how things were rearranging themselves down there every time I moved.  I can’t even imagine how much this gliding would irritate my nipples were I wearing a shirt made of the stuff.  I could see its worth in the ascot department, but I think that’s as far as I’m willing to go.  If you dig on silk, more power to you.  Give me cotton any day of the week.  Nice, plush, sweat-absorbing, snug cotton.

After massacring a bunch of thieves, intrepid cop Silk (Cec Verrell) finds herself following the trail of head gangster Austin (Peter Shilton) as he smuggles something somewhere.  Meanwhile, a couple of Nam vets run around killing and mutilating people.

Silk, the character and the film, is practically a carbon copy of George P Cosmatos’ Cobra, the main differences being that the protagonist is a woman, and she doesn’t cut her pizza with a pair of scissors.  Silk also borrows heavily from the Dirty Harry playbook (at one point, she has a villain dead to rights and says, “How do you feel, Slick?  Feel like takin’ the big ride?”; Of course, he does).  She wades into action in a heartbeat, climbing trestles, jumping on trains, leaping from rooftops, and shooting the shit out of bad guys with unerring accuracy.  And Silk is as disassociated with the violence she causes as any male action star ever was.  Maybe moreso.  In the opening sequence, she watches as the thieves’ car explodes into flames.  Santiago shoots Silk’s reaction in slow motion, her ice-blue eyes peering satisfactorily and disinterestedly at the deaths she brought forth.  The loss of life means nothing to her, because criminals, from the pettiest to the vilest, don’t deserve to live.  Her first rule of dealing with the lifestyle of a cop is “Don’t let it get to you.”  On the one hand, this makes sense, because there are surely a great many things about the livelihood that could desensitize a person.  On the flip side, though, it also means that one must be desensitized in order to kill crooks.  They must be dehumanized in the eyes of justice, unworthy to exist.  

Silk, the cop, is, in effect, a macho hero with female genitalia (which we don’t get to see, in case you were wondering).  She wears her hair slicked back.  She pauses before working to don a fingerless glove, but she doesn’t balk at getting her hands dirty.  The filmmakers, simultaneously, enjoy showing off Verrell’s female attributes.  Pulling herself over a ledge, we get a nice view of her hard nipples poking through her tank top (I guess it wasn’t made of silk?).  The camera also delights in focusing on her butt in various tight pants.  You can’t fault the filmmakers or the audience for this stuff.  Both know what they want, and both get it (plus, Verrell is strikingly beautiful).  For all of her testosteronic attributes, there are attempts to feminize Silk.  As the police celebrate a solid bust (you know, the kind where most of the perps are dead), Silk sits to the side, aloof.  Fellow cop Tom (Bill McLaughlin) approaches her to join in on the fun.  Silk tells him to meet her at her place.  This romantic relationship with a fellow officer carries tones of a teacher/student affair, Tom being a bit older and Silk’s superior.  When they go out, Silk wears dresses and does her hair up in curls, the opposite of her masculine appearance at work.  She needs Tom to provide a grounding against the rough life she leads, even if only physically.  Their romance never comes across as being between equals.  Tom leads the dance, and Silk follows, taking away some of her badass cred.  Part of the problem lies in the fact that Verrell is simply not a very good actress.  She can swing the deadpan delivery necessary for wasting bad guys, but she’s incapable of changing it up and actually showing emotion when it’s called for.  She tries to act everything with her piercing eyes, and it just doesn’t work (this is not helped at all by her covering them up with sunglasses in several scenes; Instead of playing enigmatically cool she’s simply inscrutably wooden).

The film’s plot is incredibly convoluted.  I’m sure it made sense on paper to Santiago and company at some point, but it’s confusing on screen.  For this film, however, it’s also unnecessary, and Santiago understood this.  All we need to know are these are the good guys, those are the bad guys, and there are a lot of punches, gun shots, and explosions between the two.  The stuntwork is well-handled, and it appears that they actually allowed Verrell to do quite a bit of it, which helps sell the copious action.  I suppose on the one hand it’s unfair to criticize Silk for being so devoted to its action aspects, as it delivers on them so well.  That being said, without a strong story to hold the set pieces together, it becomes little more than a highlight reel.  Granted, a slick (dare I say, smooth as silk?) highlight reel, but one, nonetheless.  For the undiscerning action junkie, this movie will work a treat.  For everyone else, it’s more like a snack you’re unsure if you regret or not after the fact.

MVT:  Santiago’s direction is tight and slick.  It’s his writing that needs to catch up with this skill set here.          

Make or Break:  The opening action scene sets the table for the film, both good and bad.

Score:  6/10

Tracking (1986)

Lisa, Stephanie, and Natalie are three teenaged girls left alone in Lisa’s parents’ house.  As they indulge in whatever games suit their fancy, Stephanie relates a story about her dad’s experience in the Algerian War.  Afterwards, a phantom soldier continuously visits the three, menacing and raping them.  

Pierre B Reinhard’s Tracking (aka Ghost Soldier) is a difficult film, not so much because of its subject matter but because of the way it treats it.  The movie, by and large, is about the aftermath of rape, the PTSD suffered by its victims, and the arbitrariness of victimhood.  Each of the girls is attacked at least once, though Lisa seems to get more attention than the other two.  These attacks happen randomly and suddenly.  The Soldier is usually represented via POV handheld camera, and it’s interesting that the faces of all the male characters are never shown clearly.  This ghost is something called forth from the spinning of a tale, which recounts itself in the first present-time attack scene.  Stephanie’s dad used to tell her this story, about how he had sex with a peasant girl in Algeria for a bottle of champagne.  That night, Lisa is assaulted and violated with a champagne bottle.  Importantly, this scene plays out at first as if it were a flashback with the protagonists playing the roles of the peasants.  It boggles the mind that Stephanie’s father would not only relate this story to his daughter (though not his wife) but also tell her how it’s the best memory he had from his time in the military.   

The presentation of this sequence, however, and of the girls themselves, is pure prurience.  Natalie is threatened with a straight razor while in the bathroom.  When Natalie is attacked the first time, she is backed into a shower, which is turned on.  The Soldier then slices her clothes off, and the camera gawps at her exposed breasts and sopping wet lingerie.  When the girls are initially introduced, Lisa is focused on, prancing around in her underwear.  When the three play dress up, Reinhard focuses intensely on their naked bodies as they get changed.  It raises an intriguing question: Do these girls deserve what happens to them (by dint of the fact that the film is so obsessed with their physical attributes, which they show off freely), and if not, how does the viewer’s enjoyment of the attacks (they are, after all, shot from the audience’s perspective) reflect on their own attitudes toward the subject?  Reinhard does not separate the horror of the act from the exploitation of it.  On the one hand, it’s serious about the situation, on the other, it’s serious about turning the viewer on with its kinks.

Another aspect of the film is the maturation of these girls into adulthood or, at the absolute minimum, the desire to do so.  All of their parents are absent.  Lisa’s aunt (?) Christina appears periodically to chastise the girls, plug the telephone back in, and remind them to take birth control.  Yet, Christina is ineffectual in her “guidance,” partly because she’s far too casual about allowing the girls free rein and partly because the girls resent her presence as an authority figure.  The girls, like teenagers everywhere, know everything there is to know about everything, so they don’t need to pay attention to some “old” person who may have been where they are.  In fact, the girls hate Christina so much, they actually try to murder her with a rifle.  As Christina drives up to the house, she is tracked through a set of crosshairs.  As she drives away, Lisa finally takes a shot, blowing out Christina’s car tire.  The teens then lament not being able to kill her on the open road, because some passerby stopped to assist with her car.  The girls play house, having dinner and booze, and they begin to roleplay in an adult (not in the porn sense) fantasy.  Lisa becomes the wife, Stephanie the husband, and Natalie the husband’s mistress.  As the film winds on, the protagonists go so far as to dress their parts in an effort to protect themselves.  Nevertheless, the façade is not enough to deter the attacks.  The maturity the girls attempt to emulate is, more or less, like a beacon for the Soldier, their introduction into “adulthood” a trauma.  It carries an air of “be careful what you wish for” while also bearing a certain statement on the callous treatment of women by men (the reason we never see men’s faces is because they are every man, everywhere).  “Sex is life,” the message left on a mirror by the Soldier, is both honest and ominous.

How the girls deal with their ordeal is also key to the film’s theme.  Both Lisa and Natalie have flashbacks to their assaults when they come in contact with the objects with which they were attacked (a bottle and a straight razor, respectively).  The two have meltdowns, and Lisa even tries to run off into the woods at one point.  Stephanie appears to be (on the surface, at least), the strongest of the three.  She tries to be the masculine defender of her “family.”  She is the one who carries the rifle.  She searches the grounds for the Soldier in an endeavor to confront him, become the hunter not the prey.  She is comforting to Lisa and Natalie, and she continues to put up a brave front when it becomes plain that she will have her turn.  Rather than resist, she offers her body to the ghost, attempts to bargain her sexuality for the removal of the violence which accompanies his attacks.  She figures it would still be unwanted sex (read: rape), but perhaps it can be made less harrowing.  Even she breaks down, however, when her time comes.  She lashes out, shooting the rifle randomly, an impotent venting of rage against something ineffable and unerasable.  The film becomes muddled because it throws cause and effect out the window, but this is also a large portion of its point.  To make it all black and white robs it of any impact it may have.  But still, the grey that the film immerses itself in is just as problematic due to the overt sexualization of its leads.  Ultimately, the girls carry their damage onward, and there is an exorcism of a sort, though its efficacy is in serious doubt.  After all, how do you destroy something so primal in the hearts of men?

MVT:  For as scattershot as it makes itself, Reinhard’s approach to the story is admirable in its daring, if not in effectiveness.

Make or Break:  The moment you realize you’re not watching a flashback, and you’re not watching a traditional ghost story.

Score:  6.5/10