The Bunny Game

Holy crap, what a fucking piece of shit this movie is.

Let's consider the ways the filmmaker and star tried to generate attention and credibility for this abortion. Within the first minute, there's an explicit blowjob. Hmm. What other movie did that...something with, oh yeah, 2/3 of the same title. Remember how much attention The Brown Bunny got for that scene? Couldn't hurt. Next step is to have all of the roles played by non-actors. Brilliant! Of course, they'll most likely, you know, suck at acting...but with a story as pure gold as this one, who needs acting? It'll be a cinema verite type of thing.

As for that can't-miss story - here it is:a prostitute does a lot of cocaine and has sex with guys for money to buy more cocaine. She gets picked up by a trucker who takes her out of town and torments her for days on end. Then some other dude shows up and takes her away.

I would rather have an MRI done during an earthquake than watch this movie again. It's not the subject matter that offends. Repulsive subjects often make movies I quite like. This, however, is lacking in every respect. The editing is infuriating. What is obviously intended to disturb and shock is just grating and forced. It isn't shocking. It's lame. The acting is wretched. Apparently this movie was unscripted (no shit, Sherlock) and so scenes were drawn up and the actors just vamped the shit out of them. This results in a 75 minute movie feeling like it's as endless as the director's cut of Das Boot. And I call bullshit on the "real" aspects of this, namely the fact that 2 actors were BRANDED TOTALLY FOR REAL because of the POWERFUL ART OF THIS REAL FUCKING MOVIE DUDE. Yeah, they are both branded. Obviously, though, the cheesy design of the brand makes it pretty clear everyone agreed on it before it happened. Yes, that's the way it should be, too...I just resent the hucksterism of claiming it's so brutally unexpected blah blah.

Also, it's in black and white because ART. Dude, Eraserhead is in black and white. Also, Eraserhead qualifies as art. The Bunny Game doesn't. If you want to experience this movie without tracking it down or wasting 75 minutes of your life, imagine Yosemite Sam sticking his tongue out, huffing paint out of a plastic bag, and yelling at a woman who can't act and isn't wearing clothes. Repeat. For added ambiance, lean against the last octave or two of a Casio keyboard while you're doing that.

I know I've seen worse movies than this one. Not many of them took themselves so seriously while being so damn shitty, though.

Tomorrow: Inside

Combat Shock

Have you ever had a day when you thought your head might pop from being too giddy with happiness?  Maybe you were in the initial moments of a new romance, or had just gotten an unexpected promotion, or had won a sweepstakes. The world looked beautiful, fresh and ready to be plucked.

There's a cure for that, and it's called Combat Shock.

Made in 1984 as pretty much a student film for under 25K, this is as DIY as it gets. The only sprucing up it received as a result of being picked up and distributed by Troma was some stock footage of Vietnam added to the beginning. This is as grimy, nihilistic, and doomed of a movie as you could hope to see.

Frankie is having a rough go of things. He suffers from PTSD LAMF as a result of having been imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam for 3 years. He has returned to a Staten Island neighborhood that looks like a bombed out warzone. His apartment is busted up and filthy: the toilet won't flush and is filled with piss and waste, his cupboards are bare, the sink doesn't work all the time and the only thing in his moldy looking icebox is some spoiled milk. His wife isn't happy with the fact that Frankie's been out of work for 4 months straight and lets him know about it constantly. Their 1 year old child is severely deformed from what they assume to be an Agent Orange-related birth defect. The only people Frankie comes into contact with on his travels through the neighborhood are junkies, hoodlums, criminals and bureaucrats who can't help him get back on his feet. And all the while, he's tormented by flashbacks of the war. His life is hell and he's a (greasy) hair's breadth from going down in flames and taking everyone with him.

It is true that this movie is cheap and ugly. It's a perfect match with the story it tells. The acting is uneven at best, but the characters behave consistently throughout and it doesn't harm the movie too much. Frankly, if the acting and production values were much higher the bleak nature of things might become overwhelming. Things get awful enough by the end as it is.

Combat Shock has a lot to love about it. Crazed synthesizer music, composed by Rick Giovinazzo, who also plays Frankie and whose brother Buddy wrote and directed. There's a theme that recurs when Rick walks through the 'hood that has to be heard to be believed. It's awful yet amazing and ultimately endearing. Rick ended up orchestrating a hell of a lot of Hollywood movies after this, interestingly enough. The baby is a marvel of repulsive prosthetics that, while clearly fake, still is unsettling. Its synthesizer-created cries are eerie too.

You'll see a lot of Eraserhead and Taxi Driver in Combat Shock, but after being distilled through the vision and meager resources of Buddy Giovinazzo it certainly becomes something else entirely. I can't imagine another movie where someone OD's from opening an abscess on their arm with a coathanger and then sprinkling powder directly into the wound. Then again, I've seen few endings as brutal and sad as this one, either. Overall, it's a success. Call me crazy, but I think that when cult/shock/sleaze cinema is discussed a quarter century from now, Combat Shock will be given a place of prominence.

Tomorrow: The Bunny Game

Mum & Dad

I know this sentiment isn't unique in the slightest when it comes to the type of movies I'm writing about in this here Plumbing the Depths extravaganza, but it's still a fact that Mum & Dad is fucking weird.

To start with, it's produced by the BBC, which I would have assumed (before I watched it) meant there would be some semblance of, I don't know, class?  Shame on me for assuming.  It was also partially financed by the UK Lottery, which I find hilarious.  Can you imagine if some proceeds from the California Lottery were used to finance films and something like Mum & Dad was the result?  Fox News would be milking that shit for months.

I guess I should say before I go any further that I actually ended up not hating this movie - it's just seriously nasty. One scene in particular is arguably unprecedented in its degeneracy. I guess it's almost refreshing to see something, uh, new that can provoke a wave of disgust.

Lena is a young woman from Poland who takes a job as a custodian at a British airport. Her co-worker Birdie appears to be helpful, if not particularly pleasant to hang out with over the course of an entire shift.  However, things go south post haste when Lena goes home with Birdie and her mute "adopted brother" Elbie and becomes the hostage of the titular parental units.

Mum is a sadist who enjoys cutting and piercing her victims. Lena is renamed Angel and has something injected in her throat that makes her unable to speak or scream. Birdie is a sycophant who attacks Lena in order to reinforce her position in this batshit family. But the king of the castle is Dad. He is an amazingly fucked up individual. He screams and curses constantly and is used as the ultimate threat by Mum to keep Lena in line. It's a memorably bugged out household to be sure:there's porno playing on TV at the breakfast table, Elbie seems to be constantly disposing of plastic parcels of human body parts, and Dad is either reading his newspaper, yelling at everybody, or fucking or murdering something or someone.

The family lives "just at the end of the runway" and supposedly Dad works as a cargo agent. Birdie and Elbie also work at the airport, and all of them bring stolen things home to bolster their finances. This works well enough, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it seemed pretty unbelievable. Yeah, I know, but still. This movie is from 2008. Surely airport security doesn't suck that bad...but whatever, suspension of disbelief, I know.

This movie is crude and nihilistic. I suppose it could be considered a comedy. If so, it's pretty dark for such a thing. It certainly pays homage to my favorite horror movie : The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The Christmas scene (when the entire family is assembled) and the final shot certainly make that clear.

Mum & Dad isn't breaking any new ground, other than finding a disgusting new wrinkle or two. It's been called a "British Hostel", which is a bit of a stretch but somewhat understandable. In my opinion, it wasn't bad. Socially redeeming, though?  That's for you to decide.

Tomorrow: Combat Shock

Don't Go in the House

When I was in middle school we had textbooks for Health class that had been published in the mid 70's. Everyone in the black and white photographs in that book looked greasy and sallow.  If you were to shake that book, dandruff would probably fall out.

Don't Go in the House is a movie that brings the look and feel of my old Health class textbook alive in cinematic form.  I cracked up the first time I saw this when I popped the DVD in and found there was no menu. Bare bones, ruthless, and truly ugly.

Donny is a man who has been controlled by his mother his whole life.  When his father left their home, his mother began burning his arms over a stove flame to punish him for misbehaving.  This has caused him to lose his mind.  Within the first 10 minutes of this movie he hypnotically watches a co-worker almost burn alive, is accused of "standing there like a faggot" by his boss, goes home to find his mother has died, and cuts loose like Maculay Culkin in Home Alone once he realizes he's free of her control.  That is, until he starts hearing and seeing her again.

This compels him to bring women home, hang them up in a metal-lined room, and set them on fire with a flamethrower.  The sheer brutality of the first kill is definitely disturbing.  Quentin Tarantino supposedly said that this movie freaked him out more than any other, and while that's apocryphal info, it's easy to imagine this movie being awfully shocking considering it was released in 1980.  In fact, it's no wonder Concerned Folks nationwide were feeling bad about horror cinema in general considering this and Maniac were released the same year. On the other hand, further murders are hinted at and the aftermath shown rather than several graphic killing scenes.  I assume this was due to budgetary constraints, considering this movie appears to have been made for about 20 thousand dollars.

There are many weird flourishes to this movie that I find endearing.  Honest-to-God disco music plays a big part, and there is a chorus of demonic (or at least crazy bananas style) voices telling Donny what to do that could easily be the homonculi from Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. Everything people buy is super cheap - one of the victims buys a bottle of soda, some food and 3 packs of cigarettes and it costs less than $5.  I guess that part of the 70's was okay.

But yeah, this is a gross movie.  Donny's a big-time misogynist, and a world class weirdo. Every time he becomes anything close to a sympathetic figure, he immediately does something completely bizarre or wholly heinous.  The movie ends with a short scene of a little kid getting smacked around by his mom and then staring at the camera while the chorus of voices that spoke to Donny start talking to him.  Unfortunately, that didn't result in a sequel.

Tomorrow: Mum and Dad

Cutting Moments

Now this here is a sour little slice (sorry) of discomfort.  Telling the stories of 3 people whose affects range from depressed to unfeeling to psychotic, Cutting Moments packs a lot of awful into its brief (29 minutes) running time.  The film looks kind of grimy in a good way and the depressing music helps set the mood.

You've probably heard of this movie before. It's best known for showing a woman rubbing her lips with a Chore Boy and then cutting them off with scissors.  And it's truly disgusting.  I can't abide watching the surgery channel on TV.  I almost faint when I accidentally cut myself with a paring knife.  Movie gore, though?  No big deal.  But this one?  Almost intolerable.

The kicker is that the most graphic parts of this movie aren't really the most unsettling.  It's a genuinely sad story - the pain of knowing the dreams you started out with when you fell in love with someone have died.  In this case, it's even worse because a child has been seriously harmed along the way.  I mean sure, the way things end up is pretty ridiculous.  But the dour nature of this family's predicament/s is pretty rough to take even before the blood starts flowing.  If you haven't seen this one yet, it's on youtube.  Consider checking it out.

Tomorrow: Don't Go in the House

Aftermath

Happy Valentines!

So I figured I'd start with something relatively brief.  As this film runs just about half an hour,  there isn't much time wasted.  As someone who isn't big on overlong films (read:has a burnt out attention span), this seemed like a good idea.

I was surprised to see that this was made by the same guy who directed 2006's The Abandoned.  That movie, while atmospheric, wasn't really that compelling in my opinion and I never finished watching it.  Watching it with commercials in standard definition probably didn't help. Maybe I should give it another try.  Anyway, Aftermath is lean and mean.  Whether or not it was Nacho Cerda's original intent to make this as a short film or feature length, its brevity works to its advantage.

The early scenes in Aftermath are of 2 male bodies being dissected.  Organs are removed and put in jars or on scales.  Leftover body parts are stuffed back into the open chest cavity, which is then sewn shut.  Pretty grim stuff, especially considering how good the special effects are, but nothing too out of the ordinary.  It's when one of the doctors finds himself alone with another body in the morgue - a woman - that things get repulsive in a hurry. I found myself wincing and looking away and then later feeling disgusted.  I suppose that's what Cerda was going for.  On one hand, all of the bodies in this movie were already dead to start with and no matter what degree of indignities they were subjected to, they would have remained dead.  On the other hand, it's awful to imagine the things done to that poor dead woman being done to anyone, dead or not.

It's weird to see something that could conceivably be called "art" (beautiful music, rich colors, deliberate pacing) that's also about corpse-fucking and feeding ground up human organs to domestic pets.

Tomorrow:Cutting Moments

Plumbing the Depths 2013

So this year for Lent I thought I'd try something a little different than usual.  I'll be giving up something, as usual (caffeine), but this time I'll also be doing a little something extra.  I plan on writing something here every day.  Now, given my prodigious output so far, I'm not expecting to be writing all that much.  And as far as the quality is concerned?  Uh, yeah...not going to worry much about that either.This is just something to do that I hope will spark more regular posting.  There are a whole lot of movies that are remarkable for one reason or another that I'm most grateful to others for pointing them out to me.

What I'm looking to do this year, though, is to acknowledge some movies/films/garbage that have one thing in common:they are all considered to be, at least by a few people, disturbing. I know that the word "disturbing" doesn't really mean the same thing to everyone all the time.  I know people who can't watch Seinfeld because the depth of their feeling for people faced with embarrassing situations is actually too disturbing to them.  Toddler beauty pageants, open mike poetry readings, comedy improv troupes, American Idol auditions can all be classified as disturbing.  Shit, I saw a piece on the tv show Taboo last night about fruitarian freegans in SF eating rotting mangoes out of the trash while shrimping one another that was truly abhorrent.For the purpose of this experiment, though, I'll stick to a basic descriptor: these are movies that make you nauseous, angry, depressed, sad, and perhaps most of all uncomfortable.

When I was in high school I wrote a short story about two jerks who kidnapped a woman and mistreated her.  I wrote it because the thought of people being inhumanly cruel to someone else made me feel uncomfortable.  I found it scary to consider.  It was a pretty lame story, but I will always remember one of my teacher's comments about it.  To paraphrase, "You appear to have written this to answer the question 'What's the worst thing I can think of?'".  In a sense, he had a point.  On the other hand, as grim as that story may have been, it wasn't the worst thing I could have thought of.  The movies I have selected to write about this season, though?  They're all pretty bad.

I suppose I like to seek out the "worst of the worst" because I like to appreciate that my life is immeasurably blessed in comparison to those who inhabit these films.  There's a catharsis, however mild, involved in watching such things.  I had an old co-worker friend tell me a long time ago that I didn't care what kind of garbage I put in my head.  I guess this might be proof of that, but I prefer to see it as finding different ways to be frightened.  I love scary movies of all kinds because I like to be artificially frightened, after all.

But anyway, yeah, these movies are pretty bad for the most part.  An artist can shock and disturb without being overly obvious.  Most of the movies I'm going to write about, though, aren't particularly great and aren't considered by many to be art.  Which I guess begs the question:why bother? If I figure out the best answer to that, I'll be sure to let you know.

Also, there will be spoilers in most, if not all, of my posts.  Sorry if that annoys you.

Tomorrow: Aftermath