Blood, Bruises, and Cowboys!

This is what I was up to over the weekend. Doing FX makeup for a Western short.

Gun shot exit wound. She's pretty happy about it I guess.Detail.

Whacked in the face by a wood board. Ouch.

The mean, old sheriff. I exaggerated his wrinkles.

Beat up. Sad face.

Detail.

Death by Television: Renditions of Technology in Japan and the U.S.

Another one of my intellectual, pompous things, but this is easier to read than the others I think. Comparing Ringu and The Ring. Spoilers throughout.

“Because so many of us were confusing television experience with direct experience of the world, we were not noticing that experience itself was being unified to the single behavior of watching television,” fears Jerry Mander in Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television—a somber analysis of modern American culture (Mander, 26). Originally published in 1978, his work has only become more relevant after almost 30 years, especially for texts of the horror genre that specialize in the relationship between culture and media. While the specifics of Mander’s Four Arguments are hardly workable for readings of techno-thrillers, a holistic approach to his ideas suits the discussion of the American take on Japanese technology-driven horror. Here, I wish to focus on Hideo Nakata’s Ringu (1998) and its U.S. counterpart, Gore Verbinski’s The Ring (2002). While Ringu can be read as a reaction to technology replacing tradition and possibly as a post-war Left film, the American version is imbedded with so much technology that it seems to be confused as to whether the tools of modern society are something to be praised or feared.

Japanese cinema, in particular the horror genre, emphasizes the mystical (often ghostly) presence of the past and its relevance to the world of the here-and-now. Much of this can be interpreted as a response to “[t]he transformation of Japanese society,”… “which rhetorically signified a break from ‘tradition’ and ‘the past’” (Tateishi, 295). In the context of the Japanese horror genre, the past has usually been repressed or hidden from memory only to rise again in a supernatural form, warning us not to forget history and tradition. For the Japanese Left cinema that reemerged after World War II, representations of history revolve around the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These films read “the past as horror, as layers that are only slumbering under the present” (Kapur, 83). They stand as a “biting and passionate criticism of the existing world,” begging for a reevaluation of the past in order to influence modern circumstances (Kapur, 94). Thus, two contrasting readings of the modern Japanese horror film can be applied—one positively reinforces the past as something that should be remembered and even cherished in order to avoid horror; the other reading is a negative reminder that the past still impacts the present and cannot be ignored due to its intrinsic horror.

Ringu operates around the “mediation and technologisation of ghostly forces” that literally threaten the characters with death unless the past is discovered and passed on (Hills, 166). In this case, the horrible past is represented by Sadako, a young girl with lethal psychic powers. Sadako, whose body decomposes in a well, is not a mere physical entity in Ringu; her presence is embodied by a videotape that will curse its viewers. Upon watching the video, the telephone rings, signaling that the individual has seven days before he or she dies. When reading a simple plot summary, one might assume the film rejects the invasion of technology in Japanese society; yet, the film also uses technology as a medium for allowing the past to occupy the present. “[T]he notion of horror associated with a ghost from the past is further nuanced by the use of technology as a conduit into the here-and-now.” (Tateishi, 298). Because technology permeates modern life so vigorously, the most effective method of communication with the present is through the technology that defines post-industrial society.

Ringu’s depiction of the past is both monstrous and human, constructing a bridge between the traditional Japanese horror film and the Left film. History may be horrific, but it also requires investigation. Sadako’s disfigured body and murderous impulses are juxtaposed with revelations of her character as a victim of misunderstanding and of an unsettling death. In what at first appears to be the conclusion of Ringu, Reiko cradles the festering corpse of Sadako, unconcerned with the girls’ supernatural powers and disturbing appearance. In this example, history is represented as a “process of unmitigated horror from the perspective of its losers” (Kapur, 93). Sadako can be considered the “loser” of history, as she was shunned and murdered by her own family for possessing a mystical gift. This treatment requires the characters of Ringu to actively pursue history even through technology, not to hide from it; “the work of art is ultimately to make the audience want to change the world, not escape it” (Kapur, 85). The hideous results of technologies, such as nuclear bombs for the Left cinema, must be recognized as truth rather than feared or forgotten. By the end of Ringu, Reiko faces a cold reality: the past must be unleashed no matter the consequence and technology is the superior method of transmitting the message. This attitude is captured poignantly with the image of Reiko clinging to her VCR, willing to share the horror with others in order to save her son from certain death.

The American rendition of Ringu stumbles between warnings of a technological enemy and a technological friend, using sensational imagery to evoke undirected anxiety. Unlike the Japanese film, The Ring is saturated with technology; televisions, broadcasting equipment, desktop computers, laptops, digital cameras, video monitors, and cell phones litter the movie. Some of these modern gadgets are manipulated by the ghost of Samara (Sadako) to induce death, while others are utilized as tools of uncovering the past and aiding the struggle to solve the mystery of the videotape. Like Ringu, the technology of copying the videotape rescues Rachel and her son, but it is not regarded as a bitter-sweet victory as in the Japanese film. Aidan quietly asks Rachel what will happen to the person they show the tape to; his grave question goes unanswered as the film cuts to black and rolls credits. Using Jerry Mander as a basis for reading The Ring, it is easier to understand the unexplained consequences of the film, as well as the mixed relationship Americans have with media. “Faced with real darkness, we become frightened, overreact, like a child whose parents have always left the light on. In the generations since Edison, we have become creatures of light alone” (Mander, 57-58). Mander refers to the constant glow of something electronic; and The Ring’s aesthetics are highly engaged with this illuminated technology. Its bluish-green color pallet, which is very different from Ringu’s warm colors, signifies a reality that doesn’t exist beyond the bluish-green burn of the television screen. As the cool colors imply, there is something disconcerting and deeply disturbing about this American culture that hardly registers its technological consumption as existent.

Post-industrial tools have become attached to American identity, but somewhere beneath the surface, there is a growing fear that technology will and must come to an end. Secretly, Americans wish to “rediscover facets of experience that [they have] permitted to lie dormant” (Mander, 357). As Rachel uncovers the dormant body of Samara, who had previously only been viewed through artificial mediums, a glorious release occurs—perhaps even an epiphany—that alters her understanding of the videotape curse. Technological anxiety is replaced by the clarity of human-to-human contact. “What is lost because we can no longer flip a switch for instant ‘entertainment’ will be more than offset by human contact, enlivened minds and resurgence of personal investigation and activation” (Mander, 356). While this scene plays similarly in the Japanese film, an analysis with Mander only seems appropriate in the American context. For Mander, American society must prepare itself for a life without the television. He leads us to a single question: what happens when the pre-technological world escapes through the television and technology no longer matters? The Ring hardly scrapes the surface of that question, but the film provides competing themes regarding technology that match the American mindset, even if they are convoluted.

While both the American and Japanese versions provide complex readings of history and technology, neither film produces a concise method for interpreting their role in modernization and post-industrial society. Ringu presents a more coherent vision of the two, encouraging thoughtful discourse regarding tradition, practicality, and historical confrontation using the fruits of technology. The Ring’s befuddled expression of technology challenges Americans’ techno-consumption, as unrecognized, internal struggles to escape the grasp of technology are confronted with a desired dependency on technology. Both films do spawn a necessity for reconciliation. For Japan, this comes in the form of a reunion with the past in order to understand it via modernism. For the U.S., this is a return to nature before the pre-technological state. Whether the films actually manifest these messages or not is debatable, but each finds a place in the horror genre, as it is the most suitable arena to unravel repressed fears and unspeakable horrors.

Works Cited

Hills, Matt. “Ringing the Changes: Cult Distinction and Cultural Differences in US Fans Readings of Japanese Horror Cinema,” in Jay McRoy (Ed). Japanese Horror Cinema. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005. pp. 161-174.
Kapur, Jyotsna. “The Return of History as Horror: Onibaba and the Atomic Bomb.” Horror International. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005.
Mander, Jerry. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. New York: Quill, 1978.
Ring, The. Dir. Gore Verbinski. Perf. Naomi Watts. 2002. DVD. Dreamworks, 2002.
Ringu. Dir. Hideo Nakata. Perf. Nanako Matsushima. 1998. DVD. Dreamworks, 2003.
Tateishi, Ramie. “The Japanese Horror Film Series: Ring and Eko Eko Azarak.” Fear Without Frontiers: Horror Cinema Across the Globe. Steven Jay Schneider. (Ed.) Surrey: Fab Press, 2003, pp. 295-304.

Cube (1997): Math is Frustrating…and so is this movie!

Worthy of the hype? No, but it's good.

Note: Spoilers throughout; I’m assuming you’ve seen it.

I have somehow managed not to see Cube until now. For whatever reason, certainly not for lack of interest, Vincenzo Natali’s film has eluded me all these years. Garnering a remarkable amount of respect and attention from a variety of audiences, I was excited to finally see the movie that everyone was talking about…even if they were talking about it ten years ago.

Cube is a contradiction of a film. It’s original, yet predictable. It’s stunning, yet unattractive. It’s dramatic, yet laughable. It’s methodical, yet inconsistent. Cube is also a challenging film to make and its problems become all the more apparent because of this.

The concept is brilliant. A group of people wake up, with no memory of how they got there and seemingly no connection between them, inside an incredibly complex cubic structure that is rigged with vicious booby traps throughout. Hmm…kinda’ sounds like another film we know…I think it’s called Saw. Regardless, this setup gives us a diverse collection of characters that are forced to work together, utilizing their different skills to escape the common enemy. Did I just sound like a college admissions counselor? The mystery behind the origin of the cube makes it all the more interesting; is it a government experiment or a madman’s sick game? Later attempts to explain this mystery only leave the audience unfulfilled and destroy the horror behind such ambiguity. With a film like this, it’s best to either go all one way or the other: explain it or don’t. Going in between just leads to strange, rambling dialogue that makes your eyebrows arch.

"I don't like the red room!"

The subtitle of this post states that Cube is frustrating. Here is why: 1) the tone 2) the futility 3) erratic characterization. The onerous tone of the film works well. Seeing the same sets over and over again, the methodical number crunching, the mind-straining puzzles, the nauseating wide angles, and the annoying score all titillate towards insanity effectively. Though all these things are frustrating, it’s a good kind of frustrating. However, the other reasons for the frustration are not the good kind. The futility of the film is in the back of your mind as you watch it. I just know that they’re all going to die, that we’ll never figure out who made the cube or what is outside of it, and that most of their efforts are ultimately in vain. Watching them struggle through the maze, you just know that soon they’ll discover they’ve gone in a circle. And not long from then, you just know that the cube which becomes a bridge to the escape door will be the one they started in. Thus, it’s not that grand cathartic moment the filmmakers would hope for when they realize they should have never moved to begin with. The last frustration I mentioned is the characterization. It doesn’t help that the actors are wooden, but the scripting of the characters is mechanical and lazy. The characters basically serve the scenes as plot devices. Their behaviors, attitudes, philosophies, and emotional states are so uneven that the dialogue could have been interchanged between almost any of the characters without much disturbance. I couldn’t understand the characters and as a result, didn’t really care what happened to any of them.

Look me in the eyes and tell me that's good acting...

Aside from these flaws, the film is pretty good. There are not as many “cool” deaths as I expected, but the first two are definitely worth it. The production design and art direction deserve so much credit for this film’s success. Indeed, there would be no movie without the world created by the art department. The complexity coupled with simplicity of the cube makes for compelling visuals that force the audience to look hard at what they are seeing. The cinematography could have stepped up to match this superb visual design. While it does have a distinct style (the use of wide angle lenses, deep focus, and canted angles), the power of shallow depth of field and extreme close-ups would have been appreciated in a film that revolves around character subtleties. The spinning-world effect of the cinematography grows old pretty quickly; I would have liked to see the style evolve with the changing of the characters and their slow decent into madness.

Why does everything look like a fishbowl?

I’d recommend Cube because it’s just one of those films you have to see, but I can’t say that I’ll ever watch it again.

The Last House on the Left (2009): Exploitation Redux

A remake to get excited about!

Admittedly when I first discovered that a remake of Last House was in the works, I was perturbed. Normally, I don’t get too upset about remakes, but my first thought was: how does a Hollywood studio remake a film like The Last House on the Left? The fiber of the original was comprised of so much anger, rebellion, contention, and shock that I didn’t see the film having its place in this context. Eventually, upon more reflection, I realized: what a great film to remake.

We are dealing with a “classic” that wasn’t a masterpiece by any means. Fraught with technical problems, a dated mise-en-scene, a peculiar score, and a general sense of unpleasantness, Wes Craven’s film was begging for an update. The basic concept of the film is compelling enough to deserve a respectable budget, talented cast, and a viewing from modern audiences. After my ponderings and reading remarkably positive reviews for Dennis Iliadis’ version, I couldn’t wait to see the film.

My viewing experience was slightly tainted by the annoying pubescent audience members that snuck in to the movie—only to text, walk up and down the aisles, and frequent the bathroom in groups during the entire film. Some of these kids looked as young as ten and I thought to myself, hmm this is going to be interesting and perhaps awkward.


I'm not sure I would trust these people...especially the last guy on the left

Regardless, I tried my best to focus on the film. And what a film it was. The first act of the film sets up the good guys and the bad guys. We see the evil gang rescue Krug from the cops and get a taste of their brutality. Meanwhile, we see the Collingwood family begin their family vacation at the lake house. Mari (Sara Paxton) is given some more depth than in the original, pushing herself as a swimmer to “go for the gold” as her cherished locket wishes. Somehow her dedication to swimming is related to her recently-deceased brother. I appreciated the filmmakers not trying to pack too much explanation into this. While so many horror films utilize the dead family member exposition to sketch in some feigned character development, it feels more purposeful here. Her athleticism, connection to the water, and dead brother make later plot points more meaningful. We understand why her parents are so wary about her hanging out with a friend and are all the more devastated over Mari’s attack—they already lost one child and can’t accept losing another.

So cute and innocent

As Mari and her friend Paige are persuaded into the hotel room of Justin (the son of Krug), I couldn’t help but get the feeling that some moral lesson was being prescribed: don’t do drugs and don’t talk to strangers. I’m not sure why I felt this pedantic tone so strongly. Maybe it’s because I knew what was coming. It was painful to watch the girls giggling and full of life, while I’m just dreading what’s to come. Normally, I can sink into the moment of the film, but not here. The entire hotel scene was drenched with sick anticipation.

*MINOR SPOILERS*


The attack and rape of the girls is brutal. While Iliadis’ film is not quite as depraved as Craven’s, the most vicious moments are more powerful because they are used more sparingly. The rape of Mari is long, arduous, and difficult to watch. The murder of Paige is almost as slow and painful. The cruelty is much more intimate than in the original. Craven’s villains were clown-like and didn’t seem to care much about what they were doing. To use M. Bison’s words, to them “It was Tuesday.” However, the remake’s killers are more cold, calculated, and vengeful. One gets the impression that if Mari and Paige hadn’t put up as much of a fight, they would have merely shot them in the head and dumped them in the lake. However, Krug, Sadie, and Francis are too pissed to let them go without debasing them first.

*END SPOILERS*

She's come a long way since Aquamarine

To those that argue that Last House is shameful and gratuitous, I would contend that the last half of the film would not work without the setup. The more we see of the crimes, the more outraged we become, the more we empathize with the parents, and the more we root for the criminals to die. It’s a lot easier to create a normal slasher film, where the victims are the hunted. Last House has the challenge of reversing the usual formula and creating an environment where we not only cheer for the destruction of evil but cheer for the good guys to become as brutal as the bad.

How can you not feel for these parents?

Some of my only complaints about the film are regarding shot selection. There are some strange choices in shot design and editing throughout the film. When shooting dialogue between people, the shots are typically supposed to mirror one another. The lack of unity made some scenes awkward. The framing on Krug when he was driving the SUV…come on guys! A close-up is forehead to just below the chin, not chin to chest. Sure, maybe you couldn’t adjust the car mount mid-shot. Maybe the studio wouldn’t let you reshoot, but the editor didn’t have to showcase the bad camerawork!

Technical details aside, Last House is a strong film. Incredible story, decent writing, great acting, more-than-capable directing, and some good gore to boot! For the record, I don’t think the ending is as bad as everyone else says it is.

"Among Wolves" Stills

Stills from my thesis film. It screens the first weekend of April! I'm excited. Synopsis: Frank is a grieving rancher who has isolated himself from town. When he begins to find mutilated animals on his land, he must face a mysterious threat from within the woods and risk surrendering his solitude.

Prom Night (2008): High School Slasher, from the creators of High School Musical

Mediocre never looked so good!

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard the droning disco music of a dying seventies era—“prom night.. bumbumbumbump…everything is all right… bumbumbumbump.” Well, maybe I’m the only one that remembers the on-the-nose, musical charm of the original Prom Night, but I’m certainly not the only one who remembers a completely different movie than the “remake” directed by Nelson McCormick and scripted by J.S. Cardone.

I finally got around to watching this film because all my other movie options were longer than 90 minutes. The brevity of this film is appreciated, as well as the snappy editing that tried to fool me into believing Michael Bay had something to do with this film. I didn’t see a Platinum Dunes logo, did I? Prom Night is one of those formulaic, teen slashers that is not only numbed to a blood-shy PG-13 rating, but executed like a shotty 300-knockoff. With speed ramp effects, necessary jump cuts (so that we don’t have to endure the pain of watching the action in between the edits), and a hard contrasty look, you’d think the cinematographer and director thought they were shooting a music video. Of course, I can see how this would be confusing with the ever-so-persistent pop soundtrack.

And this is our cast...

Good-looking 20-somethings (I mean teenagers) populate the film and discuss the usual best-time-of-our-lives/I-can’t-believe-it’s-all-ending dialogue that we have come to expect. And the other predictable dialogue that we are used to from the Final Girl: “I have a bad past, my parents are dead, I’m taking pills because of my problems, I’m having nightmares, I can’t forget what happened that fateful night, but tonight, I’m going to just have fun.” The most amusing aspect of the build-up to prom is just how big of a deal this event appears to be. Donna, the lead, is doing the girl thing of course and getting all pretty for her date, but her godparents are talking up prom as though it were the equivalent of graduation or even marriage.

As for the horror, the kills are pretty tame as anticipated. A lot of the action takes place off screen and the on-screen deaths are handled through cutaways/reactions. The miraculous thing about the world of Prom Night is that corpses don’t bleed. Yup. After multiple stab wounds, you’d think that at least a small pool of blood would collect under the body. Nope.

They do this a lot.

Here’s another mystery. The DVD I watched was allegedly Unrated. I’m thinking that there is no difference between the PG-13 and Unrated versions, other than the addition of some dialogue. A ploy by the studio to make more money upon DVD release? Oh well, I don’t think it’d matter.

All in all, it’s not terrible, but it’s certainly not good. It’s decent on a technical level, despite some patchy sound work. Artistically, the acting works well enough (I actually felt kind bad for Ronnie—the token horror movie black guy), the direction is capable, and the screenplay is hopelessly unoriginal. Then again, what did you expect?

Beauty Chop

Crayon, Sharpie on plain paper. Scanned into photoshop for color enhancement.