REVIEW: WEREWOLF FEVER

How on earth does one properly review a film such as Werewolf Fever?

Because, just look at this:

 

Werewolf? More like…I dunno. Not a werewolf. (That looks nothing like a werewolf.)

Werewolf Fever is a movie I should be eviscerating. I should have hit the ground running here and made 30 jokes about how completely inept it was before I ever gave you a trite rundown of the plot. I should have said something like, “This movie is so bad it might as well have been some sort of pornographic film involving werewolves.” Or, you know, something zippy and fun, like that.

I don’t really want to do that, though. I’ll be honest: I enjoyed this farce. I enjoyed the extremely hammy story. I enjoyed the superbly terrible performances. And I enjoyed the gooey effects, consisting of a bunch of severed limbs, a terrible weasel-looking werewolf, and a lot of blood. All of Werewolf Fever’s on-the-surface shortcomings – the acting, the effects, and the awkwardness synonymous with low budget filmmaking – really did nothing but enhance my enjoyment.

Here is that plot rundown I mentioned earlier, which is as simple as it needs to be: A bunch of teens working at Kingburger Drive-In deal with a werewolf that comes stalking, killing any hapless individual that tries to escape. Arms and legs go flying, and people are turned into skeletons covered in chunky meat. Humor ensues – sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident – but it’s always welcome.

What I most appreciated about Werewolf Fever is that it is most definitely a throwback to the creature features of the 1950s, when werewolves reigned supreme. And the idea of the Kingburger Drive-In – where waitresses sport roller-skates and vintage muscle-car shows take place – harkens back to that bygone era. Adding to this homage is a minor character whose heart has been broken by one of the Kingburger waitresses, and who rolls through the drive-thru to recite a poem he had "written" himself, which is stolen from Stephen King’s It (the bulk of which takes place in the ‘50s, and which also features a werewolf). Said character wears a leather jacket and carries a switchblade. All he needs is some greasy hair and several claims of harassment from male masseuses and he is literally Danny Zuko. For me, this recapturing of 1950s werewolf cinema was the biggest selling point and the most rewarding aspect of Werewolf Fever.

Director Brian Singleton had very little money to work with – that much is evident – and what money he did have went to special effects. In that regard I can't judge too harshly. But if it were possible, I would have excised a couple gore gags and put that money towards developing a werewolf costume that was more...indicative of a werewolf. The film comes dangerously close to looking like Pekinese Fever.

But at the end of the day, I can't complain too much. It really didn't affect my enjoyment of the film, so, there's that.

"Mind if we obfuscate?"

Low budget filmmaking – especially horror – can be extremely polarizing amongst genre fans. Some factions love the approach while others loathe it. I’ve always been somewhere in the middle. Time and time again it has been proven that a budget does not equate to quality, but obviously that’s not to say that every low budget effort, even if the filmmakers’ hearts were in the right place, was a slam dunk.

In terms of a general viewing, Werewolf Fever is neither a slam dunk, nor a condemnable piece of shit. It lies somewhere in the middle. But what I can say is that fans of low budgets and hammy monster costumes will find a lot to enjoy about it. It’s completely disposable entertainment, but that’s okay. So long as we enjoy ourselves.

Plus, I love that poster.

REVIEW: THE SCARLET WORM

Every modern western will most likely be compared to Clint Eastwood’s 1992 epic Unforgiven. And any western should be flattered when used in the same breath; however, any western is also doomed in the same respect. Beyond the tenuous connection between The Scarlet Worm and Unforgiven, in that both of them are westerns, there is actually quite a bit similarly thematic between the two than just the former's lineage. Unforgiven – about a former and aging outlaw tasked with dispatching a couple of ruthless cowboys for cutting up a whore - is a rightful classic. The film, in which Eastwood’s Will Munny teams up with a young hotshot and an equally aging loyal partner, was a movie made in a time when the western was all but dead. Any other western brave enough to try since has no choice but to pale in comparison. Such similarities will serve as The Scarlet Worm’s own condemnation, simply because the similarities cannot be ignored.

A rogue and hired gunman named Print (Aaron Stielstra) brings a tedious and almost poetic touch to his assassinations. He’ll spend hours crouching in a ditch, waiting for just the right moment to unleash a single bullet that will claim the lives of not one but two of his targets. One day, he receives his next assignment from his contact, Mr. Paul (Brett Halsey). It seems that there’s a rather vicious whoremaster named Heinrich Kley (Daniel Van Husen) forcing graphic abortions among his hired women. Mr. Paul wants a stop to it, and so he bequeaths the job to Print…with a twist. Print must also shepherd a wet-behind-the-ears, would-be assassin to accompany him on the job. Along the way, Print and his protégé infiltrate Heinrich’s operation, and because of Print’s unusual way of dispatching his targets, Heinrich’s assassination does not come quickly. Print immerses himself in Heinrich’s world, becoming privy to his sociopathic mind firsthand. During this time, the protégé grows a little too attached to one of Heinrich’s women, and all sorts of complications arise because of it.

The Scarlet Worm really wants to be more than the sum of its parts. The introspective narration provided by Print, as well as the seemingly unconnected opening/closing involving a Native American shaman, seems to really want to suggest a spirituality and otherworldliness. The problem with The Scarlet Worm is that it doesn't know how to do so with enough confidence. The pace is a plodding one, causing the viewer not to stop and smell the flowers, but rather to check their watch. It falls victim to the problems that plague most low budget features. While the direction is assured, the performances aren’t confident, the tone isn’t consistent, and the editing is way too lose. Shots linger far longer than necessary, something "Twin Peaks" director David Lynch does on purpose to flip convention on its ears. Meaning, watch a man laugh for too long and it becomes uncomfortable; watch a woman cry for too long and it becomes funny. Doing this on purpose is a tactic rarely utilized, but doing it by accident is just plain unfortunate. And the audio, my god, the audio! Someone buy this crew a windscreen for their mics, please! Nearly every outdoor scene sounds just as poorly recorded as your uncle’s camcorder capture of your soccer match from autumn, 1989.

Stielstra as Print provides the strongest performance, but even he falters from time to time, not quite infusing it with enough bravado. At times he seems unsure of the antiquated western jargon his character must unfurl, and such instances lose the viewer almost immediately.

Van Husen as Heinrich Kley is consistently effective, and his understated evil provides a nice complement to Print’s understated good. His biblical reiteration of the crimson (aka scarlet) worm is very well done, and might be the strongest and most assured scene.

Director Michael Fredianelli has talent – there is no denying that. Though the movie might be an inconsistent mess, he has a keen eye, and he beautifully captures the bright surroundings of the sandy landscape, utilizing natural light in most scenes to illuminate every nook and cranny of the location. Many of the shots are beautiful, almost heavenly…until the wind blows directly into the mic and sends you screaming from the room.

Seriously, folks! Wind screens!

Any person attempting a western – especially one with a low budget – deserves accolades. It’s a genre most consider dead, and one which even the most seasoned veterans won’t touch. It's just a shame it didn't make for a better experience.

REVIEW: AEGRI SOMNIA

 

Films like Aegri Somnia, tales of nightmarish figures and landscapes as experienced through the eyes of our "unreliable" lead character, date back as far as 1920 with the German silent film classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. And since then we have seen plenty films about folks traversing their own personal hell and madness only to reach that inevitable conclusion where it turns out they are either dead, insane, in hell, or all of the above! 1990’s Jacob’s Ladder might just be the definitive take on the concept, and seems to have heavily inspired writer/director James Rewucki to make Aegri Somnia, whose title translates to “a sick man’s dreams.”

Edgar (Tyhr Trubiak) lives a miserable life. And who wouldn’t be miserable when everything’s in black and white? (Jokes!) He works a miserable job, goes home to a miserable and hateful wife, and can barely speak in full sentences without inserting Obama-like 20-second pauses in between his words. On one particular day, after a spat with his wife, she goes into the bathroom and takes her own life. This event will propel him into his self-imprisoned world of madness and guilt, where walking nightmares come to life and taunt him from dark corners. These brief trips into his subconscious begin to escalate, leading him to a very dark and dangerous revelation.

Along with Jacob’s Ladder, Aegri Somnia owes an awful lot to David Lynch’s 1977 oddity Eraserhead. From the black and white landscape to the introverted lead character to the deluge of pregnant pauses, Aegri Somnia is very much a spiritual reinterpretation of what might be one of the oddest but most accessible of Lynch's surreal repertoire. But Aegri Somnia also exists in a post-1980s world, featuring very familiar yet somehow unique-feeling set pieces and creatures. Dark-cloaked, rag-covered, and barbwire-encircled monsters whisper into Edgar’s ears and very much recall Clive Barker’s collection of demonic angels from his Hellraiser stories. And they jitter, chatter, and move unnaturally like the things following Tim Robbins in Jacob’s Ladder. Eerie images of bloody bathtubs and things in your periphery vision are the stuff of Freddy Krueger. It’s an interesting, engaging, creepy, yet flawed hodgepodge of horror cinema. 

By the time the ending happens, you can’t help but say, “no shit,” but much like the recent Shutter Island, the film isn’t so much about the ending as it is the journey. And it’s about our damaged character realizing what we as the audience already have a sneaking suspicion about: that he’s obscenity-screaming, Tom-Cruise-grinning insane.

*

While Aegri Somnia never manages to consistently capture the viewer from the first frame to the last (which can be fully attributed to the need for one more tightening pass in the editing room rather than a failure to tell a story), I must give all the credit in the world to writer/director James Rewucki. What he was able to accomplish on what must have been a very modest budget is an immediate cause for praise, regardless of the film’s overall success. It is a quiet film about quiet madness, and because of this the film will lose audiences more attuned to dripping monsters, whipping chains, and bloody murder. In fact, I can see most audiences downright hating it. Generally I am a big fan of films that try to bestow upon its audience the same feeling of insanity or hell that its characters are experiencing. Like Silent Hill, or The Cell before it, where the films lacked in strong stories or central characters it made up with fantastic visuals, and at the very least affects on a visceral level, if not on an emotional one. Aegri Somnia very much belongs in that category. It really does feel like a nightmare, and the visuals it contains are some of the most impressive I’ve seen within the low-budget horror world. (*And as an aside, the scene where Edgar buries his wife is shot fucking beautifully.)

While it's easy for abstract filmmakers to be labeled as pretentious simply because they want to present their film in an out-of-the-box manner, I do find Rewucki's choice to alternate sequences in black and white as well as color, along with the creatures' propensity for randomly whispering lines from T.S. Eliott, a little dubious. I'm sure Rewucki had a reason for doing both (you could make the argument that the creatures which haunt Edgar are the "hollow men" of which Eliot wrote, but if so, what's the significance of that poem to him in the first place?), but I just don't understand what that point was. And claims of pretension are caused not by abstract expression, but when there seems to be no rhyme or reason to utilize the tactic; and so the danger of Rewucki being labeled as such becomes dangerously close to being a fair criticism.

Regardless of my ultimate reaction to the film, I’ve been thinking about it off-and-on for the last three days. Filmmakers consider such a reaction to be a strength, whether that reaction be overwhelmingly positive or negative. Three days ago I had decided Aegri Somnia wasn't a film I ever had to see again, but the more I think about it, the more infectious the desire to revisit Edgar's nightmarish world is becoming.